Research Paper

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:

1. 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?

1. 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.

2. 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.

1. 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:

1. Dreams are often available in our time of sleep but can still be viewed in our conscious state.
2. 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.
3. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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:

1. A person can log the dreams that he/she had during the sleeping state. This can help improve self awareness in the waking life.

2. 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.

3. 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