Marissa Makar

UWRT 1102-058
4/6/15
Thesis Paper
Dreams are a part of everyones everyday lives, its hard to avoid thinking about
what they could have possibly meant in some situations. This is what helped me come up
with my inquiry question, What is the driving force behind our dreams? I did not
narrow my research down to a certain type of theory because there are so many different
varieties of dreams one can have, such as good dreams, nightmares, even sleep paralysis
which means you feel as if someone is choking you in your dream. I did mention the
theories about dreams, but I also mentioned what dreams used to mean to some in the
modern days. I also described the different types of symbols that dreams may symbolize.
There is not a certain correct theory that explains why we have the dreams that we do,
which is why I tried to add the most popular type of theories people mostly believe in.
Stanley Kripper along with his fellow peers wrote about how dreams go way back
even to prehistoric times. Back in the old ages various amounts of tribes interpreted
dreams very differently. For example, according to the Mohave tribe, dreams were
sources of knowledge and messages from the Great Spirit. On a different note, the
Iroqouis Indians saw dreams as wishes of the soul. Then goes off discussing how
Sigmund Freud believed that the symbols that occur in our dreams were often wishes that
the dreamer craved. He explained how Adler believed dreams were symbols that
represented ones life and their current situations. Not to mention, he also discussed how

Jung believed your dreams were to help oneself in their waking lives and suggested
people to take notes and actively use their dreams.
As some may know, theres not a specific theory that explains why we dream
about the things that we do. But theres a few different theories that have came pretty
close to the correct reasoning. Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 and died during 1939; he
was considered the father of psychoanalysis. He believed that nothing you do occurs by
chance; every action and thought is motivated by your unconscious at some level. Freud
states that when you are awake, the impulses and desires of the id (impulses, pleasures,
urges, and wish fulfillment), are suppressed by the superego (enforces the moral codes of
ego). Because your guards are down when you are dreaming, your unconscious has the
opportunity to act out and express the hidden desires of the id. In other words when a
person is dreaming their dreams are acting out their pleasures, urges, impulses, etc.)
The author of the article, Freuds Dream of Interpretation, Ken Frienden,
mainly focused on Freuds theory, he explained how Freud was inspired to come up with
his own dream theory, what his thought process was while creating his dream theory, etc.
Freud would have secretly acknowledged that his dreams were sexual dreams. Maybe
thats why he believed that our dreams fulfill our wishes. His dream meanings actually
relied on dream images and concealed meanings. In a lot of Freud's lectures he argues
that our dreams arent random, but strictly determined. Because of how in depth his
article was I definitely have decided that I believe he has the correct theory out of all the
others, but thats just my own opinion others may feel different.

Carl Gustav Jung was born during 1875s and died during the 1960s. According
to Jung, dreams were a way of communication and acquainting yourself with the
unconscious. He believed that dreams were not attempts to reveal your true feelings while
you are awake, but a window to your unconscious mind. He believed dreams offered
solutions to your problems that you are facing in the waking mind. Since Jung thought
dreams were a way of communicating with your unconscious he believed dreams
revealed something about yourself, your relationship with others, and situations that you
are in during the waking life.
Alfred Adler (1870 1937) believed that dreams were an important tool to
mastering control over your waking lives, problem solving devices in other words. Adler
believed that there is a certain correlation between your dreams and problems in your
daily life. The more dreams you have, the more problems you are likely to have.
Frederick Pearls (1893-1970), was the founder of the gestalt therapy. He also had
a different theory about why we dream as the others did as well. He believed that dreams
contained the rejected and disowned parts of the self. He believes that each dream is not a
universal symbolic language; every dream is unique to a different individual. In order to
discover which aspect of yourself was being disowned Pearls suggested to retell the
dream in present tense and act it out accordingly, start a dialogue with the dream object
and express how you felt towards each other. By taking on a different role within your
dream and reenacting it you might be able to acknowledge and realize feelings that you
may have overlooked or buried.

There are theories about why we dream about the things that we do and there are
also symbols that represent our dreams and what they mean. For example, if you were to
dream about animals it means that you are feeling connected to nature and survival. If
you are being chased in your dream its supposed to mean you are feeling threatened in
real life. Whoever is chasing you might be the person who you are threatened by. If you
have a dream about falling, it is said that it relates to our anxieties about letting go, losing
control, or failing after a success. Killing is said to represent that your desire to kill part
of your own personality, it can also mean hostility against another person. Being trapped
is said to represent not making the right choices. Dreaming of water can be a symbol of
many things. Calm pools of water can reflect inner peace while a choppy ocean may
mean unease.
Everyone interprets dreams in very different ways, for example some Christians
believe that God sends messages through dreams, even to people who do not believe in
Christ yet. Muslims who abandoned their love for the Islamic religion have stated that
they had dreams about Jesus. One former Muslim even stated that he once had a dream of
Jesus on a boat waving to him and asking him to come to him.
For the article, "Sleep Paralysis : Night-mares, Nocebos, and the Mind-body
Connection, the author, Shelley Adler, talked about something that not only had to do
with dreaming, its called Sleep Paralysis. Its when a person feels paralyzed in their sleep
and cannot move, in other words they feel trapped. Some describe it as feeling wideawake but not being able to move. They are awake and aware of everything. They also
have a feeling of dread and evil closing down on them and trapping them. Chest pressure
may even occur during sleep paralysis, which is accompanied by difficulty breathing.

This normally occurs when a person is sleeping on their back. Although studies show that
most people do not fall asleep on their backs, majority of dreams mainly occur when
sleeping on ones back. I wonder why?
Lucid dreaming is what amazes me the most out of everything that I have
researched. Typically, when a person is dreaming they normally dont know theyre
dreaming and the events of their dreams feel real. But on a different note, a lucid dream is
when the person is aware that they are dreaming. For example, the other night I was
having a nightmare about a killer (dont watch scary movies before bed) and I all of a
sudden was aware that it was just a dream, my family really wasnt getting killed, and I
woke up. Lucid dreaming isnt anything new, Aristotle was the first to write about it, he
just didnt have a term for it. A dutch psychiatrist named Frederik van Eeden came up
with the term for lucid dreams in 1913. He believed that there are nine well-defined types
of dreams in all. Which includes ordinary, symbolic and vivid dreams. Scientist still are
not very sure whats going on in the brain during lucid dreaming, but they do know that it
occurs during REM sleep, the fifth dream cycle.
In the article, Dreaming, Barbara Ann Holmes discusses the brief study of
dreaming, reviews the dream research from decades before, talks about how dreams are
important to the Christian faith, and the meaning of dreams in certain rituals. In the
article, Personality, Psychopathological, and Nightmares in Young People , Jan and CJ
started off discussing nightmares and how research has proven that nightmares occur due
to experience of traumatic life events, genetic predisposition or personality factors.
Throughout the whole article it then discusses nightmares and the differences between
them as a young child and as an old adult.

In my own words I do believe there is a certain correct theory as to why we dream

about the things we do. If I had to pick the one theory that I believed was the correct one
it was be Sigmund Freuds theory. He believed that symbols in our dreams were wishful
fulfillments and cravings that were existent in our waking lives. I believe Adler, who
believed dreams had to do with our current life situations, was on the right track as well.
Resources that my researchers used as sources would be credible books and websites. I
definitely feel like their sources are credible because Ive always been the one to be
interested in learning about dreams my whole life and while researching about the
different types of theories and symbols that occurred in dreams they were the same
information that I have learned before while learning about dreams in my younger age.
Ive learned so much while writing and researching about my inquiry paper. Such as why
the theories about dreams, why do we have nightmares, what is lucid dreaming, what
causes sleep paralysis, what old tribes used to think dreams meant, and what certain
symbols that occur in our dreams can mean.

Citations

Adler, Shelley. "Sleep Paralysis : Night-mares, Nocebos, and the Mind-body

Connection." (eBook, 2011) [UNC Charlotte Libraries]. Rutgers University Press, 7 Feb.
2015. Web. 17 Mar. 2015
Frienden, Ken. "Freuds Dream of Interpretation." N.p., 7 Feb. 2015. Web. 16 Mar.
2015.
Holmes, Barbara Ann. "Dreaming." Project Muse. Minneapolis : Fortress Press,
2012., 2012. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.
Krippner, Stanley, Bogzaran, Fariba, De Carvalho, and Andre Percia.
"Extraordinary Dreams and How to Work with Them." (eBook, 2002) [UNC Charlotte
Libraries]. State University of New York Press, 7 Feb. 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2015.
Moorcroft, William H. "Login to Atkins Library - J. Murrey Atkins Library UNC Charlotte." Login to Atkins Library - J. Murrey Atkins Library - UNC Charlotte.
NewYork Springer, 2013. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.
Why Do We Dream? Dir. Steven Mockintosh. Login to Atkins Library - J. Murrey
Atkins Library - UNC Charlotte. Films on Demand, 02 Nov. 2009. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.
Roberts, Lennings, Jan, Cj. "Personality, Psychopathological, and Nightmares in
Young People." Science Direct. Elseveir, 18 May 2006. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.