There are also dreams that seem to convey something profound about the impending death of oneself or a significant person in one’s life. While, as I noted in a previous essay in this series (Bergquist, 2023) the dreams of earlier adulthood often tend to focus on focal conflicts arising from earlier childhood experiences, the dreams of later adulthood might focus on existential matters of life’s meaning or purposes, or the anticipation of death and its aftermath. One does not have to be religious in order to dream of heaven (or hell), nor does one have to be a churchgoer to dream of spiritual matters (such as an archetypal image of a divine presence radiating light or benevolence).
Nostalgia and Dreams
While Oscar Hammerstein offered lyrics that were misleading about the absence of dreams in later adulthood, he might be identifying something important in his exploration of memories intertwined with or substituting for dreams:
When I grow too old to dream, your love will live in my heart.
It does seem to be true that our daytime life when we are old tends to focus more on the past than the future. We often linger on memories of the past and are frequently nostalgic about that which is no longer in our life. With this shift from the future to the past, there might no longer be the need for recollections of the past in our dreams.
We might no longer need to fight old battles in our dreams (the focal conflict model I addressed in a previous essay), for we can now simply reflect on these battles without having to solve them. We no longer have to use our dreams to test out the resolution of daytime conflicts in our relationship with other people, because we are now interacting with fewer people each day. We no longer have to seek out passion in our relationship with a loved one; we can now simply savor this passion as it existed at a precious point in our waking life. Our dreams no longer have to provide an indirect expression of our sexual passion, for we have found a safe way during our waking hours to reflect on this passion in a dispassionate and often appreciative manner: “Ah, yes, I remember it well” (as sung by Maurice Chevalier in the movie “Gigi”).
While this perspective on the replacement of dreams with nostalgia might hold some truth, I would also suggest that the interweaving of dreams and nostalgia might also occur. Our dreams might be filled with content that was aroused during the previous day when we were reflecting on past experiences. Those who speculate on the nature of dream content often talk about the inclusion of “day residue” in our dreams (especially early night dreams). What if the “day residue” is mostly about our memories of past events and relationships?
I would suggest, as I have done in previous essays in this series, that a process called “peremptory ideation” might be operating in the intertwining of dreams and memories. As George Klein (1967) has proposed, there might be an unconscious process operating in our psyche that relates to a specific theme (such as love, loss, intimacy, achievement, or forgiveness). Something triggers this theme (such as an especially gratifying or disturbing interaction with a loved one). We begin to reflect on this theme at the back of our mind. We begin to bring in old memories, lingering feelings, and both hopes and fears. I have related this ideational process to an avalanche. Both the avalanche and peremptory ideation pick up debris as they move forward. The ideation and avalanche are both “peremptory” in that they gather up new material without regard to other considerations, such as the weight of a stone picked up by the coursing snow, or the “sensible” position of an idea when drawn into the powerful and expanding ideation.
