Secular Pinoy

Is any theory of dream interpretation credible? Which theories are getting the most press? Is it still Freud's? Are there any recent studies confirming, or giving more evidential weight, to certain dream interpretations?

MadKally

Miller-Keane Medical Dictionary, 2000

Dream. A mental phenomenon occurring during "sleep" SLEEP in which images, emotions, and thoughts are experienced with a sense of reality. Dreaming occurs during REM sleep; typically there are four or five such periods a night, with a total duration of about 90 minutes. The psychological interpretation of dreams was originated by Freud, who theorized that dreams are the conscious expression of repressed unconscious impulses and wishes. Such wishes and impulses (latent dream content) are distorted and disguised so as to be acceptable to the conscious mind by the defensive processes of condensation, displacement, and symbolization and are then worked into a coherent story by secondary elaboration; this entire process (dream work) results in the dream as remembered by the dreamer (manifest dream content).

Godot

Credibility relates to reliability and validity of results ( read: reproducibility). Interpretation is a subjective act; the two of us could witness an identical event but rationalise and interpret it differently.
As such, it cannot be considered a true scientific discipline, or even a protoscience: dream interpretation and analysis is at best a pseudoscience.

MadKally

I agree. Neurons are just firing away while you are in REM sleep. No big mystery.

ps418

Dream interpretation is based on psychoanalytic theory, which is virtually universally rejected, and is not taken seriously by many psychologists or psychiatrists these days.

Patrick

Nowhere357

Hi Kally. If by 'no big mystery' you mean no supernatural explanation is needed, then I agree.

However, dreams are still very mysterious, and indeed studying our dreams is beneficial to the individual, and to society.

Einstein's famous thought experiment where he rode a light wave, came from a dream, and led to relativity theory.

Niels Bohr's breakthrough on the atomic structure came from a dream, and led to quantum theory.

Mendeleyev saw chemical elements as musical structure in a dream, which led to the periodic table.

Edgar Allen Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson report that many of their most famous stories came from dreams.

Scientists, artists, musicians, writers, spiritual leaders, and so on, have discovered that dreams are a source of creativity. This is beneficial to society.

As for dream 'analysis', I'm not convinced that even 'cultural' dream symbols exist. Any meaning in a dream can only be recovered by the dreamer.

IMO looking for meaningful symbols in a dream is a lot like looking for shapes in the clouds. However, every now and then, my dreams or dream symbols seem to resonate, to carry meaning, to teach me something about myself that I didn't already know.

BTW, even if all this anecdotal 'evidence' is worthless, I can say that dreams still have a large value: through dream control and lucid dreaming, an incredible playground opens up. Dreaming is wonderful fun!

MadKally

No, actually ps418 said exactly what I meant:

I'll go even further and say that I think it's all bunk. We dream in 90 minute cycles called REM sleep. If it pertains to something in your life or from past years. So what? I have had many lucid dreams and I refuse to try to find some deep hidden meaning in them. There isn't any. IMO of course. You are free to believe whatever you want.

NialScorva

I had a dream where I was a leprechaun riding on a big wheel down the interstate for 5 hours to get back to where I went to college, only to end up at my parents house. I snuck up the hill to assassinate someone, but got trapped in a chicken coup.


I hope you're right, Kally, cause I don't even want to imagine what that dream meant.

Viti

Actually, I based my 4th grade (prize winning) science project on a dream. I was having a hard time coming up with a project and then dreamed about it and got my topic!

I don't think dreams have any inherent meaning or "higher consciousness" hooey...but we are processing information and some snippets of creativity or insight are bound to get through.

MadKally

This is embarrassing but one of my very lucid dreams had me in an ancient sewer system trying to clear it out and find my partner, Thelonius Monk. Could it be I might have been constipated? Weird. What was with the jazz musician? LOL