“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.”  Those famous words we’ve all heard by John Lennon are what comes to mind when I think about the amazing phenomena we all experience, dreaming.   I feel many can relate in my curiosity of dreams.  Sometimes they’re great but other times they’re literally a nightmare.  So what are dreams all about?

In this article ,How Dreams Work, by Lee Ann Obringer she discuss the findings of various research on dreaming.  She states “…dreams combine verbal, visual and emotional stimuli into a sometimes broken, nonsensical but often entertaining story line.”  I would say this is pretty accurate depiction.  My dreams seem to have multiple realistic qualities with a twisted plot line.  I do find most of them pretty entertaining but always wake up scratching my head at the absurd events that sometimes occur in them.

One set of research Obringer had studied was that of Dr. Sigmund Freud.  His dream theory was “based on the idea of repressed longing — the desires that we aren’t able to express in a social setting.”  He heavily based this “on sexual desires and symbolism”.  It is said that this conclusion may be due to the period in which Freud lived, which was the Victorian Era.  A differing opinion was one by Carl Jung.  In reference to Freud’s work “He agreed with the psychological origin of dreams, but rather than saying that dreams originated from our primal needs and repressed wishes, he felt that dreams allowed us to reflect on our waking selves and solve our problems or think through issues.”  I feel this makes sense because a lot of what I dream has to do with the people and events currently in my life.

In later research, conducted by Allan Hobsen and Robert McCarley, there was a different theory about dreaming.  “Their research on what was going in the brain during sleep gave them the idea that dreams were simply the result of random electrical brain impulses that pulled imagery from traces of experience stored in the memory.”  They believe this happens “because the brain wants to make sense of what it has experienced.”  I find this theory to be logical but hard to relate to my own dream experiences.  I find myself, on many occasions, dreaming about what or who I had been thinking about right before I fall asleep.  I don’t find this to be “random” because I can relate it in some way to my current life.

Although I didn’t find any mind boggling explanations for the reason behind our dreams I do have a better understanding of what they are all about.  All dreams are usually on some type of personal level and can be related to your life in some way.  Some dreams amusing, others far from.  Theres no really telling what you may dream about.  It’s always a surprise and I find myself curious to see where my brain wonders while I sleep.  I guess I will never have a definite answer but I have some type of knowledge of why I dream what I dream.

Source:

Obringer, Lee Ann. “How Dreams Work.” HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks.com, n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.