A friend recently dreamt of arriving late for two important meetings. The first meeting was an interview, of which he could not quite clearly tell what type of an interview it was. In the second dream, he arrived late to a meeting he was supposed to give a talk. According to the dream dictionary, lateness is associated with fear of change, feelings of unworthiness and being unready to take up a particular action or opportunity. Moreover, being late also signifies that an individual feels that they no longer have time to achieve their goals and therefore one may feel that their future is uncertain. This dream fits with the explanation given by Wade and Tavris (160) that dreams on most occasions relate to the actual current concerns of the dreamer. In our case, the current concern could be anxiety and uncertainty of one’s future which causes fear. As a result, such feelings are reflected in dreams. Therefore, this dream could be categorized under the theory of ‘dreams as efforts to deal with problems’ (Wade and Tavris 160). This is because the dream reflects anxiousness which could be a ‘conscious preoccupation’ of the dreamer’s current life.
In my opinion, dreams have real meanings, in spite of some appearing bizarre and awkward. This is because our brains are active every minute even when we are asleep, which implies that dreams are unconscious activities of the brain which may either be thoughts, worries, ideas, attempts to solve problems or even solutions to some of our problems. As Morewedge and Norton (261) note, dreams provide insight into complex problems that we could be experiencing and hence help us make sense and understand of ourselves by providing hidden puzzles. Wilson (22) also argues that dreams are meaningful and that they are critical aspects of our the brains processes through which information undergoing processing in the waking state undergoes further processing during sleep. In regards dream websites, I feel that they may not carry solutions to every dream and hence may be inaccurate in providing answers for people. The inclusion of psychic ads in some websites reduces the validity of the sites. However, I have no right to judge such websites as the most important thing is one’s beliefs and convictions on the effectiveness of the predictions given by psychics.
Works Cited
Morewedge, Carey and Norton, Michael. When Dreaming is believing: The (Motivated) Interpretation of Dreams. Washington, DC.: American Psychology Association, 2009. Print.
Wade, Carole and Carol, Tavris, C. Invitation to Psychology. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2012. Print.
Winson, Jonathan. “The Meaning of Dreams” Scientific America, 263.5(1990):86-88.