This is a dissertation chapter on Dream Interpretation:
Dream interpretation is used by many to help better understand the thoughts and feelings of the unconscious as well as the conscious and the aspects of repression. However, it is a field of psychology not highly regarded in western societies as an extremely important aspect of psychoanalysis or the entire field itself. Dream interpretation first entered into psychology with Freud’s masterpiece The Interpretation of Dreams in 1899. The book received prompt, respectful, and widespread attention and signified the immergence of a new aspect of psychology. Another character who contributed enormously to this field was Carl G. Jung, he and Freud are the two who are widely characterized as the major contributors to the study of dreams.
When Freud was writing his controversial book he believed dreams were infrequent, long-prepared clusters of images that went off like fireworks during sleep, fueled by repressed wishes from early childhood. Today, the conventional view is that dreams are mental experiences taking place during REM sleep which include vivid visual imagery, are often vary bizarre and seem vary real to the dreamer. This view is coming into question due to decades of research on the contents of dreams. These studies have shown dreams to be less bizarre than previously thought and that dreams are not the exclusive property of REM sleep. Studies of dreams in non-REM sleep have shown them to be less vivid and story like than REM dreams. And recent work in awareness suggests that dreamers are more aware that they are dreaming than previously believed. Therefore, since Freud’s introduction of dream interpretation into psychology it has undergone revisions through evolution of the subject and the concept of dreaming continues to go through changes.
Sigmund Freud was the “father” of psychoanalysis. He attempted to describe the mind as a system of nerve cells that oversaw all mental activity by storing and discharging energy. He thought the source of this energy was sexual—today it would be identified as sex hormones—which cause sexual tension and fuel the nervous system. Thus, he believed unconscious sexual wishes were the primary motivating force for dreams. While writing his book, The Interpretation of Dreams Freud realized he was writing the first psychoanalytical work in history.
According to Freud, dreams and delusions come from what has been repressed. Dreams disguise infantile wishes as to evade our censorious conscience and be fulfilled pointlessly in fantasy. In attempting to understand dreams we encounter a faзade, the “manifest content” which is the verbal translation of the dream by the dreamer that is itself a disguise. The dreamer is either unable or unwilling to disclose the true facts of the dream and the process of concealment uses any materials at hand to build the faзade. The four major sources of material include: bodily sensations during sleep, “day residue”, childhood memories and universal human experiences.
Dream interpretation is the study of repressed feelings and wishes mostly from childhood. When a child is very young they do not have the capability to express themselves very well in words. They carry feelings inside and sometimes do not know what to do with them. So, there are two paths the child can take. Either the child finds and outlet to relieve and deal with what they are feeling inside, or they repress it. If the child is able to find an outlet and start a flow of thoughts and feelings, than that is obviously a lot healthier for the child. It allows them to open themselves and bring what is in the darkness out to light, so to speak. However, if the child is unable to create an outlet for whatever reason, then this creates a build up over time and the child starts to repress their feelings, thoughts, wishes or emotions.
Repression throughout early childhood causes a personal trend in the child’s behavior. It allows them to experience repression as a way of dealing with things as opposed to expression, when in fact repression does not deal with anything, it only puts it aside. This is not good for any child and is most likely inadvertently taught by the parents. It is a backwards way of thinking that will hold a child back from growing up. Once the child learns unknowingly how to repress or hold back their “wishes” it can become a habit and seem like the right thing to do. As the child grows older and does not learn to deal with things, it can become a problem. However, most people find some way of expressing themselves and only experience mild repression if any at all. Anyway, these repressed “wishes” are not gone totally from consciousness, only lost somewhere within the subconscious. This is where dreams come into play.
According to Freud, dreams are a person’s subconscious way of trying to deal with those unexpressed, unfulfilled, unachieved ideas, wishes or thoughts. So when a person goes to sleep and the subconscious is active these issues will try to express themselves as feelings, images or scenes. This is a way to bring these things to the surface of consciousness. However, it is still up to the person to figure out what the dream meant or was about in order to deal with it and move on. This is how dream interpretation can be helpful.
Most of the time when dealing with deep repression, when a dream is experienced and remembered the person cannot relate it to any particular event in their past or present. And there is no telling of what time period from which the dream came or if the dream was even self-centered. This is an example of Freud’s theory of “Manifest Content”. The idea the dream actually related to is so distorted that the dreamer cannot see it for what it is and so they begin piecing together what they can and filling in the rest. Thus, “Manifest Content” a distortion of reality born through repression and manifested through dreams. So, in order to deal with repressed “wishes” through the aid of dreams we have to rely on a person’s ability to find what is true in themselves possibly with the help of others.
Not all dreams carry as much weight as in this scenario. Dreams which take place in non-REM sleep are less dramatic, lighter and overall much less vivid. These dreams involve lighter aspects of thought such as a previous day or week’s events, this is called “day residue”. This can be a way of seeing events or situations from a different point of view. Or maybe it is simply light thoughts passing through consciousness during the night. Either way, non-REM dreams have been proven to be less dramatic than REM dreams and do not delve as deep into consciousness.
Freud believed unconscious sexual wishes were the primary motivating force for dreams. He wrote that the source of mental energy is sexual. A build up of sex hormones causes tension in the nervous system. Too much of a build up would result in anxiety symptoms and too little nervous exhaustion. So, this tension searches for a way out, through dreams.
In modern psychology there are three main sources of western philosophy on how dreams are explained. First, there is the Bible, which contains stories about dreams as the word of God and false gods and so on. Second, we have the philosophy of Aristotle, who was the great Greek philosopher of 384-322 B.C. And third, the longest and most detailed of the three is The Oneirocriticon (Interpretation of Dreams) of Artemidorus of Daldis who lived in the second century A.D.
The Bible is filled with reports of dreams, interpretations and thoughts on the nature and functions of dreams. The Bible presents dreams as the primary vehicle in which God communicates with men and women. One of the messages depicted is God’s ominous presence and importance in the life of the dreamer. Also, the dreams in the Bible emanate messages of reassurance, guidance and counsel to the dreamers. Throughout this book there are tales of prophesy and false prophesy through dreams, while other dreams are dismissed as vain illusions.
The philosopher Aristotle analyzed dreams in two short treatises, On Dreams and On Prophesying by Dreams. In On Dreams Aristotle states that during our dreaming experiences the normal functioning of our faculties of sense perception and intellect cease and our thoughts are governed mainly by emotion. During our daily lives we experience many external objects of stimulus, and when we sleep the external objects perceived leave our range of senses. However, there are still impressions from these objects within us and these impressions themselves become objects of perception. Aristotle warns of being mislead by dreams because of the role emotion plays in them.
In On Prophesying by Dreams Aristotle evaluates claims of divine revelations foretelling the future through dreams. He is generally skeptical of these claims because he says if God were the source of them, why would he send them to the average individual, assuming he is referring to all dreams and not just the ones that could be considered prophetic. In any case, he goes on to say allegedly prophetic dreams can be regarded in three ways. They may be causes, tokens or coincidences. Just as daily events can influence our dreams, it must be said that dreams can have influences on our waking lives too. He says that dreams may also be tokens of events to come in the future. Such as the beginning symptoms of illness, unrecognizable during our daily scheme which are detected in the quiet of unconsciousness. Though giving recognition to dreams as causes of events and prophetic visions, Aristotle believes most dreams, thought to be prophetic are actually mere coincidences. The occurrence of dreaming about an event and then actually experiencing or seeing it happen is not all the uncommon depending on the complexity of the event, especially today with the advancement of communication all over the world. Aristotle says that if we are able to learn how to recognize and account for the distortion in dreams due to emotion then we might actually be able to learn something of value from our own dreams.
The third book of the foundation of western thought on dream interpretation is the Oneirocriticon of Artemidorus. This is the most detailed and sophisticated text on dream interpretation to survive from ancient times. Artemidorus was a well-read man who lived in early A.D. and acquired his knowledge from any texts he could find on dream interpretation and through conversation with the much-despised diviners of his time. Artemidorus makes the distinction between enhypnion and oneiros. Enhypnion indicates a present state of affairs, as in hungry people dreaming about food or a crippled person dreaming of walking, while the latter goes beyond the present to focus on the prediction of future events. He also draws a distinction between theorematic and allegorical dreams. Theorematic dreams are very direct and precise with the images presented and its meaning. For example, a dream about witnessing a bank robbery and the very next day the actual event takes place in perfect detail as compared to the dream. On the other hand, allegorical dreams involve indirect imagery of events to predict the future. Such as, a dream of returning home from Jamaica could indicate the person actually returning home from a foreign land. In the Oneirocriticon, Artemidorus discusses many types of dreams and their interpretations. Some modern psychologists have accused him of outlining an exact format of dream images assigned to a particular meaning without consideration of the individual. However, he has written that an accurate dream interpretation must rely on a detailed knowledge of the dreamer’s life, for it is possible indeed that two people have the exact same dream with two completely different meanings.
The interpretation of dreams is a considerably vast aspect of psychology. There are many individuals who have studied, written about and devoted their lives to the subject. Some of them I have mentioned here and others I did not have the time or space to include. One of importance is C.G. Jung, who was a student and close friend of Sigmund Freud before they eventually parted ways in a bitter falling out in 1914. After this Jung receeded from the scientific world for four years into a world of his own dreams and consciousness. With his emergence out of his own reclusion he proceeded to write Two Essays on Analytical Psychology and his final work Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Sigmund Freud was the “father of psychoanalysis” who along with Jung most people would agree were the most influential people in the interpretation of dreams and the growth and development of the subject. Today, some of the traditional ideas are undergoing changes due to recent work in consciousness awareness and the study of dreams in non-REM sleep, thus like everything else this subject of dream interpretation is and continually will be going through changes through evolution.
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