Jaharri Asten

ITP 2500

07/07/2016

Dreams

1. What is known about dreaming?

a. Dreaming is a sequence of sensations, images and thoughts. They involve visual

and auditory hallucinations. Some believe it is just neurons firing, others believe

dreams are symbolic.

2. Briefly describe the quiet and active phases of dreaming.

a. The quiet phase of dreaming has three stages. In the first stage, the person feels

drowsy and they fall into a light sleep. During this time the images in the dreams

consist of quick images. The second stage has sleep spindles. The third stage is

delta wave sleep. This usually lasts 30-40 min and dreams that occur during this

time can be hard to remember.

b. The active phase is called REM sleep. The dreams that occur during this time are

memorable and the brain waves/patterns are similar to the patterns in an awake

brain.

3. What is REM sleep? When and how often does it occur?

a. REM is the portion of sleep that involves rapid eye movement and dreams. This

sleep is critical to brain development.

 b. REM occurs every 90 min which makes 100,000 dreams in a lifetime. REM sleep

is produced by ACh in the pons section of the brain.

4. What are the functions of dreaming? Why do you think we dream.

a. Freud: Dreams are the fulfillment of a wish. When rejections are internalized they

are absorbed into the subconscious. He also believed a dream is the disguised

fulfilment of a wish. This is why dreams must be interpreted. So, dreams can be

analyzed to understand the secret wishes of the heart. He also believed we can

look for solutions in our dreams.

b. On the other hand, Carl Rogers believed our dreams share collective memories

shared by all people. He believed our dreams speak to us symbolically and they

have archetypes to represent a specific part of life. He thinks we dream to uncover

the unconscious aspects of ourselves. We have to do this symbolically because

our conscious self is unwilling to explore these aspects of ourselves.

c. Some people also believe dreaming is a process where we let go of unnecessary

information. Jung believed dreams offer insight.

d. The physiological theory states we dream to exercise the synapses in our brains.

e. I think we dream for various reasons. It really depends on who is doing the

dreaming. When my father dreams he sees the future. When Martin Luther King

Jr. dreams, he creates the future. When I dream it feels like my mind is at recess

and all the neurons are at the playground. I can’t make anything of my dreams.

Once I had a dream that meant something. I lost my keys. Then I had a dream

when I found them. The location was somewhere I have never been. I found a
 way to that location and they were there. Besides that one time, my night dreams

feel the same as my day dreams.

5. Define conscious or lucid dreaming and precognitive dreaming.

a. Lucid dreaming is a style of dreaming where the person has control and is aware

of the fact that they are dreaming. Prior to college I thought everyone could

control their dreams because I always have. As a child I can’t remember having

many nightmares because I usually had control. My dreams are like life, I can

control myself and where I go but not always my surroundings. My awareness of

self when I am dreaming is the same as my awareness of consciousness when I

am awake.So, if that is the same as lucid dreaming then that is my usual style of

dreaming.

b. Precognitive dreaming is basically predictive dreaming. In this type of dreaming

the dreamer can see the future. My father and sister have these types of dreams

often. When I was young I didn’t believe my father because he seemed crazy.

When I turned 18 I left home and basically stopped talking to him. Since I was so

far away he no longer had the power to interfere with my life. He would call and

warn me about things, I wouldn’t believe him and then those thing would happen.

After a while I realized he actually does dream about the future. When I was a kid

he could prevent everything so there was no way to know it actually was going to

happen. In adulthood I learned to listen to him the hard way.