DREAMS
Dream is a natural physiologic process of being in a condition with the minimum level of brain activity and lowered reaction at the environment. It is a subsequence of images that can be remembered by a human. First experience of rational interpretation of dreams refers to III-I millennium BC applied by such Greek philosophers as Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Artemidorus and others.
But the initial attempt to create a systematic psychological theory of dreams belongs to an Austrian psychologist, psychiatrist and neurologist Sigmund Freud who described this theory in his book “The interpretation of dreams” (1999). He distinguished between the manifest and latent contents of a dream, images appearing in dreamer’s mind and the symbolic meaning of a dream, respectively. Freud also considered that there existed a dream work which is aimed at transforming prohibited wish into a secure form. Dream work consists of displacement, which happens to be a transforming of people or objects in dreamer’s mind, (e.g. a relative in a dog etc.), condensation, which is the join of several images into one (e.g. a dream about the boy may be interpreted as a father or a lover) and elaboration, which happens when the dreamer sees images of his wish in a consequent system of events. A great philosopher has also regarded the dreams as the one that shows our real wishes and sexual fantasies. However, Freud believed that the dreams of a person cannot be interpreted correctly if one does not acquainted with his life conditions, relations, wishes etc.
Two psychiatrists from Harvard University John Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley (2005) proposed a hypothesis which is opposite to that of Freud. It is called the Activation-Synthesis Theory and proposes that dreams occur from the brain activity during the Rapid-eye-movement sleep (commonly accepted term for a stage of sleep with a random movement of the eyes). The theory regards the sleep as neuro-cognitive. According to this theory, brain is deactivated during the phase of sleep; it may also be described as the lack of awareness of the environment. During the state of dreaming our brain shows that is known due to numerous investigations and tests, a great activity, i.e. a dreaming person can be aware of where he/she is and what happens to him/her. Hobson and McCarley (1994) believed that the dream is a simply physical activity of the human brain and it is produced in the mind without any outside influence on it. During this phase, the dreamer’s brain cannot recognize its state that is why this theory contradicts the Freud’s theory of dreams interpretation, i.e. the external life factors (wishes, actions, circumstances) do not affect the mind during the dream phase. The scholars also distinguished four stages of sleep that show difference in brain activity process, each of these the relationship between two kinds of neuronal cells. Hobson wrote that his position about the dreams interpretation contradicts Freud’s theory because the Activation-Synthesis Theory regards dreams as random, undisguised and clear images rather than obscure and latent.
The Activation-Information-Mode (AIM) model of dreams should also be mentioned in the discussion of dream interpretation. It should be stated that there are changes in focus, intensity of consciousness during waking stage to non-rapid-eye-movement and rapid-eye-movement stages of sleep. The AIM model differentiates conscious states of brain activity through three values including chemical brain reactions at different stages: activation, which is the basis of intensity, input and output gating, which is the information focus basis and modulation, which is responsible for a mode of operation. The model uses them to define whether the stages of waking and dreaming are differed or similar. Three values of the whole process are connected between each other and act together consequently.
All the above mentioned theories and hypothesis should be supported by a dream example from life, which should be analyzed and described according to several models suggested by the scholars.
I had a dream recently in which my friend and I were going through a strange and dark building, the floor of which was covered with a drumly water. Three columns were in the hall of this buildings behind which were hiding girls laughing at us. My mind could recognize that wasn’t the reality and I wanted to awake.
According to the Freud’s theory, my dream may be interpreted as obscure and having latent content. The dream work in this case will include displacement (drumly water may be interpreted as a bad surrounding or people), condensation (the girls hiding behind the columns may be as friends as relatives laughing or envying me) and elaboration (my striving throughout the dream to awake may really mean my wish to avoid such people’s reaction at my actions or prevent such circumstances from happening).
The Activation-Synthesis Theory may be applied here because of my awareness of the real world and me having a dream, which explains that my brain was functioning through the dreaming phase.
And finally, the AIM model of dreams may suggest that my brain had underwent all three values proposed by the scholars, i.e. my waking-dreaming stage included the intensity, information focus and operation.
References
Freud, S., & Crick, J. (1999). The interpretation of dreams. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hobson, J. (1994). The chemistry of conscious states: How the brain changes its mind. Boston: Little, Brown.
Hobson, J. (2005). 13 dreams Freud never had: The new mind science. New York: Pi.
