hi
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
carl jung
Definations of dream :
Dreaming is the subjective experience of imaginary images, sounds/voices, words, thoughts or sensations during sleep, usually involuntarily. The scientific discipline of dream research is oneirology. Dreaming is associated with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, a lighter form of sleep that occurs during the later portion of the sleep cycle, characterized by rapid horizontal eye movements, stimulation of the pons, increased respiratory and heart rate, and temporary paralysis of the body.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams
Dreams (aka Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, Yume, I Saw a Dream Like This, Konna yume wo mita, Such Dreams I Have Dreamed) is a 1990 portmanteau film based on actual dreams of the film's director, Akira Kurosawa. The film is based more on imagery than on dialogue. It consists of eight separate segments in the following order: There is an old legend in Japan that states that when the sun is shining through the rain, the foxes have their weddings. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams_(1990_movie)
Thoughts, visions, and other sensations that occupy the mind in sleep. Dreams occur during that part of sleep when there are rapid eye movements (REMs).
www.sleepcompliance.com/html/glossary.htm
Dreaming is an internal mental process of the physical body, that normally occurs after it has fallen asleep. While the author classifies dreaming as an internal mental process, dreams take place in another set of dimensions, dream dimensions, which are no less real than any other dimension, ie, The Astral Dimension. Lucid Dreams also take place in dream dimensions.
www.astraldynamics.com/library/
Dreaming:
One of the most fascinating aspects of sleep is the fact that we enter in fantacy world several times ....each night during which we percieve imaginary events and perform imaginary behaviours . Why do we do so ?
Psychological Content of "Consciousness" During Sleep in a TM Practitioner
by
JAYNE GACKENBACH and WILLIAM MOORECROFT>
Athabasca University and University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada;Luther College, Iowa
Gackenbach (1988) recently concluded a review of the research examining differences in content between lucid and nonlucid dreams. It covered two types of data, self-evaluations of the content by the dreamer, as well as content evaluations by independent judges. Both approaches were largely descriptive of the manifest level of content, although the self-evaluations involve some part of the latent content through the subjects' need to describe their own experience.
She concluded that although there were differences between lucid and nonlucid dreams, lucid dreams were more like nonlucid dreams than they were different. However, she also noted that although the differences were few they were not due to chance variations but were consistent across a variety of studies.
Specifically, consistent differences from the self-evaluations research on con-tent involve auditory and kinesthetic dream sensations and dream control as partic-ularly characteristic of the lucid dream. Consistent with these self-observations are the findings from independent judges of dream lucidity as having more auditory and cognitive activities. Not evaluated in the self-observation studies, Gackenbach pointed out, was the role of characters. In the judges evaluations across samples, sex, and dream collection method, lucid dreams had fewer characters. Although other dreamer type differences emerged in the various studies, the most compelling differences are clearly in the auditory/cognitive domain.
An experience related to the lucid dream experience is a continuation of con-sciousness from the waking state into the sleep state that claimed to be a key aspect of the experience of "Transcendental Consciousness," which is developed by the prac-tice of Transcendental Meditation (TM) (Banquet & Sailhan, 1974). This study in-vestigated the psychological content of the dream experiences of a single advanced practitioner of TM who reported maintaining "Transcendental Consciousness" throughout the 24-hour cycle.
The state produced by TM practice is characterized by low levels of autonomic arousal and TM practitioners are discouraged from attending to their dreams. Since the possibly related state of "lucid dreaming" (i.e., related in that both states claim "consciousness" during dreaming) is associated with increased autonomic arousal (LaBerge, Levitan & Dement, 1986) and, as noted, meaningfully differs from non-lucid dreams, we addressed the question of whether experiences of "Transcendental Consciousness" would show dream content distinct from lucid or nonlucid dreaming.
Method:
The TM subject (TMS) was a 28-year-old male who had been meditating for 5.8 years and received one of the highest scores thus far recorded on an inventory designed to assess self reports of the attainment of higher states of consciousness (Stage of Consciousness Inventory (SCI); Alexander, Davis, Dillbeck, Dixon, Oetzel & Muehlman, in press). Further, he received low scores on the SCI scales which assess psychopathology and tendency to endorse misleading, grandiose sounding statements. During TM practice he displayed exceptionally high ampli-tude alpha spindles across all EEG channels and periods of respiratory suspension (Kesterson, 1985).
Four subjects, the TMS and three others, two who reported frequent lucid dreams and one who had never had a lucid dream, were studied in a sleep laboratory for two to seven nights. Standard polysomnograms (EEG, EOG, and EMG as well as pulse and respiration) were recorded. Prior to coming to the sleep laboratory all subjects kept dream diaries at home for a two week period. Midway through this period they were instructed to attempt the eye movement signaling task at home. Both lucid dreamers and the TM subject were able to do this task at home while the nonlucid subject could not.
During the sleep laboratory experience (which was a seven-night experience for the TMS and a two-night experience for all others), dreams were collected after each REM episode. As in Gackenbach's content study first published in 1988, work diary and laboratory dreams were then content-analyzed using the Hall and Van de Castle (1966) system and a few additional scales (i.e., bizarreness, palpable sensations, bal-ance and control). The TMS had 35 diary and laboratory collected "lucid" dreams to be analyzed (Group 1) while the two lucid dreamers had 12 diary collected lucid dreams (Group 2) and 21 diary and laboratory collected nonlucid dreams for analyses (Group 3). The nonlucid dreamer had 24 diary and laboratory collected nonlucid dreams (Group 4).
Result and conclussion:
One-way analyses of covariance were computed on 140 content scales from Hall and Van de Castle with number of words in the dream transcript as the covariate. The four groups of dreams compared were as noted above. All significant findings (means and F-ratios) are portrayed in Tables 1 to 4.
As with Gackenbach (1988), the content analysis of lucid vs. nonlucid dreams for these four groups of dreams (two lucid groups and two nonlucid groups) were more alike than different. That is, only 27% of the analyses showed significant dif-ferences. However, this figure (38 significant differences) is considerably higher than what one would expect by chance alone. Consequently, although there are few differences they can not be accounted for by chance factors alone.
As to the nature of the differences, in 27 of the 38 significant findings the TMS had the lowest incidence. He had the highest incidence in only four scales (i.e., male characters; "old" modifiers; references to dream control; and sense of intellectual, emotional and body balance).
Consistent with the electrophysiological findings with this same TM subject (Gackenbach, Moorecroft, Alexander & LaBerge, 1987), he demonstrated both lower physiological arousal (even though he was able to signal with prearranged eye movements) and lower psychological "arousal." That is, there were fewer thought elements in his sleep mentation experiences
Funtions of dream :
by G. William Domhoff
Dreams are so compelling, and they often seem so weird and strange -- surely they must have a "purpose"; that is, an "adaptive role" in the maintenance of our bodily or psychological health. Furthermore, all the famous theorists who talk about dreams claim that dreams do have one or another purpose (although the famous theorists disagree on just what those functions are), but the best current evidence suggests otherwise. Dreams probably have no purpose! So let's review the arguments and the evidence. We'll start with the claims made by psychoanalysts and clinical psychologists in the first 50 years of the century based on their work with patients, then turn to more recent claims, some of which are based on work in sleep and dream laboratories that flourished in the 1950's and 1960's. The views presented here are those of research psychologists who have studied dreams inside and outside the laboratory, especially David Foulkes and Calvin Hall. References to Foulkes' work are provided at the end of this document. The first and most famous dream theorist of the modern era, Sigmund Freud, said that the function of dreams was to preserve sleep, but that theory from the year 1900 is contradicted by the fact that dreams happen very regularly at least five or six times per night in an active stage of sleep called REM sleep (after the rapid eye movements that are part of it, along with many other neurological and physiological changes). In other words, dreams don't just happen as we are about to wake up due to hunger pangs, sexual urges, or the need to go to the bathroom, as Freud thought way back when, before REM sleep was discovered in 1953. The other famous dream theorist of the modern era, Carl Jung, an early follower of Freud who broke away to develop a very different theory, claimed that the function of dreams is to compensate for those parts of the psyche (total personality) that are underdeveloped in waking life, but Calvin Hall's studies of two-week dream series from students and longer dream journals from adults of all ages strongly suggest that dream content is continuous with waking thought and behavior. That is, if we are outgoing and active in our waking life, and not very introspective and reflective, then so too in our dream life, which contradicts Jung's view. Still other dream theorists say that dreams have a problem-solving function. Dreams supposedly deal with problems we can't solve in waking life and offer solutions. But a variety of systematic studies find precious little support for this view. However, this is one of those places where we have developed "uses" for our dreams as part of our cultural lore. Looking at them in the light of waking day, and believing that they may be full of insight, we may sometimes come up with new ideas or insights while studying them. That is, we have invented a "use" for dreams, but that doesn't mean that problem solving is a psychological function of dreams built into us over evolutionary time. So much for the claims by clinical theorists. Now we look at claims that have emerged in recent years, but are tied to no particular theory or famous theorist. They are the new "common sense" of our day, based on a reverence for physiological findings and the awesome capabilities of computers. When REM sleep was first discovered, it was thought that dreams only occurred during that stage of sleep. This led to many functional theories about dreaming that were based on alleged functions for REM sleep. But we now have reason to believe that plenty of dreams happen in non-REM (NREM) sleep, especially late in the sleep period. Furthermore, awakenings of children under age 5 in the sleep laboratory reveal that they only report dreams from REM sleep awakenings 20-25% of the time, so REM sleep does not automatically equate to dreaming. In addition, REM sleep can be found in all mammals, and it is unlikely that they are dreaming, i.e., imagining a world or story in which they are taking part and interacting with others. Dreams, as the pre-eminent American psychologist on dreams, David Foulkes, likes to say, are a "cognitive achievement." We only gradually develop the ability to dream. What all this adds up to is that REM sleep and dreaming are not the same thing, so whatever functions REM sleep may have cannot be taken as functions for dreaming and dreams. The fact that we remember so few of our dreams -- a few percent at best -- also argues against any function for dreams. If they are so important, why don't we remember more of them? Furthermore, the people who remember a great many dreams don't seem to be any different from those who remember few or none, at least on the standard personality tests that have been used in many studies to date. If dreams are important, why aren't the recallers of them better off in some way? With the advent of computers, it became fashionable to say that dreams are "clearing out the software" from a busy day, or that they are a form of "off-line" processing to save the good stuff and get rid of the useless. Aside from the fact that such theories show how susceptible our supposedly highest thinking is to the dominant technology of any given era, the problem with this theory of dream function is that very, very little in dreams deals with the events of the day. Often there is some little leftover from the day, first noticed by Freud and named "day residue," but the rest of the dream is a story that does not deal with actual events. The story is usually plausible and even mundane, and it often contains the most important people and concerns of our lives, but it is nonetheless a story. We are thinking creatures because thinking is a valuable adaptation, but that doesn't mean that all forms of thinking have a function. Dreams at this moment in the collective findings of dream researchers seem to be a "throw-away" production, an off-hand story to while the night away. That judgment could be changed tomorrow by new and original studies by a new generation of young dream researchers, but right now the preponderance of the evidence weights against any physiological or psychological function for dreaming and dreams. (Click here for a detailed refutation of the "problem-solving" theory of dreams.)But Dreams Have Meaning
This doesn't mean that dreams have no "meaning," that they make no sense. To the contrary, dreams correlate with age, gender, culture, and personal preoccupations, as evidence on this site and in many research studies suggests. "Meaning" has to do with coherence and with systematic relations to other variables, and in that regard dreams do have meaning. Furthermore, they are very "revealing" of what is on our minds. We have shown that 75 to 100 dreams from a person give us a very good psychological portrait of that individual. Give us 1000 dreams over a couple of decades and we can give you a profile of the person's mind that is almost as individualized and accurate as her or his fingerprints.And, Yes, Dreams Have Their "Uses"
Even if dreams have no physiological or psychological functions, human beings gradually invented uses for them. In more technical terms, dreams have an "emergent" function that develops through culture. For example:In a great many societies, dreams are used by shamans to diagnose illness (often thought to be caused by evil or angry spirits) and to enter the spiritual world. In that sense, shamans were the first psychoanalysts, and Freud and Jung are modern-day shamans. In some societies, dreams are used to find game, predict the weather, or prophesy about the future. In our society, at least since about 1900, they have been used in psychotherapy, although not as much in recent years when the emphasis is on short-term therapy and on thinking sensible thoughts. Dreams can be an "occasion" for a reticent patient to talk more personally, especially when we note that people do not take as much personal responsibility for their dreams as they do most of their other thoughts, making dreams easier to talk about. In our society, dreams are also an excuse to say something intimate to someone, maybe a tentative way to see if a deeper relationship is possible, as in "I had this nice dream about you last night."
- Finally, the phrase "I had this dream last night..." is a platform to say whatever nonsense, lie, or fantasy someone might have on his or her mind, because there's no way to determine if the claim is true or not. Now, we have every reason to believe that people are honest when they are reporting their dreams for academic studies, as we explain in our section on representative samples and the quality of our data. But, when the popular dream hustlers tell you of their amazing dreams and promise that you can have similarly amazing dreams if you buy their book or attend their workshops, then hold on to your hat -- and your wallet.
Don't Like Your Dreams? Forget Them!
Most dream researchers think it is worthwhile to remember your dreams, and they have tips for improving your recall. But the evidence we have presented here suggests something else: they are not important, so perhaps not worth remembering. So, unless you find your dreams fun, intellectually interesting, or artistically inpiring, then feel free to forget your dreams. If they just upset you or leave you puzzled, then why bother with them? But how does one forget his or her dreams? Well, since we've found that thinking of dreams as useful or important is the best predictor of high dream recall, then maybe telling yourself that they are not useful or important will lower your recall. It also helps to turn your attention to the external world and events of the forthcoming day when you wake up -- don't lie there and daydream and let your mind drift because that might lead to dream recall. And if you do happen to remember a fragment of a dream, don't try to recall the rest, just ignore it.Of course, if you enjoy your dreams and they don't bother you, dream away, and have fun!
IMPORTANCE OF DREAMS IN LIFE
By me !
dreams ..........life without them is incomplete .......or should i say ...when u have no dreams ...means u have no life ......u r breathing for no reason ......u moving for no reason .......u r alive .....for no good reason ...its better to die ....!
dreams play an important role in sport and life, providing a vision of the future to inspire, motivate and even plan As Bob Rotella, who has worked with some of the world's leading golfer's says "a person with great dreams can achieve great things".
thank you!
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