Dream your dreams away

by Anushka Nanayakkara

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Dreams are so compelling, and they often seem so weird and strange. Surely they must have a ‘purpose’, that is an adaptive role’ in the maintenance of our body or psychological health.

We are ‘thinking creatures’ because thinking is a valuable adaptation, but that doesn’t mean that all forms of thinking have a function. Dreams at this moment in the collective findings of dream researches seem to be a ‘throw-away’ production.

The judgement could be changed tomorrow by new and original studies by a new generation of young dream researches, but right now the preponderance of the evidence weights against physiological or psychological function for dreaming and dreams.

This does not mean that dreams have no ‘meaning’, that they make no sense. To the contrary, dreams correlate with age, gender, culture and personal pre occupations.

According to the philosophy of Buddhism dreams can be divided into four types Venerable Santha Sumana of Gnarama meditation centre, Thalawathugoda said to the Sunday Observer.

Going into detail, he explained the first dream-type is Cathukshoba) that occur due to the inbalance of bile, flem and air of the human body.

A person bangs his or her leg on a rock, falls from a tree or is chased by elephants or serpents; these are some of the dreams which occur due to this inbalance, he said. If people’s day to day activities such as watching a movie or some incident which took place in the office would occur in their dreams this is called (Anubuthapurwaramana).

The third type of dream is (Daywathopasanhara) which is shown by the gods. It could be something good or bad in your life. And the fourth type of dream (Purwa Nimittha) occurs to show some imminent, important thing.

For example: Before conceiving Prince Siddhartha, for seven consecutive days, Queen Mahamaya dreamt an elephant entering her abdomen holding a lotus and King Kosol in Sawathnuwara has had 16 dreams due to ‘Purwa Nimittha’. Buddha has said that those dreams are premonitions of the future incidents of the world such as natural hazards and other conflicts.

Further, Venerable Santha Sumana explained that when one is asleep there would be no intention of focusing thoughts on an object. This stage is referred to as ‘Bawangatha’. The only human who could totally avoid these dreams is someone who has reached the standard of ‘Arahat’.

The reason why ‘Arahat’ won’t see these dreams is because he has overcome defilements such as ‘raga’, ‘duwaysha’ and ‘moha’. Lastly he said that there is no other philosopher greater than Buddha who has explained the nature of the human mind.

Medical doctor and author of the best seller “Gehenu Lova Pirimi Lova” Dr. Priyanga De Zoysa said that scientifically till now no reason had been identified as a cause for dreams.

There are many researches being done all over the world in this regard, but there is no end result as yet, he said. Scientists have found that there is a strong association between dreams and Rapid Eye Movement during the stage of sleep.

He also said, that there are possibilities of people getting disturbed psychologically with dreams and one’s who remember the dreams. Some may even try to visualise the dream again and again and if they try to give a meaning or predict what may have created then they become uneasy.

Dr.De Zoysa said that the phenomenon of dreams occur in almost all people. But there can be two categories; people who are aware of what they have dreamt of and people who are unaware. If they wish strongly or practice good habits they may be able to change the nature of the dream.

He also said, dreaming is another state of consciousness which a person transcends. We live most of our time in a waking state of consciousness. While we are not aware, we move from the sleeping state of consciousness to another state which is the dreaming state of consciousness.

‘Lucid dreams’ are dreams conceived while you are aware of it, once again almost all the people would atleast experience this type of dream in their lives once or twice. Dr. De Zoysa said that there is more liveliness and naturalness to this type of dream.

These dreams conceived in the powerful ‘Lucid’ state of mind can be used as a way of increasing the consciousness of the mind. In turn they can be used to identify potential draw backs in real life.

According to Wikepedia, dreaming is the perception of seasoning images during sleep, in a sequence which the sleeper dreamer usually perceives more as an apparent participant than an observer.

Dreaming mostly occurs during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep. People have proposed many hypotheses about the functions of dreaming. Sigmund Freud postulated that dreams are the symbolic expression of frustrated desires that had been relegated to the subconscious, and he used dream interpretation in the form of psychoanalysis to uncover these desires.

Rosalind Cartaright stated that “one function of dreams may be to restore our sense of competence.... It is also probable that in many times of stress, dreams have more work to do in resolving our problems and are thus more salient and memorable”.

Most of the people think it is worth while to remember dreams, but there are dreams perhaps not worth remembering. So unless you find your dreams fun, intellectually interesting or artistically inspiring, then feel free to forget your dreams. If they just upset you or leave you puzzled, then why bother with them? Of course, if your dreams don’t bother you, dream away, and have fun!