“The average person spends a total of about six year’s dreaming-2hours each night-although one third of our lives is spent sleeping” (50 Facts about Sleep). Not many realize that dreaming occurs when a person goes to sleep as this is the only place dreams can take place. People dream a minimum of hours every day when they go to sleep because they spend most of the time sleeping. Dreams may be important to some as they experience dreaming every day. While some have good dreams, others can have bad dreams that have an impact on a person’s daily life. Even though dreaming does not consume a large portion of a person’s sleep, there is still an impact that dreams have due to the mystery behind what they mean. In fact, individuals can experience …show more content…
Scientists defined the REM stage of sleep as dreams that are best remembered, as that is the deepest stage of sleep. However, some scientists have not discovered what the true purposes of dreams are since no one really knows what the actual meaning of dreams. On the contrary in ancient cultures, where mostly all believed their dreams were a way to communicate with their Gods, were the first ones to “understand” this gateway (“Dreams”). Even in psychology, psychologists gathered enough information to the reasoning behind dreams, such as in a person’s health, were they are meant to be a benefit and regulate one’s mood. Although scientists have not discovered why people dream, research proves that in ancient cultures, along with one’s psychological purpose, all dreams have a meaning. In Ancient cultures, the purpose of dreams started to have a religious purpose until the Roman Empire where their views focused more on the empire itself. Some cultures believed that their dreams had a significant value that was to communicate with the gods. In the Sumerian culture, their dreams were meaningful because they were viewed as signs sent from the gods (“The History and Meanings of Dreams in Ancient Cultures”). This was important to their …show more content…
Countless of psychologists studied dreams when they conducted research to come up with their own theories on the meaning of an individual’s dream due to the misconception on why people dream and what they mean. One of the psychologists that formed their own theories on dreams was Sigmund Freud. He gathered that dreams were unconscious desires contained in REM sleep “Freud believed that dreams were essentially a form of wish-fulfillment” (Cherry). By extension, dreams represent unconscious wishes or thoughts of individuals, they are meant to play out hidden desires that people have. Sigmund Freud came up with many meanings that dreams serve, for instance, he concluded that dreams were a guide to an individual’s self-discovery (Dreams). However, Carl Jung, who was a Swiss psychiatrist, thought that dreams gave people a different perspective on life; dreams presented a problem to the individual and then provided options to solve the issue (Dreams). To put it in another way, when people sleep and go to the dream state, they are presented problems that they will face; the dream will then offer ways to solve the conflicts. Once, an issue was in the past, it follows, and then another problem will appear, as well as a different solution in the dream. In fact, the reason why people dream, according to Jung, is that dreams are to meant to help and
Both Freud and Jung provided important and interesting theories on dreams; encompassing their functions, their roots, and their meanings. Freud looked at dreams as a result of repressed memories, particularly repressed sexual memories from our childhood. Jung however, believed that dreams delved beyond sexual repression during younger years, to other problems, be it trauma, anxiety etc. Jung also believed dreams changed predominately through middle adult years, while Freud believed the opposite. There is little empirical evidence to reinforce either Freud or Jung’s theories, however, their contributions to the study of dreams in psychology cannot be lessened or denied.
Review of The Twenty-four Hour Mind: The Role of Sleep and Dreaming in Our Emotional Lives by Rosalind Cartwright 224 pages Oxford University Press, USA; * edition (June 24, 2010)
Carl Gustav Jung (a.k.a. C.G. Jung) was born in 1875, in Switzerland, and worked closely with Freud for many years, he learned many things from him in this time. Eventually Jung split from him because his ideas and concepts of psychoanalysis began to differ from those of Freud. Jung was a convectionist, unlike Freud who was a reductionist. Jung saw dreams as a way to come up with solutions to problems you are facing in your waking life. Jung took Freud’s one technique of “free association” and expanded on it. Unlike Freud, he saw this concept as being extremely important. He thought that the dreamer’s thoughts and opinions on what the dream could mean are even more important than anyone else’s, including many times an expert. Dreams, to Freud, are a way of interacting with your unconscious. Carl Jung’s methods to interpreting dreams could be a very important step to help people lead happier and healthier lives. He believed that the manifest content in our dreams is just as important as the latent content when it comes to interpreting our dreams. Freud took a very hands on approach when interpreting people’s dreams, but Jung put forth less information from himself because he thought dream interpretation relied heavily on the dreamer himself. A college student who is experiencing nightmares consistently may visit a psychologist who knows about the meanings of dreams. A psychiatrist who believes more in Freud’s ways may take the dream as being
In Carl Jung “The Importance of Dreams” every object and sign in the dreams represent a deeper meaning that what it actually is. How every individual person have a separate meaning to that object. While dreams can show a person's deepest fantasies and wishes there is also a dark sides to the dream. In the unconscious mind a person's
They used twenty-eight female and male participants, some with frequent others with less frequent nightmares. All participants were screened for any mental or psychological disorders. In the study, participants would have a nap, complete a task, and fill out questions on the state of their dreams and experiences. The participants would also nap for longer and then be awakened right before they entered into REM sleep. Then the participant would once again answer questions and write about their dream experiences. The questionnaire contained questioned related to the state of their dream, stress levels, nightmare frequency, etc. The participants also slept in rooms with continuous surveillance and with a polysomnography. The participants were tested on their dream and daydreaming conditions with similar procedures that were previously
Dreams have long fascinated the human race. This alternate reality, separate from the conscious world we see around us, has captured the interest of many people throughout history. In fact, mankind has been studying dreams since the invention of the written word. Perhaps the lure of dreams is that there seems to be some significance behind them. Most reject the idea that dreams are just random meaningless fragments of data. The vivid sensations that dreams create are just too powerful to ignore. The world of dreams is filled with peculiar phenomenon and unexpected events that beg our attention. Consider the following example of a dream:
The point of view of which Freud interprets and examines the manifest of dreams content to obtain their latent meaning is of a professional psychologist and clinical observer who looked for a way to explain how our minds work and how the individual psychology functions. He based his work on clinical experiences and clinical neurosis of the matter of his own interpretations to be able to confirm his theories as a proven fact. The result Freud gets from the patients he observes and interpretation of their dreams are stereotyped to the complete human condition.
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams” (Roosevelt n.p.). One’s ambitions and dreams can indeed be very beautiful things. If one has ever drifted into a deep sleep wondering into a colorful world that defies all logic, then one has probably wondered where one’s dreams come from. Most everyone has woken up and wondered what in the world caused them to dream about that one specific thing or person. It is important to know what causes people to have dreams in order for one to be able to understand what one thinks about, to help one realize one’s desires and a person’s ambitions, and to aid one in processing events that have taken place in a day.
An abundance of research has been generated on sleep and why it occurs, with results suggesting that dreaming may partially explain the phenomenon. Though results have failed to discover the primary function of sleep, they have unveiled dreaming as a secondary function, which despite not being fundamental for survival possesses a great deal of utility nonetheless. While the primary function of dreaming, much like the primary function of sleep, remains ambiguous; a number of theories and empirical studies have proposed secondary functions relevant to waking life. The threat simulation theory, for example, postulates that dreaming serves an evolutionary function, thought to have heightened survival and reproductive success in the Pleistocene era. The theory purports that dreaming allows for an endogenous simulation of potential threats, which rehearses the cognitive mechanisms necessary for threat perception and avoidance in reality (Valli, Revonsuo, Pälkäs, Ismail, Ali, & Punamäki, 2005; Arnulf, Grosliere, Le Corve, Golmard, Lascols & Duguet, 2014). Additionally, the continuity theory posits that dreams mirror waking life experiences, thus serving a predictive function. In accordance to this theory, dream imagery can be used to predict wellbeing, and diagnose depression and anxiety (Miller, DeCicco, Fox, & McCourt, 2015; DeCicco, Lyons, Pannier, Wright, & Clarke, 2010; Michels, Schilling, Rausch, Eifler, Zink, Meyer-Lindenberg, & Schredl, 2014). Lastly, dreams have a
An individual’s unconscious mind combines bits and pieces of information and places them together. Dreams are almost always visual. “Forty to fifty percent of dreams have some form of communication present in them and a very small percentage of dreams give the dreamer the ability to use his or her five senses”(Encarta). Dreams allow one to take a closer look into their mind in a quest for self-discovery. In ancient Greece dreams were believed to be messages from the gods. Hippocrates and Aristotle believed that dreams contained physiological information that may be cause of future illnesses. Dreams can be used to solve a number of different types of problems. In The Interpretation of Dreams, by Sigmund Freud he states “As regards the dream, all the troubles of waking life are transferred by it to the sleeping
Dreams are generally linked with rapid eye movement sleep, or REM sleep, which is a phase that happens near the end of a sleep cycle. REM sleep is characterized by the random movement of the eyes and heightened body and brain activity. One study proposed that there is a definitive link between dreams and emotions, where the reduction of REM sleep causes a reduction in the ability to comprehend the multifaceted emotions in everyday life (Gujar, 2011, p.117). This phase of the sleep cycle has the highest inclination of vivid dreams and studies of MRIs of the brain during REM sleep show that the amygdala and hippocampus play a key role (Gennaro, 2011, p.1458). The amygdale processes the memory of emotional reactions and the hippocampus stores information from short-term to long-term memory. These findings reveal the core mechanism and perhaps the reason that humans dream. Dreams seem to aid in processing emotions by linking them to a variety of memories. The experiences within dreams may not be real, but the emotions that accompany the images and events during REM sleep are unquestionably genuine. Without processing these emotions, the emotions build up and personal anxiety increases. With less REM sleep, people tend to be more agitated and mental disorders are more easily developed
In Module 9 on the topic of Sleep and Dreams, was an interesting topic that was discussed in class as many people normally question why and how we dream. There isn’t a specific reason in how dreams are functioned but there are different interpretations and stereotypes that people think have meanings and others that don’t.
Dreaming, although a substantial component of our nighttime lives, remains somewhat of an enigma due to the fact that it occurs while we are unconscious. The inaccessibility of the unconscious mind weakens full analysis and comprehension of dreaming which researchers have been attempting to accomplish. However, over the years many researchers have elucidated many mysteries about dreams, such as when we dream, why we dream, and what we dream about, in order to bring forth an understanding of dreams as well as identify
Dreams are a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep. Everyone dreams, whether they remember it or not. The real question is why some people remember their dreams and others do not? The art of remembering dreams is influenced by the first few minutes after waking, the health of a person, environmental, and biological factors. A person has a large impact on their ability to recall dreams along with what they dream about, even though many people do not know about this.
To many people, dreams are the thoughts that occur while sleeping, having almost mystic qualities. For millennia the significance of dreams has escaped even the brightest of philosophers and intellectuals. Many people have speculated about why people dream and what meanings the dreams have but in recent times two theories have gained credibility in answering those questions. The first theory is Sigmund Freuds and the other is known as the cognitive theory of dreams also known as biological determinism.