Although you may have your share of fantasy dream scenarios, the chances are your dreams will also be littered with everyday items and situations you are familiar with in real life.
Perhaps you have come into contact with one particular item or situation more often than any other, this familiarity explaining its appearance in your dream. According to Christopher Evans, a British psychologist and computer scientist, the appearance of everyday things in dreams is simply the brain’s way of processing and arranging information. Most dream analysts, however, find this explanation unconvincing and argue that everyday things in dreams contain symbolic values and may represent far more than their everyday function might suggest. The ways in which common items are used and everyday situations are experienced in dreams have enormous significance, as does the context or scenario in which they appear. In other words, everyday images in dreams operate in much the same way as all symbols and their appearance in dreams is a testimony to their shared, as well as to their individual, meaning. In this chapter, some of the most common everyday items and experiences you may encounter in your dreams will be explored.
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