Why Dream?

 

Why Dream?

One day, when I was browsing through a book shop, I ran across a little book – just a brief booklet, or pamphlet, and I don’t even recall its author or title. I picked it up and began to skim through it. The subject was learning about the inner self through one’s dreams. I had seen articles about dream interpretation before, but none that I trusted, because they seemed to imply that all dreams had a clairvoyant quality.

But this book was not like that. The author explained that although dreams nearly always seemed meaningless, they really aren’t, because they speak in their own language which is the language of symbolism. He proceeded to describe a couple of his own dreams, and then explained the meaning of each symbol in the dream. Sure enough, when all of the symbols were in place, the dream story became a kind of fable with a clear moral. Furthermore, when he described a certain problem in his life that was stymieing his career and his personal life, it was easy to see that the dream was offering a constructive comment on his problem. Specifically, it told him how to change his attitudes and behavior so that his life would run more smoothly.

I was fascinated by this story for several reasons. First, I enjoyed studying languages and I liked to work puzzles. So, this kind of study was doubly satisfying, if I regarded symbols as a kind of language. I learned later that Erich Fromm had actually written a book on symbolism entitled “The Forgotten Language”. Furthermore, learning this language would possibly enable me to make sense of my own recurrent dreams that kept nagging me about hidden problems, without revealing their nature or solution by keeping them cloaked within the labyrinth of symbolism.

An incidental benefit that derived from this study was that it added meaning to much literature. I did a quick survey and found that symbolism occurred in at least nine distinct forms in the Bible. Symbolism is utilized deliberately by writers like Robert L. Stevenson and E.T. A. Hoffmann, and without deliberate intent in folk and fairy tales. But that aspect of symbolism will be pursued in the label, Fine Arts.

There was a far greater motivation to enter this study. Since my livelihood and most of my interests relied on the effective use of my mind, it was appropriate that I study that mind itself. Potentially such a study held a benefit for my research. Through the writings of Poincare and Hadamard, as well as my own experience, I had come to realize the important role that the unconscious plays in innovation. But I didn't understand the mechanism. Now that I had this way of communicating with that part of my mind, I could possibly gain enough understanding to take advantage of it more effectively. And so, I launched into the project with the enthusiasm of an explorer at the doorstep of a new unexplored world.

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