Dreams -- Are They Psychologically Significant Psychologically

Dreams -- Are They Psychologically Significant

psychologically insignificant, or something in between?

The phenomenon of dreaming during sleep has long been a topic of interest to those interested in understanding the human mind. On one hand, there may be reason to believe that dream content and visual imagery in dreams provide clues to the unconscious mind as famously postulated by the psychological theorist who introduced the psychodynamic approach to understanding human psychology. On the other hand, there may be equally good anecdotal evidence that dreaming in humans is not particularly significant, particularly since non-human animals also apparently dream. It may be that human dreams are psychologically significant, but any such conclusion would have to be established by further research distinguishing dream sleep from non-dream sleep in the same manner as previous studies distinguishing REM sleep from non-REM sleep.

Introduction

Sleep is a phenomenon that appears to be universal among all known higher organisms and it is quite clear that it serves a crucial physiological function, largely by virtue of the consequences of any prolonged sleep deprivation. Human beings and other animals alike become extremely stressed when deprived us sleep and humans in particular can suffer psychological breakdown, even death, when that deprivation is prolonged. Nevertheless, it is not yet understood precisely what the physiological function of sleep is or why it is so important for human health. Beyond physiological benefits of sleep, there may also be important psychological functions involved. One clue in that regard is the phenomenon of dreaming during sleep. In fact, the apparent link between dreaming and psychology led Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) to devote his first published work, The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) to the topic and it played a significant role in his psychodynamic theory of human psychology that is the basis of all modern psychoanalytic psychology.

Discussion

The Physiology of Sleep

Human beings and other higher organisms all sleep on a regular basis, varying in the amount of time devoted to it by different species with respect to the amount of time spent sleeping, whether they are diurnal or nocturnal, and by chronological age. Generally, human beings sleep approximately one-third of their lives during the darkness of night and human infants sleep more than twice as much as adults. To date, conclusions about the role of sleep have been based on observation of the physical and psychological consequences of sleep deprivation (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008). Without sufficient sleep, human beings become extremely distressed, they experience a tremendous decline in both cognitive and physical capacity, and often suffer psychological breakdown (Brody, 2007). Moreover, sleep occurs in different forms and cycles in which it varies substantially in terms of characteristic brain waves and depth of unawareness of the external environment. The deepest part of sleep occurs in periodic cycles approximately every 90-minutes characterized by rapid eye movement (REM) that also correspond to dreaming (Siegel, 2005). Research into selective deprivation only of REM sleep cycles but not overall sleep strongly suggest that whatever the importance of sleep is, REM sleep is especially significant and necessary (Siegel, 2005).

Contemporary research into the possible function of sleep suggest that during sleep, memories are strengthened and various important hormones (such as human growth hormone) are released, triggered by the minute structures within the eye that signal the pituitary and pineal glands to increase production in darkness (Lamond, Dorrian, Roach, et al., 2003). Some of the most recent research in these areas has even linked specific wavelengths of ambient light, even at very low levels, to disruption of these physiological processes among individuals who must sleep during the day in rooms that are not completely blacked out (Lamond, Dorrian, Roach, et al., 2003).

Freudian Psychodynamics, Unconscious Repression, and Dream Interpretation

Even without knowing what the physiological function of sleep is, the phenomenon of dreaming during sleep has always intrigued us, largely because of the prevalence of vivid imagery in dreams that seems to have direct connections to waking life. For that reason, so-called "psychic healers" and "fortune tellers" and "medicine men" have routinely incorporated dream analyses into their treatment techniques (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008). In the late 19th century, Sigmund Freud, a renowned psychiatrist who formulated and introduced the concept of identifying and analyzing unconscious thoughts, wrote extensively about the phenomenon of dreaming. Generally, he postulated that human beings have a protective psychological mechanism designed to shield the psyche from various thoughts and perceptions and from actual memories whose conscious perception could be so traumatic that they would be damaging to the individual to perceive consciously (McWilliams, 2004; Mitchell & Black, 1995). According to Freud, those types of thoughts remain in the subconscious but invariably become the source and the root cause of numerous different types of psychological pathologies in waking life when they are left hidden from the conscious mind and unresolved (McWilliams, 2004; Mitchell & Black, 1995).

More specifically, Freud argued that the actual imagery of dreams represented psychologically significant ideas and that identifying the meaning of those images could provide the basis for linking the unconscious mind to the conscious mind, using the content of dreams as a bridge to connect those two distinct entities (McWilliams, 2004). Therefore, Freud devoted considerable attention to the specific content of dreams in his psychodynamic process of identifying unconscious thoughts and fears as a means of helping his patients resolve major psychological conflicts and thereby reduce their uncontrolled expression in harmful ways to the individual by using dream analysis to identify repressed thoughts so that those thoughts could be reconciled with conscious desires during wakefulness (McWilliams, 2004).

Contradictory Evidence

In principle, there may be considerable merit to the notion that dream images relate to some aspect of human psychology. In dreams, the individual may engage in certain behaviors that are uncharacteristic of that individual's typical behavior during wakefulness; the individual may experience imagery in dreams that has obvious symbolic significance, even without the benefit of any formal psychological training or analysis. In some instances, the content of dreams may indeed represent beliefs or concerns or fears to which the individual is resistant on a conscious level. In that respect, it also may be significant that dreams occur during REM sleep.

However, the mere fact that REM sleep in general and dreaming in particular appear not to be unique to human beings suggests that they are more likely spontaneous physiological phenomenon rather than intimately linked to psychological factors. In that regard, animals also sleep in cycles featuring REMs and, perhaps more importantly, animals (including pet dogs, for one ubiquitous example), frequently exhibit all of the apparent signs that they are, in fact, dreaming in visual images that they perceive to be enjoyable sometimes and frightening at other times.

Conclusion