DREAM A LITTLE DREAM

Dreams capture the mind while the body rests.

They can shake you in the middle of the night and keep you awake until dawn. Dreams may calm you or scare you, puzzle you or enlighten you.

But where do dreams come from? Do they fall from the stars? Do tiny people whisper them into your ears as you fall asleep? Are dreams an evil spell that the monster under the bed has cast upon you? Lynn Williams, a child psychologist in the Spokane area, said that dreams occur when a person is in Rapid Eye Movement stage of sleep. She said they are probably the result of the mind sorting ideas and thoughts. Dreams can help the mind make sense of the many sights, sounds and influences experienced during the day. Still, Williams said, our scientific understanding of dreams is just a theory. Studies have revealed little concrete information. So if nothing is certain, then maybe dreams really are from the monsters under the bed. Idle fantasies or not, everyone dreams. Some can remember very little about their dreams while others easily recall the stories of what happened during the night. Dreams are as diverse as the people who have them. At Ritzville (Wash.) High students reported that the most common dreams dealt with everyday occurrences such as school, extracurricular activities and family and friend. Or more abstract topics involving fears of falling and being chased. Of 75 students informally polled 80 percent said they remember their dreams on a regular basis, 19 percent remember them occasionally and 1 percent never remember their dreams. Dreams, as we all know, can be weird, very weird. That's what makes them so fun to tell to others. Among weird dream topics students remembered having were homicidal turkeys and dancing elephant. "Once I dreamt I was a famous purple monster and this guy wanted to borrow my socks," said Ritzville sophomore Amber Shaffer. Others reported dreams about being trapped at school in the nude and several reported dreams about attacks by monkeys, UFOs and toys. "Mickey Mouse and his friends captured and beat me up," said Ryan Reilly, a sophomore. Do dreams have any effect on real life? More than half of students said some of their dreams have come true. So what do dreams mean? Do they mean anything? Many people who have studied dreams say they can give the dreamer insight into his or her personal state of being and health. While there are countless books on the market that claim to be able to interpret what things mean in dreams, others say images in dreams can have completely different meanings to different people. A good place to start if you're interested in exploring your dreams is the Association for the Study of Dreams Web site at www.asdreams.org. It's an international organization devoted to further education of dreams and studies involving dreams. The site offers everything from books to read to science projects on dreams that you can conduct on your own. So, what did you dream about last night?

Copyright 1999 Cowles Publishing Company
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