Category Archives: DREAMS
6.1 DREAM CATEGORIES
1. Dreams of Affluence. Here, the dreamer gains or finds some prize, very often money, though it may be fame. A nice type, but disappointing upon awakening.
2. Dreams of Frustration. Here, the dreamer can be trying to catch a plane, or pack a trunk, or find his car, all to no avail. He may need money, but have no way of getting it. Awakening from such dreams is a pleasure indeed.
3. Dreams of Travel. The dreamer may be going places, or simply flying through the air, or off into space. This may indicate a desire for freedom or an eagerness to possess something.
4. Dreams of Falling. These were once fairly simple. The dreamer fell off a cliff or over Niagara Falls, generally waking before landing. Now, you can fall from sky-scrapers, bridges and airplanes in these worry-denoting dreams.
5. Dreams of Being Chased. Here, the pursuing force can be a person, an animal, or a flood, an avalanche, or anything big or deadly. This may be traced to some hidden fear, symbolized by the menace in the dream.
6. Dreams of Being Trapped. These dreams often involve a cellar, a cave, a prison, or whatever else the dreamer would like to be out of it. Similar are dreams of impending danger, such as an explosion, the collapse of a building, or something that will involve the dreamer in a most unpleasant way. These can denote a hidden fear.
7. Dreams of Lacking Clothing. Such dreams have varied interpretations, including frustration on the part of the dreamer. Akin to these are dreams of failing in examinations, forgetting appointments or other examples of personal oversight or inadequacy.
Other dreams, such as those of water, fire, rescue, or even food, all are traceable to fears, frustrations, or desires. They may also be the result of physical impulses: The ringing of a bell may infringe upon a person’s subconscious, causing him to dream of fire; or actual hunger may induce a food dream. In such dreams, there may be very little to be interpreted.
On the contrary, dreams of a prophetic or telepathic nature have been recorded, wherein dreamers have “witnessed” accidents, “read” headlines pertaining to disasters, or have been “told” the name of a horse that turned out to be a winner. These are often few and far between to be judged accurately, but they constitute an intriguing phase of dream experience.
All this adds up to the fact that many dreams of a general pattern may be translated into more specific terms. That was the opinion of the old-time interpreters, and modern psychologists concur to a notable degree. In some instances, the result has actually been cyclic, with the newer interpretations coming around to a close approximation of the old. With others, the differences are more marked.
Some older dreams have lost their former significance. Today, people do not dream of wagons, sleigh-bells, hermits and such, so those listings have been dropped. In contrast, airplanes, automobiles, and other features of modern progress have become highly important as dream material, and have been so listed.
It be noted that there have been marked changes in the social viewpoint since the days of Freud. Many taboos and limitations have been lessened during the years between. Thus the psychological interpretations of dreams have undergone a change as radical as those of the traditional type.
One popular phase that has persisted is the translation of dreams into numbers, usually of one, two, or three figures. Such numbers are often regarded as lucky, and have been listed with the dream interpretations, though they do not belong there, as they belong more in the field of numerology than oneiromancy.
For the use of those who are interested in studying and checking the possible significance of dreams in terms of numbers, it has been included (at the end of the Dream Dictionary) a number chart based on the standard letter chart used in modern numerology, with a formula for reducing key-words to key-numbers.
6. DREAMS AND THEIR INTERPRETATIONS
Of all phases of human experience, dreams are unquestionably the earliest. With the dawn of intelligence, man began to dream, and from his experiences in that half real world, he drew conclusions regarding the problems that surrounded him.
Oneiromancy, or divination by dreams, was used in connection with ancient oracles, where measures were taken to induce such visions. Spontaneous dreams were frequently accepted as revelations among nearly all the races of antiquity, often with inspirational or inventive results.
The combined findings of centuries of dream interpretation were summarized by Artemidorus a Grecian soothsayer, about the year A.D 150. His four-volume opus, probably the first “Dream Dictionary,” was criticized for the broadness of its rules, which were so liberal that any dream could signify almost anything.
During the centuries that followed, this defect was gradually corrected, and by modern times dreams had become rather well defined, though the authority behind them was open to question. Some interpretations were traditional; others, the results of guesswork; still more, the comparisons of personal experiences.
Then along came Freud, with new and startling theories of dreams and their causes, backed by innumerable examples. His school established the sex motif as fundamental to dream interpretation. This rose to popularity during the early 1900’s, only to produce disagreement among Freudians themselves, as well as opposition from outside sources.
It was generally conceded that Freud’s methods of analysis applied to psychoneurotic patients whose waking lives were replete with ideas and symbols that carried into their dream experiences. But such people represented a minority, whose dreams could be regarded as the exceptions rather than the rule.
Professor Joseph Jastrow epitomized the general criticism with the succinct statement: “What Freud does not sufficiently recognize is that dreams do not all follow similar courses because dreamers have different psychologies.”
This was backed by extensive studies of thousands of dreams which only by extreme distortion or greatly strained assumptions could be interpreted according to Freudian findings. Many psychologists came to the conclusion that the symbolism in dreams may express some direct purpose, rather than serve as the concealment of some suppressed desire.
All this is getting back to the days of Artemidorus, when any dream could mean almost anything. However, this can be winnowed down by classifying the dreamers as well as the dreams. That is what many modem psychologists have done, and by the time personalities, physical conditions, general surroundings, and varied moods have been ruled out, it is possible to place many dreams in seven categories:
