Interpreting Your Dreams
Television, movies, and other popular media often portray dreams as highly
significant and easily interpreted. However, scientists are deeply divided about
the meaning of dreams and their relative importance. These differences in
scientific opinion provide an excellent opportunity for you to practice the
critical thinking skill of tolerance for ambiguity.
To improve your tolerance for ambiguity (and learn a little more about your own
dreams), begin by briefly jotting down a recent and vivid dream. This should be
at least three or four paragraphs in length. Now analyze your dream using the
following perspectives:
1.According to the psychoanalytic/psychodynamic view, what might be the
forbidden, unconscious fears, drives or desires represented by your dream? Can
you identify the manifest content versus the latent content?
2.How would the biological view, the activation-synthesis hypothesis, explain
your dream? Can you identify a specific thought that might have been stimulated
and then led to this particular dream?
3.Psychologists from the cognitive perspective believe dream analysis provides
important information processing, helps us make needed changes in our life, and
even suggests solutions to real-life problems. Do you agree or disagree? Does
your dream provide an insight that increases your self-understanding?
Having analyzed your dream from each perspective, can you see how difficult it
is to find the one right answer? Higher-level critical thinkers recognize that
competing theories are akin to the story of the four blind men who are each
exploring separate parts of an elephant. By listening to their description of
the trunk, tail, leg, and so on, critical thinkers can synthesize the
information and develop a greater understanding. But no one part - or single
theory - reveals the whole picture.