Freud and The Interpretation of Dreams (which is a far more intellectual title than this piece quite deserves but might pull in a few of you bookish types)

I was discussing my over active imagination (the fact that I spend much of my waking day worrying myself sick and having random thoughts that come out of nowhere and make me question what kind of a person I actually am) and vivid dreams (hideous nightmares that leave me scared to go to sleep) with a friend and we agreed that watching too many horror films probably causes most of it. The fact that I'm am borderline crazy probably being the root of the rest. So I've been trying not to watch any scary stuff on telly, read about it or hear about it and in general shield myself from anything other than raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens and other fluffy crap.

I love horror films. I really like being scared but in a controlled way. I think that's because I spend much of my life worrying about real life stuff its nice to be scared about something I don't actually NEED to be scared of. I have had the whole spectrum of nightmare genres this week: slasher/zombie gore (serious blood bath), Armageddon style end of the world (that one had some seriously good special effects), thriller (a riveting story which might make a good book) and finally, other half getting involved with a dodgy gang who wanted to kill me and the kids as pay back for other half not sticking to his side of the bargain, I left with the boys and they were all chasing us (this one probably the most sinister and chilling, dreams like this make you feel like you can't quite trust him for the rest of the day but you can't actually get away with being cross with him, bastard). But even though I have been trying to avoid dodgy stuff, most of the stories behind my nightmares could easily be seen or at least mentioned on the news, Wii or Xbox games or even family films. How do you avoid everything that might cause a bad dream?

Anyway, my friend reckons dreams are a manifestation of issues people have in their lives and can tell us things about ourselves. This is more or less what Freud thought (although he also said that most of those issues were sexual, not quite sure what he'd make of my random mixed bag of dreams and don't think I'd want to). I've just been on dreammoods.com and checked out some of my nightmares last week, they all say feeling overwhelmed, out of control and insecure. Nice, but nothing new as far as I'm concerned. I've been feeling overwhelmed, out of control and insecure pretty much my entire life, what made last week any different?

Well, last week I heard about the most recent threat on our security as a planet, a solar storm. I was picturing big fireballs blasting into the earth knocking earth off its axis and causing extinction of the human race (and, funnily enough, this was exactly what I dreamed about), I watched an episode of Being Human in which there was a girl zombie (also one of the kids on Neighbours was playing a zombie game), and I watched an episode of Neighbours where a mechanic was doing dodgy deals with a bunch of gangsters, hmmm, ring any bells? And yes OK, I watch a lot of Neighbours, I like it, alright? But given that it seems to have been the root cause of two nightmares this week I may have to limit my night time viewing of it. At this rate I'm going to be stuck sat watching Peppa Pig in the evenings and not getting to watch anything good. Although I wouldn't put it past my brain to find something scary and sinister about Peppa. Come to think of it that Mrs Rabbit must be some kind of gangster, she seems to run every business in town. Anyway...

I really don't know whether or not dreams really do mean anything. When I was growing up my Dad swore he had never had a dream in his life. Didn't know how it felt or even understood the concept of a dream because he'd never remembered one. I always thought he was missing out (although this last week I would give anything for a dreamless sleep, I'm bloody knackered). It begs the question whether or not he did dream but just didn't remember them. But if that's the case, what's the point in having dreams if you're not going to remember them? Does our subconscious somehow work through issues while we are asleep and entirely unaware? How would that actually help? Surprisingly enough, I'm not actually a neuro-scientist so I wouldn't know the science behind it, and I'm not sure I'm clever enough to understand it even if I tried.

What if someone who previously never dreamed suddenly starts remembering their dreams? Does that mean they now have "issues"? Sorry, Freud, I just don't buy it.

So do you remember your dreams? Do you think they tell you something about yourself or just a jumbled up mess of crap that you have seen during the day? Is there anyone out there reading this that understands "the science bit" and can explain it in a way that an overwhelmed, out of control and insecure person with severe baby brain could understand?