dreams

nmx009

hi did anyone study dream psychology ? last night i had two of the strangest dreams , and im explaing not so much for the strangeness of them, but is thier a school of dream science that the general public is ignorant of or is thier literature someone can recommend, in the first dream i was wandering around with matt smith in an episode of doctor who , and even jumped into a car that was really futuristic and hi tec , not cheesy effects style but , pure industrial design with moving parts , also i was really engaged and personel with the characters.
the second dream i was wandering around africa it was so surreal and as if i was mixed into a different culture , not national geographic like but more as if i had psycically traveled to an alien culture , tall trees etc but the feeling of being in a strange land was so intense it was like i was really there.

any way the dream explinations are vague , but as ive said is there books people can recommend because i have a personal belief that dreams are more than just random mental organising.

cheers

niall

TrollHammaren

There's no such thing as dream psychology. Psychology is an academic discipline and dream-interpretation has absolutely no foundations in research.

Regardless of what your own personal beliefs are, there is absolutely no conclusive data to explain dreams. Psychoanalysts, dream interpreters, or whoever will tell you they mean this or that but the reality is that there's no basis for their claims.

The most accepted theory, as far as I'm aware, is that whatever neurons were particularly active during the day previous to when you were sleeping will continue to fire off randomly. I find that theory very flawed, but I reckon it's as close as we have available to the truth.

When it comes to dream interpretation books, let's put it this way: They have to be getting their information from somewhere, but anyone with any knowledge of psychology knows that it couldn't be based on research because there's very little research available in this area. Logically, the only way they could have come up with the information in these books is by pulling it out of their arses.

JuliusCaesar

There's some lovely old research where they waited until the participants fell asleep and went into REM sleep. They then sprinkled them with water, and then woke them up and asked them what they were dreaming about. Rain, tears, etc all featured suddenly in the dream!

TrollHammaren

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

There's some lovely old research where they waited until the participants fell asleep and went into REM sleep. They then sprinkled them with water, and then woke them up and asked them what they were dreaming about. Rain, tears, etc all featured suddenly in the dream!

I'm skeptical of that research (did they determine their sleep stage by means of EEG?), but it does make sense. Exogenous stimuli could very well activate neurons that would effect a dream; you've probably all heard your alarm, loud roommate, aggressive spouse in your dreams at some point.

I don't buy into the idea that dreams have some sort of inherent meaning that we need to unlock, not just because it's a theory that the research doesn't support, but because it doesn't make sense.

nmx009

i also think dreams tell you about other peoples personallity are they honest etc , iv also noticed they exagerrate the areas which your interests lye, and put you in better situations(or worse occasionally) than reality

TrollHammaren

nmx009 wrote: »

i also think dreams tell you about other peoples personallity are they honest etc , iv also noticed they exagerrate the areas which your interests lye, and put you in better situations(or worse occasionally) than reality

You mean your own dreams tell you something about another person's personality? They might highlight your perception of other people's personalities but I highly doubt they teach you anything about them.

krd

nmx009 wrote: »

hi did anyone study dream psychology ? last night i had two of the strangest dreams , and im explaing not so much for the strangeness of them, but is thier a school of dream science that the general public is ignorant of or is thier literature someone can recommend

There's Freud's Interpretation of Dreams. Jung also wrote a bit on dreams - I have one of his dream books, and I think it is awful.

, in the first dream i was wandering around with matt smith in an episode of doctor who

You watch Dr Who, and have a para-social relationship with the characters. That is, you kind of intimately know them well - though they don't really exist - and they don't know you. But they're kind real as insomuch as they're on television.

, and even jumped into a car that was really futuristic and hi tec , not cheesy effects style but , pure industrial design with moving parts ,

You have fantasies of driving around in futuristic vehicles.

also i was really engaged and personel with the characters.

Dreams are supposedly a place where fantasies can be acted out.

the second dream i was wandering around africa it was so surreal and as if i was mixed into a different culture , not national geographic like but more as if i had psycically traveled to an alien culture , tall trees etc but the feeling of being in a strange land was so intense it was like i was really there.

How real? Could you stop and touch things? Did everything happen in real time?

I have had the experience of super real dreams. Very rarely, but it's usually in conjunction with an experience of sleep paralysis - which is really unpleasant.
It's where you wake up and you're paralysed. Normally when you fall asleep, your brain paralysises your limbs, so you don't trash them about while your sleeping. Sometimes you wake up and you can't move your limbs as they're still paralyised - usually trying to wiggle your fingers or toes, can just make your body snap out of it.

The first time it happened to me was very scary. I was trapped in it for what felt like a very long time - and I was even trying to scream and no sound would come out. Then in my experience, either one of two things happen. You either snap out of it and return to the real world - or you're dropped back into a super real dream, where you think the paralysis is broken and that you're back in the real world but you're not. I think this is where people believe they have had out of body experiences - well it is an out body experience.

The paralysis isn't in itself a dream experience. Because sometimes it just comes undone and get can get up an move around in the real world and talk to people. But it's frightening as in you can't be sure for the first few minutes whether you're really awake or not.

A few weeks back I had my first experience in a few years of sleep paralysis and super real dreaming. I woke up paralysised - after a minute or two of wiggling my fingers, the paralysis vanished and I got out of bed and tried to turn the light switch on. Everything seemed very real. The room was lit by street light. But when I tried the light switch the light did not come on. I played with it, and still nothing happened. Then I thought, I must be still paralysised in bed, and with that thought I was suddenly back in bed paralysised. This kind of thing went on for a good bit of the night, but I ignored all the other strange stuff and just waited to fall into my typical dreamless sleep.

I don't know what causes it. I know a few other people who have had the same experience. It's not pleasant.

I have sleep walked in the past too. I'll give you an example. I was living in a house, where I woke up one night and there was a party going on (I was surprised but not that surprised given who I was living with). I got up and walked around the house and there were what seemed like real people there. I didn't recognise any of them. So I walked into one of the guys rooms to ask him what was going on. A soon as he realised I was in his room, he woke up and asked me what I was doing - and with that the entire party vanishes and all the light disappears and I'm in his bedroom talking to him and I am awake.

any way the dream explinations are vague , but as ive said is there books people can recommend because i have a personal belief that dreams are more than just random mental organising.

Some dreams may have meaningful content, other dreams could be pure gibberish, or caused by something you ate before bed.

Sometimes, I have dreams which are not fantasies at all but experiences of traumatic events being played back to me. Memories. There's no symbolic magic to them. They are just memories.

TrollHammaren

krd wrote: »

I have had the experience of super real dreams. Very rarely, but it's usually in conjunction with an experience of sleep paralysis - which is really unpleasant.
It's where you wake up and you're paralysed. Normally when you fall asleep, your brain paralysises your limbs, so you don't trash them about while your sleeping. Sometimes you wake up and you can't move your limbs as they're still paralyised - usually trying to wiggle your fingers or toes, can just make your body snap out of it.

I suffer from sleep paralysis the odd time, but I never have realistic dreams. I do hallucinate the odd time, and it's really creepy. I reckon it happens to a good chunk of the population, they just don't know what's going on.

krd wrote: »

Some dreams may have meaningful content, other dreams could be pure gibberish, or caused by something you ate before bed.

I'm sure dreams can be coherent and have some superficial meaning that makes sense, but I don't believe they harbour some hidden fantasies, desires, or meanings.

krd wrote: »

Sometimes, I have dreams which are not fantasies at all but experiences of traumatic events being played back to me. Memories. There's no symbolic magic to them. They are just memories.

Exactly!

Seachmall

Just out of curiosity, has anyone read any of Dr. Stephen LaBerge's work on dreams?

It's been a while since I've read his book but his general concept on dreams appears to be that they're a series of self-fulfilling prophecies (in the context of the dream obviously) with experiences from the day, or week, you had earlier mixed in.

E.g. In your dream you're in a dark alley, you get nervous you might be mugged and as a result of your expectation a mugger emerges. Then you might fear he has a knife and suddenly he has a knife.

He used this theory to explain Lucid Dreams, i.e. when you become lucid you can control your expectations of the dream and thus control the dream.

Like I said it's been a while since I've read his book so I don't know if there's anything valid behind that idea but its interesting none-the-less.

nmx009 wrote:

i also think dreams tell you about other peoples personallity are they honest etc

If the above is some-what accurate at best dreams will tell you how you perceive other people's personalities (i.e. your expectation of how they will react will cause them to react that way).

At worst it's all a load of hocus-pocus with no basis in reality.