How I evaluate certain dreams

People often interpret dream symbols universally, like "water means abundance" or "falling means loss of control." These interpretations stem from psychological theories I fundamentally disagree with, based on 35 years of studying dreams.

My dream journals contain over 13,600 entries, one of the largest single-source collections ever assembled. Instead of assuming all dreams are symbolic, I've found empirical evidence that some cannot be mere "subconscious messages."

My default position, unlike psychologists', is that dreams are not symbolic. While some dreams can be symbolic, I find this rare enough that assuming no symbolism is generally more accurate. Separately, when I dream of specific events with potentially verifiable content, I assume they reflect reality until proven otherwise. By "verifiable," I mean dream content that could theoretically be confirmed if evidence exists or becomes available.

This approach addresses two distinct aspects of dream interpretation: the rarity of truly symbolic dreams and the frequency of dreams depicting real, verifiable events. While these concepts are separate, both challenge conventional psychological assumptions about dreams.

For example, I once dreamed of a talking egg in a sock tossed into a wall. The next day, I saw this exact scenario in a new Saturday Night Live skit called "Eggman" starring Bill Murray. My dated journal entry proves this dream was precognitive, challenging conventional interpretations.

In the same way, I have found that I often dream of what other people are doing in some other location. For instance, when I lived in New Jersey, I once dreamed of a man named David who I didn’t know well and had never met in person. In the dream, he was in a parking lot talking to another man. The other man told David that two of his cars were destroyed in two separate wind storms in the same week by falling tree branches.

I called David to see if the dream meant anything to him. At first he thought it didn’t, but then he recalled a conversation he’d had that morning with another tenant of the building he worked in. He told David that first his wife’s car, then his own, had tree branches land on their roofs in two separate storms that week, destroying the cars.

These experiences form the foundation of my approach to dream interpretation. A recent dream about Tucker Carlson provides an excellent case study for applying this method.

A few days ago, on October 11, 2024, I woke from a dream of journalist Tucker Carlson. This is the first dream I’ve ever had featuring Carlson. In the dream, I saw Carlson sitting in a convertible or open-topped sportscar. I thought it was a very fancy or souped-up Mercedes. However, someone in the dream called it a “Veyron.” I didn’t know what a Veyron was, but someone in the dream kept using that word to refer to the car. Because the word “Veyron” came from someone in the dream, not from me, I trust that word over my own initial impression.

The car was parked in what seemed like an indoor space. My impression was of a dealership showroom, possibly a large garage, but a place with many beautiful, expensive, new parked cars. Adding to the impression of a showroom, there was a man here standing near the car and talking to Carlson, as if he was showing the car to him. For his part, Carlson was smiling and seemed to be having a good time.

After waking, I looked up the word Veyron, expecting that if there was such a make, I’d find it. It turned out it is a real car, but “Veyron” is the model, not the make. The make is Bugatti. The Bugatti Veyron is a very rare car, with only a few hundred open top versions created at a release price of about $2,000,000.

So, what am I supposed to think of this dream? How should it be interpreted?

First, it contains one piece of information I didn’t know until I looked it up after waking: the name of the car. That’s one point in favor of the dream being “real” in the sense that it is based on something real. Second, the impression of Carlson was very “real.” That quality is something I associate with dreams of real events in distant places.

Carlson's public image doesn't align with owning a Veyron. On TV, he's seen driving ordinary trucks or evaluating vehicles like the Tesla Cybertruck. This mismatch actually supports the dream's authenticity, as I've observed that such dreams often feature atypical scenarios in the subject's life.

Based on my experience where 72% of investigated dreams proved accurate, I consider this dream more likely to represent a real event than a meaningless scenario.For instance, the Carlson-Veyron dream could be verified if it was recorded and surfaces in media, or if I had the (unlikely) opportunity to ask Carlson or the other man directly. However, verification is often impossible due to limited access to such information.

Last, on the six most recent occasions I’ve had to check on dreams like this, all were confirmed. Those were easier to confirm than this one, which would be fairly difficult, because in the other dreams, I know the people concerned well enough to ask questions like this.

To provide a structured analysis of the Carlson-Veyron dream, I'll break down my confidence levels in various elements based on my experience with similar dreams:

• Carlson: Not a verifiable element (dream anchor)

• Veyron: High confidence (name mentioned repeatedly, unfamiliar to me before the dream)

• Open-topped Veyron: Moderate confidence (clear view of Carlson, but possibly due to dream focus)

• Showroom/Dealership: Somewhat confident (consistent with observed details)

• Ownership: Likely not Carlson's car (based on interactions observed)

The bottom line is that, I consider the dream more likely true than not, but won’t update my position either way without evidence to support it.