Psychoanalytic explanations of dreams;
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Do dreams represent unconscious
wish fulfillment?
Using
psycholoanalytic theory, Sigmund Freud viewed dreams as a guide to the
unconscious.
Unconscious wish fulfillment theory
In his
unconscious wish fulfillment theory, Sigmund Fraud’s proposed that dreams
represent unconscious wishes that dreamers desire to see fulfilled.
Latent content of dreams
According to
Freud, the ‘disguised’ meanings of dreams, hidden by more obvious subjects.
Manifest content of dreams
According to
Freud, the apparent story line of dreams.
To Freud it
was an important to pierce the armor of a dream’s manifest content to
understand its true meaning. To do this, Freud tried to get people to discuss
their dreams, association symbols in the dreams with events in the past. He also
suggested that certain common symbols with universal meanings appear in dreams.
For example, a
dream in which we are walking down a long hallway to take an exam for which we haven’t
studied does not relate to unconscious, unacceptable wishes.
Instead,
it simply may mean that we are concerned about an impending test. Even more
complex dreams can often be interpreted in terms of everyday concern and stress
(PIcchioni et al., 2002; Cartwright, Agargum, & Kirkby, 2006)
Moreover, some dreams reflect events occurring
in the dreamer’s environment as he or she is sleeping.
For example, sleeping
participants in one experiment were sprayed with water while they were
dreaming. Those unlucky volunteers reported more dreams involving water then
did a comparison group of participants who were left to sleep undisturbed
(Dement
& Wolpert, 1958).
Similarly, it is not unusual to wake up to
find that the doorbell that was heard ringing in a dream is actually an alarm
clock telling us it is time to get up.
However, PET brain scan research does
lend a degree of support for a wish fulfillment view.
For example, the limbic
and paralimbic regions of the brain, which are associated with emotions and
motivation, are particularly active during REM sleep. At the same time, the
association areas of the prefrontal cortex, which control logical analysis and
attention, are inactive during REM sleep.
The high
activation of emotional and motivational centers of the brain during dreaming
makes it more plausible that dreams may reflect unconscious wishes and
instinctual needs, as Freud suggested (Braun et al., 1998; Occhionero, 2004;
Wehrle et al., 2007).
(Note)
The material
provided in the post is taken from the book “UNDERSTANDING PSYCHOLOGY” (10th edition)
All credit
goes to the author; Robert S. Feldman
(University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
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