Psychology Of Dreams Research Paper

Why do we dream? How do dreams provide insight into the mind? Are dreams relevant to waking life? “Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the action stems the dream again, and this interdependence produces the highest form of living (Nin).” Dreams can be defined as, “...a series of thoughts, visions, or feelings, that are experienced by the mind during sleep.” On average an adults get about seven to eight hours of sleep a night,a substantial amount of human kinds time is spent asleep. If a person lives a total of 90 years they will have slept for 31 years, 1,624 weeks, 272,910 hours, and will have dreamt for 34,114 hours, so a massive chunk of humanities lives are spent in the sleep cycle.

There are five stages to the sleep cycle, the

first being stage one,”within minutes of nodding of, your brain produces what are called alpha and theta waves.”Alpha rhythms (or waves) can be defined as,” The normal electrical activity of the brain when conscious and relaxed, consisting of oscillations (Alpha waves) with a frequency of eight to 13 hertz.” Theta rhythms (or waves) are,”Electrical activity observed in the brain under certain conditions, constituting of oscillations (Theta waves) with a frequency of four to seven hertz.” These waves calm the mind and slow down eye movement,”This introduction to sleep is relatively brief lasting up to seven minutes.

This is the lightest stage of sleep, which means you are somewhat alert and can be easily woken. It is during this stage of sleep that people often indulge in cat naps.”Stage two is also fairly light,”the brain produces sudden increases in frequencies called sleep spindles.” sleep spindles can be described as,”sudden burst of oscillatory brain activity generated in the

reticular nucleus of the thalamus that occur during stage two of light sleep.” These types of brain waves are called sleep spindles because of the way they look while on an EEG (Electroencephalogram) reading. The brain waves then slow down, and this is the stage that power naps happen. The next stages, stage three and four are fairly the same, Delta waves are produced in slow waves. These waves can be defined as,”Electrical activity of the brain at a frequency of about one to eight hertz, typical of sleep.”after these Delta waves start to be produced. Eye and muscle movements are non-existent,”...it becomes a little harder for you to be awakened, because the body becomes less responsive to outside stimuli. As the brain produces more Delta waves the body goes into a deeper sleep.” Sleep terrors, sleepwalking, and bedwetting occur in this stage, they are known as parasomnias, these usually occur in the transfer between non-Rem and REM sleep. “The body also repairs its muscle tissue, stimulates growth and development, boost immune function and builds up energy for the next day.” Stage five usually starts about 90 minutes after sleep starts, this is called the REM stage (Rapid Eye Movement). REM can last up to an hour, “the average adult has five to six REM cycles each night.” Dreams happen in the REM cycle, and your eyes move around fast in all different directions (hence the acronym REM). “Heart rate and blood pressure increase, breathing becomes fast, irregular, and shallow.” This stage is so important to the human mind, “...learning and memory function, since this is when your brain can be stored in long term memory.” All of these stages work in individual unique ways but how does the psychology of dreams fit into dreaming itself? Are dreams actually direct expressions of the mind, subconscious, and consciousness, do dreams have no intricate meaning; are they just a side effect of the brains normal activity, or maybe your fight or flight response mechanism is always at work while dreaming.
Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, who also found a treatment for mental illness and also a theory which explains human behavior, he also embedded his vocabulary into the lives of western society with words like; libido, denial, repression, cathartic, freudian slip, and neurotic.

Sigmund believed that,”when we explain our behaviors to others or ourselves, we rarely give a true account of what really happened.” This statement is not because mankind is an intentional deceiver but because we are more adapt to self-deception rather than deception as a whole,”our rationalizations of conduct are therefore disguising the real reason.” Freud’s entire life was dedicated to,”find ways of penetrating this often subtle and elaborate camouflage that obscures the hidden structure and processes of personality.” Freud would typically encourage his patients to talk to him about their symptoms and tell him exactly what was on their mind,this evaluation of a person can also be referred to as psychoanalysis or the talking cure. The case of Anna O was the turning point of Freud’s future in the field of psychology. Anna suffered from hysteria,“a condition in which the patient exhibits physical symptoms such as: paralysis, convulsions, hallucinations, and loss of speech.” Josef Breuer succeeded in treating anna by helping her remember forgotten memories of traumatic events. Anna’s fear of drinking became apparent when she expressed that she,”had developed a fear of drinking when a dog

she hated drank from her glass.” Simply stating this was not the cure of her hysteria, it was not until later on when she talked about taking care of her sick gather that there were results produced. “She would not express her anxiety for his illness but did express it later on during psychoanalysis. As soon as she had the opportunity to make these unconscious thoughts conscious, her paralysis disappeared.” After the case Doctor Breuer discussed it with freud which sparked the discussion that,” physical symptoms are often the surface manifestations of deeply repressed conflicts.” This thought imposed an unimaginable new theory of the psych itself. Freud’s investigation led him to propose that their were at least three levels of the mind; the Ego, Super-Ego, and ID. Consciousness is the forefront of the thoughts that are immediately at a person's attention at the moment like, what should I eat for breakfast, does this look good on me, or should I turn right or left it is, the consciousness is just the tip of the metaphorical iceburg what a person can mentally decide for themselves. The preconsciousness is what the brain can retrieve from memory such as, how to do math or maybe that time someone has a fond memory of something or someone. “The third and most significant region is the unconsciousness. Here lies the processes that are the real cause of most behavior. Like an iceberg, the most important part of the mind is the part that you cannot see.” think of the unconscious mind as a person throwing all of their primitive wishes and impulses into a bowl that is sealed by the preconscious area of the brain. Freud found that,”some events and desires were often too frightening for painful for his patients to acknowledge, and believed such information was locked away in the unconscious mind. This can happen through the process of repression.