For many people dreaming is a true escape from reality, others fear their very own dreams, but what is dreaming? Is it merely your subconscious trying to tell you something or your imagination running wild? Dreams are a series of thoughts, images and sensations that occur in a persons mind during sleep. Researchers still aren't one hundred percent sure as to why we dream but there are many theories. One of the most popular theories is that dreams help the brain sort through everyday information that it collects. For example your brain is fed millions of details every day, things like the color of passing cars, which is a minor sensory detail and the presentation you're putting together for work, which are more complex sensory details. During sleep your brain works to decide which information is worth keeping and which your brain can get rid of. Many philosophers feel that dreams play a large roll in this process of brain decluttering. Everyone dreams however, the amount of dreams remembered varies from person to person. People are more likely to remember their dreams if they occur during the REM sleep cycle. The brain …show more content…
Tibetan Buddhists during the eight century were the first to teach the ability to lucid dream. They learned how to control their dreams with a thing called dream yoga, which is a technique that is now known as wake induced lucid dreams or WILD. Lucid dreaming is when you maintain full consciousness while sleeping. Although the term Lucid means clear to lucid dream means more than just having a clear dream. To have a lucid dream means you must know you are dreaming. The term “lucid dreaming” was first used by Marquis d’Hervey de Saint-Denys in 1867 however the credit is usually given to Dutch psychiatrist, Frederik van Eeden. van Eeden wrote: “the seventh type of dreams, which I call lucid dreams, seem to be the most interesting and worthy of careful observation and
A dream may be defined as a mental experience, occurring in sleep, which is characterised by hallucinoid imagery, predominantly visual and often vivid (Hobson & McCarley, 1977). J. Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley argue that dreams are simply the by-product of bursts of activity amaniting from subcortial areas in the brain (Hobson, 1988; Hobson & McCarley, 1977; McCarley, 1994, cited in W. Weiten, 1998).
This book is a collection of information about dreams, ranging from folklore and ancient beliefs to current scientific research. The thoughts of dozens, perhaps even hundreds of philosophers, researchers, and other dreamers are briefly summarized in chronological order, from Plato to Artemidorus, from Erik Erikson to Calvin
In a (Scientific American,2009) article, they described one viewpoint of what dreams are," dreaming is simply an epiphenomenon that is the mental activity that occurs during REM sleep. I do not believe this is the most fruitful approach to the study of dreaming."
The first question that is going to be addressed in this paper is “Why do you dream?” There are many reasons why people dream. There are many reasons why people dream. One theory as to why people dream is that “dreams help us sort and place the day’s experiences into our memories. Deep, slow-wave REM sleep stabilizes our memories and experiences, converting them into long-term learning” (Baird p.96). Another theory is that your brain is always firing neurons; even when you are unconscious. The neurons that are being fired are the ones that are responsible for creating images and the limbic system (emotions). This results in your brain weaving these signals together. Therefore creating dreams. The last theory is that dreams play a main part in cognitive development. According to Baird “The brain activity associated with dreaming may help to develop and preserve neural pathways… The way dreams change over time also seems to indicate a developmental role.” (Baird p.97) The older you are the more your dreams change. When you are an adult your dreams t...
As defined by Stephen LaBerge, "Lucidity, allowing as it does flexibility and creative response, presents a means of resolving dream conflicts and hence fosters a return to effective self-regulation. This is the basis of approach to healing through lucid dreaming: to facilitate the person's self-healing mechanisms by means of intentional imagery on the mental level" (Healing through Lucid Dreaming [1]). Those who have had a lucid dream but are unfamiliar with the terminology could easily recognize their dream as "lucid". Almost all dream researchers agree to these two basic principles of lucid dreams and lucid dreamers: a) that lucid dreamers will frequently awaken from REM sleep once dream consciousness is achieved and b) that lucidity will be easiest to induce at times in the...
Dreams are series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep. Dreams occur during a certain stage of sleep known as REM. Several different psychologists, including Freud and Hobson, have studied dreams. Psychologists have provided many theories as to what dreams are and the meanings behind them.
...esults. One interesting thing found, is that although it is though that dreams happen in a blink of an eye that they actually happen in a realistic time span (General Information). Another is that dreams generally take place in familiar settings and are random leftover thoughts from the previous day. What’s interesting though, is that during studies in which participants were woken on a regular basis, scientists found that the dreams remembered the following morning were “more coherent, sexier, and generally more interesting” than the dream descriptions that were collected in data for research. Most participants remembered very little of their dreams and only about the last fifteen minutes of dreaming before awoken.
So what is lucid dream? here is a brief definition: when you are dreaming, you realize you are dreaming but you don’t have to wake-up, instead, you can have some control over your dream, you can decide what you gonna do during the dream. Lucid dreaming has many potential benefits such as treatment for nightmares and improvement of physical skills and abilities through rehearsal in the lucid dream environment. How to achieve lucid dreaming?
First of all, lucid dreaming is a concept that is often misunderstood. According to Rebecca Turner from The World of Lucid Dreaming, "A lucid dream is any dream during sleep in which you become aware that you're dreaming. This simple realization draws your waking consciousness into the dream...". This means that you only need to notice that you are dreaming, even if you feel that you only dreamt about lucid dreaming or that you didn't act like how you would have in the waking world. Lucid dreaming often makes the dream clearer.
The first cultures to classify different types of dreams were the Babylonians and Assyrians. As stated by Amy Coy, creator of worldofdreamssymbols.com, to them, there were two types of dreams: good and bad. Good dreams were dreams that were sent from the gods, and that bad dreams were from evil and demons. They also believed that dreams have predictive power of sending omens or prophecies to people about the future.
Despite the large amount of time we spend asleep, surprisingly little is actually known about sleeping and dreaming. Much has been imagined, however. Over history, sleep has been conceived as the space of the soul, as a state of absence akin to death, as a virtual or alternate reality, and more recently, as a form of (sub)consciousness in which memories are built and erased. The significance attributed to dreams has varied widely as well. The Ancient Greeks had surprise dream encounters with their gods. Native Americans turned to their dreams for guidance in life. Shamans dreamed in order to gather information from the spirits.
Lucid dreaming is the ability of an individual to consciously direct and control one’s dreams. It transforms an individual’s inner dream world into an alternative reality – where everything the dreamer sees, hears, feels, tastes and even smells is as authentic as real life. Lucidity transpires during altered states of consciousness. According to Snyder & Gackenbach, as cited by LaBerge, lucid dreaming is normally a rare experience and only about a percentage of 20% of the world’s population reports to having lucid dreams once a month or more (LaBerge, 1990) which probably does not justify the existence of lucid dreaming. In addition, people have argued that lucid dreaming is just another theory and it is seems critical for one to be aware in an experience such as this.
We spend one third of our lives sleeping and 15-20% of that time is spent dreaming. (1) Dreams are a sequence of images that appear involuntary to the mind of somebody who is sleeping, often a mixture of real and imaginary characters, places, and events, according to the Encarta dictionary. There are many types of dreams. Lucid dreams can be the most fascinating if one can master them. In lucid dreams you realize that you are dreaming and instead of automatically waking up you stay asleep and control every aspect of your dream. Your thoughts can effortlessly paint any dreamscape and you have full mental faculties as you would if you were awake.(4) Your imagination is the limit! Another more mysterious type of dream is precognitive dreams. This is where time and space no longer seem to fit any rational logical meaning. Precognition is an ability to know and experience a future event before it ever occurs (4) Many experience this type of dream and slowly forget it over time, until it happens in real life. When it occurs in real life you automatically feel a sense of déjà vu and you notice something familiar about the s...
Dreaming is very different than everyday life, yet somehow still relates to it in some way. In everyday life we have stress and happiness along with many other emotions. Yet in someway when we drift off into a deep sleep this emotions come right back. Dalai Lama once said that “sleep is the best meditation.” Sleep may be the one thing that people turn to, a place where your mind is totally set free to do what it wants and think what it wants. An idea or vision that is created in your imagination that when suddenly when you awake, feels so real.Dream reflect reality because most peoples dreams are in fact related to past, and recent experiences, or events that have happened in a person’s life. Dreams are more than just a method of entertainment, They should be taken more seriously because of the fact that with dreams imitating own reality, you can then learn more about yourself.
Sigmund Freud once suggested that dreams are the emotions that have been repressed and the desires, wishes and thoughts the sleeping mind wants released. His suggestion is just one of many theories about why people dream. Although other concepts have been proposed, dreams are seen as vehicles of which the human mind uses to find relief and rejuvenation in during the rapid-eye-movement stage of sleep.