Get Connected: Dreams and Dreaming in the Global Village

The daily tide of dreams and dreaming of the human inhabitants of the planet amounts to about 25-billion dreams (an average of four dreams a day, multiplied by 6.8 billion people). Yearly, that amounts to potentially 9-trillion dreams, an ocean of dreams populated with dramatic creatures and dreamscapes.

We have come to a crossroads in the Global Village. If humanity's adaptive faculties fail to move towards tribal peace, then we can write our apocalyptic epitaph. Misanthropy and nihilism are real, but we need not be doomed. We can move away from darkness into the light. As Marshall McLuhan, possibly alluding to Plato's metaphor of the ship of state, tells us, "There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew." We are all in the same boat. The question is whether we should be a ship of fools.

The International Institute for Dream Research website has had visitors from over 160 nations, many of whom have donated dreams to the dreambank. National literatures and narratives imprint their own language and patterns of socialization on children. A nation's culture is derived from its legends, folk-tales and national myths, and these are taught to us at a very early age. That they have a profound effect on our collective psyche is evident from examining the dreams of children. Children are the purest form of what Jean-Jacques Rousseau called "the Noble Savage," uncorrupted by learning and socialization. But they learn quickly to absorb their cultural legacy. All individuals living in a speech community are shaped via instruction to learn their culture's literary storehouse inheritance.

As everyday literary slices of life we can begin to discern patterns of dreaming in the Global Village. Some of the dreams from different counties are listed below and the list will continue to grow as more interpretations are posted; 

All material Copyright 2006 International Institute for Dream Research. All rights reserved.