Dream Theory Everyone on planet Earth dreams, whether they claim they dream or not. Dreams are a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind, typically occurring during REM sleep. But, why do people dream? Many famous psychologists have come up with theories on why humans dream and the purpose of a dream is. One such psychologist is Sigmund Freud with his famous, yet non-scientific, theory that dreams are symbolic expressions of a person’s unconscious conflict or wish fulfillment and contain manifest and latent content. A theory created by Rosalind Cartwright states that dreams are the continuity of waking thought, but without restraints from logic or realism. Another theory known as the information processing perspective
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My dreams that I recorded in my dream journal best follow the descriptions of Freud and Cartwright’s theories and the information processing theory in that my dreams contain manifest and latent content and they are also closely related to my waking life and the situations or problems in which I have been involved. Sigmund Freud’s dream theory claims that dreams contain images that can sometimes have a significant meaning relating to the person’s life. These different images may serve as a symbol which represents a deeper meaning than just an object that happens to appear in dreams. This is where Freud’s idea of manifest and latent content comes into his theory. Manifest content is described as the actual remembered story line of our dreams, while latent content is the underlying and more hidden meaning of the dream. Also, Freud believed that the latent content of dreams was censored somehow by the …show more content…
Her theory claims that dreams include things that a person has experienced in the past, or at the present time of the dream. This is clearly true when it comes to many of my dreams that I have on a typical night. For example, my first dream that I recorded in my dream journal contains the most evidence of this theory being true, at least for me personally. In that particular dream, there were about eight events that had actually occurred in my life only a short amount of time prior to me having this dream. Even though, the events in my dream did not play out exactly like they did in my life, there were obvious characteristics that my dreams were based on my memories. Her theory also claims that dreams serve as a person’s “internal therapist” in the way that they can help solve one’s problems that they may face in their lives. In fact, some people have been known to treat their phobias through the dreaming process without psychiatric help required. I occasionally do have some dreams that involve problems I actually face in my waking life; however, I did not experience any of these dreams during the time of recoding my dreams in the journal. My typical dreams are usually things that have happened to me in the past, so I can definitely relate and agree with Cartwright’s problem solving
My dreams that I recorded in my dream journal best follow the descriptions of Freud and Cartwright’s theories and the information processing theory in that my dreams contain manifest and latent content and they are also closely related to my waking life and the situations or problems in which I have been involved. Sigmund Freud’s dream theory claims that dreams contain images that can sometimes have a significant meaning relating to the person’s life. These different images may serve as a symbol which represents a deeper meaning than just an object that happens to appear in dreams. This is where Freud’s idea of manifest and latent content comes into his theory. Manifest content is described as the actual remembered story line of our dreams, while latent content is the underlying and more hidden meaning of the dream. Also, Freud believed that the latent content of dreams was censored somehow by the …show more content…
Her theory claims that dreams include things that a person has experienced in the past, or at the present time of the dream. This is clearly true when it comes to many of my dreams that I have on a typical night. For example, my first dream that I recorded in my dream journal contains the most evidence of this theory being true, at least for me personally. In that particular dream, there were about eight events that had actually occurred in my life only a short amount of time prior to me having this dream. Even though, the events in my dream did not play out exactly like they did in my life, there were obvious characteristics that my dreams were based on my memories. Her theory also claims that dreams serve as a person’s “internal therapist” in the way that they can help solve one’s problems that they may face in their lives. In fact, some people have been known to treat their phobias through the dreaming process without psychiatric help required. I occasionally do have some dreams that involve problems I actually face in my waking life; however, I did not experience any of these dreams during the time of recoding my dreams in the journal. My typical dreams are usually things that have happened to me in the past, so I can definitely relate and agree with Cartwright’s problem solving