Analysis Of Sigmund Freud's Activation-Synthesis Theory

Sigmund Freud was a firm believer that dreams revealed much more about the dreamer than he or she may think. He thought that dreams were a way that a person could explore their unconscious desires and feelings, meaning that dreams let a person become aware of things that he or she was not previously aware of. Freud also believed that dreams consisted of manifest content, the literal content of a dream that a person has had, as well as latent content, which is what the dream represents to the dreamer. Latent content is purposely hidden from the dreamer in order to protect him or her from facing conflicts evident in his or her dreams. The activation-synthesis theory states that when a person sleeps, his or her brain tries to create connections from the random brain activity that occurs during sleep, which results in dreams. When random brain activity is occurring, the parts of the …show more content…
It is possible that the areas of the brain that control emotion, such as the amygdala, were activated during sleep, which caused me to feel emotions associated with the situation I was in in my dream, like frustration and anxiety. I have had many dreams that did not effect me emotionally at all, or dreams where I cannot remember feeling any emotions associated with the content of the dream at all. According to the theory, it would make sense that in those dreams, the areas of the brain that control emotion were not activated, or specific connections were not made. The activation-synthesis theory states that the brain tries to create connections from random brain activity. The brain activity that occurred when I was sleeping recently may have been similar to brain activity that has occurred many times in the past. This may have led to similar connections made by the brain, which may have resulted in another variation of this dream that I have had