Nightmare Analysis During a regular day, an average person is suspected to sleep eight hours. During these eight hours of sleep our minds create a series of thoughts, images, and sensations. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dream). While in this state of sleep people all around the world also experience a distressing dream called a nightmare. These dreams usually leave a person with feelings of anger, guilt, sadness, fear, anxiety and depression. There has been much speculation on what causes nightmares and their usefulness. The purpose of this essay is to analyze nightmares and express findings through research done. Who regularly has nightmares? Throughout life most people would admit to having at least one nightmare. However, …show more content…
This article talked about a 10 year old girl, Daniele, who began having frequent nightmares. The article expressed how nightmares were sometimes our inner emotion finally expressed. Daniele for example grew up with a mother who had psychological problem and dealt with substance abuse. At age 5 Daniele stated see her mother’s overdose/suicide attempt. This led to her first nightmare about a devil trying to strangle her mother while she screamed for help. Gonzalez states that these nightmares are Daniele’s way of expressing her inner turmoil cause by her mother not listening to her needs. “Her inability to protect herself or recognize and respond to signs of danger sent Danielle into panic mode” (http://0-web.a.ebscohost.com.helin.uri.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=3fef6c5d-208a-4a3c-9562-9b88c01e1311%40sessionmgr4004&vid=0&hid=4201). After Daniele saw her mother almost overdose, the parental roles were switched in which Daniele became the parent “over- riding her own thoughts and feelings for those of her parents” (Line Above). Overall this article proves that nightmares can have meanings in which we shroud our inner thoughts or fears that a person is unable to state on a regular
Stephen King’s perception in “The Symbolic Language of Dreams” gave me a new, profound insight on dreams. On the other hand, his interpretations also made me realize how little is known about them and their significance to our lives.
In the beginning of the novel, the dreams feature things that have been lost. Papa dreams about his wife, saying “She wore a dress of gauze and her dark hair was carried up in combs of ivory, combs of shell. Her smile, her downturned eyes”
3f. when I have nightmares I tend to dream of person versus supernatural conflict. I have these awful dreams about my great grandmother’s spirit coming after me and attacking me. Sometimes I am so scared to go to bed that I try to force myself to stay
Campbell illustrates this with a series of examples of dreams being the manifestation of a person’s deepest inner fears such as the stutterer who had to overcome many obstacles only to lose his breath. Both good and evil can be found within and the hero must face both until “he finds that he and his opposite are not of differing species, but one flesh”. (99) Now the hero is ready to meet the goddess. The goddess represents both birth and death, light and dark, and love and hate “the goddess at once creates, preserves, and destroys.” (105) It is only when the hero can see and accept the goddess for all of her inner qualities and not try to conquer the goddess will he become greater himself and receive many bounties. Yet Campbell then portrays women as great temptresses set out to steal virtue from men. He expounds the idea that if the hero succumbs to the temptress he will lose a vital piece of
The average person spends over one-third of their life sleeping, and over this period of time he or she can have over 1,825 dreams (Wicklinski). By definition, dreams are mental images, thoughts, or emotions that are experienced while sleeping. In the beginning, dreams were thought to be messages sent from the gods or spirit world. Researchers now have many theories explaining why people dream. Many of these theories explain that dreams can resemble an individual’s sensory experiences or even secret wishes. All people dream, but only 42% of people can recall their dreams from the night before (“Dreams”). The study of dreams is a topic that is constantly being debated by researchers for many reasons. Dreaming is important because it can impact people’s health, provide insight into what they are feeling, and reveal information about their behavior.
There are many facts that are unknown about dreams and their meanings. For centuries, philosophers and scientists have tried to understand the meaning of dreams. They have all been fascinated by the fact that the content of dreams may have meanings relating to one's life. Are dreams just thoughts in people's minds, or are dreams in fact representations of different areas in people's lives? Dreams represent many different areas of one's life in physical, emotional, and mental ways. Dreams can relay to people facts about their lives that they are not even aware of. There are also many ways that dreams can help cure different physical, emotional, and mental problems in one's life. This paper will discuss dreams and their meanings, and ways of interpreting a dream using such methods as hypnotherapy and psychoanalysis therapy that can help a person in physical, mental, and emotional ways. The first fact that will be discussed is what dreams are and how they work for people in allowing the person to discover more about himself. Dreams can be defined as "a conscious series of images that occur during sleep" (Collier's, vol. 8). Dreams are usually very vivid in color and imagery. They reveal to the dreamer different wishes, concerns, and worries that he or she has. Dreams usually reflect every part of who the dreamer is. The content of the person's dream is usually made up according to how old the dreamer is and how educated the he or she is (Collier's, vol. 8). Dreams are not planned out or thought up. The unconscious part of the mind brings out bits and pieces of information in the dreamer's mind and places them together. According to Encarta, dreams are almost always visual. Forty to fifty percent of dreams have some form of communication present in them and a very small percentage of dreams give the dreamer the ability to use his or her five senses (Encarta). Dreams allow one to take a closer look into his mind and himself in a quest for self-discovery. Dreams can be used to solve all different types of problems. In Sigmund Freud's book, The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud states: "As regards the dream, all the troubles of waking life are transferred by it to the sleeping state […]" (Freud 113). They relay things about a person that the person may not be able to see.
The fantastic tale “Was It a Dream?” by Guy de Maupassant is a story narrated from the first point of view, in which the main character, who remains anonymous, describes his desperation and overwhelming grief since the loss of his loved one. He also relates a supernatural event he experienced, while in the cemetery, in which he finds out the truth about his significant other’s feelings but refuses to accept it, or at least tries to ignore it. Maupassant’s readers may feel sympathy towards the narrator as they perceive throughout the story his tone of desperation, and are able to get to the conclusion that he was living a one-sided relationship. Maupassant achieves these effects in the readers through the use of figures of speech, like anonymity, symbolism and imagery, and the structured he employed in the story.
That this demon also directed his terrifying gaze at the real viewer suggested new ideas of sleep and dreams as a nightmarish world within human nature which was beyond reason, virtue, free will, and human control. In short, the demon also resided within the male beholder who could recognize his “dark side” in the painting. Likewise, female viewers could also see themselves in the ecstatic sleeping woman, helpless before the dark force of erotic
Dreams have been thought to contain significant messages throughout many cultures. A dream is an unfolding sequence of perceptions, thoughts, and emotions that is experienced as a series of real-life events during sleep. The definitions of dreams are different among studies, which can also lead to quite different results. Perhaps, the dream interpretation has becoming increasingly popular. In this paper, I will talk about what I have learned about three different views of dream interpretations. One theory made by Sigmund Freud who believed that dreams are triggered by unacceptable repressed wishes, often of a sexual nature. He argued that because dreams we experience are merely disguised versions of people real dreams. The other theory called activation–synthesis theory, made by Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley, based on the observation that during REM sleep, many brain-stem circuits become active and bombard the cerebral cortex with neural signals. The last theory, proposed by William Domhoff, is called the neurocognitive theory of dreaming, which demonstrates that dream content in general is continuous with waking conceptions and emotional preoccupations. Thus, dreaming is best understood as a developmental cognitive achievement that depends upon the maintenance of a specific network of forebrain structures. While each theory has different belief system and approach method, it is a great opportunity to know how former psychologists contributed to the field of dream interpretation.
When most people think of a “slasher film” (Clover 1992) they tend to think of movies such as Friday the 13th, Halloween, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. These movies align with the basic necessities for a slasher film ,but at the same time, are repetitive. In 1984 A Nightmare on Elm Street was created and completely changed what was looked at as a “slasher villain”. In A Nightmare on Elm Street the viewer is introduced the evil omnipresent being known as Freddy Krueger. Freddy Krueger is a nightmareous malicious monster whose only purpose is to kill. He is the embodiment of fear and evil with immense power and abilities that some would dub as “Godlike.” In James Kendrick’s Razors in the Dreamscape: Revisiting A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Slasher Film Kendrick discusses A Nightmare on Elm Street’s originality as compared to other slasher films such as Friday the 13th, Halloween, etc. Kendrick presents an understanding of how A Nightmare on Elm Street fights common archetypes and tropes associated with the slasher genre by discussing the amalgamation of Krueger and his victims and how it ultimately emasculates Krueger and leads to his demise.
In this paper I hope to open a window to the vast and mysterious world of dreaming. To most people, information about dreams isn’t common knowledge. In researching this subject though, I found that everybody has and reacts to dreams, which are vital to your mental health. You will also find how you can affect your dreams and how they affect you.
To conclude, nightmares are not only the roots of scary dreams, but also sleep terrors are the main causes of fearsome dreams. People in any age of their lives may experience bad dreams, which has mental reasons mainly. No one is an exception in a stressful
Fisher, C.J., Byrne, A., Edwards, and Kahn, E. (1970) REM and NREM nightmares. In E. Hartman (ed), Sleep and Dreaming. Boston : Little Brown
During prescientific days, dreams were interpreted as ‘manifestations’ of a ‘higher power’. Since the introduction of psychology, dreams have had 4 distinct interpretations. The first interprets dreams as a “liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature”. The second interprets dreams as “accidental disturbances from ‘internal organs’. The third interprets dreams as a foretelling of the future. The last interpretation is Freud’s. He interprets dream as an expression of subconscious desires.
In 2004–2005, the Penn Humanities Forum will focus on the topic of “Sleep and Dreams.” Proposals are invited from researchers in all humanistic fields concerned with representations of sleep, metaphors used to describe sleep, and sleep as a metaphor in itself. In addition, we solicit applications from those who study dreams, visions, and nightmares in art or in life, and the approaches taken to their interpretation. We also welcome proposals about the effects of dreaming on the dreamer, and the resulting emotions, behaviors, and actions taken or foregone in response to dreams. In this Forum on Sleep and Dreams, we will see how the diversity of academic disciplines can help answer important questions about sleep and dreaming—questions that may touch the basis of human intellect.