The Meaning of Dreams

I was at the library yesterday - driftnet fishing for books (ie wandering along the shelves picking books at random) - and I couldn't resist "The Meaning of Dreams" by Franklin D Martini. (I also couldn't resist "A Homeopathic Guide to Partnership and Compatibility" by Liz Lalor; I think my 'constitution' is Sulphur, which means I'm compatible with either Lachesis or Magnesium Carbonica, well duh!)

I love to psychoanalyse dreams, which is not surprising since I'm a chronic introvert. Obviously my own dreams are easier to understand than other people’s dreams; other people (and their dreams) are just weird! (I think narcissistic is now being spelt NICOLE). So it's a little surprising that I've never read a dream analysis text. Hmmm. Having read through some of "The Meaning of Dreams" last night I would conclude I've still not read a dream analysis text. The book is...at times...a little hilarious. It's basically an alphabetical listing and explanation of possible dream images. Some of the explanations are helpful and probably contain some truth, others are ludicrous (but in a fun way, if you don't take it too seriously - which doesn't seem to be the intention of the author).

The author, who no longer walks on this earthly plane, was a 'psychologist, astrologer, palm reader, handwriting expert, and master interpreter of dreams'. He viewed dreams as 'messages from the soul'. I also view dreams as messages from the soul. For me though, 'the soul' is my brain and body, and my dreams sort out the here and now of my life, as well as the past. Franklin D Martini saw dreams as doing more than this, his analyses often have a supernatural reasoning, he believed dreams can predict the future. I'm a little sceptical about dreams having an oracle power. At least everyday dreams. Maybe a wild, once-in-a-lifetime, possibly drug induced (or ordinary brain chemicals gone mad with the multi-dimensional unity of the universe) dream could go there. Or maybe I've had too much sugar today.

Another issue I have with the book is the actual images. In the last week I've had 3 vivid dreams, chock full of images, few of which were listed in the book. It's a shame that my sub-conscious didn't dig out its long-hidden image of The Sphinx:

Sphinx: To see this Egyptian creature, with a lion's body and a human head, indicates success through unusual creativity or ideas. These will bring wisdom and light to many.

Nevertheless, I've been able to construct some meaning to one of my dreams. Here are the salient images from the dream:

• me in a plane (a fairly common image, although the cabin of this plane was covered in painted flowers and some of the passengers were hippies - I think this was due to my watching videos of Janis Joplin on YouTube just before going to bed)



• being stopped at customs to have my luggage searched



• my luggage being searched by french actor Vincent Cassel



• (warning: too much information) Vincent Cassel suddenly naked, and with a part of his anatomy being freakishly large

Plane: To dream you are on a plane denotes that your efforts will be rewarded and your ambition achieved.

Luggage: To dream that you have lost your luggage (kind of) foretells trouble in speculations, and possible family dissension. To the young and unmarried, it means troubles in love.

Vincent Cassel: not listed

Sausage (kind of): To dream of making sausages is a warning of excessive sexual pleasure. To eat sausages indicates love intrigues. (Um...)

[I think it's pretty clear what's going on in my sub-conscious at the moment!
Although in another of my dreams there was a man with a gun:

Gun: To dream of this weapon is a bad omen. To dream of hearing the sound of a gun denotes trouble in work (the man didn't fire the gun). To dream of shooting the gun implies misfortune.]


I'll finish this blog entry with 3 remarkable and related dream images from the book and Franklin's interpretation of them:

Diarrhea: To dream you are thus afflicted implies you are sharing your emotions too freely with others. Some reserve is advised. (And less dream prunes*).

Excrement: To dream of excrement denotes some change in your social surrounding. (And maybe too much cavorting with the nightman).

Feces: To dream that you are discharging feces denotes a disappointment in money matters. (I'm guessing alot of stock brokers have been experiencing this dream in recent times).




Vincent Cassel (I like my men edgy):






*Prunes: To see or eat prunes denotes joy. Dried prunes relate to problems. To dream of them in winter means obstacles and difficulties, but only for a short duration. (What does it mean if you dream of prunes in spring, summer or autumn?)

I Admire All Forms of Obsessive-Compulsive Behaviour*

*This is one of my favourite sayings from the most brilliant and unique mind of my ex work colleague, Michael. Many years ago I worked in a particularly dull and uninspiring laboratory; Michael's wise maxim's, humour and warmth made it bearable.

Effulgent13 is all about the truth, except for when it's making things up. But this blog entry is truth-based. It's an exposé on a disturbing truth about my existence, in all its ugliness and slightly less ugliness. Behold, in wonder and terror, the ways in which I acquiesce to obsessive-compulsive behaviour:

• I love to (need to) look at graph's of the temperature, especially of the temperature where I live. My need is sated by this wonderful webpage set up by a professional obsessive-compulsive from the Earth Sciences department at the University of Melbourne. I am much calmed by the temperature's changing gradient. I have set this webpage as my homepage.

• In sync with the previous point, I also need to see the movement of rain across the city of Melbourne. The Bureau of Meteorology, in their infinite wisdom, have set up the beautiful BOM radar map (best appreciated when it's actually raining, otherwise it can look at little dull). There's lots to see on this website (eg the Doppler wind loop), enough to quell the most restless of obsessive-compulsive souls.

• An unrelenting and bizarre desire to read The Brother's Karamazov

• An insatiable, and completely futile, endeavour to calculate EXACTLY how much money I'll need for the rest of my life. And, as a corollary to this, how many hours I'll need to work and how much can I spend on DVD's, for the rest of my life.

• When my clothes are hanging on the line, after being washed, I have to spend at least a minute looking at them blowing in the wind and being warmed by the sun. I can just see the water molecules being liberated from the interstices of the fabrics, rendering them dry. Lovely.

• Collecting whiskers shed by Ms Willow Pussycat (thankfully I've stopped doing this for the moment). I'm not sure what I was going to do with the whiskers - perhaps build another cat.

• Giving Willow a pat every time I walk past her (she's just so damn touchable).

• Watching my married neighbour, Adam, getting in and out of his car. Whenever I hear the car door I bolt to the kitchen window and peer out, in the hope of catching a glimpse of him. (It's possible this is more about unrequited lust than obsessive-compulsiveness).

• Following on from the previous point, developing infatuations with unrealistic people or people who have no interest in me or people I don't know very much about.

• Hanging onto, and tenaciously repairing, old clothes that should be thrown away.

• Looking up in the dictionary every word I encounter for which I know not the meaning. (As I am currently reading a novel by China Mieville, who just adores archaic and obscure words, I am frequenting the dictionary with fervour. AND some of his words aren't even in my dictionary - The Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary; maybe I need to consult the "Ye Olde-Medieval-Gaelic-Latin-Aramaic-You-Name-it-We'll-Define-it" dictionary.

Karamazov Count: Page 300/The Grand Inquisitor

My mind is mulch. I'm still tackling the dense and almost paragraph-less chapter "The Grand Inquisitor", which has taken me over the 300 page mark of "The Brothers Karamazov". Fyodor's hypergraphia must have possessed him with a reckless intensity during the writing of this chapter/manifesto. My back is bent, my hair is falling out; I wouldn't be surprised if I start weeping tears of blood.

The Grand Inquisitor. A veritable ecstasy of verbosity and barely restrained incomprehensibility is Ivan Karamazov's theological tale set during the height of the Spanish Inquisition, with an anachronistic Jesus Christ being questioned/berated (rhetorically - Jesus can't get a word in!) by a Catholic Cardinal. Page after page of unyielding diatribe - lots about loaves of bread and freedom, and especially about the Catholic Church's powerful, sometimes despotic, influence over humans (my analysis is not very indepth due to the torpid word-boiled state of my brain). In case there is any doubt about the obtuseness of this chapter, here are two excerpts (featuring the craziness of the loaves and freedom):

"No science will give them bread while yet they are free, but the end of it will be that they will bring us their freedom and place it at our feet and say to us: 'Enslave us if you will, but feed us.' At last they themselves will understand that freedom and earthly bread in sufficiency for all are unthinkable together, for never, never will they be able to share between themselves! They will also be persuaded that they will never be free, because they are feeble, depraved, insignificant and mutinous. You promised them the bread of heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compare in the eyes of the weak, eternally depraved and eternally dishonourable human race with the earthly sort?" (The Brothers Karamazov, pg 291)

"Receiving loaves from us, of course, they will clearly see that what we have done is to take from them the loaves they won with their own hands in order to distribute it to them without any miracles, they will see that we have not turned stones into loaves, but truly, more than of the bread, they will be glad of the fact that they are receiving it from our hands! For they will be only too aware that in former times, when we were not there, the very loaves they won used merely to turn to stones in their hands, and yet now they have returned to us those very same stones have turned back to loaves again. All too well, all too well will they appreciate what it means to subordinate themselves to us once and for all!" (The Brothers Karamazov, pg 297)