Tuesday 7 August 2012

Dreaming of the Subconscious

There are dreams and there are dreams; one, an aspiration that you strive to achieve at some point in your life. It could be big or small, vastly far-fetched or something easily achievable. The other is the illogical gatherings of your subconscious, portrayed to most through a variable and often undecipherable format whilst we sleep. In this blog, I'd like to discuss the latter.

It started with a dream I had this night just past, I cannot recall it anymore, only the sensation, that it was completely wrong in so many ways from any possible reality that may have been similar, remains. As so often is the way of dreams, they linger for a few moments in that half-sleep we experience when awoken from them, but details soon seem to drain away back into our subconscious. Some points stick around longer, and some whole dreams occasionally embed themselves into our waking memory.

I myself have several dreams I can recall that have reoccurred several times in my life; one involves a small country farmhouse where my family and I are attempting to seal the windows and doors from  a pack of raptors, another features wolves outside my first house's bedroom window and a third revolves around an odd house that I've never seen before, with a giant pirate ship moored in the lake behind it. Needless to say I've never been on a pirate ship, but it's a wonder where these images comes from.

Is it random things from my imagination that are dredged up in the depths of sleep? Or is it relatively ancient memories that are lost to me (there may have been a pirate ship or giant mansion in a childrens program that I've since forgotten, for example). Is it influenced by the food we eat or by the mood we in when we go to sleep? Maybe it's altered by the thoughts we entertain just before bed, or barely audible sounds that our brain doesn't consciously register at night? Could it be smells that interfere with our dreams or temperature of your body as you sleep? Who knows, surely not me.

This all leads me to ask the relevant next question, what is your subconscious? The first website I find upon asking this question for google states that "The subconscious mind stores all of your previous life experiences, your beliefs, your memories, your skills, all situations you've been through and all images you've ever seen." Now, whilst I accept some of this at face value, I'm inclined to believe that my beliefs aren't determined by my subconscious...I like to think I decide what I believe and what not to believe. When given the god question I don't really have an answer of much merit either way. According to this same website, the subconscious is the minds autopilot, which rings true again, because your bodily functions continue without conscious thought, and there are some reactions so ingrained that you have almost no control over them unless you think hard about them before they happen.

I don't think there is really a point to this blog, as there is no definitive answer to what it is and what controls our dreams. I just thought I'd highlight some key things I thought of this morning. I may attempt to keep a dream diary, and write down connotations like what I had to eat beforehand and what I can remember thinking about before bed (if possible), and see where it leads me. But otherwise, I shall at least continue to ponder the question of dreams.

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