A few days ago, I had a very vivid dream that continues to haunt me. In it, I was lost in a very dangerous neighborhood in Philadelphia and apparently was trying to find my lost dog. The problem was that I could not remember her name. I asked all the strangers I bumped into if they had seen her. They asked me her name and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember it. I knew she was a Bernese Mountain Dog, but I tried and tried to remember her name to no avail. And then I realized I was in the early stages of dementia.
Dementia is a big fear of mine as I get older – and my brother has struggled with it for many years – so that kind of makes sense for my dream. And earlier that day I watched the movie The Notebook, which, if you are not familiar with it, is the story of a man who reads a notebook to his beloved wife who suffered from Alzheimer’s and who did not recognize him as her husband of several decades. So, I can logically understand why I had this dream.
My research landed me on an article from the website Psychology Today from May 2025, written by Boris Herzberg, a couples and relationship therapist.
Here are some highlights of the article:
“Are you familiar with that lingering feeling after waking from a vivid dream? When you passionately want to believe that your mind has shown you something important, but you just can’t figure out what?
Dreams have fascinated humans for thousands of years. Egyptian priests decoded divine messages in them, just as biblical figures received guidance through them. Aristotle even used dreams to diagnose illness. From mysticism to science, both neurophysiology and therapeutic psychology agree: dreams aren’t just random brain static.
Why Do We Even Dream?
Dreams aren’t just a human thing. Your dog has dreams too, in which he’s chasing squirrels or barking at the mailman he despises most before waking up with a perplexed look. Biologically speaking, dreaming is a universal phenomenon, even in cold-blooded animals. But what’s the point?
Your brain doesn’t clock out when you do. While you sleep, your psyche processes the day’s events, sorts through emotions, and even solves problems. Some of history’s biggest breakthroughs came in dreams.
Take Elias Howe, who dreamt of cannibals threatening him with spears that had holes in their tips, inspiring his invention of the sewing machine. Or chemist August Kekulé, who envisioned benzene’s ring structure after dreaming of a snake biting its own tail. Not bad for a night’s work.
Two of the most prominent figures of the 20th century, who paved the way to modern counseling psychology, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, considered dreams to be the bridge to the unconscious. Their approaches differed, though.
Freud saw the unconscious as the locked warehouse for unpleasantries we’d rather not deal with, such as repressed memories and emotions. However, he also believed this buried material held value and interpreting it could resolve inner conflicts (what he called neurosis). He called dreams ‘the royal road to the unconscious’ and saw dream analysis as a way to access this hidden cache.
Jung stated more plainly: ‘Dreams are the facts from which we must proceed.’ He saw the unconscious as a treasure trove of collective wisdom, the ‘collective unconscious,’ speaking to us in dreams in the form of archetypes or universal symbols. For Jung, dreams offered guidance on how to live, what to pursue, and what to avoid.
Both agreed on one thing: dreams are the subconscious speaking to us.
The Language of Dreams
The language of dreams is non-direct. Dreams speak in symbols, metaphors, and sometimes straight-up surrealism. That’s because your conscious filters—the ones that make you bite your tongue in work meetings or pretend you’re fine when you’re not—are offline. What bubbles up is the raw, unfiltered you, a state mostly inaccessible to your conscious mind in everyday life.
Where Symbolism Meets Science
Neuroimaging shows that during REM sleep, the prime time for vivid dreams, your emotional brain (limbic system) fires up while your logical brain (prefrontal cortex) naps. This explains why dreams overflow with feelings: fear, desire, and nostalgia, while rationality takes a back seat.
Meanwhile, slow-wave sleep (SWS) dreams are like abstract art: fragmented, surreal, starring a disjointed version of you. Why? Memory systems are half-asleep, scrambling identities and plots. So, dreams are your mind’s way of rehearsing, problem-solving, stitching together loose ends, consolidating memories, and untangling emotions.
And by the way, nightmares are not necessarily bad. Often, they’re your psyche’s way of screaming, ‘Hey, this is important!’ Ignoring them is like slamming the door on a frantic messenger. Not a great strategy.
How to Start Paying Attention
Want to get better at remembering (and understanding) your dreams? Try this:
- Keep a journal by your bed. The second you wake up, scribble down anything you remember, even if it’s just a feeling or a color.
- Look for patterns. Recurring settings, characters, or emotions? That’s your psyche waving a big, high flag.
- Ask yourself: ‘What does this remind me of?’ Free associate. Let your mind wander. The first thing that pops up is often the most telling.
- Find a dream group, a circle to share and unpack the experiences and emotions your dreams bring up. Hearing others’ stories can help you see your own dreams in a new light, while your insights might unlock meaning for someone else.”
The article mentions that some people say they don’t dream. The author says that these people simply don’t remember their dreams.
I found this information somewhat reassuring and yet many of the visions and feelings linger with me from that dream. And a couple times a day I double check that I still know the name of my dog (which, by the way, is Luna.)
Another interesting resource is the 1998 movie What Dreams May Come. I included a description of it after the Invitation for Reflection.
Invitation for Reflection
- What information in this blog resonates with your experiences of dreaming?
- Do you have memories of dreams you had recently? Dreams from a long time ago?
- If so, how did these dreams impact you?
- What do you wish was true about dreams and dreaming?
Summary of the movie What Dreams May Come. A full-length description of the plot is also available on the website Plot Explained.
What Dreams May Come is a 1998 American fantasy drama film directed by Vincent Ward starring Robin Williams, Annabella Sciorra and Cuba Gooding Jr. It won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and the Art Directors Guild Award for Excellence in Production Design.
Following a devastating car accident, Chris Nielsen finds himself in a vibrant and imaginative afterlife. Determined to reunite with his wife Annie, he sets out on a perilous quest to find her. When Annie tragically takes her own life and descends into a nightmarish realm, Chris bravely defies the laws of the afterlife to rescue her, confronting dangerous landscapes and inner demons along the way.
And don’t stress if you “don’t dream.” You do. You just might not remember them yet.
Sweet dreams!
Diane Wagenhals
Director Emeritus, Lakeside Global Institute