Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
A narrative about dreams
A narrative about dreams
The interpretation of dreams is most closely associated with
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: A narrative about dreams
Dreams have been around since time began. The reason why they occur, even today, is a mystery. Debates have surrounded about whether dreams are meaningless or important. Since early history, people have recounted their dreams believing they were secret codes or messages. (Young) In Truman Capote’s novel In Cold Blood Perry, one of the killers, dreamed that he was saved by a bird that took him to a new place described as “paradise.” (Capote 93) Though the dreams made Perry feel superior, the meaning of his dream is fascinating but still a mystery. Dream interpretation has brought insight and knowledge to what a person’s subconscious can uphold. Experts have sought to explain what dreams actually contain. Although dream interpretation is criticized as ridiculous, numerous people believe interpreting dreams is important to figuring out their life and inner psyche. When someone says they have had a dream another may find it fascinating or completely dull. Dreams are a fascination because they reoccur often and sometimes change. No one can really explain why this happens but some are determined to find out how. Because of this curiosity and fascination, there are some researchers who find dreams enthralling enough to study them. As if dreams weren’t compelling enough, they found that a person goes through five stages of sleep: two steps of light sleep, two steps of deep sleep, and one stage of REM which translates into rapid eye movement. Researchers found when people wake up at different sleep stages give different recounts of their sleep, no matter what type of dream they just had. Since these stages happen, there are two types of dreams: REM dreaming and non-REM dreaming. REM dreams tend to have length, complexity, and hallucinatory... ... middle of paper ... ...fice, The US Library Of Congress, 2010-2013. Web. 27 Feb 2013. . Lewis, James R. The Dream Encyclopedia. New York: Gale Research, 1995. Print. Matalon, Nadav. “The Riddle of Dreams.” Philosophical Psychology 24. 4 (Aug 2011): p 517-536. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 27 Feb 2013. “Rescue.” Dreambible.com. The Canadian Intellectual Property Office, The UK Intellectual Property Office, The US Library Of Congress, 2010-2013. Web. 27 Feb 2013. < http://www.dreambible.com/search.php?q=rescue>. “Snakes.” Dreambible.com. The Canadian Intellectual Property Office, The UK Intellectual Property Office, The US Library Of Congress, 2010-2013. Web. 27 Feb 2013. . Young, Emma. “The I in Dreaming.” New Scientist 12 March. 2011: 209. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 27 Feb 2013.
My ideas resemble a mixture of Rosalind Cartwright and Sigmund Freud’s theories on dreams. Freud believed that the purpose of our dreams is to attain a
...heory, reverse learning theory, and activation synthesis model, others focus on the mental exercise and simulations that dreams bring to us in the evolutionary theory of sleep. While many of the theories agree that dreams are a representation of ideas and thoughts from the unconscious mind, no single theory has been formed as the single primary authority on the matter of dreams despite more support for some of the theories. The fact of the matter is that despite the rampant research and discourse on the concept behind dreaming, these theories are merely speculations. But these speculations feed the curiosity on dreams and will hopefully lead to the expansion of dream analysis to not only better develop the current understanding of dreams, but also to help people around the world by possibly expanding dream analysis to become an early identifier of mental illness.
be examined as a whole process, the decay and ultimate elimination of a dream. Self
Dreams are incredible events that occur to each of us every single night. From lucid dreaming to nightmares, they’ve had a huge impact on life as we know it today, yet we’ve barely scratched the surface on knowing how they work and what they mean. Maybe it’s our brain trying to solve our life’s problems, or maybe it’s just a mess of thoughts and experiences from the past few days. No one really knows, and that’s why they’re so compelling.
The inner self of humans is a confusing and intriguing place, the unconscious mind reigns supreme here controlling the flow of information and selectively filtering it (Kluners 2014) as it becomes a conscious thought, a deeper understanding of the unconscious mind, its defenses, and a mechanisms such as a dream by which we can peer into the unconscious mind will help one to grow personally, (Newirth 2014) and to unlock the immense creativity (Perera 2013) and potential waiting to be unleashed.
Young, Emma. "The I In Dreaming." New Scientist 209.2803 (2011): 36-39. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
It is universally known that dreams are full of meanings and emotions. In Freud’s theory, all dreams are wish fulfillments or at least attempts at wish fulfillment. The dreams are usually presented in an unrecognizable form because the wishes are repressed. Freud proposes there are two levels in the structure of dreams, the manifest contents and the latent dream-thoughts. The manifest dream, a dream with understandable contents, is a substitute-formation that hides latent dream-thoughts, which are the abstract ideas in dreams. This translation of latent dream-thoughts to the manifest dream-content is defined by Freud as “dream-work”. Dream-work consists of certain types of transformation.
...n and development throughout history. After the research, I learned that while most dreams are fairly coherent, patterned, which include everyday settings, people, activities, and events, they may involve relatively unusual and perhaps bizarre aspects. Altogether, these images would allow people to have the most revealing and distinctive view of who they are and what they know in daily life by telling stories in the brain. However, while I still feel that no theory can exactly interpret what dreams’ meanings really are, it is interesting to know more how human brain’s activity (dreaming) function when people sleep. Moreover, I have decided to see my dreams as a television show with different episodes at night. That way, I will be able to enjoy the dream without ruining the fun that my brain offers because I would love to see what and how my brain wants me to see.
...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.
Wilson, K. (2005). Introduction to Sigmund Freud’s Theory on Dreams. Retrieved November 4, 2013, from http://dreams.insomnium.co.uk/dream-theory/introduction-freud-theory-on-dreams
IV. (Preview Main Points) Although we have experienced countless dreams in our lifetime, do we ever stop to think: how dreams occur? How dreams affect our lives? Do dreams even mean anything? Today in my informative speech about dreams, I hope to enlighten you about dreams forming in our minds, the importance of dreams, and lastly the interpretations of dreams.
Porter, Laurence M. The Interpretation of Dreams: Freud's Theories Revisited. Boston, Mass.: Twayne, 1987. Print.
Oprah Winfrey once said, “The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.” But, what actually is a dream and what do dreams really have to do with one’s everyday life? In essence, a dream is a series of mental images and emotions occurring during slumber. Dreams can also deal with one’s personal aspirations, goals, ambitions, and even one’s emotions, such as love and hardship. However, dreams can also give rise to uneasy and terrible emotions; these dreams are essentially known as nightmares. In today’s society, the concept of dreaming and dreams, in general, has been featured in a variety of different mediums, such as literature, film and even music. While the mediums of film and music are both prime examples of this concept, the medium of literature, on the other hand, contains a much more diverse set of examples pertaining to dreams and dreaming. One key example is William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. While the portrayal of dreams, in general, plays a prominent role in Shakespeare’s play, the exploration of many aspects of nature, allows readers to believe that dreams are merely connected to somewhat unconventional occurrences.
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 this Forum on Sleep and Dreams, we will see how the diversity of academic disciplines can help to answer important questions about sleep and dreaming—questions that may touch the basis of human intellect. The Forum is fortunate in...