Bethany Stottlemyre
Mr. Shinholser
Engl 1102
12 September, 2015
Why We Dream You start off your morning in the bathroom just like any other morning. You splash some water on your face to rid your eyes of that heavy groggy feeling, and then you begin brushing your teeth. When you spit into the sink you see a bloody tooth. Suddenly you begin pulling your loose teeth out as you stare horrifically into the mirror. You want it to stop, but they just keep falling out. Then you wake up. Many of us have asked ourselves at least once in our life, “Why do we dream”. Not only is it a common question of mystery among people, but a question of interest among many philosophers and psychologists. There are many theories among psychologists for why we dream, …show more content…
Even though he has been critiqued for his overemphasis on childhood experiences, the unconscious mind, sex, and aggression; his theories and methods have opened up a new perspective on mental illness and contributed to experimental psychology. He suggests that there are two components of dreams. That being manifest content, aspects we consciously experience, and latent content, the hidden underlying meaning of the dream. Freud refers to his wish-fulfillment theory in his book The Interpretation of Dreams when he says, “...it seems rather to assume that dreams have a meaning, albeit a hidden one; that they are intended as a substitute for some other thought-process, and that we have only to disclose this substitute correctly in order to discover the hidden meaning of the dream”. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of dreams is also referred to as the wish-fulfillment theory. This is the theory that suggests dreams are a representation of our unconscious desires that are repressed from our unconscious awareness. All of our hidden thoughts and motivations that we are not aware of are expressed from our subconscious through dreams. As Freud also states in The Interpretation of Dreams, “ …dreams do really possess a meaning, and are by no means the expression of a disintegrated cerebral activity”, he expresses his belief that dreams have significance contrary to what the activation-synthesis theory
Mr. Shinholser
Engl 1102
12 September, 2015
Why We Dream You start off your morning in the bathroom just like any other morning. You splash some water on your face to rid your eyes of that heavy groggy feeling, and then you begin brushing your teeth. When you spit into the sink you see a bloody tooth. Suddenly you begin pulling your loose teeth out as you stare horrifically into the mirror. You want it to stop, but they just keep falling out. Then you wake up. Many of us have asked ourselves at least once in our life, “Why do we dream”. Not only is it a common question of mystery among people, but a question of interest among many philosophers and psychologists. There are many theories among psychologists for why we dream, …show more content…
Even though he has been critiqued for his overemphasis on childhood experiences, the unconscious mind, sex, and aggression; his theories and methods have opened up a new perspective on mental illness and contributed to experimental psychology. He suggests that there are two components of dreams. That being manifest content, aspects we consciously experience, and latent content, the hidden underlying meaning of the dream. Freud refers to his wish-fulfillment theory in his book The Interpretation of Dreams when he says, “...it seems rather to assume that dreams have a meaning, albeit a hidden one; that they are intended as a substitute for some other thought-process, and that we have only to disclose this substitute correctly in order to discover the hidden meaning of the dream”. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of dreams is also referred to as the wish-fulfillment theory. This is the theory that suggests dreams are a representation of our unconscious desires that are repressed from our unconscious awareness. All of our hidden thoughts and motivations that we are not aware of are expressed from our subconscious through dreams. As Freud also states in The Interpretation of Dreams, “ …dreams do really possess a meaning, and are by no means the expression of a disintegrated cerebral activity”, he expresses his belief that dreams have significance contrary to what the activation-synthesis theory