Dreams the Bridge to Our Inward World.docx

1、Dreams the Bridge to Our Inward WorldDreams, the Bridge to Our Inward WorldFu ZhuoWen141070011The Department of Information ManagementAbstract: Dream has always been a topic both in the literature field and scientific community. Having a knowledge of its meanings is of great importance to discoverin

2、g our mental state. This essay is meant to introduce some theories and discoveris related to dreams, which includes the history of oneirology, the comparison of Freuds and Jungs theories, the experiments and findings of modern scientists and the future development of oneirology. I will also include

3、a questionnaire I made and the analysis of its result.1. The History of OneirologyPeople began their research on dreams a long time ago. In ancient China, there was a famous book called , written by Zhou Gong. This book is more of a dictionary rather than a common book.We can find that Zhou divided

4、all the dreams into six categories, and each category has its specific meanings. For example, Confucius, the great philosopher, once dreamed that he was sitting between two pillars. Thus he came to the conclusion that he was going to die soon. And to peoples surprise, he indeed died seven days later

5、.However, this story was not reliable at all because of the popularity of myths and legends during that period. Besides, the theory itself had some problems. In the book, every dream has is special meanings, and we can find them through finding the symbols appeared in the dreams. This process is lik

6、e labeling, which may overlook the peculiarity of each dream. 1. Two main theories of dream: Freuds theory and Jungs theoryFreud and Jung are the most famous two scientists who studied dreams. However, their main opinions have some distinctions. By making comparisons, we may find something inspiring

7、.Freud was a famous Austria psychiatrist. Throughout his career in studying the behavior of psychopath patients, he came to some conclusions. In the first place, he thought that dream is a kind of mental activity of the sleepers during sleep. The entire phenomenon during sleep can be explained by sc

8、ience, and whats more, dreams can be interpreted. In other words, we can take a quick glance at our inner heart by analyzing the elements appeared in our dreams.Freud divided our mind into two parts, the conscious part and the unconscious part. All that we experience including what we see, what we f

9、eel and what we think belongs to the conscious part, which only accounts for a small part of our mind.In the meantime, there exists a much bigger part called unconsciousness. It is a mysterious realm which has not been completely studied by scientists even by now. Freud thought that the memories sto

10、red in the conscious part temporarily will be sent to the unconscious part to preserve it. Its like operating a big machine, and through this process, there are some by-products which include dreams. In other words, our dreaming has its specific function in refining our memory, and dreaming is a kin

11、d of normal mental activity. Freud once said in his book, The Interpretation of Dream: “Whatever the dream may offer us, it derives its material from reality, and from the psychic life centered upon this reality. However extraordinary the dream may seem, it can never detach itself from the real worl

12、d, and its most sublime as well as its most ridiculous constructions must always borrow their elementary material either from that which our eyes have beheld in the outer world.”So from this paragraph we can conclude that all the materials of the dreams come from reality, and from our experience. Th

13、ey are like fragments of our life, reflecting a particular angle of our inner heart.Jungs opinion in this question is similar to Freuds. He also agreed that dream is a reflection of the reality. However, when it comes to the function of dreams, the views they hold are completely different.In Freuds

14、opinion, dreams can reflect our wishes. He showed us an example in his book: Once a little girl of his neighbor made a dream. She dreamed that the little boy who usually played with her called her father “Dad”, instead of “Uncle” as usual. Freud deduced that this dream reflected the desire that the

15、little girl wanted to make a closer relationship with the little boy, because the dream system made the boy a brother of hers. The explanation was interesting. However, this theory cant explain all the dreams like nightmares.On the other hand, Jungs theory has its advantages and limitations as well.

16、 He thought that dreams can serve as a prototype of our development. In other words, they can reflect the path of our presence and future. His theory is kind of similar to ancient myths who thought dreams could bring us enlightments that could guide our life. The most valid example of his theory is

17、the Chemist FriedrichAKekule. He once dreamed that there were many snakes twisting in front of him, and at one point they consisted of a big circle. This circle, in fact was the famous benzene ring. Because of the inspiration of the dream, Kekule found the structure of the benzene ring.In fact, this

18、 example is only an exception or a coincidence. We cannot just put together the findings and some elements appeared in the dreams and then jump to the conclusion that they have some relationships. In fact, there are many cases in which people claim that the God gave them enlightment in their dreams,

19、 and the majority of them are the sleepers imagination. They interpreted their dreams in a particular way to make it suitable for the things happened afterwards.In conclusion, Freuds theory focused on the present mental state, while Jungs theory focused on the future impact of the dream. In todays s

20、cience community, these two theories both have supporters and opponents. Perhaps we should put them together to get a more comprehensive and object view on this topic.2. Studying dreams in modern technology, what will we find?Freuds and Jungs theories are both based on the observation and analysis o

21、f the patients, and it is more of a inductive inference than a solid fact. Nowadays, modern scientists have come up ways to quantize our sleeping state. So, what did they find?1953 was a big year as a breakthrough came in the oneirology field. Two scientists, Nathaniel Kleitman and Eugene Aserinsky,

22、 began recording peoples brainwaves as they slept during night. By putting electrodes onto the sleepers heads, they were able to analyze the different patterns of the brainwaves. Through this process, they found that people would experience a different kind of sleeping state. Usually, it was easy to

23、 distinguish whether we were sleeping or awake through observing the pattern of brainwaves. However, during a special state of sleep, the brainwaves became as active as we were awake. In the meantime, they observed that the subjects heart rates and breathing became irregular, and their eyes darted a

24、bout beneath shut lids. Thus, they named this state of sleep Rapid Eye Movement, or REM sleep.Whats more, when the sleepers waked up, they all claimed that they had dreams. So they came to the conclusion that we had dreams only when we were in the REM sleep. This finding made the research into dream

25、s much more easier because in this case, we could narrow the scope we focus and only record the brainwaves when we were dreaming. Based on this discovery, scientists made a new finding. Perhaps many people wonder why we forget our dreams when we wake up, and perhaps someone will claim that they neve

26、r dream. In fact, we dream every night and most of the time we will have more than one dream each night. It is depend on the moment we wake up that we will remember our dreams or not. Briefly speaking, we have two states of sleep: Rapid Eye Movenment sleep(REM) and NonRapid Eye Movenment sleep(NREM)

27、, and dreams only appear during the REM sleep.This two sleeping states will alternatively appear when we are sleeping. So if we wake up during the REM sleep, we can recall the contents of the dreams, and if we wake up during the NREM sleep, we are likely to forget our dreams.The latest finding in th

28、e field came from a research made by a Harvard professorRobert Stickgold. He had been focusing his attention on the functions of dreams. He also recruitted human subjects to sleep over in his lab, but his experiment was different from other scientists. Firstly, he let the subjects learn to play a ne

29、w game:Alpine Racer, which was a downhill skiing stimulator. Professor Stickgold assumed that as the brain went to sleep, it was going to come back to the images in the game. The next morning, the subjects were asked the contents of their dreams. Early on, there were only a simple re-enactments of t

30、he ski game, and as night went on, there began to incorporete other memories. This may prove noothing, but when the subject played the ski game the next time, their performances were much better. Professor Stickgold believed that this experiment showed that when we are dreaming at night, our memorie

31、s will get refined, and so that our ability to deal with that particular affair will improve.From this conclusion we can take a quick glance at how important role the dream plays in our personal development and daily life. The latter research also demonstrated Jungs theory in some degree as he also

32、focused on the role the dreams played as a prototype of development. 3. General peoples understanding of dreamTo discern general peoples understanding level of dream and their knowledge of the modern theory, I prepared a questionnaire and collected 68 valid samples. Here is the questionnaire:1. Which grade are you in?A. Grade 1B. Grade 2C. Grade 3D. Grade 42. Have you ever wondered what the meaning of your dreams is?A. Yes, I haveB. No, I havent3. Do you know the main dream theories of Freud and Jung?A. NoB. A littleC. I know them well4. Do you analyze your