There is a common saying among Koreans.

"I had a good dream last night," or "I had a bad dream."

When facing an important task, if I have a strange dream, I feel uneasy all day, while dreaming of pigs or money makes me feel like something good is about to happen.

I heard such stories a lot since I was young.

If I had a good dream before an exam, I felt like I would do well, and if I had a strange dream before an important business meeting, I would feel anxious.

However, now that I am over forty, I realize that my way of dreaming has changed a bit.

These days, I feel that dreams are less about showing the future and more like a device that brings up the past.

If I think about it, most of the people in my dreams are ones I know.

Old friends, people I haven't contacted in a while, a girl I had a crush on long ago, my grandfather and grandmother who passed away, family of acquaintances, and former colleagues.

It is rare for someone I have never seen before to appear as a very specific character.

The same goes for places. My current home and my old home strangely mix together, and scenes from my first job in the U.S. or the tough times I had back then can appear in the same dream.

This suggests that dreams are more about reassembling memories stored somewhere in my mind rather than showing images of the future.

Especially during tough times like these, I feel this even more.

The cost of living in LA keeps rising, even a trip to the market costs a lot, and nothing has gone up more than car insurance and electricity bills.

When running a business, I have to think about future earnings and prepare for retirement. As I have more practical things to consider, it's strange how often people from the past appear in my dreams.

After waking from such dreams, I sometimes feel dazed for a while.

'I wonder what that person is doing now.' 'Those were good times.' I find myself reminiscing about the past that I had almost forgotten.

So, I believe one of the essences of dreams is self-pity.

Not in the sense of feeling sorry for oneself, but rather a feeling that makes me look back at my past self with a bit more warmth because the present me is struggling.

In fact, the past wasn't all good either. I worried about money back then, felt frustrated when things didn't go well, and had issues with relationships.

However, as time passes, strangely, bad memories fade while good scenes remain vivid.

Dreams touch upon those memories.

So when I meet an old friend in a dream, it may not be that the friend is appearing to tell me something about the future, but rather that the present me needs that time from the past.

A time that was a bit less complicated than the difficult reality, when I was younger, and when I felt there were still many possibilities ahead.

Just because I had a bad dream doesn't mean something bad will happen, and just because I had a good dream doesn't mean money will come my way.

Rather, it's more likely that I have anxious dreams because I am already feeling uneasy, and I have good dreams because I am expecting something.

And after waking from a dream, we assign meaning to it.

Perhaps dreams are not signals from the future but letters from the past.

When I am feeling a bit worn out, they bring forth people, places, and times that were deep in my mind.

These days, when I meet someone from the past in a dream, I no longer think something is about to happen like before. I just think that I am feeling a bit tired lately.

Dreams do not reveal the future; they make me reflect on the time I have passed.

As I get older, I see dreams in that way.