Dreams are a succession of images, thoughts, or emotions passing through the
mindMind is the aspect of intellect and consciousness experienced as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, will and imagination, including all unconscious cognitive processes. The term is often used to refer, by implication, to the thought processes of reason. Mind manifests itself...
during
sleepSleep is a naturally recurring state of relatively suspended sensory and motor activity, characterized by total or partial unconsciousness and the inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, and it is more easily...
. The content and purpose of dreams are not fully understood, though they have been a topic of
speculationIn finance, speculation is a financial action that does not promise safety of the initial investment along with the return on the principal sum...
and interest throughout recorded history. The scientific study of dreams is known as
oneirologyOneirology is the scientific study of dreams.The first recorded use of the word was in 1653. An advocate of this discipline was the French sinologist Marquis d'Hervey de Saint Denys. The field gained momentum when Nathaniel Kleitman and his student Eugene Aserinsky discovered regular cycles.A...
.
Cultural history
Dreams have a long history. They have been a subject of controversy and disagreement. Throughout history, people have sought
meaning in dreamsFor the John Cale minimalist album, see Dream Interpretation Dream interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to dreams. In many of the ancient societies, including Egypt and Greece, dreaming was considered a supernatural communication or a means of divine intervention, whose message could...
or
divination through dreamsOneiromancy is a form of divination based upon dreams; it is a system of dream interpretation that uses dreams to predict the future.-Ancient Egyptian:...
. They have been described
physiologicallyPhysiology is the science of the functioning of living systems. It is a subcategory of biology...
as a response to neural processes during sleep,
psychologicallyPsychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the systematic, and sometimes scientific, study of human or animal mental functions and behavior...
as reflections of the
subconsciousThe term subconscious is used in many different contexts and has no single or precise definition. This greatly limits its significance as a meaning-bearing concept, and in consequence the word tends to be avoided in academic and scientific settings....
, and
spirituallySpirituality is relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material. Synonyms include immaterialism, dualism, incorporeality and eternity....
as messages from
godsGods as the plural of god, is a synonym of "deities", indicating a context of polytheism.* God * Goddess* List of deitiesproper names* The gods , the upper levels of a theatre* The Gods , a rock band from England...
or predictions of the future. Many cultures had practiced
dream incubationIncubation is the religious practice of sleeping in a sacred area with the intention of experiencing a divinely inspired dream or cure. Incubation was practised by members of the cult of Asclepius. Votive offerings found at his ritual centres at Epidaurus, Pergamum, and Rome detail the perceived...
, with the intention of cultivating dreams that were prophetic or contained messages from the
divineDivinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power, or its attributes or manifestations in the world...
.
JudaismJudaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts...
has a traditional ceremony called "hatavat halom" – literally meaning making the dream a good one. Through this rite disturbing dreams can be transformed to give a positive interpretation by a rabbi or a rabbinic court.
Neurology of sleep and dreams
There is no universally agreed biological definition of dreaming. In 1952
Eugene AserinskyEugene Aserinsky was a graduate student at University of Chicago in 1953 when he discovered REM sleep. He made the discovery after hours spent studying the eyelids of sleeping subjects. His PhD adviser, Nathaniel Kleitman, and Aserinsky went on to demonstrate that this "rapid-eye movement" was...
discovered REM sleep while working in the surgery of his
PhDDoctor of Philosophy, abbreviated PhD , for the Latin , meaning "teacher of philosophy", or alternatively, DPhil, for the equivalent , is an advanced academic degree awarded by universities...
advisor. Aserinsky noticed that the sleepers' eyes fluttered beneath their closed eyelids, later using a
polygraphA polygraph is an instrument that measures and records several physiological responses such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, breathing rhythms, body temperature and skin conductivity while the subject is asked and answers a series of questions, on the theory that false answers will produce...
machine to record their
brain wavesElectroencephalography is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp produced by the firing of neurons within the brain . In clinical contexts, EEG refers to the recording of the brain's spontaneous electrical activity over a short period of time, usually 20–40 minutes, as recorded from...
during these periods. In one session he awakened a subject who was wailing and crying out during REM and confirmed his suspicion that dreaming was occurring. In 1953 Aserinsky and his advisor published the ground-breaking study in
ScienceScience is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is considered one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals. The peer-reviewed journal, first published in 1880 is circulated weekly and has a print subscriber base of around 130,000...
.
Accumulated observation shows that dreams are strongly associated with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, during which an
electroencephalogramElectroencephalography is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp produced by the firing of neurons within the brain . In clinical contexts, EEG refers to the recording of the brain's spontaneous electrical activity over a short period of time, usually 20–40 minutes, as recorded from...
shows brain activity to be most like wakefulness. Participant-nonremembered dreams during non-REM sleep are normally more mundane in comparison. During a typical lifespan, a human spends a total of about six years dreaming (which is about two hours each night). Most dreams last only 5 to 20 minutes. It is unknown where in the brain dreams originate, if there is a single origin for dreams or if multiple portions of the brain are involved, or what the purpose of dreaming is for the body or mind.
During REM sleep, the release of certain neurotransmitters is completely suppressed. As a result,
motor neuronIn vertebrates, the term motor neuron classically applies to neurons located in the central nervous system that project their axons outside the CNS and directly or indirectly control muscles...
s are not stimulated, a condition known as REM atonia. This prevents dreams from resulting in dangerous movements of the body.
Animals have complex dreams and are able to retain and recall long sequences of events while they are asleep. Studies show that various species of mammals and birds experience REM during sleep, and follow the same series of sleeping states as humans.
Despite their power to bewilder, frighten us or amuse us, dreams are often ignored in mainstream models of cognitive psychology. As methods of introspection were replaced with more self-consciously objective methods in the social sciences in 1930s and 1940s, dream studies dropped out of the scientific literature. Dreams were neither directly observable by an experimenter nor were subjects’ dream reports reliable, being prey to the familiar problems of distortion due to delayed recall, if they were recalled at all. More often dreams are, of course, forgotten entirely, perhaps due to their (according to Freud) prohibited character. Altogether these problems seemed to put them beyond the realm of science.
The discovery that dreams take place primarily during a distinctive electrophysiological state of sleep, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which can be identified by objective criteria, led to rebirth of interest in this phenomenon. When REM sleep episodes were timed for their duration and subjects woken to make reports before major editing or forgetting could take place, it was determined that subjects accurately matched the length of time they judged the sleep the dream narrative to be ongoing to the length of REM sleep that preceded the awakening. This close correlation of REM sleep and dream experience was the basis of first series of reports describing the nature of dreaming: that it is regular nightly, rather than occasional, phenomenon, and a high-frequency activity within each sleep period occurring at predictable intervals of approximately every 60–90 minutes in all humans throughout the life span. REM sleep episodes and the dreams that accompany them lengthen progressively across the night, with the first episode being shortest, of approximately 10–12 minutes duration, and the second and third episodes increasing to 15–20 minutes. Dreams at the end of the night may last as long as 15 minutes, although these may be experienced as several distinct stories due to momentary arousals interrupting sleep as the night ends. Dream reports can be reported from normal subjects on 50% of the occasion when an awakening is made prior to the end of the first REM period. This rate of retrieval is increased to about 99% when awakenings are made from the last REM period of the night. This increase in the ability to recall appears to be related to intensification across the night in the vividness of dream imagery, colors and emotions. The dream story itself in the last REM period is farthest from reality, containing more bizarre elements, and it is these properties, coupled with the increased likelihood of spontaneous arousals allowing waking review to take place, that heighten the chance of recall of the last dream.
Dream theories
Activation synthesis theory
In 1976 J. Allan Hobson and Robert McCarly proposed a new theory that changed dream research, challenging the previously held Freudian view of dreams as subconscious wishes to be interpreted.
Activation synthesis theoryActivation-synthesis hypothesis is a neurobiological theory of dreams forwarded by Harvard University psychiatrists James Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley, first published on the American Journal of Psychiatry in December of 1977. It states that dreams are a random event caused by firing of neurons...
asserts that the sensory experiences are fabricated by the cortex as a means of interpreting
chaoticChaos theory is a branch of mathematics which studies the behavior of certain dynamical systems that may be highly sensitive to initial conditions. This sensitivity is popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. As a result of this sensitivity, which manifests itself as an exponential growth of...
signals from the
ponsThe pons is a structure located on the brain stem. It is cranial to the medulla oblongata, caudal to the midbrain, and ventral to the cerebellum...
. They propose that in REM sleep, the ascending
cholinergicA receptor is cholinergic if it uses acetylcholine as its neurotransmitter.Cholinergic means related to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, and is typically used in a neurological perspective. The parasympathetic nervous system is entirely cholinergic...
PGOPGO may refer to:*PGO Scooters A brand of motorscooter located in Taiwan*PGO an independent car manufacturer located in France*PGO, an Airport code of Stevens Field, Pagosa Springs, Colorado, in United States...
(ponto-geniculo-occipital) waves stimulate higher midbrain and forebrain cortical structures, producing rapid eye movements. The activated fore brain then synthesizes the dream out of this internally generated information. They assume that the same structures that induce REM sleep also generate sensory information.
Hobson's 1976 research suggested that the signals interpreted as dreams originated in the brain stem during REM sleep. However, research by
Mark SolmsMark Solms is a psychoanalyst and a lecturer in neurosurgery at the St. Bartholomew’s and Royal London School of Medicine; chair of neuropsychology, University of Cape Town, South Africa and director of the Arnold Pfeffer Center for Neuro-Psychoanalysis at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute...
suggests that dreams are generated in the forebrain, and that REM sleep and dreaming are not directly related. While working in the neurosurgery department at hospitals in
JohannesburgJohannesburg also known as Jozi or Jo'burg, is the largest city in South Africa. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
and
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
, Solms had access to patients with various brain injuries. He began to question patients about their dreams and confirmed that patients with damage to the
parietal lobeThe parietal lobe is a lobe in the brain. It is positioned above the occipital lobe and behind the frontal lobe....
stopped dreaming; this finding was in line with Hobson's 1977 theory. However, Solms did not encounter cases of loss of dreaming with patients having brain stem damage. This observation forced him to question Hobson's prevailing theory which marked the brain stem as the source of the signals interpreted as dreams. Solms viewed the idea of dreaming as a function of many complex brain structures as validating Freudian dream theory, an idea that drew criticism from Hobson. In 1978, Solms, along with partners William Kauffman and Edward Nadar, undertook a series of traumatic-injury impact studies using several different species of primates, particularly howler monkeys, in order to disprove Hobson's postulation that the
brain stemThe brainstem is the lower part of the brain, adjoining and structurally continuous with the spinal cord. The brain stem provides the main motor and sensory innervation to the face and neck via the cranial nerves...
played a significant role in dream
pathologyPathology is the study and diagnosis of disease through examination of organs, tissues, bodily fluids, and whole bodies...
. Unfortunately, Solms' experiments proved inconclusive, as the high
mortality rateMortality rate is a measure of the number of deaths in some population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of deaths per 1000 individuals per year; thus, a mortality rate of 9.5 in a population of 100,000 would mean 950 deaths per...
associated with using an hydraulic impact pin to artificially induce
brain damageBrain damage, or acquired brain injury, is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells.-Causes:Brain damage may occur due to a wide range of conditions, illnesses, injuries, and as a result of iatrogenesis...
in test subjects meant that his final candidate pool was too small to satisfy the requirements of the
scientific methodScientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific...
.
Continual-activation theory
Combining Hobson's activation synthesis hypothesis with Solms's findings, the continual-activation theory of dreaming presented by Jie Zhang proposes that dreaming is a result of brain activation and synthesis; at the same time, dreaming and REM sleep are controlled by different brain mechanisms. Zhang hypothesizes that the function of sleep is to process, encode and transfer the data from the temporary memory to the long-term memory, though there is not much evidence backing up this so-called "consolidation."
NREMThe sleep stages 1 through 3, previously known as stages 1 through 4, are collectively referred to as NREM, non-rapid eye movement, sleep. Rapid eye movement is not included. There are distinct electroencephalographic and other characteristics seen in each stage. Unlike REM sleep, there is...
sleep processes the conscious-related memory (declarative memory), and REM sleep processes the unconscious related memory (procedural memory).
Zhang assumes that during REM sleep, the unconscious part of a brain is busy processing the procedural memory; meanwhile, the level of activation in the conscious part of the brain will descend to a very low level as the inputs from the sensory are basically disconnected. This will trigger the "continual-activation" mechanism to generate a data stream from the memory stores to flow through the conscious part of the brain. Zhang suggests that this pulse-like brain activation is the inducer of each dream. He proposes that, with the involvement of the brain associative thinking system, dreaming is, thereafter, self-maintained with the dreamer's own thinking until the next pulse of memory insertion. This explains why dreams have both characteristics of continuity (within a dream) and sudden changes (between two dreams).
Dreams as excitations of long-term memory
Eugen Tarnow suggests that dreams are ever-present excitations of
long-term memoryLong-term memory is memory that can last as little as a few days or as long as decades. It differs structurally and functionally from working memory or short-term memory, which ostensibly stores items for only around...
, even during waking life. The strangeness of dreams is due to the format of long-term memory, reminiscent of
PenfieldWilder Graves Penfield, OM, CC, CMG, FRS was an American born Canadian neurosurgeon. During his life he was called "the greatest living Canadian"...
& Rasmussen’s findings that electrical excitations of the
cortexThe cerebral cortex is a structure within the brain that plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness. It constitutes the outermost layer of the cerebrum. In preserved brains, it has a grey color, hence the name "grey matter"...
give rise to experiences similar to dreams. During waking life an executive function interprets long term memory consistent with reality checking. Tarnow's theory is a reworking of Freud's theory of dreams in which Freud's unconscious is replaced with the long-term memory system and Freud's “Dream Work” describes the structure of long-term memory.
Dreams for linking and consolidation of semantic memories
A 2001 study showed evidence that illogical locations, characters, and dream flow may help the brain strengthen the linking and consolidation of
semantic memoriesSemantic memory refers to the memory of meanings, understandings, and other concept-based knowledge unrelated to specific experiences. The conscious recollection of factual information and general knowledge about the world, generally thought to be independent of context and personal relevance...
. These conditions may occur because, during REM sleep, the flow of information between the
hippocampusThe hippocampus is a major component of the brains of humans and other mammals. It belongs to the limbic system and plays important roles in long-term memory and spatial navigation. Like the cerebral cortex, with which it is closely associated, it is a paired structure, with mirror-image halves in...
and
neocortexThe neocortex , also called the neopallium and isocortex , is a part of the brain of mammals. It is the outer layer of the cerebral hemispheres, and made up of six layers, labelled I to VI...
is reduced. Increasing levels of the
stressStress is a biological term for the consequences of the failure of a human or animal to respond appropriately to emotional or physical threats to the organism, whether actual or imagined....
hormone
cortisolCortisol is a corticosteroid hormone or glucocorticoid produced by the adrenal cortex, that is part of the adrenal gland . It is usually referred to as the "stress hormone" as it is involved in response to stress and anxiety, controlled by CRH...
late in sleep (often during REM sleep) cause this decreased communication. One stage of
memory consolidationMemory consolidation is a category of processes that stabilize a memory trace after the initial acquisition. Consolidation is distinguished into two specific processes, Synaptic Consolidation, which occurs within the first few hours after learning and System Consolidation, where...
is the linking of distant but related memories. Payne and Nadal hypothesize that these memories are then consolidated into a smooth narrative, similar to a process that happens when memories are created under stress.
Dreams for removing junk
Hughlings Jackson (1932) viewed that sleep serves to sweep away unnecessary memories and connections from the day. This was revised in 1983 by Crick and Mitchison's '
reverse learningReverse learning is a neurobiological theory of dreams. In 1983, in a paper published in the famous science journal Nature, Crick and reverse learning model likened the process of dreaming to a computer in that it was "off-line" during dreaming or the REM phase of sleep...
' theory, which states that dreams are like the cleaning-up operations of computers when they are off-line, removing parasitic nodes and other "junk" from the mind during sleep. However, the opposite view that dreaming has an information handling, memory-consolidating function (Hennevin and Leconte, 1971) is also common. Dreams are a result of the spontaneous firings of neural patterns while the brain is undergoing memory consolidation during sleep.
Dreams for testing and selecting mental schemas
Coutts hypothesizes that dreams modify and test mental schemas during sleep during a process he calls
emotional selectionEmotional Selection is a psychological theory of dreaming developed by and published in the April 2008 issue of . A short is available.Emotional selection describes a process that executes a set of dreams during non-REM sleep with content that is tentatively accommodated by mental schemas...
, and that only schema modifications that appear emotionally adaptive during dream tests are selected for retention, while those that appear maladaptive are abandoned or further modified and tested.
Alfred AdlerAlfred Adler was an Austrian medical doctor, psychologist and founder of the school of individual psychology. In collaboration with Sigmund Freud and a small group of Freud's colleagues, Adler was among the co-founders of the psychoanalytic movement as a core member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic...
suggested that dreams are often emotional preparations for solving problems, intoxicating an individual away from common sense toward private logic. The residual dream feelings may either reinforce or inhibit contemplated action.
Dreams for Darwinian random thought mutations
Dreams create new ideas through the generation of random thought mutations. Some of these may be rejected by the mind as useless, while others may be seen as valuable and retained. Blechner calls this the theory of "Oneiric Darwinism."
Dreams as the result of DMT in the brain
Dreams are the result of
dimethyltryptamine (DMT)Dimethyltryptamine is a naturally-occurring tryptamine and potent psychedelic drug, found not only in many plants, but also in trace amounts in the human body where its natural function is undetermined. Structurally, it is analogous to the neurotransmitter serotonin and other psychedelic...
in the brain. A biochemical mechanism for this was proposed by the medical researcher J. C. Callaway, who suggested in 1988 that DMT might be connected with visual dream phenomena, where brain DMT levels are periodically elevated to induce visual dreaming and possibly other natural states of mind.
Psychosomatic theory
Dreams are a product of "dissociated imagination", which is dissociated from the conscious self and draws material from sensory memory for simulation, with sensory feedback resulting in hallucination. By simulating the sensory signals to drive the autonomous nerves, dreams can affect mind-body interaction. In the brain and spine, the autonomous "repair nerves", which can expand the blood vessels, connect with pain and compression nerves. These nerves are grouped into many chains called meridians in Chinese medicine. While dreaming, the body also employs the chain-reacting meridians to repair the body and help it grow and develop by sending out very intensive movement-compression signals when the level of growth enzymes increase.
Other Hypotheses on dreaming
There are many other hypotheses about the function of dreams, including:
- During the night there may be many external stimuli bombarding the senses, but the mind interprets the stimulus and makes it a part of a dream in order to ensure continued sleep. The mind will, however, awaken an individual if they are in danger or if trained to respond to certain sounds, such as a baby crying.
- Dreams allow the repressed parts of the mind to be satisfied through fantasy
Fantasy is a genre that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting. Many works within the genre take place on fictional planes or planets where magic is common...
while keeping the conscious mind from thoughts that would suddenly cause one to awaken from shock.
- Freud suggested that bad dreams let the brain learn to gain control over emotions resulting from distressing experiences.
- Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology known as Jungian psychology. Jung's approach to psychology has been influential in the field of depth psychology and in countercultural movements across the globe...
suggested that dreams may compensate for one-sided attitudes held in waking consciousness.
- Ferenczi
Sándor Ferenczi was a Hungarian psychoanalyst.-Biography:Born Sándor Fränkel to Baruch Fränkel and Rosa Eibenschütz, both Polish Jews, he later magyarized his surname to Ferenczi....
proposed that the dream, when told, may communicate something that is not being said outright.
- Dreams regulate mood.
- Hartmann says dreams may function like psychotherapy, by "making connections in a safe place" and allowing the dreamer to integrate thoughts that may be dissociated during waking life.
- More recent research by psychologist Joe Griffin, following a twelve year review of data from all major sleep laboratories, led to the formulation of the expectation fulfilment theory of dreaming, which suggests that dreaming metaphorically completes patterns of emotional expectation in the autonomic nervous system and lowers stress levels in mammals.
Dream content
From the 1940s to 1985, Calvin S. Hall collected more than 50,000 dream reports at Western Reserve University. In 1966 Hall and Van De Castle published
The Content Analysis of Dreams in which they outlined a coding system to study 1,000 dream reports from college students. It was found that people all over the world dream of mostly the same things. Hall's complete dream reports became publicly available in the mid-1990s by Hall's protégé William Domhoff, allowing further different analysis.
Personal experiences from the last day or week are frequently incorporated into dreams.
Emotions
The most common emotion experienced in dreams is
anxietyAnxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by cognitive, somatic, emotional, and behavioral components. These components combine to create an unpleasant feeling that is typically associated with uneasiness, fear, or worry....
. Other emotions include pain, abandonment, fear, joy, etc. Negative emotions are much more common than positive ones.
Sexual themes
The Hall data analysis shows that sexual dreams occur no more than 10 percent of the time and are more prevalent in young to mid teens. Another study showed that 8% of men's and women's dreams have sexual content. In some cases, sexual dreams may result in
orgasmAn orgasm is the peak of the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, characterized by an intense sensation of pleasure...
or
nocturnal emissionA nocturnal emission involves either ejaculation during sleep for a male, or lubrication of the vagina for a female. It is also called a "wet dream", or a spontaneous orgasm....
. These are commonly known as wet dreams.
Recurring dreams
While the content of most dreams is dreamt only once, many people experience recurring dreams—that is, the same dream narrative is experienced over different occasions of sleep. Up to 70% of females and 65% of males report recurrent dreams.
Common themes
Content-analysis studies have identified common reported themes in dreams. These include: situations relating to school (adolescents), being chased or attacked, running slowly in place, falling, arriving too late, a person alive in reality dead in the dream, a person who is dead in real life alive in the dream, teeth falling out, flying, future events such as birthdays, anniversaries, etc. (with different scenarios), past events in your life (with different scenarios) embarrassing moments, falling in love with random people, failing an examination, not being able to move or focus vision, car accidents, being accused of a crime you didn't commit, suddenly finding yourself naked, wanting to go to the toilet (usually occurs when you need to in reality), losing your car, not knowing where you are and many more.
Color vs. black and white
Twelve percent of people dream only in black and white. Recent research has suggested that those changing results may be linked to the switch from black-and-white film and TV to color media.
Dream interpretation
Dreams were historically used for healing (as in the
asclepieionIn ancient Greece and Rome, an asclepeion was a healing temple, sacred to the god Asclepius....
s found in the
ancient GreekAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
temples of
AsclepiusAsclepius is the god of medicine and healing in ancient Greek religion. Asclepius represents the healing aspect of the medical arts; his daughters are Hygieia , Iaso , Aceso , Aglæa/Ægle , and Panacea...
) as well as for guidance or divine inspiration. Some
Native AmericanThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples...
tribes used
vision questA vision quest is a rite of passage in some Native American cultures.In many Native American groups, the vision quest is a turning point in life taken before puberty to find oneself and the intended spiritual and life direction. When an older child is ready, he or she will go on a personal,...
s as a rite of passage, fasting and praying until an anticipated guiding dream was received, to be shared with the rest of the tribe upon their return.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, both
Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud , Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology...
and
Carl JungCarl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology known as Jungian psychology. Jung's approach to psychology has been influential in the field of depth psychology and in countercultural movements across the globe...
identified dreams as an interaction between the
unconsciousThe unconscious mind is a term invented by the 18th century German romantic philosopher Ser Christopher Riegel and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge...
and the conscious. They also assert together that the unconscious is the dominant force of the dream, and in dreams it conveys its own mental activity to the perceptive faculty. While Freud felt that there was an active censorship against the unconscious even during sleep, Jung argued that the dream's bizarre quality is an efficient language, comparable to poetry and uniquely capable of
revealing the underlying meaning.
Fritz PerlsFriedrich Salomon Perls , better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent....
presented his theory of dreams as part of the holistic nature of
Gestalt therapyGestalt therapy is an existential and experiential psychotherapy that focuses on the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist-client relationship, the environmental and social contexts in which these things take place, and the self-regulating adjustments people make as a result...
. Dreams are seen as projections of parts of the self that have been ignored, rejected, or
suppressedThought suppression is the process of deliberately trying to stop thinking about certain thoughts . It is often associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder, in which a sufferer will repeatedly attempt to prevent or "neutralize" intrusive distressing thoughts centered around one or more obsession...
. Jung argued that one could consider every person in the dream to represent an aspect of the dreamer, which he called the subjective approach to dreams.
PerlsFriedrich Salomon Perls , better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent....
expanded this point of view to say that even inanimate objects in the dream may represent aspects of the dreamer. The dreamer may therefore be asked to imagine being an object in the dream and to describe it, in order to bring into awareness the characteristics of the object that correspond with the dreamer's personality.
Relationship with medical conditions
There is evidence that certain medical conditions (normally only neurological conditions) can impact dreams. For instance, people with
synesthesiaSynesthesia —from the Ancient Greek , "together," and , "sensation"—is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway...
have never reported entirely black-and-white dreaming, and often have a difficult time imagining the idea of dreaming in only black and white.
Therapy for recurring nightmares (often associated with posttraumatic stress disorder) can include imagining alternative scenarios that could begin at each step of the dream.
Dreams and psychosis
A number of thinkers have commented on the similarities between the phenomenology of dreams and that of
psychosisPsychosis literally means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality"...
. Features common to the two states include thought disorder, flattened or inappropriate affect (emotion), and
hallucinationA hallucination, in the broadest sense, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid, substantial, and...
. Among philosophers,
KantKANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
, for example, wrote that ‘the lunatic is a wakeful dreamer’. Schopenhauer said: ‘A dream is a short-lasting psychosis, and a psychosis is a long-lasting dream.’ In the field of
psychoanalysisPsychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and continued by others. It is primarily devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior, although it also can be applied to societies.
...
, Freud wrote: ‘A dream then, is a psychosis’, and
JungCarl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology.Jung may also refer to:* Jung * JUNG, Java Universal Network/Graph Framework-See also:...
: ‘Let the dreamer walk about and act like one awakened and we have the clinical picture of
dementia praecoxDementia praecox refers to a chronic, deteriorating psychotic disorder characterized by rapid cognitive disintegration, usually beginning in the late teens or early adulthood. It is a term first used in 1891 in this Latin form by Arnold Pick , a professor of psychiatry at the German branch of...
.’
McCreery
has sought to explain these similarities by reference to the fact, documented by Oswald, that sleep can supervene as a reaction to extreme stress and hyper-
arousalArousal is a physiological and psychological state of being awake. It involves the activation of the reticular activating system in the brain stem, the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system, leading to increased heart rate and blood pressure and a condition of sensory alertness,...
. McCreery adduces evidence that psychotics are people with a tendency to hyper-arousal, and suggests that this renders them prone to what Oswald calls ‘microsleeps’ during waking life. He points in particular to the paradoxical finding of Stevens and Darbyshire that patients suffering from
catatoniaCatatonia is a syndrome of psychological and motorological disturbances. Karl Ludwig Kahlbaum first described it in 1874: Die Katatonie oder das Spannungirresein...
can be roused from their seeming stupor by the administration of sedatives rather than stimulants.
Griffin and Tyrrell go so far as to say that "schizophrenia is waking reality processed through the dreaming brain."
Lucid dreaming
Lucid dreaming is the conscious perception of one's state while dreaming. In this state a person usually has control over characters and the environment of the dream as well as the dreamer's own actions within the dream. The occurrence of lucid dreaming has been scientifically verified.
Oneironaut is a term sometimes used for those who lucidly dream.
Dreams of absent-minded transgression
Dreams of absent-minded transgression (DAMT) are dreams wherein the dreamer absentmindedly performs an action that he or she has been trying to stop (one classic example is of a quitting smoker having dreams of lighting a cigarette). Subjects who have had DAMT have reported waking with intense feelings of
guiltGuilt is a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes - whether justified or not - that he or she has violated a moral standard, and is responsible for that violation...
. One study found a positive association between having these dreams and successfully stopping the behavior.
Dreaming and the "real world"
Dreams can link to actual sensations, such as the incorporation of environmental sounds into dreams such as hearing a phone ringing in a dream while it is ringing in reality, or dreaming of
urinationUrination, also known as micturition, voiding, peeing, and more rarely, emiction, is the process of disposing of urine from the urinary bladder through the urethra to the outside of the body. In healthy humans, the process of urination is under voluntary control; in infants and individuals with...
while
wettingBedwetting is involuntary urination while asleep after the age at which bladder control would normally be anticipated. The medical term for this condition is "nocturnal enuresis." Primary nocturnal enuresis is when a child has not yet stayed dry on a regular basis...
the bed. Except in the case of lucid dreaming, people dream without being aware that they are doing so. Some philosophers have concluded that what we think as the "real world" could be or is an illusion (an idea known as the
skeptical hypothesisA skeptical hypothesis is a hypothetical situation which can be used in an argument for skepticism about a particular claim or class of claims. Usually the hypothesis posits the existence of a deceptive power that deceives our senses and undermines the justification of knowledge otherwise accepted...
about
ontologyOntology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations...
). The first recorded mention of the idea was by
ZhuangziZhuangzi was an influential Chinese philosopher who lived around the 4th century BCE during the Warring States Period, corresponding to the Hundred Schools of Thought philosophical summit of Chinese thought...
, and was also discussed in
HinduismHinduism is the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism is often referred to as ', a Sanskrit phrase meaning "the eternal law", by its adherents. Generic "types" of Hinduism that attempt to accommodate a variety of complex views span folk and Vedic Hinduism to bhakti tradition, as...
;
BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
makes extensive use of the argument in its writings. It was formally introduced to western philosophy by Descartes in the 17th century in his
Meditations on First PhilosophyMeditations on First Philosophy is a philosophical treatise written by René Descartes first published in Latin in 1641. The French translation was made by the Duke of Luynes with the supervision of Descartes and was published in 1647 with the title Méditations Metaphysiques...
.
Recalling dreams
The recall of dreams is extremely unreliable, though it is a skill that can be trained. Dreams can usually be recalled if a person is awakened while dreaming. Women tend to have more frequent dream recall than men. Dreams that are difficult to recall may be characterized by relatively little
affectAffect refers to the experience of feeling or emotion. Affect is a key part of the process of an organism’s interaction with stimuli. The word also refers sometimes to affect display, which is "a facial, vocal, or gestural behavior that serves as an indicator of affect." The affective domain...
, and factors such as
salienceThe salience of an item – be it an object, a person, a pixel, etc. – is its state or quality of standing out relative to neighboring items...
,
arousalArousal is a physiological and psychological state of being awake. It involves the activation of the reticular activating system in the brain stem, the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system, leading to increased heart rate and blood pressure and a condition of sensory alertness,...
, and interference play a role in dream recall. Often, a dream may be recalled upon viewing or hearing a random trigger or stimulus. A
dream journalA dream journal is a journal in which dream experiences are recorded. A dream journal might include a record of nightly dreams, personal reflections and waking dream experiences. It is often used in the study of dreams and psychology. Dream journals are also used by people trying to achieve a lucid...
can be used to assist dream recall, for
psychotherapyPsychotherapy or personal counseling with a psychotherapist, is an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a client or patient in problems of living.It aims to increase the individual's sense of their own well-being...
or entertainment purposes. For some people, vague images or sensations from the previous night's dreams are sometimes spontaneously experienced in falling asleep. However they are usually too slight and fleeting to allow dream recall.
Déjà vu
One theory of déjà vu attributes the feeling of having previously seen or experienced something to having dreamt about a similar situation or place, and forgetting about it until one seems to be mysteriously reminded of the situation or place while awake. Déjà vu comes from the
French languageFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
, meaning "Already seen."
Apparent precognition
According to surveys, it is common for people to feel that their dreams are predicting subsequent life events. Psychologists have explained these experiences in terms of
memory biases, namely a selective memory for accurate predictions and distorted memory so that dreams are retrospectively fitted onto life experiences. The multi-faceted nature of dreams makes it easy to find connections between dream content and real events
In one experiment, subjects were asked to write down their dreams in a diary. This prevented the selective memory effect, and the dreams no longer seemed accurate about the future. Another experiment gave subjects a fake diary of a student with apparently precognitive dreams. This diary described events from the person's life, as well as some predictive dreams and some non-predictive dreams. When subjects were asked to recall the dreams they had read, they remembered more of the successful predictions than unsuccessful ones.
Dream incorporation
In one use of the term, "dream incorporation" is a phenomenon whereby an external stimulus, usually an auditory one, becomes a part of a dream, eventually then awakening the dreamer. There is a famous painting by
Salvador DalíSalvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marquis of Púbol was a Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres....
that depicts this concept, titled "
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before AwakeningDream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening is a surrealist painting by Salvador Dalí. It was painted while...
" (1944).
The term "dream incorporation" is also used in research examining the degree to which preceding daytime events become elements of dreams. Recent studies suggest that events in the day immediately preceding, and those about a week before, have the most influence.
Popular culture
Modern
popular culturePopular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture...
often conceives of dreams, like Freud, as expressions of the dreamer's deepest fears and desires. In films such as
SpellboundSpellbound is a psychological mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1945. It tells the story of the new head of a mental asylum who turns out not to be what he claims. The film stars Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov and Leo G. Carroll. It is an adaptation by Angus...
(1945) or
The Manchurian CandidateThe Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent US political family who has been brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party...
(1962), the protagonists must extract vital clues from surreal dreams.
Most dreams in popular culture are, however, not symbolic, but straightforward and realistic depictions of their dreamer's fears and desires. Dream scenes may be indistinguishable from those set in the dreamer's real world, a narrative device that undermines the dreamer's and the audience's sense of security and allows horror movie protagonists, such as those of
Carrie (1976),
Friday the 13thFriday the 13th occurs when the thirteenth day of a month falls on Friday, which superstition holds to be a day of good or bad luck. In the Gregorian calendar, this day occurs at least once, but at most three times a year.-Phobia:...
(1980) or
An American Werewolf in LondonAn American Werewolf in London is a 1981 American-British comedy/horror film, written and directed by John Landis. It stars David Naughton, Griffin Dunne, and Jenny Agutter. The movie won the 1981 Saturn Award for Best Horror Film and an Academy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup...
(1981) to be suddenly attacked by dark forces while resting in seemingly safe places.
In
speculative fictionSpeculative fiction is a fiction genre speculating about worlds that are unlike the real world in various important ways. In these contexts, it generally overlaps one or more of the following: science fiction, fantasy fiction, horror fiction, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and...
, the line between dreams and reality may be blurred even more in the service of the story. Dreams may be psychically invaded or manipulated (the
Nightmare on Elm StreetA Nightmare on Elm Street is an American horror franchise that consists of eight slasher films, a television show, novels, and comic books. The franchise began with the film series, which was created by Wes Craven, with various other individuals taking over those jobs for each film sequel...
films, 1984–1991) or even come literally true (as in
The Lathe of HeavenThe Lathe of Heaven is a 1971 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. The plot revolves around a character whose dreams alter reality. The story was first serialized in the American science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. The novel received nominations for a 1972 Hugo and a 1971 Nebula...
, 1971). Such stories play to audiences’ experiences with their own dreams, which feel as real to them.
See also
- Daydream
A daydream is a visionary fantasy experienced while awake, especially one of happy, pleasant thoughts, hopes or ambitions. There are so many different types of daydreaming that there is still no consensus definition amongst psychologists...
- Dimethyltryptamine
Dimethyltryptamine is a naturally-occurring tryptamine and potent psychedelic drug, found not only in many plants, but also in trace amounts in the human body where its natural function is undetermined. Structurally, it is analogous to the neurotransmitter serotonin and other psychedelic...
- Dissociation
Dissociation is an unexpected partial or complete disruption of the normal integration of a person’s conscious or psychological functioning that cannot be easily explained by the person. Dissociation is a mental process that severs a connection to a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions,...
- Dream argument
The "dream argument" is the postulation that the act of dreaming provides preliminary evidence that the senses we trust to distinguish reality from illusion should not be fully trusted, and therefore any state that is dependent on our senses should at the very least be carefully examined and...
- Dream art
Dream art is any form of art directly based on material from dreams, or which employs dream-like imagery.-History:References to dreams in art are as old as literature itself: the story of Gilgamesh, the Bible, and the Iliad all describe dreams of major characters and the meanings thereof...
- Dream pop
Dream pop is a type of alternative rock that originated in Britain in the mid-1980s, when bands like Cocteau Twins , The Chameleons, The Passions, Dif Juz, Lowlife and A.R. Kane began fusing post-punk and ethereal experiments with bittersweet pop melodies into sensual, sonically ambitious...
- Dream sequence
A dream sequence is a technique used in storytelling, particularly in television and film, to set apart a brief interlude from the main story. The interlude may consist of a flashback, a flashforward, a fantasy, a vision, a dream, or some other element. Commonly, dream sequences appear in many...
- Dream dictionary
A dream dictionary is a tool made for interpreting images in a dream. Dream dictionaries tend to include specific images which are attached to specific interpretations...
- Dreamwork
Dreamworking differs from classical dream interpretation in that the aim of dreamwork is to explore the various images and emotions that a dream presents and evokes, while not attempting to come up with a single, unique dream meaning. In this way the dream remains "alive" whereas if it has been...
- Dream world (plot device)
Dream world is a commonly used plot device in fictional works, most notably in science fiction and fantasy fiction. The use of a dream world creates a situation whereby a character is placed in a marvellous and unpredictable environment and must overcome several personal problems to leave it...
- Dream yoga in Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen tradition
- False awakening
A false awakening is an event in which someone dreams they have awoken from sleep. This illusion of having awakened is very convincing to the person. After a false awakening, people will often dream of performing daily morning rituals, believing they have truly awakened...
- Hypnagogia
Hypnagogia , often misspelled hypnogaia or hypnogogia, is a term coined by Alfred Maury for the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep.-Definitions and synonyms:Sometimes the word...
- List of dream diaries
- Lucid dream
- Oneirology
Oneirology is the scientific study of dreams.The first recorded use of the word was in 1653. An advocate of this discipline was the French sinologist Marquis d'Hervey de Saint Denys. The field gained momentum when Nathaniel Kleitman and his student Eugene Aserinsky discovered regular cycles.A...
- Veridical dream
The veridical dream is the dream which is afterwards fulfilled.*In Book XIX of the Odusseia, Penelopē said that "dreams ... which issue forth from the gate of polished horn bring true issues to pass, when any mortal sees them." *Likewise, Herodotos distinguished /oneiros/ as "the prophetic, God-sent...
- Dream speech
In 1906 the famous German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin published a monograph entitled Über Sprachstörungen im Traume . In his psychiatry textbook Kraepelin used the short cut Traumsprache to denote language disturbances occurring in dreams...
- Dream Demon
Dream Demon is a British horror film, released in 1988, starring Jimmy Nail, Timothy Spall and Jemma Redgrave is on the verge of marrying caddish Mark Greenstreet . Spending the night in her spooky old family mansion, Jemma stares into a mirror and begins experiencing terrifying dreams. She sees...
film
- Lilith
Lilith is a female Mesopotamian storm demon associated with wind and was thought to be a bearer of disease, illness, and death. The figure of Lilith first appeared in a class of wind and storm demons or spirits as Lilitu, in Sumer, circa 4000 BC...
a 6000 year old Sumerian dream demon (succubus)
- REM sleep
Further reading
-
- Lombardo G.P., Foschi R. (2008), Escape from the dark forest: The experimentalist standpoint of the Sante De Sanctis
Sante De Sanctis was an Italian doctor, psychologist and psychiatrist. He is considered as one of the founders of the Italian psychology and neuropsychiatry....
dreaming psychology. History of the Human Sciences. vol. 21, pp. 45–69 ISSN: 0952-6951.
External links