Sigmund Freud's The Interpretations Of Dreams

There are various theories as to why we dream, one of them is activation-synthesis hypothesis, proposed by Alan Hobson and Robert McCarley in 1977. The idea is that the specific neuron activity that takes place during REM sleep is synthesized into a plot in the cerebral cortex, and dreams are the brain trying to make sense of the random neural activity that takes place during REM sleep. The oldest theory is of Freud’s psychoanalytic view, dreams are visual representations of suppressed thoughts or unacceptable desires, ideas, aspirations, or memories. The psychoanalytic view tells us each dream is crammed with symbolism and says a lot about the unconscious mind when you interpret them. The interpretations of the dreams are subjective, making

To many people, dreams are the thoughts that occur while sleeping, having almost mystic qualities. For millennia the significance of dreams has escaped even the brightest of philosophers and intellectuals. Many people have speculated about why people dream and what meanings the dreams have but in recent times two theories have gained credibility in answering those questions. The first theory is Sigmund Freuds and the other is known as the cognitive theory of dreams also known as biological determinism.

Thesis Statement: Dreams are successions of images, emotions, and sensations that occur subconsciously during sleep.

Dream psychology helps to piece together someone's life by using the symbols they create involuntarily. The dreams reflect parts of your unconscious life created by your imagination. Dreams are considered to be one of the extreme parts of your conscious experiments within your

180). With each detail being so vital in analyzing dreams, forgotten pieces can leave a puzzle of incompleteness. Confusion while analyzing a dream alters the efficiency of dream work, decreasing benefits of the technique. Care must be taken to discuss each and every detail, so that the true meaning of the dream is understood. “...[E]very dream-analysis reveals an interweaving of a recent impression, and that this recent element is often of the most indifferent character” (Freud, 1987, p. 176). With the ability dream analysis has to help dreamers recall memories of their days, the value of dream analysis is increased greatly. Dream analysis can help to recover forgotten pieces of dreams which can be vital to understanding the purpose of the dream (Freud, 1987, p. 164). Psychotherapy with use of dream analysis can only be helpful if all pieces of a dream can be remembered; dream analysis can be the hero which rescues lost memories. For humans to fully understand the importance and seriousness of dreams is imperative to dream recollection. “We need not underrate the psychic intensities introduced into sleep by these residues of the day’s waking life…” (Freud, 1987, p. 174). These recalled memories are of course helpful to therapists working with a patient, but also to those in service

Sleep is often accompanied by the hallucinogenic state of dreaming comprised of lucid thoughts which can often seem like real life. Recently recorded studies and experiments have exposed the world of dreaming to physiatrists. Dreaming parallels many life experiences and is unique to each individual person. With the recent observations of lucid dreams and the studies of the REM sleep, this field has vastly improved its understanding and knowledge.

“Dreams are a series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.” This is the true definition of what dreams are according to Free Dictionary.com. Although many people are unaware of how dreams actually work there are two psychologists that have been able to pinpoint the true meaning of dreams. These two men are Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. There are many different perceptions on how people dream, what dreams mean, and why people dream.

Science has shown us that when we sleep there are five sleep stages. These stages move from light sleep to deep sleep and finally ending in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. REM sleep periods occur approximately every sixty to ninety minuets through out the night. This is where the dreams are the most vivid and most often remembered. The REM sleep stage is characterized by rapid eye movement, increase heart rate and breathing, and elevated blood pressure. In an eight hour night there may be four to six dream periods, which is surprising since you often cannot remember even one

Each of these findings reports a high level of statistical significance, indicating that it is unlikely the described differences between bad dream types is due to chance; yet, the size of difference remains unclear without a measure of effect. This research is well powered with sample size ranging from 635 to 638, raising the question as to how much of the statistical significance is related to the large sample. Without a measure of effect the answer is not forthcoming, and all practical significance is

Although there were various methods of interpreting dreams in biblical times, one way that was used to interpret the impact of dreams on reality is through a message being delivered (often by a spirit/god), also known as religious symbolism. The reason it is known as religious symbolism is because the theory is most commonly used in religious circumstance, although there are many records from ancient times stating that dreams foresee future events through a message being given to a person in the person’s dream outside of religious purposes (Alles). These records include the Chester Beatty Papyrus from Egypt, the Atharvaveda from India, a Babylonian dream guide, and other ancient references. The messages delivered have different meanings but

I can see how people may think dreams are simply free roaming ideas and imagination but who is to say those ideas and imaginations don't have meaning to them. Of course, dreams are just your imagination and ideas while you’re sleeping, what else would they be. The fact of the matter is that those imaginations and ideas we stir up in our sleep may have a deeper subconscious meaning to them that can be interpreted and shown and proven to have significance. Like previously stated in the experiments of Carl Jung in which he studied the dream of the mentally ill he was able to help these people mentally overcome some of these illnesses. All of this because he was able to understand ones dreams and see the connection between the dream and the

There is a question that has baffled many psychologists and curious minds for centuries the question is why do we dream? Do we dream to save our mind from insanity and stress or is it because it’s a natural process? There is one thing for certain though most people dream, the question is can they remember it. The truth is all creatures can enter a certain type of REM sleep but it’s uncertain if they experience dreams on a human plane of thought. When we enter REM sleep our Rapid Eye Movement stage of sleep the deepest part of our sleep, the human body undergoes a temporary paralysis to stop the sleeping person from potential harmful movement. The dreaming process usually happens in this stage, but has been reported in NREM sleep.

The activation-synthesis theory is simply just another way of thinking. Yet, many would agree that dreams are more meaningful than the two psychiatrists originally concluded. A survey conducted on a number of people showed that dreams have real connections with emotions and actions through daily lives. Hobson and McCarley have since then made the activation-synthesis theory into a new perspective dealing with the meanings of dreams. This new perspective is called the activation-information-mode model

And with this theory, Nielsen and his colleagues expanded on the observation and reported that dreams were connected to an event from 1-3 days or a week before (MacDuffie, K. & Mashour, G. A. 2010, 15). It has also been reported that about 65% of the imagery and the content of dreams are extracted from memories of people and places that have been seen before (MacDuffie, K. & Mashour, G. A. 2010, 14). That is why during REM sleep, most people can recall real-life, vivid memories that they have once experienced consciously all in their dreams. There are indirect evidence for the idea that memory replay during REM sleep involves with the development of declarative and nondeclarative memory, which comes from studies recording the effect of sleep on memory (Frankland, P.W. & Bontempi, B. 2005, 14). For example, brief naps or overnight sleep improves declarative and nondeclarative memory, and some overnight sleep can restore lost memories and enhance insight (Frankland, P.W. & Bontempi, B. 2005, 14). The reason why, intimate events that a person experienced before and is dreamed about again during REM sleep, is to help sustain and develop those memories of events. Through this unconscious repetition of day-to-day experiences, it always results to the preservation of memories that can last for a long

The study's author states on page 113 that the overall objective of the study was to "test the continuity hypothesis by investigating the relationship between people's PWB (psychological well-being) and their everyday dreams". It seems as if the researcher wished to determine whether individuals who suffered from bad dreams and nightmares also suffered from low self-esteem and self-worth during their waking hours; or in other words their psychological state was one continuous state during both their waking hours, and during the time they were asleep. The study also attempted to test two hypothesis; the first was that the "proportion of negative to positive dream elements (e.g. aggressive versus friendly interactions, negative versus positive affect) reported by participants in their dream log at a given time would be related to their scores on measures of PWB". The second hypothesis tested by the researcher was that "changes in the content of participant's dream reports collected at two periods of their lives would be related to corresponding changes in PWB scores (eg participants who show decreases in PWB over time report increased negative dream content)".