The meaning of dreams
What do our dreams want to communicate? Answer to the most common questions about the meaning of dreams by the scholar par excellence of the fascinating world of dreams. Interview with Professor Roberto Pani, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Bologna, author together with Professor Marco Casonati of Il Sogno
What is a dream?
The dream process consists of a simulation of the experience which includes a recovery of the dreamer's personal past. Dreams are the expression of our brain's ability to solve problems and plan actions and orientation in the environment.
Why do we remember some dreams and others - most - leave no trace?
The memory of the dream, that is what remains of the dream, depends on the function they performed during the dream process. Most dreams do not remember why they have exhausted their function of detoxifying us from the small stressful events of the day. It is as if they had performed the function of metabolizing daily experiences (or of the previous days): in this way they reconstituted their own identity. In other words, the dream is a very particular thought activity that serves to 'make ends meet' concerning the basic image one has of oneself.
The dreams that are remembered, those that we remember in practice, have a more indicative and profound meaning. If they remember, it is because they have not completed their function of digesting some significant events of their daily life, and consequently they remain in consciousness. A bit like saying that they remain in the "comb knots" between sleep and consciousness. But this does not mean that dreams refer to traumatic or highly stressful and dramatic events.
Is it true that there are no dreamless nights?
Yes, it is true unless the subject is continually awakened and tormented.
Is it true that we all dream?
The dream is a type of thought which, with the absence of conscious vigilance, follows its own logic different from that of wakefulness. It has its own syntax and grammar, made up of free connections, condensations, subject displacements, symbolic transformations without apparent logic. When we sleep we have more time to think, fantasize, and represent experiences that we have not made peace with. Our mind is looking for an order, a conviction to reconstitute the image of us. By dreaming of them we try to digest, arrange experiences according to a certain logic that can cheer us up: in this way we give them a provisional sense. We can say that we all dream because we all somehow think.
Is it true that it is not known why you dream (just as it is not really known in neurology why you sleep)?
No. It is known because we dream and sleep: we rest to detoxify the psychophysical organism from toxins of the body and mind (the ghosts that intoxicate our mind).
Is it true that commonly there is some inner malaise at the origin of dreams?
No, this is not always the case. Some stressful events, which are not metabolized, generate anxiety, and therefore anxious dreams. But it is not automatic that all dreams arise from an internal malaise. There are dreams of happy situations that however can express an ongoing change in one's existence, for example dreaming of being pregnant, getting married, having a new love, a successful job, all events that require attention and thought.
Is the dream experience the same or different for each of us?
Dreams represent our thoughts on that particular night and are highly variable. Often they serve physiologically and psychologically to maintain our synthetic identity of people and to help us adjust what is not yet fixed. Some dreams are forgotten because they have carried out their function of rearranging the "files" of the mind, others remain in memory for a certain time. In particular, we remember those meaningful dreams because they have not yet been completed or have not resolved what was proposed to us. Often you have woken up and your sleep may not have ended in your refreshing function.
Can we say that dreams are representative of something and can you explain what influences what we dream?
To the discourse set out above, it can be added that dreams have a subjective specificity also based on the neurophysiological condition of the subject. For example, we can consider how many REM phases a subject dreams about the hours of sleep actually slept: the REM phase ( Rapid Eye Movement ) is called paroxysmal because despite having a zero muscle tone, it allows a lucidity of particular dream thinking compared to the other 4 sleep stages.
The meaning of dreams also naturally depends on the intrapsychic world of the subject himself, that is, of the dreamer. For the latter we mean the complex of internal interlocutors, that is, the characters who take a role in our psyche, and who occupy the dream scene.
These may have been derived from past encounter experiences, even very remote, and can be experienced subjectively as good or bad, just like in fairy tales. In the dream it is as if therefore a dialogue took place with the Ego, that is, the psychic representative of the Central Nervous System, which by convention and symbolic instance we consider our main director, observer, and protagonist of the dreams themselves.
The way we live experiences derives from the suggestions that our internal characters give us and from how we can mediate them. For example, if the internal characters, especially those derived from the past, are very sadistic, persecuting, and guilty, the internal voices that speak to us prevailing over the ego prevail: the Self suffers and gets sick. And therefore anguished dreams are likely to occur, which have the character of the nightmare, which can also lead to awakening.
Conversely, when the internal characters trust us, they can raise our self-esteem, our mood is higher, and we are more likely to have less distressing dreams.
How come you dream of both real and "absurd" things (like being a superhero who saves the world, etc)?
They are reassuring thoughts: characters are invented as comics are invented.
How do you dream of people we don't know?
We can invent a character in the same way a director or writer does it. The usefulness of the unknown person is twofold: the mind can use them to attribute a role that has a meaning for our dream or to avoid involving or recognizing someone known.
How come you dream of people who have a different face than who they are in reality (ie, I dream of Uncle Luigi but in the dream he has the face of a person I don't know)?
Freud argued that these are strange combinations of people that simultaneously represent different meanings.
What does it mean when you dream of very strange things - like an F1 driver doing a barbecue with a turkey? Can barbecue and turkey be representative of something?
Yes, maybe I'm putting a person on the barbecue who is not nice to me and whom I want to eliminate in my imagination because it would be convenient for me.
What does the phenomenon of the recurring dream (or nightmare) mean?
It means that the situations of the past have been codified with that recurring dream. When experiencing anguish it is possible to resort to a model scene to evoke that unpleasant state of mind: it is one of the many (unconscious) attempts of our mind to overcome the event that originated the anguish.
Is it true that most dreams last between 5 and 20 minutes?
Yes, and the length depends on the sleep phase we are in. In the hypnagogic phase of falling asleep (the one where you fall asleep), for example, which is characterized by the alpha rhythm, dreams last a few minutes. The tool used to study sleep is called the polygraph.
Is there a way to make sleep more enjoyable by reducing anxious dreams?
No, it doesn't seem to me.
Is it possible to "interpret" dreams? Know the meaning of what you dreamed of? Are the things found in dream interpretation books true? (in other words, is it possible that a dreamed thing has the same meaning for everyone?)
It is certainly possible to interpret dreams but the interpretation is not a symbolic transcription valid for everyone, as Carl Gustave Jung would have liked. Dreams should be interpreted only within a specific and usually psychoanalytic context and in the relationship between doctor and patient, there must be a deep communication preparatory to the interpretation of dreams by the doctor.
Why is a dream so important in psychoanalysis in the clinical approach?
Because it allows you to understand aspects that have not been written down and to confirm these about their understanding
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