We go to sleep every night and wake up every morning. I’m sure we can all remember having some sort of dream and wondering about it’s meaning. We can’t really explain what went on in our minds but we still search for some meaning. Some times these dreams bring good sensations, and sometimes bad ones. I’ve heard many things about dreams. My friend once told me about a television show she saw. It was about dreams. I immediately became intrigued because they always amazed me. She told me that there are four stages of sleep. She said that you begin to have dreams when you get to the fourth stage, and at that time you are in the deepest state of sleep. Once during the summer while at the mall my friend and I were walking around and checking out all the cool stores. Suddenly I glanced at a shelf of books, journals, and dictionaries of dreams. I picked up a dictionary, and began to flip through the pages. Soon I realized that I had a dream that boggled my mind a couple days ago. The dream was mainly about snakes, so I looked up snakes in the dictionary. It said that some one I’m very close to would betray me, so I glanced at my friend and told her that she was going to betray me, but she told me that wasn’t the case. We went on with our rampage through the stores, but in the back of my mind I still remembered what I read about my dream. A few days later I got in a fight with my mom because she criticized how I looked, and that looked like betrayal to me. From that point on I began to wonder if dreams could predict the future, but I wasn’t exactly sure. Are dreams really prophecies from the mind, or just some thing going on in your head that’s completely unexplained.
Many people believe that dreams have no speci...
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...reams. When I started writing this paper I just say “dreams” as an interesting topic to write about. But when I actually started to read about it was amazed by all the fascinating information I found. I have always felt that dreams had some sort of key to the future, now I have real reason to believe that.
Works Cited
“An experiment with time by J. W. Dunne.” 27 Jan. 2001 *http://www.texaschapbookpress.com/magellanslog3/dunne.htm*.
Innes, Brian. The Book of Dreams. New York: Brown Packaging Books, 2000.
Lewis, James R. The Dream Encyclopedia. Washington D.C.: Visible Ink., 1995.
Logan, Daniel. The anatomyof prophecy. New Jersey: Prentice-hall, 1975.
The Silver Circle. “Shamanism.” 22 Jan. 2001
*http://www.spiritonline.com/files/messages/10/182.html?964996630*.
“What is Shamanic Dreaming?” 22 Jan. 2001 *http://www.mossdreams.com/shamanic.htm*.
...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.
This book is a collection of information about dreams, ranging from folklore and ancient beliefs to current scientific research. The thoughts of dozens, perhaps even hundreds of philosophers, researchers, and other dreamers are briefly summarized in chronological order, from Plato to Artemidorus, from Erik Erikson to Calvin
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.
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.
The history of dreaming began in the early centuries. “Dreams were often considered prophetic” (Comptons by Britannica). That means that dreams were seen as a message from the gods. Thousands of years ago, “Greek sick people slept in temples in order to receive dreams that would heal them” (Kantrowitz, Babara; Springen Karen). Current dream science started at the end of the 19th century. Dreams were seen as a kind of “desires” (Kantrowitz; Springen) stemming from childhood. Scientists still don’t know for sure why we are dreaming and what are dreams made of; howe...
Drenched in sweat and jolted to an upright position, a dream has awaken someone in the dead of night. Everyone dreams, whether they remember what they dreamt of or not. A dream is a series of images, thoughts, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep. Daydreaming is another state in which the mind is elsewhere. The only difference is that daydreaming occurs while awake and dreaming happens during a deep sleep. Surprisingly, dreams were first recorded clear back to the ancient days. From the Romans, to the Greeks, and all the way back to the Egyptians, dreams fascinated many. “They believed that dreams were caused by real things unable to be interpreted or controlled by the conscious mind” (“Dreams in Ancient Culture”). The ancients believed that dreams had a purpose behind them and were a message sent from god.. Behind every dream there is a meaning; philosophers study to find the reasonings as to why humans dream.
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.
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.
In the novel, Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M Coetzee, the magistrate’s progressive, non-linear dreams are a parallel to his growing involvement with the barbarians and his growing distaste for the empire. The great psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud said, “The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious.” In every dream there is a hidden meaning and when the reader starts analyzing the magistrate’s dreams he reveals that he is oddly attracted to the barbarians and knows he should not get involved and it will be a trial to get close to them.
In this paper I hope to open a window to the vast and mysterious world of dreaming. To most people, information about dreams isn’t common knowledge. In researching this subject though, I found that everybody has and reacts to dreams, which are vital to your mental health. You will also find how you can affect your dreams and how they affect you.
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.
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?
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.
“We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort” (Owens). Without any determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort dreams will not turn into reality. People should look forward and push for that reality. Anyone can say they will fulfill their dream, but it takes someone with dedication, determination and effort to accomplish that dream. Effort is the key to success. Effort is like the sugar and spice to everything nice. Without any push of effort for the dream to become reality dedication, determination and self-discipline don’t take place. The dream drives people to accomplish the unexpected.