Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Dreams and Learning
What are dreams? Why do people dream? Do dreams serve a purpose, or are they simply a way for the brain to excise extra information; a way for the mind to process information overload? Can dreams provide insight into future endeavors, future events, or are they simply the collection of images, emotions, thoughts, and fears? These questions have been pondered, to varying degrees, for thousands of years. However, only recently have dreams been tested empirically and even more recently still have dreams been subjected to a critical scientific method.
Yet, with all of the study and interest in dreams and in the purposes of sleep in general, there seems to be little consensus among scholars and dream researchers. While Sigmund Freud studied dreams and found them to be a way for the brain to release the hidden desires we repress during waking hours, research suggest that there may be a utilitarian function of dreams; that dreams actually provide a mechanism for learning. This paper will review scholarly research pertaining to the function of dreams and provide a synthesis of this scientific research in an effort to determine the nature of dreams.
Early dream interpretations and Freudian analysis
Hall (1991) writes that dreams were first recorded from various artifacts and materials that appeared in Mesopotamia some 5000 years ago. Freud is widely renowned as the "father" of psychoanalysis and his interest in dreams and the potential for dreams to reveal unconscious desires provided a framework for his investigations into the dream state. Freud believed that dreams are the manifestation of hidden fulfillments...
Freud distinguished between "manifest" content of dreams and the "latent" content of dreams (Freud, 1977). The manifest content of dreams, Freud believed, represents the remembered content of dream, while latent content represents our interpretation of a dream as our recollections of dreams are "deformed substitute's" of what the dream really is (Freud, 1977, pg. 116). As such, manifest content represents the collection of thoughts, images and content in the dream, while the latent content represents the hidden, or repressed, meaning of the dream (Spanjaard, 1969). Further, Freud speculated that dreams are creations of the id or ego. If a dream originated from the ego, believed Freud, then the dream satisfied some latent instinct; should the dream come from the id, the dream resolved some conflict in the individual's life (Freud, 1949).
Carl Jung
Carl Jung, Freud's protegee, differed with Freud concerning the meaning of dreams. Jung believed that dreams were messages to the conscious delivered to provide a balance for the individual during waking hours (Robbins, 1988). Cartwright (1977, pg. 120) writes that Jung interpreted dreams as a function of "balancing or compensation to maintain or restore harmony to the whole being." In this way, dreams, Jung thought, served as utilitarian and pragmatic scripts so that the individual could regain or maintain a balanced life. Clearly, then, it would seem that early efforts by Freud and Jung to analyze dream states attempted to address conflicts so that personal growth could occur. However, recent research into the origins and purposes of dreams differ…
References:
Cartwright, R.D. (1977). Night Life: Explorations in Dreaming. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Cartwright, R.D. (1992). Directing Your Dreams. Psychology Today, 32-37.
Domhoff, G.W. (1996). The repetition of dreams and dream elements: A possible clue to a fnction of dreams. In Alan Moffitt, Milton Kramer & Robert Hoffmann (Eds.), The functions of dreaming. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Freud, S. (1900). The interpretation of dreams.
Learning and Assessment Basics In a regular education classroom, eighth grade learners can be difficult to work with. That is largely because they are starting to develop more than they have in the past - not just physically, but mentally and emotionally, as well. With that in mind, teachers who work with eighth grade learners must be aware of what these students want and need in their learning experience (Pellegrino, Chudowsky,
Learning Through Play How Do Children Learn Through Play? How Does Teacher Intervention Support Or Limit Learning Through Play
Dreaming is just one of the natural phenomenons that human beings do during the process of sleeping. Indeed, this natural process is not constrained to any particular characteristic and people with cultural diversity, all age groups and different social backgrounds dream throughout their entire lives. Since dreaming is linked to the mind and soul, thus it is considered that people will continue to dream until they are living (Hobson 2004). Dreaming
Clearly, the provisions of the DREAM Act would be of enormous benefit to the tens of thousand of undocumented Latino/Latina and Chicano students already living in the United States as well as the needs of the U.S. armed forces, but the act remains in legislative limbo at this time. Despite some initial hope following the election of President Barack Obama that the legislation would be fast-tracked for approval, particularly
Dreams and Delusions: The Drama of German History Fritz Stern's 1988 book Dreams and Delusions: The Drama of German History (republished with a new forward in 1999), relies on a series of loosely-related essays in order to deal with Germany's ongoing legacy of World War II and the Holocaust. The book was chosen because of its particular subject matter and methodological approach, because its series of essays makes for a more
Dream Job My dream job is to be a personal financial advisor. This position is appealing because it is well-compensated, provides a useful service to the public, and because it is an in-demand job. The fact that the job is also independent is another significant attribute of the personal financial advisor position. Becoming a personal financial advisor requires a lot of different educational and training experiences, including getting a college degree,