Free hotline opens to offer dream analysis
April 28, 2006
Rory Colgan occasionally asks a simple question to random people on the Quad: “Do you remember your dreams?”
On Monday, Tania Zambrano, sophomore in LAS, was posed this question, but couldn’t recall any dreams.
“Any recurring themes, or symbols? Anything like that?” Colgan asked.
“Windows,” Zambrano said after a long pause. “I think there was a car too.”
“A window represents an awareness you have in your mind about your body, because the car represents your body,” Colgan said without hesitation. “So whenever you had this dream there was some type of awareness you had about your body.”
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“Wow,” Zambrano said. “How could you figure that out?”
This is a question likely to be asked many times to Colgan and his fellow dream interpreters when the School of Metaphysics, a private school in Urbana, participates in the 18th annual National Dream Hotline this weekend.
From 6 p.m. Friday until midnight on Sunday, community residents will be able to call the hotline and have their dreams interpreted by teachers of the school or Colgan, who volunteers as director.
Colgan said there is a universal language of the mind that allows people to understand what their subconscious is telling them. The language is based on the function of symbols in dreams. For instance, Colgan said a car represents the physical body because the function of a car is to move and travel to different places, which the body does also.
Once the dream is explained, Colgan said the interpretation may change a person’s perspective and help them to better understand how they feel.
“When you interpret your dream . you take something you really don’t understand or something that you can’t use, and it puts it into your reality, something that you can work with,” Colgan said.
Pam Blosser, area director of the Illinois’ Schools of Metaphysics, said interpretations sometimes change a person’s life drastically.
“We’ve had people who’ve had dreams when they were kids that they could never understand,” Blosser said. “It’s something that has kind of haunted them in real life, and now they understand what the dream is telling them.”
Colgan found many common themes arise in people’s dreams. For instance, people often dream of tornados, animals and being unprepared or naked during school.
He also said people often can’t remember their dreams, a problem that can be fixed with practice and effort.
“Have a strong desire to record and remember your dreams,” Colgan said. “Then, put a notepad and a pen next to your bed and when you wake up write down what you remember.”
He also said many things distract and hinder a person from remembering their thoughts.
“It’s probably kind of hard to wake up with a hangover and remember the dreams,” he said, adding that loud alarm clocks don’t help either.
On the Quad, Colgan continued to offer free dream interpretations. Josh Han, sophomore in LAS, took him up on his offer.
“It’s really simple. The whole day in my dream I had to go pee really badly,” Han said. “When I woke up . I had to go to the bathroom so bad. It was crazy.”
Wan and his friends erupted in laughter. Yet despite the simplicity and crudeness of Han’s dream, Colgan immediately gave a multifaceted answer.
“Well, there does show to be a mind-body connection, so that’s why you needed to go to the bathroom really bad (in your dream),” Colgan said. “It also represents a part of you that needed to release something, some type of energy that you couldn’t express during the day.”
Zambrano also opened up more, remembering a dream where her brother died after he was hit by a car.
Colgan used this dream to explain that people we see in dreams actually symbolize facets of ourselves.
“The main thing is there was a change about you that was caused by your body,” Colgan said. “All the people in your dream represent aspects of yourself. Is your younger brother kind, generous, smart, mean, stupid?”
Whatever her brother represented, Colgan said, actually represented that aspect of herself.
Zambrano was surprised.
“I thought it was more personal,” Zambrano said. “I was like ‘Oh God, my poor brother. Why am I killing you in my dreams?'”