Dozing into the dream world
Every night when Sam Hicken shuts his eyes and drifts into the sleep world, he is encountered with new possibilities, dangers, fears and adventures. He, like most people, will spend one third of his lifetime sleeping and about six years dreaming.
“I like dreaming. It’s a fantasy land,” Hicken, a junior majoring in business, said. “There are no holds. You can do whatever you want and be whatever you want to be.”
Hicken said he remembers his dreams every night, and they have been about everything from tornados and lightning to him fighting in the Revolutionary War.
According to MAYBE SOME ID, FREUD IS A VERY FAMOUS PSYCHOLOGISTSigmund Freud, dreams are keys to unconscious desires. His theory was that the latent content, or the meaning of the dream, was a form a wish fulfillment.
This may be the case for Catherine Summerhays, who once dreamed that she was on “Bachelorette” and got to choose one of several good-looking guys to date. However, even if that would be a dream come true, Summerhays, a sophomore in elementary education, doesn’t believe dreams have to mean anything.
“I think that sometimes we have dreams of things that you need to know or that you want to change,” she said. “Sometimes dreams are meant to warn you. But most of the time, they are just nonsense and just leftover thoughts in your head.”
Although Freud’s theory is not proven, Katie Christensen, a sophomore majoring in interior design, said she sees how dreams could show a reflection of certain parts or issues in dreamers’ lives.
Some dreams she’s had come from things she’s seen on TV or does in real life, such as participate in school and work. For Christensen, a common dream is seeing people walking down the sidewalk, always only from the calf down, and always wearing different shoes.
“They will be wearing high heels or skater shoes, and they always trip and I jolt and wake up,” Christensen said. “And this usually happens two or three times a week.”
Christensen, who is a waitress at Ruby Tuesday, said she often dreams she is at the restaurant constantly trying to get things done but never finishing. Sometimes after these dreams, she said she feels exhausted as if she were awake all night.
One thing that Erin Spencer finds interesting is when her dreams come true in real life. Spencer, a sophomore majoring in interior design, said she once had a dream that she was looking at her hands while making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and few weeks later, it really happened. Her hands were exactly the same way and she was in the same place as her dream.
“It makes you wonder why this happens. Is there something special about me making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?” Spencer said.
Spencer is not alone in her dreams coming true though, as 67 percent of Americans have reported having Déjà vu in their dreams, the phenomenon happening more often to females than males, according to dreammoods.com.
Nightmares are common too and happen in 5 to 8 percent of adult dreams, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. Whitney Thompson, a sophomore majoring in nursing, said she has a reoccurring nightmare of her walking through a field covered in mice. Thompson, who is afraid of mice, said she has them crawling all over her in the dream as she keeps falling on them.
She also said she’s had dreams that her family is trying to kill her or that she is pregnant. When she has really bad nightmares, Thompson said she can’t be alone or the dreams feel too real.
Hicken, who served in the Army in Iraq for 11 months, said he often has nightmares that he is in Iraq and surrounded by bombs. The American Academy of Family Physicians said 8 to 68 percent of war veterans have nightmares involving trauma, intense rage, fear or grief.
“Sometimes I know I’m dreaming, but I can’t wake myself up,” Hicken said. “Sometimes after nightmares I’ll be petrified and I’ll have to convince myself to eventually move or turn a light on.”
He said he’s found that sleeping in the same room as another person is the easiest way to prevent nightmares. However, every once in a while, having nightmares can be exciting, he said.
“Sometimes they’re cool because I guess you don’t get scared enough in real life,” Hicken said. “I like dreaming, and, for the most part, I look forward to it.”