Decoding Dreams Part One - Types of Dreams
Introduction
Dreams are fascinating and mystical experiences that continue to perplex us to this day. While neuroscience is advancing and our understanding of dreams is expanding, dreams still hold a mystifying importance in our lives and continue to inspire wonder and confusion. Dreams are sensational and mythological even if we manage to explain how and why they happen, because the sensation of having a vivid dream is stronger and more immersive than any work of fiction will ever be. This is the first part of a larger arc investigating the dream phenomena, and this first chapter will be dedicated to categorising the different types of dreams and covering some of the basics. Dreams have been a topic of interest for philosophical, religious, and scientific reasons since the beginning of history. Dream interpretation has been practised for just about as long and in a contemporary context is still done in either religious, spiritual or psychotherapeutical settings.
The scientific community is not concerned with interpreting the symbols of dreams but rather proposing and testing hypotheses regarding the dream function and where in the brain the phenomena originate. There are many theories as to why humans dream, e.g dreams being a way for the brain to reorganise and “sort” the day’s experiences and emotions. Our ancestors understood dreams as messages from the divine to guide and help people and prophesize the future. Prophetic dreams are a common occurrence in religious works and dreams are held in varying regards across human culture, some believing them to be unreliable and a malevolent force. In contrast, others perceive dreams to be messages from something higher. For the artist dreams continue to be a source of endless inspiration. In psychology, especially in Jungian psychology - dreams are believed to be a direct communication with our subconscious that can tell us about struggles we are unaware of, or really tell us how we’re feeling. To the Jungian psychiatrist, the symbolism of dreams is not only something that can be interpreted but something that actively should be, as understanding one’s dreams leads to a deeper understanding of oneself.
With the abstract and seemingly chaotic nature of dreams and their subjectivity where do we begin to interpret and understand them and what can we get out of it? We will explore these questions and more in this short series on decoding dreams. This first part is dedicated to the different types of dreams. We’re going to categorise our dreams into three main categories, each category will have subcategories of different kinds of dreams.
Standard dreams
Nightmares
Epiphanic dreams
There are some distinctions and left-out types of dreams we need to discuss before delving deeper into each type of dream. Not mentioned are recurring dreams, daydreams and what I usually refer to as half-n-halfs. Recurring dreams are not a type of dream but rather just a repeating one, that can be a recurring nightmare or a recurring standard dream etc. Daydreams while being called dreams aren’t really dreams as they do not occur during sleep. Instead, they are the amalgamation of vivid imagination, visualisation and powerful visionary experiences that manifest while awake with many dreamlike symptoms. Lastly what I refer to as half-n-halfs are dreams where you’re just on the edge of sleep, it’s somewhere between a daydream and a regular dream. This sleep-drifting and dream surfing is neither conscious nor subconscious. It’s drifting in and out of sleep - a pretty good state to be if you ask me.
Standard Dreams
What we refer to as standard dreams are the most common type of dream. They vary a lot and it is a very broad catch-them-all kind of term. They may be abstract, they may be perfectly linear or exhibit any of the other traits of any kind of dream. In actuality, the only thing that sets standard dreams apart from the two other kinds of dreams is their emotional attachment. While nightmares carry a strong negative emotion with them standard dreams may be neutral or positive. Unlike epiphanic dreams standard dreams don’t hold any kind of speciality to them in the sense the epiphanic ones do. There’s no extraordinary or potentially life-changing quality to standard dreams, that of course doesn’t mean that they are without value or that they aren’t special.
Each dream is special in its own way, even the most regular and boring of dreams can tell a lot about what’s on our minds and can be a source of wonder and inspiration. While epiphanic dreams are categorised by their clear symbolism and their often spiritual or religious undertones standard dreams can also be interpreted and carry messages from our sleeping lives. Standard dreams can be abstract and sometimes completely trivial, but some of the standard dreams that stand out are vivid dreams and false awakening dreams.
While any kind of dream can be vivid and most dreams require some degree of vividity to be remembered and understood when we talk about vivid dreams these are dreams that are incredibly clear and can feel so real that it’s just like being awake. What sets them apart from epiphanic dreams especially is their lack of gravitas or difficult-to-interpret thematics. Vivid dreams can be a sequence of dreams where the dreamer experiences a heightened sense of awareness and can experience sensations usually not perceived in dreams like smells or even certain colours. Vivid dreams are easy to recall and often feel so real they can lead to dreams called false awakening dreams.
False awakening dreams are simply dreams where you believe yourself to wake up and continue to dream despite it. This can happen multiple times in the same dream, leading to a sequence of recurring false awakenings. For me I had this one dream I woke up from twice until I finally awoke for real on the third time. Vividity is a quality of the dreams we experience, but when people refer to having a vivid dream it’s often a standard but crystal-clear dream, their clarity makes them stand out and it’s worth remembering them as their own type of standard dream. False awakenings are common enough to warrant their own subcategory as well, and distinct enough. The biggest problem with trying to categorise dreams is the sheer amount of different expressions and the creative richness that make up their DNA - and we will find that there is a lot of overlapping between dreams, both the symbols, themes and the imagery. Therefore in general we will categorise them by emotional state. Following the positive and neutral we then move on to the negative: nightmares.
Nightmares
Yet another common type of dream - characterised by negative feelings like anxiety, guilt, terror and many more. Conscience is the currency we pay for sleep and it seems our dreams catch up to us. There are many types of different nightmares and they are like all other dreams unique to the dreamer. Nightmares while negative can border on the epiphanic and hold some value in telling us what we’re currently experiencing in our waking life. What causes individuals to have nightmares isn’t entirely clear and there are many contributing factors including:
Mental health like stress, depression, anxiety and trauma can manifest in the form of nightmares. It also seems that certain medications and sleep deprivation can cause nightmares. Speaking of the real-life effects dreams can have nightmares have also been associated with suicide though the relationship isn’t clearly understood and correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation. Nightmares can be clear indicators of things troubling us in our lives, and in my experience, they can be some of the most useful dreams and telling dreams. Reoccurring nightmares can be especially telling. I used to have a lot of nightmares, especially in late teens and early adulthood, but very rarely have any these days. Mine were often closely linked with emotions I was dealing with at the time as well as detailing some of the more anxious sides of my life. The themes for me were deeply personal and while they took different forms they often had the same themes.
Nightmares come in more themes than we could ever list and what is a nightmare to one person may be a standard dream to another. However upon waking the dreamer is left with uneasy feelings, and some nightmares can be especially difficult to shake. Waking up startled is one way, some wake with a scream and others are just left with a bad feeling, a feeling that can linger for a long time. Our mornings set the tempo and mood for the rest of our day and nightmares can certainly set us off on the wrong foot. When we experience nightmares especially reoccurring ones or frequently we should examine our lives and see what part of our life they could relate to and use them as a guide for leading us towards healing. While most dreams are imaginary and take place in some ethereal place beyond physical reality especially nightmares can be brought to the forefront of the physical realm.
The two forms of nightmares that do this are sleep paralysis and night terrors. While night terrors are more common in young children they can still occur in adults. They are characterised by feelings of anxiety, stress and dread and can lead to sweating, crying and screaming. Night terrors can cause intense fear and typically occur during the first hours of non-rapid eye movement sleep (non-REM sleep) and can last for several minutes. The person suffering from sleep terror isn’t fully awake and not in deep sleep either, and this can cause the experience to feel very vivid and physical. Similar to night terrors sleep paralysis also occurs close to this state.
Sleep paralysis occurs either when falling asleep or waking up and is characterised by the sleeper being conscious but in a state of full-body paralysis. Being unable to move they might be able to look around and still think, another symptom very commonly experienced during sleep paralysis is hallucinations. Which is often what gives them their nightmarish quality. It should be said that sleep paralysis doesn’t have to be under the category of nightmare, I’ve had several times where I haven’t felt fear or anxiety while experiencing sleep paralysis, but it’s far more common to have a bad time, and in most of my experiences they have been frightful. Sleep paralysis generally doesn’t last longer than a few minutes.
Sleep paralysis may be caused by getting stuck in between sleep phases, and while your body is still sleeping your mind is awake, which leads you to experience waking consciousness while being unable to move your body. Several medical and sleeping disorders increase the risk of experiencing sleep paralysis.
As mentioned above a common theme to sleep paralysis is the hallucinations, especially common is the hallucination of shadowy figures. They have been found in two of the instances where I’ve experienced sleep paralysis, and at one time I’ve interacted with one. It’s believed the hallucinations are caused by our brain being somewhat in the state of sleep and still being able to conjure up imaginative imagery despite being in waking consciousness. As to why our brains choose to call forth images of shadow figures stalking our bedrooms, your guess is as good as mine - perhaps there is something it’s trying to tell us. Or perhaps it is like our ancestors believed that these figures are not figments of our minds, but rather malicious and dark entities we catch a glimpse of. There is still much beyond our understanding when it comes to dreams and what eludes us the most is perhaps what we will refer to as epiphanic dreams.
Epiphanic dreams
Derived from the Greek word epiphany - epiphanic dreams are extraordinary dreams with mystical elements. Epiphany may be understood as “a revelatory manifestation of divinity”. These kinds of dreams are so unreal and out of this world that we could argue that most people don’t even believe they exist. There’s no empirical evidence or scientific peer-reviewed papers that will prove the existence of these kinds of dreams - their documentation is almost always exclusive to prophets, madmen and artists. So why even bother having them as a category of their own? Well, they provide a vivid and real experience to the ones that do have them and they can serve as a profound way to connect with religion, spirituality or even just oneself. They remain a source of endless inspiration to the creative and serve as guidance for the intuitive. There are a few qualities that set them apart from standard dreams, and their emotional state is a bit more ambivalent than the two other categories. Epiphanic dreams are mostly positive but can also be neutral or even negative. They can therefore not be defined by their emotional impact alone. Indeed the quality which defines them is hard to grasp and difficult to convey and it’s a deeply personal distinction. Some epiphanic dreams may be easier to determine than others like: prophetic dreams - it’s a matter of whether the dream comes true or not. But here’s where it gets a little blurry as well. So as we dive into the types of epiphanic dreams let’s begin with the prophetic ones.
Prophetic dreams are dreams that tell of the future. We see this in religious scripture constantly where a person, usually a prophet - receives a message from God or another divine entity, like an angel about what is to come. Some people believe this to be true others don’t. From a more contemporary and materialist viewpoint some people claim that prophetic dreams can be understood as our brains trying to predict patterns in our waking life. Therefore if a person happens to have a prophetic dream it’s because of this phenomenon. Of course, this doesn’t account for dreams people report that are seemingly unrelated to any activity of their waking life. As for myself, I have had a few dreams that have come true, or at least partially. That’s where the line is blurry to me, and of course, a possible explanation for this is my brain attempting to predict things in my life. Therefore I think a dream can’t be deemed prophetic entirely based on the question “Did it come true?” because there are so many elements to it and people give different answers, it therefore remains a very personal thing. Somebody dreaming of the family cat dying and the family dog ending up dying the next day might interpret their dream to have been prophetic and the cat just being symbolic of a family member i.e. the dog passing. I think prophetic dreams because of this are a perfect fit for a category beyond standard dreams and nightmares - they are extraordinary and perhaps only so because of the dreamer’s relationship to them. Another type of epiphanic dream that is entirely personal is the lucid dream.
Lucid dreams are in which the dreamer realises they’re dreaming and can assume full or partial control of the dream because of this. People report being able to fully change the dream environment and conjure up nearly any kind of experience in their dream. While dreaming it’s commonplace to not be in direct consciousness and rather be perceiving the dream from a perspective. Lucid dreams are fully conscious and with vivid awareness the dreamer can actively make choices and decisions as if it were waking life. We of course can’t measure lucid dreams or even determine if they are real and to what extent, this is what makes them epiphanic and mystical. I also think fundamentally the idea of being conscious and aware of being in a dream allowing for direct control and magic-like powers is a “revelatory manifestation of divinity”. People use different techniques and practices to increase the likelihood of having lucid dreams, and many report never achieving this state of lucidity. As for myself, I have had two and both were very similar.
In both dreams, I became conscious of being in a dream and the realisation that I can do anything washes over me, but instead of doing anything I want I am paralysed by choice and realise that I actually don’t want to do anything specific. I just end up floating in an empty and dark space until I wake up. In one of the dreams, the realisation that I was dreaming hit me as I was standing in front of two doors and as I realised I could actively make the choice rather than having it made for me I decided to not make a choice. The two doors weren’t my choice and I thought is reacting to my environment really me influencing it? By doing nothing the two doors eventually disappear and I once again found myself floating in a dark and empty space. While I can’t report back doing anything exciting in my dreams they did serve me well philosophically and I was left thinking and reflecting after the dreams. This brings us to the next point of epiphanic dreams.
There are many more kinds of dreams that we could label as epiphanic but rather than giving them individual names and dissecting them we will just discuss the traits they share. That is their properties of healing, guiding and inspiring. Some dreams we have can be resolutions to experiences we’ve had in our waking life, when we finally and fully come to peace with something our subconscious will manifest the imagery of that as well - and until then it might haunt us with nightmares. These resolutions can be letting go of the past or coming to terms with things. A common experience people have when losing a loved one is being visited by them in a dream - this is a sign that they’ve made their peace with the loss and usually in the dream the loved one will tell them something. Often along the lines of letting go and that they are at peace. You could probably chalk it up to our brains processing things and it being expressed in the dreams but these experiences function as deeply personal and profound interactions with something greater than the individual dreamer.
More than just resolutions epiphanic dreams also offer solutions and guidance. Sometimes dreams can reveal the answer to complicated questions. There are plenty of stories like this. For example, the chemist Dmitri Mendeleev is said to have invented the modern periodic table in a dream. The German organic chemist August Kekulé had a dream where the structure of Benzene was revealed to him in the symbol of a snake biting its own tail. The revelatory nature of epiphanic dreams has not only allowed for religious and philosophical advancements but also scientific discoveries. Culturally we also say that one should “sleep on the problem” to find a solution. There’s much more information out there about specific examples of inventions and ideas being revealed through dreams and whether it’s because the Divine speaks to us in our sleep or our brains work harder that way is really not that important. Dreams have and will continue to serve as an infinite source of inspiration.
That brings us to the final trait of epiphanic dreams their inspiration. More than inspiring thinkers, inventors and scientists - dreams also inspire the creatives and human culture at large. For writers, artists and musicians dreams serve as a fount of inspiration and creativity. There are thousands of examples of songs, stories and paintings being inspired by the dreamscape of these creative minds. Paul McCartney was 21 when he woke up from a dream and in a minute penned down the song “Yesterday”. Sting of The Police got the title “Every Breath You Take” after waking up in the middle of the night. Franz Kafka suffered from insomnia and hypnagogic hallucinations which inspired him to write “Metamorphosis”. The visionary painter William Blake often drew inspiration for his work from his dreams. I myself have had a few dreams that have moved me to create.
One night I had a dream that I was painting and in the dream, I saw so very clearly the image that I was painting. Immediately upon waking up, I knew that I had to paint it, and I tried my best to capture the image which I had seen in my sleep. I continued to work on the painting for a long while, and the sense of the dream and its image never truly escaped me. This is but one testimony to the power of dreams and set apart from the regular ones are epiphanic dreams - they are truly extraordinary and bring with them something that may be hard to define but to the individual dreamer they are nothing short of magical.
Summary
We will continue to explore and decode dreams in another blog post. For now, this is all we have to keep in mind. The categories of dreams are:
Standard Dreams
Their emotional impact is positive or neutral. They can convey simple thoughts and ideas to us and are the most common type of dream. They can be vivid and abstract and much else. They may be reflective of our day-to-day life and may contain different themes and symbols. These dreams may be false-awakening ones or any other type of dream that isn’t more impactful. Their motifs may vary and they may be entertaining or funny but they don’t bring any long-lasting effects after waking up.
Nightmares
Their emotional impact is negative. They induce feelings of panic, stress, dread and sadness. They follow form like regular dreams but are tinted with bad feelings and reliving of negative experiences. They can be a way for our subconscious to highlight problems and feelings we need to deal with, and they can be telling of aspects of our life which are causing us stress and worry. They usually come for some reason and they’re not inherently bad. Night terrors and sleep paralysis are two types of common nightmares.
Epiphanic Dreams
Extraordinary dreams that bring with them powerful emotional, intellectual and creative impact. They give long-lasting and possibly life-changing effects that transcend the state of sleep. Their emotional impact can vary and range from positive, to neutral and even negative. They may offer resolutions and solutions as well as inspire great works of art. Epiphanic dreams can be prophetic and deeply spiritual to the dreamer. They are out of the ordinary and the only real way to know and determine a dream to be epiphanic is for the dreamers themselves to determine the value and impact of the dream. Types of epiphanic dreams are lucid dreams, guiding dreams, healing dreams, prophetic dreams and inspirational dreams.
Knowing what kind of dream you’re having helps you determine how to examine it and deal with it. We will keep these definitions in mind as we delve deeper into decoding dreams in the next post.
Sweet dreams.
