Dreaming of beaches and seals ...

I woke up this morning with a very strong memory of my dream. What causes us to dream? Why are some dreams more vivid and memorable than others? And what did my dream mean?

According to the experts, the most memorable and vivid dreams usually occur in the final stage of sleep, the REM (Rapid Eye movement sleep). There are various psychologists who have different theories as to why we dream and what it means to dream. Although there are some variability in their theories, I am finding that the theories are not too different from each other.

Sigmund Freud believes that dreams are wish fulfilment. He theorizes that there is a symbolic nature to dreams and that dreams are a direct connection to our unconsciousness. It is through our dream that our hidden desires are unfolded. But Freud insists that everything in our dreams is about our sexual psyche.

Alfred Adler’s theory is not too far from Freud, he believed that dreams are an open pathway to our true thoughts, emotions and actions. Adler sees dreams as a way of overcompensating for our shortcomings in our waking life. Dreams offer some sort of satisfaction that may be more socially acceptable.

For Carl Jung, dreams serve as a guide for the waking self to achieve wholeness. For him, our dreams offers us a solution to a problem we are facing in our waking life.

Frederick Perls on the other hand theorizes that dreams contain the rejected, disowned parts of the Self. Every character and every object in your dream represents every aspect of yourself. Perls asserts that in order to discover which aspect of the Self that is being disowned, it is important to retell your dream in the common tense.

So back to my dream, I dreamt that I was walking in the compound with a friend whom I often take walks in the evening with. And then she led me out through the backdoor which I never knew existed before. And it led us to the local village (more like the Malay seaside kind rather than the Bedouin kind.) We walked past two shops selling mats, keropoks and various titbits. I chided her for not bringing me through this walk earlier. We walked on the sand, lingering a little bit to where the waves come. It was pleasant to have the feel of the waves on my feet. Then we arrived to a jetty like structure where they were some people just sitting there looking at the sea. I thought I saw some penguins swimming in the clear green water, but as the creatures swam nearer I realised that they were seals, not penguins.

And then I realised that I was suddenly alone. And I had bought some fish from this guy selling them, so that people can feed the seals (errkk don’t ask me the environmental implications of this please!) And he was giving me instructions as to how to throw the fishes at the seals. He told me that I must be careful to throw them out and far because I don’t want the seals to come lunging at me for the fish.

So I was a little bit frightened (yes I am a scaredy cat, even in my dream!) And I decided to throw all of my fish out to the seals at once, and I threw it far and high.

And then I decided that I needed to walk home. I traced back my steps until I reached the secret small door leading back to my compound. In the compound was more sand and an artificial lake. It was pleasant but man-made, unlike the real Mccoy just outside that small door. And I headed towards my room which was small. Along the way, I picked up three newspapers, remarking to myself that I haven’t read or even touched real nice thick newspapers for a long time. Where have I been? What have I been so busy with that I haven’t had the chance to read newspapers (I am or used to be a news junkie until I moved here.) Just the feel of the newspaper between my hands was good.

My room however was small and somewhat cramped. And I found one or even two cockroaches in my room. (Even in paradise there are rodents?) So I decided that I will ask to change rooms, I will ask to move back to my villa, where there are no cockroaches.

And with that I woke up, and realised I was back in our villa. No beaches in the backdoor but at least no cockroaches as well.

Even in my dreams, my world is balanced. In life, there are always good sides and bad sides. For the luxury of watching seals and walking at the beach, I had to put up with cockroaches. Yikes!

Anyone with any theories with regards to the seals?



Seals