Tuesday, February 6, 2007

A little bit about the art

What is the point of dream interpretation, anyways?

Humans are symbolic creatures. Our most famous and unique symbol set is our vast trove of words, symbols we have managed to define fairly narrowly and precisely, such that we can cooperate with others and accomplish shared goals.

But dreams do not communicate in direct words. The best analogy to dreams is the symbolic system of literature; dreams use metaphor and symbolism to say things it cannot communicate with words.

And just as humans can appreciate a great book or work of art without understanding exactly what it means, so too can we appreciate and use dreams without ever knowing their point. Nevertheless, both literature/art and dreams can be interpretted and analyzed for meaning that can be expressed in our more precise system of word language.

The purpose of this interpretation is to better know ourselves. For since humans understand words more precisely than we understand deep metaphor, we can understand ourselves better if we can translate what our subconscious is telling us into words.