It immediately became apparent that while navigating such a far-reaching and complex topic like dreams, that it is vital the idiomatic quality of dreams is acknowledged because it makes the subject difficult to navigate and examination often results in inconclusive arguments. It is also important to emphasize that due to the inconclusive nature of dream interpretations, that much of the theory surrounding dreams and dreaming is merely theorized due to no significant method to interpret dreams without bias or subjectivity.

Freud discusses in great depth the idea that dreams produce meaning in a manner that is unlike any other recognised mode of expression. Consequently, because dreams have this unique communicative quality it is perhaps difficult to determine the “true” meaning behind dream narratives. As a collective, the meaning of dreams is further troublesome because the experience and narrative of dreams is so individual and subjective to the person who is dreaming. No two dreams as exactly alike, therefore no two interpretations of dreams be alike. So perhaps, we have to make extremely generalized conclusions regarding the interpretation of dreams due to how exclusive these mental narratives are to the individual.

The next point to clarify is where do the narratives of dreams originate from? Freud (1899, pg. 213) briefly suggests that “the interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind,” suggesting that dreams are an animation of the unconscious minds thoughts. In the article ‘Monitoring the State of Self in Dreams’ (2021) it is further discussed that the unconscious nature of the human experiences captured in dreams, is a temporary psychological state. Through this state, mind wandering occurs within the brain and always leads back to a path of taught processing in order to create a feeling of purpose and understanding. 

The term manifestation - an event, action, or object that clearly shows or embodies something abstract or theoretical, allows us to further delve into how dreams engage with the future. Marder’s (2013) examination of such topics resulted in it being theorized that instead of dreams precisely manifesting the future, dream set the scene, time and place, which leads us into the future. For instance, a dream experienced by a student, is set at school during typical school hours, now the student will be at school during school hours in the future and therefore we could say that the time and place was predicted by the dream, therefore acting as a doorway into the future. However, analysis of Freud’s ‘Interpretations of dreams’ (1899) implies not only that any future that could be foretold by a dream, it in fact would not really be a vision of the future because it would merely be a programmatic and predetermined implementation of a past prediction.

So it can be concluded that historically dreams have been thought to engage with manifesting the future (Marder, 2013), this concept is reflected in present-day pop-culture one example of this is seen in the movie Dune. In Dune (2021), dreams play a crucial role in serving the narrative as well as the deeper themes within the film. The main character Paul Atreides has dreams or ‘visions’  as they are referred to which guide his actions and choices. Paul has vivid dreams and visions about people and events on the inhospitable desert planet of Arrakis. His dreams are prescient glimpses of events to come, a manifestation of different potential outcomes within the future. However, similarly to Marder’s findings he can scarcely make sense of the dreams and visions that he experiences throughout the film and it is more vivid visions that let him see possible futures – likely outcomes to different decisions – but not concrete outcomes. What more, like any cryptic image, these visions can be interpreted in various ways, meaning that when they do manifest, it might not be in the way he originally anticipated. This connects back to Freud’s (1899) interpretation that dreams open-up previous emotions and it is the choices that are based on previous experiences that in the end leads him into the future. At the beginning of Dune (2021), it’s mentioned that Paul has dreams and visions that typically come true in future events. He confesses this fact to the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother, and it’s shown on several different occasions. In the novel, Paul’s visions are described as being incomplete. At one point, Herbert explains his prescience as being like a person descending into a valley, where things directly in front of and around him are visible, but where much remains hidden. One great instance of this is when Paul fights the Fremen Jamis, who challenges him to a death duel. In an earlier vision, Paul saw Jamis as a friend – someone who promised to teach Paul the ways of the desert. That scene never transpires in the real world of Dune, but it could be argued that, by forcing Paul to take his first life, Jamis did in fact show him the true, hard, violent nature of the desert of Arrakis. Paul’s Dune powers and abilities don’t always make perfectly clear sense, but that’s by design. He sees possible futures, but not everything he sees comes true, and not everything that comes true happens according to his dreams. Plus, some of his visions are of events incredibly far in the future, which is part of why they don’t take place in the world of the movie. The way Dune present dreams in the way of visions, being vivid and not completely clear closely relates to several contemporary studies of dreams and build up under the argument that dreams are working as visions of the future, showing the opportunities you have going forward and where the dreams shows outcomes that will happen, but not the road of how it happens.

In the article ‘Monitoring the State of Self in Dreams’ by Stewart Gabel (1991) it is discussed that dreams are used as an opportunity to experiment with the outcome of different emotional responses, without any form of censorship. Experiencing various emotions freely through dreams therefore provides a sense of purpose. Meaning that the event in itself will not play out the same way in the future however the purpose of the event in the dream and reason for why you had a dream about it will be fulfilled. Another pop-culture example is ‘Nobodys daughter Haewon’ (2017), where we see the dreams and real life experiences happening intertwined, makin it hard to tell the difference. However, the dreams are leading the plot towards a better future, holding both wishes and possibilities, but also limits and responsibilities. The outcome and emotions in the dreams are the same as in the real life events in the movie, however it outplays itself in the real life more sheltered and censored and not happening in the same order or the same way. This movie is an example for how dreams are there to bring a sese of purpose and driving force in life, and by this manifests the future. It does not give a clear answear or a clear event, but possibilities and the ability to think through responses and emotions that you might experience in real life. 

When following a neurofeedback treatment plan, patients normally report vivid dreams, which is a wished outcome as it helps balance the brain throughout the sleep cycle (Marzbani, Marateb and Mansourian 2016). This shows how dreams have a real-world impact in the treatment of health problems, which helps patients increase the number of good events and social connections in their life, creating more good dreams, leading to people generally being happier, more interactive and more engaged in what they are doing (Hammond 2008). This will again create better social spaces and be able to create a greater understanding of situations and people from being more emotionally stable. Neurofeedback is an important example showing how the pop culture we engage with, the social connections throughout the day, the emotions we feel and the dreams we have all connect together and impact each other, therefore stabilizing every part of the day is important to function and comprehend daily life. 

As described previously dreams are following memories from previous events mixed together with an imaginative aspect and wishful aspect of what you want to happen, in a way manifesting the future. Dreams affect emotions in similar ways that movies affect emotions, and by this what movie you want to watch, further affecting your emotions by deciding on the dreams you have following it (Halpern 2003). This means that movies, emotions, and dreams work together in a loop and are all relevant parts of deciding what pop culture becomes popular and what does not. An example of this is the massive popularity growth of dystopian and psychological thrillers in periods of disaster, pandemics, war, and other major negative impactful events in society through the last decade. During covid-19, Squid Game became the top viewed tv-show in over 90 countries, based on the survival of the fittest, drawing connections to what the mutual feeling of the community was at the time. Another example is the general increasing catastrophe movies and more conflict due to environmental aspects instead of power struggle, showing the contemporary problem change from the war in the 20th century to climate change being the major problem in the 21st century. From these movies, we also have predictions, where the movie releases an event that some years later happen in real life. This manifistation from movies happen in similar ways manifestation in dreams happen, where the exact events and time is unsure, however the outcome and place are real. This manifestation is a way of alerting and preparing for the future and a way of being ready of the unknown (Halpern 2003). 

In society this is both a way of acknowledging the common feeling of hopelessness and unawerenss, and as a way of understanding, accepting, and processing unwanted world events. It is also a way of creating hope and coping with stressful situations. For example when watching scary movies or stressful movies, when we go to sleep the brain will instead of working through the emotions from the day in form of dreams, have its fight or flight mode activated, causing stress and fear, which triggers nightmares (Fisher, Byrne and Edwards 1970). This will instead of calming the body down and experiencing good memories in the form of dreams, bring back past trauma in your sleep. Nightmares are also another way of experiencing complicated emotions and working through the full specters of emotions rather than only the happy emotions. In some ways this is helpful in acknowledging that life is not always good and that it is important to work through a specter of emotions and events in order to be able to connect future events with past events, however this is further creating emotions during the day of stress and anxiousness, which lead to pop-culture being created on these feelings, and from this, the circle continues. 

Dreams, to an extent, represent events from the past and can be used to predict the future. In a 2013 study, ‘Dreaming of You: Behavior and Emotion in Dreams of Significant Others Predict Subsequent Relational Behavior’ (Selterman et al., 2014), researchers observed that “certain types of content (e.g., infidelity) and emotions (e.g. jealousy” in participants’ dream reports were associated with less intimate feeling and more conflict with their partners on subsequent days.” In this way, by observing the content of dreams, we can predict the types of interactions an individual will have with others and their mood, thus predicting the future predisposed by dreams. For example, dreams containing conflict predicted greater conflict in following days, which demonstrates that dreams can impact our mood in the real world, bearing a real world impact.

Dreams, to an extent, also engage with past memories. In a study called ‘Sleep, dreams, and memory consolidation: The role of the stress hormone cortisol’ (Payne and Nadel 2004), it was shown that “episodic memories”, similar to the real world to emerge in dreaming with more abstract dreaming as well. This study identifies two times in the sleep cycle where dreams occur: REM and NREM dreaming. REM dreams are identified as a time where the brain consolidates “procedural memories and some types of emotional information” (Payne and Nadel 2004) where memories of episodic past experiences rarely occur but allows for more abstract dreaming. However, NREM dreaming states (in deeper sleep: stages 2-4 of the sleep cycle) demonstrate more instances of “explicit, episodic memory consolidation”(Payne and Nadel 2004) where memories from past experiences and events (usually more recent events) occur. It can be explained that the real world example of memories of the past infiltrating memories which is often seen in film, is often demonstrated in NREM stages of the sleep cycle and occur more intensely in the earlier hours of the morning where these stages are longer lasting. 

This concept is shown in the movie ‘Inside Out’ (2015), where everyday the memories created are being transferred through the dream production before entering the memory storage facility. Different emotions controls and overlook the dreams each day, which also leads to memories being retold from different perspectives depending on what emotions are present. In ‘Inside Out’ (2015), the main character Riley is seen heavily sleeping whenever she has experienced a day contained with good memories and waking up when the dreams are turning sad or scary, showing memories that she does not want to relive. In the dream production the memories are also disorted in order to create a solution to the problem and the memories from the day are mixed with characters or/and places from long term memories.  

A conecpt by Allan Hobbs discusses in ‘Pathologies of Hyperfailierty in Dreams, Desalusion and Déjà vu’ (Gerran 2014) is hyperfamiliarity. This connects past memories and future expectations in dreams, through mixing familiar faces and personalities, misbinding identity and appearance. Gerran (2014) further discusses Dumhoffs idea explaining dreaming as a cognitive stimulation, which creates an introspective state of the person in dreams, which solves future problems and helps organize the past, present and future. ‘In Dreams on Film: the Cinematic Struggle between Art and Science’ (Halpern 2003), the reason to portray dreams as part of a character on film is to create familiarity and a connection between the characters and the viewers. This happens due to dreams often happening in vivid characteristics, making it easy to connect on certain events, for example the feeling om humiliation, longing for someone or laughing. Dreams in films are also a way of bringing the viewers into a consciousness of the world and their own experiences, as well as making them question what reality and dreams are and their impact on your own life. 

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Gabel, Stewart. 1991. Monitoring the State of Self in Dreams. New York: Psychological Contemporary Taught.

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