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“What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient... highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed - fully understood - that sticks; right in there somewhere.” (Inception. Christopher Nolan. Emma Thomas. Film. Warner Bros Pictures.) And who can deny the ideas put into everyone’s mind that watched “Inception”? Begging the question, Is it possible to control and manipulate a dream or someone else’s.
Thanks to the discovering the connection between REM sleep and dreaming, researchers can now catch dreams as they happen. (Myers, David G. Psychology Eight Edition in Modules. Catherine Woods, 2007 Print.) First what is a dream? A dream is a sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person’s mind. Dreams occur during REM sleep, a stage in the sleep cycle. REM sleep is characterized by rapid eye movement with muscles relaxed and other body systems working. We usually dream about events that happened during the day, thinking of an alternative outcome, failing at a task, being attacked, being rejected, taking an exam and being stressed out, or even writing a paper (well maybe not the paper part). Everyone dreams, even blind people, instead of visual images they dream with their non-visual senses like smelling, hearing, touching, tasting, they are used in their dreams just like images are used in ours. Also there are many different types of dreams from daydreams to nightmares, the most important dream for my research is called Lucid Dreaming. Lucid dreaming is when the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming and in return have the control to do anything they want in their dreams. If we ...
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...which the researcher can follow on a monitor, but more in a sense that certain items and objects can be identified as being part of a dream scenario," Czisch says.” ( Vergano, Dan. “Last night I had the strangest dream” USA Today. April 5, 2013. 2a. EBSCO Host. Newspaper. Dec. 17 2013)
Works Cited
Inception. Christopher Nolan. Emma Thomas. Film. Warner Bros Pictures.
Myers, David G. Psychology Eight Edition in Modules. Catherine Woods, 2007
Print
Holzinger, Brigitte. “Lucid Dreaming – Dreams of Clarity” Contemporary Hypnosis.
2009. 216-224. NC Live. Scholarly Journal. Nov. 20 2013
Vergano, Dan. “Last night I had the strangest dream” USA Today. April 5, 2013. 2a.
EBSCO Host. Newspaper. Dec. 17 2013
Turner, Rebecca. "Types of Dreams: Five Dream Types to Lucidity." Types of Dreams:
Five Dream Types to Lucidity. BlueHost, n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013.
For years, psychologists have been wondering over the mysterious field of dreams. Dreams have always been mysterious. The content of the dreams can shift instantly, featuring unexplained events or sudden terrifying images (Whitman, Ornstein & Baldridge, 1964). The fact that the content of dreams can be enthralling is what causes many psychologists to believe that there has to be some implication to dreams (Webb & Cartwright, 1978). While many theories are formed to explain the functions and meanings of dreams, there is a lack of evidence on their purpose. In fact, recent researchers such as G. William Domhoff suggested that dreams most likely serve no real purpose (Domhoff, 2001). This research essay considers the whether there are a significant functions and meanings of dreams by responding to the following questions.
Within the film Inception, the basis of it’s plot and understanding is formed around the interpretive styling of psychological principles. The most notable principles seen in the film are the usage and effects of the unconscious mind, the role of perceptual sets, and the application of lucid dreaming. This film incorporates the use of lucid dreaming into the main character's job of extraction, while we see the effects of the unconscious mind and perceptual sets affect his ability to correctly perform his ultimate task of inception. The movie itself while exploring the realm of the unconscious and its effects on cognition and perception, also strays from the clinical explanation of lucid dreaming, and it’s role on the dreamer themselves.
dreams, and terrifying our thoughts, they have drawn up to relate to some of our darkest fantasies
...heory, reverse learning theory, and activation synthesis model, others focus on the mental exercise and simulations that dreams bring to us in the evolutionary theory of sleep. While many of the theories agree that dreams are a representation of ideas and thoughts from the unconscious mind, no single theory has been formed as the single primary authority on the matter of dreams despite more support for some of the theories. The fact of the matter is that despite the rampant research and discourse on the concept behind dreaming, these theories are merely speculations. But these speculations feed the curiosity on dreams and will hopefully lead to the expansion of dream analysis to not only better develop the current understanding of dreams, but also to help people around the world by possibly expanding dream analysis to become an early identifier of mental illness.
Dreams are incredible events that occur to each of us every single night. From lucid dreaming to nightmares, they’ve had a huge impact on life as we know it today, yet we’ve barely scratched the surface on knowing how they work and what they mean. Maybe it’s our brain trying to solve our life’s problems, or maybe it’s just a mess of thoughts and experiences from the past few days. No one really knows, and that’s why they’re so compelling.
The average person spends over one-third of their life sleeping, and over this period of time he or she can have over 1,825 dreams (Wicklinski). By definition, dreams are mental images, thoughts, or emotions that are experienced while sleeping. In the beginning, dreams were thought to be messages sent from the gods or spirit world. Researchers now have many theories explaining why people dream. Many of these theories explain that dreams can resemble an individual’s sensory experiences or even secret wishes. All people dream, but only 42% of people can recall their dreams from the night before (“Dreams”). The study of dreams is a topic that is constantly being debated by researchers for many reasons. Dreaming is important because it can impact people’s health, provide insight into what they are feeling, and reveal information about their behavior.
Many people dream, but most do not know what they mean and why. One dictionary definition says dreams are a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep. But there is more to dreams than one phrase. Some studies have shown that
In a dream, humans can experience any sort of sensory experience but visual experiences are the most common. They draw upon the dreamer’s own memory and imagination to build upon. The movie “The Matrix” put forth the idea that one could live an entire life as a vegetable being fed an illusionary life via brain stimulation. The plot not only raises questions about the relationship of mind to body and the uncertainty of knowledge, but also more modern concerns about political power in a cyber-infected world.
Dreams are series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep. Dreams occur during a certain stage of sleep known as REM. Several different psychologists, including Freud and Hobson, have studied dreams. Psychologists have provided many theories as to what dreams are and the meanings behind them.
During prescientific days, dreams were interpreted as ‘manifestations’ of a ‘higher power’. Since the introduction of psychology, dreams have had 4 distinct interpretations. The first interprets dreams as a “liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature”. The second interprets dreams as “accidental disturbances from ‘internal organs’. The third interprets dreams as a foretelling of the future. The last interpretation is Freud’s. He interprets dream as an expression of subconscious desires.
Dreams have been thought to contain significant messages throughout many cultures. A dream is an unfolding sequence of perceptions, thoughts, and emotions that is experienced as a series of real-life events during sleep. The definitions of dreams are different among studies, which can also lead to quite different results. Perhaps, the dream interpretation has becoming increasingly popular. In this paper, I will talk about what I have learned about three different views of dream interpretations. One theory made by Sigmund Freud who believed that dreams are triggered by unacceptable repressed wishes, often of a sexual nature. He argued that because dreams we experience are merely disguised versions of people real dreams. The other theory called activation–synthesis theory, made by Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley, based on the observation that during REM sleep, many brain-stem circuits become active and bombard the cerebral cortex with neural signals. The last theory, proposed by William Domhoff, is called the neurocognitive theory of dreaming, which demonstrates that dream content in general is continuous with waking conceptions and emotional preoccupations. Thus, dreaming is best understood as a developmental cognitive achievement that depends upon the maintenance of a specific network of forebrain structures. While each theory has different belief system and approach method, it is a great opportunity to know how former psychologists contributed to the field of dream interpretation.
All over the world different people, scientists, and civilizations have different dream theories. For instance, the Senoi tribe in Malaysia has a fascinating tradition of dream telling. Every morning the people of the tribe begin their day by discussing and interpreting their dreams with each other. The children, as they grow older, actually learn to control their dreams by simply wishing bad dreams into positive ones. It is observed that, by paying tribute their dreams, the people of the Senoi tribe learn to have faith in themselves. Also, they have very few, if any, mental problems “could working constructively with dreams be part of the answer” to mental issues? (Peirce)
While we sleep, our brains are able to play out scenes in our mind through our dreams. However, dreaming does not fully expose our cognitive potential. We are only able to watch those scenes while dreaming rather than fully participate. Lucid dreaming gives us not only the ability to participate in our dreams, but allows us to determine what will happen in them and manipulate the entire plot. Lucid dreaming is defined as “the experience of dreaming with consciousness and awareness that one is dreaming (Melton 940).” For a dream to be lucid, the dreamer must realize that they are not in reality or the physical world, but that they are in a dream. Once this realization occurs, the dreamer is able to do whatever they want and manipulate the plot of the dream. The idea of lucid dreaming has existed since the eighth century when Tibetan Buddhists practiced forms of yoga designed to remain fully conscious during a dreaming state (LaBerge, 21). It wasn’t until the 1900’s that scientists began to study sleep cycles and to determine how they affected dreaming and lucidity. These studies led to the development of techniques that would allow people to lucid dream on demand in order for scientists to further study lucidity. Researchers were able to use these techniques and apply them to therapies and treatments for patients with sleeping disorders in an attempt to use lucid dreaming to improve their sleep quality. While further benefits of lucid dreaming are still being studied, current research shows that it can be a useful skill to develop and can be a therapeutic tool for people suffering from sleep disorders.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, dream is defined by a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring involuntarily in a person’s mind during certain stages of sleep. Dreams have fascinated humans since the beginning of time. The recorded history of dream interpretation dates back to 3000-4000 B.C. with the Sumerians in Mesopotamia. They documented their dreams on clay tablets. People back then saw the dream world as an extension of reality, but that it was a more powerful realm. Furthermore, they believed that when they dream, their souls would leave their body during sleep and travel to the dream world.
Angier, Natalie. "Science." In the Dreamscape of Nightmares, Clues to Why We Dream at All. New York Times Company, 23 Oct. 2007. Web. 8 Apr. 2014. .