Dream Styles and Patterns

Dreams have long exercised a fascination over the human imagination. Many people have questions about them. Dreams over time have captured the interest of many. They have continued to intrigue the simplest of people because of their meaning, their occurrences and their different styles and patterns. One of the most common questions that come up about dreams is how they occur. The theory of REM explains this. REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement. Dreaming is simply the early stage of sleeping. It takes place during REM, using a portion of the brain called pons, which generates signals to the brain (Lewis 3). It is a known fact that everyone dreams, and that REM occurs every 90-100 minutes as stated by Deming (4). The process of dreaming is not a psychic activity but rather a somatic process, which makes itself known as psychic (Crisp 45). Dreams most commonly concern themselves mainly with the future. They are visionary wishes of fulfillment. When a person dreams they may dreams about a certain part of their day, or something that they would like to happen. It is true that everyone dreams however, remembering a dream is often not possible (Uchida 119). When looked at closer it is quite interesting to see how many people actually remember their dreams. 15% say that they never recall their dreams, 5% remember one a night and the average person recalls his/her dream 2-3 times a week (Shafton 350). It is also important to take a look at the different meanings of dreams. Dreams consist of actions such as embracement, births, deaths, being chased and falling. Embracement tends to indicate that you are reaffirming yourself. This means that you are in the process of reassurance, such as being able to trust people. This may be friends, lovers or movie stars. Then there are dreams where births take place. It is attention grabbing to know that women that are pregnant tend to dream about small cuddly animals at early stages of their pregnancy. As well as expectant fathers tend to dream about babies, birthdays parties more than married men whose wives are not pregnant (Cartwright 158). Dreams about births represent the beginning of something, religious salvation or remodeling project. There is also death. These dreams tend to focus mainly on the ending of something, specifically relationships or people who have had bad experiences in the past. These dreams also may signal to a therapist and possibly the dreamer that the time is approaching for successful course of therapy.