Windows to Our Subconscious Mind free essay sample

Some dictionaries say, â€Å"A series of thoughts, images, and emotions that occur during sleep† (Webster’s). Other references say dreams are â€Å"a communication of body, mind, and spirit in a symbolic communicative environmental state of being† (Lukeman 61). Dreams have both a metaphysical and physical existence. The metaphysical aspect is the imagery in a dream and its relation to the subconscious. The physical aspect is the chemical reactions that occur within the brain during dreams. There are many commonly asked questions about dreams. Some can be answered scientifically, but the majority cannot. You might unsuccessfully try to scientifically answer questions like: What are our dreams trying to tell us? Why are dreams so strange with frequent shifts of scene? â€Å"When we sleep we do more than just rest our weary bones; we tap into our subconscious mind† (Ullman and Zimmerman). Many people simply look at dreams at a literal level. They view dreaming as just another one of those peculiar, uncontrollable happenings within our brain. They view dreaming as just another one of those peculiar, uncontrollable happenings within our brain. However, this is not the case. The fact is everybody dreams, whether they remember their dreams or not. These dreams, which are very difficult to influence or manipulate, are the language of our subconscious mind. There are many ways to look at dreams as well as interpret them. For centuries, philosophers and scientists have tried to understand how dreaming and the unconscious works and the undeniable connection between the two. Dreams are an important part of people’s lives and culture around the world. In this symposium, I will elucidate the importance of dreams in one’s life, discuss the scientific perspective on dreams, and use the studies and viewpoints of the well-known dream philosopher Sigmund Freud to exemplify the psychoanalytical view on dreaming. Since the time of the Babylonians, scholars have studied with curiosity the meaning of dreams and their symbols using the cultural beliefs of their age. Some of the earliest examples of dream interpretation are in the Bible itself. In Genesis (37-41), Joseph interpreted dreams of two persons; a cupbearer and a baker. In fact, this interpretation by Joseph had a tremendous impact not only on Egypt but also on the future of dream interpretation. In later centuries, well-known philosophers Hippocrates and Aristotle studied dreams and believed that dreams were connected to future illnesses. The Egyptians and Greeks believed dreams were messages from God. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that the famous philosophers Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung came up with their own explanations and theories. I will go into great depth on their theories later in this symposium, as these men, with out a doubt, sparked an evolution in the study of dreams and are still regarded as the fathers of modern dream interpretation. Dreaming is a form of mental activity that occurs during sleep. Most people spend in total about 25 years of their life sleeping and of that about 6 years are spent dreaming in the REM stage. With few exceptions, all mammals go through the same sleep cycle. Each sleep cycle lasts for about an hour or two and repeats itself on average four to five times per night. Within each cycle are four stages. Dreams can occur in any of these stages but usually the more vivid dreams occur in the last stage also known as REM sleep, which is reached about 90-100 minutes after the onset of sleep. The stages repeat themselves throughout a night. The REM stage is reached 5-7 times per night, depending on the length of sleep. REM stands for rapid eye movement and is so named because during this stage, the eyes move quickly under the eyelid. This eye movement is the result of unconscious thought of the dreaming person who is viewing the images like a scene passing before his eyes. Dreams occur in the REM stage, which also happens to be the lightest stage of sleep because this is the only stage that the conscious mind can interpret the imagery of the subconscious. In deeper sleep stages, the conscious is not alert enough to interpret the imagery of the subconscious and therefore dreaming is rare in other stages of sleep. Dreams may be monitored using an electroencephalograph or EEG, which is a test that monitors brain wave activity and detects eye movement of a person in the REM stage of sleep. This stage is the most restorative part of sleep and is where the majority of dreaming occurs. Now there are many people who say they simply cannot remember their dreams. About half of the population wakes during non-REM sleep and this most likely explains why they are unable to remember their dreams. Now that I have set the scientific foundation for dreaming, I will discuss the actual nature of dreams. Dreams are studied with much curiosity because of the fact that they vary so far from conscious understanding. Most dreams consist of memories, and are in the form of interrupted scenes. The senses of touch, taste, smell and pain are not commonly experienced. Emotions are felt, but usually in the form of a single, basic emotion such as fear, anger, or joy. The images in a dream are bright and clear as if awake, but they are murky and plain in color. When it comes to characters, we usually play the leading role in our own dreams. Half of the characters are friends, acquaintances, or family members and the rest may be people you don’t recognize. Dreams are usually selfish or centered on oneself about 90% of the time. Dreams are more perceptual than conceptual which means things are seen and heard rather than thought† (Encarta 2000). Many of us have encountered situations in which external stimuli such as sound or movement are sensed and are incorporated into one’s dream. This is called Stimulus Incorporation. For example, an alarm clock going off in the morning and somebody shaking you to wake up could be taken as an earthquake with sirens going off in one’s dream. This is very common and usually occurs when the individual is waking from the REM stage. From a medical standpoint, dreams have been determined to be stimulated by an outburst of nerve-cell impulses from the brain stem. Some researchers suggest that the bizarre content of dreams is representative of the brain trying to rid itself of irrelevant, repetitious thoughts or associations during sleep so that it will be more open to new information during the waking state. The opposing view to this is that in dreams we reprocess information gathered during the day and by reviewing it in our dreams, it is being reinforced. REM sleep may therefore serve the important role of restoration and growth of memory. It has been scientifically proven that an individual deprived of REM sleep tends to become overly sensitive, have bad memory recall, and is less able to concentrate. Furthermore, dreams may also serve to repair one’s mood, usually by helping one solve an important problem or make a crucial decision by using this idea of reprocessing data. This is where we get the phrase, â€Å"well, just sleep on it†. Since during sleep there is a lack of sensory input to the brain from the rest of the body, the brain is not focused on our senses, such as sight or hearing. Thus, the brain can focus most of its attention on creative problem solving. Current research suggests that dreams reflect on problems that the individual experiences in life, and that the function of dreams is to â€Å"act out† the emotional problem. On a more practical level, there are those who simply believe that dreams are the clearing of unneeded fragments from our memory that have accumulated over the past few days. â€Å"Try to imagine your brain kicking around emotions, thoughts, ideas, actions, and interactions of the short-term memory while in the back of your mind the trends of your life and your thoughts still remain† (Crisp 152). All this data is a form of chaos, and your mind puts it all together in a form of visual screenplay creating what we know as, the dream† (Peters67). In a nutshell, the scientific approach is that dreams are nothing more than small amounts of information that are being scanned and sorted during REM sleep. Dreams can be categorized into at least seven types according to the information that I have rese arched. These include superconscious dreams, lucid dreams, nightmares, night terrors, sexual dreams, repetitive dreams, and plain subconscious dreams. Superconscious dreams are thought to give the dreamer the ability to see things that haven’t yet occurred. These dreams may act as warnings or messengers. They are prophetic in a way and this type of dream was frequently commented on in biblical times. The second class of dreams is lucid dreaming which is where the individual becomes aware that they are dreaming during the dream. People can teach themselves to recognize that they are dreaming and their awareness does not interfere with the dream’s natural flow. The next type of dream, which is very simple in nature but usually very meaningful, is the all too famous nightmare. Nightmares are very simple in nature but are usually spawned from suppressed negative emotion. The imagery is usually intense and fearful and interestingly enough, all nightmares end with awakening. This is easily understood since the nightmare is very emotionally overwhelming. Night terrors are the next type of dream and are similar to nightmares except they are extremely frightening and traumatic. Night terrors are most often experienced by young children however they are very occasional. Night terrors will cause a child to wake up crying or screaming in fright. The next two types of dreams can be literally understood by their names. The first is sexual dreams, and the second is repetitive dreams. Sexual dreams are believed to be the result of sexual tension or urges to engage in sexual intercourse by the dreamer. Repetitive dreams are dreams that occur more than once and convey a meaning of urgent but ignored emotions in ones life. Lastly, the plain subconscious dream is the dream that does not fall into any other dream category. Basically, it is the â€Å"average† dream. These are usually the hardest to interpret or understand because they can’t be categorized specifically. The metaphysical aspect of dreaming is the imagery in a dream and its relation to the subconscious. A person’s conscious mind is the mind they use when they are awake and aware of what is going on. The conscious is the part of the mind that can make decisions and distinctions between reality and desire. It has complete control over speaking, thinking and action around others. During dreaming, the mind travels from the conscious to the subconscious. Although dreams are strange in appearance they hold detailed meaning pertaining to one’s life. In the Hebrew Talmud, it is written ‘A dream not interpreted is like a letter to the self not read’† (Time-Life 23). Learning what dreams are trying to tell us by analyzing symbols and themes within them has now been come to known as dream interpretation. Understanding the structure and symbolism in dreams is crucial in the process of interpreting them. Dreams are full of what is called, â€Å"symbolic imageryâ⠂¬ . The key to interpreting your own dreams is to analyze and comprehend the basic themes and symbols within them while at the same time understanding the correlation between them and your life. I have concluded that a dream is made up of several elements all of which need to be carefully examined in order to more comprehensively interpret a dream. The first element of a dream is the overall theme. In order to clearly reveal the theme of a dream, one must take all the details away and look at it as a whole. Exclude names, places, faces, things and concentrate on the action of the dream. What is happening that is of key importance? Is there traveling, because traveling has been known to represent the moving on in the journey of one’s life? Is the theme death, because death often signifies one’s ego is having trouble dealing with a recent change in life? So in general, this method of removing details will point you in the right direction in terms of the interpretation of the dream. The second element of a dream is the dreamer himself. Understanding the dreamer is one of the most important aspects in accurately interpreting a dream. The dreamer is responsible for the images and actions that take place in the dream, because it is from the dreamer’s subconscious mind that the dream content is born. Dreams represent many different areas of the dreamer’s physical, emotional and mental being. Many times, current situations that bring distress or anxiety to the dreamer will be evident in the dream in many different forms, which are usually very symbolic in their appearance and meaning. Furthermore, many other factors such as childhood influences, general fears and phobias, or the basic personality of the dreamer may also play a role in the formation of a dream. Dreams have been said to be the â€Å"voice of our subconscious†. The subconscious is the home of â€Å"powerful primitive drives and forbidden wishes that constantly generate pressure on the conscious mind† (Hunt 185). â€Å"Within the subconscious lie different types of things such as suppressed emotions, creativity, and basic human instinct† (Ullman and Zimmerman 1979). It has been said that one will never see something in their dreams that they haven’t seen in real life. The question is then raised, â€Å"what do blind people see in dreams. † The subconscious mind communicates using other senses such as hearing, smell, or taste. Hellen Keller talked about â€Å"seeing† in her dreams much like she perceived things around her during her daily life. This shows that the subconscious will find a way to communicate to the conscious, even if the sense of sight is not present. The subconscious mind cannot speak directly to the conscious mind, but there is communication through symbolism, which is the third and final element of dreams. Pictures and symbols present in the environment of a dream are crucial in the interpretation of the entire dream. As I’ve said, they are the language of the subconscious. The colors in one’s dreams may be very informative when it comes to interpreting dreams. Clothing in dreams would best symbolize your mood or attitude. More specifically, parents might be disguised as thieves, images that derive from the early months of an infant’s life when parents would enter the room at night to check on them. The self may be portrayed as a prince or princess. And childhood may be illustrated in a dream when everybody else is enormous and the dreamer is small. Symbolism can be found in every scene of a dream, one just has to learn how to relate it to their lives. Take Joe for example. He dreamt that he was lying in bed crying. Suddenly water began to rise in his room and he tried calling 9-1-1 but nobody would answer. First, Joe woke up, thinking he was in the middle of a nightmare. Now Joe has two choices. He could forget about the dream and think of it as meaningless, or he could examine the symbolism present and determine what his dream is urgently trying to tell him. Joe decided to analyze his dream. Since he is in his own bed, it showed that he is comfortable in his life. Secondly, Joe needs to understand he was showing signs of regression by sitting and crying. Once he realizes that, he remembers he was reprimanded at work the day before. Then Joe examines the rising water and determines that it signifies the fact that he has been feeling overcome with uncontrollable emotions lately in his life. Lastly, he concludes the 9-1-1 call in which he could not get through was symbolizing a communication breakdown, and he quickly establishes the connection by realizing he has not been communicating very well with his wife and their relationship is suffering. Nothing in our dreams is made up, but rather is determined by our experiences and emotional needs. Also, one must remember that symbols do not have fixed meanings in dreams, but rather are meaningful in the context of what is happening in the dream and in the life of the individual. Joe’s dream is simply one example of interpreting a dream and learning to relate it to your life by analyzing and understanding the three basic elements of the dream: the symbols present, the major themes, and the dreamer themselves. One very favorable method of dream interpretation is Psychoanalytical sessions, in which the dreamer and a psychoanalyst meet to discuss the dreamer’s direct associations to everything in the dream. The psychoanalyst must have profound knowledge of the dreamer’s direct and indirect relationships with the content of the dream and, there must be a strong mutual trust between the two individuals. Finally, I would like to introduce the psychoanalytical view on dreaming through the well-known theories and ideas of Sigmund Freud. Freud devised the â€Å"wish-fulfillment theory†, which he believed was the root of all of our dreams. He believed that dreams carry hidden signs of suppressed needs as well as our deepest desires going back to our childhood. The wish-fulfillment theory is â€Å"Freud’s theory of dream interpretation that emphasizes the roles of manifest and latent content of dreams† (Hunt 196). Let me clarify these psychoanalytic terms to make his theory more understandable. Manifest content is what the dreamer consciously understands from his dream. It is the basic dream told by the dreamer, exactly how he/she experienced it. The Latent content is the dream’s hidden meaning, which originates in the unconscious. It is what the interpretation reveals about the dream that was not known at first. The latent content brings fourth the problem or conflict which brought about the dream in the first place. To interpret a dream one must first look at the manifest content to get to the latent content. Many people would bring up the important question of â€Å"how can a terrifying nightmare possibly be fulfilling a wish? † Freud simply responded by explaining that we must be able to distinguish between the manifest and latent content of the dream. He said that a dream disguises it’s latent content because it is often immoral or has to do with a person’s instinctual aggressive or sexual nature. Freud said the idea of the latent content being disguised as manifest content is merely a form of censorship. Conclusively, dreams are â€Å"conscious hallucinations of a sleeping individual which result from unconscious disguising of repressed traumatic conflicts† (Freud). Freud furthermore believed that in order for these â€Å"repressed traumatic conflicts† to transform into dreams, the individual who experiences them must unconsciously feel incapable of resolving them. In addition, he said that a dream was not only spawned from ongoing wishes deep in our subconscious, but also from the previous day’s activities. Freud said that during sleep, there are â€Å"residues† in the conscious of the previous day’s thoughts and feelings that were too trivial to be dealt with then. The mind preserves memory traces of everything it records and therefore remains burdened with these impressions. â€Å"Trains of thought, interrupted, undeveloped, or unsolved during the day are intertwined with material that has been repressed from the conscience† (Freud 593). Freud believed that when we sleep, we move from the conscious to the unconscious. In the unconscious mind, a person’s ability to repress dreams is diminished and they cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy, therefore an individual takes dreams to be truly happening as they experience them. Freud once said â€Å"Dreams are fancied dramatizations of disguised unconscious traumatic conflicts which the sleeping individual considers as happenings in the outside world since he cannot reject them. † He believed â€Å"the interpretation of dreams is the royal road to the unconscious† (Freud). Freud believed all dreams served a very important purpose. He held that dreams were a defense mechanism, with which one may express their aggravation or frustration preventing it from causing stress and tension in our daily lives. However, he believed the foremost reason for dreaming was to allow our subconscious mind to indirectly speak to us in order to gain knowledge about ourselves and to improve our lives overall. A dream, transient and ephemeral in nature, can easily be taken as nothing more than wild, imaginative thoughts and feelings the purpose of which can be controversially disputed for eternity. A dream is a fantastical voyage in our sleep, an unpredictable guided journey through the self, which teaches us about ourselves, helps us discover different aspects of our social and moral character, and makes us truly aware of our very own human instincts. Dreams awaken the past and offer us an escape from the present. Through dreams, our emotional, physical and social dilemmas may be much more clearly understood and conquered. Dreams contain our hopes, fears, and wishes through which careful interpretation may reveal even the most hidden parts of one’s subconscious. Trying to understand the subconscious mind is a very difficult task. Without concrete methods of studying it, dreams may be one of the only ways to approach it. One should not take for granted the vast possibilities of self-discovery present in dreams but instead employ them to their advantage and grow stronger as an individual. As Carl Jung, a notable philosopher and dream theorist once said, â€Å"it is good to learn the theories on dreaming, but remember what dreams are†¦a living soul†.