Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not yet understood, though they have been a topic of speculation and interest throughout recorded history. The scientific study of dreams is known as oneirology. Scientists believe that everyone dreams, but people will tend to forget them when they naturally pass out of sleep through the traditional sleep cycle. If a person is awoken during REM sleep, they are much more likely to remember the dream.
Dreams mainly occur in the R.E.M. stage (rapid-eye movement) of sleep, that is when brain activity is high and signalled by continuous movements of the eyes. At times, dreams may occur during the other stages of sleep. However, the dreams tend to be much less memorable and less vivid. Dreams can last for a few seconds, or as long as twenty minutes.
Dreams are a connection to the human subconscious. They can range from normal and ordinary to overly surreal and bizarre. Dreams can often at times make a creative thought to the person or give a sense of inspiration. Dream imagery is usually absurd and unrealistic and they are generally outside the control of the dreamer, with the exception of lucid dreaming. Dreamers are usually not self-aware in their dreams thus the dreams will seem very real to them while asleep. Dreams can vary from frightening, exciting, magical, melancholic to adventurous.
Dream interpretations date back to 5000-4000 B.C., where they were documented on clay tablets. The earliest recorded dreams were acquired from materials dating back approximately 5000 years, in Mesopotamia. In some of the earliest societies, people were unable to tell the difference between the dream world and the waking world. They just simply chose not to make the distinction because they believed that the dream world was an extension of reality, though a more powerful world. In the Greek and Roman periods, dreams were seen in religious circumstances. The people believed that they were direct messages from the gods or from the dead. The people of that time relied on their dreams for solutions on what to do, or what course of action to take. They also believed dreams forewarned and predicted the future.
Throughout history, people have sought meaning in dreams or divination through dreams. Dreams have also been described physiologically as a response to neural processes during sleep; psychologically as reflections of the subconscious; and spiritually as messages from a god, the deceased, predictions of the future, or from the Soul. Many cultures practice dream incubation with the intention of cultivating dreams that are prophetic or contain messages from the divine.
The cultural meaning of dreaming
Ancient history
The
Sumerians, the first cultural group to live in Mesopotamia, left evidence of dreams dating back to
3100 BC. According to these early recorded stories gods and kings, like the
7th century BC scholar-king
Assurbanipal, gave close attention to dreams. In his archive of clay tablets, some amounts of the story of the legendary king
Gilgamesh were found. In this
epic poem – one of the earliest known stories – Gilgamesh reported his recurring dreams to his
goddess-mother
Ninsun, who made the first recorded dream interpretation.
The dreams Gilgamesh had were thought as a prophecy, where he used to control the actions in the waking world. These philosophies recorded in the Gilgamesh epic gave a valuable source of information about ancient dream beliefs. The Mesopotamians believed that the soul, or some part of it, moves out from the body of the sleeping person and actually visits the places and persons the dreamer sees in his sleep. Sometimes the god of dreams is said to carry the dreamer.
Babylonians divided dreams into "good", which were sent by the gods, and "bad", the ones sent by demons. In Assyria, people believed that their dreams were omens. One of the earliest recorded dreams was found written on a clay tablet in Nineveh. This dream dated back to the reign of King Ashurbanipal (669-626 BC). The tablet concluded that if a man flies repeatedly in his dreams, then all that he owns will be lost. Assyrians believed that dreams involving sexual content or adultery were thought of as diseases caused by evil demons rising from the under worlds to attack people.
In ancient Egypt, the people believed that the gods showed themselves in dreams. They believed that dreams where caused by real things that were unable to be interpreted or controlled by the conscious mind. As back as 2000 BC the Egyptians wrote down their dreams on papyrus. People with vivid and significant dreams were thought to be blessed and were considered special amongst others. The Egyptians distinguished three main types of dreams: those which the gods would demand some devotional act, those that contain warnings or revelations, and those that came about through ritual.
In whatever classification the dream may fall under, the Egyptians believed that dreams sufficed as oracles, bringing messages from the gods. Egyptians thought that the best way to receive divine revelation was through dreaming and thus the Egyptians would induce (or "incubate") dreams. Egyptians would travel to a sanctuary or shrine, such as the famous temple at Memphis, Egypt, to lie down on special "dream beds" in hope of receiving advice, comfort, or healing from the gods.
Religious history
The ancient
Hebrews connected their dreams heavily with their religion, though the Hebrews were
monotheistic and believed that dreams were the voice of one god alone. Hebrews also differentiated between good dreams (from God) and bad dreams (from evil spirits). The Hebrews, like many other ancient cultures, incubated dreams in order to receive divine revelation. For example, the Hebrew prophet Samuel, would "lay down and sleep in the temple at Shiloh before the Ark and receive the word of the Lord."
Christians mostly shared their beliefs with the Hebrews and thought that dreams were of the supernatural element because the Old Testament had frequent stories of dreams with divine inspiration. The most famous of these dream stories was Jacob's dream that stretched from Earth to Heaven. Many Christian men preached that God talked to his people through their dreams. Even in Islam, Prophet Mohammed received much of the writings of the Quran from a dream he had.
Classical history
The
Chinese people believed that the
soul leaves the body to go into the dream world. If dreamers are suddenly awakened, their soul may not to return to the body, thus for this reason, some Chinese today, are suspicious of alarm clocks. The
Upanishads, written between 900 and 500 BC, emphasize two meanings on dreams. The first says that dreams are merely expressions of inner desires. The second, which is similar to the Chinese belief of the soul leaving the body and being guided until awakened.
The Greeks shared their belief with the Egyptians on how to interpret the good and bad dreams and as well as the idea of incubating dreams. Greek legend states that the god Hypnos made the people sleep by touching them with his magic wand or by fanning them with his wings. Morpheus also sent warnings and prophecies to those who slept at shrines and temples. The earliest Greek beliefs of dreams was that their gods physically visited the dreamers, where they entered through a keyhole, and exiting the same way after the divine message was given.
Dreams also helped their practice of medicine, sending sick people to particular temples. The sick Greeks would visit these temples, perform various religious rites, sleep, and hope to have a dream that assured a return to good health. They slept for many days and sometimes this would go on for weeks or even months until they had the "right" dream. The 5th century BC was when the first known Greek book on dreams, written by Antiphon. In this century, the Greeks developed the belief, through influence of other cultures, that souls left the sleeping body.
Hippocrates (469-399 BC) had a simple theory on dreams: during the day, the soul receives images; during the night, it produces images. Greek philosopher, Aristotle (384-322 BC) believed dreams were a cause of physiological activity. He thought dreams were able to analyse illness and predict diseases. During the Hellenistic times, the main target of dreams was centred around their capability of healing. It was believed that dreams offered a vital clue for healers to finding what was wrong with the dreamer. Galen, a Greek physician born in 129 AD, said that people should carefully observe dreams for clues to healing. He was so convinced of dream messages that he made his operations on the basis of his dream interpretations.
Post-Classic/Medieval history
Some
Native American tribes and
Mexican civilizations believe that dreams are a way of visiting and having contact with their
ancestors.
The Middle Ages saw a harsh interpretation of dreams - they were seen as evil and its images were temptations from the devil himself. During sleeping, it was believed that the devil was to fill the human minds with corruptive and harmful thoughts. Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, believed that dreams were the work of the Devil. However, Catholics such as St. Augustine and St. Jerome claimed that the direction of their life were heavily influenced by their dreams.
Late-Modern history
In the early
19th century, dreams were thought to have no meaning at all and that they were just caused by
anxiety, family issues or even by an upset stomach. Later on, in the 19th century, the most well-known of the modern dream philosophers,
Sigmund Freud encouraged the importance of dreams and its significance for interpretation. He revolutionized the study of dreams.
Freud's theory was that wish-fulfilment was the root behind most of dreams. His interpretation of dreams was that they are a reflection of the dreamer's deepest desires going back to their childhood. To Freud, dream wasn't of entertainment value, but images that held important meanings. Freud's theory distinguishes two layers of dream content - manifest and latent. Manifest (superficial) content had no significant meaning because it was a mask for underlying issues of the dream, the latent content, which expressed unconscious wishes or fantasies. From Freud's time forward, dreams were no longer considered divine or demonic, but rather a valid mode for collecting information on an unconscious level. It was Freud who termed dreams as the "royal road to the unconscious."
Contemporary history
Carl Jung, a student of Freud, also believed that dreams related to the dreamer's wishes, which enables them to realize the things they unconsciously desire, and that the dreams helps them to fulfil their wishes. Jung believed dreams were
messages to the dreamer and that dreamers should pay attention to them for their own good. Carl Jung came to believe that dream contents present the dreamer with revelations that uncover and help to resolve
emotional issues, problems, religious issues and fears.
Jung believed that recurring dreams are a proof that the dreamer is neglecting their issues thus it will show up repeatedly in dreams to demand attention. He believed that many of the symbols or images from these dreams will return with each dream. Jung also mentioned that dreams are not only important to the dreamer's life, but that they are all parts of "one great web of psychological factors." Such things as events, movies and people seen the previous day also play a role in dreaming. These memories leave impressions for the unconscious to deal with when the ego is at rest. The unconscious re-enacts these glimpses of the past, in the form of a dream - this is called a day residue.
Today most psychologists agree with Jung's theory. They concur that it is this theory that makes dream interpretation something that people can use in their lives.
The Neurobiology of dreaming
There is not a universally accepted biological definition of dreaming. In 1952, Eugene Aserinsky identified and defined rapid eye movement (REM) sleep while working in the surgery of his PhD advisor. Aserinsky noticed that the sleepers' eyes fluttered beneath their closed eyelids, later using a polygraph machine to record their brainwaves during these periods. In one session, he awakened a subject who was wailing and crying out during REM and confirmed his suspicion that dreaming was occurring. In 1953, Aserinsky and his advisor published the ground-breaking study in ''Science''.
Accumulated observation has shown that dreams are strongly associated with Rapid Eye Movement during which an electroencephalogram (EEG) shows brain activity to be most like wakefulness. Participant-remembered dreams during NREM sleep are normally more mundane in comparison. During a typical lifespan, a person spends a total of about six years dreaming (which is about two hours each night). Most dreams only last 5 to 20 minutes. It is unknown where in the brain dreams originate, if there is a single origin for dreams or if multiple portions of the brain are involved, or what the purpose of dreaming is for the body or mind.
During REM sleep, the release of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine, serotonin and histamine is completely suppressed. As a result, motor neurons are not stimulated, a condition known as REM atonia. This prevents dreams from resulting in dangerous movements of the body.
According to a report in the journal ''Neuron'', rat brains show evidence of complex activity during sleep, including the activation in memory of long sequences of activity. Studies show that various species of mammals and birds experience REM during sleep, and follow the same series of sleeping states as humans.
Despite their power to bewilder, arouse, frighten or amuse, dreams can often be ignored in mainstream models of cognitive psychology. As methods of introspection were replaced with more self-consciously objective methods in the social sciences in 1930s and 1940s, dream studies dropped out of the scientific literature. Dreams were neither directly observable by an experimenter nor were subjects' dream reports reliable, being prey to the familiar problems of distortion due to delayed recall, if they were recalled at all. According to Sigmund Freud, dreams are more often forgotten entirely, perhaps due to their prohibited character. Altogether, these problems seemed to put them beyond the realm of science.
The discovery that dreams take place primarily during a distinctive electrophysiological state of sleep, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which can be identified by objective criteria, led to the rebirth of interest in this phenomenon. When REM sleep episodes were timed for their duration and subjects woken to make reports before major editing or forgetting could take place, it was determined that subjects accurately matched the length of time they judged the dream narrative to be ongoing to the length of REM sleep that preceded the awakening. There is no "time dilation" effect; a five-minute dream takes roughly five minutes of real time to play out. This close correlation of REM sleep and dream experience was the basis of the first series of reports describing the nature of dreaming: that it is a regular nightly, rather than occasional, phenomenon, and a high-frequency activity within each sleep period occurring at predictable intervals of approximately every 60–90 minutes in all humans throughout the life span.
REM sleep episodes and the dreams that accompany them lengthen progressively across the night, with the first episode being shortest, of approximately 10–12 minutes duration, and the second and third episodes increasing to 15–20 minutes. Dreams at the end of the night may last as long as 15 minutes, although these may be experienced as several distinct stories due to momentary arousals interrupting sleep as the night ends. Dream reports can be reported from normal subjects on 50% of the occasion when an awakening is made prior to the end of the first REM period. This rate of retrieval is increased to about 99% when awakenings are made from the last REM period of the night. This increase in the ability to recall appears to be related to intensification across the night in the vividness of dream imagery, colors and emotions.
Activation synthesis theory
In 1976 J. Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley proposed a new theory that changed dream research, challenging the previously held Freudian view of dreams as subconscious wishes to be interpreted. Activation synthesis theory asserts that the sensory experiences are fabricated by the cortex as a means of interpreting chaotic signals from the pons. They propose that during REM sleep, the ascending cholinergic PGO (ponto-geniculo-occipital) waves stimulate higher midbrain and forebrain cortical structures, producing rapid eye movements. The activated forebrain then synthesizes the dream out of this internally generated information. They assume that the same structures that induce REM sleep also generate sensory information.
Hobson's 1976 research suggested that the signals interpreted as dreams originated in the brain stem during REM sleep. However, research by Mark Solms suggests that dreams are generated in the forebrain, and that REM sleep and dreaming are not directly related. While working in the neurosurgery department at hospitals in Johannesburg and London, Solms had access to patients with various brain injuries. He began to question patients about their dreams and confirmed that patients with damage to the parietal lobe stopped dreaming; this finding was in line with Hobson's 1977 theory. However, Solms did not encounter cases of loss of dreaming with patients having brain stem damage. This observation forced him to question Hobson's prevailing theory which marked the brain stem as the source of the signals interpreted as dreams.
Solms viewed the idea of dreaming as a function of many complex brain structures as validating Freudian dream theory, an idea that drew criticism from Hobson. In 1978, Solms, along with partners William Kauffman and Edward Nadar, undertook a series of traumatic-injury impact studies using several different species of primates, particularly howler monkeys, in order to disprove Hobson's postulation that the brain stem played a significant role in dream pathology. Unfortunately, Solms' experiments proved inconclusive, as the high mortality rate associated with using a hydraulic impact pin to artificially induce brain damage in test subjects meant that his final candidate pool was too small to satisfy the requirements of the scientific method.
Continual-activation theory
Combining Hobson's activation synthesis hypothesis with Solms' findings, the continual-activation theory of dreaming presented by
Jie Zhang proposes that dreaming is a result of brain activation and synthesis; at the same time, dreaming and REM sleep are controlled by different brain mechanisms. Zhang hypothesizes that the function of sleep is to process, encode and transfer the data from the
short-term memory to the
long-term memory, though there is not much evidence backing up this so-called "consolidation."
NREM sleep processes the conscious-related memory (declarative memory), and REM sleep processes the unconscious related memory (procedural memory).
Zhang assumes that during REM sleep the unconscious part of a brain is busy processing the procedural memory; meanwhile, the level of activation in the conscious part of the brain will descend to a very low level as the inputs from the sensory are basically disconnected. This will trigger the "continual-activation" mechanism to generate a data stream from the memory stores to flow through the conscious part of the brain. Zhang suggests that this pulse-like brain activation is the inducer of each dream. He proposes that, with the involvement of the brain associative thinking system, dreaming is, thereafter, self-maintained with the dreamer's own thinking until the next pulse of memory insertion. This explains why dreams have both characteristics of continuity (within a dream) and sudden changes (between two dreams).
Dreams as excitations of long-term memory
Eugen Tarnow suggests that dreams are ever-present excitations of
long-term memory, even during waking life. The strangeness of dreams is due to the format of long-term memory, reminiscent of
Penfield & Rasmussen's findings that electrical excitations of the
cortex give rise to experiences similar to dreams. During waking life an executive function interprets long-term memory consistent with reality checking. Tarnow's theory is a reworking of Freud's theory of dreams in which Freud's unconscious is replaced with the long-term memory system and Freud's "Dream Work" describes the structure of long-term memory.
Dreams for strengthening of semantic memories
A 2001 study showed evidence that illogical locations, characters, and dream flow may help the brain strengthen the linking and consolidation of semantic memories. These conditions may occur because, during REM sleep, the flow of information between the hippocampus and neocortex is reduced. Increasing levels of the stress hormone cortisol late in sleep (often during REM sleep) cause this decreased communication. One stage of memory consolidation is the linking of distant but related memories. Payne and Nadal hypothesize these memories are then consolidated into a smooth narrative, similar to a process that happens when memories are created under stress.
Dreams for removing junk
Robert (1886), a physician from Hamburg, was the first who suggested that dreams are a need and that they have the function to erase (a) sensory impressions which were not fully worked up and (b) ideas which were not fully developed during the day. By the dream work incomplete material will be either removed (suppressed) or deepened and included into memory. Robert's ideas were cited repeatedly by Freud in his Traumdeutung.
Hughlings Jackson (1911) viewed that sleep serves to sweep away unnecessary memories and connections from the day. This was revised in 1983 by Crick and Mitchison's "
reverse learning" theory, which states that dreams are like the cleaning-up operations of computers when they are off-line, removing (suppressing) parasitic nodes and other "junk" from the mind during sleep. However, the opposite view that dreaming has an information handling, memory-consolidating function (Hennevin and Leconte, 1971) is also common. Dreams are a result of the spontaneous firings of neural patterns while the brain is undergoing memory consolidation while sleeping.
Dreams as resonance in neural circuits
During sleep the eyes are closed, so that the brain to some degree becomes isolated from the outside world. Moreover all signals from the
senses (except
olfaction) must pass through the
thalamus before they reach the
brain cortex, and during sleep thalamic activity is suppressed. This means that the brain mainly works with signals from itself. A well-known phenomenon in dynamical
physical systems where the level of input and output from the system is low is that
oscillation makes spontaneous
resonance patterns to occur. Hence, dreams may be the simple consequence of
neural oscillation.
Psychology of sleep and dreams
Dreams for testing and selecting mental schemas
Coutts describes dreams as playing a central role in a two-phase sleep process that improves the mind's ability to meet human needs during wakefulness. During the accommodation phase, mental schemas self-modify by incorporating dream themes. During the
emotional selection phase, dreams test prior schema accommodations. Those that appear adaptive are retained, while those that appear maladaptive are culled. The cycle maps to the sleep cycle, repeating several times during a typical nights sleep.
Alfred Adler suggested that dreams are often emotional preparations for solving problems, intoxicating an individual away from common sense toward private logic. The residual dream feelings may either reinforce or inhibit contemplated action.
Evolutionary psychology theories of dreams
Numerous theories state that dreaming is a random by-product of REM sleep physiology and that it does not serve any natural purpose. Flanagan claims that "dreams are evolutionary
epiphenomena" and they have no adaptive function in the least. "Dreaming came along as a free ride on a system designed to think and to sleep." Hobson, for different reasons, also considers dreams to be epiphenomena. He believes that the substance of dreams have no significant influence on waking actions, and most people go about their daily lives perfectly well without remembering their dreams.
Hobson proposed the activation-synthesis theory, which states that “there is a randomness of dream imagery and the randomness synthesizes dream-generated images to fit the patterns of internally generated stimulations.” This theory is based on the physiology of REM sleep, and Hobson believes dreams are the outcome of the forebrain reacting to random activity beginning at the brainstem. Overall, this theory has obtained broad support for a while because it corresponds to physiological data and its explanation of dreaming applies to a majority of peoples’ random dream experiences. The activation-synthesis theory hypothesizes that the peculiar nature of dreams is attributed to certain parts of the brain trying to piece together a story out of what is essentially bizarre information.
However, evolutionary psychologists believe dreams serve some adaptive function for survival.
Deirdre Barrett describes dreaming as simply "thinking in different biochemical state" and believes people continue to work on all the same problems—personal and objective—in that state. Her research finds that anything—math, musical composition, business dilemmas—may get solved during dreaming, but the two areas especially likely to help are 1) anything where vivid visualization contributes to the solution, whether in artistic design or invention of 3-D technological devices and 2) problem where the solution lies in "thinking outside the box"—i.e. the person is stuck because conventional wisdom on how to approach the problem is wrong. In a related theory, which
Mark Blechner terms "Oneiric Darwinism," dreams are seen as creating new ideas through the generation of random thought mutations. Some of these may be rejected by the mind as useless, while others may be seen as valuable and retained.
Finnish psychologist Antti Revonsuo posits that dreams have evolved for "threat simulation" exclusively. According to the Threat Simulation Theory he proposes, during much of human evolution physical and interpersonal threats were serious, giving reproductive advantage to those who survived them. Therefore dreaming evolved to replicate these threats and continually practice dealing with them. In support of this theory, Revonsuo shows that contemporary dreams comprise much more threatening events than people meet in daily non-dream life, and the dreamer usually engages appropriately with them. It is suggested by this theory that dreams serve the purpose of allowing for the rehearsal of threatening scenarios in order to better prepare an individual for real-life threats.
A more extensive view of ‘dreaming as play’ is proposed by Humphrey who proposes we dream to practice many different physical, intellectual and social skills, not just to evolve past threats.
Other hypotheses on dreaming
There are many other hypotheses about the function of dreams, including:
Dreams allow the repressed parts of the mind to be satisfied through
fantasy while keeping the conscious mind from thoughts that would suddenly cause one to awaken from shock.
Freud suggested that bad dreams let the brain learn to gain control over emotions resulting from distressing experiences.
Jung suggested that dreams may compensate for one-sided attitudes held in waking consciousness.
Ferenczi proposed that the dream, when told, may communicate something that is not being said outright.
Dreams regulate mood.
Hartmann says dreams may function like psychotherapy, by "making connections in a safe place" and allowing the dreamer to integrate thoughts that may be dissociated during waking life.
More recent research by psychologist
Joe Griffin, following a twelve-year review of data from all major sleep laboratories, led to the formulation of the
expectation fulfilment theory of dreaming, which suggests that dreaming metaphorically completes patterns of emotional expectation in the autonomic nervous system and lowers stress levels in mammals.
Dream content
From the 1940s to 1985,
Calvin S. Hall collected more than 50,000 dream reports at
Western Reserve University. In 1966 Hall and Van De Castle published ''The Content Analysis of Dreams'' in which they outlined a coding system to study 1,000 dream reports from college students. It was found that people all over the world dream of mostly the same things. Hall's complete dream reports became publicly available in the mid-1990s by Hall's protégé
William Domhoff, allowing further different analysis.
Personal experiences from the last day or week are frequently incorporated into dreams.
Visuals
The visual nature of dreams is generally highly phantasmagoric; that is, different locations and objects continuously blend into each other. The visuals (including locations, characters/people, objects/artifacts) are generally reflective of a person's memories and experiences, but often take on highly exaggerated and bizarre forms.
Emotions
The most common emotion experienced in dreams is
anxiety. Other emotions include abandonment, anger, fear, joy, happiness, etc. Negative emotions are much more common than positive ones.
Sexual themes
The Hall data analysis shows that sexual dreams occur no more than 10% of the time and are more prevalent in young to mid-teens. Another study showed that 8% of men's and women's dreams have sexual content. In some cases, sexual dreams may result in
orgasms or
nocturnal emissions. These are colloquially known as ''wet dreams''.
Recurring dreams
While the content of most dreams is dreamt only once, many people experience recurring dreams—that is, the same dream narrative or dreamscape is experienced over different occasions of sleep.
Color vs. black and white
A small minority of people say that they dream only in black and white.
Dream interpretations
Dreams were historically used for healing (as in the asclepieions found in the ancient Greek temples of Asclepius) as well as for guidance or divine inspiration. Some Native American tribes used vision quests as a rite of passage, fasting and praying until an anticipated guiding dream was received, to be shared with the rest of the tribe upon their return.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, both Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung identified dreams as an interaction between the unconscious and the conscious. They also assert together that the unconscious is the dominant force of the dream, and in dreams it conveys its own mental activity to the perceptive faculty. While Freud felt that there was an active censorship against the unconscious even during sleep, Jung argued that the dream's bizarre quality is an efficient language, comparable to poetry and uniquely capable of ''revealing'' the underlying meaning.
Fritz Perls presented his theory of dreams as part of the holistic nature of Gestalt therapy. Dreams are seen as projections of parts of the self that have been ignored, rejected, or suppressed. Jung argued that one could consider every person in the dream to represent an aspect of the dreamer, which he called the subjective approach to dreams. Perls expanded this point of view to say that even inanimate objects in the dream may represent aspects of the dreamer. The dreamer may therefore be asked to imagine being an object in the dream and to describe it, in order to bring into awareness the characteristics of the object that correspond with the dreamer's personality.
Relationship with medical conditions
There is evidence that certain medical conditions (normally only neurological conditions) can impact dreams. For instance, some people with
synesthesia have never reported entirely black-and-white dreaming, and often have a difficult time imagining the idea of dreaming in only black and white.
Therapy for recurring nightmares (often associated with posttraumatic stress disorder) can include imagining alternative scenarios that could begin at each step of the dream.
Dreams and psychosis
A number of thinkers have commented on the similarities between the
phenomenology of dreams and that of
psychosis. Features common to the two states include thought disorder, flattened (i.e. diminished) or inappropriate affect (emotion), and
hallucinations. Among philosophers,
Immanuel Kant, for example, wrote that "the lunatic is a wakeful dreamer."
Arthur Schopenhauer said: "A dream is a short-lasting psychosis, and a psychosis is a long-lasting dream." In the field of
psychoanalysis,
Sigmund Freud wrote: "A dream then, is a psychosis," and
Carl Jung: "Let the dreamer walk about and act like one that is awake and we have the clinical picture of ''
dementia praecox''."
McCreery has sought to explain these similarities by reference to the fact, documented by Oswald, that sleep can supervene as a reaction to extreme stress and hyper-arousal. McCreery adduces evidence that psychotics are people with a tendency to hyper-arousal, and suggests that this renders them prone to what Oswald calls "microsleeps" during waking life. He points in particular to the paradoxical finding of Stevens and Darbyshire that patients suffering from catatonia can be roused from their seeming stupor by the administration of sedatives rather than stimulants.
Griffin and Tyrrell go so far as to say that "schizophrenia is waking reality processed through the dreaming brain."
Other associated phenomena
Incorporation of reality
During the night there may be many external stimuli bombarding the senses, but the brain often interprets the stimulus and makes it a part of a dream in order to ensure continued sleep. Dream incorporation is a phenomenon whereby an actual sensation, such as environmental sounds, are incorporated into dreams, such as hearing a phone ringing in a dream while it is ringing in reality or dreaming of
urination while
wetting the bed. The mind can, however, awaken an individual if they are in danger or if trained to respond to certain sounds, such as a baby crying. Except in the case of lucid dreaming, people dream without being aware that they are doing so.
The term "dream incorporation" is also used in research examining the degree to which preceding daytime events become elements of dreams. Recent studies suggest that events in the day immediately preceding, and those about a week before, have the most influence.
Apparent precognition of real events
According to surveys, it is common for people to feel their dreams are predicting subsequent life events. Psychologists have explained these experiences in terms of memory biases, namely a selective memory for accurate predictions and distorted memory so that dreams are retrospectively fitted onto life experiences. The multi-faceted nature of dreams makes it easy to find connections between dream content and real events.
In one experiment, subjects were asked to write down their dreams in a diary. This prevented the selective memory effect, and the dreams no longer seemed accurate about the future. Another experiment gave subjects a fake diary of a student with apparently precognitive dreams. This diary described events from the person's life, as well as some predictive dreams and some non-predictive dreams. When subjects were asked to recall the dreams they had read, they remembered more of the successful predictions than unsuccessful ones.
Lucid dreaming
Lucid dreaming is the conscious perception of one's state while dreaming. In this state a person usually has control over characters and the environment of the dream as well as the dreamer's own actions within the dream. The occurrence of lucid dreaming has been scientifically verified.
''Oneironaut'' is a term sometimes used for those who lucidly dream.
Dreams of absent-minded transgression
Dreams of absent-minded transgression (DAMT) are dreams wherein the dreamer absentmindedly performs an action that he or she has been trying to stop (one classic example is of a quitting smoker having dreams of lighting a cigarette). Subjects who have had DAMT have reported waking with intense feelings of
guilt. One study found a positive association between having these dreams and successfully stopping the behavior.
Recalling dreams
The recall of dreams is extremely unreliable, though it is a skill that can be trained. Dreams can usually be recalled if a person is awakened while dreaming. Women tend to have more frequent dream recall than men. Dreams that are difficult to recall may be characterized by relatively little
affect, and factors such as
salience,
arousal, and interference play a role in dream recall. Often, a dream may be recalled upon viewing or hearing a random trigger or stimulus. A
dream journal can be used to assist dream recall, for
psychotherapy or entertainment purposes.
For some people, vague images or sensations from the previous night's dreams are sometimes spontaneously experienced in falling asleep. However they are usually too slight and fleeting to allow dream recall. At least 95% of all dreams are not remembered. Certain brain chemicals necessary for converting short-term memories into long-term ones are suppressed during REM sleep. Unless a dream is particularly vivid and if one wakes during or immediately after it, the content of the dream will not be remembered.
Déjà vu
One theory of déjà vu attributes the feeling of having previously seen or experienced something to having dreamt about a similar situation or place, and forgetting about it until one seems to be mysteriously reminded of the situation or the place while awake.
Sleepwalking
Sleepwalking was once thought of as "acting out a dream", but that theory has fallen out of favour.
Daydreaming
A
daydream is a visionary
fantasy, especially one of happy, pleasant thoughts, hopes or ambitions, imagined as coming to pass, and experienced while awake. There are many different types of daydreams, and there is no consistent definition amongst
psychologists. The general public also uses the term for a broad variety of experiences. Research by Harvard psychologist
Deirdre Barrett has found that people who experience vivid
dream-like
mental images reserve the word for these, whereas many other people refer to milder imagery, realistic future planning, review of past memories or just "spacing out"--i.e. one's mind going relatively blank—when they talk about "daydreaming."
While daydreaming has long been derided as a lazy, non-productive pastime, it is now commonly acknowledged that daydreaming can be constructive in some contexts. There are numerous examples of people in creative or artistic careers, such as composers, novelists and filmmakers, developing new ideas through daydreaming. Similarly, research scientists, mathematicians and physicists have developed new ideas by daydreaming about their subject areas.
Hallucination
A
hallucination, in broadest sense of the word, is a
perception in the absence of a
stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid, substantial, and located in external objective space. The latter definition distinguishes hallucinations from the related phenomena of dreaming, which does not involve wakefulness.
Nightmares
A
nightmare is an unpleasant
dream that can cause a strong negative emotional response from the mind, typically
fear and/or
horror, but also
despair,
anxiety and great
sadness. The dream may contain situations of danger, discomfort, psychological or physical terror. Sufferers usually awaken in a state of distress and may be unable to return to
sleep for a prolonged period of time.
Night terrors
A
night terror, also known as a sleep terror or ''pavor nocturnus'', is a
parasomnia disorder that predominantly affects children, causing feelings of terror or dread. Night terrors should not be confused with
nightmares, which are bad dreams that cause the feeling of horror or fear.
Fugue states
A
fugue state, formally "dissociative fugue" or "psychogenic fugue" ''(
DSM-IV Dissociative Disorders 300.13)'', is a rare psychiatric disorder characterized by
reversible amnesia for personal identity, including the
memories,
personality and other identifying characteristics of individuality. The state is usually short-lived (hours to days), but can last months or longer. Dissociative fugue usually involves unplanned travel or wandering, and is sometimes accompanied by the establishment of a new identity. After recovery from fugue, previous memories usually return intact, but there is complete amnesia for the fugue episode. Additionally, an episode is characterized as a fugue if it can be related to the ingestion of psychotropic substances, to physical trauma, to a general medical condition, or to psychiatric conditions such as delirium, dementia, bipolar disorder or depression. Fugues are usually precipitated by a stressful episode, and upon recovery there may be amnesia for the original stressor ("Dissociative Amnesia").
In culture
In art
Dreams and dark imaginings are the theme of
Goya's etching ''
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters''. There is a painting by
Salvador Dalí that depicts this concept, titled ''
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening'' (1944).
Rousseau's last painting was ''
The Dream''. ''
Le Rêve'' is a 1932 painting by
Pablo Picasso.
In literature
Dream frames were frequently used in medieval allegory to justify the narrative; ''
The Book of the Duchess'' and ''
Piers Plowman'' are two such
dream visions.
They have also featured in fantasy and speculative fiction since the 19th century. One of the best-known dream worlds is Wonderland from Lewis Carroll's ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'', as well as Looking-Glass Land from its sequel, ''Through the Looking-Glass''. Unlike many dream worlds, Carroll's logic is like that of actual dreams, with transitions and causality flexible.
Other fictional dream worlds include the Dreamlands of H. P. Lovecraft's ''Dream Cycle'' and ''The Neverending Story''s world of Fantasia, which includes places like the Desert of Lost Dreams, the Sea of Possibilities and the Swamps of Sadness. Dreamworlds, shared hallucinations and other alternate realities feature in a number of works by Phillip K. Dick, such as ''The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch'' and ''Ubik''. Similar themes were explored byb Jorge Luis Borges, for instance in ''The Circular Ruins''.
In popular culture
Modern
popular culture often conceives of dreams, like Freud, as expressions of the dreamer's deepest fears and desires. In films such as ''
Spellbound'' (1945), ''
The Manchurian Candidate'' (1962) and ''
Inception'' (2010), the protagonists must extract vital clues from surreal dreams.
Most dreams in popular culture are, however, not symbolic, but straightforward and realistic depictions of their dreamer's fears and desires. Dream scenes may be indistinguishable from those set in the dreamer's real world, a narrative device that undermines the dreamer's and the audience's sense of security and allows horror movie protagonists, such as those of ''Carrie'' (1976), ''Friday the 13th'' (1980) or ''An American Werewolf in London'' (1981) to be suddenly attacked by dark forces while resting in seemingly safe places.
In speculative fiction, the line between dreams and reality may be blurred even more in the service of the story. Dreams may be psychically invaded or manipulated (''Dreamscape'', 1984; the ''Nightmare on Elm Street'' films, 1984–1991; ''Inception'', 2010) or even come literally true (as in ''The Lathe of Heaven'', 1971). Peter Weir's 1977 Australian movie "The Last Wave" makes a simple and straightforward postulate about the premonitory nature of dreams (from one of his Aboriginal characters) that "...dreams are the shadow of something real". Such stories play to audiences' experiences with their own dreams, which feel as real to them.
One of the earliest newspaper comic strips, recounting Little Nemo's adventures in Slumberland, had a dream world theme.
Graphic novelist Neil Gaiman was tasked with re-imagining a Golden Age character, "The Sandman". In his version, the Sandman becomes Dream, the Lord of Dreams (also known, to various characters throughout the series, as Morpheus, Oneiros, the Shaper, the Shaper of Form, Lord of the Dreaming, the Dream King, Dream-Sneak, Dream Cat, Murphy, Kai'ckul, and Lord L'Zoril), who is essentially the anthropomorphic personification of dreams. At the start of the series, Morpheus is captured by an occult ritual and held prisoner for 70 years. Morpheus escapes in the modern day and, after avenging himself upon his captors, sets about rebuilding his kingdom, which has fallen into disrepair in his absence.
In philosophy and religion
Aboriginal beliefs
The Dreaming is a common term within the
animist creation narrative of
indigenous Australians for a personal, or group,
creation and for what may be understood as the "timeless time" of formative creation and perpetual creating.
In addition, the term applies to places and localities on indigenous Australian traditional land (and throughout non-traditional Australia) where the uncreated creation spirits and totemic ancestors, or ''genius loci'', reside. No one English word covers the concept; for example, ''Anangu'' who speak ''Pitjantjatjara'' use the word Tjukurpa and those who speak ''Yankunytjatjara'' use Wapar, but neither means dreaming in the English sense.
Dreams and philosophical realism
Some philosophers have concluded that what we think of as the "real world" could be or is an illusion (an idea known as the
skeptical hypothesis about
ontology).
The first recorded mention of the idea was by Zhuangzi, and it is also discussed in Hinduism which makes extensive use of the argument in its writings. It was formally introduced to Western philosophy by Descartes in the 17th century in his ''Meditations on First Philosophy''. Stimulus, usually an auditory one, becomes a part of a dream, eventually then awakening the dreamer.
See also
Cognitive neuroscience of dreams
Daydream
Dimethyltryptamine
Dream argument
Dream art
Dream dictionary
Dream pop
Dream sequence
Dream speech
Dream world (plot device)
Dream Yoga
Dreamwork
Lilith a 6000 year old Sumerian dream demon (succubus)
List of dream diaries
List of dreams
Lucid Dream
Morpheus (mythology)
Oneiromancy
Spirit spouse (in dreams)
Veridical dream
References
;Notes
;Further reading
Klemp, H. (1999). The art of spiritual dreaming. Minneapolis, MN: Eckankar.
Lombardo G.P., Foschi R. (2008), Escape from the dark forest: The experimentalist standpoint of the Sante De Sanctis dreaming psychology. History of the Human Sciences. vol. 21, pp. 45–69 ISSN: 0952-6951.
Harris, William V., ''Dreams and Еxperience in Classical Antiquity'' (Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press, 2009).
External links
Dream Psychology by Sigmund Freud
The Dream & Nightmare Laboratory in Montreal
Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism website
The International Association for the Study of Dreams
More information on the expectation fulfilment theory of dreaming
Dreams at the Open Directory Project
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