Introduction to Dream Theory
Dream interpretation goes way back into the far reaches of history. If you think of the bible and the prophets within it, they all mostly recieved their visions through the dreams that they had. They'd witness the future or sometimes the past and watch events unfold that helped them to lead their lifes accordingly. Many of the stories contained in the bible were sent to the prophets by dreams which they referred to as visions due to their insightful nature. Many people today still claim to experience such visions, they are simply less impacting upon mankind than say those of Joseph who became a prophetic aid to the Pharaho of Egypt!
Tibetan monks also used dreams to govern their lifes and used a kind of dream induced meditation to focus their minds. They were said to have achieved complete awareness within their dreams and could move about freely within them. With this freedom came the power to take the knowledge presented to them so they could learn more about themselves as a whole. People generally believed that dreams contained messages sent by the Gods to warn them of impeding danger or great fortunes. In the 4th Century AD a greek named Artemidorus brought about "The Five Books of Dream Interpretation" which was one of the earliest known records of dreams and their symbols. Until Sigmund Freud started his work on dream theory in the 19th Century Artemidorus' work was completely accepted as accurate and despite new theories undertones of this early text can still be found within modern teachings about dream interpretation.
Sigmund Freud
Freuds main consensus on dreams was that dreams could be explained purely according to sex and our sexualities. He believed that our minds would produce dreams that included information and images that were harmful or problematic for us to comprehend. Our 'repressed' memories so to speak. He suggested that our dreams would turn these problems into alternative images to try and protect us from their harmful implications and so creating a seemingly harmless set of random images. A likely reason for Freuds theories were that in the age of which he lived people were generally more repressed, particularly sexually and could not express their feelings openly. Also at this time there was little insight into the mechanisms of the mind and how it functioned so the psyiological side of dreams was not explored until later.
At the time analysts like Freud claimed that interpretations could not be done without proffessional help in a bid to protect themselves. Therapists would simply tell a patient directly what their dreams meant and not let them come to their own conclusions about what their dream was trying to say to them. Today thankfully, there is more of a dreamer controlled way of looking at dreams where people like myself simple aim to guide your progress and help you to reach a final conclusion rather than just tell you that this means that and if it doesnt then it almost definately means this.
Freud concluded that dreams basically act to try and deter us from interpreting what is really present in our subconscious minds and that everything in your dreams is actually representing something else. This however in modern theory is partly correct and partly incorrect. Our mind does indeed covert some images and information but their being different is not a ploy to hide their true selfs from us but infact to draw attention to them. Dreams are sometimes bizarre or non linear to make us remember more clearly and to question the dream. It's as if our mind works to bring this information to the surface and to some how stop us from forgetting it in the morning. Freud however did give us the basis for symbolism which is still a major part of how we look at dreams in this current day, it is simply how we interperet them that is different.
Carl Jung
Carl Jung studied as a pupil of Freud but took a more dreamer based approach to dream interpretation than his teacher. He focused more on the dreamers insights to the dreaming process and the symbols they observed rather than simply telling them what they meant and what they should do. Freud's usual hypothesis was that our dreams commented on our childhood experiences and the content we saw were repressed memories from that past. Jung however believed that our dreams focused on the dreamer in their present day life and not always of their pasts. This is very much the common idea surrounding dream meanings today. Jung stated that humans have a tendency to want to become more whole as a person. This is evident in the way we live our lives in the ways we try to find our own paths in life. If say we are out of work or stuck in the wrong job or just maybe wishing we had more confidence or courage this is our way of trying to become better, feeling complete as a human being. This is similiar to the fact human beings are so curious about the world around them. If something is unknown we usually cannot rest easy until we have figured out the mechanisms about that such thing. This theory is credited to why people choose not to believe in the paranormal. As there is no solid explanation people choose to discard the idea and just ignore it.
Jung developed several more complex theories about dreaming and the human psyche which relate to how we see ourselves and the parts of our character we choose to ignore or sometimes just need to acknowledge. These are known as Jung's Archetypes and they revolve around the idea that man has these archetypes that when they enter our consciousness have the potential for creation. These archetypes act to shape our minds and the world around us and Jung found them to exist in many cultures throughout the world and also in every time period in human history. Archetypes shape the way we see the world and everything within it and exist within everybody. This led to Jung coining the phrase of "A Universal Consciousness" that is available not only in individual minds but in the minds of everybody on the planet. The concept of 'The Shadow' archetype holds the concept that within our dreams our shadow can be confronted and is the most prominent of all the archetypes. Our shadow is like a twin to us but made up of all the parts of our personality we choose to ignore or are not yet aware of. Only by confronting this shadow and coming to terms with the darker sides of our personality can we achieve a fully integrated personality and harness the creative talents and useful traits that were burried along side with it.
Fritz Perl
Fritz Perl further helped to explain Carl Jung's work on the concept of the need for a human 'wholeness'. Perl's theory of Gestalt, which means wholeness, is the idea that we need to reclaim the parts of our personality that we may have lost and one way of doing this was through our dreams.
"The royal road to integration"
Perl believed that with the help of our dreams we could locate and address the parts of our personality that had been locked away for one reason of another. Dreams help us to highlight these and express them in a way that is safe to the user and those around him. Perl described dreams as "the royal road to intergration". A similiar view held by many of those who investigate the dream world today.
In further years man's grasp of technology became better and with it came the insight of being able to view the constructs of the mind at a more scientific level. It was discovered that the brain produced waves of energy similiar to that of any electrical device. These waves could be recorded and were found to change considerably depending on when they were recorded. The types of wave have been recorded as follows:
Beta Waves: These waves are common when we undertake mental activity and concentration. These particular waves have also been oddly linked to the ghostly occurences of poltergeists!
Alpha Waves: These waves are recorded when patients are in a relaxed state. Forms of meditation such as Yoga, Zen and Suffism all aim to sustain a concentrated flow of Alpha waves in the frontal lobes of thier minds to attain a level of deep relaxation.
Theta Waves: Theta waves our even slower than Alpha waves occuring less frequently in the brain. These waves are constant with the effects of embarrassment or frustration. They have also been linked to creativity and inspiration which is rather peculiar in the sense you would not normally associate the four listed states of mind.
Delta Waves: Delta waves are recorded in deep sleep and common in children in the months before and after birth. This is due to Delta waves reportedly being linked to the release of the growth hormone. This is why humans slowly begin to lose function if they do not have adequate amounts of sleep. Little or poor periods of sleep can limit the time we spend in deep sleep so we in turn miss out on the energising properties that help us to be more aware and creative the following day.
Gamma Waves: Gamma waves are still not widely understood. They are similiar to Beta waves but are not the same.
Dreaming occurs more frequently in the very early stages of sleep and in the very furthest most point of sleep.
REM Sleep: REM sleep stands for Rapid Eye Movement which was named as when people are witnessed to have entered this stage of sleep their eyes can be seen to be moving rapidly under the surface of their eyelids. This leads to common belief that the brain is effectively scanning a database and accessing the various pieces of information stored in our minds. In has been noted that waking individuals who are in REM sleep can lead to increased recall of dream content and so has widely become known as the stage of stage where dreaming more frequently takes place.