PURPOSE
OF DREAMS IN A PERSON’S LIFE
A
Research Paper Presented to
The
Faculty of English Resource Center
Bachelor
of Arts in Multimedia Arts
Asia
Pacific College
#3
Humabon Place Magallanes, Makati
In
Partial Fulfillment
Of
the Requirements for the Course
ERESWRIT
– RESEARCH WRITING
MARK
DEXTER LAU
DECEMBER
2013
Chapter
I
INTRODUCTION
A.
Background of the Study
Dreams
always have a manifest and latent content. The manifest content is
what the dream seems to be saying. It is often bizarre and
nonsensical. The latent content is what the dream is really trying to
say. Dreams give us a look into our unconscious. Freud believes that
we can chip through the dream's manifest content to reveal the
underlying significance and it’s latent by utilizing the technique
of "free association". Using this technique, you start with
one dream symbol and then follow with what automatically comes to
your mind first. You continue in this manner and see where it leads.”
(http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory/freud2.htm)
Dreams
are mostly available at the time of sleep, in the state of Rapid Eye
Movement (REM). So what is REM? It can be taken literally because in
the moment of when a person is dreaming, her eye moves quickly. This
is the moment where the mind is working like it does in times of the
person is awake. Dreams can be good, bad, extraordinary, magical or
even frightening imagery.
Both
nightmares and dreams can help us become more aware of ourselves.
They bring strange ways of looking at things. They bring new
perspectives, and in that way the dream is very creative
The
researcher aims to find the connection between dream and waking life,
on how does the dream affects a person's life or vice versa.
Having
background information on the benefits of dreams in a person's waking
life will help people understand of how important their dream is and
be knowledgeable of the dreams that the people are having, on how
does dreams affects the daily life of a person and how does a dream
becomes a good factor in improving self awareness.
This
research aims to determine the benefits of dreams to a person's life.
B.
Statement of the Problem
This
study aims to answer this question:
- What are the purpose of dreams in a person’s life?
C.
Significance of the Study
Future
Researchers. This
research
aims to help future
researchers with their study about dreams since there is not much
research that can be browsed through the internet.
People
who are experiencing nightmares.
In this research I will also be tackling about how dreams affects our
daily lives and how does our daily lives affects our dreams, this
research will be helpful for those who are not informed with how do
they get rid of their nightmares.
Students
who are Majoring in Psychology.
This research may be helpful to the students of any school studying
in Bachelor of Science in Psychology especially for those who wants
to know more about the unconscious mind and dream.
D.
Scope and Delimitations
This
study focuses on the purpose of dreams in a person’s life. The
topic of dream intrigues us because of its being too abstract and
illusive.
Due
to time constraints this study will no longer discuss the all other
kinds of dreams. Examples are waking dream, recurring dream and epic
dream. This will also give emphasis to the dreams that will help a
person with problems, stress and self improvement.
Resources
of the research will focus
more people ages 17 to 21 due to the time constraints.
E.
Material and Methods
This
research employs a Descriptive method since the researcher aims to
describe purpose of a person’s dream that’s age are up to 17 to
21. This method is the process of gathering analyzing, classifying
and tabulating about prevailing conditions, trends, processes… and
making adequate and accurate interpretation about the data.
F.
Definition of Terms
Dreams.
successions of , ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur
involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.
Nightmare.
A dream that doesn’t match our concept of a good or ideal scenario
Déjà vu. A
repitition of event, it might be from an experience or from a dream
Epic Dream. The
dream that invokes strong emotion from the moment of waking up
Precognitive Dream. A
dream of the future
Psychic Dream/Prophetic Dream.
Almost the same as
precognitive dream but the only difference is it actually happened in
the waking life
Sleeping.
The deepest rest, and a state where a person’s nervous system is
inactive or in rest.
Waking Life. It
is the state where the person is awake. Opposite of Sleep.
Unconscious Mind.
The state where to psychic activities take over, the unconsciousness
of a person triggers mostly when a person is in a deep sleep.
Conscious Mind. Conscious
mind or consciousness is active when a person is awake and when he is
in the state of waking life.
Chapter 2
DISCUSSION
What is the purpose of dreams in a
person’s life?
- Types of Dreams
A. Lucid Dream
Lucid
Dream is one of the best kind of dream that a person can have. It is
the capability to control a dream, and in this dream the host of the
dream or the dreamer can create projections of the things that he
want or even a person that the dreamer wants to be company with. As
browsing trough the internet the researcher have found a blog
entitled “The Benefits
of Lucid Dreaming” by
Rebecca Turner.
The blog is about how can a lucid dream enhance the creativity of a
person and its problem solving skills.
Once
you learn the basics of lucid dreaming, you can solve problems on
demand - and on a whole new level. That's because you are not limited
by your logical conscious brain. Instead, you can solve problems
creatively in a 3D environment, or by drawing deeper insights
directly from your subconscious mind. Just ask any question to your
lucid dream and wait for the answer.
(http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/benefits-of-lucid-dreaming.html)
Good thing about having a control
over a dreams is that the person can practice the connection between
the conscious and subconscious mind, and it does not limit the
relationship of the two in dreams, once mastered in can still help in
the waking life. For example will be the memory recall, because the
80 percent of the memories are stored in a person's unconscious mind
it will be easier to recall a lost memory and use old knowledge to
apply to a new problem.
B. Precognitive Dream
Precognitive Dream is associated
with psychic dream or prophetic dream and have something to do with
Déjà vu, it is a person having a dream of something that might
happen in the future. It can be a death, tragedy or events. In an
article by Rebecca Turner
titled “Precognitive
Dreams” She stated that
“We all have intuitive
dreams like this. They express our innermost hopes and fears based on
subconscious information that we may or may not be repressing. There
is nothing paranormal about precognitive dreams.”
In the said so article, Rebecca Turner is trying to point out that
precognitive dream is just something that happen in random, it can be
that someone will dream about bombing of a place or death of someone.
The effect of these kinds of dreams
are based on the dreamer on how they would react to it in the waking
life, some would freak out and be alarmed in everything that might
happen in the real life but some person will just ignore it besides,
dreams are too abstract and too random, it doesn't really happen like
the way it is in real life, it needs to be decoded to get its meaning
not taken literally.
Rebecca Turner also talked about
the reports of people who dreamed of the sinking of titanic and she
commented “having dreams
that predict the future is all a numbers game: there are 6.5 billion
people on this planet, each having an average of five dreams per
night. In turn, those dreams support multiple dream themes, such as
sinking ships or airplane crashes. It is therefore highly likely that
many thousands of people will dream about a sinking ship on any given
night.”
(http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/precognitive-dreams.html)
In the researcher's own opinion it
can really be just coincidental that many people have dreamed of the
titanic sinking just like what Turner have said and way back at that
time the titanic was so popular and some employees even mocked that
even God cannot sink the ship, that issue might have made it more
possible that many people will dreamed of the ship sinking because of
the issue.
C. Epic Dream
Epic Dream is one of the greatest
dream a person can have. There is an article about Epic Dream titled
“Epic Dreams” from Dreamdictionary The Article is
about the benefits of epic dreams, it is stated that an epic dream is
a dream that is life changing unlike any other dream it will be
remembered for a long period of time or maybe for a lifetime. The
feeling of an epic dream is also described in the said article.
You
feel a sense of enlightenment an overdose of positive energy flowing
through your entire body. Most people would describe the feeling as
if they won a million bucks the moment the moment they wake up. Some
feel that they have had somewhat of an unexplainable life change.
Epic dreams are so vivid that you will be able to remember them years
down the road or sometimes your whole life. These types of dreams
don’t happen very often but when they do its worth going to sleep.
(www.dreamdictionary.org/epic-dreams.htm)
An epic dream can be something
really magical or something that the dreamer had been wishing for a
long time, that a specific dream meets all the desires of the dreamer
it became so great for the person to the point that at the moment the
dreamer wakes up, he can feel all the positiveness of life and
everything that surrounds him/her.
- Dream Theorist
A. Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud is the best know
person when you talk about dream. An article entitled “Dream
Theorist” by Dream moods. The article talks about
Sigmund Freud's theory about dream Freud suggests that the dream
projects a person’s unconscious desires, thoughts, motivation and
dreams. And also according to his theory all the suppressed emotions
are released in a person’s dream such as sexual desires and anger,
things that are not expressed in the conscious state. Freud also
suggested that this suppressed emotions finds their way into our
dreams to let it out so our mind can breathe from these emotions. And
Freud also stated that “When you are awake, the impulses and
desires of the id are suppressed by the superego. Through dreams, you
are able to get a glimpse into your unconscious or the id. Because
your guards are down during the dream state, your unconscious has the
opportunity to act out and express the hidden desires of the id.
However, the desires of the id can, at times, be so disturbing and
even psychologically harmful that a "censor" comes into
play and translates the id's disturbing content into a more
acceptable symbolic form. This helps to preserve sleep and prevent
you from waking up shocked at the images. As a result, confusing and
cryptic dream images occur.”
“When you are awake, the
impulses and desires of the id are suppressed by the superego.
Through dreams, you are able to get a glimpse into your unconscious
or the id. Because your guards are down during the dream state, your
unconscious has the opportunity to act out and express the hidden
desires of the id. However, the desires of the id can, at times, be
so disturbing and even psychologically harmful that a "censor"
comes into play and translates the id's disturbing content into a
more acceptable symbolic form. This helps to preserve sleep and
prevent you from waking up shocked at the images. As a result,
confusing and cryptic dream images occur”
(http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory.htm)
With Sigmund Freud's theory in dream
It was really convincing but there is only one problem for the
researcher believes that dreams are not just about the unconscious,
it is a mixture of the conscious mind and the unconscious because a
person dreams about the things that the person is actually thinking
of during his/her conscious state or waking life and the unconscious
mixes with the memories of the desires and suppressed emotions.
B. Carl Jung
Carl Jung the student of Sigmund
Freud almost have the same concept when it comes to dreams but they
differ in one thing. It is that Carl Jung thinks that in dreams it is
not just animalistic, sexual and instictual, it is also spiritual.
According to the article in dreammoods entitled “Dream
Theorist” Carl Jung believes that things in our dreams are the
opposition of what a person is really into because in the dream state
the ego is inactive so that the counter ego is taking in charge of
the imagery and illusions in the dream.
“dreams are a way of
communicating and acquainting yourself with the unconscious. Dreams
are not attempts to conceal your true feelings from the waking mind,
but rather they are a window to your unconscious. They serve to guide
the waking self to achieve wholeness and offer a solution to a
problem you are facing in your waking life.”
(http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory.htm)
There maybe times that a dream can
solve a person's problems in the waking life but most of the time,
no. But, in the part where Carl Jung said that the dreams are window
to a person's unconscious the researcher agrees because the dream
projects the place, people, events and things that was inside our
unconscious mind and sometimes mixes these things to create something
new.
C. Alfred Adler
Alfred Adler is also a dream
theorist that worked with Sigmund Freud but they never came up with
the same conclusion and theories about dreams. As browsing trough the
internet the researcher have found an article entitled “Alfred
Adler on Dreams” By K. Kennedy. The article was about
Adler's theory that dreams are not about the conscious and
subconscious, it is just the awake and asleep. Adler believed that
the more dreams we have means the more problem we have and if we
dream less, that means we are happier in the waking life compared to
those who dreams a lot.
Dreams are an open pathway toward
your true thoughts, emotions and actions. In your dreams, you clearly
see your aggressive impulses and desires. Dreams are also a way of
overcompensating for the shortcomings in your waking life.
(http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory/adler.htm)
In our dream, a person may have more
guts to do something good, bad or crazy without even noticing that it
was just a dream. Dream can really be a great factor in reducing
stress because it is easier for a person to release anger, love and
stress in the sleeping stage.
- Benefits of Dreams
A. Physical Benefits
Anxiety
has been a great factor that affects people of of their daily lives,
As of this moment the current earth population is 7.131 billion and
two thirds of the 57 million adults who are suffering from anxiety
are women according to Harvard
Health Publications it is
stated “Research on the
physiology of anxiety-related illness is still young, but there's
growing evidence of mutual influence between emotions and physical
functioning. Yet anxiety often goes unidentified as a source of other
disorders, such as substance abuse or physical addiction, that can
result from attempts to quell feelings of anxiety. And it's often
overlooked in the myriad symptoms of chronic conditions like
irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or migraine headache.”
(http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Womens_Health_Watch/2008/July/Anxiety_and_physical_illness)
So what does this anxiety can do in
a person's health? Many illnesses now can be said that it is caused
by anxiety, for example are heart disease, respiratory disorder and
many other. If not treated the anxiety may be harder to be cured than
compared to the physical illness it produced.
There is an article by Christina
Sponias titled “Health
Benefits of Dream Interpretation”
The article was about how to cure anxiety with the use of dream
interpretation and therapy. Sponias also stated that “Through
dream translation we can also diagnose strange diseases and
understand their origin. Many unexplained symptoms are comprehended
when we analyze our life biography in parallel with the meaning of
our dreams because we discover what provokes them. We understand why
we are sick and what we have to do in order to stop suffering.”
(http://www.divinecaroline.com/self/wellness/health-benefits-dream-interpretation)
Many are suffering from anxiety,
some are becoming worst because of lack of knowledge and many people
don't even know that trough dream they can cure this illness before
it leads to a more serious problem.
B. Mental Benefits
In dreaming there are many benefits
specially in a person's mental health. An article about the dream's
benefit titled “The Health Benefits of Dreams” by Neil
Osterweil. It is stated there that dreams can be a huge factor of
dealing with problems like divorce and depression.
In the article Osterweil stated
that “Among humans,
dreaming may also help alleviate depression. In sleep studies of
recently divorced women with untreated clinical depression,
Cartwright and colleagues found that patients who recalled dreams and
incorporated the ex-spouse or relationship into their dreams scored
better on tests of mood in the morning. And they were much more
likely to recover from depression than others who either did not
dream about the marriage or could not recall their dreams.”
(http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/benefits-of-lucid-dreaming.html)
Having
a dream is also having an experience, sometimes dealing with people a
person hates in their dreams can make a difference in his/her life or
even with the things that bothers a person's whole day, if that
person don't have the guts to deal with an specific even or problem
the unconscious mind will find a way to bring it out of the dream.
Because dreams can be a medicine or treatment to those who are
bothered by some reality that they cannot even face in their waking
life.
CHAPTER 3
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS
AND RECOMMENDATIONS
SUMMARY
This
paper attempted to determine the purpose of dreams in a person’s
life.
The
research design used in this study is the descriptive research method
where in data from documents. The research findings are the
following:
- Dreams are often available in our time of sleep but can still be viewed in our conscious state.
- Dreams can also be a factor in solving our problems in the waking life, while in the state of sleep the dream suggests some of the possible approach we can make to handle an specific situation.
- Dream itself can be a therapy for a person, it is essential for a person’s well-being. It helps us with our physical, emotional and spiritual life.
CONCLUSIONS
Based
on the finding of this study, the conclusions are drawn:
- Dreams are the window to our unconscious mind; it reveals us of what we are, what we want to do and what we want to be.
- Dreams should not be taken too lightly because it represents something in our life, reflect to what we see in our dreams it may help us with our problems. The dream can be a therapy for the problems we are facing at the moment and dreams can be a way to let out of the anger, love, lust and every emotion that is suppressed to make us less stressed in the waking life.
RECOMMENDATIONS
After
drawing the conclusions of the study, the researchers hereby make the
following suggestions/recommendations:
- A person can log the dreams that he/she had during the sleeping state. This can help improve self awareness in the waking life.
- Take down notes to increase dream recall and it can be a way to know more about oneself because the dream is the product of the unconscious mind and it is the time where a person can see the projection of what the brain thinks of a person's personality.
- People needs to work trough their unresolved emotions in the waking life to avoid nightmares
References:
Electronic Media
Neil Osterweil(February 25, 2009)
“The Health Benefit of Dreams” Retrieved December 13, 2013 from
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/features/the-health-benefits-of-dreams
Resemary Ellen Guiley (July 08,
2013) "Benefits of Dreams" Retrieved December 13, 2013 from
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2013/07/08
G. William Domhoff "The Purpose
of Dreams" Retrieved December 12, 2013 from
http://www2.ucsc.edu/dreams/Library/purpose.html
Kendra Cherry "Why Do We
Dream?" Retrieved December 12, 2013 from
http://psychology.about.com/od/statesofconsciousness/p/dream-theories.htm
Kendra Cherry "Dream
Interpretation: What Do Dreams Mean?" Retrieved December 12,
2013 from
http://psychology.about.com/od/statesofconsciousness/p/dream-interpret.htm
"Dream theorists"
Retrieved December 12, 2013 from
http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory.htm
"Dream" Retrieved November
5, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream
February 22, 2009 "When
Dreaming Is Believing: Dreams Affect People's Judgment, Behavior"
Retrieved December 2, 2013 from
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090217125544.htm
Kendra Cherry “Why Do We Dream” Retrieved December 14, 2013 from
http://psychology.about.com/od/statesofconsciousness/p/dream-theories.htm
Rebecca Turner
“The Benefits of Lucid Dreaming” Retrieved December 14. 2013 from
http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/benefits-of-lucid-dreaming.html
Harvard Medical
School “Anxiety and Physical Illness” Retrieved December 13, 2013
from
http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Womens_Health_Watch/2008/July/Anxiety_and_physical_illness
Christina Sponias “Health Benefits
of Dream Interpretation” Retrieved December 13, 2013 from
http://www.divinecaroline.com/self/wellness/health-benefits-dream-interpretation
K.Kennedy “Alfred on Dreams”
Retrieved December 12, 2013 from
http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory/adler.htm
