FREE ESSAY ON DREAMS

DREAMS

DREAMS
Dreaming is an experience that has fascinated people for a very long time. Although
researches about dreams have been limited in the past, it has developed tremendously in
its field of science. There are many explanations why people dream, but there are three
main theoretical explanations for why there is dreaming: the biological view, the
cognitive view, and the psychoanalytic view. I will be assessing a dream of my own, using
all three perspectives. All three views have been debated thoroughly in the past, but it
is the psychoanalytic view that has created the most attention to me. In the end, I will
show why I find the psychoanalytic view most valuable. 
I recently had a very simple dream of going fishing with my dad at a lake. The dream was
very vivid, in that I went through a series of steps. The initial step was setting up the
fishing gear, the second step was the actual fishing, and the last step was catching
fish. I frequently have this dream and it has reoccurred throughout my life. Maybe
dissecting my dream with these three theories will help explain why I dream of this so
frequently. 
Perhaps one of the most important discoveries for neurobiology of dreams occurred in
1953. It was the discovery of the "rapid eye movement"(REM)(Piero, 3). REM is a stage of
sleep marked by rapid eye movements, high frequency brain waves, and dreaming (Huffman,
144). It is this stage that influenced the coming of the first theory I will talk about,
the biological view or also known as the activation-synthesis hypothesis. It was Alan
Hobson and Robert W. McCarley in 1977, who showed that most physiological and cognitive
characteristics of REM sleep are associated with the same brainstem physiological control
system that activates body and mind in the waking state (Antrobus, 2). In other words as
certain cells in the sleep center of the brain stem are activated during REM sleep, the
brain struggles to make sense out of random stimulation by manufacturing dreams (Huffman,
147). So when I dreamt of fishing on a lake with my dad, my brain was just processing an
experience when I was in my "waking" state. This seems logical because I frequently go
fishing, therefore explaining why I would dream of this particular situation. 
The second theory explaining dreams is the cognitive view. The cognitive view states that
dreams are a form of information processing, that help people sift and sort our
experiences, solve problems, and think creatively. That dreams are an extension of
everyday life-a form of thinking during sleep (Huffman, 150). One way this view may be
applied to my dream was that my brain was trying to solve a problem. The information that
it is trying to sort out is how to catch a fish in my dream. It is very clear the steps
that I go through are in order to solve a problem. It goes through clear steps of special
techniques while fishing and certain setups of the fishing line. These two are very
important while fishing that could be the difference between having no fishes to a lot at
the end of the day. This would explain why I am constantly dreaming of fishing. I am
trying to figure out how to catch a lot of fish.
One of the oldest and I find most interesting theory is the psychoanalytic view or called
wish fulfillment theory. This theory was presented by Freud, which suggests that dreams
are disguised symbols of repressed desires and anxieties (Huffman, 149). What I find
interesting about this theory is how it believes that dreams have a direct relationship
with people's wishes. Unfortunately, most people focus on the "content" of dreams than
the "form" of dreaming. This would impact Freud's work because scientist were looking for
the "meaning", rather than for the "source"(Piero, 3). I find this theory most valuable
because if the "source" is suppressed anxieties, and the dreams help your body relieve
some, it is very important or else one might have a breakdown.
Reasons why I may have manifested fishing on a lake could possibly mean that I am
releasing some suppressed desires. Something that would have provoked me to dream of
fishing would be because I have not gone fishing lately due to schooling. This longing to
go fishing may have created a desire that would carry to my dreams. So then, the latent
content or true meaning of the dream is my suppressed anger towards not being able to go
fishing anymore. 
Recently new findings were uncovered to give some truth behind Freud's hypothesis. Using
positron emission topography (PET), Allen Braun of the National Institute of Deafness and
other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) found that the limbic and paralimbic regions of the
brain were highly active during REM sleep. In addition areas of the prefrontal cortex,
were inactive (Carpenter, 2). There are many parts of this research that may help support
Freud's theory. "The data are consistent with a number of elements of classical Freudian
theory," Braun says. 
Still many people are skeptical to these new finding. But it is still exciting to see the
advancements of the research. All three theories are very important in that they help
provide a path to new discoveries in this infant field of dreams.
Bibliography
Huffman, Vernoy, and Judith Vernoy. Psychology in Action.
New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1987.
Piero, Scaruffi. 
http://www.scaruffi.com/~scaruffi/science/dreaming.htm 1998.
Antrobus, John. Dream Theory 1997: Toward a Computational 
Neurocognitive Model. http://bisleep.medsch.ucla.edu/srs/antrobus.html. 1997.
Carpenter, Siri. American Psychological Association (APA), 
http://www.apa.org/monitor/sc4.html. 1999.