Dream Interpretation: Class 2

[cydira]

Class 2: Psychology of Dreams

There are three major schools of psychological thought on the issue of dreams. The behaviorist and biological schools are both quite closely related in their approach. Both of these schools place little influence on the cognitive aspects of dreams. The biological school states that dreams are simply the way that the sleeping mind interprets the random stimuli that it recieves during the night (ie: passing traffic, a thunderstorm, ect.). The behaviorist school takes a simmilar approach, but applies one additional concept. This is the concept that the sleeping mind will attempt to incorporate the information received in some fashion that holds some sembalance of logic. Hence the cohesive structure of a dream.

The cognitive school of thought is much more esoteric in their response to the question of dreams and their meanings. This dicipline states that dreams have three possible meanings. The first is quite close to the behavoirist perspective: dreams are "cognitive file management". In this approach, dreams are the mind's way of re-interprating the events of the day and the incoming stimuli of the sleeper's environment. The second approach is that dreams are the mode of communcation between the "unconscious self" and the "conscious self'. The third approach is a synthesis of both of these approaches, using the dreamer's reactions to the events of the dream as a gauge to the meaning (or lack thereof).

The process of dream interpretation that is most commonly recognized and a staple of "pop" psychology is those of the Freudian and the Jungian schools. These two schools of cognitive dream analysis will be addressed in a later post. However, if you are curious about the Jungian or Freudian perspective, try looking them up on-line or in your local library. In the text, Introduction to Paychology: 4th Edition , chapter 5 section 1.2 is an excellent reference of the development of the dream analysis process used in the majority of the psychology community today.

I would like you to attempt to keep a dream journal. Just write down what you can remember of your dreams and leave a page or two blank between each dream. Later this week, I'll be discussing different methods of recalling dreams.


Now folks I want ya'll to talk about this!! <adds meter stick hitting desk sound for effect>

Sorry, I go to a catholic college.... I kinda had to do that one. :D

[mythril]

:)

Why is it that when one dreams, only once in a while does it come true, Is there a randomness to this occurance?

[cydira]

Well, psychology says that this is an incident that is synchronistic, as a general rule. Jungian psychology, however, takes more of an interest in these dreams and suggests that the collective unconscious is informing you of things that are about to come to pass. In short, if you work with the Jungian perspective then precognition is a phenomenon that can be explained. Virtualy everybody else says it's an interesting conicidence or that you're deluding yourself.

Are these dreams random? Well, there hasn't been much reaserch into this aspect of dreams for the obvious reason that the medical and scientific community is very uncomfortable with anything "paranormal." Apparently, precognitive experiences like dreams that fortell the future fall under this category. It is my personal theory, however, that these dreams are a result of two factors.

First factor is how you train your mind to be more aware of the psychic gifts that you have. The more aware you are of your psychic talents, the more you tend to use them and have precognitive dreams. The second factor would be your genetics. If people in your family have a tendancy to dream about things that are about to happen, you are going to be likely to have that happen also. It will also tend to make you more likely to have these types of dreams more frequently. I will be discussing all of this in more detail soon.

That was a great question. :)

[mythril]

thanks:sunny:

[mythril]

I have another question.

How does keeping a dream diary help one to remember their dreams more easily and would there be other benifits by doing this?

[cydira]

Yes, dream journals do help you remember your dreams. They can also help you identify possibly patterns to your dreams and also help you monitor your sleep patterns. Patterns to your dreams could bring to attention unresolved issues or perhaps anxieties from the waking moments that you have been neglecting. In monitoring your sleep patterns, it becomes possible to note potential health problems and/or neurological problems. I'd love to give you more information on this but at the moment I don't have much information about this.

However, here is the information that I had promiced you all earlier this week.

The most common reason why it is difficult to keep a dream journal is because dreams are difficult to remember. If you recall from last week, we discussed the stages of sleep. If you wake during stages other then REM sleep, it will be difficult to recall the dreams that you've had during the night. Today, I would like to present two aids to recalling your dreams.

The first employs a classical form of behavior modification. It's called operant conditioning and was dicovered by Pavlove. At some point in time, you may want to read up on his experiment and the impact it has had. In operant conditioning, you train your subject (in this case yourself) to exhibit a target behavior when a particular stimulus that is not usually associated with the behavior is presented. In this case, as you fall asleep, you will recite as you drift off to sleep, "I will remember my dreams." You will stop reciting at a point, but this is simply your body's way of telling you it is time to sleep. It usually takes a week for this to take effect, but when it does you will find that dream recall when you wake is easier.

The second method is for using the dream journal. When writing down your dream, don't try to force the recall the first time that you're writing. Instead, write down as much as you can remember at first. Then when you can not continue because the rest of the recall is difficult, set the dream journal aside. Return to it after a few minutes and re-read what you wrote. Then, write down what additional details that you recall as you're re-reading. You will find that this works a great deal better then simply forcing the issue. Remember to leave at least 1 blank page between your dreams when you're writing. Next class, we'll discuss Freud, Jung and the meaning of symbols in dreams.

[Flar's Freyja]

Bump

[Silver Venus]

Thanks for bumping these Freyja :)

[Flar's Freyja]

:) You're welcome. Cydira did quite a bit of work getting these started and I thought they deserved some attention.

I've been having very vivid dreams lately and it's time for me to pay more attention to them. And Flar and I had the same dream one night!

[Silver Venus]

sharing the same dream --> wow! :) thats so nice
It once happened to me and my loved one too, really speical and spooky in a great way!

Id love to get back into reading all these threads again, I am paying lots of attention to my very vivid dreams at the moment, lots about birth and all :rolleyes: just hope they are a sign of its all going to happen soon :)

[cydira]

Often, it's possible for people to share dreams because of a telepathic link between them. This is seen frequently in siblings (strongest in identical twins), family members, very close friends, and people who are life mates (married, handfasted, what have you, you know what I mean!).

It is also possible to conduct magic in dreams and do a great deal of things. I'll be discussing this in the "advanced" dream classes I'm going to do soon. I'm still putting stuff together for it. :)

[mythril]

This is really interesting.

This is a bit off topic but id like to share it with you as it may have some relevance to the dream sharing talk.

I was practicing a healing on my father and had reached the solar plexus area , and i decided to visualise a cove of trees with rolling hills and i was flying through this scene.

After the session, i asked him if he saw anything or experieced anything and to my amazement, he saw exactly the same thing and he was also flying through the scene.

So there is another indication of sharing a dream in a certain state of meditation or sleep :o)

[cydira]

Meditation and dreaming share many of the same brain wave patterns and states. I suspect that they are probably a result of the same area of the brain being active. That's, however, my suspicion and there isn't much info on that. <sigh> I'd love to see what is currently going on in the research, but I haven't had a chance to really read any of that since I finished college. :|

[mythril]

Would you recomend any books on the subject of dream state.

I had a awesome dream last night, i actually awoke while still in that state and still feel as though it happened a second ago.

I dreamt that a friend of mine bought a buddhist temple and i had to travel up many steps to stike a large gong and i walked throughout the entire temple. It was incredibly detailed as i saw everything from the speks on the walls to the floors and statues.

I also found a set of bag pipes and began playing them and the feeling of scottish heritage and my affinity with far east came together and merged into one spiritual state of being.

Totaly incredible dream, i still feel the effects from it, one could say almost a blissful feeling and connection to the universe.

Just thought id share that experience with you guys.

[cydira]

Sounds like it certianly was very peaceful and plesant, Mythril. I'm not sure what to suggest specificly on dream states. Most of what I've learned and passed on through these classes is stuff from what I've learned in my psychology classes and reading psych journals, occasionally I can find stuff outside of those resources that I feel is well researched enough.

If you're willing to wade through the text, Introduction to Psychology by James Kalatt (et. al) is amazing in explaining everything from the way that neurochemistry interacts with dreaming to the stages of a dream. The version that I've been working with is the 8th edition. Aside from that, I'm sure that you can find *many* articles on dream states in scholarly journals like the American Psychological Association's Journal of Psychology or the Journal of Experimental Psychology. I think the title of the last one is correct, but I'm not sure. The magazine Psychology Today is the "watered down" version of most of the other Psychology journals all jumbled together with some pop Psychology.

Pop psychology is something that I take with a grain of salt because there isn't a good explination behind it as to how the theories are developed. It becomes a highly questionable forum when you have just opinion to work with and nothing more. I'll get off the soapbox on that one and get back on topic. :)

The dream experience you had is called lucid dreaming. It's fairly common amoung people who engage in practices like meditation. It's not clear why, I personally think it's because they've trained their conscious minds to be observant during stages where normally most people aren't. Like the phase of brain wave activity known as Alpha, where we do most of our dreaming and meditation. But, this is just my theory too. I'm building off of the idea that we can train our minds to do anything and if when we meditate we are becoming focused on being aware in the Alpha state when we're awake, why can't that carry over to being aware of being in the Alpha state when we're asleep?

I hope that helps. :)

[Flar's Freyja]

bump