James Bond films are not remarkable for their thought-provoking qualities, or at least for provoking thoughts of any consequence. Yet there is one, You Only Live Twice, whose theme song puts a subtle concept rather nicely:
You only live twice,
Or so it seems,
One life for yourself
And one for your dreams. The lyric, in a way, encapsulates the Freudian notion that our dreams may be a cerebral enactment of impossible ambitions, a series of flashes of frustrated yearnings, or subliminal wish-fulfilments, permitted only in the uninhibited realm of shallow sleep.
They may be a sort of psychocyber version of a life we wish we had, and one that by day we may not even know about. We may have an alter ego, evil or benign, that is, as Prospero says, "such stuff as dreams are made on".
Even nowadays, of course, there are those who will tell you that our nocturnal images can be a blueprint of the future, and such psychoanalytical prognosticators always include a chapter on the weather.
To dream of rain, for example, is said to foretell the rapid disappearance of a pressing worry, imminent deliverance, as it were, from one of life's occasional "droughts". And blue sky is also good: it seems it only enters the sleeping minds of those who have potential for very creative endeavour.
Cloudy skies, on the other hand, are indicative of obstacles in the way of one's ambitions, and clouds that obscure the moon are particularly troublesome in this respect since they signify affaires du coeur. If, however, the sun breaks through the clouds within a dream, it is a sign of happiness to come, and may also mean that one is about to attract the spotlight and become a figure of considerable importance in one sphere of life.
To dream of fog denotes confusion. It suggests, I suppose, that the dreamer in his waking hours is somewhat lost, and does not have the foggiest idea of what to do. But if a stroke of lightning should appear, it denotes a coming flash of inspiration, a brainwave that will solve in an instant whatever problems one may have.
Beware, however, if the lightning hits a tower, or strikes a church, or makes contact with the roof of any building in your dream: such inauspicious happenings presage an argument, false accusations, or imminent failure in some undertaking - in that order.
And if you dream of gales, you can expect someone to be angry with you, to encounter difficulty in the family circle, obstacles to success in any venture, and a disturbing atmosphere of all-pervasive woe.