On dreams

I have this growing interest in oneirology, the study of dreams.

We all know that dreams are successions of thoughts the mind experiences during sleep. Ask Mr. Wikipanion and he'll tell you it's a physiological response to neural processes during sleep, psychologically as reflection of the subconscious, particularly because when we sleep, the brain doesn't. I did some research and found some interesting facts. I'll be naming a few because I'm pretty sure you know them already.

• We only dream of what we know

- Well, I didn't agree on this one at first until I read further and had things sorted out. We think our dreams are full of strangers, but those faces are not invented by our minds- they are real faces of existing people. The mind registers the faces you have seen since you were a kid and those that you don't even remember may appear in your dreams. With all those faces you encountered, there will be an endless supply of characters the brain must utilize for your dreams. For instance, the psychotic serial killer in your dreams might be that salesman in a department store fitting you school shoes when you were a kid, but you don't remember that face do you?

• You forget 90% of your dreams

- In my case I think I've been missing all the good parts. Everytime I wake up, it's either there are tears in my eyes or I feel like I just came out of a horror movie.

• Anxiety is dominant in dreams

- I can bet my whole life on this one. The last time I remember I had a good dream was years ago.

• You can have four to seven dreams in one night

- On average, we dream about one to two hours every night. In that time we can already produce seven stories. Most of them are unfinished though.

• Men and women dream differently

- Men tend to dream more about other men. No, not in that homosexual way. 70% of the characters in their dreams are men, while women dream of an equal population. Generally, men have more aggressive emotions in their dreams than the female lot.

• Dreams are not about what they are about

- Dreams speak in deep symbolic language. So just because you had a dream of a massacre occurring in your neighborhood, does not mean it's going to happen. Although, there are cases of reported pre-cognitive dreams, of which are about visions of the future. Whether or not they are scientifically proven, or just a fluke, I am not sure. Given that dreams are most of the time representations of lighter emotions, I feel enlightened. I have had more awful dreams than any teenage girl has had in her lifetime. That's real sad right.

I have been dreaming of demons trying to kill me since last year. The bad things is it all seem so real that my eyes well up when I wake up and I feel absolutely horrible. I pray every night, and wish for no more nightmares to visit me but on those rare occasions I still dream of them. I consulted dreammoods.com, and it says that,

To see demons in your dream, represents ignorance, negativity, distress or your shadow self. It also forewarns of overindulgence and letting lust give way to your better judgment. As a result, your physical and mental health may suffer.

To dream that you are possessed by demons, indicates ultimate helplessness.