Warning dreams: how they recognize each other and what they mean
The world of dreams never ceases to fascinate. Although there are still several detractors with respect to the theories concerning the dream sphere, there is no doubt that, every night, at the level of the unconscious something unique happens that allows us to "see" images and "live" different realities from the conscious one we are when we are Among all the various types of dreams, there is one that is even more interesting in several respects: we are talking about premonitory dreams. Do dreams that predict the future exist or are they just the fruit of our imagination? Let's find out more!
What are premonitory dreams?
According to the most accredited definition, premonitory dreams are those dream images that we see and experience at night and which, after a certain period of time, we experience directly in reality. By saying so, they would go beyond simply dreaming because they would put us in contact with situations that have yet to happen: they would be a link with the future.
There are still no certainties on what can distinguish the "classic" dreams from the premonitory ones, but according to some studies a first difference could be found at their origin. In fact, it seems that the latter are born at a less deep level of our psyche, which we can also define as "more advanced". In this "area between conscious and unconscious, always during sleep, the brain seems to have a sensation, an" intuition or an idea "that has a good chance of coming true in real life. It is true that all dreams mix within them. elements of our daily life with which we come into contact every day, but the premonitory ones put them in a sequence and in a plausible context.It cannot be denied that, in this case, dreams do come true.
The theory of psychoanalysts, from Freud to Jung
It is natural to ask ourselves if premonitory dreams really exist or if they are only the result of our imagination and suggestions derived from ancient and fascinating myths or legends. Psychology, science and studies closer to the world of the occult and mystery have often wondered about this.
The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmud Freud, has always denied the divinatory character of dream images. According to him, in fact, premonitory dreams do not exist because every vision seen during the night brings to the surface normally repressed episodes, feelings and fears, closer to the past than to the future. If a dream comes true once you wake up, for Freud it is just a coincidence. His thinking was later supported by the American philosopher Robert Todd Carroll, famous for his skepticism. Carroll's thesis is faithful to the law of large numbers according to which, if on almost 7 billion people during a night one of them dreams of a catastrophe and this comes true, it is just pure chance, perhaps due to emotions dictated by the influence of mass media or shared general information.
Who was of a completely different opinion, always in the field of psychology, is Carl Gustav Jung. For Freud's pupil, in fact, there are the so-called "little dreams", that is, those of which we do not remember once awake, and the "big dreams" , that is, those who during sleep put us in contact with primordial energies, archetypes from which we all draw. It would be the latter to allow us to see or predict possible future events.
How to recognize premonitory dreams
Neither the hypotheses of Freud and Carroll nor that of Jung have been and can be confirmed with certainty. Those who remain in favor of the Jungian thesis admit that some characteristics could be traced that allow us to recognize premonitory dreams with respect to others. First, those with a divinatory character would be recurring. It can happen to dream of the same scene several nights in a row or, in any case, at more or less regular intervals. Then, dreams to be foreboding should emotionally involve. In fact, their being emotionally pregnant would be what allows us to remember them even after the first few minutes we are awake.
If you have recently been having a recurring dream that leaves you feeling "strange" or unusual the next day, try writing it in a journal and keeping track of its development.
"Famous" premonitory dreams
Although many deny their validity, there are premonitory dreams that have gone down in history. The most famous is certainly the one concerning the tragic fate of the Titanic in 1912. Hundreds of testimonies have been heard about the "sinking of the ocean liner and its premonition, but nineteen of these have been found to be reliable and have been considered as dreams On this dynamic, Carroll commented that the individuals heard would only be "pessimistic minds" or "very sensitive" to the media publicity that had been made of the Titanic. The ship, in fact, had always been presented by the newspapers as "unsinkable".
Another dream considered premonitory is that of the famous writer Mark Twain. The latter told of having dreamed of his brother's corpse in a metal coffin, placed in his sister's living room. On the coffin, there would be only a red flower. A few weeks later, Henry Twain, Mark's brother, died in a "explosion on a boat and his body was placed right in an iron coffin. The American author testified and wrote that on the day of the funeral a woman placed a red rose on her brother's body.
This fact can be frightening as well as exert a certain attraction: there are still no sure answers to such things and episodes, but sometimes believing that something ineffable stands out in the routine can help to escape the regularity of life. everyday.
The most recurring dreams
We have already seen how dreaming does not mean inventing scenarios completely disconnected from reality, but combining in a single image several elements that are known to us in everyday life in a new and unusual way. For example, there are objects or situations that often come back during sleep and that can be found with a certain frequency in premonitory dreams. An element of this type is certainly water: a symbol of transformation, unconscious, vitality and motherhood, it can have more than one meaning and different interpretations depending on the context and the state in which we find it, but in many cases it indicates the desire to change and the approach of a possible new beginning.
Another recurring premonitory dream is that of travel. Here, too, its most shared meaning refers to an inner need that one has to change something in one's life, to undertake new paths and new projects, or, on the contrary, it can represent the end of an adventure. Similarly, it can happen to dream or to fall or to die but here the "premonitory" element is to be read in a different key.
When you dream of falling, there is probably a lack of self-esteem or an inner insecurity perhaps due to the fact that you are about to face a new phase in life. Not knowing what lies ahead can create anxiety which, if kept at bay during the day, can emerge during the night. When you dream of dying you are not in a situation so far from the previous one. There may be the latent fear of a change, understood as a new life following the "death" of the previous one. In other cases, dreaming of one's own death may be due to the very fear of dying: here the dream is an expression of our fears and the anxiety they cause in us.
