Dreams have been a fascinating research subject for researchers for years. Dreams can be wonderful, scary, sad or just plain weird. Dreams can also feature some sensations like hearing, taste, smell, and even pain. Research shows that everyone dreams when they have normal sleep. In a given night an adult can experience three to five dreams, however, most people do not remember their dreams. If a person does remember, it is usually only the last dream that they had before waking up. There’s no doubt we have all had at least one weird and completely crazy dream that’s left us baffled, questioning the content that was in the dream. I’ve asked myself many times…why on earth would I dream that? I’ve even looked up several repetitious dreams I’ve had in dream books to see if I could figure out what it meant. So why do we dream and is there a purpose to our dreams? Do our dreams have some hidden meaning? Is our unconscious mind trying to tell us something? There are many different theories out there about why we dream, but no single theory has been unanimous. One third of our human life is spent sleeping. On average, you spend approximately six years of your life dreaming.
Some ancient civilizations like Egypt, Greece and Rome thought dreams were very significant, and they put a lot of value into dream interpretation. They believed they could solve the hidden worries and mysteries of individual’s dream. Ancient people viewed dreams in a few different ways:
· They believed there were simple dreams, where the meaning is evident.
· They believed in symbolic dreams that needed a consult from a priestess, priest, physician, god, goddess, or a professional dream interpreter.
· They also believed that it was possible to understand meaning behind a dream by having another dream. This was done through what they refereed to as the incubation method, in which the dreamer had to sleep in a holy place with the expectation that they would dream another dream that would in turn place meaning behind the first dream.
· Some believed that a deity was responsible for creating nightmares which a god or goddess would then have to fight off the evil dreams.
· Some believed that people who had experienced nightmares needed to be cleansed through various rituals.
· Greeks had several shrines located throughout cities that acted restorative centers for mental and physical health by revealing to patients the true meaning of their dreams.
People of ancient civilization would use clay tablets to instruct others how to interpret different images in dreams. The following is an excerpt taken from a tablet discussing the meaning of urine; “If he washes his hands in his urine: he will enjoy little.
If he sprinkles (himself) with his urine: his (sheep)-fold will expand…
If he drinks the urine of his wife: this man will enjoy abundance” (Singh, 2010).
One of the first physicians who tried to provide a scientific account of dreams was Hippocrates. He, like many Greeks, believed that both mind and body were independent. He was able to hypothesize that dreams were indicative of physic problems. A thousand years later, a psychoanalyst name Jung would interpret dreams of this nature the same way, but he refers to it as “compensation.”
Sigmund Freud, who was also referred to “the father of dream research,” suggested psychoanalysis as an explanation for why we dream. He claimed that he had solved the “riddle of dreams” in his book, The interpretation of dreams (Freud, 1900) stating that its solution is sine qua non of accurate diagnosis of mental pathologies. In his book he says, “Anyone who has failed to explain the origin of dream-images can scarcely hope to understand phobias, obsessions or delusions, or to bring a therapeutic influence to bear on them” (Freud, 1900, p. xxiii). His assertion was met with enthusiasm, heated debates and criticism. Freud viewed dreams as the “royal road to the unconscious,” where the desires or impulses that were unacceptable to the conscious mind were repressed. He believed that one dream function was to maintain sleep by resolving these buried desires or impulses that could often disturb sleep. By examining his dreams and his patients he found that repressed wishes came to light during sleep through our dreams. He believed that dreams often reflect fulfillment of an unsatisfied wish. He described two different components of dreams: manifest content- which is made up of the actual images, thoughts and content contained within the dream, and latent content- which represents the hidden psychological meaning of a dream. Freud’s other ideas were based on his theory of infantile sexuality and that many symbols had a sexual nature. Many have criticized and disagreed with his theory of symbols or objects having a sexual representation. Although there have been many controversies surrounding Freud’s dream theories, most agree that his research was a crucial landmark that paved the way to future theories.
Carl Jung developed and extended his theory based off of Freud’s theory of dreams. Jung did not dismiss Freud’s overall theory but did believe his notions of as sexual representations and unfulfilled wishes to be simplistic and naïve. The crucial difference between Freud and Jung’s theory is Jung’s belief that a dream is a normal, creative expression of the unconscious. Whereas, Freud believed dreams to be some type of disturbed mental activity. Jung viewed dreams as being an inner drive towards health and maturity. He put more emphasis on the manifest content of dreams to see what they revealed rather than what they were hiding. He also thought that dreams were a self-representation of the unconscious mind and that each symbol portrayed a mood, emotion or part of the dreamer’s personality. He believed that the “I” in the dream represented the conscious ego of the dreamer, and that the function of a dream was to restore our psychological equilibrium (Hurd, 2009).
Fritz Perls developed and expanded Jung’s theory of dreams. He referred to dreams as the “royal road to integration,” because he believed that by working with dreams we could reclaim the lost parts of our personality and become more integrated or whole (Gestalt.org). Perls thought the main function of dreams was to resolve unfinished situations and to integrate fragments of our personalities. He believed that every time we identified with some part of a dream, turning ‘it’ into ‘I’, vital energy is reclaimed. The Gestalt method is bringing a dream to life by having the dreamer tell the dream in the first person, present tense as if it were happening right now and then identify with each element in the dream. The method has been very helpful in working with nightmares and recurring dreams.
In 1972, Ann Faraday used many of Jung’s and Gestalt concepts to create her own dream theory. She rejected Freud’s wish fulfillment and disguise elements. Her belief was that that dreams reflect our present life situations. One of her biggest contributions to dream theories was the fact that dreams could be interpreted on three different levels:
1- Looking outward
2- Through the looking glass
3- Looking inward
She believed that dream interpretation could be achieved by investigating a dream from one of the above levels. Faraday basically outlined techniques and ideas that anyone could use in order to interpret their own dreams.
Some of the modern dream theories come from the research that Calvin hall provided through cognitive dimensions of dreaming. Hall gained worldwide attention from his cognitive dreaming theory, which was among one of the first scientific theories based on quantitative analysis…rather than wishful thinking. Like others, Hall dismissed Freud’s notion that dreams are trying to cover something up. He believed that dreams are thoughts displayed in the mind’s private theater as visual concepts. In his book, The Meaning of Dreams, Hall wrote, “The images of a dream are the concrete embodiments of the dreamer’s thoughts; these images give visual expression to that which is invisible, namely, conceptions” (Hall, 1996 p. 95). Basically he thought that dreams reveal how we envision our lives, or the way we see the world. Through the study of thousands of his students’ dreams, he suggested that the main cognitive structures that dreams reveal include:
As a behavioral psychologist, he believed that these conceptions were the answer to our behavior in the waking world. He viewed them as maps to our actions. Hall’s greatest legacy is the system of dream content analysis that he developed with psychologist Robert Van De Castle in the 1960’s. What is know as the Hall Van De Castle scale (HVdC system) is a quantitative system that scores a dream report with 16 empirical scales. Some scales are settings, objects, people and animals, and others include emotions, sexual content, aggression, etc. (Hurd, 2009). There are now thousands of dreams measured using the HVdC system, creating a “baseline” for normal dreaming cognition. Bill Domhoff, a student of Hall’s, is a dream researcher has provided much of the Calvin and Robert’s database online for everyone at Dreamresearch.net.
Today we are able to use far more advanced techniques in dream interpretation. More modern approaches include sleep laboratories combine with the use of EEGs and fMRI scanners. Researchers now say that they are finding away for people to see their dreams in a whole new light. Modern science has pushed ideas like Freud’s to the sidelines in order to learn more profound things about dreams. Dreams seem to be a crucial part in making us who we are. They help consolidate our memories and also make sense of a multitude of experiences and situations we’ve recently been through, while also keeping our emotions in check. Researches have learned that the majority of dreams happen during REM, but not all of them. Non-REM dreams tend to be sparse, more thought-like and less complex vs. the longer and more vivid, hallucinatory REM dreams. Some have suggested that dreaming reorganizes the way a memory is stored in the brain, which in turn allows you to compare and integrate a new experience with older ones.
Other modern day theories include:
1. We dream to practice responses to threatening situations
2. Dreams create wisdom
3. Dreaming is like defragmenting your hard drive
4. Dreams are like psychotherapy
5. And the absence of theory, in which some argue that dreams have no meaning at all.
As you can see there is a variety of different explanations and theories when it comes to dreams, so many that I couldn’t possibly dive into all of them. Considering the vast amount of time we spend dreaming throughout our lives, you would think that researchers would have more of an understanding about what dreams mean. Science and research will continue to try and unravel the mysterious meaning of dreams and maybe one day will have a more definite answer. Until then, keep on dreaming my friends! - Jenny Porter
Works Cited
"Dream Moods: Dreaming Facts and Tidbits." Dream Moods: Dreaming Facts and Tidbits. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Jio, Sara. "9 Things You Didn't Know About Dreams." WebMD. WebMD. Web. 21 Mar. 2015.
Freud, S. (1900). The interpretation of dreams. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vols. 4–5, pp. 1–627). London: Hogarth.
"A LIFE CHRONOLOGY." Frederick Perls. Gestalt.org Web. 2 Apr. 2015.
Simmons, Ph.D, Llana. "What Do Dreams Do Dreams Do for Us?" Psychology Today. 9 Nov. 2011. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.
Hurd, Ryan. "Calvin Hall and the Cognitive Theory of Dreaming." Dream Studies Portal. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
Singh, Gunjan. "Significance of Dreams According to Ancient Civilizations." Examiner.com. 17 Dec. 2010. Web. 9 Mar. 2015.
Some ancient civilizations like Egypt, Greece and Rome thought dreams were very significant, and they put a lot of value into dream interpretation. They believed they could solve the hidden worries and mysteries of individual’s dream. Ancient people viewed dreams in a few different ways:
· They believed there were simple dreams, where the meaning is evident.
· They believed in symbolic dreams that needed a consult from a priestess, priest, physician, god, goddess, or a professional dream interpreter.
· They also believed that it was possible to understand meaning behind a dream by having another dream. This was done through what they refereed to as the incubation method, in which the dreamer had to sleep in a holy place with the expectation that they would dream another dream that would in turn place meaning behind the first dream.
· Some believed that a deity was responsible for creating nightmares which a god or goddess would then have to fight off the evil dreams.
· Some believed that people who had experienced nightmares needed to be cleansed through various rituals.
· Greeks had several shrines located throughout cities that acted restorative centers for mental and physical health by revealing to patients the true meaning of their dreams.
People of ancient civilization would use clay tablets to instruct others how to interpret different images in dreams. The following is an excerpt taken from a tablet discussing the meaning of urine; “If he washes his hands in his urine: he will enjoy little.
If he sprinkles (himself) with his urine: his (sheep)-fold will expand…
If he drinks the urine of his wife: this man will enjoy abundance” (Singh, 2010).
One of the first physicians who tried to provide a scientific account of dreams was Hippocrates. He, like many Greeks, believed that both mind and body were independent. He was able to hypothesize that dreams were indicative of physic problems. A thousand years later, a psychoanalyst name Jung would interpret dreams of this nature the same way, but he refers to it as “compensation.”
Sigmund Freud, who was also referred to “the father of dream research,” suggested psychoanalysis as an explanation for why we dream. He claimed that he had solved the “riddle of dreams” in his book, The interpretation of dreams (Freud, 1900) stating that its solution is sine qua non of accurate diagnosis of mental pathologies. In his book he says, “Anyone who has failed to explain the origin of dream-images can scarcely hope to understand phobias, obsessions or delusions, or to bring a therapeutic influence to bear on them” (Freud, 1900, p. xxiii). His assertion was met with enthusiasm, heated debates and criticism. Freud viewed dreams as the “royal road to the unconscious,” where the desires or impulses that were unacceptable to the conscious mind were repressed. He believed that one dream function was to maintain sleep by resolving these buried desires or impulses that could often disturb sleep. By examining his dreams and his patients he found that repressed wishes came to light during sleep through our dreams. He believed that dreams often reflect fulfillment of an unsatisfied wish. He described two different components of dreams: manifest content- which is made up of the actual images, thoughts and content contained within the dream, and latent content- which represents the hidden psychological meaning of a dream. Freud’s other ideas were based on his theory of infantile sexuality and that many symbols had a sexual nature. Many have criticized and disagreed with his theory of symbols or objects having a sexual representation. Although there have been many controversies surrounding Freud’s dream theories, most agree that his research was a crucial landmark that paved the way to future theories.
Carl Jung developed and extended his theory based off of Freud’s theory of dreams. Jung did not dismiss Freud’s overall theory but did believe his notions of as sexual representations and unfulfilled wishes to be simplistic and naïve. The crucial difference between Freud and Jung’s theory is Jung’s belief that a dream is a normal, creative expression of the unconscious. Whereas, Freud believed dreams to be some type of disturbed mental activity. Jung viewed dreams as being an inner drive towards health and maturity. He put more emphasis on the manifest content of dreams to see what they revealed rather than what they were hiding. He also thought that dreams were a self-representation of the unconscious mind and that each symbol portrayed a mood, emotion or part of the dreamer’s personality. He believed that the “I” in the dream represented the conscious ego of the dreamer, and that the function of a dream was to restore our psychological equilibrium (Hurd, 2009).
Fritz Perls developed and expanded Jung’s theory of dreams. He referred to dreams as the “royal road to integration,” because he believed that by working with dreams we could reclaim the lost parts of our personality and become more integrated or whole (Gestalt.org). Perls thought the main function of dreams was to resolve unfinished situations and to integrate fragments of our personalities. He believed that every time we identified with some part of a dream, turning ‘it’ into ‘I’, vital energy is reclaimed. The Gestalt method is bringing a dream to life by having the dreamer tell the dream in the first person, present tense as if it were happening right now and then identify with each element in the dream. The method has been very helpful in working with nightmares and recurring dreams.
In 1972, Ann Faraday used many of Jung’s and Gestalt concepts to create her own dream theory. She rejected Freud’s wish fulfillment and disguise elements. Her belief was that that dreams reflect our present life situations. One of her biggest contributions to dream theories was the fact that dreams could be interpreted on three different levels:
1- Looking outward
2- Through the looking glass
3- Looking inward
She believed that dream interpretation could be achieved by investigating a dream from one of the above levels. Faraday basically outlined techniques and ideas that anyone could use in order to interpret their own dreams.
Some of the modern dream theories come from the research that Calvin hall provided through cognitive dimensions of dreaming. Hall gained worldwide attention from his cognitive dreaming theory, which was among one of the first scientific theories based on quantitative analysis…rather than wishful thinking. Like others, Hall dismissed Freud’s notion that dreams are trying to cover something up. He believed that dreams are thoughts displayed in the mind’s private theater as visual concepts. In his book, The Meaning of Dreams, Hall wrote, “The images of a dream are the concrete embodiments of the dreamer’s thoughts; these images give visual expression to that which is invisible, namely, conceptions” (Hall, 1996 p. 95). Basically he thought that dreams reveal how we envision our lives, or the way we see the world. Through the study of thousands of his students’ dreams, he suggested that the main cognitive structures that dreams reveal include:
- Conceptions of self (how we appear to ourselves, the roles we play in life)
- Conceptions of others (the people in our lives and how we react to their needs
- Conceptions of the world (our environment: is it a barren wasteland or a nurturing place?)
- Conceptions of penalties (how we view the Man. What is allowed? What is forbidden?)
- Conceptions of conflict (our inner discord and how we struggle with resolving it).
As a behavioral psychologist, he believed that these conceptions were the answer to our behavior in the waking world. He viewed them as maps to our actions. Hall’s greatest legacy is the system of dream content analysis that he developed with psychologist Robert Van De Castle in the 1960’s. What is know as the Hall Van De Castle scale (HVdC system) is a quantitative system that scores a dream report with 16 empirical scales. Some scales are settings, objects, people and animals, and others include emotions, sexual content, aggression, etc. (Hurd, 2009). There are now thousands of dreams measured using the HVdC system, creating a “baseline” for normal dreaming cognition. Bill Domhoff, a student of Hall’s, is a dream researcher has provided much of the Calvin and Robert’s database online for everyone at Dreamresearch.net.
Today we are able to use far more advanced techniques in dream interpretation. More modern approaches include sleep laboratories combine with the use of EEGs and fMRI scanners. Researchers now say that they are finding away for people to see their dreams in a whole new light. Modern science has pushed ideas like Freud’s to the sidelines in order to learn more profound things about dreams. Dreams seem to be a crucial part in making us who we are. They help consolidate our memories and also make sense of a multitude of experiences and situations we’ve recently been through, while also keeping our emotions in check. Researches have learned that the majority of dreams happen during REM, but not all of them. Non-REM dreams tend to be sparse, more thought-like and less complex vs. the longer and more vivid, hallucinatory REM dreams. Some have suggested that dreaming reorganizes the way a memory is stored in the brain, which in turn allows you to compare and integrate a new experience with older ones.
Other modern day theories include:
1. We dream to practice responses to threatening situations
2. Dreams create wisdom
3. Dreaming is like defragmenting your hard drive
4. Dreams are like psychotherapy
5. And the absence of theory, in which some argue that dreams have no meaning at all.
As you can see there is a variety of different explanations and theories when it comes to dreams, so many that I couldn’t possibly dive into all of them. Considering the vast amount of time we spend dreaming throughout our lives, you would think that researchers would have more of an understanding about what dreams mean. Science and research will continue to try and unravel the mysterious meaning of dreams and maybe one day will have a more definite answer. Until then, keep on dreaming my friends! - Jenny Porter
Works Cited
"Dream Moods: Dreaming Facts and Tidbits." Dream Moods: Dreaming Facts and Tidbits. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.
Jio, Sara. "9 Things You Didn't Know About Dreams." WebMD. WebMD. Web. 21 Mar. 2015.
Freud, S. (1900). The interpretation of dreams. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vols. 4–5, pp. 1–627). London: Hogarth.
"A LIFE CHRONOLOGY." Frederick Perls. Gestalt.org Web. 2 Apr. 2015.
Simmons, Ph.D, Llana. "What Do Dreams Do Dreams Do for Us?" Psychology Today. 9 Nov. 2011. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.
Hurd, Ryan. "Calvin Hall and the Cognitive Theory of Dreaming." Dream Studies Portal. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
Singh, Gunjan. "Significance of Dreams According to Ancient Civilizations." Examiner.com. 17 Dec. 2010. Web. 9 Mar. 2015.
