Can dreams have meanings?

[SomeLikeItTepid]

Taking from a current thread on here...
Can dreams really mean anything, or is it just our subconscious filing daily thoughts away? I don't dream every night (that I can remember) but have bouts of having very vivid dreams, sometimes nice and comforting but sometimes very harrowing - the kind that wake me up and upon waking stay with me for quite a while. Quite often they are reoccurring for that period. What are yours thoughts on this MNetters?

Nope. To me dreams are a part of your brain sorting the garbage disposal.

I do not believe dreams have 'meaning'!

Only if your subconscious mind is sorting itself out. I sometimes have anxiety dreams about things I’m about to do but that usually just means I need to crack on with them.

Aha! Is this my thread you're having a take on OP?

It depends what you mean by meaning.

When I was twelve I dreamed that I was standing at my bedroom window and a large bull came rushing through the hedge.

It didn't mean that there'd be livestock on the loose in our village any time soon. But - and it took me an embarrassingly long time to realise this - there was a very definite meaning to that dream. As well as the one in sixth-form with the party where everyone was killing each other...

RealPill Yes! It's just got me thinking of all the utterly nonsense stuff I've dreamt, and not been able to forget!

@merryhouse what were the meanings behind those dreams?

I still fondly remember the book on The Meaning of Your Dream I found in the school library.

Most of my dreams at the time were set at school, which the book confidently asserted means "a link with the past is holding you back".

Nowadays a dream set at school definitely means I've got too caught up in the past, but it took me a long (again, embarrassingly so) time to realise that it didn't apply to a current school pupil!

@ChevalierTialys - sex, obviously.

Pretty sure the dream I had where my teeth popped like popcorn out of my mouth was a reminder to brush my teeth mire frequently. When I've got low MH I tend to forget

RealPill I hope you don't mind my post. I'll delete if so.

When I was in my early twenties I dreamt that I had a ten year old son. I really loved him and we got on really well. I was very sad when I woke up and he didn't exist.

Looking back, I was having a horrible, stressful time at work and my subconscious mind was looking forward to when I had a bit more life in my work / life balance. I still think about him sometimes though.

I have nonsense dreams where I dream about having a coffee with the guy behind me at the tills in Tesco or something as unmeaning and ridiculous.

I've also dreamt about having a "why did you do it" conversation with my late partner who committed suicide.

I've had lesbian sex dreams about my neighbour who I hate.

So who knows op, who knows!

To confirm I am completely straight!

I used to have occasional dreams that my father had died, i woke one morning after such a dream and got a phone call to say he had

Not at all OP!

I hope the answer is no, dreams don't have meaning. Some of the replies on my own thread had me quite scared

Like the poster who asked if there's anything I'm hiding from my mum? That shook me!

Cru that's incredibly sad I would miss him too

It’s fine, I am now middle aged and have two great kids (still much younger than ten).

I think it's a bit of both. Even my most bizarre, unrealistic, animated dreams I can make some sense of psychologically. Some I can't.
Example, dream 1 that I made sense of was my youngest kid turning into a murderous carnivorous dinosaur and me turning back time somehow to see if I could raise him to be a gentle dino- id recently watched and chatted with my mum about serial killers on Netflix who's parents stuck by them etc and we were discussing if we'd be able to do that, the nature nurture convo etc. I think that dream expressed that.
Example, dream 2 I couldn't make any sense of was Scream (the masked ghost guy) chasing me through the desert on a camel.

I have some very lucid dreams but I also get night terrors where I wake up screaming or crying inconsolably but I have no idea why as I don't then recall what I dreamt sometimes DH is quite haggard and drawn with the disturbed sleep he gets.