About a week ago, I had a dream. I had to share this with you, followers. In the midst of attempting to bust the myth of symbolic meaning of dreams, I fell victim to the research I had done myself.
My dream consisted of a close friend of mine dying. This dream really scared me. I had no idea why I would have such a dream, so I reminded myself to not commit any reasoning errors. Soon after, this friend told me he was leaving Seattle University. The first thing that popped into my head was the dream. I realized this was all because of my dream and that it had symbolic meaning in my life.
After a good night's rest, I realized: this myth is easy to argue when you're not experiencing it. Obviously, when you are having dreams that make sense in your life, you begin to believe they are connected. I looked over the Gilovich book on reasoning errors. I realized that I was thinking with confirmation bias and post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Keep these in mind when you dream!
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I have a confession: I don't believe you. You've done amazing work, and I see the facts, but I've had a personal experience with such a dream. I had a dream about being at the hospital the night before my father's accident. Now, It wasn't vague and just at a hospital, I remember events which occurred clearly in my dream, I expressed these to my mother, and later that day I again experienced these occurrences at the hospital only this time I wasn't dreaming. Is it possible that I made up an entire day's worth of memories before the day even started which I hold to know? Or is it possible that something else could explain what happened? thanks!
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