Your own dreams can mean many things, but also they can mean nothing at all. Sharing your dreams with your close friends or loved ones may help you understand your dreams better, but still, some of it would sound silly to other people.
With that in mind, should you share your dreams with other people, or should you just keep them to yourself?
The subject of sharing dreams all comes down to one thing – personal preference. In this article, we give you the arguments for and against whether you should tell your friends or family members about the dreams you experience.
The Thing about Dreams…
One thing about dreams that is universal to everyone is that it’s hard to vividly remember every little thing that happened in your dreams, and the more time in your waking life, the less you remember.
The way your brain “creates” your dreams is by taking bits and pieces of information from different memories, different emotions, and these all get jumbled in a way in which we cannot comprehend.
Your dreams often give you incoherent information about situations, and it can manifest in multiple “storylines” which do not gel together.
The bottom line is, dreams are often hard to understand and interpret. The moment you wake up, most of the valuable information you have from your dreams fades from your memory, making it difficult to share the whole story.
Why Should I Share Them?
Humans are very relational beings, and sharing stories with friends and loved ones is a huge part of our lives. Even dreams are stories to be shared, and there are perks to doing so. Here are some of them:
It’s a Way of Showing Trust
Dreams are often personal, as they are usually based on our own memories and experiences. Sharing your dream with another person allows you to reveal a vulnerable side of yourself that no one else knows about or has seen.
Sharing dreams with your friends is an exercise of trust. Confiding dreams, whether they’re embarrassing, disturbing, or simply a funny story, can strengthen your bond and add to your closeness with your friends.
Dream Sharing Can Help You Process Your Thoughts
As mentioned earlier, we often wake up with a vague memory of our dream. And the further you go through the day, the more you forget about the details from your dreaming state.
Talking to your friend immediately allows you to pick your brains right away and commit more parcels of information of your dream to your memory.
If you believe in dreams having meanings, getting more information about your dream allows you to interpret it in a much more manageable way. If your dream was scary or traumatic, it can be beneficial to your mental health and well-being to discuss it with a trusted friend.
Your Friends May Be Able to Tell You What Your Dreams Mean
There are many facets of our own life and our personality that we ignore, yet our friends see it and are more aware of it.
Part of our dreams deals with our own subconscious, and our close friends and loved ones are the best judges, since they are more objective witnesses of our lives.
Talking to your family or your best friends about your dream would allow for an interpretation that dives into how they know you and how they see you, which can offer a fresh, alternate perspective of your dream.
Should I Just Keep Dreams to Myself?
While there are many reasons people opt to share their dreams with other people, others would also have their reasons for keeping their dreams to themselves. Here are some of the thoughts on why some refuse to share their dreams:
It Reveals Too Much about Yourself
As with the discussion on why you should be sharing your dreams – your dreams are heavily grounded on your own subconscious. And that subconscious reveals a lot about your own thoughts, personality, and ideas.
It doesn’t come as a surprise to feel adamant about not sharing these with other people as it can open the doors of your personal life too wide.
If you’re the type of person who’s more reserved about personal things and stories, then dream-sharing may not be for you.
Superstition Says It’s Bad Luck
The type of dream is the key indicator of whether you should share it or not. Some beliefs follow the idea that when you share your dreams with other people, they become more likely to happen.
Following that idea, if you have a dream about good fortune or health, it’s something that you should share in the hopes that the good dream becomes a reality.
On the other hand, if you dream about something terrible, like sickness or death in the family – it should be something that you should keep to avoid having it come true.
There’s nothing wrong with believing in superstitions, as everyone has their own beliefs. It’s all up to you whether you’d follow the views on dream-sharing.
Your Dreams Don’t Tell the Whole Story
Don’t you just hate it when a story is told, and you don’t get to the climax? The climax is where we fully understand a story; it’s where the exciting stuff happens.
Sharing bits and pieces of dreams often leads to anti-climactic storytelling. Not having all the information about your dream often makes for incomplete stories.
The lack of information can be pretty frustrating, and even if they’re your friends in the first place, they can still find your story uninteresting and a waste of time.
Share with Caution
Our real life and our dreams are genuinely independent of each other, and at the same time, they can still be interconnected in ways we don’t understand.
Sharing dreams is personal to people, and with the information in this article, we leave the decision to you on whether you should tell your friends about your dreams.
If you’re looking for other ways to talk about last night’s dream antics, try a dream journal. This will also help with recollection, so you can remember your dream for longer.
We wish you a good night’s sleep and sweet dreams!
Read more from our Dream Series:
- How To Remember Your Dreams
- What Do Our Dreams Mean?
- Can Nightmares Be A Good Thing?