I had an interesting dream last night. Now, most people dismiss dreams as random neurons firing off during one's REM cycle, and anything viewed in dreams is simply a byproduct of those random electrical signals. I think dreams serve other purposes, including wish fulfillment and problem solving, and sometimes even more.
In last night's dream, I was at a theme park during the Christmas season, but instead of a line to see Santa, there were hundreds and hundreds of people waiting to see Harry Potter. I remember constantly going back to check the line; I wanted to see Daniel Radcliffe at the end of his shift, close to when the whole park closed. I ended up in the small Christmas cove, along with a dozen or so young people close to Radcliffe's age. We were trying to talk to him about the Church, guiding his questions, seeing if he'd ever considered where he will go after this life. The dream ended before we really got anywhere, but he seemed interested in what we had to say.
The really funny thing in this dream is all these youth had not coordinated among themselves to be there at that exact moment. Most of us in the room didn't even realize we were all LDS until we started talking with Radcliffe. It was as if we were meant to be there, to share the message of the gospel with him so he could hear it from his peers.
This could easily be viewed as one of those random neuron dreams, especially since I had just been to church during the day, and since there was lots of Christmas music during the program. I also just finished watching Harry Potter films one through six last month, and my sister-in-law went with her husband to the new Harry Potter theme park. So there's plenty of fodder for the arbitrary take on dreams.
On the other hand, I have often thought about what I would say to a celebrity, if I ever met one, particularly the ones whose work I admire the most. I even wrote a fan letter to Hugh Laurie, star of the TV series "House." In the letter I complimented his work, but I also encouraged him to participate in anonymous acts of service from time to time and to keep his family a priority in his life. So perhaps this Harry Potter dream was a product of that wishful thinking, of wanting to share the gospel with those that are the least likely to hear it, but could benefit the most. And I mean their influence could help spread the Gospel and benefit many others.
Speaking (writing) of Hugh Laurie, I have had plenty of dreams with Greg House cast as the leading man. (Freud would probably say something disgusting right now in regards to that.) In my defense it's not like I watch the show all the time, only the weekly episode while the current season is on TV. Now that I think about it, most of my dreams are about men, and not always the good ones. Jeff Winger (Joel McHale, "Community") is another character that often shows up in my dreams, and he can be quite a jerk. So much for the wish fulfillment dream philosophy.
Other dreams I've had involve visits to former schools, talking with old friends that I haven't even thought about in years, flying--lots of flying--and sometimes what I study in school. I was taking a French course in high school and I remember having a dream where I was explaining to someone all the different forms of questions there are in French. (I had been studying my French vocabulary right before bed; I think that might have influenced this particular dream.) So not a problem per se, but my brain was still trying to help me learn the material.
Perhaps this is why we are often told to or ask if we can "sleep on it," when presented with a difficult choice or problem to solve. Idioms have to come from somewhere, and I think that if they persist through the generations, there must be some truth to it.
Then there are dreams that seem like messages that we wouldn't come up with on our own. The Bible tells several stories where dreams came in to play, like when Joseph interpreted the pharaoh's dreams about the fat and skinny cows. Turns out those dreams were premonitions of the years of famine to come, a warning to stock up on food while the harvests were plentiful. More relevantly, many mothers and pregnant women have dreams about what gender child they will conceive, weeks before doctors can tell. Not terribly important, but still pretty cool.
And sometimes we have dreams of deceased relatives. This can easily be explained using the wish fulfillment idea: we miss our lost loved ones, so we imagine being able to converse with them once again. It's quite easy to create these conversations in our dreams because we have many memories stored away and we know exactly what they would say in pretty much any given conversation.
While this may be true, I want to believe there is sometimes something more to these sorts of "visit" dreams. I cannot know for certain in this life; there is no way to gather scientifically concrete information from a dream. But since I believe our spirits, the part of our being that is truly our own unique essence, lives on after this mortal coil, I also believe it is possible to still communicate, spirit to spirit, if only rarely. I also think these types of experiences, the real ones, are very special and shouldn't be shared lightly. (Broadcasting these experiences is how you get yourself a nice white jacket that makes you hug yourself...)
I hope I never stop dreaming. For at the least, they're entertaining. At the most, enlightening and special.
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