Psychology of Dreams and Its Interpretation

Author: Alan Rada

Throughout the history of mankind, dreams have been a very deliberate, questioned and studied subject and have not ceased to be so in our day.

According to many professionals, among them Calvin Hall, they say dreams are the reflection of our earthly lives, while, on the other hand, Sigmund Freud said that our dreams are our inconceivable desires.

psychology of dreams

But What are Dreams?

Basically, it’s about thoughts, emotions, sensations, and images we see when we sleep. We can say that they are involuntary and happen when we end up in a REM (Rapid-eye movement) state.

According to the studies carried out, it was shown that, although the most vivid moments of dreams occur in the state of REM, they also occur throughout the different stages of the sleep cycle.

At the same time, researchers found that people have between 3 and 6 dreams in a night in lapses of 5 to 20 minutes each. It should be noted that a large majority of people do not remember or forget 95% of their dreams when they wake up.

In addition to believing that dreams are simply a useless process for cleaning and storing new long-term memories, psychologists provide several reasons why we dream.

• Therapist psychologists have found unique value in sleep analysis because of these stages we can obtain information that we ignore when we are awake.

• Other experts point out that dreams are a way to prepare the brain for future events.

• They can also serve as a tool for problem-solving situations.

On the other hand, other psychologists stipulate that dreams do not fulfill any psychological function, although they admit that they have a meaning since the content of dreams is unique for each person, so an analysis can provide a reliable individual psychological profile.

Interpretations According to Freud

• Dreaming of an authority figure may suggest some kind of conflict to a boss or one’s parents, which implies “condensation“; to relate several images or ideas into one.

• The use of weapons in a dream can have a sexual connotation. This is called “symbolization“.

• Dreaming with animals fighting, for example, can mean a dilemma. The person, in real life, may have a conflict of options or decisions to make. This “displacement” involves a change from something that interests us, into something else.

• To dream of practicing or betting on sports, can mean some that there is some kind of conflict with the qualities or talents that one may have, hidden or not, and not being taken advantage of.

• At the end of the dream what Freud demonizes “secondary revision” occurs. This implies reorganizing all the elements of the dream into something understandable.

psychology of dreams

Calvin S. Hall’s Interpretation

Unlike Freud, Hall proposed that dreams were simply thoughts that came to mind when we slept, the result was “cognitive theory“, which has a structure that represents our personal lives.

Other Interpretations

Many humanistic psychologists have the concept that dreams are the reflections of people’s daily lives and how they deal with certain circumstances.

Other behavior-focused psychologists see how people’s behavior has a significant impact on dreams and how they are displayed within dreams.

Key Conclusions

While there are many studies in this regard, many psychologists find conflicting conclusions about whether dreams have a purpose and what this would be.

William Domhoff (researcher in the area of ​​sleep), declares that dreams are a valuable and underestimated tool that provides a psychological profile of the individual quite conscientious.

Of the many looks and interpretations, many suggest that the symbolism represented in dreams gives us a perspective on our lives and how to deal with certain situations.

However, since there is still a long way to go, while we discover many facets of the human brain, we must not forget that dreams are part of our personal and daily life. Happy dreams!