People don't think their dreams amount to much, but when I ask them to examine them for common themes, they surprise themselves at how accurate they are! They see that their dreams have value.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The usual comment from psychologists and psychiatrists was that it's best not to encourage people to look at their dreams because they are liable to stir up problems for themselves.
It is easier to learn to interpret dreams if you have a reason to use them for something constructive. You apply your dream insights to making constructive changes in your life.
Some people have vivid imagination, some not so vivid, but everybody has vivid dreams.
Dreaming in public is an important part of our job description, as science writers, but there are bad dreams as well as good dreams. We're dreamers, you see, but we're also realists, of a sort.
I don't really think dreams have real meaning. Some people believe in that. I just think it's your brain, after a day of crazy random pieces of information jumbled together, creating interesting stories. I just view it as entertainment.
I'm a big fan of dreams. Unfortunately, dreams are our first casualty in life - people seem to give them up, quicker than anything, for a 'reality.'
Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are written, we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world.
People's dreams are made out of what they do all day. The same way a dog that runs after rabbits will dream of rabbits. It's what you do that makes your soul, not the other way around.
I published in 1978 a report on dreams in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. It was the first study of its kind to demonstrate that it is possible for people to make constructive use of their dreams to improve their lives.
Honestly, I find the analysis of dreams is one of the dullest things. I say this as a therapist kid. I find them deeply uninteresting, as a window to the soul.