Etymology of "modern" dreams

I agree that it is amazing but in the modern world where communication is so easy, many ideas (I think the keyword 'meme' is relevent here) move so fast it seems almost instant for ideas to move from culture to culture.

Sorry my reference was unhelpful.

Paul

Let me get something straight. you're talking about the use of the same word for two meanings :

1) the process in which the mind (re-)organises the information gathered during the day while sleeping
2) something that you would very much like (to happen, to have, ...)

Here's a few comments :

1) I don't know if all (major) languages use the same word for these meanings, but I wouldn't be surprised.

2) The two meanings are very close together, since both are a way of the mind to express how it sees the past (what happened during the day) and the future (what it would like to happen), so it's not weird that the same word is used to express these 2 concepts.

3) If I'm not mistaken, the original meaning of the word dream was more in the sense of extase (don't know if this is a correct word in English), or vision if you wish ... ie. a dream (the kind you have at night, or sometimes during the day) was seen as a sign of things to come. Shamans were especially good in that respect :) Again not very far from the second meaning of the word.

I hadn't heard of the "shift" you refer to, but you'd awakened my interest :) Waiting eagerly for further comments ...

Not really an answer to your question, but my view on the "origin" of this new meaning of the word "dream" : as said earlier (and if i'm not mistaken), the word originally had a connotation of vision, maybe even prophecy. Since "lately" the world is getting more and more civilised, and science is starting to explain a lot of things, we no longer really need prophecies (or no longer really believe in them), so the meaning of "dream" shifted towards a desire rather than a premonition, because it better fits the "modern" view of the world and our mind.
On the other hand, since science got to know more about the how and why of dreams, the first meaning I mentioned earlier was attached to it, to explain it a bit more scientifically.

So, in short : in my opinion, it's a natural evolution based on a civilization's progress in the domain of science.

I think (and maybe that's interesting to verify) that if you would look at the language of a lesser advanced people, there'll still be the old meaning of the word dream (prophecy), and not the new ... although that could be attributed to the lack of communication means with the rest of the world too ...

No, not really ... other than the facts i described in my last post, the rest was just conjecture on my part. That's why I said it's not really an answer to your question.

I am still interested in other people's opinions on this though ... interested to know if anyone shares my analysis :)

I guess the most famous usage of the word 'dream' in the sense of 'vision for the future' would be Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech on August 28 1963. But it probably is not the first to use 'dream' in that sense.

There's also Eleanor Roosevelt's quote:
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams"

"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them." -Walt Disney

"I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." -Thomas Jefferson

"Some men see things as they are and ask "Why?" I dream of things that never were and ask "Why not?" " -J. F. Kennedy

“If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it.” - William Arthur Ward

"A man is not old until his regrets take the place of his dreams. " - Yiddish Proverb

"Hope is the dream of the waking. " - Danish Proverb

"Like plants in mines, which never saw the sun, But dream of him, and guess where he may be, And do the best to climb, and get to him. " - Robert Browning

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catchthe trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

There may be many more, just listing a few

>>  i.e., for example, a Chinese/Japanese character...

Was this actually intended to say, "that is, for example, ...", or was it meant to be an illiteracy promotion attempting to redefine i.e. to the polar opposite of what it really does mean (Latin /id est/*)?  

[Wwysdom already absconded with the Martin Luther King Jr. 'answer' that slow Aramis was going to post, but this part really could use clarification.]

*/_ / = fake italics

Sorry, slow Aramis, I eloped with the answer to your (day)dreams...

I guess the real origin of using 'dream' to express the vision or hope for the future, would have begun a much longer time ago, when the phrase 'daydream' was first 'invented'.
It clearly distinguishes between unconcious dreaming during your sleep, and the concious dreaming when awake.

Now, if only somebody could find the founding father/mother of modern daydreams...

Also, aborigines, native Americans, and other indigenous people, may be the first to have such dreams (visions). As they often induce themselves into concious dream states using music (or drugs), and they see something of the future. Thus you can be sure that these 'dreams' may be popularised in the 19th - 20th century, but the idea has been around since prehistory.

Another popular use of this expression would have appeared around the globe around the 18th - 19th century, when people from around the world travelled west to fulfil their 'Great American Dream'.

To end off, I'll quote the lyrics from "The Puppy Song"

"Dreams are nothing but wishes, and a wish is just a dream..." - Harry Nilsson

Sorry, it just sounded odd to be saying "that is, for example", but not really wrong.  A. has become edgy about this, not from having bad hair but from observing an alarming trend in patently wrong usage such as official letters from high-level managers, such as, "For a log-in name use your E-Mail address, i.e., Myemail@ignoramus.gov", as if every user's address were the same fictional thing.  This monkey-read, monkey-write trend has become rampant in this realm.  Thanks for the clarification [hair looks all right from this end].