Psychology Of Dreams Research Paper

Throughout our existence, we have more than likely found ourselves wondering about the meaning of our dreams. Dreams have fascinated philosophers for thousands of years, and have been subjected to empirical research and scientific studies (Cherry). Scientists have been performing sleep and dream studies for decades now. Dreams can be very clear or unclear, filled with exciting emotions or scary imagery (Cherry). They can also be focused and understandable or unclear and rather confusing. Dreams are so fascinating because of the level of their complexity while our body is asleep and unaware. In psychoanalysis dreams are continually analyzed and even used in therapy. Dreaming, by and large, in and out of the psychiatric literature, has

Dreams then, represent experiences we encounter in our lives and reflect the ones that make us feel good or bad. (McNarma). At times, we participate very actively, while in others, we are more laid back. Dreams are experienced in all major sense modalities, and are particularly visual. There are known differences in the themes of men and women. We men tend to dream of strangers, sexual subjects, and aggression. Women tend to dream of intimates, romance, and being the targets of aggression (Cherry). Science has made great progress in deepening our understanding of dreams. A dream can include any of the images, thoughts and emotions that we experience during sleep (Breus). Dream life is simply a continuation of waking life on a level of consciousness lower than that, which controls our mental lives during the day (Pinard). We are puzzled by the dissociation of thoughts, which have no seeming connection with each other. Hypnosis reveals the fact that we are dreaming all the time during sleep, even though we can only recall the dreams, which are highly charged emotionally

While some theories may suggest that dreams serve different meanings, most experts such as G. William Domhoff, suggest that dreams most likely serve no real purpose. According to Domhoff, "'Meaning' has to do with coherence and with systematic relations to other variables, and in that regard dreams do have meaning. Furthermore, they are very "revealing" of what is on our minds We have shown that 75 to 100 dreams from a person give us a very good psychological portrait of that individual. Give us 1000 dreams over a couple of decades and we can give you a profile of the person's mind that is almost as individualized and accurate as her or his fingerprints.” The fact that we remember so few of our dreams -- a few percent at best -- also argues against any function for dreams (Breus). Furthermore, the people who remember a great many dreams don't seem to be any different from those who remember few or none, at least on the standard personality tests that have been used in many studies to date (Cherry). If dreams are important, why aren't the recallers of them better off in some way? The truth is, as long as the brain remains such a mystery, we probably won't be able to pinpoint with absolute certainty exactly why we dream for sure. Though they serve no specific purpose, however, dreams can provide us with insight about what’s preoccupying us, troubling us, engaging our thoughts and emotions. Often healing, often strange,