Paladin, Spun Sugar Spoons, Twist tie Chocalate...and What does it All Mean? Why we Dream

What!? Whoa!? She's off in Left Field!

No I'm not...Just give me a chance...This article has something to teach and does have a point.

Anyway...I woke up this morning and I asked my husband "So, why do they call you Paladin?". My dream was so convoluted that I woke up with a sense of wonder as well as confusion. To make a long story short, I dreamed that I was on a trip, lost my suitcase, needed a prescription, had to check into the airport after a long ride on a Greyhound bus, needed a snack and was given plastic spoons and bread ties which turned out to be spun sugar and chocalate respectively, saw my husband being catered to by other women and being called "Mr. Paladin" and My mother was whisked through the airport to the VIP gate.

This dream led me to do a little "research" into dreaming . All of which gave me theories which could not really be proved or disproved. Terms like neoro-transmitter, mental schemes, emotional selection and dissociated imagination danced in my head. And incidentally, gave me a headache. So, is it biology or psychology?

One theorist described dreaming as simply "thinking in a different biochemical state". People continue to work on all the same problems—personal and objective—in that state. The research found that anything—math, musical composition, business dilemmas—may get solved during dreaming, but the two areas especially likely to help are 1) anything where vivid visualization contributed to the solution, whether in artistic design or invention of 3-D technological devices and 2) problems where the solution lies in "thinking outside the box"—i.e. the person is stuck because conventional wisdom on how to approach the problem is wrong. 

Other hypotheses about the function of dreaming, include: 

• Dreams allow the repressed parts of the mind to be satisfied through fantasy while keeping the conscious mind from thoughts that would suddenly cause one to awaken from shock.
• Bad dreams let the brain learn to gain control over emotions resulting from distressing experiences.
• Dreams may compensate for one-sided attitudes held in waking consciousness.
• The dream, when told, may communicate something that is not being said outright.
• Dreams regulate mood.
• Dreams may function like psychotherapy, by "making connections in a safe place" and allowing the dreamer to integrate thoughts that may be dissociated during waking life.
• Dreaming metaphorically completes patterns of emotional expectation in the autonomic nervous system and lowers stress levels.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, both Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung identified dreams as an interaction between the unconscious and the conscious mind. They also asserted together that the unconscious is the dominant force of the dream. Jung argued that the dream's bizarre quality is an efficient language, comparable to poetry and uniquely capable of revealing the underlying meaning.

Fritz Perls presented his theory of dreams as part of the holistic nature of therapy. Dreams are seen as projections of parts of the self that have been ignored, rejected, or suppressed.  Jung argued that one could consider every person in the dream to represent an aspect of the dreamer, which he called the subjective approach to dreams. Perls expanded this point of view to say that even inanimate objects in the dream may represent aspects of the dreamer. The dreamer may therefore be asked to imagine being an object in the dream and to describe it, in order to bring into awareness the characteristics of the object that correspond with the dreamer's personality.

Shakespeare said it best through the voice of Hamlet;

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:

But Shakespeare was talking metaphorically about death, a kind of sleep, and that there was always a catch, meaning or obstacle to anything.

So... I ask you: What did you dream last night? What did it tell you? (The meaning) And what action will you take? (The catch)

By the way... The Paladin, sometimes known as The Twelve Peers, were the foremost warriors in the times of Charlemagne, knghts in the vein of King Arthur, so to speak. And now that I think about it... My husband is my knight in somewhat tarnished armor. But then, I guess I  need to shine it.