It is possible to affirm that the human being lives in two different dimensions: his own individual reality and the one that forms dreams , also known as dreamlike. Thus, everything that we experience in dreams or is related to them is part of the dream. The term dream comes from the Greek oneirikos and means dream.
the dream world
While people remain asleep dreams happen, but they don’t always remember. In any case, dreams have a mysterious and strange component. From a scientific point of view , dream activity has a vital function : during dreaming, the brain processes information and selects memories from the waking period. Our dreams are related to real events, but they are apparently devoid of logic and meaning. Despite this, what is tried is to give an explanation about its content, like psychoanalysis and other currents that attribute meaning to images and experiences.
The dream world in culture
The role of dreams is present in Greek mythology and proof of this is the existence of Morpheus, the God who symbolizes dreams and who in turn is the son of Hypnos, responsible for taking dreams to the Gods (Morpheus’ mother is Nix and symbolizes night and his brother is Thanatos who represents death). In most mythological traditions there are references to the dream world, usually in the form of accounts from which the meaning of dreams is interpreted.
In the art world, there are many references in relation to the oneiric: the painting “The garden of delights” by Boschi, Surrealism as a creative current or the role of dreams in the works of Skakespeare, among others. On the other hand, in popular culture it is common to understand dreams through messages and with some hidden meaning, but possible to reveal.
The various approaches to dreaming emphasize its enigmatic, mysterious and prophetic dimension.
Dreams and philosophical reflection
Descartes was a rationalist philosopher and his proposal on the foundations of human reason had an interesting reflection on dreams and reality. According to this philosopher, some dreams seem so real that there is no guarantee that allows us to clearly differentiate what we dream from and the reality of things. In other words, we cannot rule out that our experiences are a dream. Other thinkers emphasize the difficulty in defining reality and dreams. And finally, it should be noted that when something extraordinary and unexpected happens, it is often said that it was a dream.