Whispers of the Subconscious: The hidden meaning behind our dreams.
A discursive composed by Jayda Rongonui (Year 11 Advanced English) and artwork created by Mia (Year 10)
We often contemplate our dreams - it is innately human- and we wonder if they are in any way tied to our realities, for these dreams can be so authentic that they are difficult to distinguish from our living truths. Sigmund Freud once mused that: "The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.” Was he merely proposing the idea that dreams are attempting to inform us of our deepest anxieties? Or that our subconscious thoughts are delivered to us in the form of a dream; coming to remind us of unconscious notions that we haven't yet unlocked? Maybe dreams are like letters from the subconscious to the conscious, whispering to us desperately of what we need to know, but haven’t had the time or courage to confront.
Multiple scientific studies have shown that dreams arise in the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the cerebrum, which is located on the top of the brain. But what if I told you that dreams could be more than just a mere process of the brain? That it could be whispers in our ear, letters flowing through the slits in our brains, waiting to be read. Coming to us in the thick of the night in a desperate bid to tell us, to inform us, of important truths.
According to the National Institute of Health, it is said that of the 7-8 hours a human sleeps, we are only able to remember around 80% of our dreams. So why is it that of the dreams people remember, all of them dwell around the concept that seems to remind and teach? They’re like these edging notions that nag at the organ of thoughts, trying to tell us something.
Trying to tell me to go after that boy that I’ve liked ever since I was 11 years old.
Trying to tell me to travel the world, to just do it.
It’s like the inner mind- in a way- trying to play out the ideas we are not so confident to in our waking lives. Perhaps it speaks of secrets within our soul, or perhaps it is trying to tell us something important, without actually telling us.
I have always lived by the mantra: "Everything happens for a reason," and believed that our lives are already planned, they’re just waiting for us to fill in the finer details. These whispers from the subconscious that are so desperate to reach us arrive as a slight murmur in our ear, but these dreams have a significant purpose: they shadow our thoughts, our actions, our footsteps, to ensure we are alerted to the most important things. They may be the guiding hands of our fates or a moral compass perhaps?
Only recently have I become aware of how dreams can make you aware of what is important. At the age of 13, my aunt passed away. To lose a loved one to me was an indecipherable sort of pain, and the dream I had challenged me further. I still remember it to this day, it was a vivid dream, realistic in a way. In it, my aunt was lying lazily by a pool of water, looking tired. I confronted her gently, asking if she was okay.
"No," was what she replied, "I was just too sick."
"But were they looking after you?" I replied, dread pitting within my stomach.
"They were just too busy."
I woke up that morning replaying the scene over in my head. I was perplexed by this dream; it was inscrutable, an over thought even. I wasn't sure what purpose this dream had; was it merely coincidence, or did it speak of something of utter importance? A few months later it came out that my beloved aunt had passed due to medical negligence, and it was as though she had appeared in my dream, to tell me of this truth. I was befuddled by how the details in the dream were so precise. Were these subconscious thoughts and fears coming to me as a whisper, as a letter, with a bright red ribbon wrapped around it or were they coming from somewhere else? Science doesn’t yet have the answer to such a profound question such as this.
Perhaps dreams are just the voices of our subconscious, delivered to us in abstract envelopes, containing a message that could hold so much meaning for us. They notify us of our complexities, of the things we aren't confident to admit. These voices speak quietly to us, of thoughts we possess but can't find the courage to say out loud. Maybe, just maybe, these dreams are utterances from our inner selves, from our subconscious to the conscious, coming to alert us, teach us, empower us.
