Exploring the nature of Dreams

From the dreamtime narratives of Indigenous Australians to the prophetic visions in ancient scriptures, dreams have woven themselves into the fabric of our collective storytelling for ages. Yet their meaning still proves elusive, even as we chase after interpretations—be they spiritual, psychoanalytic, or neurobiological. For me, I believe dreams can become a conduit for information and knowledge.

Personally i’ve been fascinated with dreams all my life starting from the age of seven. December 25th 1994 Christmas I was spending the night at my Grandpas and Grandmas house that night. And as soon as I laid my head down that night and closed my eyes I entered a dream unlike any other I'd ever experience again. It was instantaneous and suddenly I was walking in a forest and ahead of me on a path was my maternal grandfather Benjamin. I followed him curiously and silently making sure to not make my presence known in this unfamiliar place.

But it wasn't until he came to a river that I saw him looking around and I decided to hide in fear that he would be upset that I was following him. At the river with no bridge he was looking for something to cross it maybe. And I ducked again behind a tree until I peeked again to realize that he had already crossed this river.

He was walking up a path to a cabin. The raging waters caught my attention. They were carrying toys in them which mesmerized me and then suddenly the waters were empty again. But the waters were acting differently now, almost in slow motion boiling and raging now and then horns started to emerge and I was taken in awe of this miraculous being. I was staring into the eyes of a blue dragon, I didn't feel fear in that moment it felt more like a silent introduction between entities. And as quickly as the dream began it was over again. I was awake and it was morning it had felt like it was only five min ago when I laid down at night to sleep.

Yet, despite their ubiquity, dreams remain enigmatic, casting shadows on the canvas of our consciousness. While countless interpretations exist—be they spiritual, psychoanalytic, or neurobiological—there remains no singular consensus about their true purpose or meaning. For some, dreams are gateways to hidden desires and fears; for others, mere by-products of neural processes.

Throughout history, philosophical perspectives on dreams have both mirrored and molded the zeitgeist of their times. In ancient Greece and Rome, dreams were imbued with deep spiritual significance. Renowned figures such as Socrates received divine insights and prophecies through dreams, while oracles like those at Delphi interpreted dreams as omens, believed to be direct communications from gods. The very fabric of ancient societies often wove dreams into their decision-making, viewing them as sacred and prophetic.

Transitioning to the Renaissance, thinkers like Descartes expressed skepticism towards the veracity of dreams. For Descartes, the indistinguishable nature between dreams and waking life posed challenges to empirical trustworthiness, leading him to famously declare the unreliability of sensory perceptions in his quest for certain knowledge.

In ancient Greece and Rome, dreams were seen as divine prophecies and communications from the gods. But when Descartes came along during the Renaissance, he took a skeptical stance, questioning whether we could really trust anything we experienced in dreams. I find it fascinating to see how philosophical attitudes shifted over time.

The 20th century witnessed a seismic shift in dream interpretation with the advent of psychoanalysis. Freud posited that dreams are the "royal road" to the unconscious, a realm where suppressed desires, anxieties, and traumas play out. Meanwhile, Carl Jung expanded the discourse by introducing the notion of a collective unconscious—a universal reservoir of experiences and symbols. For Jung, dreams weren't just personal but tapped into archetypes shared across humanity, narrating stories older than individual dreamers themselves. As we transition from antiquity to modernity, we see radical shifts in how dreams were conceptualized and interpreted by philosophers.

When we dream, are we really experiencing some kind of alternative reality? Or is it all just an illusion in our minds? I've often felt that my dreams reveal other dimensions beyond normal waking life. But it's hard to prove one way or another. The nature of dreams still perplexes me.

The ontology of dreams delves into the nature of existence and being within the dream world. One of the fundamental philosophical quandaries surrounding dreams is the delineation between authentic subjective experience and mere illusion. When we dream, are we truly experiencing an alternate reality, or are we merely spectators to a disjointed sequence of thoughts?

This conundrum leads to further speculation: could dreams potentially uncover facets of reality ordinarily concealed in our waking state? Theories abound suggesting that dreams could serve as a portal to higher dimensions, metaphysical truths, or even past and future lives. Such beliefs insinuate that our dream experiences, however ethereal, might offer genuine insights into the mysteries of existence.

Simultaneously, the dream state challenges our understanding of consciousness and the self. In dreams, we often find ourselves navigating scenarios and adopting identities vastly different from our waking lives. This fluidity prompts the question: which is the "true" self – the dreaming or the waking one? Or perhaps both coexist, each equally valid in its context. I'm reminded of the dream of Chuang Tzu who was a philosopher in ancient China. One night he had dreamed he was a butterfly flying around from flower to flower and while he was dreaming he felt free, blown about by a breeze to and frow. He was without a doubt a butterfly. That is until he woke up and realized it was all a dream. It left him with the begging question. "was i Chuang Tzu dreaming he was a butterfly or am i now really a butterfly dreaming that i am Chuang Tzu?"

Phenomenology, the philosophical study of conscious experiences, offers a rich framework to understand the intricate world of dreams. At its core, dreaming represents a subjective realm, a deep dive into consciousness free from the constraints of external reality. While in the waking state our phenomenological experiences are interwoven with the tangible world, in dreams, we confront a more malleable, fluid realm where our perceptions are not bound by the same rules.

The phenomenology of dreams contrasts starkly with waking phenomenology. Waking experiences are typically continuous, grounded by spatial-temporal cues and often driven by our interactions with the external environment. Dreams, on the other hand, exhibit a unique, disjointed narrative — an ebb and flow of scenarios, emotions, and perceptions that might appear nonsensical in the light of day but feel deeply significant in the dream state.

This brings forth the tantalizing proposition that dreams might offer windows into obscured structures of consciousness. They can unveil layers of the psyche that remain latent in our waking hours, providing insights into desires, fears, and memories that our conscious mind might suppress or overlook. Through dreams, phenomenology extends its reach, probing deeper into the architecture of consciousness, and inviting us to reflect on the vast, mysterious terrains of the mind.

Dreams are totally subjective and free from external reality. To me, they offer a peek into the obscured structures of consciousness. I often reflect on how dreams unveil aspects of my psyche that I don't notice when I'm awake. There's so much to contemplate here. By studying the subjective experience itself, phenomenology gains insights into the dream world inaccessible through other lenses.

The epistemic status of dreams, or their ability to provide genuine knowledge or convey meaningful truth, remains a fascinating area of debate in both philosophy and psychology. At a cursory glance, dreams often present us with convoluted narratives, brimming with symbolism and characters that defy the logic and predictability of our waking life. This begs the question: can such narratives, despite their oddities, offer us authentic insights?

One example of the conveyance of knowledge comes from one of my own experiences with a prophetic phenomena of dream. I was 20 years old just married and we thought we couldn’t have kids. I called my mom to let her that the likelihood of her becoming a grandmother from me would be unlikely. On a chilly Texas night id wake up from a feverish dream with a word echoing in my head. “Orelle” this word paused my dream were I stood in a matrix like bullet time scene when it spins around the character. At the crescendo of this dream pause I heard a soft spoken words from a feminine voice (now that I recall it 12 years later I eerily reminded of how much the voice of my grandmother that passed away when I was a boy) it was like a whisper that bypassed my auditory complexes only to go straight to the brain. I woke up so shook I did the only thing a sensible man would do, I called my mommy. Believing the word to be of Spanish origin I thought she could shed some insight into this mystery. She said it sounded like an old bible word she thought it meant halo or something. I called my aunt to no avail followed by a practice I would continue from then on, I googled it. One of the first things that popped up was that it was girls name in latin and it meant “announcement from the gods.”

Years later I was finally a father to a four year old girl and I was doing an assignment for a class. I was researching the etymology of names when I accidentally stumbled on to the answer. The etymology of the name of my daughters name Aurora it was also latin and it came from the name Aurelia and the root of that name was Orelle. This revelation to this day gives me goosebumps. Aristotle believed dreams to be a by product of natural bodily functions which might be true for some people but not for all.

Interpreting the intricate symbolism of dreams is an endeavor dating back to ancient civilizations, with different cultures attributing prophetic, spiritual, or psychological significance to dream content. While some argue that dreams can offer revelations about one's subconscious desires, unresolved conflicts, or even precognitive hints, skeptics point out that the fluidity and inconsistency of dream content make it an unreliable source of genuine knowledge.

Moreover, if dreams are to be considered as vessels of knowledge, one must grapple with their inherent limitations. Their subjective nature, the influence of external stimuli, and their fleeting presence upon waking up can distort their clarity and meaning. Though dreams can potentially offer profound personal insights, discerning objective truth from them remains a challenging, if not elusive, endeavor.

Beyond mere surface-level interpretations, encouraging a rigorous examination of dreams' ontology, epistemology, and phenomenology. Through philosophical inquiry, dreams are not just nightly occurrences but become mirrors reflecting the complexities of consciousness, reality, and knowledge.

However, even with philosophy's profound insights, dreams continue to be shrouded in mysteries, raising more questions than answers. The fundamental nature of dreams remains elusive: Are they tangible glimpses into alternative realities or ephemeral figments of our imagination? Can they genuinely be harnessed for authentic knowledge or self-awareness? What is their overarching purpose in our cognitive and emotional lives?

While we've made strides in decoding some aspects of dreams thanks to psychology, they continue to bewilder, enchant, and challenge our understanding of reality and self. Dreams are imperfect simulations of reality and are deeply intertwined with our brain activity and our environment that like the mind itself is a tool but it remains locked in a box by our inability to fully know how to use this biological simulation device.