Vaishnavi Karnam

UG16081
Design Environment and Communication Skills

DREAMS

As J. R. R. Tolkien said and I quote, A single dream is more powerful than thousand
realities [1], Id like to say a dream can make you do things that no one can ever make you do.

A dream is succession of images, situations, emotions or sensations that occur to a person during
some stages of sleep. [2] Till now, researchers have not come to a conclusion about content or the
purpose of dreams and these have been a topic of scientific speculation. The study of dreams is
known as Oneirology. Dreaming is considered one of the behavioral sciences greatest
unanswered questions. Many theories have been put forward by researchers like memory
consolidation, threat stimulation, and emotional regulation but it still isnt clear. [3]

Dreams usually occur in the rapid-eye-movement (REM) stage of sleep, when the activities of
the brain are high and that resembles of being awake. Sometimes, dreams might occur during
other stages of sleep. However, these dreams tend to be much less vivid or memorable. [4]

A dream may be a situation from the past, an experience in life, some visual you may have seen
somewhere or some emotions that your mind want to portray. A decade ago, i.e. 2006, Superman
Returns was released in India. I went to watch the movie with my family and the tickets were for
a late night show. I came home after watching the movie and since I was tired, I immediately
went off to sleep. In the middle of the night I woke up with a jerk. I had dreamt of me in the
same situation as in the movie where a ship broke into two parts and sunk into the sea. Even after
so many years this is one dream that I havent forgotten and I recall it as a funny experience
whenever the topic of dreams come up. That night, it took me about half an hour to calm my
mind and convince myself that it was just a dream and not reality.
Many of us never remember any of our dreams even if we try to. You have a faint idea of what
happened in there but when asked to express then you cant. It is because people are more likely
to remember them when they are awakened during the REM phase. [5]
Another dream that I had around two weeks ago about which I have faint memory was of me
going out with a friend with whom I never ever thought of spending time and having fun. I knew
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it was that one person but when I tried looking at that face I woke up from my sleep. There have
been interpretations about this kind of dream where you know who that person is but when you
try to look at the face of that person you might wake up or the face isnt of him/her.

I never remember any of my dreams. I do have an idea of what happened but I could never
connect the dots to come to a conclusion. There are many artists who have painted their dreams
to help themselves understand more about dreams. Writing or painting about a dream will help
you recall and remember what you had dreamt about. Many artists also painted depicting people
having different types of dreams.

Henri Rousseau (image 1) [6] was a French painter whose paintings showcased the subjects
dreaming in them. Rousseau made frequent visits to Jardin des Plantes which means botanical
garden in French. When he used to visit this place of
glass houses and saw the
strange plants of exotic
lands, it seemed to him as if
he entered a dream. [7] The
Sleeping Gypsy (image 2)
[8], a painting by Rousseau, Image 2: The Sleeping Gypsy
is a fantastical depiction of a lion

Image 1: Henri Rousseau musing over a sleeping woman on a moonlit

night. He described his painting as A
wandering negress, a mandolin player, lies with her jar beside her,
overcome by fatigue in a deep sleep. A lion chances to pass by, picks
up her scent yet does not devour her. There is a moonlight effect,
very poetic. [9]

Like Rousseau, there were many artists who depicted dreams in their Image 3: Joan Miro

paintings. Joan Miro (image 3) [10], a Spanish painter and sculptor whose
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style of painting was a lot different than the others, showcased his
dream in a unique way. Some of his paintings about his dreams have
the characters dancing, singing and doing some activity. All his works
are abstract. One of his paintings known as the Dutch Interior I (image
4) [11] shows the very basic form of a man playing a guitar. Miro was

inspired by the Dutch painters, their way of bringing out minute details
like specks of dust and concentrating attention on a tiny spark in the
darkness. He also stated that this was where their great power to
Image 4: Dutch Interior I
fascinate lied. Miro and his contemporaries influenced states of
hallucination, risking madness in order to capture the shapes and figures on paper during the
state where they tried to release the unhindered flow of unconscious thought. [12]

Sigmund Frued (image 5) [13] was an Austrian neurologist and the

founder of psychoanalysis. He did a study on dreams and his
analysis of dreams as wish-fulfillment provided him with models
for the clinical analysis. On this basis, Frued elaborated his theory
of the unconscious and went on to develop the model of psychic
structure comprising of id, ego and
super-ego. He extensively wrote about
Image 5: Sigmund Frued
dream theories and their interpretations in
the early 1900s. In The Interpretations of Dreams (1899) (Image 6) [14],
Freud developed a psychological technique to interpret dreams and
devised a series of guidelines to understand it. [15]
A dream has various interpretations that are being put forward by a
number of people. In the end, it is just the dream and you along with
Image 6- The Interpretation of
the interpretations and what we think about it. Dreams by Sigmund Freud
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REFERENCES

1. http://quotesgram.com/best-tolkien-quotes-about-dreams/

2. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dream

3. https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/dreaming

4. Hobson, J.A. (2009) REM sleep and dreaming: towards a theory of protoconsciousness,
Nature Reviews, 10(11)

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream#cite_note-hobson-3

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Rousseau#/media/File:Henri_Rousseau_-_Self-
portrait_of_the_Artist_with_a_Lamp.jpg

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Rousseau

8. https://www.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl=http://lh5.ggpht.com/
h0_YmUwM7uM1Er8GQX7UEwv4cevgSFhR98Ae0IftL8OkYPuSJhi1DZH1gqbU%3Ds12
00&imgrefurl=http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/
4gGIGzr3QW9xkw%3Futm_source%3Dgoogle%26utm_medium%3Dkp%26hl%3Den%26p
rojectId%3Dart-
project&h=780&w=1200&tbnid=Y3LzYa_iMEkOuM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=151&docid=JQacL
I_9bZVaQM&itg=1&usg=__iaq4yMgo5_i6u3_MAlthwuTUQxY=

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sleeping_Gypsy

10. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1379958/Barcelona-breaks-Searching-Joan-Miro-
city-inspired-art.html

11. https://www.google.co.in/search?
q=joan+miro&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=662&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKE
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wiOsZCbhqrPAhUGMI8KHSTpDfAQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=joan+miro+the+dutch+inter
ior

12. http://www.joan-miro.net/dutch-interior-i.jsp

13. http://www.sigmundfreud.net/

14. https://www.google.co.in/search?
q=sigmund+freud+books&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=662&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&v
ed=0ahUKEwj47eKBt6rPAhXLPo8KHT3-
DfQQ_AUIBygC#tbm=isch&q=sigmund+freud+interpretation+of+dreams