Реферат: Dream Interpretation Essay Research Paper Dream InterpretationJeffrey

of your problems. Unfortunately, the best it can do is try it’s hardest to bring them to your

attention. This is no easy task, and because of that memory thing I mentioned earlier, it rarely

works. It can be very successful in rare instances called lucid dreams, which will be discussed

later.

There are two main reasons for studying dreams. One is so therapists can better

understand their patients. The other is to learn more about dreams in general, so that therapists

can better understand their patients. (Okay, so in a way, there’s only one reason, but who’s

writing this paper, you or me?)

Therapist Gayle Delaney says it best: “Doing (psychological) therapy without dream

interpretation is like doing orthopedics without X rays” (Colt 41). Therapists analyze their

patients’ dreams based on generally accepted research and on what they know about the

individual. This is often a daunting task, since the patient rarely remembers anything more than

small fragments of information from a dream. Because of the unreliability of dream memory,

dreams are normally discussed only when the dream itself is the problem. Such problems are

recurring nightmares or just simple curiosity about a dream’s meaning. That meaning is usually

determined by examining the patient’s emotional state during the dream and by looking for

common dream symbols. Dream symbols are objects or places that are present in a dream and

carry a deeper and more enigmatic meaning than what is obvious (Freud). Therapists also try to

determine who or what the characters in a dream might represent. There are also common

dream themes that have certain established meanings, such as dreaming of flying, being chased

by animals or evil forces, being paralyzed, etc.

In order for therapists to have any idea what to look for, there must be some accepted

ideas about dream interpretation and the science of dreams in general. These ideas are generated

by dream research. There are many types of dream research, most of which revolve around what

conditions cause what types of dreams. They test with conditions like music played during

sleep, food eaten shortly before sleep, ambient sound present, stress levels, mental state,

temperature, lighting; the list goes on and on. Other research is conducted to measure the effect

that dreams have on us. Generally speaking, the effect is to help us manage stress (Kramer 56).

Still more research is conducted on dreams in different stages of sleep (the most vivid and