Concerning Types of Dreams

I have decided to classify the following dreams according to three different types as outlined below. It is first essential for me to explain that Type I dreams are usually too insignificant for me to remember. As such I felt I should give a few examples to illustrate my point. These will be found after the discussion of the types.

Type I:
An impression, thought, idea, or visual image. While an understanding of linear progression may accompany the Type I dream, it is as a whole a static object. In other words, as a circle may connote a motion round its circumference until completed in termination with its origin, but yet present itself as a singular unit, so too this type of dream may represent a progression, but present itself as a whole.

Type II:
A surreal event that is perceived rather than experienced. The dreamer perceives the event of the dream as a third party, even should a member of the dream represent the self. The analogy in this case would be akin to an actor watching a movie in which he played the lead role.

Type III:
A fully conscious experience. A complete immersion into the world of the dream such that throughout the course of the dream its reality is as unquestionable as the waking world. The cogito is in effect during the course of the dream and the dreamer recognizes himself as an individual consciousness.

A few examples of Type I dreams follow.

An impression of observing a fender bender.

The "processing" of multiple scenarios of the game minesweeper while sleeping, accompanied by a visual representation of their solutions.

The thought of an urgent or important event to be enacted upon waking (generally followed by the subsequent arousal from the dream state), as in situations in which the dreamer is about to embark on a journey the next morning, or take a test in school, etc.

The memory of a forgotten item of thought from recent history, as in the memory of an item on a grocery list that was forgotten while at the store, or the memory of a word, movie title, or name, etc., that was forgotten during a recent conversation.

An impression of an image, as in a painting, a place, an object, etc.

A sensation of falling (or soaring upward or in some other direction) through space.

As I have said, Type I dreams are generally too insignificant for me to remember, however, Types II and III have always presented themselves to me with unforgettable clarity and vividness, to the extent that I feel competent to recount them with great accuracy.

I have often mentioned to friends that I rarely dream. A common response is that "everyone dreams" and I simply do not remember mine. Having studied psychology in some depth for a number of years, this answer seems inadequate to me. It is my personal hypothesis that while the unconscious psyche may be regularly involved in activity during sleep, this activity is not identical to dream construction. Rather, I believe that during sleep the unconscious psyche acts to catalog and archive recent experiences, dream construction being an additional function that is not a necessary occurrence. Jungian psychology suggests that dreams are the "surfacing," so to speak, of repressed or unacknowledged elements of the unconscious psyche, such an event only being possible should there exist a disparity between the conscious and unconscious psyche. Jung particularly speaks of a "threshold" of sorts that determines the point at which an element of the unconscious psyche becomes significant enough to "break through" to the conscious psyche in the form of a dream. In individuals who have attained a high degree of individuation, or reconciliation of the conscious psyche and the unconscious psyche, or alternately, assimilation of the unconscious psyche by the conscious psyche, this "threshold" is significantly "lowered" such that few things of psychic importance are confined within the recesses of the unconscious. I firmly believe that I am an exceptionally individuated individual. As such, it follows that the cause of my apparent lack of regular dreams is not forgetfulness, but rather, simply a lack of the occurrence of dreams at all. As such, the significance of the dreams I have experienced is greatly increased, and it is this fact that has caused me to consider their record, analysis, and interpretation to be a worthwhile exercise.