I haven’t been able to publicize my discovery about dreams. I published articles about it. They haven’t attracted any attention. I’ve sent a summary of it to renowned people who would be able to draw society’s attention to it, and no one has done so.
This is what is at stake regarding the publicizing. Everyone would be able to understand the messages in their dreams. They would find that the quality of those messages justifies all the interest and wonder people have had about dreams down through the ages. If they choose to act on those messages their lives will improve, perhaps in lifesaving ways.
What did I discover? Dreams follow an unvarying emotional pattern. The beginning of every dream is what the inner self loves, the early-middle section is what’s desirable, the late-middle is what’ undesirable, and the ending is what is hated.
I also found guidelines for interpreting the complications which can occur in dream plots. As one example of those complications, most sentiments which appear in dream plots are opposite to the dreamer’s emotional reality. A morbidly obese individual might laugh at the end of a dream about being so overweight, and a related message is that the individual’s inner self hates the inappropriateness of that positivity.
Across decades I’ve made the publicizing efforts. I wrote a book about dream interpretation and found a publisher for it. The first year it sold 13 copies. Then the publishing company went out of business. I wrote a diary about being an unknown dream interpreter and self-published it. Maybe a dozen people have bought it.
Overall, I’ve tried, failed, and survived. Has surviving been difficult? No. I haven’t been in any wars. I’ve always had a place to live. I’ve had medical care when I needed it. I worked at master-level psychology jobs and haven’t had to endure significant poverty. I’ve tried to adopt a healthy lifestyle, including exercising daily, not eating harmful foods, and fasting to slow down the aging process. Just like everyone else I’ve experienced folly and trauma in my past, but I’ve managed to cope. I’ve tried to treat others well, and the psychological benefits from doing so undoubtedly have protected my health. I’ve pursued constructive goals unrelated to dream interpretation.
But I would give myself a failing grade if I died before publicizing my dream interpretation breakthroughs.
**
I’ve been working on ways to attain that publicizing. One is to make a discovery about the mind which people would like, and I certainly try to do that. Would they say, “That’s brilliant, dear fellow. What other ideas have you had?”
I completed a science fiction novel a month ago. I’ve been contacting agents and publishers about it. If necessary, I’ll pay to publish it myself. Will the public like it? Will it draw society’s attention to me?
I write poems on occasion, but the probability of my becoming famous because of my poetry is a long shot, to say the least.
I work on ideas about the mind every day. Can I create enough of those ideas to offer classes about them? Will clients like the classes (one of which, of course, would be dream interpretation)?
All of these goals might have been easier to accomplish when I was younger. That doesn’t matter, though. I’ll make them come true no matter how much difficulty is involved.
**
A poem came to me during the night.
Weirder and weirder, my teeth so blue.
I am falling in love with you.
**
How I think seems to have much more of a location in my mind than what I think. What are the practical implications of this?
**
At 80, my exercising mostly consists of walking briskly around a track for 20 minutes or so. Occasionally I’ll try to jog, but my body resists.
In contrast, the fasting is easy. It typically lasts for 71 hours or more but is necessary to optimize the chances for my survival. That necessity removes any mindsets which might otherwise get in the way.
I’m an unknown discoverer. So much depends on my future actions. I have to do what I can to preserve my life.
**
Any publishing success will be a step in the right direction, and I’ve been working on a science fiction story. It speculates about a future treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. If we had amnesia for the past, would that remove the effects of trauma we’ve experienced? The story postulates an amnesia drug has been developed. There’s more. Patients receive artificial memory pills which are effective because the induced amnesia prevents the traumatic memories from making the artificial memories seem less real.
The artificial memories are designed to be opposite to the experiences which caused the trauma. Someone who had been beaten, for example, might receive a pill which creates a memory of having been treated gently and lovingly. And more. Epigenetics is the study of how a combination of our behaviors and our environments affect the way our genes work. Distressing combinations can make us older. Would amnesia for the traumatic past restore original genetic functioning and thereby remove at least some aging?
I don’t have an answer but hopefully someday I will.
**
I’m fasting. Is hunger fierce? As necessary, I will be fiercer.
**
I’d observed that how I thought had more of a location in my mind than what I thought, and wondered about the implications. I have some follow-up ideas now. We can see into our minds, although it’s typically a murky process. That seeing can include sensing a nearness to something the conscious mind hasn’t produced. Assuming we can sense we’re near something constructive, we also presumably can sense how to cooperate with it. Trying to make that cooperation a how rather than a what can tap inner wisdom and create a beneficial symbiosis within the mind. As well, trying to interact via a how can enhance inner seeing.
Those ideas contain some complexity. Fasting is good for the brain as well as the rest of the body. Did the fasting I’ve been doing help me find them?
**
Depression is a worldwide problem. People feel hopeless, stop feeling pleasure, lose interest in everyday activities, and engage in less self-care. Drugs are prescribed for it, but those drugs can have harmful side effects. Talk therapy, for those who can afford it, reportedly provides inconsistent results. Some depressed persons commit suicide.
What causes depression? I have an answer. If a situation a person has dreamed about happens in real life the person automatically will feel the related emotion. That emotion will be love, desire, undesirability, or hatred, depending on whether the situation appeared in the dream’s beginning, its early-middle section, its late-middle section, or its ending. So, the dreamer will feel involuntary hatred if a situation from a dream ending happens, and what if the dreamer caused that situation to happen? The hatred will be directed toward the dreamer and the dreamer will be vulnerable to depression.
The endings of dreams can inform us about more than the risk of depression. A personal anecdote follows. I’d been lazy about writing a manuscript on dream interpretation. A man appeared at the end of one of my dreams. “Do you want arthritis?” he asked.
“No,” I answered in the dream.
“Then start writing,” he said.
So, I did. There were times after that dream when what I wrote was of such poor quality that I had to discard it and start over. I had tried to write well, though, and I didn’t get arthritis.
**
My constructive efforts weren’t leading to success, and I was brooding. Exercise helps, and I went to the YMCA to walk around the track. After I came home, I felt nostalgic about a taekwondo class I’d taken years ago. I hadn’t been talented at the jump kicks, but the instructor was nice. On one occasion after he’d told me he was glad I was in the class, he said in a friendly voice that I’d never be able to do a jumping back kick. Utterly true.
I want to join a taekwondo class again. Is it possible at 80? They would have to be tolerant of my efforts.
**
I bought a novel by a bestselling author and I’ve been analyzing the author’s style. After a descriptive paragraph he always continued with some sort of plot excitement in the next paragraph.
That’s not always the way my life is. In fact, what excitement have I experienced lately? My life doesn’t have to be perfect at present. I know the future will have its good outcomes.
**
I have an answer to my question about what excitement there is in my life. At the periphery of my consciousness there’s always the indescribable excitement of having found the emotional pattern in dreams.
**
I wondered if visualizing nice images could be helpful to one’s state of mind and I tried doing so, but it took a lot of effort to produce each image. Was my conscious mind getting in the way? It occurred to me I could try visualizing nice or otherwise positive images so quickly my conscious mind couldn’t see them. I made that attempt and felt the unseen imagery was doing me some good. Can everyone benefit from this visualization procedure?
**
My last job before I retired was as an intake therapist at a mental health center. I interviewed new clients, scheduled therapy for them, and wrote reports about them. Some of the interviews have stayed in my memory.
One was with a woman who cried nonstop for over a minute while talking about being forced to give up her baby for adoption when she was 16. At the end of the interview I told her, “I’ve never cried during an intake session but I came pretty close this time.”
Another interview was with a mother and her 17-year-old son. Her son’s father had gone to prison, and she wanted therapy for her son to try to ensure he could handle that situation and would turn out all right. At one point during the session I asked him, “Do you like the rules at home?”
He hesitated and then said yes. His mother laughed merrily. “You are such a liar,” she told him affectionately. He half smiled.
I wrote in the report about him that his mother was a positive influence in his life.
I shouldn’t have retired. Can I get hired for some new psychology position? I’d be valuable to the clients. Maybe a potential employer would be doubtful, though, because of my age.
**
In 1979 I was walking in the countryside with my girlfriend and her two small daughters. We came to a horse trough with horse food and a scoop nearby. A horse heard us and poked its head out of the tall grass. I scooped up some food and was going to pour it into the trough. One of the children said in an emphatic voice, “I want to feed him! I want to feed him!” I gave her the scoop, she poured its contents into the trough, and she seemed happy about having done that good deed. This morning, after 45 years, I realized that if small children are provided with structured environments to do such do-good actions those experiences might have a lasting effect which carries over into their adult years.
**
My discovery could have been publicized long ago. What if I’d been charismatic while talking with others about the dream pattern? What if I’d done other things right?
Wish upon a star, perhaps, but it presumably does no good to wish upon the past.
**
I’ve revised my dream interpretation summary, including adding more illustrative examples. Now it has a better chance of impressing the people I’ll send it to.
Dan Gollub has a master’s degree in psychology and has worked as a psychologist. He self-published a novel and has written four unpublished novels.
