DREAMS AND DREAMING
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Dreams, a
nightly gift and a part of the natural process of being alive, are being
rediscovered by our publisher.
The meaning and value of your dreams will vary according
to what you and your society decide. Our
society is changing.
We used to only value dreams in the context of
psychotherapy. There are also a few
assumptions about dreams. One is that you are always the final authority on what the dream
means. Others can offer insight, suggestions and techniques for exploration and expression, but no one knows what the
final meaning and value of the dreams will be for you, except you. Another
assumption is that dreams come in the service of wholeness and health. If you
find an interpretation that does not fit this, perhaps you need to change methods of
interpretation. Dream interpretations that lead you toward self-criticism, depression or despair are simply wrong and if
these conditions persist you may wish to seek help from others.
Finally, there is no such thing as a dream with one
meaning. If you feel stuck on one meaning or feel another person is pushing one meaning, it is time to reconsider your methods
and approach. (Lemley p. 17).
Clinical dream
work is done within the context of psychotherapy and clinical and sleep
research have different approaches and goals than peer dream work. (Koch-Sheras p.16).
A dream is a
period of spontaneous brain activity usually lasting from about 5-40 minutes
that occurs during sleep several times a night usually about 90 minute intervals
(Barret p.8).
There are also
certain types of dreams. There are
fantasy, daydream and waking dreams.
There are also lucid dreams, nightmares and night terrors. There are also certain stages in the dream
cycle. In the first stage, your body temperature drops, your eyes close and your brain waves
begin regular alpha rhythms, indicating a relaxed state. Muscles lose their tension, breathing becomes more even and your
heart rate slows. Second, random images
begin to float through your mind mimicking the dream state. Jolting or involuntary movements will take
place at this time. Third, muscles lose all tightness, breathing becomes slower, heart rate
decreases and blood pressure falls. At
this point, it will take a loud noise or disturbance to wake you up. You are now fully asleep. Finally, you are in a deep sleep. This is the most physically rested period of sleep and longest in
duration. (Time-Life Books p. 97).
Whether awake
or asleep, one of the brain's most critical functions is the construction of
the model of the environment that we perceive as our conscious experience
(Barret p. 9). While we sleep, very
little sensory input is available, so the world model experience is constructed
from what remains, contextual information from our lives, that is, expectations derived from past experience, and
motivations. As a result, the content of
our dream is largely determined by what we fear, hopeful and expect. From this point of view, dreaming can be
viewed as the special case of dreaming constrained by sensory input (Koch-Sheras p. 15). Dreaming experience is commonly viewed as
qualitatively distinct from waking experience.
Dreams are often believed to be characterized by lack of reflection and
inability to act deliberately and with intention. (Barret p. 20).
Although we
not usually explicitly aware of the fact that we are dreaming while we are
dreaming, at times a remarkable exception occurs and we become reflective enough
to become conscious that we are dreaming.
During such 'lucid' dreams it is possible to freely remember the
circumstances of waking life to think clearly, and to act deliberately upon reflection or in accordance with plans decided upon
before sleep, all while experiencing a dream world that seems vividly real. (Time-Life Books p. 57).
As previously
stated, lucid dreaming is dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming.
Lucidity usually begins in the midst of a dream, when the dreamer realizes that the
experience is not occurring in physical reality, but is a dream. (Lemley p. 3). A
minority of lucid dreams are the result of returning to REM sleep directly from
a awakening with unbroken reflective consciousness.
When lucidity
is at a high level, you are aware that everything experienced in the dream is
occurring in your mind, that there is no real danger, and that you are asleep in
bed and will awaken shortly. With low
level lucidity you may be aware to a certain extent that you are dreaming, perhaps
enough to fly or alter what you are doing, but not enough to realize that the people are dream representations, or
that you can suffer no physical damage, or that you are actually in bed. (Time-Life Books p. 58).
Lucid dreams
usually happen during REM sleep.
Research has been demonstrated that most vivid dreaming occurs in REM sleep.
It is characterized by an active brain, with low amplitude, mixed
frequency brain waves, suppression of skeletal muscle tone, bursts of rapid eye movements,
and occasional tiny muscular twitches (Barret p. 20).
The sleep
stages cycle throughout a night. The
first REM period normally happens after a period of delta sleep, approximately 90 minutes after sleep onset, and lasts
from about 5-20 minutes. REM periods
occur roughly every 90 minutes throughout the night with later REM periods
occurring at shorter intervals and often being longer, sometimes up to an hour in length.
Much more REM sleep occurs in the second half of the night than in the
first. (Lemley p. 16).
Most of the
muscles of the body are paralyzed in REM sleep to prevent us from acting out
our dreams. However, because the eyes are not paralyzed, if you deliberately
move your "dream" eyes in a dream, your physical eyes move also. (Time-Life Books p. 61 ).
Referring back
to the stages in sleep-the first stage is a transitional period between waking
and sleeping known as hypnagogic state, the muscle relax and the person often
experiences a sensation of floating or drifting. The eyes roll slowly and vivid images may flash through the
mind-perhaps an eerie unfamiliar landscape, a beautiful abstract pattern or a succession of face.
As those sensations and visions come and go, a sudden spasm of the body
called hypnagogic startle may momentarily waken the sleeper. Then as the subject slips into the first
stage of sleep, the EEG shows the spiky rapid alpha waves of a relaxed but wakeful brain giving way to
the slower more regular theta waves of light slumber. Sleeps first stage is short, lasting anywhere from a few seconds to 10
minutes. The theta waves soon decrease and are mixed on EEG tracing which a combination of 2 different brain wave
patterns-groups of sharp jumps called spindles, which reflect rapid bursts of brain activity, and waves known as K-complexes
characterized by steep peaks and valleys.
Although this stage is considered to be a true sleep phase, a person awakening
from it may report having had brief bits of realistic thought or may even deny having been asleep at all. (Time-Life Books
p. 97).
Between 15 and
30 minutes after the onset of sleep, large, slow delta waves begin
supplementing the K complexes and spindles of stage 2.
The change makes the deepest of sleeps, called stage 3-4. Waking from stage 3-4 is difficult. An individual typically feels quite groggy and disoriented
and even if an emergency demands alertness, must fight to overcome the compelling desire to fall asleep again. Taking in one sleep, sleep walking and
bedwetting tend to happen during this stage because of the brain's partial arousal
from deep sleep (Time-Life Books p. 97).
After 90
minutes or so of sleep, most of it spent in stage 3-4, the spindles and K
complexes of stage 2 briefly reassert themselves.
The brain then shakes off the rhythms of non REM sleep passes into REM
sleep-a condition so distinct physiologically from both wakefulness and the
non REM stages that some experts call it a third state of existence.
Blood pressure and pulse rate rise, and brain waves
quicken to frequencies comparable to those of an awake, alert brain.
Despite this activity the body becomes remarkably
still. The eyes begin their movements,
but otherwise, except for grimaces and small twitches of the toes and fingers, the
muscles are temporarily paralyzed. A person awakened from REM sleep may be unable to move for a few seconds. Scientists
believe that nature has evolved this paralytic interlude, which seems to be controlled by nerve centers in the primitive
brainstem, to protect the sleeper from the harm that might result if dreams were physically acted out. The 2 antithetical conditions of the state-a
vigorously active brain within an immobilized
body-prompted French neurobiologist Michel Jouvet to name it
"paradoxical sleep".
(Time-Life Books p.99).
There are
other physical characteristics of dreams as well. In adults and infants alike, the head and
chin relax so completely that researchers can use the slackening of the
muscle under the chin as a reliable signal that REM sleep is occurring (Lemley p. 19-20).
After training
in neurology Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) began to practice what later became a
psychoanalysis.
Initially, following his colleague Josef Breuer (
1942-1925), he used his hypnosis to treat cases of hysteria. He then replaced hypnosis with the technique of free association
and began to explore his patient's dreams for clues to their problems (Barret p. 14-15).
Freud believed
that dreams were wish fulfillment-in our dreams we represent our deepest
desires, which in an adult are nearly always sexual.
However, because these desires would be offensive to our sleeping
conscious minds, or censor or superego, disguises our true intentions. The obscurity of dreams, Freud said "is
due to alterations in repressed material made by the censorship." However this theory does not explain why we
might have a heavily disguised dream one night and a straightforward dream of the same activity on
another night. There are many problems
with Freud's ideas but he must be given credit for being one of the first modern
thinkers to reexamine the symbolism of dreams.
However he must also be criticized for seeing nearly every dream symbol
in purely sexual terms. Freuds
detractors also complain that his theories , based on evidence drawn from his
psychologically disturbed patients, were not universally applicable. Despite these criticisms, Freud created psychoanalysis almost
single-handedly, and built a solid base for dream analysts to expand (Barret P. 14-15).
Besides
establishing the normal nightly course of dreaming and some of its pathological
aberrations, researchers have categorized 2 distinct but equally frightening
disturbances: the nightmare and the much less common night terror (Time-Life Books p. 102).
Everyone occasionally has a nightmare-a dream so frightening that he or
she wakes up sweaty, short of breath, and with a pounding heart. Such dreams usually occur during the second
half of the night, when REM periods are longer and dreams are more intense. Psychiatrists such as Stanley Palombo of
Washington, D.C. , believe that a nightmare (mare means goblin in Old English) dramatizes
problems or anxieties one has recently encountered in waking life, in addition, it evokes related unconscious memories
and images, creating an emotionally powerful mix. The feeling of utter helplessness that so often infuses a nightmare
probably harks back to infancy, some experts say, when a child is indeed powerless and
at the mercy of a world he or she
cannot understand or control. ( Time-Life Books p. 102).
According to
Professor Hartmann, "the common thread among those who have nightmares
frequently is sensitivity." For a Boston study, he solicited
volunteers who experienced nightmares at least once a week. A large number of subjects were involved in creative work, such as art,
music and theater, others were graduate students, teachers and therapists. (Time-Life Books p. 106). Many saw themselves as rebels or as
"different from other people," and some overly rejected society's norms. "They were all very open
and vulnerable", he said, beneficial to their careers. But "most had had stormy adolescence sometimes followed by bouts with
depression, alcohol and suicide attempts".
Hartmann concluded that people who had frequent nightmares possessed a poor
sense of their own identities and find it hard to separate fantasy from reality. Some
have borderline or potentially psychotic tendencies, he believes. (Time-Life
Books p. 106).
Night terrors
differ from nightmares in both content and timing, and often occur in a deep
slumber of stage 3-4. The sleeper may rouse with a blood curdling scream and
sit up in bed, terrified and confused, heart racing. (Time-Life Books p. 106). He
may also walk or talk in his sleep.
While people usually remember specific and sequential details of their nightmares, the victim of a night terror is short,
lasting only a minute or 2. Night
terrors seem to run in families, and researchers suspect they are triggered by a faulty
arousal mechanism: instead of following the normal shift early in the night from stage 3-4 sleep to a REM period, the sleeper
partially rouses. Children are more
susceptible than adults to night terrors, perhaps simply because they spend more time in
stage 3-4 (Time-Life Books p.106).
Message dreams
are dreams that convey some information you need about your current social,
emotional or physical life.
These are teaching dreams in which someone is usually there to tell you
something important directly: a teacher, a news announcer or clergyman giving you new
information to apply to your waking life. At times, a message dream will come in the form of a disembodied voice; the
dreamer may perceive this voice as a voice of the spirit or soul of God or an angel (Koch-Sheras p. 78).
Recurring
dreams repeat themselves with little variation in story or theme. They can be positive, as with an archetypal visionary dream, but they are more often
nightmares, perhaps because nightmares depict a conflict that is unresolved; also nightmares are more frequently
remembered than other dreams. (Lemley p. 81).
There are many
reasons why people forget their dreams upon waking. In our culture, and therefore in our
families, dreams are generally thought of as unimportant or
silly. Whether they are pleasant or
unpleasant, your dreams are a vital and expressive part of yourself, so don't discount
them! Another reason why people might
forget dreams is that they are embarrassed by their content. In dreams, you might commit acts you would
never do in your waking life, and it is natural to put those acts into the back of your mind rather than
confront the issues the dream scenarios might have raised. (Koch-Sheras p. 113).
Studies show that people who are good at recalling their dreams are
generally better able to confront their own fears and anxieties; poor dream recallers are those
who tend to retreat from confrontation. Learning to remember your dreams and discuss their meanings may help you to become
a more assertive person (Koch-Sheras p. 113).
If you
yourself are a poor recaller, you may wonder who images manage to stow away in
a person's mind each morning. The fact
is, people who enjoy sharing dreams are more likely to remember them. Any attention you pay to your dream life can help to increase your recall: keeping a
dream journal, making a drawing based on a dream, acting on advice or insight gained from a dream (Lemley p. 113).
In ancient
times, dreams were often-but not always-believed to be prophetic, and people of
all cultures shared what they had dreamed in hopes of catching a glimpse of the
future or receiving a message of advice or warning (Lemley p. 26). The Egyptians, for instance, relied on an elaborately
constructed list of interpretations, a kind of early dream dictionary. Even the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates considered dreams to be prophetic emanating
from the Gods. For this reason, dreams figured prominently in ancient cultures'
religious rituals intended to evoke the dream spirits of Gods who would send these vivid messages ( Koch-Sheras p.
26).
In many
ancient cultures, dream life and waking life were simply 2 different dimensions
of a single existence, a viewpoint that shows itself in many modern cultures and
that is shared by many contemporary dream theorists as well (Koch-Sheras p. 32).
It has taken
centuries of interest to move beyond dream lore to a scientific understanding
of dreams. Yet many myths are still taken as fact in interpreting our own and
others' dream behavior. Here are some
myths and facts about our dreams. Myth: Some
people dream only a few times a year-or not at all. Fact: Everybody dreams! While some people may only remember a few dreams a year, they actually
dream several times every night. (Lemley p. 6).
Myth: Babies don't dream.
Fact: Babies do show evidence of
dreaming, although what they dream about is anybody's guess. Even a newborn infant will have REM sleep. As people continue to age, studies show, the
percentage of time spent dreaming drops off to as low as 13% in some people (Lemley p.
7). Myth: Animals do not dream. Fact: As
dog owners suspect, animals do dream.
Dogs sometimes move their legs, wag their tails and even bark and growl
while sleeping (Koch-Sheras p. 7). In all mammals studied there is evidence of REM
sleep. (Koch-Sheras p. 7). Myth: Blind
people do not dream. Fact: Blind people do dream.
All dreamers becoming blind after the age of 7 see in dreams even after
an interval of 20-30 years (Lemley p. 8).
Those who become blind after age 5, however, almost never see in their
dreams (Lemley p. 8.). A person who cannot hear often has a specially vivid visual
content in dreams, and a person blind from birth distinctly remembers sounds and tactile experiences in dreams (Koch-Sheras p.
8).
Even if our
dreams are entirely random, they still have value. The connections we make as we examine our
dream for images that have some symbolic meaning are valid, as
points of curiosity, as jumping off points for further self-exploration, and perhaps as insights into the inner
workings of our own unique personality (Koch-Sheras p. 72).
Whatever your
motivation-amusement, curiosity, self-growth, spiritually or something else-as
dreamers we can pick and choose, using our dreams to guide and shape our
own theory (Lemley p. 73). We have nothing to lose in developing our own theory or body of recurring symbols
with which to interpret our dreams. (Koch-Sheras p. 73).
About the Author
January 13, 1997
Work Cited
Barret, David V.
Dreams. New York: Dorling
Kindersley Inc. 1995
Koch-Sheras, Phyllis, and Amy Lemley. The Dream Sourcebook. Chicago, Contemporary Books, 1995
Time-Life Books.
Dreams and Dreaming. Virginia,
Time-Life Books, 1990
Rating:
5.00
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