Dreams While Sleeping and Reality

762 Words2 Pages

As one goes to bed at night, the body’s daily functions begin to change. The muscles relax, the mind lets go and sleep begins. This moment is where the real fun begins.
As the body sleeps, reality becomes replaced with the dream world, a fanciful place where the innermost being is found cowering like a creature vying to be freed. Some people have vivid dreams that are life-like; others cannot recall having dreamed. One concept is for sure, the dream world is one where the mind runs a free course. Images buried deep inside, thoughts avoided throughout the day, and unrealistic situations take hold. These images may turn into a peaceful dream of amazement and wonder, or they may take a frightening turn, dragging the mind into a state of horror and dread. The situations can become all too real, grasping at the outer edges of the mind, pushing the dream over the boundaries the body normally allows.
Sigmund Freud once suggested that dreams are the emotions that have been repressed and the desires, wishes and thoughts the sleeping mind wants released. His suggestion is just one of many theories about why people dream. Although other concepts have been proposed, dreams are seen as vehicles of which the human mind uses to find relief and rejuvenation in during the rapid-eye-movement stage of sleep.
As the images and scenarios form, one’s emotions become a promising technique the brain plays on, touching the core of an individual’s deepest desires. When one wakes, the dream may be remembered; it might be in bits and pieces, but the parts still contain the dream. With the memories of the dream, comes the notion of wonder as one begins to contemplate whether what was seen in the dream is really the desires of her heart and mind or if the...

... middle of paper ...

...to pinpoint the causing factor to my ex-boyfriend having sat in the same seat on the bus as I had the afternoon before I had the dream. Due to this cause, I began to look at how my daily life was affected during the next few days after the dream. By looking back, I was able to see that the effects ranged from guilt to confusion to relief. My daily life turned into a constant battle of reality versus imagination as I tried to hide the emotions I was feeling from those around me and deny any importance to the message the dream sent.
Although an individual believes a dream has no importance, statistics have proven that dreams can be sent as warning messages or messages of reassurance. The aftereffects of the dream can leave feelings ranging from foreboding to understanding to complete confusion. The only part left to figure out is how the dream applies to daily life.

Show More
Related

  • Reality is Like A Dream in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates

    1504 Words  | 4 Pages

    Have you ever experienced a dream or a nightmare that seemed like reality? Most people in the world today would say that they have. Although this realistic dream experience does not occur often, when it does, clear distinctions are hard to make between the dream and reality. Theories exist that explain dreams as our subconscious

    Read More

  • A Comparison Of Sigmund Freud And Moss Maimonides

    809 Words  | 2 Pages

    The interpretation of dreams by Sigmund Freud holds a ton of information, mostly about what our dreams mean and how they can influence our daily lives. He expresses on page 310, that dreams can be wishes, fears,

    Read More

  • Dreams in A Midsummer Night's Dream

    2238 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Dream Interpretation and Dream Therapy

    2060 Words  | 5 Pages

    There are many facts that are unknown about dreams and their meanings. For centuries, philosophers and scientists have tried to understand the meaning of dreams. They have all been fascinated by the fact that the content of dreams may have meanings relating to one's life. Are dreams just thoughts in people's minds, or are dreams in fact representations of different areas in people's lives? Dreams represent many different areas of one's life in physical, emotional, and mental ways. Dreams can relay to people facts about their lives that they are not even aware of. There are also many ways that dreams can help cure different physical, emotional, and mental problems in one's life. This paper will discuss dreams and their meanings, and ways of interpreting a dream using such methods as hypnotherapy and psychoanalysis therapy that can help a person in physical, mental, and emotional ways. The first fact that will be discussed is what dreams are and how they work for people in allowing the person to discover more about himself. Dreams can be defined as "a conscious series of images that occur during sleep" (Collier's, vol. 8). Dreams are usually very vivid in color and imagery. They reveal to the dreamer different wishes, concerns, and worries that he or she has. Dreams usually reflect every part of who the dreamer is. The content of the person's dream is usually made up according to how old the dreamer is and how educated the he or she is (Collier's, vol. 8). Dreams are not planned out or thought up. The unconscious part of the mind brings out bits and pieces of information in the dreamer's mind and places them together. According to Encarta, 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 his mind and himself in a quest for self-discovery. Dreams can be used to solve all different types of problems. In Sigmund Freud's book, The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud states: "As regards the dream, all the troubles of waking life are transferred by it to the sleeping state […]" (Freud 113). They relay things about a person that the person may not be able to see.

    Read More

  • Dreams: The Mental Pictures

    832 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Unconscious Mind And Self-Development

    2016 Words  | 5 Pages

    The purpose of this paper is to analyze and synthesize the articles discussing the various aspects of the unconscious mind, its defenses, and dreams as a means to gain a look inside. The synthesis argues that gaining a better understanding of one's unconscious mind, its defenses, and the tools to look inside, can allow an individual to grow personally and professionally and to become a better a complete, well-rounded individual.

    Read More

  • Spellbound, By Sigmund Freud

    955 Words  | 2 Pages

    When humans wake up from sleeping, we do not always recollect our dreams, yet the brain is still dreaming of what has actually happened. Dreams are formed through various processes, with the past being transformed into content that is thought to be not creative. Freud mentions in the On Dreams that dreams do not make things up that the psyche has not already experienced. As Freud states our dreams are not creative works, “…dream-work is not creative, that it develops no phantasies of its own, that is makes no judgements and draws no conclusions…” (Freud 162). In his terms, dream-work is known as the transformation process that dream-thought shifts to dream-content; consisting of both latent content and manifest

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis Of Freud And Freud's Interpretation Of Dreams

    1269 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Theories About Dreams

    947 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Sleep and Dream

    595 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sleep is a behavioral state characterized by little physical activity and almost no awareness of the outside world. Sleep is actually made up of two separate and distinctly different states called REM sleep (rapid eye movement) and NREM sleep (non-rapid eye movement). With NREM sleep it is further divided into stage 1-4 based on the size and the speed of the brain waves. Step one is the stage when you drift off to sleep or doze off. For example people doze off in class because you are bored and have nothing to do but listen to the teacher talk. Some parents may call it a cat nape when their kids go to sleep for about ten minutes or so. The second stage is called an intermediate stage of sleep. That is when

    Read More

  • Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory of Dreams

    1185 Words  | 3 Pages

    During Freud’s time, society typically viewed dreams as an intervention of a higher being or entity (Freud, 1900, p.4). However, Freud made the claim that dreams are the product of the dreamer and also that it serves two purposes. First, dreams form to keep a person asleep at night by blocking out external stimuli, much in the same way a person consciously does when turning off the light and minimizing noise before going to bed (“Freud’s Approach,” 2000). Next, Freud (1900) viewed humans as having grotesque sexual urges that “are suppressed before they are perceived” (p.37) in order to protect the person and allow him or her to get along in society; however, dreams serve the purpose of releasing these repressed desires as wishes which are disguised in the dream. Because a person cannot readily be aware of the unconscious wish, the dream is divided into two ...

    Read More

  • Dream Interpretation: Sigmund Freud

    1522 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...n and development throughout history. After the research, I learned that while most dreams are fairly coherent, patterned, which include everyday settings, people, activities, and events, they may involve relatively unusual and perhaps bizarre aspects. Altogether, these images would allow people to have the most revealing and distinctive view of who they are and what they know in daily life by telling stories in the brain. However, while I still feel that no theory can exactly interpret what dreams’ meanings really are, it is interesting to know more how human brain’s activity (dreaming) function when people sleep. Moreover, I have decided to see my dreams as a television show with different episodes at night. That way, I will be able to enjoy the dream without ruining the fun that my brain offers because I would love to see what and how my brain wants me to see.

    Read More

  • Sleeping and Dreaming

    4847 Words  | 10 Pages

    Important public policy issues have arisen in our modern 24-hour society, where it is crucial to weigh the value of sleep versus wakefulness. Scientific knowledge about sleep is currently insufficient to resolve the political and academic debates raging about how much and when people should sleep. These issues affect almost everybody, from the shift worker to the international traveler, from the physician to the policy maker, from the anthropologist to the student preparing for an exam.

    Read More

  • Unraveling the Intricacies of Dreams

    1163 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Sigmund Freud's Psychology: The Dreaming And Modern Dream Theory

    1601 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are many perceptions of what a dream actually is. Some view dreams as the subconscious trying to speak to people, and others see it as religious visions of the future. Over the years, physicians and psychologists have collected countless amounts of research and evidence to support their viewpoints on dreams. I have always believed that dreaming is a time when the brain develops and analyzes important information (Bernstein 149). Dreams do not mean anything specific, and everyone has their own cultural perspectives of dreams. In reality, no one has the power to analyze and tell people the meanings of their dreams. According to Bernstein’s psychology book, dreaming is a time when the brain experiences story-like perceptions and sensations.

    Read More

More about Dreams While Sleeping and Reality

Open Document