DREAMS

• Dreams have been a mystery for philosophers, poets, scientists, and many others for centuries

• Dreams can be in black-and-what or in full color. • REM sleep normally produces clear dreams with plot lines, while NREM

sleep normally produces vague dreams with unclear imagery. • People who go blind after seven years of age do report visual dreams in

the same way we perceive them. It seems the longer you experience the world with sight, the longer you will go on dreaming visually. Someone who goes blind in their senior years can experience vivid dreams for many years after losing their sight.

• People born blind will experience dreams in forms of their other sensations, but emotionally their dreams are very similar to the seeing. More nightmares though, thought to be because of fears-dangers

Did you know?

• Dreams are the by-product of the brain reorganizing and storing the information gathered over the course of a waking day.

– How does this explanation of dreams allow for the possibility that dreams can be interpreted?

Dreams

• We have our most vivid dreams during REM sleep. – These are usually the dreams that feel very

realistic, and we can sometimes recall exact information

– Our REM dreams usually take place in real time. • 10 minutes = 10 minutes

• During NREM sleep, plots are vaguer and images are less clear/obvious.

When and How Long?

• It is very difficult for humans to recall their dreams because they are moving between levels of consciousness. (moving from sleeping to awake)

Remembering?

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgxJhpLoFFU

What if we could watch what we were dreaming?

• Dreammoods.com (for test)– Phone app

• Freudian view (for test)– Said to be the Father of Psychoanalysis (what is driving our

behavior)• Francis Crick’s view– Noble Prize winner and co-discover of DNA. -_-

• Surrealist – Subconscious mind through imagery

• Biopsychological view– Biology plays a role/random

Function of Dreams

• “Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious”

• Freud was the first theorist in the modern era to argue that dreams are an important part of our emotional lives.

• Dreams contain clues to thoughts and desires that are hidden in our subconscious.

Sigmund Freud

• Freud called the actual dream content the MANIFEST content

• Freud said that the manifest content was used to hide the actual deep, dark secrets of our dreams. The manifest content is thought to disguise the LATENT content. (hidden messages from the subconscious)

Freudian View

• …….interpret this dream?– Dreammoods.com (I looked it up)

• Identify SYMBOLS from your dream (manifest content)– Every detail is a symbol that can be searched– The more specific the details you look up, the more detailed your interpretation

may be.

– Example-– Manifest content of my dream -A green goblin• Search GOBLIN and GREEN separate and you’ll find the possible latent

content

How would…

• **yes, this is what my dreams are like…**– I was jumping from cloud to cloud, being chased

by a cute green goblin steering a hot-air balloon right in my direction. The sky was streaked with every color I could imagine, and in the background I could hear a faint classical piano piece playing. I looked down and saw outer-space, and realized I was not even in motion, but simply running in place.

Baird’s Dream Circa 2014

Manifest Content Dreammoods.com AppRunning from someone Problem in your lifeClouds Your life is clearing upGoblin Negative personGreen HopeHot air balloon Get over depressionColorful sky RomancePiano Harmony in lifeUpside down Need to straighten upOuter space Someone has shown up in your

life unexpected

Dreammoods.com

• Using the dreammoods descriptions, interpret Mr. Baird’s dream.

Homework

• I am running from relationship issues, while being chased by an unexpected romantic interested that I perceive to be negative because of pessimism. The romantic interest is trying to help me get over depression and show me that relationships are not all bad, if I just stop running I will find harmony…

• WOOOOAH. Dreammoods.com you need to relax!• All up in my business!!!

Putting it together

• Manifest content is listed (actual dream)

• Dreamer associates the manifest content with what they ACTUALLY believe the content means! – While thinking of associations the dreamer does

not sit and think hard about this, it’s the FIRST thing that pops into their consciousness when thinking of the dream symbol.

Freudian Way

• Free association– Write down all the symbols from your dream in a column– One by one go through the symbols and picture them each

individually– Right when you picture the symbol, write down the FIRST

thing you think of• Freud said these free associations come straight from

our subconscious mind. – Example- RED….?

How do we tap into the latent content?

• I was sleeping in my childhood house, but the house was located at my current residency. I woke up and looked out my window to see a car (trucks) chase through the golf course. The trucks were not on the grass at all but instead on the gravel pathways. The trucks left the golf course and the first truck got t-boned by a cop car which then caused a big pile-up of cars. Etc….

Baird Dream Circa 2015

• Write down the first word you think of in the LATENT CONTENT portion of your notes.

• DO NOT HESITATE.

• Be ready to think right now

• Read the word IN YOUR HEAD, and write the very 1st word(s) that comes into your head next!

Tapping into your subconscious!

Unmasking Manifest Content

• Manifest Content Latent Content

• Childhood house• Golf course• Looking out a window• Seeing a chase• Trucks• Gravel road• Leaving a place then getting hit• Car pile up• cops

Which words from the examples were the manifest content- the ones I wrote or the ones your wrote?

Which words were the possible latent content?

This is an example of

• Similar to how we used the Dreammoods definitions of our dream symbols, we will now use the LATENT CONTENT we have come up with to interpret Mr. Baird’s dream.

• Please do so on the portion provided on your notes.

Using the Latent Content

• mental house-cleaning. • things that need to be forgotten are in our dreams

• Crick claims if it were not for the helpful effects of dreams, evolution could not have produced the highly refined human brain.

??What does Crick mean??

Francis Crick

• Surrealism is a view of arts and literature that attempts to show subconscious thoughts/desires through arts and literature.

• Dreams are images produced from the subconscious mind– No control of thought= pure experience based

thought= truth

Surrealist view

Surrealist Paintings

• Biology says that dreams take place out of complete randomness.

• Neurons are triggered in the brain simply for upkeep, completely random.

Biopsychological

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYSX51xBkos

Controlling your dreams!!!