The term "dream therapy" pops up, one more than likely thinks it is the practice of having your dreams interpreted for you. This is hardly the case. Rather than having your dreams interpreted by someone else, which is just short of fortune telling, dream therapy is the process by which you learn to decipher your own dreams which may, in turn, help you to overcome your fears or emotional dilemmas. Before we look in depth at what dream therapy is, let's take a brief look at what it is not. As mentioned above, it is not having your dreams interpreted for you, whether by a therapist or well meaning friend. On the market today you can find any number of "dream" dictionaries that apply specific meanings to almost any symbol we remember from our dreams, such as snow for true love or a mountain lion for adventure (I made both of those up by the way). When deciphering your dreams, dictionaries should be used for general reference only. Reading what the symbols could possibly represent might trigger something that hits home to you. Dream therapy is as individual as you are. What one symbol means to your subconscious is probably totally different for someone else, as we know that no two minds are exactly alike. Dream therapy is also work. It is a progress that takes time and commitment on the individual's part. In dream therapy the theory is held that the reason we dream is to make us aware of feelings or information in our minds that we have either suppressed or not even thought of yet. It is at this point that the standard reference dictionary should only be regarded as an idea book, beause all of the odd symbols and freaky happenings in our dreams are extremely personal and individual. Only the person who dreams them can truly come to understand or interpret them. So how does one go about doing this? As mentioned before, it takes work. The first and most important thing to do is remember your dreams. This is not easy for everyone to do, as for some, the minute they wake up it is forgotten. All they remember is having an odd dream. There is one way to get around this, however, and with a little practice a few nights in a row you should be able to do it with no problem. Before you fall asleep, take a few minutes and tell yourself a few times in a row that you will remember your dreams. How can this possibly make a difference? Have you ever had to wake up at a certain time but didn't have an alarm clock available? Instead, you went to sleep worrying over and over about waking up at 5 am. And what happened? Your body woke itself up at 5 am. This is the same principle used for remembering your dreams. Telling yourself repeatedly, before falling asleep, that you will remember your dreams can work. The next step is to record the dream as soon as you wake up. This can be done with a tape recorder or notebook. Whatever you choose, it should be kept near your bed so it can be done immediately upon awaking. The next step is to take the time to sit down and look at your dreams. You should also have a pen and paper handy when doing this as it will help you to remember ideas during this "brainstorming" session. Does looking at these symbols whle you are awake remind you of anything in particular? Do these dreams make you afraid? Happy? Are they similar to anything going on in your life? Those who practice and/or teach dream therapy say to keep brainstorming until you hit on an interpretation that rings a bell for you. Look at all aspects of the dream. Not just the obvious but the kooky symbolism and events as well. One dream therapy practitioner says the best advice she ever read was to draw out a picture of her dream and ask someone else to look at it and tell her what they saw. This could work for you also. Dream therapy isn't used only as a means of figuring out your subconcious dilemmas, it also is a means of finding out how to handle a current situation. Before falling asleep you ask your mind to give you a dream that shows a clear solution to your problem. This sheds a whole new light on the phrase "Let me sleep on it". So you see, dream therapy is more than dream interpretation. It is a means of confronting our subconscious, or even our conscious dilemmas, and finding a way to lead a healthier and more creative life.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Dream Quotes
Anais Nin:Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.
Anais Nin:The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.
Anatole France:Dreams are necessary to life.
Carl Jung:To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.
Carl Sandburg:Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
Carl Sandburg:Nothing happens unless first a dream.
Dom Helder Camara:Nothing happens unless first we dream.
Edward Kennedy:When we are dreaming alone it is only a dream. When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality.
Elizabeth Gilbert:The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die.
George Bernard Shaw:The inability to open up to hope is what blocks trust, and blocked trust is the reason for blighted dreams.
George Bernard Shaw:Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?"
frequently attributed to Robert F. (Bobby) Kennedy, who used it in a speech which his brother, Edward F. (Teddy) Kennedy quoted at RFK's funeral.
Gloria Steinem:You see things; and you say, "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"
Goethe:Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.
H. L. Mencken:Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.
Henry David Thoreau:Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.
Henry David Thoreau:I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
High Eagle:Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
Hobbes (of Calvin and ...):In life, many thoughts are born in the course of a moment, an hour, a day. Some are dreams, some visions. Often, we are unable to distinguish between them. To some, they are the same; however, not all dreams are visions. Much energy is lost in fanciful dreams that never bear fruit. But visions are messages from the Great Spirit, each for a different purpose in life. Consequently, one person's vision may not be that of another. To have a vision, one must be prepared to receive it, and when it comes, to accept it. Thus when these inner urges become reality, only then can visions be fulfilled. The spiritual side of life knows everyone's heart and who to trust. How could a vision ever be given to someone to harbor if that person could not be trusted to carry it out. The message is simple: commitment precedes vision.
James A. Froude:I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each others dreams, we can be together all the time.
Jean-Paul Sartre:You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.
Jesse Jackson:Like all dreamers I confuse disenchantment with truth.
John Lennon:No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to flee and fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams.
John Lennon:You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one, I hope someday you will join us, and the world will live as one.
Kahlil Gibran:Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one.
Kalidasa:The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
Marcel Proust:Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!
Look to this Day!
For it is Life, the very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the
Verities and Realities of your Existence.
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty;
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And To-morrow is only a Vision;
But To-day well lived makes
Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!
Such is the Salutation of the Dawn!
Margaret Mead:If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.
Marian Wright Edelman:The liberals have not softened their view of actuality to make themselves live closer to the dream, but instead sharpen their perceptions and fight to make the dream actuality or give up the battle in despair.
Mark Twain:No person has the right to rain on your dreams.
Martin Luther King, Jr.:Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Martin Luther King, jr.:I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream -- a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality.
Mary Beth Danielson:If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.
The Trumpet of Conscience
Norman Lindsay:If growing up is the process of creating ideas and dreams about what life should be, then maturity is letting go again.
Ralph Waldo Emerson:The best love affairs are those we never had.
Samuel Gompers:Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.
Victor Hugo:What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.
Virginia Woolf:There is nothing like a dream to create the future.
Will Durant:Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.
The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.
The five types of DREAMS
There are five different types of dreams: ordinary, lucid, telepathic, premonitory, and nightmare. They often blend and merge with one another.
ORDINARY DREAMS
During the day our conscious minds are active, but at night the subconscious takes over. Ordinary dreams are based on the activity of the unconscious in response to what we have seen or heard in our waking hours. Even a single thought can trigger a dream. Automatic unconscious stores of knowledge that have made an impression remain filed in the brain and unperceived until “read” by dream symbols, which are “the language of the soul.” Events of the day and from years past are mirrored in the sleeping mind, as seemingly long-forgotten memories can resurface in dream imagery. The soul is particularly susceptible to the bygone memories that are brought to light through pictures in the mind's eye. In addition to being clairvoyant, dreams are also clairaudient, as we hear souls speak in our minds' ears. Clairvoyance means “clear sight.” It is the supernatural ability to see people and events far away in time or location. Clairaudience means clear hearing. It is the faculty to hear with the mind's ear. Words spoken to us in our dreams should be taken literally, because such spiritual communication can show us how we should be when awake. You can get the best out of your future by understanding what a dream is saying to you pictorially and verbally.
LUCID DREAMS
A lucid dream is one that you can control because you are aware that you are dreaming. You can also decide what to dream about before going to sleep and then dream about the very thing that you planned to.
TELEPATHIC DREAMS
Telepathy, known as “the language of the angels,” allows the dead and the living to speak in dreamland. In this meeting place, death is no barrier, and the living cross the threshold into a heavenly sphere of existence. This mental communication can also occur mind-to-mind between two living people. We may send our own or receive others' intentional or unintentional thoughts as mental visions in dreams. Extended telepathy during sleep is a communion between two worlds, the nighttime world of the soul and the daytime world of the body.
PREMONITORY DREAMS
Premonitory dreams are similar to telepathic dreams in that your spirit leaves your body and ventures on a voyage of discovery. Premonitory dreams are special because they reveal the future and allow the dreamer to see truths that are not accessible in waking life. In telepathic dreams, we can also detect information about an imminent event. Dreams are the catalyst that put your body into motion to follow and fulfill your wishes and desires.
NIGHTMARES
Most nightmares are linked to early childhood, when we are inexperienced and therefore dependent on others. Before the age of three, we have not yet developed a sense of conscience and of right and wrong. Nightmares are representations of a suppressed, original fear commonly created by excessively strict parental or sibling moral standards and the threat of punishment in the face of innocence.
In nightmares you may perceive a warning for yourself or for a loved one. To be forewarned is to be forearmed: if you first see a frightful event in a dream, you can prevent harm from happening in waking life. For example, nightmares can warn against acting on impulse, as well as show that certain feelings and emotions are unhealthy. Not all nightmares are nasty predictions or unwholesome signs.
A nightmare may also relate to an old, unsolved problem that is so frightening to face that we are unable to continue to dream and the emotional terror wakes us in distress without offering a solution.
Dream Facts
All mammals and birds dream.[citation needed] According to scientists[who?], it is also possible that cephalopods dream as well.
There is no universally agreed biological definition of dreaming. General observation shows that dreams are strongly associated with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, during which an electroencephalogram shows brain activity to be most like wakefulness. Participant-nonremembered dreams during non-REM sleep are normally more mundane in comparison.[1] During a typical lifespan, a human spends a total of about six years dreaming[2] (which is about 2 hours each night[3]). It is unknown where in the brain dreams originate, if there is a single origin for dreams or if multiple portions of the brain are involved, or what the purpose of dreaming is for the body or mind.
During REM sleep, the release of certain neurotransmitters is completely suppressed. As a result, motor neurons are not stimulated, a condition known as REM atonia. This prevents dreams from resulting in dangerous movements of the body.
Discovery of REM
In 1953 Eugene Aserinsky discovered REM sleep while working in the surgery of his PhD advisor. Aserinsky noticed that the sleepers' eyes fluttered beneath their closed eyelids, later using a polygraph machine to record their brain waves during these periods. In one session he awakened a subject who was wailing and crying out during REM and confirmed his suspicion that dreaming was occurring.[4] In 1953 Aserinsky and his advisor published the ground-breaking study in Science.[5]
Dream theories
Activation-synthesis
In 1976, J. Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley proposed a new theory that changed dream research, challenging the previously held Freudian view of dreams as unconscious wishes to be interpreted. The activation synthesis theory asserts that the sensory experiences are fabricated by the cortex as a means of interpreting chaotic signals from the pons. They propose that in REM sleep, the ascending cholinergic PGO (ponto-geniculo-occipital) waves stimulate higher midbrain and forebrain cortical structures, producing rapid eye movements. The activated forebrain then synthesizes the dream out of this internally generated information. They assume that the same structures that induce REM sleep also generate sensory information.
Hobson and McCarly's 1976 research suggested that the signals interpreted as dreams originated in the brain stem during REM sleep. However, research by Mark Solms suggests that dreams are generated in the forebrain, and that REM sleep and dreaming are not directly related.[6] While working in the neurosurgery department at hospitals in Johannesburg and London, Solms had access to patients with various brain injuries. He began to question patients about their dreams and confirmed that patients with damage to the parietal lobe stopped dreaming; this finding was in line with Hobson's 1977 theory. However, Solms did not encounter cases of loss of dreaming with patients having brain stem damage. This observation forced him to question Hobson's prevailing theory which marked the brain stem as the source of the signals interpreted as dreams. Solms viewed the idea of dreaming as a function of many complex brain structures as validating Freudian dream theory, an idea that drew criticism from Hobson.[7] Unhappy about Holmes' attempts at discrediting him, Solms, along with partner Edward Nadar, undertook a series of traumatic-injury impact studies using several different species of primates, particularly howler monkeys, in order to more fully understand the role brain damage plays in dream pathology. Solms' experiments proved inconclusive, however, as the high mortality rate associated with using an hydraulic impact pin to artificially produce brain damage in test subjects meant that his final candidate pool was too small to satisfy the requirements of the scientific method.
Continual-activation
Combining Hobson's activation synthesis hypothesis with Solms's findings, the continual-activation theory of dreaming presented by Jie Zhang proposes that dreaming is a result of brain activation and synthesis; at the same time, dreaming and REM sleep are controlled by different brain mechanisms. Zhang hypothesizes that the function of sleep is to process, encode, and transfer the data from the temporary memory to the long-term memory, though there is not much evidence backing up this so-called "consolidation." Non-REM sleep processes the conscious-related memory (declarative memory), and REM sleep processes the unconscious related memory (procedural memory).
Zhang assumes that during REM sleep, the unconscious part of a brain is busy processing the procedural memory; meanwhile, the level of activation in the conscious part of the brain will descend to a very low level as the inputs from the sensory are basically disconnected. This will trigger the "continual-activation" mechanism to generate a data stream from the memory stores to flow through the conscious part of the brain. Zhang suggests that this pulse-like brain activation is the inducer of each dream. He proposes that, with the involvement of the brain associative thinking system, dreaming is, thereafter, self-maintained with the dreamer's own thinking until the next pulse of memory insertion. This explains why dreams have both characteristics of continuity (within a dream) and sudden changes (between two or more dreams).[8][9]
Dreams and memory
Eugen Tarnow suggests that dreams are ever-present excitations of long-term memory, even during waking life. The strangeness of dreams is due to the format of long-term memory, reminiscent of Penfield & Rasmussen’s findings that electrical excitations of the cortex give rise to experiences similar to dreams. During waking life an executive function interprets long term memory consistent with reality checking. Tarnow's theory is a reworking of Freud's theory of dreams in which Freud's unconscious is replaced with the long-term memory system and Freud's “Dream Work” describes the structure of long-term memory.[10]
Hippocampus and memory
A 2001 study showed evidence that illogical locations, characters, and dream flow may help the brain strengthen the linking and consolidation of semantic memories. These conditions may occur because, during REM sleep, the flow of information between the hippocampus and neocortex is reduced.[11] Increasing levels of the stress hormone cortisol late in sleep (often during REM sleep) cause this decreased communication. One stage of memory consolidation is the linking of distant but related memories. Payne and Nadel hypothesize that these memories are then consolidated into a smooth narrative, similar to a process that happens when memories are created under stress.[12]
Functional hypotheses
There are many hypotheses about the function of dreams, including:[13]
- During the night there may be many external stimuli bombarding the senses, but the mind interprets the stimulus and makes it a part of a dream in order to ensure continued sleep.[14] The mind will, however, awaken an individual if they are in danger or if trained to respond to certain sounds, such as a baby crying.
- Dreams allow the repressed parts of the mind to be satisfied through fantasy while keeping the conscious mind from thoughts that would suddenly cause one to awaken from shock.[15]
- Freud suggested that bad dreams let the brain learn to gain control over emotions resulting from distressing experiences.[13]
- Jung suggested that dreams may compensate for one-sided attitudes held in waking consciousness.[16]
- Ferenczi[17] proposed that the dream, when told, may communicate something that is not being said outright.
- Dreams are like the cleaning-up operations of computers when they are off-line, removing parasitic nodes and other "junk" from the mind during sleep.[18][19]
- Dreams create new ideas through the generation of random thought mutations. Some of these may be rejected by the mind as useless, while others may be seen as valuable and retained. Blechner[20] calls this the theory of "Oneiric Darwinism."
- Dreams regulate mood.[21]
- Hartmann[22] says dreams may function like psychotherapy, by "making connections in a safe place" and allowing the dreamer to integrate thoughts that may be dissociated during waking life.
- More recent research by Griffin has led to the formulation of the 'expectation fulfillment theory of dreaming', which suggests that dreaming metaphorically completes patterns of emotional expectation and lowers stress levels.[23][24]
- Coutts[25] hypothesizes that dreams modify and test mental schemas during sleep during a process he calls emotional selection, and that only schema modifications that appear emotionally adaptive during dream tests are selected for retention, while those that appear maladaptive are abandoned or further modified and tested.
- Dream is a product of "dissociated imagination", which is dissociated from conscious self and draws material from sensory memory for simulation, with sensory feedback resulting in hallucination. By simulating the sensory signals to drive the autonomous nerves, dream can effect mind-body interaction. In the brain and spine, the autonomous "repair nerves", which can expand the blood vessels, connect with pain and compression nerves, and are grouped into many chains called meridians by the Chinese. Dream also exploits the chain-reacting meridians to repair body by sending out very intensive movement-compression signals when the level of growth enzyme goes high. [26]
Dreams and psychosis
A number of thinkers have commented on the similarities between the phenomenology of dreams and that of psychosis. Features common to the two states include thought disorder, flattened or inappropriate affect (emotion), and hallucination. Among philosophers, Kant, for example, wrote that ‘the lunatic is a wakeful dreamer’.[27] Schopenhauer said: ‘A dream is a short-lasting psychosis, and a psychosis is a long-lasting dream.’[28]In the field of psychoanalysis, Freud wrote: ‘A dream then, is a psychosis’,[29]and Jung: ‘Let the dreamer walk about and act like one awakened and we have the clinical picture of dementia praecox.’[30]
McCreery[31][32] has sought to explain these similarities by reference to the fact, documented by Oswald,[33] that sleep can supervene as a reaction to extreme stress and hyper-arousal. McCreery adduces evidence that psychotics are people with a tendency to hyper-arousal, and suggests that this renders them prone to what Oswald calls ‘microsleeps’ during waking life. He points in particular to the paradoxical finding of Stevens and Darbyshire[34] that patients suffering from catatonia can be roused from their seeming stupor by the administration of sedatives rather than stimulants.