This is my senior paper I wrote on Dream Psychology. I wrote it on this topic because things that will never be able to be fully explained are super fascinating to me. As you will learn in this paper, there is not one proven theory on why we dream. I love it.
Heather Bean
Senior Paper
Dream Psychology
Dream Psychology
Dreams have always been questioned, there is a lot of different theories behind them. Some people think that dreams are spiritual, and then some think they are pointless and have no meaning, that is the scientific side of it. However you look at them, there is going to be controversy, no two people have the same outlook. As we go through the theories we will look at both sides, the scientific side, and the spiritual side, and how they both explain dreams, and why have them. We will look deep into Sigmund Freud’s theories specifically as he is one of the most renowned Dream Psychologists.
Just as a little background information about Sigmund Freud (Sigmund):
Sigmund graduated with a degree in psychology from University of Vienna. He was born May 6, 1856 in London, England and died on September 23, 1939. He was an Austrian neurologist who was best known for developing the theories and techniques of psychoanalysis. Sigmund developed psychoanalysis, a method through which an analyst unpacks unconscious conflicts based on the free associations, dreams and fantasies of the patient. His theories on child sexuality, libido and the ego, among other topics, were some of the most influential academic concepts of the 20th century. (http://www.biography.com/people/sigmund-freud-9302400, Sigmund Freud.Biography)
“Consistent with the psychoanalytic perspective, Sigmund Freud’s theory of dreams suggested that dreams were a representation of unconscious desires, thoughts and motivations. According to Freud’s psychoanalytic view of personality, people are driven by aggressive and sexual instincts that are repressed from conscious awareness. While these thoughts are not consciously expressed, Freud suggested that they find their way into our awareness via dreams.” (Why Do We Dream? - Top Dream Theories, Kendra Cherry, ask.com) What does all that mean? Well lets see if we can figure that out. Psychoanalytic perspective is a big word, what does it mean? Psychoanalytic means “of or relating to or incorporating the methods and theory of psychiatric treatment” originated by Sigmund Freud. (http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=psychoanalytic WordNet Search-3.1) In other words it means to investigate the mind. So psychoanalytic perspective means, the way someone will interpret the investigation of ones mind. Sigmund has one of the most famous theories of why we dream. He suggests that every dream, every color, every event, and every little detail has to do with something. In simple terms what he is saying is, that when you dream it is subconscious thoughts that are trying to surface themselves. Sigmund’s The Interpretation of Dreams, revolutionized the study of dreams. He begins to analyze dreams so that he could try to get a better understanding of personality as they relate to pathology (pathology: the study and diagnosis of disease.) He believed that nothing you do in your dream is by chance. He believed that every action/thought is motivated by an unconscious thought. In order to live in a civilized society, people have a tendency to hold back our urges and repress their impulses. However, these urges and impulses must be released in some way; they have a way of coming to the surface in disguised forms. One way these urges and impulses are released is through your dreams. Because the content of the unconscious may be extremely disturbing or harmful, Sigmund believes that the unconscious expresses itself in a symbolic language. He puts the aspects of the mind into three different parts: Id - centered around primal impulses, pleasures, desires, unchecked urges and wish fulfillment. Ego - concerned with the conscious, the rational, the moral and the self-aware aspect of the mind. Superego - the censor for the id, which is also responsible for enforcing the moral codes of the ego. When you are awake, the impulses and desires of the id are suppressed by the superego. Through dreams, you can get a better understanding or look into the unconscious better known as the id. Because your mind is at a vulnerable state when you are dreaming, your unconscious has the opportunity to act out and express the hidden desires of the id. However, the desires of the id can, at times, be so disturbing and even psychologically harmful that a "sensor" translates the id's disturbing content into a more acceptable symbolic form. This helps to preserve sleep, and prevent you from waking up shocked at the images. As a result, confusing and cryptic dream images occur, better known as a nightmare. According to Freud, the reason you struggle to remember your dreams is because of the part that the superego plays. It is doing its job by protecting the conscious mind from the disturbing images and desires conjured by the unconscious. So even though you may not always know what you might have dreamt, your unconscious mind will remember, and sometimes might even replay it in the following nights.
Sigmund also suggests that dreams will always have a manifest and latent contents. Manifest being what the dream seems to be saying, it is often crazy, chaotic, bizarre and nonsensical. Latent is what the dream is actually saying. Dreams help us look into our unconscious mind, and the unknown. Sigmund believes that we will dig and dig and dig through the manifest until we get to the latent content. This being easy thanks to the term “free-association.” By using free-association we can figure out the first dream symbol and then leave it to our imagination and see where it leads. To further his cryptic images investigation he broke it down into five different processes:
1. Displacement
This occurs when the desire for one thing or person is symbolized by something or someone else.
2. Projection
This happens when the dreamer propels their own desires and wants onto another person.
3. Symbolization
This is characterized when the dreamer's repressed urges or suppressed desires are acted out metaphorically.
4. Condensation
This is the process in which the dreamer hides their feelings or urges by contracting it or underplaying it into a brief dream image or event. Thus the meaning of this dream imagery may not be apparent or obvious.
5. Rationalization
This is regarded as the final stage of dreamwork. The dreaming mind organizes an incoherent dream into one that is more comprehensible and logical. This is also known as secondary revision. (http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory/freud2.htm, Dream Moods)
Sigmund obviously devoted a lot of his life into this study, he was very big on being able to break things down in order to have a better explanation of them. The following is a list of Sigmunds Five Stages Of Personality Development:
1. Oral/Dependency
This stage takes place from birth to age 2, where the child explores the world using their mouth. If needs are not satisfied during this stage, one goes through life trying to meet them. Smoking, eating and drinking are seen as oral fixations. Recurring dreams, the feeling of incompleteness or unmet needs are common themes.
2. Anal/ Potty Training
In this second stage, the child learns to control their bodily functions. If not handled properly or if the child is traumatized at this stage, then he or she might become anal retentive, controlling, or rigid. The child can also develop obsessive compulsive behaviors. Dreams of being out of control or trying to keep things in order are common.
3. Phallic Stage
Between the ages of 3 to 5, the child becomes aware of male and female. Personality is fully developed by this stage. This stage is also classified by the Oedipus and Electra Complexes. The Oedipus represents a male child's love for his mother and the fear/jealousy towards his father. The Electra is the female version where the female child has anger toward her mother and exhibits "penis envy". Thats when people will have most of the violent dreams in their lives.
4. Latency Period
Little new development is observable during this stage.
5. Genital
Starting from age 12 to the peak of puberty, this stage is classified by the reawakening of sexual interest. Freud believes that the motivating force of a dream is wish fulfillment. Issues of power, lack of control, or unsatisfactory love may manifest in dreams as a way of satisfying these needs. Thoughts that are repressed during the day may also find a way into your dream as a way to getting fulfillment. Freud believes that every imagery and symbol that appears in a dream have a sexual connotation. For example, anxiety dreams are seen as a sign of repressed sexual impulses.
Critique: There are many critics on Freud's theory of dreams. Freud lived in a sexually repressed Victorian era. His preoccupation with sexual imagery may therefore have been a product of the times, the culture or his own relationship/conflict with sex. (http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory/freud3.htm, Dream Moods, dream theorists, Sigmund Freud, pg 3)
“Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.” -Henry David Thoreau (Why Do We Dream- Top Dream Theories, Kendra Cherry). [Henry David Thoreau: American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher, Henry David Thoreau was a New England Transcendentalist and author of the book Walden. (www.biography.com Henry David Thoreau.biography).] A lot of different theories have been brought to the table, from a lot of different people and from a lot of different point of views, yet no single theory has been able to uncover the real reason behind why we dream. Many people from the spiritual side believe we dream because, we have an outlook on life and the universe that we don't even know, and the universe is trying to tell us something. The scientific side believes one of two things: one, “...a possible, though certainly not proven, function of dream is to be weaving new material into the memory system in a way that both reduces emotional arousal and is adaptive in helping us cope with further trauma or stressful events. (Ernest Hoffman, director of the Sleep Disorders Center in Newtown Wellesley Hospital in Boston Mass.)” Then there is the other scientific side that thinks there is no reason as to why we dream, we will never know, and it is a waste of time to try to figure it out. There are three different sides fighting over the same topic. In my opinion there is not one solid right answer, and there never will be. Maybe that is what attracts people to this topic; the fact that there is no one answer and that it is a mystery and probably always be. That is all fine and dandy but that will not stop people from conducting experiments and coming with more and more theories.
Going back to the scientific view of things, National Geographic suggests “Dreaming may act like a type of overnight therapy, taking the edge off painful memories, a new study says.” (Christine Dell'Amore, National Geographic News, Published November 29, 2011.) A study that took place in 2011 suggests that the reason we dream is because our brain is trying to register and understand traumatic events that might have happened to us, or that we witnessed. Therefore, after we watch a scary movie we might have a nightmare that night, well there is a reason for that. We were scared while watching it, and even though we know for a fact it is just a movie our brain might look at it differently. It might register it as reality, resulting as a dream. “For the experiment, Walker and colleagues divided 34 healthy young volunteers into two groups. People in each group viewed and rated their reactions to 150 images shown at 12-hour intervals while an MRI scanner measured brain activity. The pictures, which have been used in hundreds of studies, ranged from bland objects—i.e., a kettle on a countertop—to gory pictures of people maimed in accidents, Walker said. One group viewed the pictures in the morning and again in the evening without sleeping in between. The other group saw the same images before a full night of sleep and again the next morning. The volunteers who slept between viewings reported a much milder emotional reaction to the images after the second viewing. (Christine Dell'Amore, National Geographic News, Published November 29, 2011)” Therefore, this experiment was named “Sleeping On It Helps”. Keep in mind though, these are just theories, no one resulting experiment has ever been able to find out the real reasons behind dreaming.
Anyone can have theory of why we dream, and everyone will have their beliefs, you can research dreaming, why we dream, is there a point to dreaming, ect. for the rest of your days and you still will probably not come up with a reason. Not because of anything you’re doing wrong, but because of the fact there is just simply not an answer. The human brain is far too advanced for us to understand. You can, however, pick a side. If you believe that the world or the universe is trying to tell you something through your dreams then you are spiritual. If you believe that dreams are from the depths of our unconscious and are trying to surface themselves, then you are probably going to be more interested in Sigmund Freuds theories. Last but not least, if you think that dreams mean nothing, and are pointless, and are a waste of time trying to figure out then you are on the super scientific side. Its up to you. I believe that somethings are better left unknown, I like the mystery behind dreaming, I would like to believe that there is a power that is trying to tell us something through our dreams, but somethings cannot be proven and this is one of those things. I enjoy that there is a lot to ponder when comes to dreams. If you have an imagination than you can literally sit there and think about the wild and crazy possibilities behind each and every dream. The best part though, in my opinion, is that everyone can have their own theory, no matter how bizarre or crazy it is, it just might be right, because no one will ever be able to prove you wrong.
Bibliography
Bio. True Story, Biography Henry David Thoreau
http://www.biography.com/people/henry-david-thoreau-9506784
Bio. True Story, Biography Sigmund Freud
http://www.biography.com/people/sigmund-freud-9302400
Dream Moods, What Does Your Dream Mean? http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory/freud3.htm
Dreams Make You Smarter, More Creative, Studies Suggest, National Geographic Daily News
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/08/100813-sleep-dreams-smarter-health-science-naps-napping-rem/
Senior Paper
Dream Psychology
Dream Psychology
Dreams have always been questioned, there is a lot of different theories behind them. Some people think that dreams are spiritual, and then some think they are pointless and have no meaning, that is the scientific side of it. However you look at them, there is going to be controversy, no two people have the same outlook. As we go through the theories we will look at both sides, the scientific side, and the spiritual side, and how they both explain dreams, and why have them. We will look deep into Sigmund Freud’s theories specifically as he is one of the most renowned Dream Psychologists.
Just as a little background information about Sigmund Freud (Sigmund):
Sigmund graduated with a degree in psychology from University of Vienna. He was born May 6, 1856 in London, England and died on September 23, 1939. He was an Austrian neurologist who was best known for developing the theories and techniques of psychoanalysis. Sigmund developed psychoanalysis, a method through which an analyst unpacks unconscious conflicts based on the free associations, dreams and fantasies of the patient. His theories on child sexuality, libido and the ego, among other topics, were some of the most influential academic concepts of the 20th century. (http://www.biography.com/people/sigmund-freud-9302400, Sigmund Freud.Biography)
“Consistent with the psychoanalytic perspective, Sigmund Freud’s theory of dreams suggested that dreams were a representation of unconscious desires, thoughts and motivations. According to Freud’s psychoanalytic view of personality, people are driven by aggressive and sexual instincts that are repressed from conscious awareness. While these thoughts are not consciously expressed, Freud suggested that they find their way into our awareness via dreams.” (Why Do We Dream? - Top Dream Theories, Kendra Cherry, ask.com) What does all that mean? Well lets see if we can figure that out. Psychoanalytic perspective is a big word, what does it mean? Psychoanalytic means “of or relating to or incorporating the methods and theory of psychiatric treatment” originated by Sigmund Freud. (http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=psychoanalytic WordNet Search-3.1) In other words it means to investigate the mind. So psychoanalytic perspective means, the way someone will interpret the investigation of ones mind. Sigmund has one of the most famous theories of why we dream. He suggests that every dream, every color, every event, and every little detail has to do with something. In simple terms what he is saying is, that when you dream it is subconscious thoughts that are trying to surface themselves. Sigmund’s The Interpretation of Dreams, revolutionized the study of dreams. He begins to analyze dreams so that he could try to get a better understanding of personality as they relate to pathology (pathology: the study and diagnosis of disease.) He believed that nothing you do in your dream is by chance. He believed that every action/thought is motivated by an unconscious thought. In order to live in a civilized society, people have a tendency to hold back our urges and repress their impulses. However, these urges and impulses must be released in some way; they have a way of coming to the surface in disguised forms. One way these urges and impulses are released is through your dreams. Because the content of the unconscious may be extremely disturbing or harmful, Sigmund believes that the unconscious expresses itself in a symbolic language. He puts the aspects of the mind into three different parts: Id - centered around primal impulses, pleasures, desires, unchecked urges and wish fulfillment. Ego - concerned with the conscious, the rational, the moral and the self-aware aspect of the mind. Superego - the censor for the id, which is also responsible for enforcing the moral codes of the ego. When you are awake, the impulses and desires of the id are suppressed by the superego. Through dreams, you can get a better understanding or look into the unconscious better known as the id. Because your mind is at a vulnerable state when you are dreaming, your unconscious has the opportunity to act out and express the hidden desires of the id. However, the desires of the id can, at times, be so disturbing and even psychologically harmful that a "sensor" translates the id's disturbing content into a more acceptable symbolic form. This helps to preserve sleep, and prevent you from waking up shocked at the images. As a result, confusing and cryptic dream images occur, better known as a nightmare. According to Freud, the reason you struggle to remember your dreams is because of the part that the superego plays. It is doing its job by protecting the conscious mind from the disturbing images and desires conjured by the unconscious. So even though you may not always know what you might have dreamt, your unconscious mind will remember, and sometimes might even replay it in the following nights.
Sigmund also suggests that dreams will always have a manifest and latent contents. Manifest being what the dream seems to be saying, it is often crazy, chaotic, bizarre and nonsensical. Latent is what the dream is actually saying. Dreams help us look into our unconscious mind, and the unknown. Sigmund believes that we will dig and dig and dig through the manifest until we get to the latent content. This being easy thanks to the term “free-association.” By using free-association we can figure out the first dream symbol and then leave it to our imagination and see where it leads. To further his cryptic images investigation he broke it down into five different processes:
1. Displacement
This occurs when the desire for one thing or person is symbolized by something or someone else.
2. Projection
This happens when the dreamer propels their own desires and wants onto another person.
3. Symbolization
This is characterized when the dreamer's repressed urges or suppressed desires are acted out metaphorically.
4. Condensation
This is the process in which the dreamer hides their feelings or urges by contracting it or underplaying it into a brief dream image or event. Thus the meaning of this dream imagery may not be apparent or obvious.
5. Rationalization
This is regarded as the final stage of dreamwork. The dreaming mind organizes an incoherent dream into one that is more comprehensible and logical. This is also known as secondary revision. (http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory/freud2.htm, Dream Moods)
Sigmund obviously devoted a lot of his life into this study, he was very big on being able to break things down in order to have a better explanation of them. The following is a list of Sigmunds Five Stages Of Personality Development:
1. Oral/Dependency
This stage takes place from birth to age 2, where the child explores the world using their mouth. If needs are not satisfied during this stage, one goes through life trying to meet them. Smoking, eating and drinking are seen as oral fixations. Recurring dreams, the feeling of incompleteness or unmet needs are common themes.
2. Anal/ Potty Training
In this second stage, the child learns to control their bodily functions. If not handled properly or if the child is traumatized at this stage, then he or she might become anal retentive, controlling, or rigid. The child can also develop obsessive compulsive behaviors. Dreams of being out of control or trying to keep things in order are common.
3. Phallic Stage
Between the ages of 3 to 5, the child becomes aware of male and female. Personality is fully developed by this stage. This stage is also classified by the Oedipus and Electra Complexes. The Oedipus represents a male child's love for his mother and the fear/jealousy towards his father. The Electra is the female version where the female child has anger toward her mother and exhibits "penis envy". Thats when people will have most of the violent dreams in their lives.
4. Latency Period
Little new development is observable during this stage.
5. Genital
Starting from age 12 to the peak of puberty, this stage is classified by the reawakening of sexual interest. Freud believes that the motivating force of a dream is wish fulfillment. Issues of power, lack of control, or unsatisfactory love may manifest in dreams as a way of satisfying these needs. Thoughts that are repressed during the day may also find a way into your dream as a way to getting fulfillment. Freud believes that every imagery and symbol that appears in a dream have a sexual connotation. For example, anxiety dreams are seen as a sign of repressed sexual impulses.
Critique: There are many critics on Freud's theory of dreams. Freud lived in a sexually repressed Victorian era. His preoccupation with sexual imagery may therefore have been a product of the times, the culture or his own relationship/conflict with sex. (http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory/freud3.htm, Dream Moods, dream theorists, Sigmund Freud, pg 3)
“Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.” -Henry David Thoreau (Why Do We Dream- Top Dream Theories, Kendra Cherry). [Henry David Thoreau: American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher, Henry David Thoreau was a New England Transcendentalist and author of the book Walden. (www.biography.com Henry David Thoreau.biography).] A lot of different theories have been brought to the table, from a lot of different people and from a lot of different point of views, yet no single theory has been able to uncover the real reason behind why we dream. Many people from the spiritual side believe we dream because, we have an outlook on life and the universe that we don't even know, and the universe is trying to tell us something. The scientific side believes one of two things: one, “...a possible, though certainly not proven, function of dream is to be weaving new material into the memory system in a way that both reduces emotional arousal and is adaptive in helping us cope with further trauma or stressful events. (Ernest Hoffman, director of the Sleep Disorders Center in Newtown Wellesley Hospital in Boston Mass.)” Then there is the other scientific side that thinks there is no reason as to why we dream, we will never know, and it is a waste of time to try to figure it out. There are three different sides fighting over the same topic. In my opinion there is not one solid right answer, and there never will be. Maybe that is what attracts people to this topic; the fact that there is no one answer and that it is a mystery and probably always be. That is all fine and dandy but that will not stop people from conducting experiments and coming with more and more theories.
Going back to the scientific view of things, National Geographic suggests “Dreaming may act like a type of overnight therapy, taking the edge off painful memories, a new study says.” (Christine Dell'Amore, National Geographic News, Published November 29, 2011.) A study that took place in 2011 suggests that the reason we dream is because our brain is trying to register and understand traumatic events that might have happened to us, or that we witnessed. Therefore, after we watch a scary movie we might have a nightmare that night, well there is a reason for that. We were scared while watching it, and even though we know for a fact it is just a movie our brain might look at it differently. It might register it as reality, resulting as a dream. “For the experiment, Walker and colleagues divided 34 healthy young volunteers into two groups. People in each group viewed and rated their reactions to 150 images shown at 12-hour intervals while an MRI scanner measured brain activity. The pictures, which have been used in hundreds of studies, ranged from bland objects—i.e., a kettle on a countertop—to gory pictures of people maimed in accidents, Walker said. One group viewed the pictures in the morning and again in the evening without sleeping in between. The other group saw the same images before a full night of sleep and again the next morning. The volunteers who slept between viewings reported a much milder emotional reaction to the images after the second viewing. (Christine Dell'Amore, National Geographic News, Published November 29, 2011)” Therefore, this experiment was named “Sleeping On It Helps”. Keep in mind though, these are just theories, no one resulting experiment has ever been able to find out the real reasons behind dreaming.
Anyone can have theory of why we dream, and everyone will have their beliefs, you can research dreaming, why we dream, is there a point to dreaming, ect. for the rest of your days and you still will probably not come up with a reason. Not because of anything you’re doing wrong, but because of the fact there is just simply not an answer. The human brain is far too advanced for us to understand. You can, however, pick a side. If you believe that the world or the universe is trying to tell you something through your dreams then you are spiritual. If you believe that dreams are from the depths of our unconscious and are trying to surface themselves, then you are probably going to be more interested in Sigmund Freuds theories. Last but not least, if you think that dreams mean nothing, and are pointless, and are a waste of time trying to figure out then you are on the super scientific side. Its up to you. I believe that somethings are better left unknown, I like the mystery behind dreaming, I would like to believe that there is a power that is trying to tell us something through our dreams, but somethings cannot be proven and this is one of those things. I enjoy that there is a lot to ponder when comes to dreams. If you have an imagination than you can literally sit there and think about the wild and crazy possibilities behind each and every dream. The best part though, in my opinion, is that everyone can have their own theory, no matter how bizarre or crazy it is, it just might be right, because no one will ever be able to prove you wrong.
Bibliography
Bio. True Story, Biography Henry David Thoreau
http://www.biography.com/people/henry-david-thoreau-9506784
Bio. True Story, Biography Sigmund Freud
http://www.biography.com/people/sigmund-freud-9302400
Dream Moods, What Does Your Dream Mean? http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory/freud3.htm
Dreams Make You Smarter, More Creative, Studies Suggest, National Geographic Daily News
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/08/100813-sleep-dreams-smarter-health-science-naps-napping-rem/