Man’s desire to interpret his dreams began shortly after the invention of fire.  The first recorded dreams conversation began this way:

“This fire is amazing.  I dreamt about it last night. What do you think that means?”

“It means you are a loser. Fire, schmire. If you don’t get off your butt and start chasing mastodons, we will have no food to cook in the fire you love so much, and you may as well start having dreams about me running off with your brother.  Because I will be, as they say, Gone With the Wind.”

Life in the Boomer Lane has always been intetested in dreams, ever since, as a small child she dreamt she was lying on the railroad tracks, when a train came. On the underside of the cars was pasted all of the Sunday comics. LBL laid on the tracks, marvelling at the colorful illustrations whizzing by overhead.  It was, for her, a glorious dream. A couple years ago, she wrote a post, The Meaning of Dreams.   This post severed to educate loyal readers about all of the compelling questions they had about their own dreams, specifically why they were always naked and lost.

LBL’s own interest in dreams was piqued lately, when, during her recent bout of pneumonia, her dreams became strange in an entirely new way.  She had already had several categories of strange dreams, including:

1. being lost in some random way
2. being lost outside in a city and it started getting dark
3. being lost in a big hotel or resort and there were big stairways all over that always led to incorrect levels or random mid-levels
4. being lost and there were elevators that only seemed to lead to #3 or else only seemed to go right to the top of the building, which was no help at all
5. being lost and finally, after finding the general area where she wanted to go, the doors weren’t maked correctly and there were a lot of sorority girls doing a lot of sorority girl things and no one could really help her

#5, for some reason, was the most terrifying, not the least of which was that LBL, as a college student, avoided sororities and sorority girls at all cost. Why they would suddenly start populating her dreams is a mystery to her.

But these pneumonia-inspired dreams were there own category of crazy.  She needed answers. The pulmonologist was no help. Instead, she turned to the internet. Lo and behold, she found that there is an International Association for the Study of Dreams.  And there was even a section to answer some mightly important questions about dreams.

Does everyone dream?  Yes.

Why do people have trouble remembering their dreams?  Some people don’t.  if you do, you are either normal or inferior, whichever state you choose.

How can I improve my dream memory?  Before you fall asleep, remind yourself that you want to remember your dreams. Try not to move for several hours when you wake up. Then spend an entire hour getting out of bed very slowly.   After that, you won’t ever care about remembering your dreams.

Are dreams in color?  Yes.

Do dreams have meaning?  Yes, unless you dream you are being chased by leprechauns.  Those dreams have no meaning.

How can I learn to interpret my dreams?  Since dreams are unique to the dreamer, the interpretation of the dream is also unique. My dream of being consumed by flesh-eating bacteria may elicit a totally different reaction in LBL than it does in you. (An aside: LBL often wonders what kind of nightmares flesh-eating bacteria have. Surely there must be something that scares them, right?)

How can I learn to interpret my dreams?  You can spend a lot of time reading books about dreams. Just be advised that, if you do, you will have no time to update your Facebook page, and your friends will start sending you sad emojis.

What does it mean when I have the same dream over and over?  Usually it means that you haven’t gotten it right yet.

Is it normal to have nightmares?  Nightmares are common.  The good news, according to the IASD is that “Recent studies suggest that the people who have nightmares tend to be more open, sensitive, trusting, and emotional than average.”  In other words, this is your punishment for your good traits.

Is it true that if you dream that you die or that you hit bottom in a falling dream, you will in fact die in your sleep?  No.  The only thing that has been proven to cause people to die during sleep is death.  Death will stop both you and your dream. Hence, actual death is more harmful to us than dreams.

Can dreams predict the future?  There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that dreams can predict the future. But it’s a difficult thing to research, because many dreams predict events way in the future. If this happen, the researchers may be dead before they find out if the dream came true.

Is it possible to control dreams?  You can try to give yourself pre-sleep suggestions. Or you can practice “lucid dreaming,” in which you know you are dreaming and can then try to influence events. LBL has had lucid dreams, in which she spends all of the dream trying to convince the people in the dream that they aren’t real. They usually just laugh at her.

If you have any other questions about dreams, you can write to the IASD. Or you can ask LBL any questions and she will give you idiotic, irreverent answers. She is always good for that.