Dreams don't always hold deeper meanings

By Kareema Vernon

When it's time to go to bed, I usually look forward to dreaming. I find that as a college student who never gets enough sleep, dreaming is a nice escape. It’s a personal getaway for everyone because it's the only time you can visualize your own thoughts. I believe dreams have a greater meaning in our lives, too.

But do dreams have a deeper meaning or am I just dreaming?

**A woman sleeping with a sleeping mask (envato elements).**

This whole concept came about when I started experiencing recurring dreams a couple weeks ago. I began to feel weirded out and questioned if the daily stresses of tests and papers were causing my brain to overload.

Instead, I realized that these dreams corresponded to a particular networking event that I went to a couple months ago. It involved me meeting many people, but one person in particular started to consistently appear in my dreams.

I began to think that I could change my current dreams if I thought about different things before bedtime, but that didn’t work. My subconscious still had the same images playing on repeat, and I could not rid myself of them.

I began to do research about this subject, and I found so many articles on the website Dream Dictionary that says there is a real reason for my recurring dream. Many of the websites also discussed solutions to prevent me from excessively dreaming about this particular person, but they didn’t work.

The trip I took weeks ago included me meeting one particular guy. This guy was nice, and I liked him, but I did not realize this until well after I began having these dreams.

I did not dream every night. Still, every dream I did have included him and I being in love. Was my dream trying to tell me something?

I could not answer these questions until I began my research. I was advised through this website that he was the man that I should marry, and that I needed to tell him how I felt because I dreamt about him.

All of this after one meeting with this guy? He could have been my future husband and I let him out of my life.

I don’t believe that, though. When we met, he never made an effort to make sure I would become his wife, therefore, this could never be true. There is no research that can show that him and I shared the same dream. Since he probably did not dream that we would be together, then how could we be?

I do not believe that dreams depict our inner feelings 100 percent of the time. Dreams can tell how you feel about something or someone, but they are not always accurate. Relying on dreams to live your life will only leave you disappointed.

If life was based solely on dreaming, it would be so much easier, but is that not what makes life so unexpected? Dreams can only show what we know, but cannot change about our lives. If something is meant to be, it will happen.

So, the next time you dream that you're going to marry Justin Bieber or Beyoncé, think twice. Dreams cannot predict anyone’s love life.