Interpreting my own dreams

 Recently I am reading "The Interpretation of Dreams" by the great Sigmund Freud, one of his brilliant writings. So far I have ended one-quarter of the book, which is mostly about the brief introduction of the existing dream theories at that time.

While reading it, of late I have become conscious of my own dreams and trying to relate with the theories that I have come across so far. One of which put forward by Hildebrandt; says that the dream state is nothing but the continuation of the waking state. Those thoughts that got suppressed while in the waking state find their way to flourish through dreams. Not only that, dreams work through symbolic images. That means one who dreams about something doesn't dream exactly like the way you see the real world while being awake, instead dreams about it through images that represent that particular idea. For example and I quote from the book about various dreams that typically occurs with almost the same content,  'Among these are well-known dreams of falling from a height, of the dropping out of teeth, of flying, and of embarrassment because one is naked or scantily clad. This last type of dream is said to be caused simply by the dreamer's perception, felt in his sleep, that he has thrown off the bedclothes and is uncovered'.

Here I want to talk about my own dream which exactly resonates with the above description. So, today I woke up after a nap at noon. And I started crying !! It happened to me a couple of times before it too. And I remember now, when I thought hard about it, as a child sometimes I used to see dreams that make me angry at my parents for no reason. Those were like they refused to buy me my favorite chocolate and I am crying near the store but they didn't bother about it and took me away. And its effects were still strong when I woke up. I got angry but didn't know why? I think I know the answer now. Maybe, there was something I was upset with them but I suppressed those feelings in my waking state they got manifested in my dreams, and if you are still thinking what about the chocolates that came up in the dream; The refusal of it represented all the reasons for which I was upset with my parents, the so-called 'symbolic image' that I mentioned earlier.

Back to my original query. So, the dream was like I was in the middle of a class and suddenly the teacher(I also vividly remember the name of the teacher whom I don't want to name here for obvious reasons) asked me to come in front of the board to write something. Then he started to scold me as if I wrote it wrong. I went closer to him and discovered that he has an acute fever; I told him to sit and take rest but he didn't listen and the next thing I remember he was on the death bed. All of a sudden there were too many emotions that embodied me and I woke up feeling dismal.

Naturally, I was curious about the dream. I thought hard and here's what I interpret. Basically for the last 8 months, I was home only once due to my busy academic schedule but frankly, I wasn't feeling any strong emotions for not being at home for that long. But I remember before going to sleep, I saw a post of someone showing immense affection for her father and it was really heart-touching. It's these 'external sensory stimuli', as described by Freud in the book, that evokes the thought of feeling homesick. The teacher in the dream was representing my father. The professor was strict, disciplined, and caretaking at the same time; which perfectly describes my father. He called me to solve a problem on the board which portrays brilliantly how he always wanted me to face my problems up front and to become the very best in whatever I do by doing the things that needed to be done. And the last part of 'dying' was summoning the fact that I was missing him.

Now, the question can arise, like, why should we even bother to interpret our dreams in the first place? I think I have an answer to it. You see, just like in my case dreams are not always useless. It can be used to underlie the unconscious feeling that we can't solve in the waking state. Like sometimes when we feel to be bothered about something that we don't know the real reason for, dreams can help us to mitigate those in some manner if we paid enough attention to them; that's my understanding. Also as Robert (1886), a physician from Hamburg points out, dreams can also be caused by the incomplete activities that are needed to be done in the waking state but it's not. Maybe that can help us to navigate through the unwelcome consequences that we don't want to feel in real life and be better prepared for it.

Man, this is fun!!!! 

Importance of Reading Books

 I am doing my master's right now in Physics and one thing that I learned so far is the importance of reading books. It may look typical for some but for me, it's an important realization. Let me elaborate -

Till now, I was the sort of person who just read the theories somehow and then start working on the problems or worse, moved to another one. In that way, it seems like you understood something but in reality, you don't have any in-depth knowledge whatsoever. So definitely, you gotta read books. But maybe, may not be the same reason as you think.

Recently, I have been leaning toward Philosophy a little bit. I am finding this branch very satisfactory and challenging. A deadly combination indeed. One concept I came across is 'Logos and Mythos'. In ancient Greece, it was recognized that these were two distinct ways of thinking and acquiring knowledge. Logos is referred to the logical and rational analysis of the phenomena in question. Whereas Mythos or Myths means word or story, understood as a tale or invented story which has nothing to do with reality and is solely perceived as a figment of human imagination.

The latter one is irrational in a way, right? Because it's not true. So, how the hell it survives for almost the span of whole human history? One of the reasons may be that we perceive the world as a sequence of stories. We all value material success but at the same time, we are also constantly going behind a meaningful story that we can resonate with. For example like, we all know to work hard to achieve our goals. Then the question comes, how do you know that you will live that long enough to even enjoy your success? Or, why we are assuming that working hard or working towards anything will bring any kind of change in our miserable lives, kind of a nihilistic view? But still, we prefer it because it gives meaning, it gives a sense of purpose. And when people do become successful like this, that is where the Mythos meets the Logos. This is also a sign of a healthy functional society.

Back to my original claim. When we read good books, we come across stories. For example, Let's say you are studying Quantum mechanics and choose to study David J. Griffiths. Whenever you are learning a new concept it's not like reciting just some formulas and exercises. He will walk you through the reason why we need those theories, the problems associated with other ones, etc. It's much more practical and easy to remember or implement as we are perceiving it using stories of one kind. 

I realized it after I started doing my masters and seriously helped me in a way by being a book warm. It's not about just reading Physics books either, I like to read books of any kind as long as they align with my curiosity; David Epstein talks about it too in his book 'Range'. I am about to finish '12 Rules For Life' by Dr. Jordon B. Peterson. Also, tried to read 'Will to Power' by Friedrich Nietzsche; but man! it's too complex to understand in one go.

But it's fascinating and helpful to have different perspectives about one thing. It widens your possibility of success, I guess. Indeed, Success is a smart process.