DREAM

Dream – An Introduction:

Dreams are separations of images, objectives, feelings and sensations that happen automatically in the mind in the time of sleep. Though, the content and motive of dreams are not absolutely understood, although it has been a topic of scientific talk and a matter of philosophical as well as religious interest, in every part of recorded history. The scientific study of dream is called “Oneirology”

 Dreams mainly happen in the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) phase of sleep, when our brain task is high and to be like awake. REM (Rapid-Eye Movement) sleep is disclosed by uninterrupted motions of the eyes in the time of sleep. Dreams sometimes happen in the time of other phases of sleep. Even so, dreams are disposed to be more or less lifelike or unforgettable.

 Duration of Dream

The time span of a dream can be different; it might stay for a few seconds or it might last 15-20 minutes or more. People are likely to memorize their dreams whether they are awakened in the time of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage. Studies found that an average person has 3-5 dreams each night, but somebody might have 7-8 dreams per night, though it is not fixed, it differs. Generally, the dreams disposed to stay long period of time as the night continues. In a total 8 hours of sleep during night, most of the dreams happen in the starting phase of 2 hours of REM (Rapid-eye Movement) of sleep.

At present time, dreams have seen as a relation to the unconscious mind. Dreams have various natures, like horror dreams, dreams of excitement, melancholic dreams, dreams mix with adventure and or sexual dreams. Dreams cannot be controlled by a dreamer, except lucid or articulate dream, when the dreamer is totally or partially self-aware, dreams can give a person a creative thought or can give a sense of motivation.

 Nature of Dream

The meaning of dreams and its nature differed and carried by way of time and culture. In Mesopotamia, people used to document the nature of dreams on clay tablets. In the time of Greek and Roman, people had a conception that the dreams are directed messages from one or more deities, from expired people about the predicted future.

Sigmund Freud (Renowned Austrian Neurologist and known as the founding father of Psychoanalysis), elaborated the discipline of Psychoanalysis, he wrote about dream theories in a widespread way and its explanations in the early 1900s. He described dreams display of our extensive longings and anxieties, sometimes associated with oppressed childhood remembrances. In his book “The Interpretation of Dreams”, he described a psychological technique to explain dreams and formulated some guidelines to know the signs and patterns in our dreams.  

 Dream and philosophical pragmatism

Many philosophers have described that our thoughts of the “Real World” is a hallucination. Many gathered examination have shown that our dreams are mainly connected with our rapid eye movement in sleep, in the time when an EEG (Electroencephalogram) exhibits brain task that, among sleep phases, are most similar to wakefulness. In an examination, it is shown that in a typical lifespan, an individual spends all but 6 years in dreaming, that is almost 2 hours per day. Generally, most of the dreams stay five to twenty minutes only. Many researches have done in this subject but it is still hidden, in our brain from where dreams emerge. Whether there is one source of dreams many portions of our brain are intricate or what the motives of dream is for our mind and body. In the time of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep phase, the free of the neurotransmitters nor epinephrine, serotonin and histamine are totally subdued.

In the time of dream, an individual dreaming is now fully aware that he or she is dreaming, no matter how ridiculous or strange the dream is. The main cause of it is prefrontal cortex; an area of our brain controls our logical thinking and planning, shows shrinking activity in the time of dreams. It permits the dreamer to interact more actively with dreams, even the dreamer does not think what can be happened in the dream, he or she usually stand out in reality mixed with the dreaming phase.

 REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep and the power of dream seem to be implanted in biology of various animals that live in the earth. Scientific research shows that almost all the animals experience REM (Rapid Eye Movement). The span of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) can be seen in all types of mammals. For instance, Dolphins experience very minimum span of REM (Rapid Eye Movement), Humans are in the middle position and opossum and armadillo are great dreamers.

Research has shown dreaming in mammals, like dogs, cats, rats, monkeys etc. are common like human. Birds and reptiles are also found in dreaming. Though, Sleeping and dreaming are twine together.

Many scientists believed that human dream for the same because other amniotes do. From the perspective of Charles Darwin, dreams would have to attain a few biological needs, give some benefit for natural selection to take place or at least of have no negative impact on fitness.

Different theories described that dreaming is unusual or unexpected experience by-product of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep phase, which does not support any natural motive. According to Hobson, substance of dreams have no noteworthy impact on waking activities and many people enjoy their regular life perfectly without any dream effects or recalling their dreams.

Content of Dream

In the year 1940 to 1985, Calvin S. Hall gathered more than 50,000 reports on dream at Western Reserve University. And, in the year of 1966 Hall and Van DE Castle published “The Content Analysis of Dreams”, by which they described a especial coding process to study 1,000 reports on dream. The study has shown that participants from different parts of the globe expressed quite similarity in their content of dreams. Later on Hall’s entire reports on dream became accessible in general in the mid 1990s by Hall’s protégé Willam Domhoff, authorizing further divergent analysis.

 Visuals

 The visible natures of dreams are normally phantasmagoric (having a fantastic or deceptive appearance); various situations and things continuously combined with each other. The visible natures including situations, characters or persons, things or artifacts etc. are normally reflects an individual’s memories and experiences, but can take on hugely overstated and peculiar structures.

Emotions

In the Hall study, one of the most common emotions experienced in dream was anxiety. Another emotions contained desertion, annoyance, fright, joy and pleasure. But emotions which are negative were more common than that of positive emotions.

Sexual Themes

According to the Hall data analysis, sexual dream happen not more than 10 per cent of the time and are very high pervasive in the young and middle teens age. One another study found that 8 per cent men and women dreamt sexual things. But in some cases, this sexual dream might end in orgasms. These kinds of dreams often called wet dreams.

Color Dreams vs. Black and White Dreams

A very small section of people say that dreams are in black and white, but in the year of 2008, a study was done by a researcher at the University of Dundee, and according to him people who were only uncovered with black and white TV and Films in their early days described dreams in black and white almost 25 per cent of the time.

Evidence has been taken from medical conditions, typically only neurological conditions can influence dreams. For example, a few people with synesthesia (The production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body stimulation of another sense or part of the body) have never described totally black and white dreaming and sometimes have a very strenuous time imagining the object of dreaming in black and white only.

Dream interpretations

Dream interpretation can be the outcome of intuitive concepts and experiences. Of late, a study has done by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology decided that many people trust on their dreams tell meaningful and unseen truth. The research has been conducted in U.S., South Korea and in India. All but 74 per cent Indians, 65 per cent South Koreans and 56 per cent Americans have faith in Freud’s dream theories.
Other Associated Phenomenon

Lucid Dreaming

Lucid Dreaming is the awaken perception of an individual’s state in the time of dreaming. In this time an individual sometimes have some degree of control over his or her activity in the dream or even the nature and the environment of the dream. The control of dream has been described to improve with practiced intentional lucid dreaming, but the capability to control facets of the dream is not compulsory for a dream to qualify as “Lucid Dram”. Therefore a lucid dream is a dream in the time an individual (A Dreamer) realizes that they are dreaming. The happening of lucid dream has been proved scientifically.

Recalling of Dreams

Recalling of Dream is exceptionally untrustworthy, although this is a kind of skill that can be exercised. Normally a dram can be recalled whether a dreamer is awakened in the time of dreaming. Studies showed that women have more repeated recalling of dream to men. Dreams are typically very difficult to recall, and this kind of dreams might be characterized by comparatively little impact and elements such as salience, arousal and intercession play a very important in dream recall. Sometimes dreams might be recalled upon visualizing or listening an unusual stimulus. 

The salience hypothesis motivates that dreaming object that is salient, that is novel, intense or uncommon is more easily and clearly remembered. There is also a substantial confirmation that lucid, fierce and or uncommon content of dream is more commonly and regularly recalled. Approximately 95 per cent of dreams are recalled. Some brain chemicals are important for the purpose of transforming short term memories into the long term memories, are subdued in the time of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. Until and unless a dream is distinctly vivid and whether an individual wakes in the time or promptly after it, the object of the dream is not remembered.

Day Dream

A daydream is nothing but an imaginative vision or often called fantasy, especially associated with a happy imagination, thoughts mixed with joy and hopes or longings, visualized as coming to pass and an experienced in the time of awake. Day-drams are of different kinds. There is no fixed definition of it. Though, different Psychologists, have given various definition of it. A research done by Harvard Psychologist, Deirdre Barrett and he has found that people who normally experience vivid dream like mental images,   arrange in advance  the word of these, and in comparison others refer to milder imagery, or review of their past memories, that means one’s mind comparatively blank when they describe about “Day Dreams”.

Though, there are lot of examples of people in creative areas such as, artists, composers, novelists and film makers evolving new concepts through daydreaming. Likewise, researchers, scientists, mathematicians and physicists have developing new concepts by day-dreaming in their areas.

Hallucination

A hallucination is a large sense of the term, is a perception in absence of stimulus. In a stern sense, it is a sense of perception in a conscious state of mind. In absence of outside spur and there are some of the qualities of true perception, in that case they are lifelike, material, and are situated in external and impartial space. It is said that hallucinations from the connected experience of dream which does not included wakefulness.

Nightmares

A nightmare is a dreadful dream which may cause a powerful negative emotional reaction from our mind, generally fright and or horror kind of dream, but also distress, anxiety, depression and or sorrow. This kind of dream carries conditions of danger, suffering, physical and or psychological fright. Individuals generally awaken in this situation of discomfort and may not be able to go back to sleep for the purpose of lengthy time.

Night Terrors

A night terror, often called sleep terror or pavor nocturnes is a kind of parasomnia disorder which mainly affects kids, generates fear or fright. Night terror should not be mixed with nightmare that is bad dream which may cause feelings of terror or fright.


 References:
  • Appignanesi, Lisa and Forrester, John. Freud's Women. Penguin Books, 2000.
  • Auden, W.H. "In Memory of Sigmund Freud", 1935, poets.org, retrieved 23 June 2012.
  • Cohen, David. The Escape of Sigmund Freud. JR Books, 2009.
  • Eissler, K.R. Freud and the Seduction Theory: A Brief Love Affair. Int. Univ. Press, 2005.
  • Eysenck, Hans. J. Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire. Pelican Books, 1986.
  • Ford, Donald H. & Urban, Hugh B. Systems of Psychotherapy: A Comparative Study. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1965.
  • Fuller, Andrew R. Psychology and Religion: Eight Points of View, Littlefield Adams, 1994.
  • Gay, Peter. Freud: A Life for Our Time. W. W. Norton & Company, 2006 (first published 1988).
  • Jones, E. Sigmund Freud: Life and Work Vol 1: The Young Freud 1856-1900, Hogarth Press, 1953.
  • Jones, E. Sigmund Freud: Life and Work Vol 2: The Years of Maturity 1901-1919, Hogarth Press, 1955
  • Jones, E. Sigmund Freud: Life and Work Vol 3: The Final Years 1919-1939, Hogarth Press, 1957
  • Leeming, D.A.; Madden, Kathryn; and Marlan, Stanton. Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer Verlag u. Co., 2004.
  • Mannoni, Octave. Freud: The Theory of the Unconscious, London: NLB, 1971
  • Michels, Robert. "Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry: A Changing Relationship", American Mental Health Foundation, retrieved 23 June 2012.
  • Mitchell, Juliet. Psychoanalysis and Feminism: A Radical Reassessment of Freudian Psychoanalysis. Penguin Books, 2000.
  • Rice, Emmanuel. Freud and Moses: The Long Journey Home. SUNY Press, 1990.
  • Roudinesco, Elisabeth. Jacques Lacan. Polity Press, 1997.
  • Sulloway, Frank. Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend. Burnett Books, 1979.
  • Vitz, Paul C. Sigmund Freud's Christian Unconscious. The Guilford Press, 1988.
  • Webster, Richard. Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis. HarperCollins, 1995.

Further Readings:
  • Brown, Norman O.. Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytic Meaning of History. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, Second Edition 1985.
  • Cioffi, Frank. Freud and the Question of Pseudoscience. Peru, IL: Open Court, 1999.
  • Crews, Frederick. The Memory Wars: Freud's Legacy in Dispute. New York: The New York Review of Books, 1995.
  • Crews, Frederick. Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.
  • Dufresne, Todd. Killing Freud: Twentieth-Century Culture and the Death of Psychoanalysis. New York: Continuum, 2003.
  • Ellenberger, Henri. The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry. New York: Basic Books, 1970.
  • Esterson, Allen. Seductive Mirage: An Exploration of the Work of Sigmund Freud. Chicago: Open Court, 1993.
  • Gellner, Ernest. The Psychoanalytic Movement: The Cunning of Unreason. London: Fontana Press, 1993.
  • Grünbaum, Adolf. The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
  • Jones, Ernest. The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. 3 vols. New York: Basic Books, 1953–1957
  • Jung, Carl Gustav. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung Volume 4: Freud and Psychoanalysis. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1961.
  • Macmillan, Malcolm. Freud Evaluated: The Completed Arc. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1997.
  • Marcuse, Herbert. Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud. Boston: Beacon Press, 1974
  • Masson, Jeffrey Moussaieff. The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory. New York: Pocket Books, 1998
  • Puner, Helen Walker. Freud: His Life and His Mind. New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1947
  • Ricoeur, Paul. Freud and Philosophy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970.
  • Rieff, Philip. Freud: The Mind of the Moralist. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1961
  • Roazen, Paul. Freud: Political and Social Thought. London: Hogarth Press, 1969.
  • Roth, Michael, ed. Freud: Conflict and Culture. New York: Vintage, 1998.
  • Schur, Max. Freud: Living and Dying. New York: International Universities Press, 1972.
  • Stannard, David E. Shrinking History: On Freud and the Failure of Psychohistory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
  • Sulloway, Frank J. Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend. London: Basic Books, 1979
  • Webster, Richard. Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis. Oxford: The Orwell Press, 2005.
  • Wollheim, Richard. Freud. Fontana, 1971.
  • Wollheim, Richard, and James Hopkins, eds. Philosophical Essays on Freud. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Great books by Sigmund Freud:
  • The Interpretation of Dreams
  • On Dreams
  • The Psychopathology of Everyday Life
  • Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
  • Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood
  • Totem and Taboo: Resemblances between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics
  • Beyond the Pleasure Principle
  • The Ego and the Id
  • The Future of an Illusion
  • Civilization and Its Discontents
  • Moses and Monotheism

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