Dreaming the day away 

It always happens to me: I find myself resting peacefully in bed and enjoying a pleasant dream. Maybe I am kicking the goal that wins the World Cup for the United States, or snapping definitive photographs of a nesting pair of ivory-billed woodpeckers. No matter what, just as the shuttle door opens for me to begin my spacewalk, the alarm goes off.

Professor Trelawney’s vision foresaw a gloomy end for either Harry Potter or Voldemort. Calphurnia was jarred from her rest by a vision of Caesar’s demise. I dreamed of having pizza for lunch just minutes before a kind benefactor dragged a few steaming pies into the office. Throughout recorded history, in fact and in fiction, a large segment of humanity has been fascinated by the prescient power of dreams.

Whatever the circumstances, few of us can say that we have not had at least the occasional odd dream or premonition. Sometimes they can be so vivid that we wake up certain that the events actually happened. Other times they can be startling and outlandish.

Whether you pay attention to such things or not, these phenomena can be fascinating fodder for discussion. That fact has not escaped the Internet, which is simply bristling with websites dedicated to the classification and interpretation of dreams. With a few clicks, you are likely to be able to find someone who has documented the very same dream that you had last night.

That dreams are capable of predicting the future remains to be seen. Regardless, dreaming is a reality that many of us experience on a nightly basis. Those of you who would like to know more about dreams may find the following websites particularly useful.

www.dreammoods.com

This was the first resource I encountered in my online search for the meaning of my dreams. The Dream Moods website offers more than just a list of dreams and one-line definitions, providing easily assimilated information on everything from the body’s physical reactions during dreaming to pioneers in the study of dreams.

It is impossible to define Sigmund Freud in just a couple of paragraphs, but the site offers a capsule bio of the so-called father of psychoanalysis along with information on Jung, Adler and others. In addition, it provides an overview of the different stages of sleep, defining the periods within the sleep cycle in which dreaming is experienced.

All that background information is interesting, but I wanted to find answers to preconceptions about dreaming that I thought to be false. One was the common schoolyard tale that people who dream about falling can die if they do not wake up before impact. As you can imagine, the experts define this as nonsense.

I looked up a dream I had had years ago about being chased by a bear and found that it indicated that I was afraid of introspection. That let Yogi off the hook. I found much of the content here highly entertaining and well organized; I’m just not sure I believe it. Still, for helping me get to the root of that old bear dream, www.dreammoods.com can dream about four spiders.

http://petrix.com/dreams

Those prepared to skip the background and jump right into the dreams are likely to appreciate the Dream Dictionary at this Web address. Presented in the most easily navigated fashion possible, it divides dreams into six categories.

I ran into the animal category to get a second opinion on being chased by a bear. This time it told me that the bear’s appearance in my dream signified that I would enjoy a victory over my enemies. Naturally, I preferred this definition, and went on to look up other dream topics.

I learned that dreaming about frogs can be bad news, at least according to this interpreter, and that a fox in the dreams could indicate one in the proverbial henhouse as well. In the color category, I was informed that blue-themed dreams indicate peace of mind and serenity.

I was a little surprised to find out that dreams of gold actually pointed to positive wealth issues in real life. Sadly, I have never dreamed of gold, which may explain my rather modest financials. I’ll be thinking about Fort Knox before I go to sleep tonight, just in case.

The Dream Dictionary even attributes significance to dreams that reference particular months of the year. A dream of January, for example, is thought to indicate upcoming prosperity. Again, the first month is missing from my dream programming. While I don’t appear to be in danger of dreaming myself wealthy anytime soon, I did enjoy reading a different set of interpretations. For pointing me down the path to riches,

http://petrix.com/dreams grabs a quintet of ethereal arachnids.

www.newagedirectory.com

I’m not exactly sure what is going on here at the New Age Directory. While the site is studded with ads for ring tones and screensavers, it manages to present a good bit of information on the dream world and the supernatural. It reminded me a little bit of the “Ghostbusters” movies.

This was the first site I encountered that presents a theory on the effects that eating before bedtime has on dream activity. It encourages nighttime noshers to make a note of their midnight menu and keep a record of the dishes that produce pleasant dreams.

Dreams like that, from the physical realm, are held distinctly apart from dreams that originate in the spiritual world, and that is the point where it started to tax my credulity. Those of you who find these mysterious topics entertaining will have plenty to read on this site.

There are several stories about premonitions that are especially eerie, including a tale wherein President Abraham Lincoln has a dream predicting his own demise a few weeks before the tragedy occurred. While most of this seems to be conjecture, it is undeniably entertaining. Read a few pages, analyze your own dreams, and take it with a grain of salt; it is all your choice. For giving me a good case of the creeps on a weekday afternoon, www.newagedirectory.com already knew that it was going to receive four spiders.

I found dream analysis fun. Have a look and see what you think. If you come up with any interesting predictions, do let me know. I’ll be dreaming of receiving reader e-mail at granese@juno.com, as usual.