7-1+I-Search-Kathleen

= The System and Meaning of Dreams = by Kathleen

media type="custom" key="786737" "Oh my gosh! What was that? Was that a dream?" It was, I wonder why people have dreams at night when they sleep. I've always wondered about dreams but I've never taken the time to research that topic. At 2 am I woke up thinking of the dream I had. I woke feeling so curious and wanting to know everything about dreams, because if dreams came true my mother might win the lottery some time soon. I asked myself confused, "How do dreams work and what do they mean?" Time passed and I couldn't fall asleep so I decided to ask my mother about dreams. I woke up my mother and asked her, "How do dreams work, oh and by the way what do they mean?" "Are you kidding Kathleen go to sleep, that's a good question but I'd rather sleep, you can do a research tomorrowwwwwww," my mother said. I had no choice but to go back to bed, my mother had fallen asleep at the end of the sentence. I couldn't sleep at all. I really wanted to know why I was dreaming and what a dream really meant. I couldn't get over the dream I had. I asked myself so many question. For example, "Was my mother really going to win the lottery, was my dream a sign that we were going to become rich." I did my best to sleep but I can't so I made a deal with myself. I promised and said to myself "Kathleen when you wake up tomorrow the first thing you're doing is researching how dreams work and what they mean."
 * Introduction**

It is Sunday 8:47am and I can’t stand waking up and forgetting what I was dreaming about. I feel as if the dream I just had was one of the most fascinating dreams I have ever had but I can’t remember it. I wonder if dreaming has anything to do with the brain? Ms. Brownstone told us that we had to find a professional person that we could interview and I think the question relating the brain and dreams is great. I don’t know who to interview….. I think I should ask Ms. Brownstone some time soon, Mean while Ill do some reading.
 * Search**

I’m going to the library to get some books about dreams, sleep, and the brain. COOL! There are a couple of theories which to some people are very believable. Sigmund Freud who is a physician thinks dreams represent unconscious sexual and aggressive wishes and fears that began during a person’s childhood and are hidden in dream symbols. I believe in part of this theory. The part I believe in is the part where Freud says that dreams represent fears and wishes. I disagree with Freud when he specifies that dreams represent sexually and aggressive fears and wishes because if that is true we do us kids have dreams. I don’t think a dream actually relies on sexual and aggressive thoughts. What about all those kids who aren’t aggressive? Most of the children don’t have sexual thoughts. Think about babies they don’t have aggressive thoughts nor sexual thoughts. I think! I’m pretty sure and if not that would be pretty weird. I think a dream generally relies on something a person thinks about a lot and for a long time that the brain starts creating images and when the you see them in your sleep.

There’s another theory which a group of Gestalt psychotherapists concluded about why dreams happen. This group stated that all elements in a dream express parts of the person who is dreaming it. According to the group of Gestalt the parts of a dreamer are explored and then acted out in your dream. I don’t agree with this theory because I have had dreams when I just see other people around me. I’m sure these dreams haven’t interpreted any elements or expressed anything about me. The right theory to why dreams happen should qualify to all dreams not just some.

One other theory that I do agree with states that a dream is another state of awareness and expresses the dreamers way of being in the world. If the dreamer is down to earth and mature enough then the dreamers dreams would express that. Many of my dreams have expressed by life style and what I like to do. For example, one of the things I love to do in this world is hang out and chill with my friends and there has been a lot of times when I dream about myself having fun with my friends. Ms. Brownstone said I should interview Dr. Helfenbein. So I went during six period, after school was over, and I asked him if I could interview him anytime soon. He said he didn’t have time. I thought and thought and an idea came to my head so I told him I’ll e-mail him some questions and he can get back to me as soon as possible, of course when he has time.

Oh look, I got my questions answered.  1. In your opinion, what would your theory be of why people dream? Based on something I read some time ago, I think the main function of dreams is to clear out a persons short term memory: thoughts and ideas that end up in short term memory, but don't get sent and stored in the long term memory get cleared out through dreaming.  2. Are there any connections between rapid eye movement (REM) and the brain? Question was not answered…..

3. Are there any theories you believe about connections between dreams and REM? Most vivid dreams occur during REM and the brain is quite active during this time.  4. In what stage of sleep do people sleep the most? It depends on a person's age. Babies spend most of their sleep in REM, older people in non-REM.

5. How is the brain activity during sleep? It varies depending on the type of sleep. During REM, the brain's waves as shown on a device called an electro-encephalogram are similar to waking hours. In other stages, different types of brain waves dominate.

6. How long do you believe a dream lasts? They could be as long as 20-30 minutes.

7. Why is it that sometimes people dream, but they don't know what they dreamed about? Most dreams seem to be difficult to send to long-term memory. That may be the point of dreaming as I mentioned before, eliminating things from short term memory.

8. Do dreams affect the brain? If so, how or why is the brain affected? They seem to affect memory and may be an important type of activity for the development of newborn's brains (remember they spend much of their time in REM sleep).  9. Do you believe our daily lives affect our dreams (the dreams we have)? Things that we think of very briefly may end up stuck in short-term memory and removed later through dreaming.  10. Have you had any dreams that ha came true over the time? Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. No, none come to mind.  11. Do you believe a dream can affect a person mentally or physically? See question 8. and also, there is the issue of sleep itself, aside from dreams. Sleep deprivation (lack of sleep) can actually kill rats and certainly has a negative affect on people's health.  12. Do you believe dreaming is a good thing to a person? Is it good for the brain memory, health, or etc. REM sleep occurs in other mammals and birds as well as in people. The fact that it is widespread, suggests that dreaming is important in the lives of those that do it.

After reading the questions Dr. Helfenbein answered I believe I should reflect and refresh my theories. I thought that people dreamed because they thought too much about something but now I kind of also agree with Dr. Helfenbein. I think drams are a way to develop a thought we were having but then after we develop it, the thought just goes away. Meaning that thought in our memory would then be cleared. In never thought I could come up with so many theories about something.

I had learned a while back that dreams have a lot to do with the brain. " I don't feel like waking up!" Right after I said that I remember about what I had promised myself. I was so excited that I was finally going to be able to get on the computer and do some search. I started searching "dreams when you sleep" in Google. I found a website called "[|__howstuffworks.com__]." I was so surprised when I read about the five stages when you sleep and what they were. The five stages are some what important to my dreams topic because there are different theories that determine in which stage dreams take place the most. Most dreams take place in the fifth stage which is the REM stage, standing for the Rapid Eye Movement stage. At first researchers thought that if a person did not go through the REM stage they did not dream but after that theory was disapproved "[|__howstuffworks.com__]." So far there hasn't been any professional or researcher who has figured out exactly how dreams function. I do believe it is a hard topic to find out because there are many different theories which are reasonable.

There are common dreams that have a meaning attached to them or something like an interpretation attached to them. This part of my search is what caught my eye the most. "WOW!" It says here that when you have a dream about falling and then you automatically wake up that is a warning about insecurities. Another interpretation is failure and negative thoughts. For example you might think that you failed the test you took yesterday or that your going to get fired. In other words one of my theories according to my reading have been that your thoughts build up and create a common dream sometimes. It all depends on the dream that you had or the thoughts that you have been having. People have many common dreams for these reasons. According to sleeps.com a dream is said to be a communication of body, mind and spirit. What do you think? Stop and think for a minute if your thoughtful. I actually agree with this statement because there has been many times when I have dreams about things I‘ve been thoughtful about. There were times when I dreams and got the answers to some of those thoughts.

There are a couple of theories which to some people are very believable. Sigmund Freud who is a physician thinks dreams represent unconscious sexual and aggressive wishes and fears that began during a person’s childhood and are hidden in dream symbols. I believe in part of this theory. The part I believe in is the part where Freud says that dreams represent fears and wishes. I disagree with Freud when he specifies that dreams represent sexually and aggressive fears and wishes because if that is true we do us kids have dreams. I don’t think a dream actually relies on sexual and aggressive thoughts. What about all those kids who aren’t aggressive? Most of the children don’t have sexual thoughts. Think about babies they don’t have aggressive thoughts nor sexual thoughts. I think! I’m pretty sure and if not that would be pretty weird. I think a dream generally relies on something a person thinks about a lot and for a long time that the brain starts creating images and when the you see them in your sleep.

OMG it’s 9:05am and I just woke up. I just had a dream about a friend who went to Alaska. I was just thinking about her yesterday and how she might be doing in Alaska with her mother since she recently went. I was also thinking about when she was going to come to New York to stay for a while. I even sent her a message saying hi and when she was going to come to NY. In my dream I saw myself in the airport with a lot of my 6 grade friends waiting. Then I saw my friend Nicole with her suitcase coming towards us and everybody saying hi and that they missed her. Right after that I woke up. Dreaming is weird don’t you think? I’ve recorded some of my dreams and according to them my theory stay the same. You should wake up and record your dreams everyday. You should also think about how the dream connects to you and whether or not you were having thoughts about that dream recently.

I believe everyone has dreamed before, well at least I think most people have. Sometimes these dreams are the best but sometimes they're just the worst things you have ever seen. According to my research some dreams are negative because of our negative thoughts and others are just the best because we are thinking about positive things. We should try going to sleep a with positive thoughts to make sure we have happy and positive dreams. I think dreams are a way to develop a thought we were having but then after we develop it, the thought just goes away. Meaning that thought in our memory would then be cleared by dreaming. You know I'm going to try that for a week and jot my answers down. You can even try that, that way you yourself will determine if the readings that have been read so far are true.
 * Conclusion**


 * Works Cited**

Innes, Brian. __The Book of Dreams__. New York: Gramercy Books, 2007. 35-53.

Obringer, Lee A. "Howstuffworks "What Do Our Dreams Mean?"" __Howstuffworks__. 10 Apr. 2008 <[|__http://health.howstuffworks.com/dream7.htm>.__]

Obringer, Lee A. "Howstuffworks "Dreams and REM Sleep"" __Howstuffworks__. 13 Apr. 2008 <__http://health.howstuffworks.com/dream3.htm__>.

Thiessen, Elizabeth. "Dreams - the Basics About Dreaming." __Dream Central__. 16 Apr. 2008 <[|__http://www.sleeps.com/basics.html>.__]

Tonay, Verownica. __Every Dream Interpreted__. London: Collins and Brown Limited, 2003. 6-19.