INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS: RECURRENT NIGHTMARES AND D?J? VU
Some people complain of a recurring dream and seek analysis. They are convinced that there is a hidden important message in the dream and that is why they keep dreaming it night after night. What really happens in that these people keep on thinking about the riddle in their dream day after day and their mind is occupied with these same ideas day after day. Consequently these ideas will appear in the dream night after night.
Nightmares arise from a failure in the dream works. Our primitive driving forces and anxieties are not handled effectively by the dream works, and these express themselves as horrible feelings in our dreams. When we wake up, we are anxious and fearful about the dream we have just had. Nightmares are called ‘dream anxiety attacks’. Recurrent nightmares are recurring bad dreams.
If you wake up from a nightmare, the best thing to do is to say to yourself, ‘Thank God, it is only a dream’, relax, and fall back into sleep. Nightmares, like any other dreams, will be forgotten in the morning. Recurring nightmares happen because you believe that there is some bad message in the dream and, because you keep thinking about it, you remember it. Once it is recalled and repeated in your memory again and again, it will certainly appear in your dream night after night. Next time, if you wake up from any nightmare, do not go over it. If you. cannot stop thinking about it, get out of bed immediately and get back to the real world; do something relaxing like watching the television or reading the newspaper. Your nightmare will then vanish and will not reoccur. Incidentally, some modern medicines for blood pressure can cause nightmares. It may be wise to check with your doctor if the nightmares persist and if you are taking these medications.
Dreams are to be forgotten, but can we really forget them, even if we think we do not remember them?
D?j? vu can be an experience closely related to these apparently forgotten dreams. Occasionally we have some vague idea, perhaps that we have been to a place before and yet we are certain that this is not possible. This vague familiar feeling of recognition is called deja vu. How do we explain this? I think the answer lies in the many, many dreams that we dream every night but whic we apparently forget.
Memory is one of those interesting psychological myths that w are still trying to understand. All of us have had the embarrassin experience of meeting an old friend that we have not contact for years, and fail to remember his name. You try to call him b his name, but fail to remember; you know it starts with J, one those—John, James, or Jack. The name is at the tip of your tongu but it just does not come. Finally he gives you his business ñ and tells you to call him one day. After he leaves, you lookthe card and recognize his name immediately. It is a name you know—James Bond. Memory works in three stages:
* Registration—information is passed on to the memory bank
* Retention—this information is stored in the memory bank
* Recall—retrieval of this information, when required, from the memory bank.
Whether the information is remembered or not depends on the ability to recall. Inability to recall does not mean we have forgotten about it Given the right cue, we may begin to remember more and more. Of course, as in the above case, looking at the business card and recognizing James Bond implies you have not really forgotten him.
Our memory bank is bombarded with a variety of information from the dreams we have night after night. We never seem to remember the dreams, and as far as we are concerned they are not in our memory. However, one day we visit a place we have never been before. This place has some features similar to those in one of our forgotten dreams. We recognize some of the similar features, which gives us the feeling that we know the place and have been there before. This is d?j? vu, and I think our forgotten dreams have a lot to do with it.
*14/23/6*
