Dreams (Psychology)

In this essay, I compare the psychoanalytic approaches to dream interpretation taken by Lacan and Jung, respectively.  I begin by introducing the point that Lacan and Jung may have more to say to one another than most realize.  Section I discusses Lacan’s contention that the unconscious is structured like a language.  Specifically, I begin by providing a detailed account of the traumatic events surrounding the birth of the unconscious as Lacan appears to understand it, paying close attention throughout to Freud’s influence on his theory; after presenting the appropriate context, I proceed to explore the linguistic elements of the unconscious as they operate in dreams.  In Part II, I consider Jung’s theory of the unconscious and pay close attention to the creative and teleological aspects of archetypes as it relates to myths and dreams.  In my concluding section, I present important and, perhaps, previously unconsidered similarities between each thinker.

From the ancient times onwards, the definition and the concept of dreams have always been open to discussions and various interpretations. They have been defined as the messages we receive from the macrocosms(heavens or the forces warning us from up above) until Freud disbanded their stereotypical perception by which they were considered as the reflection of individual's hidden self and all undisclosed desires. Before that time of the crucial breakdown about dreams, the approach towards it was a way more primitive and metaphysical one, leading the individual to observe them as a message, a lesson to be learned, and a more meaningful term rather than a flash memory card which is to reveal our obscurity, as some of us still utilize them with that manner. Until this shift of perception, dreams have also been the indispensible element for literature, guiding the characters to recognitions or simply affecting them in all terms, especially in Shakespeare's plays. So this paper is going to extend the title and analize the "dream" as a vital element by means of Shakespearean drama, with regards to Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar and Macbeth. Biography: Sena Hilal Zaganor is a third-grade student at the department of Western Languages and Literatures at Kocaeli University. She participated in the 5 th Student Conference at Karadeniz Technical University in May 18, 2016 with a paper titled "Romanticism and Christianity in Rime of the Ancient Mariner". She is one of the board members of the English Language and Literature Club at Kocaeli University. Her literary concerns are poetry, drama, English Romantic Poetry, English Gothic Literature, Renaissance art and subconscious through poetry and she also studies works of Shakespeare as an undergraduate student this year, which has a significant impact on her to attend the conference which will be held this year.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: This work assesses the prevalence and development of disturbing dreams among adolescents and the association of these dreams with anxiety. DESIGN: Sex differences in prevalence were analyzed with chi-square analyses. Changes over time were assessed with Wilcoxon tests and cross-tabulation tables. Associations with anxiety and DSM-III-R symptoms were assessed with ANOVA designs. SETTING: N/A PARTICIPANTS: A total of 610 boys and girls rated their recall of disturbing and normal dreams at both 13 and 16 years of age. Subgroups of subjects were evaluated for anxiety symptoms at age 13 and for DSM-III-R symptoms of separation anxiety (SA), overanxious disorder (OD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) at age 16. INTERVENTIONS: N/A MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: The recall of disturbing dreams was more prevalent for girls than for boys at both ages, and increased over time for girls while it decreased for boys. The recall of normal dreams was also more prevalent for girls at both ages, but this difference could not fully account for the difference in recall of disturbing dreams. Normal dream recall increased from age 13 to 16 for both sexes. The frequent occurrence of disturbing dreams was associated with anxiety at age 13 and with GAD, SA and OD symptoms at age 16 for both sexes. Evidence of more numerous OD symptoms for girls with frequent disturbing dreams suggests that this form of anxiety may partially account for the observed sex difference in disturbing dream prevalence. CONCLUSIONS: The findings highlight a prevalence of disturbing dreams that is especially marked for adolescent girls. Unlike previous cross-sectional studies, which have found the same sex difference, this longitudinal design also calls attention to within-subjects changes in disturbing dream recall. The results also confirm that the frequent recall of disturbing dreams is associated with pathological symptoms of trait anxiety-apparently even as young as 13 years of age. Further study of disturbing dreams may contribute to understanding of associated pathophysiological factors which, too, vary by sex (e.g., PTSD, insomnia, depression).

Rokas Sinkevičius. Death-predicting Dreams in the Memoirs of Freedom Fighters and Their Relatives

Original source: http://www.istorijoszurnalas.lt/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=535&Itemid=510

This work focuses on the stories about death-predicting dreams in the memoirs of freedom fighters and their relatives. A historically specific group of memoirs was selected for this study – i.e. memoirs related to the liberation movement of the 1940s-50s in Lithuania or, more exactly, related to the people who participated in this movement – freedom fighters, their liaison assistants, supporters, and relatives. Dream images that are considered ominous are compared with their counterparts in the wider tradition of dream interpretation. The studied individuals’ dreams are interpreted in the context of these people’s biographies and psychological condition. Death-predicting dreams are analyzed by applying the descriptive, interpretive, and comparative techniques.

The majority of dream interpretations are closely associated with a long-standing folk tradition based on beliefs and customs. A number of these interpretations use images associated with funeral rites and symbolism of black and white colours.

The deceased individuals seen in a dream may have wound marks, and yet they behave and communicate as if they were alive. The interpretations of the deceased people’s behaviour usually correspond to traditional meanings. The dead may call the persons who dream about them to themselves, to lie down beside them – but may also push them away.

Various dream narratives are characterized by a relationship between the contents of the dream and the dreamer’s psychological and physical condition and feelings.

    Key words: death, prognostic dreams, dream narratives, dream interpretations, freedom fighters.

This forthcoming paper (July 2016) will explore the many psychological “uses” of film by a society – including by psychotherapists.

Wilfred Bion's concept of alpha function - which he sometimes called "Narrative Alpha" (see, for example, his Cogitations) plays an important role in the development of cognitive-emotional imagination.

The paper concludes that, these days, cinema is the closest we have to large group dreaming – where we, as a society, make some vital contact with our unconscious life of mind.

Christopher Nolan’s films are narratives of alternative realities and metamorphosing multiple subjectivities. His films include Following (1998), Memento (2000), Insomnia (2002), Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Interstellar (2014). Nonlinear narrative structure, flashbacks, existential angst and sociological ideas, identity crisis and
fragmented subjectivity, self deception, unreliability of the human memory, metafictive elements, ambiguous endings and morally ambiguous characters are the major characteristics of his films. The line between reality and fantasy is blurred in Nolan’s films which puts his protagonists in difficult situations. Nolan’s filmmaking style is influenced by the film genres like noir, sci-fi, psychological thriller and crime drama. Nolan’s films Memento and Inception explore the wide range of possibilities of postmodern filmic narratives. Memento tells the story of Leonard Shelby, a man suffering from anterograde amnesia, searching for his wife’s murderer. Inception tells the story of Dom Cobb, a corporate espionage and estranged father who can steal valuable information from persons’ psyche by entering into their dreams, trying to return home to his children. The action of these films is related to the reliability of the memory/dream of the narrator and the protagonist-narrators’ inability to differentiate between reality and illusion.

[AMAZON LINK BELOW TO BOOK ITSELF -- TOC and book intro in downloadable .pdf] 

"It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it." --John Steinbeck Scientific research confirms what people have always known: answers, ideas, and inspiration do come to us in dreams. Harvard psychologist and world-renowned dream specialist Deirdre Barrett, Ph.D., offers this rich collection of examples of how the world's most creative practitioners in art, music, film, science, literature and other fields have used the revelations of their dream life to inform their work. Dr. Barrett offers insights showing us how to encourage lucid, meaningful dreaming, and how to apply the meanings of our dreams to solving problems--from the everyday to the extraordinary. This is the stuff dreams are made of. In the visual arts, Jasper Johns couldn't find his unique artistic vision until he dreamed it in the form of a large American flag. Salvador Dali and his colleagues built the startling new genre of surrealism out of dreams. Kubla Kahn dreamed the design for his stately pleasure dome; thousands of years later, Lucy Davis, chief architect at a major firm, continues the tradition of dreaming designs into life in her extraordinary buildings. Film is a fertile avenue for dreams: "Twice I have transferred dreams to film exactly as I had dreamed them," confides director Ingmar Bergman, as have Federico Fellini, Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Robert Altman, and John Sayles. From Mary Shelley's terrible nightmare, which became Frankenstein, to Stephen King's haunting dream as a little boy, which led to his first bestseller, countless writers have consulted the Committee. Musicians from Beethoven to Billy Joel and Paul McCartney have whistled the Committee's tunes. In science, physiologist Otto Loewi dreamed the medical experiment that earned him the Nobel Prize. In sports, Marion Jones dreamed she'd broken a world record, then brought the dream to life. Gandhi translated his dream of resistance into a movement that changed the world. Since Freud, we take it for granted that our dreams reflect our past. In The Committee of Sleep, Barrett reveals how dreams can also tell us about our future potential--and how to reach it.

Eine Auswahl an Forschungsergebnissen rund um die Thematik des Umgangs mit Erinnerungen an Träume in der Psychotherapie – umgangsprachlich überwiegend „Arbeiten mit Träumen“ genannt – soll einesteils einen Einblick in die aktuelle Forschungslandschaft gewähren, zum anderen zur Selbstreflexion anregen. Persönliche wie berufliche Erfahrungen können dabei mit der einen oder anderen Darstellung abgeglichen werden und möglicherweise gestalttheoretisch-psychotherapeutisch relevante Forschungsfragen aufwerfen.

Dreams during pregnancy were collected from post-partum women on the maternity ward of an Israeli hospital. Our data indicate that primipara women and women with complicated obstetrical histories were more likely to report increased dreaming during pregnancy.

[AMAZON LINK BELOW TO BOOK ITSELF
-- TOC and book summary in downloadable .pdf] 
According to the poet Elias Canetti, "All the things one has forgotten / scream for help in dreams." To the ancient Egyptians they were prophecies, and in world folklore they have often marked visitations from the dead. For Freud they were expressions of "wish fulfillment," and for Jung, symbolic representations of mythical archetypes. Although there is still much disagreement about the significance and function of dreams, they seem to serve as a barometer of current mind and body states.

In this volume, Deirdre Barrett brings together the study of dreams and the psychology of trauma. She has called on a distinguished group of psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers--among them Rosalind Cartwright, Robert J. Lifton, and Oliver Sacks--to consider how trauma shapes dreaming and what the dreaming mind might reveal about trauma. The book focuses on catastrophic events, such as combat, political torture, natural disasters, and rape. The lasting effects of childhood trauma, such as sexual abuse or severe burns, on personality formation, the nature of memories of early trauma, and the development of defenses related to amnesia and dissociation are all considered. The book also takes up trauma and adult dreams, including Vietnam veterans and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Holocaust survivors and perpetrators, rape victims, and firestorm survivors. Finally, this volume concludes with a look at the potential "traumas of normal life," such as divorce, bereavement, and life-threatening illness, and the role of dreams in working through normal grief and loss.

Taken together, these diverse perspectives illuminate the universal and the particular effects of traumatic experience. For physicians and clinicians, determining the etiology of nightmares offers valuable diagnostic and therapeutic insights for individual treatment. This book provides a way of juxtaposing the research in the separate fields of trauma and dreams, and learning from their discoveries.

Individuals with acute onset nightmare disorder are often not amenable to standard techniques for working with dreams, such as symbolic interpretation of dream symbols. Sufferers tend to concrete thinking; and the dream content is often too frightening to allow for the psychic distance necessary for such interventions. Sleep-inducing medication, while managing current sleep deprivation, tends to destroy he dream and the content of its urgent 'message." What is needed, therefore, is a more direct "crisis intervention" approach which reduces dream anxiety, without destroying the dream as a compelling symbolic message. Techniques of  lucid dreaming are described along with case study.

Novelist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston experienced a recurrent dream throughout her life, beginning in childhood. The dream consisted of about twelve "scenes" which she understood as prophesying important moments of her life. In this article I consider the origin of the dream, its function in her life, the apparent relation of the dream contents to her waking life, and alternate versions of the important final scene of the dream. Hurston's dream likely originated out of the tension between the young Hurston's high intelligence, imaginativeness, and ambition, on the one hand, and the highly restrictive environment in which she lived, on the other. The dream seems to have functioned as a personal mythical narrative, which gave an overall sense of value and heroic purpose to Hurston's life.

This draft shows how the Biblical Daniel developed as a metaphorical "Jungian Analyst" and dream interpreter based on Jung's distinction between "big" dreams and 'personal" dreams. Daniel's first challenge is to interpret the dream of the King which he has forgotten. In the latter part of the Book of Daniel, he has number of numinous, overwhelming dreams which angel Gabriel explains to him within the dream

The issue concerning the validity of recovered memories has been debated for a considerable period of time.  Indeed, mental health professionals from both sides of the spectrum adhere to their stance, that is, either for or against the validity of memories recovered from mental health patients.  As far as this writer is concerned, based on critical thinking and thoroughly examining both sides of this ever debatable issue, there is strong evidence to refute the authenticity of recovered memories as a result of therapy as well as the associated ethical issues of utilizing recovered memories in criminal or civil proceedings

Poster presented at the International Association for the Study of Dreams, 34th Annual International Conference, June 16-20, 2017. The poster outlines a study on avatar animation of dreamer motor behavior from electromyography collected at the University of Texas, Austin, Cognitive Neuroscience Lab in 2016.

Freudian discourses assert the nature of one's dreams to be revealing of that which remains unresolved or that which has not been properly addressed. These discourses also designate dreams as avenues of growth-that is, when analyzed and examined appropriately, dreams can be telling of the dimensions of one's personality that require further examination, subsequently allowing the individual to learn from, and about, themselves. In addition to providing an extra sensory perception of sorts, dreams, then, also operate as personal pedagogical tools. This pedagogy, unfortunately, is not exempt from internal or external influence(s), or what Freud refers to as stimuli. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud outlines four sources of stimuli that direct the dreaming process, two of which are the external sensory stimuli (the objective), and the internal sensory stimuli (the subjective); he goes on to state that it is widely understood that dreams are the culmination of several influences (Freud 31). This culmination, particularly with regards to the objective and the subjective sensory stimuli, is best exemplified in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, through the character of Antoinette. Socially underdeveloped as a result of only ever knowing herself in relation to other people (an issue addressed throughout in this work), Antoinette cannot find it in herself to be properly self-reflexive or self-examining, and thus Rhys situates her dreams at pivotal moments in the novel at instances where such examination is crucial. The absence of the self-examining action in her wakeful existence (or what may be regarded as "the real world",

Summary. Empirical studies largely support the continuity hypothesis of dreaming. The present study investigated the frequency and the emotional tone of dreams of hairdressers. A relationship was found between daytime mood (job satisfaction) and dream emotions. Low life satisfaction, on the other hand, was related to a heightened frequency of work-related dreams. It would be promising to study persons with different professions (stressful and demanding jobs) in order to study the effect of work-related variables and dreaming.

Can dreams and dreaming open access to alternative ways of knowing and being? The following description of dream epistemologies and quasi-dreamlike epistemologies is an open ended musing upon the general themes garnered from the course work and experience of the graduate level Dream Studies Certificate Program (DSCP) provided by Saybrook University. It is composed in a spontaneous prose format in the “impressionistic style” (p. 269) of phenomenological reporting described by Steinar Kvale (1996) and contains some free flowing stream of consciousness imagery as narrative devices for more immediate communication.

Keywords: dreams, dreaming, wake-dream continuity, existential, phenomenological, epistemology, psychology, wisdom traditions, science, spirituality, religion, neurophenomenology, free will, person-centered science

The drive for a theoretical integration of psychotherapy arises out of is dissatisfaction with the inadequacy of single systems/theories. It has been suggested that there is a need for a 'meta-theory' that provides a framework to integrate different psychotherapy theories in terms of some shared construct. The theoretical integration should take into account behaviour, emotion, cognition, and interpersonal factors. In addition, trans-theoretical considerations should include theory and data from neurology and psychiatry. Some different integrative 'frameworks' are noted, including Clarkson's 'Systemic Integrative Psychotherapy'. Some neuroscience based frameworks for integration are also mentioned. It is proposed that homeostasis could serve as a meta-theory that encapsulates principles in terms of which to 'systematically' integrate aspects of psychotherapy, including trans-theoretical dimensions.

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A great American psychologist summarizes one of the most difficult of subjects--the nature of dreaming--after decades of lifting matters out of the morass of Freudianism. The result nonetheless is a thin gruel that misses the main thing about dreams: their unworldly imaginative power. But he is not the only one. Who defends the psyche in modern science? Who knows what it is, where it resides, and how it controls the brain? The true theory of dreaming will emerge only by facing and answering these questions, which can be said to have baffled ancient, medieval, and modern investigators alike. At present materialism stands confused, pathetically benighted in its own shadow.

Readers are now advised that a new approach to the true theory of dreaming, as well as the first mechanistic explanation of Night Terrors in scientific history, is contained in the reviewer's illustrated essay on this page called 'The Last Day.' Both this late 2017 review and the new 2020 essay concern the same foundational ideas within idealism and can be said to blend smoothly together to produce an increasingly coherent view of the phenomenology as well as the fundamental nature of dreaming, the achievement of which depends on isolating and identifying the cosmic generator of dreams.

See also 'Sartre on Dreaming' (2022) and 'On the Materialization of Being' (2022) for deeper insights into the nature of dreaming according to idealism and in the context of the embodiment of the psyche, which reaches far deeper inwardly than the farthest galaxies are from the Solar System.

This article discusses an apparent paradox between perceived time and externally measured time during dreamed body movement. An appeal to concepts regarding space in special relativity may help to resolve the puzzle and perhaps point to a two-way perceptual relativity of dream and waking phenomenology.

Studies have found relationships between dream content and personality traits, but there are still many traits that have been underexplored or have had questionable conclusions drawn about them. Experimental work has found a ‘rebound’ effect in dreams when thoughts are suppressed prior to sleep, but the effect of trait thought suppression on dream content has not yet been researched. In the present study participants (N=106) reported their Most Recent Dream, answered questions about the content of the dream, and completed questionnaires measuring trait thought suppression and the ‘Big Five’ personality traits. Of these, 83 were suitably recent for analyses. A significant positive correlation was found between trait thought suppression and participants‘ ratings of dreaming of waking-life emotions, and high suppressors reported dreaming more of their waking-life emotions than low suppressors did. The results may lend support to the compensation theory of dreams, and/or the ironic process theory of mental control.

Ancient conceptualization of dreams is based on a duality that splits the oneiric field into two hierarchically ordered modalities. The opposition between these dream categories finds its clearest expression in Artemidorus' Oneirocritica, in the distinction between oneiros and enhypnion. This article critically examines Artemidorus' dualistic terminology. Uncovering the Oneirocritica's internal inconsistencies , the article aims to show how Artemidorus' systematization of dreams attempts to resolve an ambiguity that was essential to the Greek experience. As a case study, I examine three Homeric dreams in such a way as to restore the ambiguity suppressed by Artemidorus' logic.

The Dreams have captivated human beings since ancient times but the first systematic attempt to study them was due to Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis dominated the dream theory until new evidence from neurosciences and psychology not only challenged Freud´s ideas but open several new paths for comprehending oneiric content. Neurosciences have probed that dreams occurred along specific brain activity while psychology has showed new ways to understand and interpret dream content. This paper presents a new way to collect and interpret dreams. Based on data from 16 Middle class children, we described a research constituted by three phases. In the first, we conducted an ethnographic examination of children's milieu and usual activities; the second, consisted in the recollection of dreams and, finally, we interpreted dreams according to the sociocultural tradition in psychology (e.g., Vygotsky, Bruner). Preliminary data are presented about frequent topics and two dreams are interpreted in detail.

An examination of how Afrosurrealism (in each of its three waves) functions in poetry and narrative: as a dream and a joke, respectively. This paper examines the poetry of Étienne Léro, Henry Dumas, and Will Alexander; the plays of Aimé Césaire and Amiri Baraka; and the films of Jordan Peele, Janicza Bravo, and Boots Riley.

Written in Spring 2021 for a graduate Independent Study at the University of Texas at Austin. It was presented at the University of Texas at Austin Ethnic and Third-World Literature Sequels Conference and The University of Texas at Austin Comparative Literature GRACLS Conference.

Last update 11/16/22