Cressida Bonas

Where do we go when we dream?

  • From Spectator Life
Tom Sturridge as the Lord of Dreams in The Sandman [Netflix]

Should we pay more attention to our dreams? Are they signs from our subconscious, guiding and pointing us in certain directions? Perhaps that would explain why we often feel the need to describe them to others: to help make sense of them. Since being pregnant my dreams have got wilder. They are vivid and often haunting. I was told that you can’t dream about a face you’ve never seen, but strangers regularly pitch up in mine.

Some people say it’s boring when others talk about their dreams. I disagree. I think it’s fascinating to hear where minds go at night; our parallel lives. Whether they cover frightening or familiar territory, dreams are stories. They have been known to influence surrealists and famously inspired books such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice. Both ideas came from the authors’ dreams.

I was told that you can’t dream about a face that you’ve never seen, but strangers regularly pitch up in mine

The psychiatrist Carl Jung believed that dreams are messages, communicating information which our conscious minds might have missed.

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