In this column I shall describe, over time, how to use the computer's power to store, group, analyze and retrieve information from our dreams. DreamSpinner's greatest power is working with long "over time" dream series, although it can work with individual dreams as well. How do metaphor patterns change over time? That is the question that began my journey toward creating DreamSpinner.

This 3rd column will look more closely at the category (metaphor ) system I created for DreamSpinner. I first became intrigued with the Hall/van de Castle coding system years ago when I stumbled upon the book, "The Meaning Of Dreams" by Calvin S. Hall. Finally, a logical system where I had a structure to put those wildly amazing images of mine into. I liked the way elements of the dream were categorized. The book described up to 16 categories I found helpful. Things like Setting. Characters. Actions. Emotions. Objects.

When I read this book, in the early 1980's, I was computer illiterate. I created a notebook with columns for those above 5 categories and began to list, by hand, dream by dream, items into those 5 categories. Keeping in mind that I now have over 3700 dreams recorded, you can imagine how daunting the task appeared. (and indeed was.) I am not a patient person and was unwilling to work slowly through those dreams, until I was 92 years old, to unearth the secrets of my dreams.

Hence my interest in computers. A very useful device for many jobs. Later, in the early 1990's I needed to categorize more specifically what was in my dreams. I am eternally grateful for the Hall/van de Castle coding system. I based the DreamSpinner category (metaphor) system directly from the Hall/van de Castle system. (for a more complete description of that coding system please check out the Qualitative Study Of Dreams Website: http://psych.ucsc.edu/dreams. (Domain Name: Dreamresearch.net)

Here is a partial list of the basic Hall/van de Castle categories.

• Characters
  Aggression
  Friendliness
  Sexuality
  Activities
  Success and failure
  Misfortune and good fortune
  Emotions
  Settings
  Objects (Architecture, Nature, Implements, Body Parts etc.)
  Modifiers (adjectives and adverbs)
  Negative, temporal, food

Looks pretty simple. But then, each category has sub categories and the whole system gets much larger.

• Level 1 - Characters
  Level 2 - Character's Age
  Level 3 - Adult
  Child
  Baby
  Teenager
  Level 2 - Character's Numbers
  Level 3 - Individual
  Individual Imaginary
  Group
  Group Imaginary
  Original Form
  Changed Form
  Level 2 - Character's Identity
  Level 3 - Relative
  Immediate Family Members
  level 4 - Father
  Mother
  Brother
  Sister
  etc.
  Level 3 - Social Role
  Strangers
  Occupational
  Prominent
  etc.
  

And on it goes. In the Hall/van de Castle coding system, each dream is hand coded to each of these sub categories. An example coding is Father: 1MAF (Individual, Male, Adult, Father).

This is where DreamSpinner expands and is different. DreamSpinner uses every word mentioned in the dream narrative. Many of those words had no place to be in the original Hall/van de Castle system, since it wasn't built to use all the words, because people hand coded events and objects. DreamSpinner semi-automates the coding process by creating a "Dream Thesaurus" and putting like meaning words together in a sub category.

I will use the example of the metaphor "water". Classic dream dictionaries will say things like Water is the unconscious, or water is emotions. One dictionary defines it as the embryonic fluid and Mother. They go into more detail saying If you dream of deep calm water, then...

Rivers are often defined as the Life's journey. How the river runs will tell you the progress of your Life's journey.

The Hall/van De Castle coding system codes nature, which is a sub category of Objects. The coding symbol is NA. All outdoor objects found in nature are coded NA. Water is coded NA right along with Heavenly bodies and plants. You would then search out the water dreams from the nature dreams.

DreamSpinner breaks it down further, using informal categories found in G. William Domhoff's book, "Finding Meaning In Dreams: A Quantitative Approach." And creating sub categories to accommodate the words found in my dream narratives.

• Nature
  Earth And It's Mineral Elements
  Heavenly Bodies
  Plant Life
  Science
  Terrain
  Water
  Natural Bodies Of Water
  Backwater
  backwater
  lagoon
  slough
  Lakes
  lake
  Oceans
  mar
  ocean
  pacific
  reefs
  sea
  Rivers
  amazon
  brook
  creek
  rapids
  stream
  upstream
  waterfall
  Small Contained Water
  pond
  pool
  puddle
  Water Connected To Oceans
  bay
  estuary
  harbor
  inlet
  marsh
  Water Related
  Edges On Water
  bar
  beach
  canal
  channel
  coast
  dock
  Hawaii
  horn
  island
  moat
  seaside
  shore
  shoreline
  General Water Related
  deep
  gooey
  goop
  juicy
  liquid
  log
  moist
  water
  watery
  wet
  In Water
  immersion
  marine
  slosh
  submerge
  swim
  underwater
  Tears
  cry
  sob
  tear
  teardrop
  Water Change Of State
  berg
  flake
  frost
  glacier
  hail
  ice
  sleet
  snowman
  snow
  steam
  thaw
  Water Movement
  backwash
  breaker
  cap
  current
  eddying
  fall
  flood
  foam
  froth
  geyser
  leak
  ripple
  roil
  splash
  spout
  spray
  spurt
  swell
  tidal
  tide
  torrent
  wave
  woosh
  Water Used By People
  dishwasher
  faucet
  fountain
  lather
  pipe
  shampoo
  shower
  sink
  wash
  Water Weather Elements
  downpour
  fog
  hail
  humid
  misty
  pour
  rain
  sheet
  snow
  sprinkle
  Watery Land
  bed
  flat
  floor
  moor
  mud
  muddy
  murky
  ooze
  paddy
  sludge
  quicksand
  swampy

With this category system in place, you then DreamLink each word in the dream narrative which hooks the individual word into the category for you. If you choose to change it's category or duplicate the word into more than one category, it is an easy edit. "Snow" for example is under at least two categories. "Water Change of State" and "Water Weather Elements"

The next step is to chose your definition of a dream set you wish to look at.

Do you simply want to look at a dream set that has the word water in it?
Do you want to see all dreams in the "Water" category? (In my dreams, that is nearly 1/3 of all my dreams.)
Do you want to examine only the "Natural Bodies Of Water?"
Do you want to only see the "Rivers" sub category?
Do you only want the word "river"?

Each of these queries will give you different information. All of it helpful. It's like examining an elephant from different perspectives. You will gain detail from each view which helps create the over all impression.

You see then just how uniquely personal and complicated a "metaphor" can be. Add more complication. In DreamSpinner, you can create dream sets for more than one metaphor at a time. For example, you can look at the dream set "Rivers" and limit that set to only rivers that are raging.

As you can imagine, raging river dreams have different meanings than calm rivers, or deep rivers.

I chose to create a Rivers dream set. I learned that out of 1120 linked dreams 42 of them had words from the "Rivers" sub category. (which is 3.7% of all my linked dreams.)

I learned there is a higher incidence of Animals. The list of most frequent characters was Strangers, Then The Dreamer and 3rd Animals. This is not the usual spread from my base set (norming set) of all my linked dreams.

There is a higher incidence of usage of windows and doors. (transition symbols). (This makes me wonder am I going IN or going OUT! From what to what am I entering or exiting.)

There is a higher incident of Friendly communication social interaction and Friendly helping interactions.

There is a higher incidence of POTENTIAL physical harm (Aggression) and a lower incidence of actual physical harm. (This leads me to wonder do I see possible aggression where none exists.)

There is a higher incidence of POTENTIAL Appear and less actual Appear. (This leads me to wonder about potential creativity and why am I not allowing the actual creativity to flower.)

Rivers often portray the current progress of relationships in my dreams. My dreams use strangers and animals to show me how I'm doing with "relationship" itself. Perhaps even relationship with aspects of myself. These are not about specific relationships with people in my life. Other metaphors are used for those.

Armed with this list of questions, I now know what to be specifically looking for when I go into each dream of the River set and explore.

You see, DreamSpinner doesn't have canned answers. It just creates a wealth of raw data from your own dreams to lead you into areas you might not of thought of exploring. Next month, I will show you how this gold mine of data is created for you. Meanwhile, I am creating a metaphor page on my Website (http:www.spinner-soft.com) so people can share their dreams based on a metaphor set and share what they think the metaphors mean to them. And read what others think it means in their dreams. A community of sharing personal meanings of dreams. It will be several months before it is up, but check us out every so often and see the changes. See you next month.