A Little Bit of Dream History

Before I start analyzing my own dreams, I think it’s important to have a little more background information. When speaking to Ms. Alimonti, a psychology teacher at EBHS- who just happens to teach a dream unit in her class- she directed me to this resource which includes the different types of dreams and the common symbols that tend to appear in dreams. I’ll be referencing this website a lot, especially when I look at my own dreams.
Ms. Alimonti told me, ‘Although not all dreams are meaningful, or helpful, some dreams have been extremely helpful in people’s waking life, in important aspects such as problem-solving, emotional healing, memory consolidation and creativity. Many people credit their dreams with helping them in achieving these things that they were not able to achieve while consciously trying to do so during waking hours alone. So whether we remember our dreams or not, it’s important to dream, even if we don’t know for sure what the actual dream story, as a whole, may mean.”
For me, analyzing my dreams is important because I feel like I dream a little differently than most of the people I do talk to about my dreams. For one thing, I tend to dream in third person- meaning that when I dream, it’s like I’m watching myself do things instead of just doing them myself. I also dream in black-and-white sometimes. Called cinematic dreams, third person dreaming is actually more common than people think and might mean a number of different things such as that I may feel out of control or disconnected from my life, or that I just feel equal to everyone else around me so I don’t need to be the main character in my dream. What’s interesting about cinematic dreams as well is that they sometimes play out like an actual movie with zoom-ins and different scenes. As for dreaming in black-and-white, only about 12% of people dream with no color. What’s interesting about that is that in the 1940s, studies showed that 75% of Americans actually reported that they rarely or never dreamt with color; those numbers are now reversed. Many scientists attribute this to the amount of exposure to black-and-white media in the past versus the new technology now, which is why my frequent black-and-white dreaming confuses me. Maybe I’m just an old soul.
In the next few chapters, I’ll actually be reporting my dreams and then painting them. Stay tuned, and happy dreaming!