Private Collection
Friday, July 12, 2013
Illustration Examples: Completed for "Mosaic Meals: Bringing Vegans, Vegetarians, and Omnivores Together"
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Psychology: Dream Analysis
What is a dream? What purpose do they serve? Dreams are a random dumping of leftover thoughts, sometimes frightening, sometimes comic and sometimes prophetic. I find it hilarious how the most interesting dream in the mind of its bearer will bore a listener to tears and yet we all feel compelled to share these stories with our friends or, in this case, our readers.
I have felt for quite some time that dreams are often a window into thoughts and feelings that the conscious mind is unwilling to express. Careful consideration of an unusual dream can lead you to an unexpected epiphany and can be quite enlightening. For the sake of simplicity, I will group some of my most typical dreams and describe the understanding, or lack thereof, that I have gained through my unschooled and amateur analysis.
Group One- Reoccurring Dreams and Dream Themes
When I was little, I would have reoccurring dreams that were like television episodes. They were always the same, with the same characters and sequence of events. Having these dreams was somewhat like visiting an old friend. There is one that particularly come to mind:
Episode One- In which the Super Friends help me to escape my house where I am in danger due to a volcano that is erupting in my backyard.
To this day, I still remember snippets of this dream. It is unfortunate that I cannot remember what events were occurring in the real world that may have been responsible for the dream's frequent visit.
As an adult, my reoccurring dreams have a slightly different flavor. Rather than precise repeats, I enjoy repetitive dream themes. For example:
Episode Two- In which I am exploring a huge house with many bathrooms, each bathroom being more wondrous and elaborate than the last.
and...
Episode Three- in which I am being chased or racing against someone through a house, the goal being to reach the highest pinnacle first - this almost always involves finding a secret stairway that appears to go in the wrong direction but eventually leads to the goal.
Note: This dream theme actually evolved from a childhood dream that invariably took place in the church I used to attend but now takes place in houses or castles that only exist in my imagination.
and...
Episode Four- in which I must baracade the house against infiltration by zombies with special consideration regarding water supply, bathroom facilities and what to do about the cats.
All of these dreams are "good" dreams that I wake from happy, this is especially true of the "dream of the house of 1000 bathrooms" and its variation, "dream of the house of 1000 bedrooms". I don't know exactly why but these themes always leave me feeling satisfied. This dream, I have learned to associate with time in my life that there is positive change about to occur. Times in which I feel good about a choice and the different options that will come from it. I almost always have this dream right before I go to more into a new place and right around the time that I complete a significant goal.
In regard to the dream in which I must reach the highest point of the building, I associate this one with the fear of change or coping with a difficult decision that I am faced with. I think it leaves me feeling satisfied because I (a) always find the correct route, (b) always win the race and, (c)it places the variable change into a region of familiarity and comfort. It's kind of like a subconscious pep talk, my way of telling myself that the real world is manageable.
Now the zombie dream. This one may be out of a desire for safety or control but I think it is more likely about my intense love for zombies. That would mean that this dream also falls into the second group:
Group Two- Face Value Dreams
Episode Six- in which I am at Cedar Point riding lots of roller coasters.
This is a dream that I have any time that I think about roller coasters too much.
and...
Episode Seven- in which I either drink and drink without slacking my thirst ot pee and pee without feeling relief.
Obviously exhibiting that I have gone to sleep thirty or with a full bladder.
and...
Episode Eight- in which I am returning to school after a break only to discover that I can't remember where the classrooms are.
This dream is exhibiting my desire to remain on break or my anxiety over not having done enough over the break. This seems like a natural place to start our next group:
Group Three- What the Fuck Dreams
I think that everyone has these types of dreams, I'm sure they have deeper meanings but I prefer to just laugh at the absurdity.
Dreams in which doors do not fit in their frames, crutches bend, punches have no impact and running happens in slow motion.
Dreams in which you go to school or work in a towel or completely naked.
Dreams in which you are trying to use the bathroom but people keep coming in or the toilet is located in a large room with no privacy.
I'm starting to realize that this post could go on and on so I'm going to wrap up with a dream I had a few months ago that is definitely a "what the fuck" dream but was also unique. Maybe you can help me figure out the deeper meaning.
Episode Nine- in which I receive a package with a bazaar assortment of items.
I had this dream after a good friend of mine and her boyfriend broke up. The background that you need is that I suspected that the boyfriend disliked me. He was also a very solitary kind of guy without many interests outside of video games and maybe guns.
The dream went as follows: I was having a conversation with this guy on the phone, a friendly chat that would never have happened in real life. During the course of this conversation, he asked me if I had even seen the movie Hellraiser. I told him that I had not so he said he would mail it to me. I later received a package at my house (which incidentally was not a house that I have ever lived in or been to as far as I can remember). Inside the package were the following items:
A birdhouse
A "learn to drum" instructional book with drumsticks
A framed painting by Georgia O'Keefe
The movie Hellraiser
There were other item as well but those are the ones that I remember as being particularly odd and memorable. I should point out that none of these items are in any way connected to either him or I or anything that we ever discussed together.
So take your best shot, what does this dream mean? Where did it come from? Is there any significance whatsoever?
I have felt for quite some time that dreams are often a window into thoughts and feelings that the conscious mind is unwilling to express. Careful consideration of an unusual dream can lead you to an unexpected epiphany and can be quite enlightening. For the sake of simplicity, I will group some of my most typical dreams and describe the understanding, or lack thereof, that I have gained through my unschooled and amateur analysis.
Group One- Reoccurring Dreams and Dream Themes
When I was little, I would have reoccurring dreams that were like television episodes. They were always the same, with the same characters and sequence of events. Having these dreams was somewhat like visiting an old friend. There is one that particularly come to mind:
Episode One- In which the Super Friends help me to escape my house where I am in danger due to a volcano that is erupting in my backyard.
To this day, I still remember snippets of this dream. It is unfortunate that I cannot remember what events were occurring in the real world that may have been responsible for the dream's frequent visit.
As an adult, my reoccurring dreams have a slightly different flavor. Rather than precise repeats, I enjoy repetitive dream themes. For example:
Episode Two- In which I am exploring a huge house with many bathrooms, each bathroom being more wondrous and elaborate than the last.
and...
Episode Three- in which I am being chased or racing against someone through a house, the goal being to reach the highest pinnacle first - this almost always involves finding a secret stairway that appears to go in the wrong direction but eventually leads to the goal.
Note: This dream theme actually evolved from a childhood dream that invariably took place in the church I used to attend but now takes place in houses or castles that only exist in my imagination.
and...
Episode Four- in which I must baracade the house against infiltration by zombies with special consideration regarding water supply, bathroom facilities and what to do about the cats.
All of these dreams are "good" dreams that I wake from happy, this is especially true of the "dream of the house of 1000 bathrooms" and its variation, "dream of the house of 1000 bedrooms". I don't know exactly why but these themes always leave me feeling satisfied. This dream, I have learned to associate with time in my life that there is positive change about to occur. Times in which I feel good about a choice and the different options that will come from it. I almost always have this dream right before I go to more into a new place and right around the time that I complete a significant goal.
In regard to the dream in which I must reach the highest point of the building, I associate this one with the fear of change or coping with a difficult decision that I am faced with. I think it leaves me feeling satisfied because I (a) always find the correct route, (b) always win the race and, (c)it places the variable change into a region of familiarity and comfort. It's kind of like a subconscious pep talk, my way of telling myself that the real world is manageable.
Now the zombie dream. This one may be out of a desire for safety or control but I think it is more likely about my intense love for zombies. That would mean that this dream also falls into the second group:
Group Two- Face Value Dreams
Episode Six- in which I am at Cedar Point riding lots of roller coasters.
This is a dream that I have any time that I think about roller coasters too much.
and...
Episode Seven- in which I either drink and drink without slacking my thirst ot pee and pee without feeling relief.
Obviously exhibiting that I have gone to sleep thirty or with a full bladder.
and...
Episode Eight- in which I am returning to school after a break only to discover that I can't remember where the classrooms are.
This dream is exhibiting my desire to remain on break or my anxiety over not having done enough over the break. This seems like a natural place to start our next group:
Group Three- What the Fuck Dreams
I think that everyone has these types of dreams, I'm sure they have deeper meanings but I prefer to just laugh at the absurdity.
Dreams in which doors do not fit in their frames, crutches bend, punches have no impact and running happens in slow motion.
Dreams in which you go to school or work in a towel or completely naked.
Dreams in which you are trying to use the bathroom but people keep coming in or the toilet is located in a large room with no privacy.
I'm starting to realize that this post could go on and on so I'm going to wrap up with a dream I had a few months ago that is definitely a "what the fuck" dream but was also unique. Maybe you can help me figure out the deeper meaning.
Episode Nine- in which I receive a package with a bazaar assortment of items.
I had this dream after a good friend of mine and her boyfriend broke up. The background that you need is that I suspected that the boyfriend disliked me. He was also a very solitary kind of guy without many interests outside of video games and maybe guns.
The dream went as follows: I was having a conversation with this guy on the phone, a friendly chat that would never have happened in real life. During the course of this conversation, he asked me if I had even seen the movie Hellraiser. I told him that I had not so he said he would mail it to me. I later received a package at my house (which incidentally was not a house that I have ever lived in or been to as far as I can remember). Inside the package were the following items:
A birdhouse
A "learn to drum" instructional book with drumsticks
A framed painting by Georgia O'Keefe
The movie Hellraiser
There were other item as well but those are the ones that I remember as being particularly odd and memorable. I should point out that none of these items are in any way connected to either him or I or anything that we ever discussed together.
So take your best shot, what does this dream mean? Where did it come from? Is there any significance whatsoever?
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