Zhang, a Chinese man in his 30s, has dreamt repeatedly of failing the national college entrance examination, which he attended and passed 13 years ago.
He wakes up and instantly remembers the anxiety and worry he had in the dream.
While he realizes that he must have felt the pressure very deeply at the time, he also wonders why, after such a long time, he should still dream about it.
Some dreams can be easily explained by physical needs. For example, people who are hungry might dream of eating food and those who need to relieve themselves might dream of a toilet.
But many others seem so irrelevant to daily happenings and too mysterious to explain.
Guo Nianfeng, professor with the Psychological Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that many such dreams can still be interpreted either psychologically or physiologically.
Drawing his conclusions from years of clinical experience, he thinks many dreams can be interpreted by the moods the dreamers are in.
"Many dreams are limited in their relevancy to daily events," he said. "But the essential states of mood are usually similar."
Based on this theory he believes Zhang might have one or more things that are worrying him, which produce similar feelings as he had during the college entry examinations.
In this way, Guo has found explanations for many typical dreams. For example, he believes those who dream of flying might have experienced situations in their lives in which they strongly feel they are incapable of doing something.
In another case, people who dream of being chased by killers or even ghosts might have a lot of pressing and worrying issues in life.
"Unrealized wishes lead to negative moods, which in turn find their way into dreams," he reasoned.
Dreams are often ways to release suppressed moods, such as anger and misery.
By finding out explanations to people's dreams, Guo helps solve problems in their lives and, by doing so, eradicates their psychological problems.
Xu Wenbing, a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) doctor, both backed and supplemented Guo's theory. He thinks that there is more relevancy between dreams and people's physical condition.
"Dreams are often related to responses of the internal organs to people's moods," he explained.
According to TCM theory, happiness produces changes in the heart, anger in the liver, anxiety and worry in the spleen, fear and surprise in the kidneys and misery in the lungs.
"It's often that a dream will mean a problem with the corresponding organ," Xu said.
Deducing from the theory, Zhang might have some problem with the spleen.
Dreams usually occur during deep sleep, accompanied by rapid eye movement.
Guo said that the deep sleep period is essential to the recovery of the brain capacity. If people wake up from such a sleep, they report having a dream.
Xu believes that people rest best if they don't report any dream or few, incoherent dreams. If they remember too many dreams and in great detail, they can't be sleeping very well.
He suggests that people have a small dinner consisting of easily digestible food. Also, people need to resolve their mood problems so that they are not disturbed in their sleep.
(Beijing Weekend December 31, 2002)
