The Significance And Meaning Of Dreams

Dreaming, although a substantial component of our nighttime lives, remains somewhat of an enigma due to the fact that it occurs while we are unconscious. The inaccessibility of the unconscious mind weakens full analysis and comprehension of dreaming which researchers have been attempting to accomplish. However, over the years many researchers have elucidated many mysteries about dreams, such as when we dream, why we dream, and what we dream about, in order to bring forth an understanding of dreams as well as identify

Freud presented his theory about dreams in the book The Interpretation of Dreams in 1899. In it he sets out to prove "there is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams" and that

Both Freud and Jung provided important and interesting theories on dreams; encompassing their functions, their roots, and their meanings. Freud looked at dreams as a result of repressed memories, particularly repressed sexual memories from our childhood. Jung however, believed that dreams delved beyond sexual repression during younger years, to other problems, be it trauma, anxiety etc. Jung also believed dreams changed predominately through middle adult years, while Freud believed the opposite. There is little empirical evidence to reinforce either Freud or Jung’s theories, however, their contributions to the study of dreams in psychology cannot be lessened or denied.

As we lay ourselves down every night to put our bodies to rest, our brains begin doing something extraordinary. It begins piecing together images, creating scenarios, simulating sensory perception, and adding in emotions and fears. They can make us wake up with a smile on our face or in a cold sweat. Dreaming is such a strange and often inexplicable phenomenon, but something we all do just about every night. People have theorized the process and the utility of dreams for centuries. However, much of the accepted knowledge we have a bout dreams today is still only theory. In fact, hardly anything about the dreaming experience is concrete because it is an experience

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

Do you dream? It is a good dream or a nightmare?Everyone has a certain types of dreams. “A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep”(citation 1). Sometimes we dream of things that happened to us everyday. Dreams normally occur when our eye are rapidly showing eye movement.

Sigmund Freud’s research “On Dreams” offers an interesting perspective on how we comprehend dreams. There are two significant ways how images are formed in our head when dreaming. The first one is that the prior various experiences we have had in real life, form chains of association in our dreams. The other one is repressed desires: the wishes we are unable to fulfill or unrealized subconscious urges of our conscious and unconscious mind. Our ability to understand the representation of dreams stem from the chains of association we have experienced in our real life and the repressed desires of our conscious and unconscious mind.

Throughout the centuries, the scientific advances allowed people to come up with many conclusions about biology and the human body. However, there is a major aspect of the neurological and psychological fields that is still not fully understood. The unknown phenomenon that will be discussed in this book are dreams. The importance of dreams is viewed differently in different cultures, and the universal interpretation and purpose of dreams still has yet to be discovered.

Dreams can be very compelling, and they are often mysterious, weird and even a little strange. Some people think information about dreams is common knowledge and that everyone share similar thoughts about dreams. In my research, I discover that there are many different theories about dreams. Since the beginning of time, people have been trying to interpret dreams and the reasons we have them. Our minds are complex and many things go on in our minds. Therefore, our dreams can be very fascinating and even harder to interpret. In this paper, I will give insight on dreams, how they occur, and the pros and cons of them.

The human race has been long since fascinated with the concept that is our dreams. This separate state of consciousness, an alternate reality if you will, has captured the interest of the nation throughout history. Perhaps this is due to the fact that we spend a third of our life in this delusional state; roughly about six years, at the most, of our life dreaming, according to George Bernard Shaw. Properly knowing the fact that a great deal of our life is wasted in a sedated state, thus raises another question: Why do we dream?

When experts are asked why people dream, the answers prove indecisive. Some claims have been that dreams are caused by hidden desires, impressions, or how things are perceived; but, of course the imagination and the hidden ways of the brain interact with these druthers. Neurologists and psychologists have strived to reach an understanding of how brains put dreams together. Some believe Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung have done just that. Although both have different ways of going about things, both the arguments are compelling and sophisticated; however, each psychologist have key differences that could make all the difference when finding the “truth” about lucid dreaming.

Sigmund Freud was instrumental in developing many theories. Of the many ideas and contributions he made to research, his analysis of dreams was one of the greatest. Today, his theories are both recognized and disputed, bot nonetheless, significant. Freud incorporated the conscious, unconscious, and developments of thinking into his theories in his book, “The Interpretation of Dreams.” In The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association’s, “Another look at Dreaming: Disentangling Freud’s Primary and Secondary Process Theories” Michael Robbins, 20014, adds to Freud’s theories with his own, and analyses previous theories as well as explains how we interpret dreams.

Dreams are the series of thoughts, images, and sensations that occur in a person’s mind while they are unconscious, so is it even possible to say that they are the reasons why we have myths. Throughout this course we learn about myths, how they were created, and the authors who wrote them, but can the reason we truly have myths be due to a dream the author had. In part five of book we learn that while we are unconscious we form several perspectives from our personalities and our minds later form these archetypes. Sigmund Freud, the first and most famous dream theorist of the modern era, believed that the emotions that survive in the area in our mind that stores memories, ideas, feelings, fears, and wishes are “repressed” and preserved without conscious awareness. Dreams have a significant relationship with myths because of the emotional power these dreams that make them seem like there is meaning to them.

Dreams have broader representation than languages can provide. The symbols of our dreams are deeper expressions than we can come up.

Sigmund Freud, born in the Austrian Empire as Sigismund Freud, was a renowned neurologist and also the founding father of psychoanalysis, who brought about a completely unique perspective on understanding human personality. He is reputed as the most dominant and controversial intellects since the turn of the century. He has produced multiple innovations that have been quite influential in the field of psychology. His book titled “The Interpretation of Dreams,” or “Die Traumdeutung,” in which Freud introduced the significance of the unconscious mind, later became the paramount in psychoanalysis. Afterwards, Freud published a more succinct explanation on chapter three of his previous book, The Dream as a Wish-Fulfillment, which he titled, “On Dreams.” This classic further explains where dreams came from, their mechanism and the relation of dreams to the mental processes.