The secret side of Dreams

What can philosophy sort out?

Often they are problems that have to do with people’s emotional make-up. For example, in the context of a failed relationship, like a divorce. Ethical stumbling blocks come up in life, pain that’s difficult to get through. Other cases can be related to difficulties in the workplace – people who find themselves in a professional situation which in some way or other is not ideal. Always, using philosophy, there’s a way of finding solutions.

Can this be useful for companies?

Yes – although our work with companies has more to do with ethical issues.

And you also spend time studying the ‘Phenomenology of Dreams’. What exactly is that?

It’s something completely new. The first and only person to talk about this was the Spanish philosopher María Zambrano (1904-1991), on whom I wrote my doctorate. It’s a way of looking at dreams that has nothing to do with psychoanalysis, or the sort of omni-romantic interpretations which people have made since the beginning of time. What it works on isn’t so much the content of the dream but on the movement of the subject within timelessness.

What does that mean?

Well, it means that when we have a dream, that dream has a determined time-frame. And the story corresponds to a certain perception of time; and that perception of time corresponds to a type of consciousness. And that type of consciousness normally ties us to a particular spiritual situation. It’s this that subsequently provides a lot of information on the state that a person may be finding themselves in at that moment in time.

You’re saying that our dreams reflect our lives?

Well, yes, they do. We dream all the time, but a lot of the time we don’t remember our dreams. That’s normal. Put another way, that’s when we say our lives are running normally. When we have a situation that is more difficult than normal, or when there’s an increase in tension, that’s the time we remember our dreams. It’s not by chance that this happens. It’s because those dreams contain important information.

Does dreaming a lot mean trouble?

It means we should pay attention, because there’s a lot of precious information there. But it has to be worked through properly. And often, people find that difficult to do. They haven’t got the strength. That’s what the dreams could be pointing at. There are dreams that contain an impulse in the sense of an action that can make a difference in someone’s life.

So you are saying that dreams can be motivating?

Yes. They can be that little safety platform which people need to take decisions. And they can help us live in a more authentic way.

So you would say that people should pay attention to their dreams?

Yes. Normally we consider our wakeful life as the important part – but in fact, it has already been scientifically proven that sleep is the primordial aspect of man. A lot happens during sleep – dreams included. If dreaming wasn’t important, how could it have survived through so many years of evolution? Remember, when early man dreamt, he was completely unprotected. Dreaming is a moment of muscular inertia. We are completely flaccid and relaxed. If this wasn’t important – however dangerous it might be for a human being – why would it continue until now?

There’s a saying that the pillow is a good adviser. Would you agree?

Yes. Many people work that way already. This is an area where there’s a lot of affinity with the work of psychoanalysts. As a result of the absence of conscious filters, dreams contain a lot of subliminal information that normally doesn’t reach our consciousness. It’s because of this that there are a lot of ‘forward-seeing’ dreams – when someone dreams something that later happens. It’s not saying that that person has the gift of foresight – just that by dreaming they have access to the more subtle realities of a situation that they perhaps didn’t appreciate when they were awake.

And when our dreams are bad?

We can have bad dreams for purely physiological reasons. For example, due to difficult digestion. If a person has constant and repetitive bad dreams, that’s a sign of alarm. It isn’t natural, and is a sign that something isn’t going well.

You are investigating dreams in the context of artistic creation. What can you tell us?

Yes, I am. It’s an investigation that began four years ago with the laboratory of dream analysis at Lisbon’s Faculty of Medicine, joined last year by the Neurological Unit of Faro District Hospital. We’re studying the so-called ‘creative dream’. Maria Zimbrano said that “it’s a moment when the beginning is informed about the end”. It’s as if an artist, when he goes to create his work of art, in some way or other, gets information from the future. It’s what we call ‘inspiration’. You notice that when you talk with an artist and ask him why he did a work in a certain way, the answer is nearly always because “it had to be like that”. My research is to see if there’s a physiological relationship with what we call inspiration. Up until now, we’ve been working with artists and musicians.