After a long and tiring day, many Harrisites look forward to sleeping peacefully in their comfortable beds. During this time, many may dream of magical adventures and strange visions. People often brush away their dreams when they wake up the next morning due to their tight schedules. However, many factors can influence dreams and they may symbolize more than we realize.
Many students are able to recall their dreams when they wake up. Sophomore Madison Bitna says “I have dreams every other day or so. I can remember them for about five minutes when I wake up.” Senior Kathryn Kwon says “I used to keep a dream journal because my dreams would just be so vivid.” However, sophomore Bushra Islam experiences the exact opposite, saying “I don’t often dream, and I often forget about my dreams during the day unless they are very vivid and detailed, or if something that happened in my dream happens in real life.” Senior Atia Ahmed explains how “if I do remember I forgot soon after, but I always remember the feelings the dream caused or the emotions they evoke.”
Bushra recalls her dreams in detail saying saying “When I dream while stressed for a test, I often see myself sitting in the classroom where I would be taking the test.” Bushra continues her dream saying “Then, my teacher gives us the test and tells us to stop, but the test booklet doesn’t seem to have an end. I keep flipping the pages to find the last page, but I can never find the end. As I keep flipping, my teacher says ‘time’s up, pass your tests forward,’ and I realize that I haven’t completed a single question.”
Bushra went on to say, “I think that my dreams symbolize my fear of failing whatever test I’m stressed for. This only happens when I’m worried that I’m going to fail a test, not when I have a test in a subject that I’m comfortable in.” Anxiety dreams also seemed to cause a physical reaction for some students. For example, Bushra states, “I feel on edge throughout the day when I have a dream related to a test or school, like I am trying to prevent whatever happens in my dream.” Senior Atia Ahmed experiences similar reactions, as she states that she “[wakes] up with [her] heart racing, terrified.”
Similarly, students seem to agree that their dreams do actually symbolize something. Sophomore Sharon Lee says that “my dreams symbolize my fears most of the time but they also reflect off of my likings.” Senior Matthew Cabrera agrees, “They do. They especially occur whenever I have something that is bugging me that I know I’ll eventually have to deal with.”
In addition to have a meaningful significance, the figures and events we see in our dreams may correlate to what we are seeing in our day to day lives. Matthew remembers a childhood dream where a monster from Scooby Doo was chasing him. Similarly, Benjamin states he had a childhood dream “about a legion of evil Mr. Potato Head toys that were having an uprising against humanity. They even made their own tools and stuff.” As children, the characters we see on T.V. often make their way into our dreams.
Several students also recall bizarre dreams that they have had that stray far from reality. Kathryn says, “My craziest dream would have to be when I was in an indoor garden with a gardener who would trim bushes with his sword. I got him angry somehow and he chased me through the world with his sword.” Kathryn shared another dream, “I dreamt that next to my bed were two spirits hovering near me. One was a man dressed in all black who looked eerily similar to Alan Rickman’s Severus Snape and the other was a girl in her teens dressed in all white. When I woke up, they were still there just hovering next to me.”
Matthew’s dreams often transport him to an alternate universe. He says, “I had a dream where I can’t explain how but I managed to experience a whole week in one dream. I was so enveloped in the world I was in since I was in there so long when I woke up I was scared I wasn’t in reality anymore.”
Atia also recalls a strange dream “I had a dream about a zombie apocalypse in my own hometown; the scariest part was that everything was silent and I couldn’t speak in my dream, the only noise was the ticking of a clock. I woke up terrified and, ironically enough, it was the middle of the night and the only noise in my room was the ticking of the clock.”
When it comes to sharing their strange and sometimes frightening dreams with others Madison said, “I share dreams with people because I enjoy sharing stories with others.” On the other hand Atia believes, “ I have this irrational fear that if I give voice to my nightmares, they’ll come true.”
Whether it be anxiety dreams, nightmares or fantasy dreams, don’t just brush away your dreams but see if it actually symbolizes something.
