“A dream is a wish your heart makes, when you’re fast asleep.” I hope this is not the case; otherwise my heart has some odd wishes.

The nature of dreaming is such an enigma. For centuries there have been copious amounts of attempts to explain dreaming. Ancient Greeks utilized the dream process as a way of clairvoyance. Oracles would be sustained in semi-dream states and their mumblings would be interpreted as divine messages.

Judeo-Christian traditions also utilize the dream as a means of divine clairvoyance. Stories tell about the dream state as being used as medium for transferring messages from God.

Some voodoo traditions even believe that by ingesting certain roots and herbs you can gain the power to enter another person’s dreams.

Freud propelled dream analysis from a psychological prospective into the 20th century with his concept that dreams are unconscious desires. According to Freud, repressed memories coupled with secret wishes are revealed to you via dreaming. As the quote above attests to, even Walt Disney tried his hand at the great mystery.

Dreams are a personal journey. Some dreams can be a pleasure to experience, indulging the dreamer with fantasies of gaining super powers or overcoming great challenges.

Other dreams are more clouded. Confusing the dreamer with mismatched images, snippets of childhood attached to job-related quandaries with people they have never even met.

Personally, these dreams are the kind that fascinate me the most. Recalling back to high school when friends would confide their dreams in me, wondrous tales that no fiction writer could re-create were being woven in these individual’s heads.

Minute details all accounted for, such as time-frame, color schemes and individual articles of clothing.

All dreams are different and unique, since every person’s psyche is different and unique. I have one friend who experiences some of the most vivid and alluring dreams I have even been told.

These dreams are vast sagas of trial and error. They have clear beginnings and ends, despite the fact that there is no logical relationship between any of the components.

I have remarked to her on more than one occasion that her dreams could be published as a novel. I myself have experienced, on several occasions, re-occurring dreams. Even dreams that varied slightly in subject matter but underlying themes were clearly identical.

There is the dream that is the bane of a teacher’s existence, the daydream. Overloaded with information, the student’s mind, digresses from the drone of the lecture to a more thrilling place.

Our thoughts carry us away to more mentally stimulating subjects and enjoy the vacation from the oppression of the educational system.

There is also the not so pleasant nighttime dream, the nightmare. The nightmare can be a hellish experience that often leaves the dreamer in a pool of cold sweat.

Usually a barrage of disturbing images and sounds that leaves the dreamer frightened and anxious, this often makes it difficult for the individual to fall back asleep. I find it interesting that considering there are so many variations and interpretations of dreaming that goals and aspirations are still labeled as a dream.

The word “dream” is associated always associated with positive connotations and hopes for the future. Often we forget about the darker side of dreaming, the nightmares and the confusing puzzling dreams that frighten or worry us.

We forget about the functionality of the dream. Some researchers believe that dreams are a way of the brain to relieve itself of the stresses of the day.

The word “dream” itself incites mystery. Since dreams are so individual and only the dreamer can know his own dreams, this adds yet another layer of unknown to the perplexity that is dreaming. It would thus seem appropriate to label future unknown hopes as dreams.

Ally writes about mental health every Friday.