Last night I dreamt that Gretchen and I had twins. She was pregnant and her water broke suddenly, but instead of driving a car to the hospital (which seems obvious now) I’m pretty sure we waited a long time for a taxi. Or maybe it took a long time to find our car; I can’t remember. Once we got to the hospital, we were admitted to a crowded waiting room. Continue reading →
Action Movie Mistake
I dreamt that I was on some kind of trip with my mother. She didn’t look at all like my real mother though. We were staying in a suite together, at a suburban hotel in an area that reminded me of north Grand Rapids. I had the impression that my mom might be an assassin or a secret agent. She had a meeting or a date with a man, so I decided to go to a movie. I drove to the nearby mall and bought a ticket for some action flick. It must have been about superheroes. Continue reading →
Chin Surgery
Last night I dreamt that I almost had plastic surgery done to my face. It wasn’t an operation that I sought out on my own. My parents recommended it to me. They had become friends with the surgeon, and my father planned on having the same operation. It was some sort of chin lift or chin tuck, something where they take out skin from your neck.
I drove to Athens High School, or a building that looked like it, since it was supposedly a hospital or a doctor’s office. I arrived by myself, but I had trouble choosing a parking spot. I had found one in what seemed to be the student area, but then I saw a sign for guest parking. I moved to that new area so that nothing would happen to my car. Continue reading →
Losing a Tooth
During a short afternoon nap, I had a dream where it seemed that one of my teeth fell out. I couldn’t see my own mouth, but it felt like it happened. When I walked over to a mirror to have a look, no teeth had fallen out. Then suddenly one tooth did come out, on the lower left (anatomical left) side of my mouth. But a jagged piece of the tooth was still in my gums. The image scared me and I shook myself awake. It took a minute to fully register that it was a dream. Because of how I was lying, a lot of weight had been resting on my jaw (I have a problem with teeth grinding) — so that could have influenced the dream.
(9/22/2010)
Welcome to Oneirisms!
ONEIRISMS is a metaphysical journal that we can share together, a place to post your dreams, visions, and synchronicities within a community. Though we prefer visions that happened during sleep, Oneirisms is really an attempt to document human experiences that occur outside the four dimensions of space and time — beyond the physical realm. The primary goal of the site is to expand the popular conception of “normal” human psychology.
The definition of “oneirism” on the About page reflects the fact that this site is accessed while we are awake, though it will contain tales from outside waking life or full consciousness. By telling and reading the stories here, we are re-creating them; they “happen” in our minds, thus creating consciousness loops of increased complexity. With any luck, we will become aware of how much of “real life” is actually metaphysical — that is, it happens or is co-created in our minds.
Oneirisms is a subsection of Supraterranean, an online magazine where you can self-publish any type of creative work. Both sites were created by Nick Meador. Oneirisms was inspired by the book The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. In his book (originally published in 1948), Campbell used dreams from real people to provide perspective on myths from various cultures throughout human history. Gretchen Hageman (Nick’s girlfriend) found the word “oneirology” as a possible name for the site, and one thing led to another.
Most of the dream stories in Hero came from Dreams: Their Meaning and Practical Application by Clement Wood, who wrote a syndicated newspaper column on dreams in the 1940s. Campbell writes, “In contrast to most of the dreams presented in the standard works on the subject, those in this popular introduction to Freud come from people not undergoing analysis. They are remarkably ingenuous.”
Nick thought it would be fun to create that sort of a dream directory online. And having learned about Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious, Nick became convinced that we as a species would benefit from learning more about the meaning of dreams, both our own and the dreams of other people. As Jung writes in Man and His Symbols, “The general function of dreams is to try to restore our psychological balance by producing dream material that re-establishes, in a subtle way, the total psychic equilibrium.” It seems that our world could use some “psychic equilibrium” right about now. Please join us on the adventure.
For more information, please visit the About or Dream Quotes page. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter.
