Writers, poets, scientists, and singers have all been interested in interpreting dreams…
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet famously pondered the possibility of dreaming after death in his famous “To Be or Not To Be” soliloquy.
Sigmund Freud wrote a book (Die Traumdeutung, 1899) about the interpretation of dreams—suggesting that they could shed light on the unconscious mind.
And in his 1962 song “Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream),” Roy Orbison wished his dreams would come true when he crooned, “help me stop my dreamin’ you and make my dreams come true.”
Now, modern neuroscience shows they were onto something.
In fact, according to an interesting, new study, dreams help us process past events—and may even predict future events…
Sorting through the past and—sometimes—even predicting the future
For this interesting, new study, 48 students agreed to sleep in a lab and report on their dreams.
In fact, throughout the night, the researchers woke up the participants 13 times (that sounds unlucky)—including at the onset of sleep, during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and during non-REM sleep—to report and write down their dreams.
Then, the next morning, the participants tried to recall events from their waking life that may have related to each dream.
It turns out, 54 percent of the participants’ dreams related to a memory of a real life experience. And of those, nearly half related to multiple real life experiences.
Now, here’s where things got really interesting…
Twenty-six percent of dreams actually anticipated “probable” future events.
So, does that mean that we see the future in our dreams? Well, it’s certainly something to ponder.
In fact, there’s an old saying that, “the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.” And by interpreting the past, our dreams may indeed predict what will likely happen in the future. Then, when dreams do “come true,” as Roy Orbison crooned, it may just be correctly playing the odds.
To fill your nights with plenty of dreams, I highly recommend you check out the time-tested, all-natural sleep enhancer from India that I talked about yesterday. In a recent study, it improved “sleep quality” by an impressive 72 percent! You can also think about adding aromatherapy to your nighttime regimen for a truly restful, restorative sleep.
And for this weekend, I wish you sweet dreams.