Blame the hemorrhoids conversation and comments posted yesterday: Last night I had a long, extremely vivid dream about taking a shit. Luckily, there’s a story in today’s New York Times about dreams and their meaning.
But yeah. Last night I dreamed about pooping: Specifically, that I was in a restaurant someplace downtown and left the table, urged by my bowels. The public restroom was shockingly filthy, and the stalls had no doors, but I had to go. I squatted and let loose; crapping for what felt like forty minutes. People — including random dudes — came and went. I could not stop the excrement.
According to John Tierney of the Times, research shows that people tend to attach significance to a dream if it is about something or someone they like. Negative dreams get brushed off as “just a dream.” That’s why if you dream about taking a year off to travel, you probably think your dreams are telling you something. If you dream about spending a year in a leper colony? Not so much.
Doctors are still studying dreams, however, and Tierney links to a dream survey designed by researchers at Harvard University. The survey asks participants to describe recent dreams, and questions include “How likely is it that the events you dreamt of will occur in the future?” and “In general, do you believe that dreams can foretell the future?” Tierney writes, “Dr. Morewedge and Dr. Norton have have promised to give Lab readers a report of the results.” So of course I wrote about my crappy dream. But there wasn’t an opportunity to tell the docs that when I woke up, I pooped. And it felt great.
What Do Dreams Mean? Whatever Your Bias Says, Any Dreams to Report? [NY Times]
Earlier: Pooping: The New Hot Shit
[Image via AllPosters.com.]