DREAMS – THE FANCY STAGEPLAY WHERE EMOTIONS MEET ENGIMAS

Dreams are the series of events that appear to transpire in the surroundings when an individual is at sleep. They are ever captivating mysterious worlds owned by individuals, accentuating nature’s ruling essence over spheres beyond human constraints and comprehension. They reveal that a living brain is infinite in faculties and owns immense potential, for it can even prove the existence of another world called dreams. While individuals allow themselves to be vanquished by the daily grind and mundanities of life, the casket within them, that houses magical sensations and avid gets forgotten. Man becomes a slave of the prosaic courses of life but a part within him wants to emancipate itself from it and search for some magic. The rich contents and glamorous enchantments are locked up in chests and buried in deep catacombs of mind.  A bizarre feature of the subconscious mind is the aspect of inculcating inadvertent sleeping visions in living creatures. Such visions tend to fascinate all minds and govern all hearts. Dreams are a living, breathing web of energy which is a deep presentiment to question the powers of logic. They breed wonders. A man ponders if they symbolize some sort of future happenings, illustrate past life occurrences, prompt contemporaries and so on. They are believed to be an allegory of another reality.

Involuntary stirring events rise in mind during an ongoing siesta which has forever been an enduring source of awe for researchers and scientists in oneirology. Dreams are the platform where a man acts as a dancing puppet in a movie. It is arduous to decode the meaning of such feature films. This is the reason why dream interpretation is not recognized as an exact science as one of science’s murkier territories is sleep. Though individuals forget, everyone is believed to have cataloged several events in their dreams between three to six times per night with each episode consisting of five to twenty minutes. A man typically takes an interval from this restless world and switches on to another sentient world at night. At the crack of dawn, he is found back at the same place. Sleep is an analogy of another world. Every man is believed to have spent one –third of his life in this world. Living sleep owns various stages. The first ninety minutes are deepening stages. During this time, there is a transition from light sleep to deep sleep. When a man enters REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, his heart rate and breathing becomes irregular, eyes start moving rapidly and brain activity rises to the same level as it is when the man is awake. During these hours of REM sleep, the person describes mystical tales which we call dreams. In this REM course the body gets paralyzed to a position so that the person doesn’t act out his dreams in reality. More REM sleep is experienced in the am hours .REM sleep decreases with age. Happy dreams are believed to own memories of sublime reveries while nightmares are said to elucidate personal fear. If a man wakes up at the end of sleep cycle, dreams are remembered while if he snoozes through, until the next one, dreams get forgotten. Dreams trigger haphazard random stories. There are several kinds of dreams. They are-

Lucid Dreams

Dreams carry various aromas. Lucid dreams are those jubilant dreams where situations and circumstances are under the control of the individual dreaming. All the stuff that consist the dream is conclusive and move on according to the person’s will and desire. Such radiantly tinted dreams provide aesthetic pleasure to individuals owning them. They are a boon to an individual where the person acts as the director and film- maker of his own dream.

Precognitive Dreams

Mind concocts visions that can foreshadow actual events. Precognition illustrates the inculcation of dreams in reality. Walking premonitions bestows symbolic warning prospects for fortune. It depicts the power of sixth sense which is very sensitive to stimuli. It speaks that the gut instinct is not a paranoid. It dwells within every individual and can pick up bad vibrations, making up discernment on a person or circumstance even before the brain. It might be due to some divine intervention or could be by happenstance but there have been numerous proved instances of dreams foretelling future. In 1932, the famous American aviator, Charles Lindbergh’s infant son was kidnapped, murdered and buried among trees. Two psychologists Henry Murray and D.R. Wheeler invited the public to report any dreams of the child. In total 1300 dreams were reported from the nearby residents. Five percent of which envisioned the child’s demise and four of them saw the location of the grave as amongst the trees. Death touches the spring of common humanity. This number seemed to be no better than chance. Such eerie, evil forebodings can act as warning perceptions for withdrawal from a task. Intuition is an inbuilt liable feature of the body by default. Often it is dismissed as a mere coincident though it pays to remember them.

Recurring Dreams

When similar events get repeated in sleeping visions, the phenomena is called a recurring dream. Such intermittent, perpetual dreams merit close attention and reproduce exotic temptation. They are said to affirm a meaning. They are believed to own blurred memories of previous lives, hallowed by evocation of sad and happy events in the days long vanished. About sixty to seventy five percent of adults experience such dreams. They are found to be more common in women than in men. It implicates a triggering event that brings about a lot of difference. An individual should carve out time to think on such animate, repeating dreams. These dreams usually emphasize that there is something in a person’s life not acknowledged or done, causing some sort of stress. The dreams repeat until the problem is corrected.

Nightmares

Traumatic visions, dispensing tormenting apprehensions are called nightmares. A feigned peaceful sleep might consist of terrific; horror visions just like gilded tombs do have worms inside. On getting up there is a sense of emerging from dark, haunted places. It is estimated that about fifty to eighty five percent of adults report such sensations occasionally, which become less frequent with age. Night terrors can also be associated to sleep disorder or mental illness. They are typically reported in children aged three to six years. There are existences of many myths reasoning nightmares. According to a legendary belief, Incubus (demon in male form) and its female counterpart Succubus lie down over sleeping people and get engaged in sexual activity with them. This causes nightmares among those people sleeping. Although just a belief, it is said that constant encounter with either of them can lead to certain diseases and even cause death. Many individuals install a dream catcher in their casements to keep away bad dreams.

Normal Dreams

Random inconclusive events that appear to crop up in the surroundings during sleep are called normal dreams. There exists a myth that a man never sees himself in his dreams but feels his presence in forms of other familiar or unfamiliar characters. About twenty percent of people are found to be dreaming only in black and white colours while the rest eighty percent dream in pastel colours. Also people lacking eyesight can dream visually with more sensation than people owning it. This promulgates that the dejected, disoriented and handicapped in this world; can concede greater power at their hands in the world of dreams. Maybe somewhere there resides an extant realm where reality coincides with dreams. Humans including other animals and insects can probably find their existence on that realm, proving that every living body dreams. This would picture that every physique is a member of two worlds that is the present world and the sleeping world. Such scenario can revive the rapidly receding magical essence from this restless, competitive world. Dreams are also believed to be capable of connecting people. According to paranormal experts, whenever a person misses an individual there are eighty percent chances that the individual would picture the person in his/her dreams. Often ignored, dreams can serve specific purpose and hold their efficiencies if properly anticipated.

Sometimes it appears that several episodes and incidents in sleep visions are previously seen or experienced ones. Although upon clever thinking, one might not remember the occurrence of that incident in real life. This phenomenon is called déjà vu. At times neglected, pseudo scientists claim that an individual must pay attention to any negative emotion the dream evokes.

Day Dreams

This phenomenon is due to the unsteady and wobbling nature of mind that owns the competence to play around hundreds of thoughts within a few minutes. Daydreams are quite common and are a frequent obvious phenomenon. But sometimes they breed illusions. Illusions speak that there are times when we tend to teeter on mayhem and oblivion. Hallucinations appear as real and actual as sleeping visions. There are various phenomenon illustrating hallucination. Apophenia is when a person gets perceptions and meanings through inanimate objects which might seem ordinary for the other people around. Perceiving hidden messages in music, encountering weird faces at different spots, finding mystical drawings in ordinary objects are some of the instances for apophenia. It is often believed that a mystics and magic start from the place where the logic loses its horizon. 

There are several theories proposed for the reason behind dreaming. Sigmund Freud, the developer of psychological discipline of psychoanalysis proposed the Freudian theory in 1900s which says that dreams represent the manifestation of one’s deepest desires and anxieties, repressed childhood memories and obsessions which enables brain activation, memory formation and problem solving. Modern theories suggest that dreams are autobiographical thoughts based on hidden emotions and daily activities of life. Some theories propose that they serve some purpose while others say that they are a mere part of the sleep cycle.

In spite of having numerous theories there is no proved evidence behind why a man dreams, what is the purpose of the dreams, or what actually happens after entering a sleep. Dreams have forever been an open frontier for many unfolding discoveries. Maybe one day we can find a place where reality collides with dreams. But at this present juncture there is no conclusion attained for the questions behind dreaming. Sleep is the secret allegory of another great reality.

By URMIKA GHOSH, PUGMIL, HAZARIBAG