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dreaming is crucial to this process. As yet, however, no direct evidence inextricably links either physical or mental functions to dreams. So the question remains: What do dreams do? That question has baffled many of the world's greatest minds. But a few have offered some cogent theories about what's going on, including the granddaddy of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud himself. |
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The Royal Road to the Unconscious |
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Freud called dreaming ''the royal road to the unconscious." He believed that dreams carry hidden desires, using symbols to combine a person's longstanding wishes with their previous day's activities. |
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Freud was a big believer in psychoanalysis and felt that dreams could be interpreted only by a trained psychologist. His colleague, Carl Jung, contradicted him with the theory that individual dreamers were perfectly suited to interpret their own dreams because they were more likely to understand their personal dream symbols than would a psychoanalyst. |
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Of course, Jung had his own theories on what dreams are all about. As you may remember from Chapter 5, Jung developed the theory of the archetype, the universal symbols that every individual contains within himself (or herself), but which also shares in common with everyone else. Therefore, although dreams have meaning that dreamers can interpret, their content may involve information that extends beyond the dreamer's personal desires and anxieties. Although Jung did not believe that all dreams were truly archetypal, he suggested interpretations for several archetypal images. Looking at these (some are listed in Chapter 5) may help you decide whether you have had this type of dream. |
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Another, more modern, slant on dreams views them in extremely functional terms. A recent theory, for instance, postulates that while the body's at rest, the mind sorts through and processes all the information that it has encountered that day, and this process results in dreamingeither to store information or to discard it. |
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Obviously, the brain remains active even while the body is getting much-needed rest. Although no one can prove whether dreams are merely a last look at unwanted mental garbage, a way to work out deep-seated emotional issues, or a first glimpse at important information that is carefully stored for future reference, it appears that certain types of dreams transcend the everyday. In fact, certain dreams appear to hold keys to the past, present, and future realities, and when they do, we call them psychic dreams. |
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