I have been listening one radio station and today they talked about dreams, intelligence and dream helping devices. One researcher had said that people who have higher intelligence have more dreams, maybe more imaginative people have more vivid dreams. Then one researcher had commented that it might be helpful for people who suffer from depression to use sound devices to help to get better sleeps and positive dreams.
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Sigmund Freud
Considered the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) revolutionizes the study of dreams with his work The Interpretation Of Dreams. Freud begins to analyze dreams in order to understand aspects of personality as they relate to pathology. He believes that nothing you do occurs by chance; every action and thought is motivated by your unconscious at some level. In order to live in a civilized society, you have a tendency to hold back our urges and repress our impulses. However, these urges and impulses must be released in some way; they have a way of coming to the surface in disguised forms.
One way these urges and impulses are released is through your dreams. Because the content of the unconscious may be extremely disturbing or harmful, Freud believes that the unconscious expresses itself in a symbolic language.
Freud categorizes aspects of the mind into three parts:
Id - centered around primal impulses, pleasures, desires, unchecked urges and wish fulfillment.
Ego - concerned with the conscious, the rational, the moral and the self-aware aspect of the mind.
Superego - the censor for the id, which is also responsible for enforcing the moral codes of the ego.
When you are awake, the impulses and desires of the id are suppressed by the superego. Through dreams, you are able to get a glimpse into your unconscious or the id. Because your guards are down during the dream state, your unconscious has the opportunity to act out and express the hidden desires of the id. However, the desires of the id can, at times, be so disturbing and even psychologically harmful that a “censor” comes into play and translates the id’s disturbing content into a more acceptable symbolic form. This helps to preserve sleep and prevent you from waking up shocked at the images. As a result, confusing and cryptic dream images occur.
According to Freud, the reason you struggle to remember your dreams, is because the superego is at work. It is doing its job by protecting the conscious mind from the disturbing images and desires conjured by the unconscious.
Alfred Adler
Alfred Adler (1870 -1937) believes that dreams are an important tool to mastering control over your waking lives. They are problem-solving devices. Dreams need to be brought to the conscious and interpreted so that better understanding can be shed on your problems. It is important to learn from your dreams and incorporate them into your waking life. Adler believes that there is a correlation between your dreams and the problems in your daily life. The more dreams you have, the more problems you are likely to have. Conversely, the less dreams you have, the less problems you have and the more psychologically healthy you are.
While Freud believes that sexual impulses are the driving forces behind behavior, Adler believes that it is control, power and motivation that drives your behavior. Furthermore, Adler does not think that an individual’s actions and behavior are ruled by the unconscious. He believes that the strive for perfection and need for control are what causes you to do the things you do. In fact, Adler does not believe that the conscious and unconscious function against each other. Instead, they act the same way whether you are awake or sleeping.
Adler’s views on dreams are that they are an open pathway toward your true thoughts, emotions and actions. In your dreams, you clearly see your aggressive impulses and desires. Dreams are also a way of overcompensating for the shortcomings in your waking life. For example, if you are unable to stand up to your boss in your waking life, then you may find it easier to lash out at the boss within the comfort and safety of your dream. Dreams offer some sort of satisfaction that is more socially acceptable.
Calvin S. Hall, Jr
Calvin S. Hall, Jr. (1909-1985) focuses his study of dreams on the content, aptly referred to as content analysis. Because dreams are in essence thoughts, it is a cognitive process. Dreams provide a map or route to the inaccessible regions in your mind, otherwise known as the unconscious. Hall believes dreams are the best way to discovering personal thoughts and to explain your behavior. Dreams reveal things about yourself, not hide them. Hall categorizes dreams into one of five principle areas of life.
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Concepts of Self refer to the types or number of roles you play in your dreams.
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Concepts of other people are the roles other people play in your dreams. Consider your feelings toward them and how you interact with them.
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Concepts of the world represent the dream surrounding and landscape. The adjectives you use to describe your dreamscape is how you view the world.
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Concepts of impulses, prohibitions and penalties indicate your behavior and how it is ruled by impulses and punishment.
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Concepts of problems and conflicts symbolize your struggles, issues and problems you are facing in your waking life. These dream try to offer insight and resolution to your conflicts.
By utilizing these five concepts, Hall believes that you will be able to analyze the dream content and trace your way toward the inner workings of your unconscious.
Carl Jung
Like his mentor Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1960) also believes in the existence of the unconscious. However, he does not see the unconscious as animalistic, instinctual, or sexual; he sees it as more spiritual. Eventually, Jung split with Freud due to their differing views on dreams.
According to Jung, dreams are a way of communicating and acquainting yourself with the unconscious. Dreams are not attempts to conceal your true feelings from the waking mind, but rather they are a window to your unconscious. They serve to guide the waking self to achieve wholeness and offer a solution to a problem you are facing in your waking life.
Jung views the ego as your sense of self and how you portray yourself to the world. Part of Jung’s theory is that all things can be viewed as paired opposites: good/evil, male/female, or love/hate. So working in opposition to the ego, is the “counterego” or what he refers to as the shadow. The shadow represents the rejected aspects of yourself that you do not wish to acknowledge. The shadow is more primitive, somewhat uncultured, and a little awkward.
Frederick Perls
Frederick Perls (1893-1970) iss the founder of Gestalt therapy. Gestalt therapy seeks to fill your emotional voids so that you can then become a unified whole. Perls believes that dreams contain the rejected, disowned parts of the Self. Every character and every object in a dream represents an aspect of the Self. You are the hurricane, you are the attacker, you are the broken down car, you are the bridge, and you are the dusty book. Perls rejects the notion that dreams are part of a universal symbolic language. He believes that each dream is unique to the individual who dreams it.
In order to discover what aspect of yourself is being disowned, Perls believes that it is important to retell your dream in the present tense and act it out accordingly. It is important to verbalize how each and every component in your dream felt, even inanimate objects. Reenact the dream and take on the role of the different characters and objects. Start a dialogue with the dream object and express how you felt toward each other. By taking on a different role within your dream and reenact it, you may then be able to acknowledge and realize feelings that you may have overlooked or buried. Your dream literally comes alive.
Way to much more info on it but the best link I’ve found with all this is here http://www.dreammoods.com/
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http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-memory.html
Slow oscillations in brain activity, which occur during so-called slow-wave sleep, are critical for retaining memories. Researchers reporting online April 11 in the Cell Press journal Neuron have found that playing sounds synchronized to the rhythm of the slow brain oscillations of people who are sleeping enhances these oscillations and boosts their memory.
And the devices will be out when?
Ever since this episode started my dreams have been stressful, and now they’ve turned very dull and short as well. I used to think my episodes didn’t affect my dreams but they definitely hurt them in some way.
Dream basics from paper “Universe we live in” dreams are compilation of what a person is thinking. Their thoughts or what people are thinking for them in their heads. I know this because i had thoughts from people in my head and it formed a dream.