Are dreams just your imagination working over time or do they mean something?

I do often wonder that myself. Normally, I think dreams are just some sort of manifestation of something going on in your life. Also, I don't usually remember my dreams when I wake up but this morning I actually did.

What happened was last night I was working on a short story to enter into a contest. It's about a house I lived in as a child. The house sort of haunts my dreams alot and shows up in many recurring ones.It wasn't a bad house mind you; my family had many happy moments there.

Those days, like so many in the past, go away when key members of the family die - for us it was my grandmother and my aunt. The house is a vertical duplex and my aunt lived upstairs (my grandmother's sister) and my grandmother downstairs). Anyway, I started working on this story that I had put away long ago.

As I am resurrecting my dream of a writing career, I also resurrected this story. I only worked on the first few paragraphs though. But this morning I woke up and remembered my dream.

In this dream, my whole family was down in the basement (where we used to have parties). Everyone was happy and smiling. I really only remember my aunt and my grandmother vividly, but they were there and smiling, especially my grandmother.

I always sort of remember her as being very cranky, but as a child I wasn't privy as to why. So anyway - my point to the story is that I start working on this story and suddenly the house reappears in my dreams (it has been absent for a while) and I see my grandmother (who has been absent from my dreams forever really. I can't remember the last time I had a dream where I saw her clearly).

I wonder if this is just because I started working on the story or maybe something more. The house in my dream isn't really shocking.It's always there, but my grandmother in my dream isn't normal so that's the part I'm happiest about and wondering about the most. Freud was a drug addict and a crackpot, but he came up with some really interesting stuff for the rest of us to talk about forever and ever (dream analysis that is).

It's sort of half-and-half. On the one hand, they're your mind's way of sorting through everything that happened that day, everything you were worried about, and everything you're looking forward to. On the other hand, they are symbolic - and they're usually so cryptically done that you often can't tell what the underlying meaning is.

What throws an even bigger wrench into this whole thing is, you don't even remember most of your dreams. So you may be worrying about something for weeks, and finally a month later you "have a dream about it. " You could've been dreaming about it from the get-go, but you just don't remember.So it's tough to analyze.

For example, dreaming about someone dying is more difficult to interpret than it may seem at first. It's more about the symbology - who does that person represent to you, in the dream do they play the part of a friend, a relative, a lover? What is the impact of the death to you - does it feel like a great loss, or the start of a new beginning?

Perhaps you're worried that someone may be leaving your life soon, like a friend moving away. Or there's an event, maybe even a part of your personality that is slowly leaving your life - or perhaps has already left your life. Perhaps an old habit will "die" in your dreams.

Or perhaps you have an old grandmother who is ill, and you've been worrying about her passing for weeks or months now - it could be as simple as that. Another example. I had a crazy dream about tornadoes being everywhere, and I had to evacuate a classroom into this tiny van - desks and all.

We somehow made it to a McDonald's, and we ended up hanging out in the McDonald's in a big desk-fort, watching the tornadoes out the window. Did that ever happen to me? Pffft, no.

(I wish, that would've been amazing! ) But what did it feel like? Total chaos.

I was being hurried along and I didn't know what I was doing - this definitely describes what my life was like at the time. As for the desks and the evacuation, I have no idea what those specifically represent (if anything at all), perhaps it alludes to compartmentalizing a more child-like time in my life, or how chaos affects previously rigorous schedules like the ones you have in school. None of the people ever had any faces, and I didn't personally relate to any of the students, therefore it wasn't the people that were important - it was the event.

Yet another example. I dreamed I found an apartment for rent at $150 per month. I've been worrying about my finances lately, so my worries are addressed in my dreams.

Not all of my dreams are as convoluted as the last one! But you see, it's not quite as simple as "red means love!" Everyone has their own interpretation of their dreams, as everyone has different pasts, different outlooks on life, different fears, etc.

I do often wonder that myself. Normally, I think dreams are just some sort of manifestation of something going on in your life. Also, I don't usually remember my dreams when I wake up but this morning I actually did.

What happened was last night I was working on a short story to enter into a contest. It's about a house I lived in as a child. The house sort of haunts my dreams alot and shows up in many recurring ones.

It wasn't a bad house mind you; my family had many happy moments there. Those days, like so many in the past, go away when key members of the family die - for us it was my grandmother and my aunt. The house is a vertical duplex and my aunt lived upstairs (my grandmother's sister) and my grandmother downstairs).

Anyway, I started working on this story that I had put away long ago. As I am resurrecting my dream of a writing career, I also resurrected this story. I only worked on the first few paragraphs though.

But this morning I woke up and remembered my dream. In this dream, my whole family was down in the basement (where we used to have parties). Everyone was happy and smiling.

I really only remember my aunt and my grandmother vividly, but they were there and smiling, especially my grandmother. I always sort of remember her as being very cranky, but as a child I wasn't privy as to why. So anyway - my point to the story is that I start working on this story and suddenly the house reappears in my dreams (it has been absent for a while) and I see my grandmother (who has been absent from my dreams forever really.

I can't remember the last time I had a dream where I saw her clearly). I wonder if this is just because I started working on the story or maybe something more. The house in my dream isn't really shocking.

It's always there, but my grandmother in my dream isn't normal so that's the part I'm happiest about and wondering about the most. Freud was a drug addict and a crackpot, but he came up with some really interesting stuff for the rest of us to talk about forever and ever (dream analysis that is).

It's sort of half-and-half. On the one hand, they're your mind's way of sorting through everything that happened that day, everything you were worried about, and everything you're looking forward to. On the other hand, they are symbolic - and they're usually so cryptically done that you often can't tell what the underlying meaning is.

What throws an even bigger wrench into this whole thing is, you don't even remember most of your dreams. So you may be worrying about something for weeks, and finally a month later you "have a dream about it. " You could've been dreaming about it from the get-go, but you just don't remember.

So it's tough to analyze. For example, dreaming about someone dying is more difficult to interpret than it may seem at first. It's more about the symbology - who does that person represent to you, in the dream do they play the part of a friend, a relative, a lover?

What is the impact of the death to you - does it feel like a great loss, or the start of a new beginning? Perhaps you're worried that someone may be leaving your life soon, like a friend moving away. Or there's an event, maybe even a part of your personality that is slowly leaving your life - or perhaps has already left your life.

Perhaps an old habit will "die" in your dreams. Or perhaps you have an old grandmother who is ill, and you've been worrying about her passing for weeks or months now - it could be as simple as that. Another example.

I had a crazy dream about tornadoes being everywhere, and I had to evacuate a classroom into this tiny van - desks and all. We somehow made it to a McDonald's, and we ended up hanging out in the McDonald's in a big desk-fort, watching the tornadoes out the window. Did that ever happen to me?

Pffft, no. (I wish, that would've been amazing! ) But what did it feel like?

Total chaos. I was being hurried along and I didn't know what I was doing - this definitely describes what my life was like at the time. As for the desks and the evacuation, I have no idea what those specifically represent (if anything at all), perhaps it alludes to compartmentalizing a more child-like time in my life, or how chaos affects previously rigorous schedules like the ones you have in school.

None of the people ever had any faces, and I didn't personally relate to any of the students, therefore it wasn't the people that were important - it was the event. Yet another example. I dreamed I found an apartment for rent at $150 per month.

I've been worrying about my finances lately, so my worries are addressed in my dreams. Not all of my dreams are as convoluted as the last one! But you see, it's not quite as simple as "red means love!

" Everyone has their own interpretation of their dreams, as everyone has different pasts, different outlooks on life, different fears, etc.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.