MacGougan at Large
Notes on Dreams - 4
Why Do Bad Dreams Happen to Good People?
I wonder sometimes why all dreams aren’t happy dreams? Surely they ought to be. Here’s my simple chain of reasoning:
Pretty much everybody prefers the experience of a happy dream over a bad dream.
At some level, each of us is the author, boss, and sole customer of our dreams.
In our dreams, we can go anywhere and do anything. There is no cap on how enjoyable a dream can be.
Given all that, shouldn’t we have dreams of love, success, adventure, and luxury every night? Why are they the exception and not the rule? Why do we have to suffer through uncomfortable dreams and the occasional nightmare?
I believe the prevailing theory on this is that we use dreams like fire drills or war games. By simulating a problem or emergency, they give us a chance to role-play our response. Such rehearsal ought to make us better prepared to face problems and emergencies in real life.
Does it work? Hard to say. Thankfully, in real life I haven’t had to face most of the things I’ve encountered in bad dreams. Maybe I’ve been preparing for the wrong emergencies.
Or maybe it’s just a matter of time. It could be that any day now I’ll wake up in a zombie apocalypse, short of clothing and late for an exam I can’t find and haven’t studied for.
Then it will occur to me: “Hold on - I’ve been here before. I can handle this! Thank Heaven for all those training exercises that I thought were just annoying bad dreams!”
Maybe bad dreams were primitive cavemen’s version of horror movies and each of us has a little Alfred Hitchcock in our subconscious
I think dreams are just the psyche taking out the trash, and that much of that is as much emotional as rational. So of course they don’t make sense, and are often somewhat unpleasant (or at least bizarre, which can be quite interesting!), but not in any really meaningful way.
Ever had a dream that was so funny it woke you up laughing? That’s a fun experience!