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Originally Posted by cdn2wheeler  I can tell you why, but you're not gonna like it.
Dreams are a random firing of electrical discharges and chemical surges in your head that take place overnight. As much as we may like to think they have special meanings and maybe even a bridge to the supernatural, there isn't any evidence to suggest that.
The only way that our brain can make heads or tails out of these random chemical and electrical events is to give them a reference to some sort of psuedo-reality, based only loosely on the people and events around us. That's why they're so freakin' weird. But here's the thing: As we are experiencing them, we don't actually perceive them as having images & textures & noises & all the rest. Our brain only puts those things together after we awaken. We can only understand & interpret our dreams in our memories of them, not as they happen.
So, when the phone rings at what seems to be an important part of the dream, it's because we're jolted out of that dream-state and immediately start to make sense of it with our rational minds. But since dreams are not rational, they appear in our memory as odd, intense or just plain weird.
Toldja you weren't gonna like it. Sorry... |
Although much of what you say is true, dreams can contain messages, premonitions, etc. there are just way too many examples to completely write every single one off as some unlikely coincidence.
I had a recurring dream as a child about my best friend being taken away and killed. He was shot and killed in real life when we were only 11, and I never had the dream again. The two of us were born 2 months apart, and we were like brothers. We had a very close connection to one another.
He also showed up in a dream not long after his death and told me he was happy and everything was great. he also mentioned his grandfather who had died not long before he did, and that he saw him all the time.
There are countless documented examples of dreams that have meanings, that have given people insights that they may otherwise never have figured out, foretell future events; be they good, bad or indifferent, etc.
I read one of Erins articles on the "reality" of dreams last weekend. It was very interesting, and posed the question about whether we know what an experience feels like to some degree by dreaming about it (such as falling from a very high point, or being stabbed), yet we may have our appendix removed, yet have no idea whatsoever how it feels, because our consciousness was blocked during the procedure. All we know s how it feels AFTER the appendectomy. It's a great article IMO.
I believe that dreams serve several functions. There's the idea that our brains sort out the garbage of our lives and dump it through dreams, but there are also the other kinds of dreams that truly have significant meaning.
My ex sister in law had a dream that her cat told her the 4 digit lottery number for the next day. She's from Thailand, and said that where she comes from, dreams are considered part of reality.
She played those numbers without hesitation (even though she received them from a talking cat of all things), and they hit; not in the exact order, but she still won. She also had enough faith in that dream to put a substantial amount of money on it, and won a substantial amount of money in return.
There have been cases where the dead have appeared in dreams and have told people where to find important legal documents like wills, or jewelry and other things, or just to let their loved ones know that they're fine, and watching over them.
The Australian aborigines' also have a belief in what they call "dream time"; a parallel time that exists alongside time, and they believe this is more important than the time itself, as we perceive it.
Dreamtime is sort of a time outside of time and that preceded time (time before time), yet still exists now, as well as in the future, which they believe is happening right now. It's kind of like one giant moment of "now" that has always existed; and always will, like what we would call "eternity" in it's true definition. Eternity isn't just forever; it's past, present and future happening all at once. Looking at it this way, it makes the concept of "eternal life" much more awesome and incomprehensible.
It explains the origin of the earth, the cosmos, mans' place in the universe, etc. They also have the longest known oral history of any group of humans on earth, and it goes back about 65,000 years. They may have a collective memory of things that the "civilized" world sees as silly superstition, but they take it very seriously, and they're still here after all of this time. Their oral tradition goes all the way back to what they call the "seeding" of the earth.
So, I believe that there may be far more to SOME dreams than we know. The laws of physics as we understand them don't apply in dreams, time is completely different; if not nonexistent (you can live a lifetime in a few moments while dreaming) and anything we can possibly imagine is possible, especially when it comes to lucid dreaming.
They may not all be as random as you may think, and if you dig a little, you can find many examples of dreams that have been very significant. There was the guy back in the 70's who dreamed about the American Airlines crash every night for weeks, and it was so realistic and disturbing that he actually contacted the airline numerous times. He was admittedly embarrassed and reluctant to call anyone, but he KNEW this was no ordinary dream, and he was so upset about it, he did it in spite of any potential ridicule.
He continued to have the same dream over and over, but he couldn't pinpoint the exact flight for some reason. Lo and behold, it happened just a few weeks later, just as he had described it, and he never had the dreams again after it happened.
Paul McCartney dreamed the melody to "Yesterday". Kieth Richards dreamed that famous guitar lick in the beginning of "Satisfaction". I myself have dreamed melodies, and jumped right up out of bed and either rushed to the piano or grabbed a guitar and played them before I forgot them. This type of inspiration is common through dreams.
Another time, I concocted an entire story line to what I can only describe as a type of sitcom. I'm no writer, nor have I ever had any desire whatsoever to write a script for a sitcom, or anything else for that matter, but it came to me; from somewhere. That's inspiration, which simply means "in spirit", and even works of pure fiction are inspired in many cases.
There many more examples out there as well. I'm no dream expert, but I know about my own premonition dream, as well as other unusual, and seemingly meaningful dreams I have had. I have read about many more, so I can't honestly just chalk it all up to random coincidence.