The purpose of the Dream Action Project was to share an important dream and analyze its meaning in our lives and think about how our dream world represents parts of our unconscious life.
Rene Descartes believed that we have the knowledge within ourselves to understand what we need to conduct our life. John Locke believed that we start life with a blank slate and that it is our senses and experiences are that help us think and understand the world; I believe that we are born with a leveling system, and at every level, we have to improve our skills to reach a new level. Kind of like a video game. Like John Locke, I think we gain skills and knowledge by listening, observing, experiencing, and reflecting on our world. Our dreams might be the way our minds sort our doubts and beliefs into what is important about our experiences. My idea is similar to how Descartes uses an analogy of sorting barrels of apples into good and bad apples to help us understand that there are good useful questions and there are bad questions that don't help us. John Locke's beliefs make more sense to me when I am awake, and Rene Descartes's beliefs make more sense to me for when I am asleep.
As part of our study on dreams, we partnered with classmates to discuss our dreams and to interpret each other's dreams. I learned from my partner that people could use their dreams to help them. For example, my partner's dream helped her understand and feel better about something sad and frustrating that happened in her life. That has not happened to me. Here is the truth about my dreams; I can only remember one dream. In this dream, I am alone and walking into a dark forest. I keep walking, and eventually, I walk off a hill, and once I hit the ground, I wake up. When I interpret my dream, I think the forest is a symbol of dark thoughts. I think climbing the hill and going over the edge into darkness represents me succumbing to negative thoughts and depression. I think I am alone in my dream because I feel like I don't have any friends. When I wake up from the dream, I feel scared and sad. Sigmund Freund believed that dreams are about wish fulfillment, that the purpose of a dream is to fulfill the wishes of the dreamer. My dream feels like a nightmare, but I think it represents my wish not to be alone.
In class, we learned about Ojibwe Dreamcatchers and made dreamcatchers as part of our Action Project. We learned that the legend of the Ojibwe dreamcatcher is that they represent the interconnectedness of life and that they were a gift from the great spider to help filter out bad dreams which passed through the web holes and to attract good dreams into a person's life. When I began the assignment to design my own dreamcatcher, I considered my original important question, "what is the meaning of life?" As I worked on my dreamcatcher, I realized that the question that is more important to me right now is "How can I lead a fulfilling life"? I think this question has many characteristics of a good question; it is universal, open-ended, relevant, and answering it is helpful to me and makes me really think about what is important to me. The focus of my dreamcatcher represents my question of how can I live a fulfilling life? I used a sparkly hard stone in the middle of my dreamcatcher to signify the happiness, strength, and good fortune that I want for myself and for other people to have.
When you look at my dreamcatcher, all of the different parts of the dreamcatcher signify different things. I wove a turquoise-colored ribbon into my dreamcatcher because it represents to me the positive elements like the sun, blue sky, and good times I have had with my friends and family. Those are elements that I want to attract into my dreams. I used a crescent moon shape to symbolize new beginnings like starting high school and getting through COVID. I want my dreamcatcher to help me dream about celebrating those accomplishments and to invite more success into my life. I wove darker colors like dark purple, dark blue, and black into the web to signify my negative elements or the things I struggle with like a learning difference, Type 1 Diabetes, and keeping up in school. I wove hard, bumpy wire around the threads to help filter out negativity in my dreams. Like in the Ojibwe legend, the spaces in my web allow for bad dreams to filter through, and the hole under my stone allows good dreams to come through. I added a fish bead to signify spirituality and faith and a turtle bead to show persistence and toughness. The fish bead is to invite more spirituality into my dreams, and the turtle bead is to help me remember in my dreams that I can be strong.
In conclusion, I have learned a lot in this investigation. I have learned about how our dreams have meanings that we need to interpret and that how we understand and make sense of the world can happen in our dreams. I hope my dreamcatcher helps me to have good dreams and that I can use my dreams to help me understand how to live a fulfilling life.
Picture of my dream catcher
Comments
Post a Comment