Theories on Why We Dream
Throughout the years many great people have studied and developed theories on why we dream, but the truth behind those theories are questionable. The fact is that even to this day, scientists really have no answer to why we dream. Even after countless hours studying sleep and dream behavior the best they can offer is another theory and some information about a persons state of mind while they are dreaming which to be honest, only leaves us wanting to know more.
So to better understand why we dream, we first have to understand what happens when we dream. According to Brady Riedner, a researcher with the UW-Madison Center for Sleep and Consciousness, “What we do know is that during dreaming sleep, the brain is just as active as it is during waking, but in a different way.” The University of Wisconsin-Madison followed up on Brady Riedner’s research by saying,
He explains that because the sleeping brain is mostly disconnected from the rest of the world, its activity can be more spontaneous, bouncing around to any number and combination of thoughts, in no apparent logical order. That’s why dreams – though seemingly very real – tend to progress in weird and unpredictable ways.
At the same time, dreams aren’t totally random. They often relate to events and thoughts from waking life. Why? Scientists know the brain’s structure is shaped by the stimuli it takes in while awake; for example, thoughts and experiences are known to strengthen the connections between certain neurons. Dreams, therefore, might merely be echoes of these daytime changes.
In reality, all of this makes sense. Dreams may simply be a reflection of the thoughts and activities we experience throughout the day, although many people would disagree with this completely. Consider the people that believe in spirituality and higher powers, may argue that dreams are a method of transporting our minds outside of our bodies or even a window into the past and/or future, which would also make sense from their prospective.
The problem with what I say above, is that it again brings us back to theory, nothing more. There is no evidence that would back up or coincide with what was said, they are only peoples thoughts on the subject. Which leads to me to the next portion of this article, theories on why we dream. Read over the theories below and decide which one you may be inclined to believe and let me know.
Theories on Why We Dream
Alfred Adler believed: “Dreams attempt to solve problems according to the individual style of life and they are not to be interpreted as common sense. It has been shown that the ancients always considered dreams in connection with a problem of life. That they were right in doing this is shown by the fact that the more satisfied a person becomes, that is, the less his problem disturbs him, the less he will dream. It has also been shown by Individual Psychology that in dreams we attempt to ‘fool’ ourselves. The two ideas are not contradictory. We fool ourselves into an inadequate solution of a problem, inadequate from the standpoint of common sense but adequate from the standpoint of the style of life. We do this by dismissing important facts and leaving only a small part of the problem which can, if everything is put into figurative form, be solved easily.”
Ernest Hartman believes: “Activation patterns are shifting and connections are being made and unmade constantly in our brains, forming the physical basis for our minds. There is a whole continuum in the making of connections that we subsequently experience as mental functioning. At one end of the continuum is focused waking activity, such as when we are doing an arithmetic problem or chasing down a fly ball in the outfield. Here our mental functioning is focused, linear and well-bounded. When we move from focused waking to looser waking thought–reverie, daydreaming and finally dreaming–mental activity becomes less focused, looser, more global and more imagistic. Dreaming is the far end of this continuum: the state in which we make connections most loosely.”
Sigmund Freud wrote in his book, “The Interpretation of Dreams” that: “Dreams are disguised fulfillments of repressed wishes.” “He also described two different components of dreams: manifest content and latent content. Manifest content is the actual images, thoughts and content contained within the dream, while the latent content is the hidden psychological meaning of the dream.”
Jung: “believed that archetypes such as the animus, the anima, the shadow and others manifested themselves in dreams, as dream symbols or figures. Such figures could take the form of an old man, a young maiden or a giant spider as the case may be. Each represents an unconscious attitude that is largely hidden to the conscious mind. Although an integral part of the dreamers psyche, these manifestations were largely autonomous and were perceived by the dreamer to be external personages. Acquaintance with the archetypes as manifested by these symbols serve to increase one’s awareness of unconscious attitudes, integrating seemingly disparate parts of the psyche and contributing to the process of holistic self understanding he considered paramount.”
“Jung also believed that material repressed by the conscious mind, postulated by Freud to comprise the unconscious, was similar to his own concept of the shadow, which in itself is only a small part of the unconscious.”
By now you should be able to see just how widely these dream theories tend to vary from expert to expert, which makes sense as to why no single person has the ability to point to a direct cause for dreaming. So what are your theories on why we dream, or which one of these theories do you lean more towards believing?
