Finding patterns in your dreams you didn't know you were looking for is a major task of all forms of Dream Work. Often Dream Work focuses on major themes and metaphors. Many Dream Dictionaries for example only discuss 1,000 common major metaphors. With the use of high speed computers and technology it is now feasible to examine all the details in a dream narrative. With each linguistic unit (words) linked to multiple categories, the amount of detail and new information you can explore is limitless.

The famous quote of "An unexamined dream is like an unopened letter." is very apt here. At the moment, some of us are examining the highlights of a dream and tossing the rest out, like the baby with the bath water. It is now possible to examine dreams at a very complex and detailed level.

As an example, I chose to focus on something that is not ordinarily thought of as important information in a dream narrative. I examined the preposition "To", which has over 23 different definitions. This is usually a throw away word, considered to be important only in the grammatical structure of a sentence.

I looked at three different definitions of the word "To." Movement To Place," "Movement To Person", and "Movement To Objects". I generated a norming dream set by choosing a set of 176 dreams between two dates. Out of that dream set, I generated the Word Counts in three main categories. Character's Sex, Emotions and Social Interactions. The dreams are from my own dream series, so only one dreamer is represented. I am looking at the consistency within a long dream series over time. I used simple raw percentages. I divided the frequency of a sub-set by the frequency of the entire Main category set. For example: Male Specific frequencies are divided by all frequencies of Character's Sex.

In all cases, the results are not staggering, but facinating. Each Category stayed in the same general ball park. But there were enough percentage point differences to show some interesting patterns I would not have thought to examine. For example, in the Category of Character's Sex, the "Movement To Place" dream set had an elevated count of the sub-category "Joint" indicating these dreams worked more with groups of mixed sexes than it did with either male or female characters. In contrast, the "Movement To Person" dream set had Specific (known) males as it's highest percentage of characters. Specific (known) females were fairly evenly distributed through the four dream sets. Unknown (general) females were elevated in the "Movement To Objects" dream set. Male General (unknown) were evenly distributed. There was an elevation of "Indefinite" characters (unknown sex) in "Movement To Person."

It is also interesting to note that ALL the Joint (mixed sex characters in a group) in the 176 Norm Dream Set were found in the Movement To Place, some of the Movement To Person and Movement To Objects sub-sets. When I created a sub-set that excluded the three "Movement" sub-sets, there wasn't a single link to the "Joint" character's sex category. Instead, the incidence of Male Specific and Male General characters dramatically rose. As a side note, 80% of the links to the category "Spiritual" disappeared as well. And Sexuality increased. Intriguing threads to pursue.

Looking at the category emotions, there was a lessening of the Negative emotions in the "Movement To Persons" dream Set. The Sexual State of Mind elevated in that same dream set. In the "No Movement To" Set, the State of Mind Negative is elevated, State of Mind Positive remained consistent, and the Sexual State of Mind decreased.

In the Social Interactions Categories, Communication was highest in the "Movement To Place" dream set, which seems consistent with the elevated Joint mixed sex groups. Friendliness was elevated in the "Movement To Persons" set and Aggression was elevated in the "Movement To Objects" dream set. Sexuality was elevated in the "Movement To Persons" set. In the "No Movement To" Set, Communication was at it's lowest of these sub-sets and Sexuality was at it's highest. There was a small decrease in Friendliness. Aggression fluctuated only slightly.

In summary, then, the examination of an "unimportant" word has brought up important threads to examine that are very pertinent to Dream Work. As I informally look at the numbers, I make the assumption that in dreams where the dreamer in this dream series is not moving toward a place, object or person, there is increased male characters, increased Negative emotions and increased Sexual activity with a corresponding decrease in Sexual State of Mind and Spirituality. Hummm. The next step will be to pull up each dream in that sub set of "No Movement" and examine each one for specific patterns.

Following are the percentage figures generated for these sub categories as described above.

Percent of Frequencies in the Category of "Character's Sex"

Percent of Frequencies in the Category of "Emotions"

Percent of Frequencies in the Category of "Social Interactions"

These frequency counts generated by the software package "DreamSpinner V1.0 Advanced."

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