Extremely Strange Dream

[herme3]

Last night I had a dream that I was going out on a date, which is something I’ve never done in real life. I was at a nice restaurant, and I walked towards a table where a beautiful girl wearing a nice dress was waiting for me. I realized the girl was my best friend from high school, who was also the only girl I had ever liked in my entire life. Once I saw who I was dating, I realized that it had to be a dream and there was no way this could possibly be real. I felt like I had woken up but I was still inside my dream. I had complete awareness of my surroundings, and had complete control over my actions. It was like I was conscious in my own dream.

 

Even stranger, I was actually able to talk to the girl. First, I told her, “This is all just a dream.” She looked confused for a moment and then she replied, “Maybe, I don’t know.” At this point, I was completely surprised at what was happening. I knew I was dreaming, and I was even having a regular conversation with someone who was being controlled by my own mind. Even though I knew I wasn’t actually talking to her, I told her a few things about college. She replied to everything like it was really her, and she had comprehended everything I said.

 

The waiter brought out food, and I continued to talk to the girl while we ate. It actually felt like a few hours had gone by. Then I told her, “I just can’t believe you are actually talking to me when you’re just part of my mind.” She smiled and said, “Yeah, it’s strange.” A few moments later, I woke up from this strange dream.

 

This is probably the strangest dream I ever had. I mean, it seemed so perfectly normal yet it was all a dream. I’ve heard of people being able to control their own dreams, but I’ve never heard of anything like this. Since the girl wasn’t really there, who was I having a conversation with? Was it my subconscious?

[JesuBungle]

First of all, I just wanna say AWESOME! That was a lucid dream. The girl that you were talking to was actually the girl you knew from high school. BUT, it was the girl as you remember her. The way she reacted or responded were all ways that your own mind would expect her to. I've been having lucid dreams for the past few months now and they are pretty fun. But in my experience there gets to be a point where you start questioning your real life, and getting confused if you're dreaming or not. That's not so fun. But there are ways to induce lucid dreams and ways to avoid them.

 

The most recent one that i remember having was me driving home from work in my old squad car. I haven't driven that car in years but i remembered it perfectly. I drove through a cloud of smoke from a burning pile of leaves, and as soon as I could smell burning leaves, i somehow realised i was dreaming, drove on for what seemed like a few more minutes and then woke up.

[Dr. Dalek]

But there are ways to induce lucid dreams and ways to avoid them.

Induce them? How?

[JesuBungle]

There are certain remedies such as what you should drink or eat before going to bed to increase the chance of a lucid dream. I apologize for the term induce. Also, there is a long process that you can use to train yourself how to lucid dream. http://www.dreamviews.com/induction.php This site talks a lot about learning how to lucid dream.

[bascule]

I dreamed about a girl I like last night too. Nothing that strange about it at all.

[Sisyphus]

There are ways you can sort of mentally prepare yourself for lucid dreaming. Like, if you keeping thinking to yourself as you're going to sleep, "in my dream, I will look at my hands and realize I'm dreaming, and continue to dream." Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. When I was little I got over certain nightmares using a similar technique, except more focusing on the aspect of "This is my dream. My mind. I am the most important and powerful being in this existence. I am more dangerous to these things which threaten me than they are to me." It's a wonderful confidence builder...

[insane_alien]

is lucid dreaming really that rare? i seem to get one most nights.

[herme3]

First of all, I just wanna say AWESOME! That was a lucid dream. The girl that you were talking to was actually the girl you knew from high school. BUT, it was the girl as you remember her. The way she reacted or responded were all ways that your own mind would expect her to. I've been having lucid dreams for the past few months now and they are pretty fun. But in my experience there gets to be a point where you start questioning your real life, and getting confused if you're dreaming or not. That's not so fun. But there are ways to induce lucid dreams and ways to avoid them.

 

I was very interested in lucid dreams about a year ago. I attempted to have them for several months, but I was never able to have one. Isn't it interesting that I had one without even trying?

 

I knew you could control and interact with your surroundings in lucid dreams, but I've never heard of actually being able to have a normal conversation with someone in a dream.

 

I dreamed about a girl I like last night too. Nothing that strange about it at all.

 

Yes, but were you actually aware of the fact that you were dreaming? Could you actually have a conversation with her while you knew she was just part of your mind?

[JesuBungle]

Yeah, it's cool that you can do normal stuff like that in your dreams. And sometimes in those little conversations with dream characters, you can find an answer to a problem that's been bugging you for a long time. It's almost like you can think outside of your own mind just for a little while. My friend broke my toilet one night at my old apartment lol, and no matter what I tried, I couldn't get it working again. Then one night I went to bed and had a dream I was talking to my dad about it, and he gave me the answer right there in my dream. So when I woke up I gave it a try and fixed the toilet.

 

Herme, I think something you might be interested in is a movie called Waking Life. It's just a little fictional story of a guy with lucid dreams, but I think the animation is pretty cool:-)

[Edtharan]

I regularly have lucid dreams, they can be a lot of fun (especially if you realise that you are dreaming). I seem to alwayse to be able to tell when I am lucid dreaming (I have never been confused as to weather or not I am dreaming).

 

Once you realise that you are dreaming and that you completly control the dream, you can litterally do anything you can imagine.

[mimefan599]

Since every dream is a wish fulfillment (Freud), you have to find the part of the dream that fulfilled a repressed or ignored wish. It seems to me that talking to this girl you remember from school was the wish fulfilled. Since everything in the dream materially is made up of the remnants of the day before (Freud), you must ask yourself what about the surroundings is from the day before and how you recognize it. Parts of the dream with the least emotional intensity hold the biggest meaning in the dream (Freud), so find parts that seem unimportant and elaborate upon that.

 

Once these three things are asessed, the interpretation can begin. Think about why you would wish to see the girl. Think about the parts of the dream with the least emotional intensity and how they relate to the girl. Also, does the girl resemble your mother physically or emotionally?

 

With these you can find the real meaning of the dream and what your subconscios is trying to tell you.

 

P.S. Lucid dreams and non-lucid dreams are interperated the same. Lucid dreams give the illusion of choice, but since the ego inside of the dream (the "chooser") is just another function of the psyche, all "choices" are intentional to the subconscios and what it is trying to say.

[1veedo]

It's actually more generally accept that it's a side effect of neural static and other functions of REM sleep. Freud's theories are over 100 years old and are scientific nightmares. There's no evidence to accept any of Freud's ideas about dreaming.

 

Dreaming is actually much more important than fulfilling wishes. Dreaming helps sort through what is important to remember about the days events and fortifies memories. If you don't sleep, your memory plummets -- you cant learn anything new. Some experiments have shown that people woken during REM (as compared to other sleep stages) remember less the next morning -- for instance a phrase given to them by a research before they went to bed.

 

Dreaming is also when neurogenesis occurs. It provides the brain with stimulation. Stimulation of course has tremendous effects on young children. Different control groups of mice are given stimulating environments (happy rat) and boring environments (sad rat) durring their youth and the sad rats not only perform far worse on memory functions but their neural pathways are far less matured, showing that the happy rats experienced far more neurogenesis. This is why infants spend so much time in REM sleep.

 

Nothing personal but Freudian psychology is very outdated and disputed. You've been reading some very misleading information about psychology and dreaming somewhere. Interpreting dreams and all this other mumbo jumbo is largely a thing of the past. Psychology is a much more respectable discipline now.

[mimefan599]

It's actually more generally accept that it's a side effect of neural static and other functions of REM sleep. Freud's theories are over 100 years old and are scientific nightmares. There's no evidence to accept any of Freud's ideas about dreaming.

 

Dreaming is actually much more important than fulfilling wishes. Dreaming helps sort through what is important to remember about the days events and fortifies memories. If you don't sleep, your memory plummets -- you cant learn anything new. Some experiments have shown that people woken during REM (as compared to other sleep stages) remember less the next morning -- for instance a phrase given to them by a research before they went to bed.

 

Dreaming is also when neurogenesis occurs. It provides the brain with stimulation. Stimulation of course has tremendous effects on young children. Different control groups of mice are given stimulating environments (happy rat) and boring environments (sad rat) durring their youth and the sad rats not only perform far worse on memory functions but their neural pathways are far less matured, showing that the happy rats experienced far more neurogenesis. This is why infants spend so much time in REM sleep.

 

Nothing personal but Freudian psychology is very outdated and disputed. You've been reading some very misleading information about psychology and dreaming somewhere. Interpreting dreams and all this other mumbo jumbo is largely a thing of the past. Psychology is a much more respectable discipline now.

 

That's not exactly true. Dreams have been proven to be wish fulfillments in every sense. I know that it aids memory but that does not conflict with Fruedian theory. THe main points of Frued's INterpretation of Dreams was that a dream is a safty valve for the psyche in that it acts out any wish that the psyche may have unfulfilled. How does that not aid memory? To settle the lesser wishes of the psyche so that it may focus its energy on remembering things that are expected to be important to remeber. These two things do not conflict.

 

Interpreting dreams is not mumbo jumbo in any way. It is important to have an understanding of what happens while asleep and what the psyche may want to tell the discriminating ego. It could be that he wants to boink that chick or that he feels he is following the wrong religion or whatever.

 

It is only a thing of the past because we are growing out of the old psychology, and that is fine. We know see the mind as products of neurotransmitters, but that does not make what we have discovered in the past any less valuable to the understanding of our psyche, it just needs to be translated into todays terms and understand what they did not know in the past, not abandon it.

 

And what do you mean Psychology is a much more respectable discipline now?

Freud studied the mind. Is that not psychology? Just because it needs to be interpreted into todays knowledge does not make it any less valuable or any more outdated.

[herme3]

Since everything in the dream materially is made up of the remnants of the day before (Freud), you must ask yourself what about the surroundings is from the day before and how you recognize it.

 

No, I dreamed that I was in a nice restaurant. I wasn't in any type of restaurant the previous day. In fact, I really can't think of any restaurant that looked like the one in my dream, although some of the decorations reminded me of Olive Garden.

 

Think about why you would wish to see the girl.

 

Back in high school, she was my best friend. I did try asking her out on a date, but she said no.

 

Also, does the girl resemble your mother physically or emotionally?

 

No!

 

If she did, I wouldn't be dating her!

[Genecks]

I had a lot of lucid dreams while on anti-psychotics earlier this year. I'd like to think of them as lucid because I chose actions. I chose the action to fight back. Perhaps I'm wrong on this, but in my dreams, I sometimes think these would be the actions if I were daring enough. Not to say that I'm a coward, but in the situation, I would do those things. This is why I question the idea of awareness within lucid dreaming. I figure that I understand that it’s a dream, yet I somehow consider it a parallel dimension, a nanoscopic dimension. It's within this dimension that I must make moves and act accordingly. However, one still has to use psychology to question if the actions were caused by outside influence. In other words, were using determinist ideology to say why I acted a certain way in a certain situation.

 

It's somewhat funny, though. People who say they have control in their lucid dreams ought to be soft determinists. They don't have free-will. Well, maybe they do; or perhaps it seems like they do. Heh. Yet again, perhaps knowledge of the workings of lucid dreaming could remain in the unconscious. Thus, this can allow a person to transfer his or her awareness to the dream-state. In other words, the person takes control of the dream because the unconscious knows of possible actions it can take.

 

I think the first dream I had, while on medicine, was about paladins/angels. They were bringing my spirit out from my body and bringing me to a new realm. And just about every dream after was a nightmare. Primarily they were dreams about supernatural beings, more supernatural than I, that I couldn't kill. Don't worry, they couldn't kill me; I kept dodging them. But they sure did a good fight until I woke up. I stopped taking the medicine many, many months ago. Don't you just love my alliterating rhetoric?

 

Since every dream is a wish fulfillment (Freud), you have to find the part of the dream that fulfilled a repressed or ignored wish.

 

Is that right? I try to avoid supernatural beings these days. Wish ignored and not suppressed by the unconscious?

 

I agree about Freud's ideas being shot down. But I like his view on the id, ego, and superego.

 

Last dream that I had was about a supernatural being that I could not kill. Well, I primarily couldn't kill it because I couldn't see it. I had to use plasma to kill it. It killed everyone and everything around me. The being was a neat little sucker. It stuck to walls and leaped on people, slashing them apart. I had used a plasma globe to make it stop being invisible.

 

Then again, maybe it has to do with that plasma tech we were talking about here. Maybe it has to do with the light sabers in super smash brothers. Maybe it has to do with that gun that sticks to walls and shoots people that I saw on television, or else a top 10 games of 2006 things.

 

I think the dream before that I was bit by a vampress with striped stockings. That was a great dream. Where's my journal entry...

 

The last dream I had was last week. I was playing as a human in a group of vampires, but the thing was, I was a human. We were all going up the elevator, and I had to use persuasion against one of the vampress teens. There was a light inside of the elevator, to let you know. She smelled me out and thought I was a human. "Oh, I'm just playing as a human." I convinced her that I wasn't and we all reached our floor of destination.

 

Eventually we all went into a training room. People were sliding on their feet in lines. They were preparing to fight and battle. I wasn't one to stand in line for too long, so I tried to find a way out of there. I was thinking to myself, "D*m*, that was close." So, I found a way out, and I found myself outside.

 

There was a girl outside, she looked knocked out and lying near some big, green garbage canisters. I came near her, and she looked up. She looked sad, tired, and dismayed. She was wearing striped clothing, stockings, and arm sleeves. They were light-purple and white; and she had long brown hair. I think she was wearing a very short skirt.. Anyway, I picked her up, and I knew right away that she was a vampire. I sensed it.

 

I looked her in the eyes. She immediately knew the contents of my mind and soul. She knew that I wanted her for eternity. She bit into my neck, and she told me what I already knew. I told her I knew that I would have to find a new way to reach my goals.

 

However, I dislike the idea of being a vampire. I mean, I'd have to figure out the genetic code and do tons of reseach for that race. So annoying... Transhumanism might be futile at that point. What'd that be? Transvampirism? Heh. Interestingly, I knew about the social code of that group of vampires in that dream. I was taking residence with them for a while. I guess the idea is that if a vampress bites me, then we are married by "blood." Mind you that I don't really research vampries that much. I don't even read the books by the humans. I'm not one of those pseudo-goth/dark/vampire people. By the way, I didn't say vampires are supernatural.

 

Then again, I remember another dream. About thirty possessed people were trying to kill me in this three-story house. I didn't get what was going on. The only thing I knew was that they wanted my body, and they wanted the part I had for my vehicle. They figured either it was the part or me. I figured I'm keeping both. I rocked the boat and started killing people left and right. I threw them out of the third-story window, and that pretty much immobilized them. I didn't feel remorse. Oddly, though, I thought, "Should I really throw them out?" I thought, "Eh, who cares?"

 

I didn't finish that dream. The dream pretty much reached its most dramatic point to where I was at the edge of the window, fighting and throwing off people. Well, I was simply observing that from an out-of-body point of view.

 

However, I woke up thinking, "That was a kick-*** dream! I am totally psyched!"

[1veedo]

Not everything Freud did is obsolete, but his theories about dreams, and especially (sexual) repression, have been shown time and time again to be wrong. On top of this, most of his work is unscientific [1]. To be scientific it has to be falsifiable.

 

"In his landmark book, The Interpretation fo Dreams, [published in 1900, Freud offered what he thought was "the most valuable of all the discoveries it has been my good forture to make." He argued that by fulfilling wishes, a dream provides a psychic safety valve that discharges otherwise unacceptable feelings. According to Freud, a dream's manifest, or apparent, content is censored, symbolic version of its latent content, which consists of unconscious drives and wishes that would be threatening if expressed directly. Although most dreams have no overt sexual imagery, Freud nevertheless believed that most adult dreams can be "traced back to analysis to erotic wishes." This a gun might be a disguised representation fo a penis.

 

Freud considered dreams the key to understanding our inner conflicts. However, his critics say it is time to wake up from Freud's dream theory...Based on the accumulated science, "there is no reason to believe any of Freud;s specific claims about dreams and their purposes," notes dream research William Domhollf (2000). Some contend that even if dreams are symbolic, they could be interpreted any way one wished. others maintain that dreams hide nothing. A dream about a gun is a dream about a gun. Legend has it that even Freud, who loved to smoke cigars, remarked that "sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar." [2]

 

"In science, Darwin's legacy lives on while Freud's is waning (Bornstein, 2001), In the popular culture, Freud's legacy lives on. Some ideas that many people assume to be true [about psychology] - that childhood experiences mold personality, that dreams have meaning, that many behaviors have [unconscious] disguised motives - are part of that legacy...With out realizing their source, we may speak pf ego, repression, projection, complex (as in "inferiority complex"), sibling rivalry, Freudian slops, and fixation. "Freud's premises may have undergone a steady decline in currency within academia for many years," noted Martin Seligman (1994), but "Hollywood, the talk shows, many therapists, and the general public still love them.""[3]

 

Just one last thing...

It is only a thing of the past because we are growing out of the old psychology, and that is fine. We know see the mind as products of neurotransmitters

The Hell are you talking about? Products of neurotransmitters? If you don't understand science. you shouldn't pretend that you do. Neurotransmitters are little chemicals inside you that are produced by neurons. They difuse into the synaptic gaps between all your little neuroes and either inhibit (make it less likely for that neuron to fire) or excite (make it more likely for that neuron to reach action potention and fire. Thus we find endorphins reduce pain (by making neurons in your leg or wherever less likely to fire pain signals).

 

[1] Myers, David G. Psychology, Eighth Edition. 2007. Pg 687-688. "because they cannot be proven or disproven...Psychoanalysis is therapy, not science."

 

Facts overwhelmingly prove that most "repressed memories," such as childhood sexual abuse, do not exist. Frued concentrated on childhood traumas and experiences, and repression is of paramount importance to his theories.

 

"Freud's entire psychoanalytic theory rests on his assumption that the human mind often represses painful experiences, banishing them into the unconscious until, with the help f a guide, we someho uncover them, finding them intact, like long-lost books in a dusty atic...In one survey, 88 percent of university students believed that painful expericen commonly get pushed out of awareness and into the uncounsions (Garry et al, 1994)

 

Actually, conted many of today's researches, repression, if it even occurs, is a rare mental respons to terrible rrauma. "Repression folklore is...partly refuted, partly untested, partly untestable," says Elizebeth Loftus (1995). " (ibid, 604)

 

Latter, "Psychologists also criticize Freud's theory for it's scientific shortcomings. Recall from Chapter 1 that good scientific theories explain observations and offer testable hypotheses...it fails to predict such behaviors and traits. If you feel angry at your mothers death, you illustrate his theory because "your unresolved childhood dependency needs are threatened." If you do not feel angry, you again illustrate his theory because "you are repression your anger."" (606-607)

 

[2] Ibid, 287.

[mimefan599]

I know that alot of Frued's repression theories have been refuted but his dream work relies only a little on the repressions. Only about a chapter of Interpretation deals with childhood repressions. On that particular part I take a Jungian poit of view, but the point he was trying to make was that dreams expressed an either ignored wish or a wish that was painful to admit directly.

 

I do not always back up Frued, mainly his dream work. Thoughts have been proved not to be as repressed as originally thought but that does not mean that there are not things that the ego will distort due to painful realities. That is what his dream work was based off of.

 

The dream is a process that fulfills a wish for the unconsious. Because of the nature of the wish and how the ego cannot always handle it, it is distorted in order for the ego to handle it. Repressed emotions are just an extension of that, not the base.

 

So no, Freud can no longer be taken word for word, but that doesnt compromise all of his work in any way.

 

The integrity of his dream work is not compromised because what has been proven wrong, the major and extensive repressions, is not, as commonly thought, the basis for his theories.

[1veedo]

Ok, well I ask you this. From my post above, "there is no reason to believe any of Freud's specific claims about dreams and their purposes." (taken from here)

 

You contend this is not the case. So what evidence is there for his dream theory?

 

You talk about the "ego" yet this is the sort of stuff that has been dismissed by mainstream psychologists. Even if some of Freud's ideas are still taken for face value, these are not them.

the major and extensive repressions, is not, as commonly thought, the basis for his theories.

Well, maybe not for his dream theories (if we take your word for it w/o due citation), but repression is definitely the basis for the majority of his work.

 

The only reason I can think of why people like Freud is social proof. Unfortunately, in science, Freud doesn't have social proof. Only in the general (uneducated) population will you find people talking about the ego/id, dream meanings, etc. The only notable psychologists that most people know about is Freud. Just like e=mc^2 is the only physics equation most people know or Richard Dawkins is the only notable evolutionist people can name (he's a zoologists but people only know him for his work in evolutionary theory).

 

The story is annoyingly cliche. If you've read the Universe in a Nutshell, people will think you understand basic physics (hell, nowadays everbody's seen Brian Green's special on PBS about string theory). If you've read the Selfish Gene, all the sudden you're an expert on biology. If you even mention Freud, people assume you know a lot about psychology.

 

People that don't know any better, that is. Psychology is hugely misunderstood by the general population. It almost seems tabo because people assume so many things about psychology that they hear from TV, books, magazines, etc. "Oh, it must be scary living with a psychologist. Does he analyze you every day?" The introduction to most college level psychology books mention this.

 

I find it only appropriate that we discuss mainstream psychology and thus make inferences based on accepted models. There is no reason herme3 needs to "find the part of the dream that fulfilled a repressed or ignored wish," "think about why he would wish to see the girl," or "find the real meaning of the dream and what his subconscious is trying to tell him."

 

(From Domhoff: "Three general ideas remain from Freudian and Jungian theory...First, dreaming is a cognitive process that draws on memory schemas, episodic memories, and general knowledge to produce reasonable simulations of the real world (Antrobus, 1991; Foulkes, 1985; Foulkes, 1999) , with due allowance for the occasional highly unusual or extremely memorable dream (Bulkeley, 1999; Hunt, 1989; Knudson & Minier, 1999; Kuiken & Sikora, 1993). Second, dreams have psychological meaning in the sense of coherency, correlations with other psychological variables, and correspondences with waking thought (Domhoff, 1996; Foulkes, 1985; Hall, 1953b). Third, the unusual features of dreams, such as unlikely juxtapositions, metamorphoses, and impossible acts, may be the product of figurative thought (Hall, 1953a; Lakoff, 1997) .

 

However, none of these ideas implies that dreams have any "purpose" or adaptive function, and least of all the functions proposed for them by Freud and Jung (Antrobus, 1993; Foulkes, 1993).")

[mimefan599]

Ok, first of all, your link is about 6 years old, so read this:

 

http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug99/sc4.html

 

You say :Well, maybe not for his dream theories (if we take your word for it w/o due citation), but repression is definitely the basis for the majority of his work.

 

I am not defending "THe majority of his work," I am defending his dream theory (not all of it), so I do not understand why you would bring that up.

 

Who has refuted the ego? (This isn't rhetorical, i would like to read the paper.)

 

Social Proof? Freuds dream work as a rule cannot fall under "Social Proof" because it is an UNCONSCIOUS PROCESS. Social Proof is a fancy way of saying monkey see monkey do. You can't control what you dream about so how could external social pressures be a factor? That just makes no sense. And besides, when dreaming, there is no lack of knowledge of what to do as would be a prerequisite for social proof?

 

Perhaps after reading the above article Freud's model won't seem to be such an unaccpeted model. Besides, if you look at the original post, and follow Freud's model, one could easily find the meaning of the dream. He wants to see that girl. That is the fulfilled wish! Most dreams are very simple to understand.

 

And when you talk of the uneducated masses being the only people who talk about Freud is ridiculous. Most people completely misunderstand Freud, as you do. He is not as misunderstood as Jung, but Far more misunderstood than say Erik Erikson. The masses aren't talking about the id, ego, dream meanings, because Physchology is very misunderstood, but Freud is no exeption. Besides, most people, even the uneducated masses, believed that dreams were not emtional because the widespread theory certainly made it seem so, so instead of seaking for the uneducated masses and pushing Freud as their gospel, think about it for about five minutes and you'll find that what you said made no sense.

 

So, yes, there is a reason why Herme3 would ask Why he would wish to see the girl, because recent studies have shown that dreams are very emotional, as Freud had thought. (Read the link).

 

You act as though i am completely clinging to Freud when that is not reality, I can let go of something if it has been disproven, but Freud has not been disproven afaik, but I could be wrong and i would aprecaite an article a little more up to speed.

[mimefan599]

Oh yeah, and when I said neurotransmitters, I meant to say firing nuerons, so my bad 1veedo.

[1veedo]

/me whistles

[1veedo]

Social Proof? Freuds dream work as a rule cannot fall under "Social Proof" because it is an UNCONSCIOUS PROCESS. Social Proof is a fancy way of saying monkey see monkey do[sic']. You can't control what you dream about so how could external social pressures be a factor? That just makes no sense. And besides, when dreaming, there is no lack of knowledge of what to do as would be a prerequisite for social proof?

I'm referring to the kind of social proof commonly exploited in marketing. Just the fact that the majority of people believe in interpreting dreams -- that dreams have meaning (also that dreams can predict the future, that memories get suppressed, etc, but this is irrelevant to the point). So it's not like I'm trying to suppose a dream theory based on social proof. I'm just saying it carries the quality of having social proof.

 

Just an off note, "monkey see monkey do" is known as observational learning, not social proof

And when you talk of the uneducated masses being the only people who talk about Freud is ridiculous. Most people completely misunderstand Freud, as you do. He is not as misunderstood as Jung, but Far more misunderstood than say Erik Erikson. The masses aren't talking about the id, ego, dream meanings, because Physchology is very misunderstood, but Freud is no exeption. Besides, most people, even the uneducated masses, believed that dreams were not emtional because the widespread theory certainly made it seem so, so instead of seaking for the uneducated masses and pushing Freud as their gospel, think about it for about five minutes and you'll find that what you said made no sense.

The point I was making is that although Freud no longer has "social proof" in the academic circle, the majority of the general population still believes all this stuff about the unconscious mind, ego, etc. As I noted above,

 

"In science, Darwin's legacy lives on while Freud's is waning (Bornstein, 2001), In the popular culture, Freud's legacy lives on. Some ideas that many people assume to be true [about psychology] - that childhood experiences mold personality, that dreams have meaning, that many behaviors have [unconscious] disguised motives - are part of that legacy...With out realizing their source, we may speak of ego, repression, projection, complex (as in "inferiority complex"), sibling rivalry, Freudian slops, and fixation. "Freud's premises may have undergone a steady decline in currency within academia for many years," noted Martin Seligman (1994), but "Hollywood, the talk shows, many therapists, and the general public still love them." (ok I know I missed citation three but it comes from Myers.)

 

"i would aprecaite an article a little more up to speed." This is known as the argument from age. Although in science recent is usually better, you cannot argue something just because it's "old" or "new." Besides, "my article" is actually more recent then the article you're citing (not only is your article 1999, the research it talks about was published in 1998 and 1997. The 1997 study is actually, btw, referenced by Domhoff:

 

"The plausible idea that dreams are the guardians of sleep is now contradicted by two very different kinds of findings. First, the frequency and regularity of dreaming in most people suggests that the process cannot be primarily a way to deal with urges that emerge episodically during sleep. Second, dreams cannot be the guardians of sleep if there are people who can sleep even though they do not dream, and we now have reason to believe there are such people, including young children (Foulkes, 1999), leucotomized schizophrenics (Jus et al., 1973), neurology patients suffering from parietal lobe injuries (Solms, 1997), and perhaps normal adults with weak visuospatial skills (Butler & Watson, 1985)." It seems your "up to date research" is so old it's cited by my "6 year old research.")

 

And if you look at the date for my textbook, well, lets say it's maybe a couple months old. I'm not about to engage in a never ending argument from authority though. (A lot of the information found in that study has been out for a long time, for instance being able to "see" in dreams. I (ironically) recall seeing a picture of the brain "while you sleep" in Psychology that may have came out of that study; it emphasized activity in parts of the brain associated with visual perception.)

So, yes, there is a reason why Herme3 would ask Why he would wish to see the girl, because recent studies have shown that dreams are very emotional, as Freud had thought. (Read the link).

Well, this is where your article fails you as the logic isn't that great.

 

Not to argue on purely linguistic grounds but they couldn't have found a more stereotypical journalist; "'Genuine breakthrough'

 

Leaders in the field who once entirely dismissed Freud's theories say that Braun's and Solms's findings are very significant.

 

"I think it's a genuine breakthrough," says psychiatrist John A. Hobson, MD, of Harvard Medical School. "Either one of these methods would constitute a new look. But the fact that they've come simultaneously and complement one another makes you sit up and take notice."

 

But Hobson doesn't agree that the new research demonstrates that dreams serve as wish-fulfillment, as Freud proposed. "

 

The author calls it a genuine breakthrough out of context. He quotes Hobson to say "leaders in the field who once dismissed Freud's theories.." yet Hobson himself seems to think differently. I actually happen to know what the article is (historically) talking about. It is a genuine breakthrough in the sense that it taught us why dreams are so weird. If you take

1)The fact that the limbic system is active

2)Higher brain functions are relatively inactive

3)Dreams are usually memories/knowlege

You can logically conclude that a lot of dreams would be related to emotional experiences. This in and of itself might have led Freud astray into thinking about unconscious motives, sexual desires, etc. The limbic system is of course, if you've ever read anything about mnemonics, a very important part of the brain you want to stimulate if you want to remember something. Memories tied with emotion are usually remembered better. W/ the cortex relatively inactive and limbic system trying to "remember" things, they'd get distorted. Not only in recall but also in logical coherence, making dreams, as the article rightfully claims, "bizarre imagery, loss of critical insight and logic, diminished self-reflection, inability to shift attention, morphing of time, place and identity and forgetting of dreams."

 

This is the true beuty of the discovery. Braun is just taking this a little further.

 

 

Some dreams can be emotional, or sexual, or may seem to be a repressed childhood memory (and it only makes sense the limbic system would be active) but this doesn't prove they have deep, unconscious relations to childhood experiences or sexual desires. (actually just as a side note most objects in dreams don't have hidden meanings. A dog is usually just a dog, probably a dog you've seen before or made from your concept of what a dog should be)

 

I think the article speaks pretty well for itself; it does not prove Freud's dream theory. Besides, there is still plenty of contrary evidence against Freud's dream theory. Just to get an idea of the magnotude of research we're talkign about here, why don't you take a look at Domboff's paper?

Most people completely misunderstand Freud, as you do.

Well, I think I know a little about Freud considering it's already been covered/tested in my 401 class, which I happen to have nearly 100%. This is all ad hominem but you're mistaken if you don't think I understand Freud's theories. The excerpts I posted for your convenience come out of sections discussing some of Freud's theories.

 

Originally I thought you were just some guy who had read something about Freud and thought you were an expert on psychology. I apologize if I dismissed you so quickly but at the same time you've pretty much ignored almost everything I've said (here you are saying "

Who has refuted the ego?" when here it is in post #16 right out of a mainstream psychology text book. I clearly have my sources in order and you are merely ignoring them.

 

What I'm trying to tell you is something you would learn were you to take a basic psychology class down at your local university. What I'm saying isn't something that's "controversial" or "up for debate;" it's standard curriculum. Ask any psychologist for yourself. You of course have a right to disagree but at the same time, herme3 has a right to know that your opinion is a minority one (cant you feel the pressures of social proof?) and you shouldn't keep trying to present it as if it were (but lets let herme3 make up his own mind instead of suggesting he "find the real meaning of the dream and what his subconscios is trying to tell him"). As I referenced above, Freud did have some things right, but his ideas relating to the "purpose" of a dream, childhood experiences/sexual desires emerging in dreams, etc, are largely disputed among reputable scientists.

[GutZ]

That still doesn't explain why I dreamt of:

 

Wearing a white trenchcoat with white pants, running in the night racing school buses in slow motion, then abruptly being in a stare down with a skunk, bullet-timing it's spray, grabbing it with my hand which then turns it into a wood artifact that duplicates objects, specifically a broke green rod that I attach together and then run off to a grave road.

 

Or:

 

This heavily mutated person (like from a horror film) in a black cloak hunching and staring at me as I am sleeping, waking up to try and kill it, which it doesn't die and I feel bad for it because it has this expression of sadness so we go to my living room area and watch TV..

 

 

I mean WHAT THE HELL!

[mimefan599]

OK Aveeno, before I respond, give me a link to that Dumboff article. I can't find it.

[insane_alien]

Gutz: whats so wierd about dreams like that? and they don't really have to have a reason. just the mind freewheeling.