Most of us have experienced a dream, be it a nightmare or a pleasant walk in a forest. It was frequently believed that dreams encompass a coded message that might be expressing our hidden wishes, things that happened in the past or even predict the future. In the past, there have been many attempts to unravel the secret hidden behind the dreams and so far the world came up with three main theories of interpreting the dreams (Freudian, Jungian and Cognitive)(Wade, Travis 1998). In this essay I will attempt to analyze my dream by using each of the theories mentioned above, then compare the outcomes as well as their possible connections to my life and in the end determine, which one of these theories is the most accurate and thus as a laic may say the “best” one. However, I have never believed that my dreams have any meaning and in the course of this analysis I will try to prove that the Cognitive view alone offers the most reasonable explanation of my dreams. My dream had begun on a deserted shore. After a while, I was able to find a little cottage that belonged to a fisherman. I needed from him a boat in order to get to an island (it looked like a great mountain that was rising from the water and was covered with snow). All of a sudden, I sat in the boat with four of my roommates as well as with my father and grandfather. However, only then have we found out that we do not have enough food to get to that island, so we turned our boat back to the harbor. Upon our return, we had gone into a forest that was covering almost all of the land that we were able to see. After a period of time, the length of which I was not able to determine, we have found an arbor and there were many deer running around it. But instead of shooting any of them, I shot an old ugly pig with six bullets. That was the end of my dream. The next day in the morning I wrote it down as soon as I woke up. Sigmund Freud, in his famous book “Interpretation of Dreams” (1900) presented his new theories about determining the real meaning of our dreams. According to his book, our dreams in their core represent our deepest wishes, desires and instinctual thoughts. However, as these dreams in their original form (latent contents) were unacceptable for our consciousness, the “censor”(an unconscious mechanism) shaped them into an acceptable and symbolic form (manifest content). These symbols may... ... middle of paper ... ...ne of his lectures: “The best interpretation (of a dream) is the one that has the greatest logical meaning and is mostly helping you to solve these problems.” (Johnson 2002). From this point of view, the best logical and reasonable explanation of my dream has provided the Cognitive View, which, as it was mentioned in the paragraph above, assumes that all of our dreams are just leftover memories. In my personal opinion it is true, because I was truly able to find in that dream of mine certain aspects that belonged to my past. Of course, I am not claiming that the theories of dream analysis of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung that worked for decades are wrong, but in my case the outcome of these two theories was too general as well as obscure for me to believe that they represent the best way of dream analysis. Works Cited: Freud, S. (1900). Interpretation of Dreams: NY, New York. Gifford, T. (n.d.). Myths Dreams Symbols. Retrieved October 15th, 2002 from http://www.mythsdreamssymbols.com/ Johnson, M. (2002). Lecture, General Psychology, University of New York / Prague, Prague, Czech Republic. Wade, C. & Travis, C. (1998). Psychology (5th Ed.) New York: Adison Wesley
All in all, the colonists had felt an identity from the very beginning and forming a unity with one another was not difficult for them to achieve. They were prepared to tackle a situation together and they had begun referring to themselves as not British. To conclude, colonists had already a sense of identity and unity because they all had one common problem and they had to act together to deal with it.
In the early 1900s, Sigmund Freud proposed that dreams serve as a gateway between a dreamers’ conscious and his subconscious thoughts (Mccurdy, 1946). Many ideas and information were condensed into a single dream. The dream displaced important parts and insignificant parts of the dream to confuse the dreamer. Certain objects would be introduced into the dream to symbolize the embryonic substance of the dream (Sprengnether, 2003). The dreamer would then comprehend the dream, thus generating the content of th...
The interpretation of dreams developed by Dr. Sigmund Freud is a theory that is still believed by many. Freud thought the function of dreaming was to allow the discharge of repressed instinctual impulses in such a way as to preserve sleep. He also believed the instigating force behind dreams was always an instinctual and unconscious wish. Dr. Freud considered these wishes to be predominantly sexual in nature. In "Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis," he wrote: "Though the number of symbols is large, the number of subjects symbolized is not large. In dreams those pertaining to sexual life are the overwhelming majority…They represent the most primitive ideas and interests imaginable." Every dream according to Freud, is created by an instigating force/ unconscious wish, that sexual or otherwise is a meaningful message in disguise. The fact that dreams so regularly contained sexual and other unacceptable wishes explained why dreams are so regularly and so easily forgotten. This is why many dreams that contain repressed and unacceptable wishes remain in the unconscious (according to Freud's theory).
Many colonies adopted some sort of political institution, that gave voting right to each and every men. In the North, most colonists were able to engage in the neighborhood Town Meeting and voice their sentiments. These new political organization, that the Americans had developed and learned to value, caused Americans to forge a unique identity. Additionally, the vicinity of the Atlantic Ocean made it progressively troublesome, for the British to have firm control over the colonists, and the freedom that came from this environmental obstacle, contributed to the development of a distinctive American identity. The ethnic diversity among the colonists, further developed the sense of identity as Americans. Numerous individuals who lived in the colonies were not English, rather they were either German, Dutch, Swedish, Jewish, Scots-Irish, and French. A few individuals were a blend of a wide range of ethnic groups. This blended group of individuals, which could not be could anywhere else on the planet, prompted the production of a different identity (from
In Stephen King’s article,“The Symbolic Language of Dream,” he states, “ I think that dreams are a way that people's minds illustrate the nature of their problems. Or even illustrate the answers to their problems in symbolic dreams”(38). Dreams shows the individual unconscious and being to glimpse one's deepest desires and problems that are happening in their life. There are certain symbols that have meaning to them. In Carl Jung “The Importance of Dreams” every object and sign in the dreams represent a deeper meaning than what it actually is. How every individual person has a separate meaning to that object. While dreams can show a person's deepest fantasy and wishes there is also a dark sides to the dream. In the unconscious mind a person's
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.
Psychology, neuroscience try to explain them, 2012). He studied dreams to better understand aspects of personality as they relate to pathology. Freud believed that every action is motivated by the unconscious at a certain level. In order to be successful in a civilized society, the urges and desires of the unconscious mind must be repressed. Freud believed that dreams are manifestations of urges and desires that are suppressed in the unconscious. Freud categorized the mind into three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. When one is awake, the impulses if the id are suppressed by the superego, but during dreams, one may get a glimpse into the unconscious mind, or the id. The unconscious has the opportunity to express hidden desires of the id during dreaming. Freud believed that the id can be so disturbing at times that the id’s content can be translated into a more acceptable form. This censor leads to a sometimes confusing and strange dream image. According to Freud, the reason one may struggle to remember a dream is because the superego protects the conscious mind from the disturbance of the unconscious mind (Dream Theories,
The mind is taking past elements and combining them into one; making a narrative from the id. With condensation of themes in a dream there is a result representing more than one symbol in the dream. Along with condensation in the dream-work process is displacement. Displacement has the power of thought through the latent content converting into manifest content. Freud defines displacement as, “It is the process of displacement which is chiefly responsible for our being unusable to discover or recognize the dream-thoughts in the dream-content…” (Freud 157). Meaning that when the latent content goes through the process of becoming manifest content, it hides from the ego what the meaning that the id is trying to make. Combined with condensation and displacement is then repressed, “…a casual connection between the obscurity of the dream-content and the state repression…” (Freud 164). Which leads to the full definition by Freud that, “Repression—relaxation of the censorship—the formation of a compromise…” (Freud 166), allowing the mind to subdue from the past experienced
During Freud’s time, society typically viewed dreams as an intervention of a higher being or entity (Freud, 1900, p.4). However, Freud made the claim that dreams are the product of the dreamer and also that it serves two purposes. First, dreams form to keep a person asleep at night by blocking out external stimuli, much in the same way a person consciously does when turning off the light and minimizing noise before going to bed (“Freud’s Approach,” 2000). Next, Freud (1900) viewed humans as having grotesque sexual urges that “are suppressed before they are perceived” (p.37) in order to protect the person and allow him or her to get along in society; however, dreams serve the purpose of releasing these repressed desires as wishes which are disguised in the dream. Because a person cannot readily be aware of the unconscious wish, the dream is divided into two ...
Freud uses an objective perspective as he explains the validity of his belief that all dreams are significant and has a specific place in an individual's psychic activities. Through the use of his interpretation technique the meaning of dreams can be disclosed. The significance of each dream may be studied. Freud states that every dream is consequential and that the meanings of these dreams will be brought to light, lending information into the understanding of an individual's make up. Freud's work with free association has helped him to make a link between the symbols of the wake mind and the subconscious mind to give credence to his belief of successful dream interpretation.
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.
One of Freud's major contributions was his appreciation of unconscious processes in people’s lives. According to Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, the dream images and their symbolic messages can be observed as one's fulfilled wis...
In conclusion, I hope you learned something about dreams that you didn’t previously and that you now realize that it’s not “just a dream.”
Through research and collection of dreams from different cultures and people, Jung was able to note that dreams have common themes and are of two types: Big and Little. The former is characterized by universal prototypes, while the latter by human’s own thoughts and experiences. According to him, dreams are symbolisms of one’s aspirations and history that are beyond our consciousness. He believed that we must carefully think about our dreams from our subconscious minds as it sends messages on how we can live a meaningful
I also watch A LOT of true crime series and I have since I was around the age of 7. Also my favorite television series is “Dexter” and in the series Dexter has a sister named Deb who is a detective and before the dream I was watching “Dexter”. Another latent part of the dream was the involvement of a young child. I desire to be an elementary school teacher after I graduate so I think that is how that aspect worked it’s way into the dream. Another piece of latent content in my dream was how it took place during the “back to school” season. That makes since because I had this dream during the month of September which is when everyone usually goes back to school especially the younger kids. The City in my dream symbolizes where I live today so that is how it worked it’s way into my dream. Lastly, my biggest fear is of being shot. So, the part where I got shot symbolized my worst fear. That part of the dream also caused me to wake up