Dream Visions

Dreams- the Ultimate Escape

Dreams- The Ultimate Escape

           Roses all over, a beautifully decorated room, candles were lit, violins could be heard playing. Her prince charming held her hand and slid a beautiful ring down her slender fingers. She was lost in his arms when suddenly she heard a shrill noise. It was her alarm clock. She woke up to find herself in her in the same old room with her mother giving her an angry look for getting up late. A look around the place made her wonder will her dreams ever come true.

        The weird world called “dreamland” has often made people wonder what dreams all about are .In dreams the brain is actually spinning a tale and bringing up images from your memory network. These dreams are complete at times, just like in your “real” life. Sometimes these dreams will say a lot about what is really bothering you in this “real” life.

       There have been many theorists trying to explore the reality of the land of dreams. The first and most famous dream theorist of the modern era, Sigmund Freud, said that the function of dreams was to preserve sleep, but that theory from the year 1900 is contradicted by the fact that dreams happen very regularly at least five or six times per night in an active stage of sleep called REM sleep. The other famous dream theorist of the modern era, Carl Jung, an early follower of Freud  broke away to develop a very different theory and claimed that the function of dreams is to compensate for those parts of the psyche (total personality) that are underdeveloped in waking life. Calvin Hall’s studies of two-week dream series from students and longer dream journals from adults of all ages strongly suggest that dream content is continuous with waking thought and behavior. That is, if we are outgoing and active in our waking life, and not very introspective and reflective, then so too in our dream life, which contradicts Jung’s view. Some dream theorists also think dreams have a problem solving function but another school of thought says dreams are just a “throw away” production to pass the night. That judgment could be changed tomorrow by new and original studies by a new generation of young dream researchers, but right now the preponderance of the evidence weights against any physiological or psychological function for dreaming and dreams.

Some interesting facts about dreams:

·         Interestingly we spend one third of our life sleeping.

·         A sleep cycle can be divided into four stages.

·         During stage one, our body and mind are relaxing but you are conscious. It’s during this stage that many thoughts fill up our mind.

·         During the third and the fourth stage, brain waves become considerably wider and there are no conscious thoughts.

·         The forth and the most interesting phase of all is the REM stage, the profound state of unconsciousness, during which the most creative dreams occur. Eyes and mid ears vibrate , the pulse quickens and the body temperature and blood flow increases. We go in and out of this stage until and unless we gain consciousness.

·         We usually spend twenty to twenty five percent of our sleeping time in this stage.

·         It takes about an hour for your mind to go into REM the first time, then you go in and out until you gradually return to consciousness.

Need some excuse for being lost in your dreamland ? Here are some interesting facts.

As societies have evolved, they have developed their own reasons for dreaming. Some of the most interesting reasons are :

In a great many societies, dreams are used by shamans to diagnose illness (often thought to be caused by evil or angry spirits) and to enter the spiritual world. In that sense, shamans were the first psychoanalysts, and Freud and Jung are modern-day shamans.
In some societies, dreams are used to find game, predict the weather, or prophesy about the future. In our society, at least since about 1900, they have been used in psychotherapy, although not as much in recent years when the emphasis is on short-term therapy and on thinking sensible thoughts. Dreams can be an “occasion” for a reticent patient to talk more personally, especially when we note that people do not take as much personal responsibility for their dreams as they do most of their other thoughts, making dreams easier to talk about.
In our society, dreams are also an excuse to say something intimate to someone, maybe a tentative way to see if a deeper relationship is possible, as in “I had this nice dream about you last night.”
Finally, the phrase “I had this dream last night…” is a platform to say whatever nonsense, lie, or fantasy someone might have on his or her mind, because there’s no way to determine if the claim is true or not.

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Life is But a Dream – Find Your Dream’s Real Meaning

Our fascination with dreams is as old as human identity. Dreams represent a world existing on another level of consciousness, common to all, yet still completely individual. Dreams reflect one’s most personal thoughts and feelings, often so private, they are hardly known even to the dreamer.

The study of dreams crosses many disciplines: psychology, neurology, sleep science, symbology. Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams brought the study of dreams into the world of mainstream scientific examination. Carl Jung followed with another perspective on dreams and symbols, reinforcing the acceptance of the concept that our dream state is a meaningful reflection of our waking psyche. While scientists and psychologists have somewhat recently come to this understanding of the dream connection between the conscious and the unconscious mind, psychics have always considered dreams to be a means of communication between metaphysical worlds, linking the past to the future, the known to the unknown, or the real to the unreal.

The soul in sleep gives proof of its divine nature; for when free and disengaged from the body, it has a foresight of things to come.
- Cicero

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Sleep is as essential to our health as food and water. Lack of sleep can cause serious physical and mental problems, and severe sleep deprivation can even lead to death. The scientific study of sleep has made great advances with the use of new technologies that can record and measure brain activity. Brain waves change dramatically while we sleep, revealing much about the physical nature of this state.

The body at rest restores its energy and prepares for the next day’s activities. This rest and rejuvenation is also working on the brain, providing the mental strength we need to cope with stress, handle emotions, and use our mental capacities fully.

Continue reading Life is But a Dream – Find Your Dream’s Real Meaning…

Carl Jung on Dreams

Another expert in the field of dreams and dream interpretation was Carl Jung. Jung studied under the tutelage of Sigmund Freud. Their differing views on dreams and dream interpretations led to a permanent rift that led them to go their separate ways.

Like Freud, Jung believed in the existence of the unconscious. However, he didn’t see the unconscious as animalistic, instinctual, and sexual; he saw it as more spiritual. Dreams were a way of communicating and acquainting ourselves with the unconscious.

To Jung, dreams were not attempts to conceal our true feelings from the waking mind; they were a window to our unconscious.
They served to guide the waking self to achieve wholeness. 

To Jung, dreams offered a solution to a problem we are facing in our waking life. Jung viewed the ego as one’s sense of self and how we portray ourselves to the world. 

Part of Jung’s theory was that all things can be viewed as paired opposites (i.e. good/evil, male/female, or love/hate). And thus working in opposition to the ego, is the “counter-ego” or what he referred to as the shadow.

The shadow represents rejected aspects of yourself that you do not wish to acknowledge. It is considered an aspect of yourself which is somewhat more primitive, uncultured, and awkward.

Jung said, “Dreams are the main source of all of our knowledge about symbolism.” He meant that the messages you receive from your dreams are expressed symbolically and must be interpreted to find their true meanings.

In his writings, Jung says that rarely do the symbols in dreams have just one meaning. And when interpreting the messages in your dreams, he suggests going with your first hunch, relying on your intuitive abilities, before applying more rational methods of dream interpretation.

Sigmund Freud on Dreams, Part 3

Without the powerful personal experience of working with his own dreams, during which his forgotten or unexpected emotions and fantasies welled up from his unconscious, Freud could not have so passionately believed in his theories of dreams and the unconscious.

As in many of his theories, Freud associated dreams with sex. Fundamental to his view of dreams was the belief that the purpose of dreams is to allow us to satisfy in our fantasies the instinctual urges that society considers unacceptable, such as certain sexual practices. That was partly why he experienced such the enormous opposition and criticism from scientists and the public alike.

When Freud was young, only men were thought to have powerful sexual urges. When Freud showed that repressed but obvious sexual desires were equally at work in women this created a social uproar. Perhaps his second finding in regard to sexuality surprised even him.

During Freud’s analysis of women patients, sexual advance or assault by the woman’s father was often revealed. Freud struggled with this, wondering whether the assault was memory of an actual event, or a psychic reproduction of it. He eventually came to the conclusion that hysterical and neurotic behavior was often due to the trauma caused by an early sexual assault by the parent.

Where there was not evidence of physical assault, Freud felt that the neurosis was due to sexual conflict or a trauma caused by some other event. That conflict was often manifested through dreams. That led to his theories being rejected by university colleagues, fellow doctors, and even by patients.

Sigmund Freud on Dreams, Part 2

Freud’s growing interest in dreams may have come about because after he gave his patients the freedom to talk and explore the associations that arose, free association, he noticed that they often found a connection between their associations and a dream they had experienced.

The more Freud allowed his patients to go in their own direction, the more they talked about their dreams. Also, talking about the dream often enabled the patient to discover a new and productive chain of associations and memories.

Freud began to take note of his own dreams and explore the associations they aroused. In doing so he was the first person to consciously and consistently explore a dream into its depths through uncovering and following obvious and hidden associations and emotions connected with the dream imagery and drama.

Although earlier dream researchers had noticed how dream images correlated with personal concerns, Freud broke new ground, seeing the connection with sexual feelings, with early childhood trauma, and with the subtleties of the human psyche.

Freud explored his dreams to deal with his own neurosis. He wrote of that period, ‘I have been through some kind of neurotic experience, with odd states of mind not intelligible to consciousness, cloudy thoughts and veiled doubts, with barely here and there a ray of light.’

Using dreams for his self analysis, Freud found that he could remember forgotten details from his childhood along with feelings and states of mind that he had never before experienced.

Freud wrote of his period of personal dream analysis,

“Some sad secrets of life are being traced back to their first roots; the humble origins of much pride and precedence are being laid bare. I am now experiencing myself all the things that, as a third party, I have witnessed going on in my patients, days when I slink about depressed because I have understood nothing of the day’s dreams, fantasies, or mood.”

Sigmund Freud on Dreams, Part 1

The Interpretation of Dreams, Cover via Amazon

Sigmund Freud actually called dreams the “royal road to the unconscious.” That statement will probably remain true in psychology forever.

Freud’s classic book, The Interpretation of Dreams, includes some of his finest work. Freud wrote that every dream is a wish fulfillment. He continued to believe that theory to the end, even though he gave up his initial idea that all dreams have a sexual content.

For Freud, the concept of wish fulfillment did not necessarily mean that the dream indicated that the dreamer was seeking pleasure. He said that the dreamer could just as well have a wish to be punished. Nevertheless, this idea of a “secret” wish being masked by a dream remains central to classical Freudian psychoanalysis.

Freud said,

“Dreams are not comparable to the spontaneous sounds made by a musical instrument struck rather by some external force than by the hand of a performer; they are not meaningless, not absurd, they do not imply that one portion of our stockpile of ideas sleeps while another begins to awaken. Dreams are a completely valid psychological phenomenon, specifically the fulfillment of wishes. They can be classified in the continuity of comprehensible waking mental states; they are constructed through highly complicated intellectual activity.”

After Freud noticed how allowing his patients to freely associate ideas with whatever came to mind, he began to seriously explore what he called spontaneous abreaction. Freud himself suffered bouts of deep anxiety, and it was partly this that led him to explore the connection between association of ideas and dreams.

In 1897 Freud wrote this to his friend, Wilhelm Fliess:

“No matter what I start with, I always find myself back again with the neuroses and the psychical apparatus. Inside me there is a seething ferment, and I am only waiting for the next surge forward. I have felt impelled to start writing about dreams, with which I feel on firm ground.”

Dream Beliefs in Other Times and Places | BYBS

Image via Wikipedia

Dreaming can be seen as your spirit and soul leaving your body every night and going to visit an actual place. The ancient Chinese people traditionally believed that the soul leaves the body to go into that dream world.

In traditional Chinese belief, if a dreamer was suddenly awakened, their soul might fail to return to their body. Because of that traditional belief, some Chinese people, even today, are wary of alarm clocks.

Some native North American nations and ancient Mexican civilizations shared the belief that there was a distinct dream dimension. They believe that their ancestors lived in their dreams and could take on nonhuman forms like plants.

People in many cultures of the Americas traditionally saw dreaming as a way of visiting and communicating with their ancestors. Dreams also helped to them to find their mission or role in life.

In contrast, in Europe during the Middle Ages dreams were seen as evil. Dream images were believed to be temptations from the devil. In the vulnerable sleep state, the devil was believed to fill the minds of humans with evil thoughts. He did his dirty work though dreams attempting to mislead humans down the wrong path.

In the early 19th century, dreams were dismissed as mere physical effects. Dreams were thought to be caused by anxiety, a household noise or even indigestion. So they believed that there was really no meaning to it.

Late in the 19th century, Sigmund Freud revived belief in the importance of dreams and in their significance and the need for interpretation. Freud revolutionized the study of dreams.

Returning the study of dreams to an important place in European and American thought and the science of the mind: What a blessing!