Ask HN: Anyone have their dreams analyzed?

2 points·farm_code··6 comments

I am getting weird dreams lately with code, aliens, foreign lands. Is there something called scientific dream analysis?

(I am not a doctor and none of the following should be construed as medical advice.)

Well, there is dream interpretation as part of psychoanalysis; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalytic_dream_interpret... . However, you'd need to find a therapist/psychiatrist who subscribed to that theory and, even then, well, it's unclear what, if anything, you'd get out of your undoubtedly quite expensive sessions.

If the dreams are strong enough to trouble you or disrupt you sleep, you might want to seek medical attention directly. They can suggest stress reduction techniques, lifestyle changes, and, as a last resort, provide medication that suppresses dreams such as prazosin.

I find my dreams get very weird when I do a lot of coding. You over-use those poor neurons and then they fire off crazy stuff all night. If you're concerned about your dreams, take a day off and get some exercise outdoors.

I dream more now I am coding less. I love what my imagination can conjure up. Many times a night now I get woken up and I am angry that I won't know how the weird story will end. I try to think how it would have ended.

Dreams are like if your train of thought suddenly became your surrounding environment; like reality itself collapsing around pretty bizarre local states.

Dreams are just random firing neurons.

Hacker news is not a therapist.

I think of it as neurons taking a shower and singing loudly (they are being flushed clean of toxins).

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