Do you believe that dreams actually have a real meaning to them?

A Flutter FAQ

All dreams mean something whether it’s coming from your subconscious mind, feelings, or your seeing the future.
http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/v.htm

I think dreams always mean something, whether good or bad they have to mean something since there is a reason why you’re having them. Try talking to your ex or something. You’ll see it someday I’m sure of it.

There is also one more thing. Some people think ( I believe it ) that a dream is reality until you wake up. Meaning if in a dream a gun is held to your head you react the same way in your dream as you would in real life.

I’ve always found my dreams/nightmares/night terrors as a way for my “other half” to relieve itself.

I always have this dream I’m in this gas station and Im paying at the register and I set my daughter down (Im still pregnant right now) and in the dream she looks about one or maybe one and a half and she’ll run down the isle and I’ll go to chase her and at the end of the isle my ex boyfriend is just standing there staring at me. I go to pick up my daughter and she points at him and says “Da-Da” and I look at him then like run out of the store. (He isn’t the father, btw.)

When I wake up I really feel freaked out about this dream.

@Mom2BDec2010 could just be a fear you have that you buried in your unconscious and it just shows itself in your dreams. No real reason to be frightened unless you actually do have a strong reason to believe that he is in fact the father. And by strong reason, I do not mean a dream.

I think dreams are just another expression of what you have already been thinking about, and that they cannot be trusted any more than any other form of intuition or gut instinct.

What kind of relationship did you have with your ex? Was it good/not good? Did it end okay? that might help figure this out

@DarlingRhadamanthus It was good, but ended badly. We don’t talk anymore and we’re no longer friends. Before we even had a dating relationship we were best friends.

My fiance refuses to let me talk to him. Blocked him from my facebook and everything.

Meaning making is what humans do. As far as I know, we are the only creatures on the planet, and maybe in the universe, that do this.

Since we each make meaning on our own, there is no one absolutely correct meaning. So, yes, dreams have real meaning to anyone who attaches meaning to them. All meaning is real, so that’s no big deal.

I think you’re not really asking about meaning, though. I think the real thing you are trying to get at is whether you can trust the meaning you have attributed to your dreams. More specifically, I think you are wondering how much correspondence do things that happen in dreams have with things that happen in waking life. I.e., if you kiss your crush in a dream, does that mean your crush wants you to kiss him in real life?

Well, it’s your meaning, so if you decide that’s what it means, then that’s what it means. However you have doubts about this, so you ask for corroboration from others. The problem is that we all have our own meanings. If you listen to us, there is a good chance that you will confuse yourself, and become less certain about what you think things mean.

Another factor that enters into this, I think, is the element of wishful thinking. Often times when we want something to happen in waking life, we will dream about it happening in dream life. Then, because we want it so badly, we try to talk ourselves into believing that it has to happen in reality because it happened in the dream.

Like anything, if you want it to happen, you have to make it happen. If a dream gives you the gumption to make it happen, then that’s what the dream means. If you decide the dream is a metaphor for something else, then that’s what the dream means.

I believe that one useful way of interpreting dreams is to not look at the literal events of the dream, but to look at the feelings associated with those events. I think those feelings are likely to be stuff you are working through at the moment.

So if you dream about your ex, it’s not about your ex, but about the feelings you associate with your ex or with whatever you happened to be doing with your ex in the dream. So if you’re making love to your ex, it isn’t about finding your ex and getting back together. It’s about a complicated love/hate feeling—and it’s likely a reflection of something that is going on in your life at the time.

If you dream about someone dieing, it’s not a wish for them to die. Rather is a feeling associated with death—maybe fear, or sadness, or whatever.

So when interpret dreams, I try to imagine the feelings that would be associated with the events in someone’s dream, and then when I think I have that, I try to think of what might make someone feel that way, other than what happened in the dream. Sometimes the dream helps figure that out. Sometimes you have to interview the dreamer to figure it out. I prefer to try to do it without more information other than about the dream, just because it’s fun to see if I can make any decent predictions about the person’s life.

Anyway, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!

Wait. Someone who you’re not married to chooses whom you can and cannot talk to, and sets restrictions? Perhaps that’s why you’re dreaming about your boyfriend.

Okay…that makes sense.

I’ve given (in another answer somewhere on the Fluther) one method of interpreting dreams.
First of all, there is no reason to be alarmed. Dreams simply point out things that are in our unconscious and/or unresolved issues we still hold in our thoughts. So, take a breath. :)

This is what I call “a big dream”...because it is recurring and it is very vivid to you.

I think that there is possibly a part of you that wonders what would it have been like had you stayed with him and had his child. Perhaps there was a yearning, longing to have a child with him…and it never materialized. As you expect a new child, it’s normal to think about the past, perhaps with regret over things that you would have wanted to do differently. This person (as you mentioned) was your best friend. That’s a big deal. Perhaps even more than the fact that you got involved romantically.

You are in a gas station…you are going somewhere else. You stop to pay but you are on a journey elsewhere. He is still at the station, at the end of an aisle, just standing there. Your child runs and calls him “Da-da.” The child runs between you and him…communicating between you both.

Perhaps before continuing on your new journey with your child…you might want to do some healing with this relationship….you don’t necessarily have to contact him (especially if it ended really badly), but you can do this simply to contact him in spirit and resolve this on your own. It’s in two parts:

Part 1——You don’t need the other person to heal a situation…as long as you resolve it within yourself. Do this first: link

The second part would be for you to re-enact the dream and change the ending…you simply act out the whole dream in your living room/bedroom going over and paying the guy at the counter, seeing your daughter run and then seeing your ex. Your child goes over and you can go get your child and pick her up. Then, just talk to him….say the things that you would have wanted to say. Change the dream. Let him say the things that you would have wanted him to say. Then, simply end it peacefully between you…take your child and walk calmly out and get in your car and go to your destination (all in your imagination, of course, but walk it out like a play, speaking the parts out loud or in your mind.)

Whatever you decide to do…this dream simply lets you know that there is still something about this person that you still hold in your thoughts. This was an important person in your life after all.

All best wishes.

@BarnacleBill I know I don’t think it’s right either but we’re getting married in December.

Oh….I just read your comment about your fiance blocking you from him.

If you had the opportunity, would you want to contact your ex? Or was he mean?

@DarlingRhadamanthus I know I would if I could.

@Mom2BDec2010….I think you have your answer to your dream. :) That you would if you could.

And in the dream, it allows you to have contact…even if it is only in a dream.

@DarlingRhadamanthus Ahh, that does kinda make sense.

No, I think they have absolutely no meaning whatsoever.

I second @jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities answer.

i have had a dream like that but my brother died, it tought me to be nicer to him.. maybe your dream is teaching you to listen to your heart is the dream is telling you to talk to him or, maybe its just you thinking about him. either way just listen to your heart and do what you feel is the best thing to do..