Dreams - The language of subconcious

The history of dream research:

About 5,000 years ago, in what is the Iraq now, high priests of the Mesopotamien civilization of Sumer considered dreams to be direct instructions from heaven to the kings. The Egyptians, a thousand years later, regarded dreams as a source of supernatural wisdom and kept inventories, which have since been recovered by archaeologists, of the most important types of dreams and what they might predict. Even today the tibetan Buddhist believes that dreams can reveal the shape of life to come after reincarnation. Sigmund Freud, one of the most famous psychologists was also really fascinated by dreams. In 1900, he published the first book having to do with dream interpretation. According to Freud, dreams are disguised thoughts from the unconscious mind.

The history of dream research

Our sleep is seperated in 4 different stages. When we fall asleep we stay in stage one, which is a very light sleep and then we drift into stage 2, where our dreams finally take place. We pass by stage 3 and in stage 4 we really relax, it's the deepest sleep of all and we are pretty hard to wake up.  Next the sleeper quickly climbs back to stage 2 and enters the night's first REM period. Continuing the cycle, the subject reenters REM sleep about every 90 minutes.

The 2 Types of sleep:

There are 2 basic types of sleep: NREM sleep (Non rapid eye movement) and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which was discoverd by Nathaniel Kleitman in 1953.

Rapid eye movement means, that our eyeballs move periodically while sleeping. It is during REM sleep that we dream, but researchers found out, that dreaming is also possible in NREM sleep, but then we dream much more passive and not that vividly.

What causes dreams anyway?

REM sleep plays an important role in our life. Dreaming helps us to cope with daily stress and to process the impressions of the day. Considered physically it is because of the stimulation of mainly 2 areas in our brain, called "pons" and "medulla", which produce our dreams while sleeping.

Does everybody dream and then: how long?

Not only all humans, but in fact also all mammals are shown to have REM sleep, which we connect with dreams. Humans spend as much as a quarter of their sleep time in REM but in contrast birds spend only 1-5 % in REM sleep. Reptiles and even more primitive and genetically programmed creatures have no REM sleep- Researchers lately found out that dreams can last 5 to 45 minutes, but actually no one is able to give real evidences. But it is proved that we lose REM sleep in our sleeping time, the older we get.

Dreams as helpers for scientists, musicians and poets or just in daily life

Some famous personalities also knew to use their dreams. F.A. Kekeulé discovered the structure ofthe DNA molecule after dreaming of two snakes interwining in a double helix. Also the "Devil's sonata" was composed by an inspiration, Guiseppe Tartini had, when he was dreaming.

Our brain needs time to process information and so for students  who study, it would be helpful to take some naps from timeto time and to experience some good REM sleep. So the information can be taken up better and it is easier to retain the information for longer periods of time.

Dream interpretation

In the second century, a Greek named Artemidorus Daldianus compiled five volumes listing and attempting to interpret hundreds of events and items that appear in dreams. Some 1,8oo year later, researchers are still trying to catalog and analyze dreams, but there seems to be no end. Psychologists and researchers have tried to find, for each common dream occurence, a psychological situation that matches the dream in some way and links it as a cause. But from my point of view, dream interpretation by catalog of symbols does not take into account individual differences between the dreamers. In general, books where you can find the most important dream symbols, could be quite helpful. But important dreams can only be interpretated by yourself!

What causes dream disorder?

Insomnia, a well known sleep disorder can actually be caused by many things such as the intake of alcohol, drugs or caffeine. Smoking, pain, diabetes, lack of exercise and psychological problems can also be cause of insomnia. But sleep disorders are divided into two groups: primary and secondary sleep disorders. Primary sleep disorders are the principal or only symptom of disturbance - or whether they are secondary to a larger problem. Primary sleep disorders are very serious, for instance narcolepsy¹ or apnea².

: The individual almost uncontrollably falls asleep at any moment

: The sleeper actually stops breathing for short period of time during sleep

How do blind and deaf people dream?

Blind and deaf people also seem specially attunded to their condition. Those born blind have no visual dreams at all, but instead have more vivid auditory dream experiences that sighted people. Persons who lost their sight after the year of 5-7 will continue dreaming visually first, but then other sensory elements including touch, taste, and smell take center stage.

The dreams of deaf people similary reflect the circumstances of their disability. As for communication, even deaf people who could remember hearing, tend to use sign language.

We get older what are our dreams doing?

Like we do, also our dreams change. As a child you have simplier dreams and often dream of toys and sweets. Also nightmares get rarer the older you get. Violence in TV also seem to have a decisive influence on children's dreams. Elderly people's dreams reflect their lives and circumstances. The elderly often dream of losing all their resources - life anxieties are shown in their dreams.

By Diana Brugger, July 1999