John Darnielle Quotes

Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves.

The dreamer dreams, and the dreamer within the dream dreams.

Dreams really tell you about yourself more than anything else in this world could ever tell you.

Even by common wisdom, there seem to be both people and objects in my dream that are outside myself, but clearly they were created in myself and are part of me, they are mental constructs in my own brain.

As a writer reading, I came to realize the obvious: the subject of the dream is the dreamer.

I'm not a big dreamer. I never have been.The only thing I've sort of obviously extracted from the research of dreams is that I don't think there's a specific science you can put on dream psychology. I think that it's up to, obviously, the individual. Obviously, we suppress things, emotions, things during the day - thoughts that we obviously haven't thought through enough, and in that state of sleep when our subconscious or mind just sort of randomly fires off different surreal story structures, and when we wake up we should pay attention to these things.

I think that we can learn so much if we pay attention to our dreams, whether when we are asleep or in waking dreams. There are connections that are absolutely incredible.

Our dreams can teach us, instruct us, confuse us... sometimes I think they look to be considered. And in terms of like, they are an opportunity and I think they most certainly could be utilized to focus, to try and achieve - whether it's looking for someone, or influencing us, or inspiring us.

A skilful man reads his dreams for his selfknowledge; yet not the details, but the quality.

Sleep takes off the costume of circumstance, arms us with terrible freedom, so that every will rushes to deed. A skillful man reads his dreams for his self-knowledge; yet not the details, but the quality. What part does he play in them - a cheerful, manly part, or a poor, drivelling part? However monstrous and grotesque their apparitions, they have a substantial truth.

Dreams are like portraits; and we find they please because they are confessed resemblances.

We should judge a man much more surely from what he dreams than from what he thinks.

What is common in all these dreams is obvious. They completely satisfy wishes excited during the day which remain unrealized. They are simply and undisguisedly realizations of wishes.

It was clear: I was sick. I never used to dream. They say in the old days it was the most normal thing in the world to have dreams. Which makes sense: Their whole life was some kind of horrible merry-go-round of green, orange, Buddha, juice. But today we know that dreams point to a serious mental illness. And I know that up to now my brain has checked out chronometrically perfect, a mechanism without a speck of dust.

I don't think there's a specific science you can put on dream psychology. I think that it's up to the, obviously, the individual.

I dream about my teeth, losing a tooth, which I think means that you want control back.

In our dreams (writes Coleridge) images represent the sensations we think they cause; we do not feel horror because we are threatened by a sphinx; we dream of a sphinx in order to explain the horror we feel.

I think people dream in their own way, dreams are extremely personal, even from person to person. They are completely individual.

I think every one of us dreams, and we know what the quality of a dream is. In many ways, the reason dreams are so - mine are a little bit nightmarish, is that it's when you're really naked and can really face the things you don't face in reality, your darkest anxieties.

I've been fascinated by dreams my whole life, since I was a kid, and I think the relationship between movies and dreams is something that's always interested me.

I never remember my dreams.

I've had this reoccurring dream for the last ten to fifteen years.

One of the things I've started doing lately is tracking my dreams. I feel like there's a lot of information there and you can really bring those emotions to the situations that may feel mundane or familiar. That gives them new life and gives you a new relationship with it - if that makes any sort of sense.

The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.

Dreams say what they mean, but they don't say it in daytime language.