The Philosophy of Dreaming

I have also talked to people interested in my dreaming class. Although it will be slightly more difficult to talk about what we learn in this class (it is based in philosophy and dreams which are both sometimes difficult to decipher), I thought I would share some basics.

The readings we have for this class are Dream Reader and Lucid Dreams in 30 Days and Dream Reader. The first book is very helpful for helping you remember your dreams and becomming lucid in your dreams. I normally never remember my dreams but since doing the excercises and keeping a dream journal, I have been remembering at least one every night.

Some basics I would recommend if you don't want to buy the book are keeping a journal and telling yourself you will remember your dreams in the morning. It is also very helpful if you can wake up without the use of an alarm. The author suggests setting a stereo to wake you up gently with classical music if you need to get up at a certain time. When you wake up, give yourself a moment to relax and let the dream come to you. Immediately write in your journal the setting, characters, props/objects, feelings, etc. that were in your dream. Then leave some space to record anything else you might remember later or for musings on your dream's relation to daily life.

Throughout your day, think things like Everyone has dreams and think about it for a second then let the thought go. Also ask yourself periodically if you are dreaming, especially when you encounter dream like circumstances. Consider the question seriously. Most of the time you will come to the conclusion that you are in the waking state but one time, you might just find yourself in a dreaming state, and then you will be lucid.

The first day, we talked about stages of sleep and their relation to dreams (ie. NREM and REM). The next day, we discussed purely physiological theories about dreaming. These are the reductive theories of dreaming. We just spent one day on these theories because the class is geared to looking for meaning in dreams although we must keep in mind that the reductionists may be right.

The first constructive theory of dreaming we talked about was Freud. Then we discussed Fiss, Jung, and Alder. I'll fill you in on these theories in later posts with some examples of possible dream interpretations.