Social Functions of Dreaming

Conclusion and links

       I frequently have dreams about my pets, especially my turtles and my piranha, named Hannibal. I dream that they get sick or die. I've had two bad dreams about my piranha recently, they occurred about a month apart. In the earlier one, I dreamt I had neglected to clean his tank all summer and when I finally looked at it, he had died; he was dust at the bottom of the tank. In the later dream, my mother and I were driving up to visit our relatives in Canada. I had left Hannibal with them for some reason, and I was really excited to see him again. I was really upset when I checked out his aquarium because the water was over 90 degrees and there were dead emperor tetras floating around in the water. Hannibal didn't look too well either, but I told him everything was going to be all right now that I was there. He came up to the surface, I scratched his head and he looked at me with big puppy eyes. Then he bit me! Just a little nick on my finger but I hadn't expected it.

       As I was checking out the cut, he jumped out at me and I half deflected, half stabbed him with the thermometer. He got knocked into a bucket in the closet. He cowered in there giving me the evil eye. I turned to someone else in the room and said, "that's the problem with piranhas; they are like crocodiles. You can keep one for years but they never figure out who loves them." A couple of days after I had this dream, my mother called to tell me she found Hannibal floating in his tank; he had been dead for at least a day.

-Merideth's dream narrative

       We dream about things that are on our minds (as well as things that are not) and what we worry about (but not always). Maybe dream content is random, maybe it is not. We interpret dreams subjectively while using culturally shared symbols to give our dreams meaning. We dream about what is in our environment but there appears to be themes shared by people everywhere, such as falling, flying, being chased, and losing a tooth. Could this be evidence for Jung's theory of archetypes? You can interpret it however you want to.

The functions of dreams are:

  • Sources of self-knowledge

  • Messages from divine visitors
  • Advice from the spirit world
  • Prophesy
  • Prognostication
  • Expression of secret wishes of the soul
  • Source for creative inspiration
  • Lifeline to the primeval, collective past
  • Expression of emotional preoccupations
  • Coping mechanisms for stress
  • Aid in learning and memory
  • Or, no function whatsoever!


  • To interpret your dream, click on either of the links below:

    www.dreammoods.com>Dream Moods

    www.sleeps.com/dreams.html>Sleep

    Dream Emporium

    Enhypniomancy

    Dreamgate

  • Back to Social Functions of Dreaming Main Page
  • Why are we interested in dreams?
  • The importance of dream narratives
  • How dream interpretations are culturally embedded
  • Different theories of dream meaning in the West
  • Psychoanalytic perspectives on foreign cultures
  • Other cultural perspectives