Objective: 11/23/15
Provided notes SWBAT describe the most
common content of dreams and compare
the major perspectives on why we dream.
Agenda:
1. Textbooks
2. Notes
3. Activity-Sleep Disorders
Consciousness & Dreams
Dreams: A sequence of images, emotions, & thoughts passing
through a sleeping person’s mind.
Manifest Content: the remembered storyline of a dream.
Latent Content: the underlying meaning of a dream.
Why do we Dream?
★ Content of one's dreams may be affected by one's gender.
★ Life events & external stimuli experienced during the dream.
★ There are variations across cultures in dream recall,
content, and interpretation.
★ We may dream to help us deal with reality, threats, &
organize information (memories).
YouTube: Vsauce - Why Do We Dream?
What do we dream about most often?
7. Dogs: Most dream of animal because of
the characteristics they possess: loyalty &
friendship.
Dogs in dreams have come to represent
our own loyalty towards someone as
well as someone’s loyalty towards us.
When you have a dog dream it is always
best to look at your relationships first, as
well as the behavior you & the other person
are exhibiting within the relationship. Do that
&, odds are, you’ll find that the condition &
behavior of the dog in the dream is
remarkably similar to the condition &
behavior of the people in the relationship.
What do we dream about most often?
6. Cars: Can be a commentary on how you are
maneuvering through or how well you are reaching a
particular goal. It can also be reflective of your “drive” or
motivation to continue down a certain road.
It is always important to pay attention to whether you are the
one behind the wheel or not as that points to who – or even
what part of you – is in control of the direction your life is
taking.
The specifics of the dream, such as the type or condition of
the car as well as the condition of the road & how well you
are driving, will help you to zero in on what part of your life it
is connected to.
Crashing is the most common element to the car dream. It
often means that some direction your life was headed in has
come to a sudden & messy stop.
Losing your car or having it stolen suggests you have
either lost your “drive” to continue on with something or
you are feeling directionless in some area of your life.
What do we dream about most often?
5. Tornadoes or Weather in dreams is
connected to your emotions because
your emotions are the weather of your
mind.
The tornado represents worry &
anxiety that is beginning to spin out
of control.
People who frequently get the tornado
dream are also proud card-carrying
members of the worry-wart club!
These dreams are a reflection of what is
really going on inside their psyche & are
showing the dreamer that – just like a
tornado – worry and anxiety is a
destructive force.
What do we dream about most often?
4. Teeth Falling Out
Typically, anything having to do with the
mouth in a dream can be connected
to the way you communicate in
waking life.
It is a good indication that you have
allowed something out of your mouth
that should have remained in there
permanently – like your teeth!
People who frequently have this dream
tend to speak before they think and
often regret what they say later.
This dream is an example of that regret.
What do we dream about most often?
3. Back at School
There are tons of variations to this dream:
you can’t find your class, you have to take
your senior year all over again, there’s a test
you didn’t know about, etc.
The school dream is so common because
it is most often connected to our job or
career. School is your first job after all & it is
where you learn the dynamics of what a job
entails:
★ You have to be on time, you need to be
prepared (you need to have done your
homework),
★ you are tested & judged,
★ you want to be liked & the goal is to
keep moving up to the next level.
Stress. So when you have the back at school
dream, compare the frustration & the problem
within the dream to what is going on currently
at your job or in your career. You’ll be able to
connect the dots and find that they are eerily
similar!
What do we dream about most often?
2. Being Chased
The being chased dream
means you are avoiding
something in waking life.
People who get this dream
frequently tend to avoid
confrontations, try to get out
of obligations or run from
their issues in hopes it will
eventually go away rather than
dealing with them.
What do we dream about most often?
1. Your “Other” is Cheating
The cheating dream rarely means an actual affair
is going on.
It does, however, mean there is a 3rd wheel in
the relationship but it’s not necessarily another
person but rather another thing. You’re having
this dream because you’re feeling that your mate
is giving too much time & attention to
something else when they should be giving it
to you.
Usually, the culprit is work. But it could also be
the XBox, golf, fantasy football, etc. For men, it
could be the new baby.
Whatever the case, this dream is showing you
that you are feeling cheated out of your time &
attention with your mate.
Freud’s Wish-Fulfillment Theory
Dreams are the key to understanding our
inner conflicts.
Ideas and thoughts that are hidden in our
unconscious.
Manifest and latent content
Freud argued that the purpose of dreams
was wish fulfillment.
Information-Processing Theory
Dreams act to sort out and
understand the memories that
you experience that day.
REM sleep does increase after
stressful events.
Problem Solving Dream Theory
Rosalind Cartwright’s Dream Theory: dreamers sort through
and accept emotions associated with yesterday's misfortunes.
Cartwright conducted studies linking dreaming to the emotional
state of waking life. A number of researchers think that dreams are
for problem solving.
One scientist in particular, named Fiss, claimed that our dreams
help us to register very subtle hints that go unnoticed during
the day. This explains why "sleeping on it" can provide a solution
to a problem.
Unfortunately, there are also arguments against this theory of
dreaming. For a start, most people only remember a very small
number of their dreams. So if our dreams contain important
answers - why don't we remember them better?
Activation Synthesis Theories
(Hobson & McCarley)
During the night our brain stem releases random neural activity,
dreams may be a way to make sense of that activity.
Hobson & McCarley assert that dreams are side effects of the
neural activation seen during REM sleep.
A-S Theory -Hypothesis:
When we dream, our
brain is as active as
while we are awake.
We experience images,
sensations, etc. that we
synthesize into a dream.
We ‘create’ them, or
synthesize them.
REM Rebound
The tendency for REM sleep to increase following REM sleep deprivation. When
people have been prevented from experiencing REM, they take less time than usual to
attain the REM state.
Common to those who take certain sleeping aids, it is also often seen in the first few
nights after patients with sleep apnea are placed on CPAP. Alcohol can also have an
impact on REM sleep; it suppresses it during the first half of the night, leading to a
rebound four to five hours after sleep onset.
What will happen if you don’t get a good nights sleep for a week...
and then sleep for 10 hours? You will dream a lot.
Teen Dreams
Should school start much later? Instead of beginning the school day at 7:15
a.m., move it back to 8:40 a.m.?
David K. Randall’s book highlights the impact of a particular school that changed
the start of the school day. Edina, Minnesota, in the mid-1990s:
“The lack of sleep affects the teenage brain in similar ways to the adult brain, only
more so. Chronic sleep deprivation in adolescents diminishes the brain’s
ability to learn new information, and can lead to emotional issues like
depression and aggression.
Researchers now see sleep problems as a cause, and not a side effect, of teenage
depression.
In one study by researchers at Columbia University, teens who went to bed at 10
p.m. or earlier were less likely to suffer from depression or suicidal thoughts
than those who regularly stayed awake well after midnight.”
Despite the fears of some parents, teenagers did in fact spend their extra hour
sleeping, and reported that they came to school feeling rested and alert. At the same time,
the number of on-campus fights fell, fewer students reported feeling depressed to
their counselors, and the dropout rate slowed. Coaches pushed back practice times
until later in the afternoon, and participation didn’t suffer.
The results were also quantifiable:
The average SAT score for the top 10% of Edina’s students rose from 1288 to 1500 out of
1600 following the implementation of the new schedule.
Even the head of the College Board, that institution behind the ominously familiar
standardized test, proclaimed the results “truly flabbergasting.”