Mythical Beliefs About Dreams
Before we look at the facts, it would be fun to know some of the mythical beliefs about what are dreams. These pieces of information should be taken with caution and you should know that this is all for entertainment. We will get to the scientific facts later. In the meantime, this is what people believed about dreams before enough knowledge has been gathered.
Greek Myth
In Greek mythology, there is a specific god that personified the dream world. His name is Morpheus. He’s the son of Hypnos, god of sleep. Morpheus had the power to enter dreams of the mortals to deliver messages from the gods. He first appeared in the epic poem Metamorphoses, written by the poet Ovid. Morpheus could take the shape of a human mortal when delivering messages but his true form was a demon-like a figure. He had black wings. He was chosen as the messenger because he’s the best at disguising himself as a human among Hypnos’ children.
Dream Catcher
In Native American culture, there is a tribe called Ojibwe who lived near the shores of Lake Superior. According to their legend, the Spider Woman or Asibikaashi watch over the Ojibwe people and every morning, she builds a lodge. This captures the sun and brings she brings it to her children. The lodge is a spider web. As the people spread, she was no longer able to watch over them so she let people build their own lodges. These are the dream catchers. Through these, she protects them from nightmares. Legend has it that if you hang a dream catcher above your bed, the good dreams will filter through the holes.
Sandman
We’ve all heard about Mr. Sandman. He’s a benevolent being who sprinkles sand into the eyes of sleeping boys and girls to make them dream. So when you wake up, you will have crusty residues in your eyes. He first appeared in literature in the story Ole Lukoje by Hans Christian Andersen. But he became more popular in the 1816 story Der Sandman where he only visited children who wouldn’t go to sleep. His sand made their eyes fall out and he fed them to the demonic children in his iron fortress on the moon. And of course, it was then turned into a character in Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel, The Sandman Series.
Of course, there are other variations of dream legends and a lot of cultures have their own folklore about dreams. But those are some of the ones that really became popular.
What Are Dreams?
So what are dreams? Sometimes, our dreams feel so real that we mistake them for real events. But what is really happening inside our minds? Let us explore some of the explanations. But as knowledge evolve, some of the previous explanations about dreams have been debunked and more accurate information is available, thanks to scientists who keep studying the human brain.
Sigmund Freud
We all know the psychologist Sigmund Freud who made a lot of studies in human behavior. According to him, dreams are windows to our subconscious. Studies show that he may be right but only to some extent. He said that in dreams, our ego’s defenses are lower so that some things we repress surface to our awareness although in distorted form. They serve as valuable clues to how our unconscious mind operates.