June 9, 2011

• The Fart Art of Dream Interpretation

  I don't remember when this happened, but I'm pretty sure it was back in college. I was having a conversation with a friend, during which she mentioned that she had to write something in her dream diary. This random announcement threw me off a bit: aren't those diaries used by people who believe their dreams are cryptic messages from their souls? They think that by writing down all the little details of their dreams and then analyzing each one, they will be able to achieve a level of personal enlightenment that people can't obtain when they're awake.

  Another thing dream interpretation can help you with: letting your friends know you engage in a form of douchery practiced by the douchiest of douche bags...that's how I found out I was friends with someone who was actually a practitioner of the fart arts.

  I'm sorry, but that's what dream interpretation is: a fart art for douche bags. And if you need further proof, here's an introductory paragraph I found on a "dream dictionary" website:

  Acquiring the ability to interpret your dreams is a powerful tool. In analyzing your dreams, you can learn about your deep secrets and hidden feelings. Every detail, even the most minute element in your dream is important and must be considered when analyzing your dreams. Each symbol represents a feeling, a mood, a memory or something from your unconscious. Look closely at the characters, animals, objects, places, emotions, and even color and numbers that are depicted in your dreams. Even the most trivial symbol can be significant. This dictionary, along with your own personal experiences, memories and circumstances, will serve to guide you through a meaningful and personalized interpretation. With practice, you can gain an understanding of the cryptic messages your dreams are trying to tell you.

  Okay, no, no, no, and eat a dick.

  My problem with the whole dream analysis bit--and why I find it so douchie--is that I don't really understand why dreams even need to be interpreted in the first place. First of all, I don't think your dreams will tell you anything you didn't already know about yourself. You had a dream about giving birth because your maternal instincts have been kicking in. You had a nightmare about being fired because you've been worrying about your job security.  You had a dream about peeing because you actually had to pee. Whatever message is being conveyed in your dream will be immediately apparent--no dream diary or dictionary required.

  Douche bags will also get the message behind the dream, but they'll think it's thanks to their dream interpretation skills, and not because they're pointing out the obvious:

  

  

  

  

  Secondly, just because some of your dreams might reflect aspects of you or your life, that doesn't mean all of your dreams will. Why can't dreams just be dreams? Why must all of them be windows to our soul? I mean, I don't think we're so complex that we must dissect the hell out of the dreams we have in our sleep in order to figure out who we are when we're awake--and that's especially true for those dreams that make us go, "Uhh...why did I dream that?" Well, I'll tell you why. I got this explanation from a reading comprehension essay I read while studying for the LSAT. For all I know, the article was written specifically for the exam and wasn't based on any real science--but it made a lot of sense when I read it. The essay was about how having dreams was our brain's way of getting rid of the unfinished thoughts that were needlessly taking up memory space. These unfinished thoughts are the brain's version of interrupted sentences that you didn't have the chance to complete because other thoughts kept cutting you off. The broken thoughts wind up being stored in our memories, leaving less room for the more important things we'd prefer to remember.

  Anyway, this theory--which may not exist outside of the LSAT--hypothesizes that the stuff we see in our dreams are actually the remaining parts of the those unfinished thoughts. And once those thoughts are made whole, they are erased from our memory banks. For a possibly fake science article, I think it makes a valid point about why we have crazy dreams. And if such dreams are really based on unfinished thoughts, why would you waste time trying to interpret them?

  Douche bags, however, seem to believe that because some dreams are indicative of certain aspects of our lives, that all of our dreams can do the same thing--you just need to search for it...much like how you'd search for a funny joke during a Dane Cook standup routine.

  

  

  

  

  I.e., you're looking for something that doesn't exist.

  So yeah, that's why I think interpreting dreams to learn more about yourself is douchie. But to be completely fair: this fart art might really work, and the only reason why I don't get it is because--I don't know--maybe I'm too simple minded to have dreams that can be analyzed. Maybe I'm just so lazy that even getting to know myself better seems like a hassle. Maybe that paragraph from the dream dictionary site really isn't as supremely douchie as I think it is.

  ...Yeah right. Those sentences spilled out of a bottle of "Summer's Eve" and you all know it!

  • 2:38 pm
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