How to Interpret Dreams
Jessica Martinez
Professor Wright
Freshman Writing Comp 1
December 5, 2013 How to Interpret Dreams You wake up from fighting zombies or playing football in the Super Bowl for your favorite team. Although you’re sad it’s over, you wonder what these dreams mean. Most people have wondered this question, and few have summed up these dreams to be random and meaningless. Although, Dr. G. William Domhoff, the author of “The Scientific Study of Dreams” and one of the leading dream researchers in the world says, “Our analyses of lengthy dream journals reveal that there is a large degree of consistency in what a person dreams about over several months or years, even 40 or 50 years in the two longest dream series analyzed to date. There are also striking continuities between our dream findings and waking life, making possible accurate predictions about the concerns and interests of the dreamers. These findings suggest that dreams have "meaning."” (Domhoff) As a child, I had many interesting dreams, but never gave any thought into their meaning. While taking a high school psychology class and going over the topic of dreams, I had heard about Sigmund Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams,” which revolutionized the study of dreams. Through this book, he theorized that every action and thought that occurs with humans is motivated by some form of one’s consciousness. His thoughts were that due to the need to live in a civilized world, we have to suppress our impulses. These impulses have to be released in some way, such as in the altered form of consciousness that is dreaming. (Dream Moods) This interested me due to the fact that according to Freud, our dreams show all of the things that we repress in our minds, which made me want to figure out what things I had been repressing to be able to understand myself better. I started trying to interpret my own dreams with much success, and as I listened to other people’s dreams, I began to start understanding the meanings of their
Professor Wright
Freshman Writing Comp 1
December 5, 2013 How to Interpret Dreams You wake up from fighting zombies or playing football in the Super Bowl for your favorite team. Although you’re sad it’s over, you wonder what these dreams mean. Most people have wondered this question, and few have summed up these dreams to be random and meaningless. Although, Dr. G. William Domhoff, the author of “The Scientific Study of Dreams” and one of the leading dream researchers in the world says, “Our analyses of lengthy dream journals reveal that there is a large degree of consistency in what a person dreams about over several months or years, even 40 or 50 years in the two longest dream series analyzed to date. There are also striking continuities between our dream findings and waking life, making possible accurate predictions about the concerns and interests of the dreamers. These findings suggest that dreams have "meaning."” (Domhoff) As a child, I had many interesting dreams, but never gave any thought into their meaning. While taking a high school psychology class and going over the topic of dreams, I had heard about Sigmund Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams,” which revolutionized the study of dreams. Through this book, he theorized that every action and thought that occurs with humans is motivated by some form of one’s consciousness. His thoughts were that due to the need to live in a civilized world, we have to suppress our impulses. These impulses have to be released in some way, such as in the altered form of consciousness that is dreaming. (Dream Moods) This interested me due to the fact that according to Freud, our dreams show all of the things that we repress in our minds, which made me want to figure out what things I had been repressing to be able to understand myself better. I started trying to interpret my own dreams with much success, and as I listened to other people’s dreams, I began to start understanding the meanings of their