Theories Of Dreams

The Theories of Dreams: Hidden in the Mind

Are dreams the result of an overactive imagination or is your mind telling you something about yourself that you're not aware of?

Many have attempted to find the real meaning of dreams. Some look them up on a dream dictionary and others keep a journal, describing the dreams they had the previous night. Only a select few came so far as to form theories of dreams.

Sigmund Freud, the father of Psychology, was the first to discover the significance of dreams for this is often the subject matter of his patients during therapy. Through free association, he discovered that dreams do have distinct meanings and effects on his patients though their importance is often hidden or disguised. According to Freud, dreams symbolize a person's unconscious desire to fulfill a wish that was formed in early childhood. Through his own theories of dreams, he wrote a book titled, "The Interpretation of Dreams" which led to his famous theory of the mind - the id, ego and superego.

While Freud postulated dreams as fantasies of the unconscious mind, modern researchers have posted new theories of dreams. They view dreams as the emergence of a person's constant concerns in his waking life. Researchers argue that dreams are purely physiological, jumpstarted by random electrical impulses in the brain.

Rosalinda Cartwright discovered that in times of crises, people who make a rapid recovery have longer dreams in their sleep cycle. Those who dream less have trouble resolving their inner conflicts. With her colleagues, Cartwright studied the effects of emotionally-rich dreams on recently divorced people. Data revealed that resolving emotional issues is done during dreaming. When dreams of an ex-spouse are viewed casually, the divorced person would start dealing with changes in his/her life.

Activation Synthesis Theory states that during REM, the brain activates itself and generates dreams from the information it gathered. This theory banks on the data drawn by Dement in the 1960's that the brain sends messages to the visual center or the eyes during sleep as it usually does during consciousness. Since the person cannot react normally for he's asleep, the end result is a dream.

There are some biological researchers who have theories of dreams that differ from others that have noteworthy psychological implications though. Francis Crick and Graeme Mitchison believe that dreams are nonsensical garbage, just a hodgepodge of new memories and have no significant meaning.

Despite drastic differences in the researchers' views and theories of dreams since the time of Freud, the brain has been exposed as a workaholic, remaining active during sleep. Many questions are still unanswered. But we are not far from uncovering the meaning of our dreams for we are already dealing with their impact in our lives.