Dreams Life
Dreams LifeDream Life
One of the brain's most astonishing capacities is its ability to create its own images-dreams-without any visual input from the outside world. Whether your sleeping or awake, your brain is constantly at work,communicating messages to you in the form of dreams. Dreams are a communication of body, mind and spirit in a symbolic communicative environmental state of being (Central 103). We dream in order to sort out memories, either adding them to the memory store or thrwoing away unwanted information. It has also been suggested that dreams are an attempt by the brain to make sense of stray thoughts. Essentially, dreams are our method of relaxing and letting our minds drift away into a different world. Your brain, mind and spirit, while at rest "review" and analysis in its own way long term, short term and spirit memory. It kicks around emotions, thoughts, ideas, actions and interactions of the short term memory. All this data as well as your subconcious of what people do and tell you, are all processed as a dream (Central 104). One study of dreaming strongly suggests that it is a primary means by which we form and evaluate our survival strategies. Other sleep studies have shown that dreams and dreaming are essential to our mental health ( Howell 105). Together these sudies emphasize the psychological importance of dreams and dreaming. They show how our consciousness maintains its delicate balance. Ken Howell suggests why consciousness is like a scale balancing one side against another and how dreaming is related : On one side of this mental scale our consciousness weighs its conscious experiences. On the opposite side of our mental scale our consciousness weighs its subconscious experiences. When we give more weight or attention to either side of this mental scale, our consciousness becomes unbalanced. Essentially this is why you dream. Sleeping gives our body a chance to regain its strength. Dreaming gives our consciousness a chance to restore its balance (105). Through dreams our consciousness restores its balances by weighting the subliminal influences affecting our life. Dreams are a subliminal language. They are the language of your subconscious mind (Howell 105). The Bible as well as other great books of historical and revealed religion, shows traces of a general and substantial belief in dreams ( Miller vii). In ancient times, it was thought that dreams were messages from the gods or from demons (Moffett 5). Priests were the only people skilled enough to interpret these dreams. People would travel far distances to visit a temple to get a reading of their dreams (Moffett 5). In many other cultures people believed dreams were presented by an outside force and intended to serve as oracles or omens (Lemley 2). A little later on Greek philosophers furthur bettered dream analysis. The most famous of these Greek philosophers was Aristotle. He spoke of the illusion of 'sense-perception', the malfunctioning of these senses which allows dreams to occur. Aristotle later suggested that dreams are formed by disturbances of the body (History 209). Not until the mid 19th century did another philosopher as great as Aristotle come along. A psychoanalyst by the name of Sigmund Freud truly revolutionized the study of dreams when he said that dreams are created form the images, memories, thoughts, wishes and fears that are stored in a person's brain (Moffett 6). He believed that the analysis of dreams was a very useful and powerful tool in uncovering unconscious thoughts and desires. Freud also believed that "the purpose of dreams is to allow us to satisfy in fantasies the instinctual urges that society judges unacceptable" (History 209). A second illustious investigator of dreams was Carl Jung. Like Freud, Jung analyzed the dreams of his patients in order to explore the otherwise inaccessible regions of the unconscious mind, and he too believed that dreams are largely symbolic (Americana 115). He added to Freuds new approach by saying that dreams are a tool for learning more about ourselves and for achieving our full potential (Moffett 6). Laboratory studies have shown that we experience our most vivid dreams during a type of sleep called Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. Less vivd dreams occur at other times during the night (Common, Dreams 101). Dreams were not studied in the scientific laboratory on any large scale until 1953, when Nathaniel Kleitman and Eugene Aserinsky, at the university of Chicago, reported a momentous observation they mede while watching the eye movements of sleepers (Americana 115). They observed that series of bursts of rapid eye movement occured about four to six times during the night. The first rapid eye movement period took place about an hour after the beginning of sleep and lasted from five to ten minutes. Succeeding REM periods occured at intervals of about ninety minutes each and lasted progressively longer, the last occupying about thirty minutes (Americana 115). although scientists still couldn't say for sure why dreams occured or where they come from, they were at least able to determine when they occured (Lemley 16). Thanks to these dream research pioneers, we know that there is a regular cycle of sleeping and dreaming during each period of sleep. Before you fall asleep, your brain waves begin regular alpha rhythems, indicating a relaxed state (Lemley 16). Soon, stage one slaap begins, as your muscles lose their tension, your breathing becomes more even, and your heart rate slows. Stage one usually lasts just a few minutes (Process 110). As stage two begins, random or nonsensical images may float through your mind, mimicking the dream state (Lemley 16). This is a much deeper sleep than stage one (Process 110). In stage three your ody continues its slow down process. Muscles lose all tightness, breaths come slowly and rhythmically, heart rate decreases and blood pressure falls (Lemley 17). A sleeper is very difficult to whake now. Only two things can whake a sleeper in this state, a loud noise or a repititious calling of the sleepers name (Process 110). Stage four is the deepest sleep of all. If you do awahen from this type of sleep you may feel disoriented for a few minutes. Stage four is concidered to be the most physically restful period of sleep, and it is the longest in duration (Lemley 17). Then comes the REM sleep period. This is the time dreams occur. Both your blood pressure and heart rate fluctuate and your brain heats up. If you are woken up during this period you'd be able to remember a recently dreamt dream (Process 110). Everyone has from five to seven dreams during a normal night's sleep. As each REM period ends, your body cycles back through stages one through four every ninety minutes until you awaken (Lemley 19). There are several different types of dreams. One of the most common type of dreams is one that isn't dreamt during a persons sleeping period. This type of dream is known as a daydream. It is said that a person may spend a third of their whaking hours daydreaming (Moffett 63). A daydream may also be a fantasy. Although a fantasy and a daydream are different in some ways. Fantasies are elaborate scenarios with complex plots and vivid details, while daydreams area fleetign scenes a person might conjure up during brief periods of boredom (Moffett 69). The content of a fantasy or daydream is unrestricted, and can be positive and negative. It is like a dream in that you follow your imagination where it takes you rather than guiding the images as you would in normal whaking thought. But it differs from a dream inthat you are in a waking state rather than a sleeping state while it occurs (Lemley 3). Another common type of dream is a nightmare. A nightmare is a disturbing dream that causes the dreamer to wake up feeling anxious or frightened (Lemley 4). Just about everyone has nightmares at on e tome or another. the majority of children have nightmares between the ages of three or four and seven or eight. Nightmares are less common in adults, though studies have shown that they too may have nightmares from time to time. About five to ten
percent have nightmares once a month or more frequently (Common, Nightmares 111). There are a number of possibilities for causes of nightmares. Some nightmares can be caused by certain drugs or medications, or by physical conditions such as illness or fever. Many people experience nightmares after they have suffered a traumatic event (Commom, Nightmares 111). The content of the event is usually easily recalled (Lemley 4). Other people experience nightmares when they are undergoing stress in their waking lives (Common, Nightmares 111). A type of dream that is like a nightmare is called a night terror. Night terrors are basically severe nightmares (Lemley 5). They occur during the first hour or two of sleep, loud screaming and thrashing about are common, the sleeper is hard to awaken and usually remembers no more than an overwhelming feeling or a single scene, if anything (Common, Nightmares 112). They are common in children ages three to five, but can also occur in older children and adults (Lemley 5). The causes of night terrors are not well undrstood (Common, Nughtmares 112). night terrors are more frequent in males than in females, though both boys and girls usually outgrow them be adolescence (Lemley 5). Have you ever realized you were dreaming while the dream was still happening? That is what dream experts call a lucid dream. Everyone has probably had a lucid dream at one time or another, and it is often during a nightmare (Lemley 155). A lucid dream is any dream where you have conscius awareness that you are experiencing a dream, the dreamer will realize where he/she is and know what they are experiencing is a dream and not a 'real life' occurance (What 200). Once you come to the realization that you are dreaming its possible to control the dream. Lucid dreams are more common during the REM satge of sleep (What 200). There is a certain type of falling asleep and waking up dreams. The often fleeting images we experience as we fall asleep seem an awful lto lke dreams. But the hypnagogic (as you're falling asleep) and the hypnomonic (as you're waking up) dreams are not so fully formed as regular dreams, consisting generally of physical sensations, snippets of words or conversations, nad flashing images that may seem disjointed (Lemley 10). Dreamlets, as they are sometimes called, do not include the rapid eye movement sleep of full-fledged dreams. One sometimes frustrating type of falling asleep dreamlet is teh one in which you jerk yourself awake. This is known as a myclonic jerk. although there may be some fleeting image or experience that leads to this sensation, there is no full plot inevolved at this stage (Lemley 10). Everyone deams even animals, infants and blind people. In all mammals studied, there is evidence of REM sleep. And scientists have sought to prove whether animals actually see images while they are sleeping (Lemley 7). At 26 weeks, a fetus is in REM sleep twenty-four hours a day (Greenfield 113). Scintists believe there is a connection between REM and brain development, citing evidence that, for instance, REM sleep occurs eighty percent of the time in an infant born ten weeks prematurely, droppign to fifty percent in the ful-term baby, and thirt-five percent in the one year old (Lemley 6). REM sleep may provide "nerve exercise" from within the brain for newborns until they can get more stimulation from the external environment as they get older (Lemley 7). Blind people do dream. According to author Charles W. Kimmins, as quoted in The New World of Dreams, researchers have found that "all dreamers becoming blind after the age of seven see in deams even after an interval of twenty or thirty years." Those who become blind before age five, however, almost never see in their dreams (Lemley 7-8). From th earliest days of modern dream research, scientists have documented differences in men's and women's dream recall, dream content, and dreaming patterns (Lemley 8). Women recall their dreams in more detail than men do. Men don't usually notice details of clothing and color in dreams, while women do (Moffett 51). Women also report more nightmaes than men do, up until the age of fifty. After that, men and women report roughly equal numbers of nightmares (Moffett 52). Research collected in the 1940's showed significant differences in the content of men's and women's ddeams (Lemley 8). It has been found that male dreamers dream much more about other males than about females. Whereas women dream about equally often of both sexes (Americana 116). Men's dreams frequently are st in outdoor places and unfamiliar surroundings. Women's dreams most often take place in familiar places and indoors (Moffett 52). Men report more action oriented dreams. Women's dreams feature more talking and emotions (Moffett 53). Some people have no difficulty in remebering several dreams nightly, although others recall only occasional ones or none at all. Nearly everything that happens during sleep during sleep - including dreams, the thoughts which occur throughout the night and memories of brief awakenings - is forgotten by morning (Common, Dreams 101). It is believed that dreams are remembered moe accurately immediately after awakening during the night than they are in teh mornign (Americana 115). Dreams are always in color, although people may not be aware fo it, either because they have difficulty remembering their dreams or because color is such a natural part of visual experience (Common, Dreams 101). It is said that color represent feelings and by paying attentin to the colors of the things in your deams, you may get clues to your inner feelings (Moffett 41). Scientists continue to debate the issue of whether or not dreams have any meaning. Although most people who work with their dreams, find that their dreams are very meaningful for them (Common, Dreams 101). Dreams are useful in learnign more about the deamer's feelings, thoughts, behavior, motives and values. Many find that deams can help them solve problems (Common, Dreams 101). The most important theing to keep in mind is that your dreams reflect their own underlying thoughts and feelings, and that the people, actions, settigns and emotions in your dreams are personal tp you. By thinking about what each dream element means to you or reminds yo of, by looking for parallels between these associations and what is happening in your waking life, and by beign patient and persistent you can learn to understand your deams.