Griffin suggests that a depressed person also enters dream sleep (REM sleep) more quickly and will spend a lot more time dreaming throughout the night. This therefore means that they will not spend as much time as they should in slow wave sleep (see http://www.insomnium.co.uk/dream-theory/dreams-and-stages-of-sleep/). Slow wave sleep is an important part of the sleep process as this is where the body recuperates. Due to this a depressed person will wake up exhausted as the brain’s energy levels have been reduced due to the lack of slow wave sleep and also they have exhausted their brains further through excessive dreaming. This is why a depressed person will feel drained, miserable and unable to motivate themselves in the morning. It is also likely that they would wake up early due to the excessive dreaming so that the brain isnt drained any further.

Griffin believes that the reason antidepressants work in some cases is that they normalise the patients dream sleep. In addition, some older antidepressants however eliminate the need for dreaming (REM sleep) altogether as they prevent the patient from becoming emotional aroused throughout the day.

Griffin, J. & Tyrrell, I. (2004) “Dreaming Reality: How dreaming keeps us sane, or can drive us mad.” UK, HG Publishing. ISBN 1-899398-36-8

Shapiro, C.M., Trajanovic, N.N., & Fedoroff, J.P. (2003) Sexsomnia: A new parasomnia? Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 48(5), 311-317

Lipnicki found that on days of low geomagnetic activity dreams were found to be significantly more bizarre than the dreams that were recorded on days of high activity.

Lipnicki, D (2009) An association between geomagnetic activity and dream bizarreness. Volume 73, Issue 1, Pages 115-117 (July 2009)

There are four steps to dream content analysis:

1. Formulate categories for all the elements that appear frequently in dreams. For example:

Characters (animals, men and women, friends, strangers)
Activities (thinking, talking, running)
Emotions (happy, sad, embarrassed)
Social interactions (aggression, friendliness, sexuality)

2. Count the number of times the various elements in 1 appear (how many male characters, how many female, etc).

3. Turn the frequencies of categories into %’s and ratios. For example:

a) Animal %: total number of animals appearing in the dreams divided by the total number of all characters in the dreams.
b) Male/Female % – The total number of human males divided by the total number of human male + human female characters.
c) What % of dreams have at least one of something, for example, one instance of aggression (aggression can mean everything from an angry thought through insults, chasing someone, fighting and murder.
d) F/C index – number of friendly interactions divided by the total number of characters

4. Finally, compare the findings in 3 with the ‘norms’.

Domhoff’s studies have revealed continuity between the dream findings and the dreamers waking concerns suggesting that dreams have ‘meaning’. These studies have also shown that there is a consistency in what an adult dreams about over several months, years and decades as well as revealing many cross cultural similarities. For example, the % of animal characters in dreams always declines from age 5. Animals appear more frequently in children’s dreams with a lower % appearing in the dreams of adults. The % of animals is also higher in hunter gatherer societies than it is in industrialised societies, which goes some way in showing that dreams are relating to the waking world.

In terms of human characters, men appear to dream more frequently about other men (roughly 67% male characters / 33% female characters). These male characters encountered are more likely to be strangers or unknown characters. Women, on the other hand, appear to dream equally about other men and women. Women however tend to have more people they know in their dreams. 44% of all women’s dreams and 47% of all men’s dreams in norms have at least one form of aggression. Women, however, tend to have less physical aggression. The F/C index (the number of friendly interactions divided by the total number of characters) is usually about the same in both men’s and women’s dreams (0.22).

Domhoff also discovered that negative elements (aggression, misfortune, etc) are far more common in dreams than positive elements (friendly interactions, good fortunes, happiness or joy). Almost 80% of the ‘norm’ dreams for men and women have at least one negative element only 53% have one of the more positive elements.

References:
Schneider, A., & Domhoff, G. W. (2009). The Quantitative Study of Dreams. Retrieved from http://www.dreamresearch.net/

Lecture by Bill Domhoff entitled “The Awesome Lawfulness of Your Nightly Dreams” 9th April 2008 at UC Santa Cruz’s Music Recital Hall.

In terms of dream characters, animals appeared in six of the dreams (27%) while insects only appeared in one dream. Along the way I interacted with a total of 66 human characters. 55% of the characters were friends or people I recognised, 45% of the characters were unknown strangers. Of these 66 human characters, 53% were male and 47% were female. Only 1 person I encountered was dead in real life.

10 dreams involved some sort of violence or aggression (45%). 5 dreams featured a TV (23%) and I became lucid only once.

It is now clear that dreams are based on events and concerns from the previous day and are derived from the observations that I made, strong feelings of emotion and also reflections I had on past or future events. However, not all of this will appear in a dream. According to Griffin’s expectation fulfilment theory only “unexpressed emotionally arousing concerns” from the previous day will appear. Basically things that got me emotionally aroused but I had failed to act upon during the day. If for example, I got angry with someone but failed to express that anger. The key to this however is to recognise that dreams are metaphorical translations, everything you see in a dream is a substitute for something else.

The Dream:

The first dream in which this became apparent was one I had on the 3rd of July 2009 while I was on holiday in the Dominican Republic. The waking concerns I had on the 2nd of July are the most obvious in the following parts of the dream:

Scene 2:
I am now at a computer station outside and I appear to be at work. There are a few of us working. We seem to be working late. The general public are walking about around us. A child stops beside me and picks up some money that was lying on the grass. This money belonged to us. I look over and I can see the child’s parents. They may be Indian. The woman says to me aggressively: What are you looking at? The woman walks away with the man and child although I realise that she will likely return.

Interpretation:

In interpreting the dream I had to think about what I had done the previous day and write down anything that may have affected me emotionally. Of course this was all done in retrospect and ideally at the end of the day or when the event occurred I should try and note it down so I have something to compare the dream to the next day. However, this can obviously be difficult but if this is done then it should be possible to predict what is likely to appear in your dreams.

In scene 1 above, my sister enters my room and hands me a sock. This part of the dream can be easily interpreted – the mysterious vanishing socks. The previous night while I was getting ready to go out I could only find one sock. I searched the hotel room for the other sock but couldn’t find it. I finally gave up frustrated and just lay on the bed. My girlfriend was in the room at the time but she didn’t help find it.

This scenario is played out in the dream but the important details have been changed. My girlfriend was replaced by my sister. I was lying in a bed however I was not in the hotel room but in my old room at my parents house. The emotional charge (or frustration) attached to this scenario was deactivated when my sister handed me a sock in the dream thus providing me with the outcome I was looking for in waking life.

The previous day I left the hotel and went on an excursion to Ocean World Adventure Park in Puerto Plata. Ocean World is a place where you can swim with dolphins and sharks and they also have a tiger enclosure for some reason. While we were at ocean world we had our photographs taken as we swum with dolphins. The photos were available to purchase at an outrageous price at the photo lab.

Before we left we had a look at the photos as we were thinking about buying one. However, the woman who served me at the counter was infuriating, obnoxious and unhelpful. As the woman took us through the photos on the computer she tried to rush us into making a decision which really annoyed me. At the same time she got extremely impatient with us and started to sigh and put her head on the table. Eventually, she walked away from us through the back without saying anything. At this point I was ready to explode but managed to hold in my anger. I decided to take control of the computer and look through the photos myself which seemed to annoy the woman even more. She eventually returned with the same scowl on her face and we told her which photo we wanted. She told us to return later to collect the photo. We walked outside and a few minutes later a woman walked past us and smiled at me. I mistook this woman for the same woman who had just served us at the photo desk as she was the spitting image of her. I couldn’t understand how one minute this woman was obnoxious and the next she was smiling at me.

This scenario was played out metaphorically in scene 2. In the dream, I am not at Ocean World but instead I am outside at work sitting at a computer station. It is a similar situation as the general public are walking about like they would have been while I was standing at the photo desk. The child who stops and steals our money could be related to the fact that I felt I was being ripped off as the photo was ridiculously expensive for what it was. I become angry at the child’s parents who in fact are an Indian couple I saw the previous night while I was having dinner in the hotel restaurant. I did not speak to the Indian couple at all while I was there. The Indian woman speaks to me aggressively and she clearly is standing in for the Dominican woman from the photo lab who had enraged me the previous day.

In the dream, the Indian woman walks away but I realise that she will return. This is what happened at the photo desk. When the woman does eventually return instead of suppressing my anger as I did in waking life, my anger toward her is clearly shown when the woman is chased by our manager (who is in fact representing myself) and punched hard on the face. This is something I would have loved to have done at the time, something I had felt like doing but obviously something I couldn’t act out in real life.

I have however acted this out in the dream therefore in turn I have deactivated the emotional charge that was associated with it and I have finally expressed my anger. Although I had probably put all this to the back of my mind before I went to sleep, it appeared in the dream as it was emotionally arousing and it was still active due to the fact I didn’t express my anger at the time of the event. Deactivating unexpressed emotions within the dream will free the brain and allow it to start with a clean slate the next day.

At the end of scene 2, I noticed that the Indian woman runs away smiling and laughing like it was all staged. This fits in with what happened after I left the photo desk at Ocean World. A few minutes later I saw a woman who looked identical to the annoying woman at the photo desk which confused me at the time. I remember thinking to myself that she must have been pretending all the time she was serving us at the photo desk. My girlfriend also later confirmed that she also thought it was the same woman.

Why do we dream in metaphor?

There is now only one question to answer – why do we dream in metaphor? The reason given by Griffin is if we didn’t dream in metaphor and we remembered those dreams which were similar to the scenarios in real life, we would be creating false memories. Our memory would either become corrupt or incomplete. If for example, my brain replayed the event at the photo desk in exact detail but in the dream I punched the woman in the face this would change my memory of what actually happened which could have consequences. If the scenario is replayed metaphorically, where everyone and everything is replaced it can be safely forgotten. Even if it is remembered I will easily be able to distinguish it from a real memory.

The dream therefore appears to be theatre. The brain needs to deactivate unexpressed emotions therefore it replays the scenario while we sleep until the emotion has been expressed or the desired outcome has been reached. However, it does not use the original characters or places or things but replaces everyone and everything in the dream with things from my memory.

In the dream above, my sister was used to play the part of my girlfriend. A woman I saw in a restaurant the previous night was used to play the part of the obnoxious woman at the photo desk. However, it could have easily have been a celebrity or someone I saw on the TV the night before. The sock scenario was played out in my childhood home instead of the hotel room I was staying in again an old memory. I believe since I didn’t find the sock in waking life the sock appeared to me as a sock in the dream and not another object.

According to the theory there will be exceptions. For example, if I see a dead person in a dream, they will be playing themselves as in reality they are dead and in the dream I would be seeing them alive. If I sense someone’s presence in the dream but do not actually see them in front of me, they are actually playing themselves. This happens quite often for me as I have had many dreams recently where my girlfriend or a friend is with me but I never actually see them in front of me I just know that they are there. If I did happen to see them in front of me then they would be representing someone else in the dream.

I intend to post some more articles on this theory in the near future. To be continued…

References:

Griffin, J. & Tyrrell, I. (2004) “Dreaming Reality: How dreaming keeps us sane, or can drive us mad.” UK, HG Publishing. ISBN 1-899398-36-8

Tyrrell, Ivan; Joe Griffin (2004). Human Givens. HG Publishing. ISBN 1-899398-31-7.

In the second stage of sleep, eye movement stops altogether and brain waves slow down. Slower brain waves called delta waves begin to appear in the third stage of sleep and it becomes more difficult to wake someone up. This is the transition into deep sleep. During stage 4 (slow wave or delta sleep) the brain mainly produces delta waves. This is more intense than in Stage 3. There is no eye movement or muscle activity. The body begins to repair itself.

The final stage is REM sleep. The eyes move around in different directions and muscles are paralysed. We breathe more quickly and our heart rate increases. This is the stage where most of our dreaming occurs. The first REM period usually occurs around 90 minutes after we fall asleep and is normally short. We would normally have around three to five REM periods in a night. The length of each REM period increases as the night progresses while the periods of deep sleep (stage 4) decrease. The longest REM period is therefore in early morning or the last one we have before we wake up. On average this usually lasts around 30 minutes. This is when we are most likely to remember our dreams.

]]> http://www.insomnium.co.uk/dream-theory/activation-synthesis-theory/feed/ 0 http://www.insomnium.co.uk/dream-theory/jung-dream-analysis/ http://www.insomnium.co.uk/dream-theory/jung-dream-analysis/#comments Thu, 30 Jun 2005 23:00:29 +0000 Kevin http://www.insomnium.co.uk/words/?p=24 Jung proposed that the average dream is similar in structure to a drama, comprising of four distinct stages:

(1) ‘Exposition’ – The opening scene which introduces place, characters and the situation that the dreamer will face (an issue or problem expressed metaphorically).
(2) ‘Development’ – The emergence of the plot.
(3) ‘Culmination’ – Something significant happens, the main character responds.
(4) ‘Lysis’ – The conclusion of the dream. The ending of the dream is regarded as the most important stage. It signifies how the dreamer might deal with the problem or issue that was expressed in the first stage (exposition). In essence, the dream-work creates a solution or result for the dreamer.

Jung maintained however that some dreams could be too short or fragmented to fit into this structure.

Unlike Freud, Jung believed that the manifest dream (the dream as remembered) contains the actual meaning of the dream – the dream is therefore not distorted or disguised in any way. It is a message or natural expression of the unconscious. It is difficult to interpret and understand since it is expressed in its own unique language of symbols or metaphors.

In order to interpret a dream, Jung used the process of amplification. In essence, amplification involves elaborating on a dream image in order to determine its significance through direct and indirect association. This is achieved by gaining an insight into the dreamer’s:-

(1) personal associations with the image (direct association). In order to discover the feelings evoked by a particular dream image or symbol. The meaning and significance of a particular word or image can vary greatly between individuals depending on the effect it has had on his/her life.
(2) The cultural significance of the image,
(3) as well as drawing parallels from the symbolism contained in folklore, history, fairytales, religion, mythology, rituals etc (archetypes).

Jung also developed the method of active imagination which can be used in dream interpretation. The individual meditates, concentrating on a specific dream image. Then allows the image to develop freely without making a conscious effort to change it. The individual simply observes how the image gradually develops over time.

Jung believed that a series of dreams is much easier to interpret than a single dream. This is due to the fact that significant images will be repeated and the basic ideas and themes behind the dreams can be recognised more easily. A series of dreams usually indicates a complex conflict.

Jungian dream interpretation also places a great deal of importance on the conscious situation of the dreamer. The dream is not an isolated event and cannot be detached from the dreamer’s everyday life. Therefore a number of conscious attitudes will begin to cluster together within the unconscious. Dreams tend to compensate for these conscious attitudes (or personality traits), which will be repressed, hidden or forgotten. For example, if the dreamer is repressing their sexual feelings or needs in waking life the dream may compensate for this by providing a dream full with sexual imagery. This has a balancing effect as the dream is providing a different viewpoint from the conscious situation. This theory of compensation is therefore based on the belief that the psyche is a self-regulating system.

The shadow is an archetype, meaning that it exists in all of us. The shadow contains everything denied and despised, everything considered sinful and everything we find awkward or unnerving. Although the shadow is thought of as the dark side of the individual it should be noted that it could also contain undeveloped positive parts. Jung believed the shadow to be inferior and primitive in nature. Therefore since it is instinctive it is likely to have a disturbing influence on the personality of the individual unless it is confronted.

However, the shadow is difficult to perceive consciously. Since an individual will deny or ignore his or her shadow side, it is likely that it will be projected onto others. Instead of acknowledging their shadow the individual will unconsciously see it in people they encounter or even concepts, objects, ethics or groups. For example, the individual may find that they despise a specific person (or certain characteristics of that person) for no apparent reason. Where this hatred is emotionally obsessive, an irritation or an overreaction – where the emotions take control whenever this person is in close proximity – then it is likely the individual has stumbled upon parts of his or her own shadow. These characteristics that we find hideous in other people could in fact be our own repressed attributes. The shadow is most likely to infiltrate when the individual is tired, irritated or harassed.

The shadow is also encountered in dreams. It can be held accountable for the unpleasant thoughts or actions that seemingly violate the morality of the dreamer. The shadow may present itself as an unknown individual usually of the same sex as the dreamer. Equally, an unlikeable person who is known to the dreamer could also represent the shadow.