Email: Interpreting dreams [MA]

I don't know what to make of dreams exactly. I don't want to give them too much credence but they do connect with us in sometimes significant ways I think. My basic notion is that they are the mind playing with the emotional and intellectual (psychological) puzzle pieces of the day, working to make sense by bringing it all together, settling out the cognitive dissonance and making peace with the questions and issues that remain. Our subconscious plays a role in storing, toying with and resolving the active memories of the day and sometimes our conscious mind can play a role in riffling through our dreams as we sleep. Sometimes I have practiced or experienced lucid dreaming, where I've had disturbing dreams [but] decided "I don't like this dream; I'm going to change it" and done so.

It seems we only remember dreams if we awaken before the end of our sleep cycle. Did you know that we have 90-minute sleep cycles? Someone told me that this year and since then I realized that my sleep times are always divisible by 90 minutes: 4.5 or 6 or 7.5 hours. Crazy.

I know and love Calvin [& Hobbes]! He's my favorite cartoon character of all! I have most of his large-format books (and The Far Side and Doonesbury).