My main question is.. how can I identify thematic similarities in the content of peoples’ dreams?  What are these similarities and what do they coincide with the current state of the world? 

The biggest inspiration for this project was a summer psychology class I took about dreams and anxiety. Through that class, I learned that the symbols that occur in dreams are important, and it benefits us greatly to interpret them and identify what the symbols mean in accordance with our waking life. Everybody has dreams, and everybody has weird dreams. The most serious person you know could be having wacky dreams every single night that they may not feel comfortable talking about because of how distanced they feel from them. But in reality, it is their mind creating these events and visuals, and every single symbol they experience means something about their life. 

We may often feel disconnected from others, the reality of life can be overbearing. The mystery of dreaming seems magical, and it is something we often forget everyone experiences because we are so caught up in our own life/heads. I wanted to do this project to show the commonalities of the human experience, and that although each dream is unique to yourself, dreams are things that everyone has (no matter if you remember them or not). 

Humans often go to great lengths to subconsciously or consciously push emotions, experiences down into their psyche/unconscious. Feelings you may not even know you had may be revealed through dreams. Interpreting your dreams is very important for uncovering your shadow and bettering yourself by addressing personal issues. For my project, I don’t just want to be pointing out everybody’s problems, I want to show how common all types of feelings are (because a lot of people’s dreams are similar, especially when it comes to anxiety or fear). 

I’m coming into this project with only a little knowledge of dream interpretation. The main aspect I have to explore is actually learning how to do that. To learn I am just going to be researching a bunch through reading, an online class, podcasts, and websites. Also with finding commonalities, I want to learn how certain symbols/dreams can coincide with what’s currently going on in the world.