Essay About Sigmund Freud And Common Psychological Theories Of Dream

Comparing and Contrasting Psychological Theories of Dreaming
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Everyone dreams at night, but why do we dream? There are many theories and
interpretation of why are we dreaming. We usually dream at our REM sleep which is
the period of Rapid Eye Movement. But we do dream at NREM sleep as well, Non
Rapid Eye Movement. Our brain will still be functioning while we were asleep. The
common psychological theories of dream are from Sigmund FreudÐŽ¦s ÐŽ§Wish
FulfillmentЎЁ and Allan Hobson and Robert McCarleyÐŽ¦s ÐŽ§Activation-synthesisЎЁ.
Sigmund FreudÐŽ¦s dream theory is mainly stating that we dream because we need to
accomplish our wish by dreaming. Allan Hobson and Robert McCarleyÐŽ¦s dream
theory is saying that we dream because dreaming is random activities that will occur
while we are sleeping. They both have their own interpretation, but after my research
I can say that Sigmund FreudÐŽ¦s ÐŽ§Wish FulfillmentЎЁ is valid and reliable.
Sigmund Freud was the father of psychoanalysis, a major school of psychology.
His theories of sexuality are being the center of psychopathology and the major drive
of all individual developments. His dream interpretation has made him the most
controversial yet influential in the twentieth century. Freud believed that we dream
because there are some wishes hidden in our unconscious mind which need to be
fulfilled. Dreams are symbolic and contain information about our unconscious mind.
We can not achieve our desires in the real world so we need to fulfill it through
Why do we dream? 3
dreaming. Our stress from our daily life can be released while dreaming. During the
night while we were asleep, our mind protects us by manufacturing dreams. Dreams
can prevent us from being disturbed by external stimuli like noise, temperature,
lightetc and even internal stimuli like emotions, fears, desires, previous days
activityÐŽKetc. When we become tired of receiving and responding to stimuli from the
environment around us we try to fall asleep and dream to avoid it. For example, Freud
thoughts that without dream we might get waken up if we were feeling thirsty. A
dream about drinking water can avoid waking us up and satisfy our desire of drinking.
It can let us continue in our sleeping. Freud explained dreams which make no sense as
necessary distortions of dreams that would otherwise seem unacceptable. Sigmund
Freud called his interpretation of dreams the ÐŽ§Royal roadЎЁ to the discovery of the
unconscious, it is the ÐŽ§Kings highway along which everyone can travel to discover
the truth of unconscious processes for themselves.ЎЁ (Freud 1894) Freud is popular for
his best known idea of Free association and dream analysis. It is a technique to help
patients express their hidden wishes and repressed experiences. ÐŽ§Before Freuds
dream interpretation, dreams were generally thought to be either meaningless, or to
predict the future.ЎЁ said Dr. Edward Nersessian, a psychoanalyst in New York City.
Freud maintained that the purpose of dreaming was to allow people to sleep, despite
Why do we dream? 4
thoughts or physical discomfort that would otherwise wake them.
In1977, Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley, from Harvard University presented
a model of the dream process that seriously challenged Freuds theory. Their theory is
called ÐŽ§Activation-synthesisЎЁ. ÐŽ§Activation-synthesisЎЁ stated that our minds make
many different meaningless random stories with things that occur in our daily life in
our REM sleep, dreams are a random event caused by firing of neurons in the brain.
Hobson and McCarley suggested that the occurrence of dreaming is determined by a
ÐŽ§dream state generatorЎЁ located in the brain stem. These brain stem systems
periodically trigger the dream state with such predictable regularity. Dreams are
assumed to represent only a synthesis of random neurological activity.
There are lots of fallacies in Allan Hobson and Robert McCarleyÐŽ¦s dream theory,
ÐŽ§Activation-synthesisЎЁ. They stated that random stories are being made during only in
REM sleep, but dreaming does not only occur in REM sleep. Dreams are more
consistent and coherent and less bizarre than the theory of Hobson and McCarley
have stated. A report found that only ten percent of eight hundred and fifteen people
had strange, meaningless dream. This result makes their dream theory not well
supported,