Shut Up About Your Dreams

 

Shut Up About Your Dreams
by Rob Cottignies

Can you name something more excruciating than listening to a dream described in detail?

You cannot because that entity does not exist. Nothing is more boring than hearing about someone’s dream.

(A great side discussion is if nothing is actually a thing.)

Dreams are interesting phenomena which scientists are only beginning to understand. They are little movies which only the dreamer can experience while asleep.

And everybody does it, whether they remember the dreams or not.

The August 2018 issue of National Geographic featured an article which said dreaming is the equivalent of hallucinating and/or going temporarily insane. You are visualizing something that is not actually happening.

Maybe it is a good thing most people forget over 90% of their dreams.

(For an interesting tidbit: Blind people dream as well. Seems like masochism to me.)

Information is great, but what's not great is hearing someone you used to respect talk about the "crazy" dream they had last night: You were there. So was your sister. And Martha Stewart. You were all skiing. Martha crashed halfway down the mountain. At the bottom, Santa Claus brought you chamomile tea. And he was Chinese.

BUT WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN!?!?!?

Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nichts. Nihil. Ekkert. Not anything.

For a long time, people have made others believe their dreams have real-life meaning. Sure, dreams may reflect something, show a possible scenario, or forebode a situation you are already dreading, but they do not mean anything more than what is being shown.

In fact, one theory suggests dreams are memories randomly thrown together by our brains. Humans are naturally curious and sometimes desperate to understand things, so perhaps we reconstruct dreams when we wake up and put them in order in an attempt to gain some kind of control.

Dreams are the ultimate "Had to be there" stories. While I cannot accurately call them uninteresting to everyone, they certainly make me yawn since nobody was there, not even the dreamer!

(Side note- Yawning is simply taking a large breath. When our bodies get tired, they need more oxygen to function, hence the yawn. And no, they are not scientifically contagious.)

To close, if you cannot sum up your dream in a single sentence, shut up about it.

'I had a dream that I checked my e-mail even though my computer was on fire.' Great little anecdote and just as pointless as a long dream story.

If this has not convinced you to shut up about your dreams, try this compromise-- Talk about your dreams as if they actually happened. You will earn some strange looks and will be a more interesting person because of it.