The conscious mind disregards a bulk of the sensory information that is constantly bombarding us.  The subconscious soaks up all of that information and “stores” it deep within on psyche in ways that our conscious mind cannot access or comprehend efficiently.  Much of what we are not paying conscious attention to is superfluous mental background noise but there can be hidden insights that reside in the subconscious that are not readily “visible” to the conscious mind.  Jung postulates that we can access the knowledge stored in the recesses of the subconscious by understanding the manifestations of that part of our thought through the symbolic representations of our dreams.

The symbols of dreams take forms ranging from everyday stimulus and perceptions of the individual dreamer to common archetypes which are images, descriptive details, plot patterns or a character types that occur frequently in literature, myth, religion, or folklore.  The personal details can vary wildly in significance between individuals and do not fit any particular pattern from dreamer to dreamer – a door in a dream may represent something religious for one person and something sexual for another based on each person’s life experience.  The archetypal representations however are strikingly similar between different people and even across different cultures.  These common themes have appeared repeatedly since the advent of the modern human mind.  One such archetype is of the resurrection myth which is invoked by almost every world religion.  In this archetypal dream the person themselves or some other powerful entity defeats death or other physical limitations.  Knowing each of the personal and archetypal representations helps to decipher the jumbled communication streaming from our subconscious while dreaming.

Why is it important to have a better understanding of oneself at a subconscious level?  It is similar to when one is trying to come to a solution to a problem for a long time just to find out the answer was in front of them the whole time.  These “eureka” moments happen  and are attributable to information that has already become evident to our subconscious mind but we had not until that moment perceived it consciously.  It feels like the information came from nowhere but really it was something we had processed in the past subconsciously.  Whether it is personal insights, answers to tough questions or long standing emotional issues the subconscious can be a repository for valuable information the conscious mind obscures.

The subconscious aspect of ourselves is slowly being marginalized by a combination of rational thought and cultural/religious institutions.  Much of what we did as humans in the past relied at its base on what was “instinctual” or what “felt” right.  Ideas that do not fall within the cultural norms are often shrugged off or marginalized however there can be some interesting information buried in our subconscious that can only be accessed through the interpretation of our dream lives.

Was I on crack when I wrote this last night?  Do you have any dreams that have helped you gain further understanding in your conscious life?

*sidenote* I realize that there is depth for those who go out and look for it but most people won’t and the majority of individuals use the same means to find their information.  Google is the leading search engine and it handles almost 80% of the world’s web queries.  Homogenization in search techniques leads to a pool of information being controlled by one organization.  Whoever comes up higher in the Google search is the defacto expert and that information is treated as more valuable than something that lands lower in the search rankings.  In this case popularity is more important than being true to the facts. *end sidenote*

Instead of fewer more in-depth communications on a subject we are bombarded by superficial information on a multitude of different topics.  Most people now know very little about a lot of different subjects rather than more about any one topic specifically.  The amount of information that I am expected to absorb and process is staggering – it is not surprising that my thought process has changed to accommodate the new way in which I handle that information.  Repetitively looking at work emails consisting of no more than 100 words or brief articles on the web that I skim through has trained my cognitive process to be more efficient at processing smaller, more frequent bits of information rather than focusing to get a deeper understanding of what I am viewing at any given point.

A good example of how communications work today was the way the media handled the economic collapse of last year.  The market took a shit and everyone was wondering what the fuck was going on – Internet and other mass media outlets clamored for ANY piece of information that MAY have been useful – true or not.  This information was disseminated through blogs an other media outlets in bite-sized chunks, many of which turned out to be unsubstantiated.  Viewpoints from this expert met with dissension from that expert and one “unnamed  treasury official” contradicted another “unnamed treasury official” creating a cacophony of voices that was hard to understand.  The news cycle turned into more of a rumor mill of whatever a particular person was saying at that given point rather than a presentation of facts.  There was no pause to take in what was happening and create a coherent picture of what was happening.

I can’t even imagine what is going on with students at this point – it must be an absolute disaster.  I am sure that kids are taking reports directly off of Wikipedia or some other source of “half-true” information.  Trying to find truth out there for actual research must be daunting – there are so many false sources on the Internet.  At the risk of sounding old – I think there was some value of looking up the information that I needed for projects by going to library and looking through the information there.  Information at your fingertips at any time is beneficial but not if it is the wrong information or does not flesh out the subject enough.

My main point here is that everyone thinks that we have this huge wealth of information at our fingertips with the internet, however, much of what is there is the same message repeated or far to shallow to be of any real value.  We have trained ourselves to not dig into subjects much deeper than a surface level and forget much of the information we gather the moment we move on to the next topic.  There has to be a happy medium somewhere – in the meantime I need to find a way to get my attention span back up to at least “squirrel” level.

Has your focused suffered since the advent of the Internet?

Dreams are so fascinating to me because everything is so random and logic does not apply the way I use it in every other part of my life.  Dreams are jumbled and fleeting yet they can compel me to do things or infuse me with real emotion. ”I had the most fucked up dream last night…” usually precedes a convoluted story that makes no sense the the person hearing what the speaker dreamt.  Invariably the story ends with “… I don’t know, it’s hard to explain… but it was fucked up”.  The reason it was fucked up is because interpreting a dream is like translating a language that is different for each individual.

The subconscious contains all of the urges, impulses, intentions, perceptions, thoughts, deductions and feelings we have ever experienced.  Most of this information stays cordoned off in the recesses of our subconscious and may only bubble up as an instinct, idea or at times a rational thought in our waking lives.  Our minds have evolved and developed a rational sense that is unparalleled in the animal kingdom.  Having the conscious and subconscious working in tandem is a uniquely human characteristic and elevates us to be able to think in infinite terms while the subconscious unites us with our instinctual heritage in the animal kingdom.  I imagine when we are able to more clearly determine exactly how animals think that we will discover it is very similar to our experiences in the visceral simplicity of a dream-state.

The information that is “given” to us though the medium of dreams is unfiltered and we are unable to “translate” it the way we do in our conscious mind.  This is not a bad thing.  Our conscious filtration of the ideas of our subconscious is very useful to be able to live a normal life.  If we had to process all of the things that bombard us everyday we would be crippled by the onslaught of information.  Our subconscious soaks in all of the details of our surrounding and feelings that we generate about them.  It is good to have access to ALL of the information every once in a while and if we pay attention to the details we may realize things about ourselves that we would never have known.  In addition to that the subconscious is not just a stockpile of the past, it can be grounds for the creation of new thoughts.  The “eureka” moments that happen in science and math many times are attributed by scientists to something they dreamt about or an idea that “popped” into their head.  The key is understanding what our subconscious is “communicating” through dreams and being able to understand how to translate that into rational thought the way we do when we are awake.

Dream books are bullshit because they do not take into account the differences between individuals.  That is not to say there are not some universal ideas or archetypes among certain societies, cultures or groups but most symbols are pretty personal representations that can’t be generalized.  A bird may symbolize freedom for one person and death for another.  The key is looking at the themes or ideas that dominate your dream-state and understanding what that the symbols mean to you personally and what they can tell you about your conscious mind.

For the amount of time that we spend dreaming we take little time to analyze what happens compared to our daily lives.  Usually if I wake up and remember a dream it effects me for a few minutes and I usually forget about it before I brush my teeth.  A few months ago I wanted to change this so I started to write down what I was dreaming about immediately upon waking up.  Whenever I wake up there is about a 50/50 chance that I will write down what I dreamt due to my laziness but I managed to get a few down on paper.  There are 3 main themes that I have noticed from the dozen dreams I have written down.

1. Being chased or pursued by someone – There is always a feeling of dread that I know I am going to get caught or that it is useless to run but I run anyways.
2. I am not prepared for an important event – It usually has something to do with not being properly dressed or not having materials for a meeting
3. I do something that I can’t undo – I cheat on a girlfriend or hurt someone gravely.

Looking at this list is kind of depressing – why can’t I dream about flying or fucking supermodels?  In all of these dreams there are people I know and don’t know, specific objects, places or environments that I may or may not have experienced in my conscious state.  All of these parts and pieces form to create the unfiltered subconscious thoughts that I am made aware of through dreams.   The subconscious is the core of our being and is the key to looking at what there may be after death.  What do we have after we die and our rational self is pulled away along with our physical bodies?  Nothing – except maybe our instinctual selves (or life force, soul or whatever you want to call it).

Anyways, I know that there has to be something there that I am unable to decipher.  Dreams are often seen as silly or trivial but I think that they can be an important part of understanding oneself and why a person does the things that they do.  As man has replaced the “unknown” from life through rationalism he has replaced it with facts and marginalized the subconscious which has led to superstition and blind ignorance coexisting with skepticism and scientific conviction.  As we become more reliant on rationalism and move away from the symbolic side of ourselves we may lose an important part of our humanity. There is much to learn from the subconscious and we need to be more open to the possibility of accessing the knowledge and insight which may come from understanding our dreams.

What do you think?