By Katerina DiPiramo
I am assuming everyone who is reading this has dreamt before, and are all aware of how your dreams can change overnight. Dreams can range from being too good to be true, or even freakily realistic, sometimes they are completely berserk, and other times, they’re scary, also known as a nightmare. The quality of your dream is dependent on many internal and external factors. Some of these factors include any emotional dramas in your life, sleep deprivation, your daily activities, existing mental disorders, even the foods you’d eaten that day. Another varying factor of dreams is how often you actually remember them.
On average, humans dream around 3-5 dreams a night, some may even have up to seven, yet the National Institutes of Health tells us that on average we can only remember dreams upon awakening once or twice a week. The ones that we do recall don’t necessarily even need to be crazy or absurd to be recalled the next morning. Sometimes, dreams consist of such real day to day activities that we wake up and question whether our dream was even a dream and not just real life. This could include dreams involving important family or friends, or it could feature a usual activity for you such as attending school or work or your dedicated sports practice. One thing that may throw off our interpretation of our dreams even more is the presence of an unfamiliar face.
Have you ever had a dream with a person in it who you’ve never seen before? You wake up the next morning confused and unsettled. Whether this mystery person played a large or small role in your dream, you wonder, who are they and what were they doing there, what is the meaning behind this? Well, I have some news to break with you. You have seen that person before, they are no stranger to your eyes.
It is believed that the human brain is incapable of creating new faces. Therefore, every person you dream of has either been someone you know personally or even just someone who you’ve merely passed on the streets. Even those whom you do not consciously notice but who still end up in your eyes path may be implanted in your brain and featured in a later dream.
Sigmund Freud is most famous for his definition and study of dreams. His discussion on the unconscious is based on the idea of repression. Repression of ideas and events which are later awoken in life. Freud believed in a cycle where these repressed ideas remained in the mind while being removed from consciousness. They reappear only at certain times, such as in our dreams.
The next time you recall an unfamiliar face in your dreams, do not resort to confusion or even fear, instead accept and marvel at your brain’s incredible ability of recognition and recollection. Take this as an opportunity to take in your surroundings and the faces you see, if you don’t, your unconscious brain will for you.
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