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Revision of the theory of dreams
Psychodynamic dream theory
Psychodynamic dream theory
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Recommended: Revision of the theory of dreams
Dear Dr. Universe,
Why do we dream?
Pat Caraher - Pullman, Washington
When I asked Barbara Hammond this question, the first thing she said was, "Who knows?"
Barbara Hammond is a psychologist at Washington State University. What she means is that a lot of people have some interesting ideas about dreams. But that's about it. By the time you finish reading this, you'll know much of what we know for certain about dreams. You're about to become a dream expert.
One thing we do know is WHEN we dream. That's during a period of sleep called "REM sleep." REM means rapid eye movement. During REM, your eyes are moving around a lot even though they're closed. Your brain is also very busy--and you're dreaming.
Hey, I'm no Sigmund
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You know those dreams where you're trying to run away from something, but your legs are really, really heavy?
Now back to WHY. According to Ms. Hammond, there are two sets of explanations. First there's the "physiological" set.
"Physiological" has to do with how the body works. Some scientists think maybe we dream in order to exercise our brains. When you're awake, messages are constantly speeding among all your billions of brain cells to keep you moving and thinking and digesting and so on. So the idea is that when you're asleep, dreams exercise the "pathways" between the brain cells. Personally, I like this idea of exercising while I sleep.
There are a couple of things that help this idea make sense. The first couple years of your life are the most intense for learning. That's also when you have the greatest amount of REM sleep -- which means you probably dream an awful lot.
Another thing--your brain waves during REM sleep look about the same as your brain waves while you're awake. (Brain waves are electrical patterns that show up on a machine that measures the brain's activity.) During other parts of sleep, the brain waves look very
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Over 2,200 years ago the very famous philosopher Aristotle wrote something called (here's your Latin lesson for the day) "Parva Naturalia." In English, that's "On the Senses and Their Objects." In it, he wrote that dreams are connected to "external objects . . . pauses within the body . . . eddies . . . of sensory movement often remaining like they were when they first started, but often too broken into other forms by collision with obstacles." I'm not completely sure what he meant, but it's kind of neat,
In a (Scientific American,2009) article, they described one viewpoint of what dreams are," dreaming is simply an epiphenomenon that is the mental activity that occurs during REM sleep. I do not believe this is the most fruitful approach to the study of dreaming."
Dreams are exceptional and complicated phenomenon that happen while we sleep. But even sleep itself is a mystery. There are still some things we know, though. For instance, there are four distinctly different brain waves that our brain produces. Beta waves are the fastest and the ones that are most active while awake and alert. These could be engaged while working on math problems or playing soccer. Alpha waves, the second-fastest, flood our brain when relaxed and comfortable, possibly during a long car ride. Theta waves occur when the body is doing something repetitive that doesn’t require much concentration, like running laps. And finally, delta waves, the slowest of them all, are produced when in deep sleep.
Although scientists still argue about why are we dreaming and what are dreams made of, modern science found out that dreams are endless, random stories. In the early century, where the History of dreaming starts, dreams were seen as a message from the gods. The brain plays and replays experiences during the night. Studies found out that there is also a gender difference in dreaming. Dreaming occurs during REM sleep when the brain defragments memories and daily life experiences and turns them into random neverending stories.
Matalon, Nadav. "The Riddle Of Dreams." Philosophical Psychology 24.4 (2011): 517-536. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
However this theory does not provide a convincing argument of the fact that some dreams possess clear meaning and coherence. This theory has little value in explaining why some time dreams are repetitive. Describe and evaluate one psychological theory of dreaming?
One of Freud's major contributions was his appreciation of unconscious processes in people’s lives. According to Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, the dream images and their symbolic messages can be observed as one's fulfilled wis...
Psychology, neuroscience try to explain them, 2012). He studied dreams to better understand aspects of personality as they relate to pathology. Freud believed that every action is motivated by the unconscious at a certain level. In order to be successful in a civilized society, the urges and desires of the unconscious mind must be repressed. Freud believed that dreams are manifestations of urges and desires that are suppressed in the unconscious. Freud categorized the mind into three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. When one is awake, the impulses if the id are suppressed by the superego, but during dreams, one may get a glimpse into the unconscious mind, or the id. The unconscious has the opportunity to express hidden desires of the id during dreaming. Freud believed that the id can be so disturbing at times that the id’s content can be translated into a more acceptable form. This censor leads to a sometimes confusing and strange dream image. According to Freud, the reason one may struggle to remember a dream is because the superego protects the conscious mind from the disturbance of the unconscious mind (Dream Theories,
Along with tradition, there are also many theories about dreams. Sigmund Freud, the first psychologist to study dreams in-depth, hypothesized that dreams were just subconscious thoughts. He believed that dreams show wants and thoughts in symbolic form that aren’t acceptable on a conscious level. He used the term manifest content to describe the contents of dreams, and the term latent content as the concealed meanings behind symbolic dreams.
“A dream is an intermediary product of the thinking process. It is a phenomenon occurring at the threshold of consciousness in the process of awakening of falling asleep. It appears when the lights of consciousness are dimmed or when they are in the process of flickering up and it is characteristic of this state of mind.” (Gutheil 17).
Current psychoanalysts agree with Freud that dreams have meaning and can represent past, present, or future concerns, fears, or worries (R. Greenberg & Perlman, 1999). However, as you’ll see next, many non-Freudian therapists disagree with Freud’s idea that a dream’s contents are necessarily symbols or disguised thoughts for threatening, unconscious wishes and desires (Domhoff, 2003). 2 Extensions of Waking Life Many therapists believe that dreams are extensions of waking life (Kramer, 2006b; Pesant & Zadra, 2006).
Oprah Winfrey once said, “The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.” But, what actually is a dream and what do dreams really have to do with one’s everyday life? In essence, a dream is a series of mental images and emotions occurring during a slumber. Dreams can also deal with one’s personal aspirations, goals, ambitions, and even one’s emotions, such as love and hardship. However, dreams can also give rise to uneasy and terrible emotions; these dreams are essentially known as nightmares.
What is a dream? Why do we have dreams? Do dreams have deeper meaning in our lives? The answers to these questions have eluded and intrigued many psychologists throughout history and have sparked my interest as well. As an avid and vivid dreamer I have often found myself wondering what the true meanings to my dreams were. So what are dreams? “Strictly speaking, dreams are images and imagery, thoughts, sounds and voices, and subjective sensations experienced when we sleep.”1 Even after thousands of years of research, psychologists have still not come to an agreed answer on why we dream. There are as many opinions out there as there are individual dreams. Some psychologists believe dreaming is simply the minds way of distracting itself from outside information during sleep to allow people to get deep rest. Others such as Dr. Eric Hartman suggest dreams serve almost as a psychotherapy in which the brain can make connections between different emotions and thoughts in a safe protected environment. Do dreams have any direct correlation to everyday events and experiences? Are they meant to aid individuals in understanding and interpreting their world around them?
The Psychodynamic view of dreaming suggests that the content in our dream is symbolic of something. Also, that the content in our dreams are based on unconscious desires as well as internal conflict.
Despite the large amount of time we spend asleep, surprisingly little is actually known about sleeping and dreaming. Much has been imagined, however. Over history, sleep has been conceived as the space of the soul, as a state of absence akin to death, as a virtual or alternate reality, and more recently, as a form of (sub)consciousness in which memories are built and erased. The significance attributed to dreams has varied widely as well. The Ancient Greeks had surprise dream encounters with their gods. Native Americans turned to their dreams for guidance in life. Shamans dreamed in order to gather information from the spirits.
All of us dream, several times at night. It is believed by some that we sleep in order that we may dream. Dreams can come true if somebody makes them true, as the saying goes, “A dream is just a dream, unless you make it come true”. Dreams provide us the actual picture of our thoughts. Dreams may tell us about any physical event which took place with us or which is going to happen with us. The dream is trying to inform the dreamer about his condition in any walk of life. Basically, we can dream about anything logical or illogical, fictious or non-fictious and reasonable or unreasonable.