What is a dream
The general view of the academic community on the cause and purpose of dreams is that dreams are caused by some nerve impulses released by the brain when processing information and consolidating long-term memories (like dust raised during cleaning or the flow of information being processed), which are interpreted by the conscious brain as strange sight and hearing.
The first was hobson and mccarley's "activation-synthesis" theory in 1977: the pontine brain in the brainstem constantly emits signals (pgo waves) even during sleep, which stimulate and activate the conscious part of the brain, making it synthesize a meaningful dream.
But then solms found that patients with brainstem injuries still had dreams, while patients with injuries to the parietal lobe (the craniocular cortex responsible for somatic sensory and sensory integration) did not have dreams, perhaps the brainstem was only related to rapid eye movement sleep (rem dreams), and the parietal lobe was related to both rem dreams and non-eye movement sleep (nrem dreams).
Jiezhang proposed the theory of "continuous activation" in 2004: one of the functions of sleep is to convert temporary memory into long-term memory, and the REM sleep phase processes unconscious "procedural memory", rather than the eye-moving sleep phase to deal with conscious "declarative memory".
During the REM sleep phase, the unconscious part of the brain is processing the memory, while the activity of the conscious part is minimized by the feeling of being cut off, at which point the pulse of information flowing from the memory bank activates the conscious part and causes it to weave a dream through association.
When another pulse arrives, another dream is made up, and the dream is suddenly changed.
It is also believed that the cause or function of dreams is:
(1) Through arbitrary mutations, new ideas and new strategies are generated by the "Darwinian process";
(2) Remove the garbage in the brain, the dream is the last glimpse of the garbage;
(3) The continuous stimulation of long-term memory, the strangeness of dreams during sleep comes from the storage format of long-term memory, but the brain when awake can give it a correct interpretation;
(4) Connecting distant but related memories and reinforcing them into a story body;
(5) Transforming external stimuli into dreams to prevent being awakened;
(6) Self-satisfaction, reduce psychological stress;
(7) Provide oxygen to the cornea through eye movements and many other views.
However, some people in Taiwan have proposed the "psychosomatic theory" of a dream: when dreaming, fantasy is separated from the self, and people will not perceive that they are fantasizing.
"Fantasy" is an illusion formed by taking out the sensory memory and piecing together the data and then sending it back to the sensory area, with the purpose of replacing the real signal with a simulated sensory signal and driving the autonomic nerve to perform psychosomatic effects.
Pain and pressure will drive the "repair nerves" in the autonomic nerves, and the repair nerves are arranged in the brain and spine into many meridians that will chain reactions, and one of the functions of dreaming is to simulate extremely dense movement pressure and kneading signals when growth hormone rises, driving the meridians to repair the body.
Related experiments
In 1953, at the University of Chicago, Professor Curitman and his graduate student Asselsky were studying sleep using brainwave measurements. Asselsky was responsible for observing the subjects' EEG as they slept— some babies.
While observing the EEG, Asselsky stumbled upon the fact that whenever there were fast waves in the brain waves, the baby's eyeballs moved rapidly, as if the closed eyes were looking at something.
Professor Curitman and Axesky suspect that this may have something to do with dreams. They took some adult subjects into the lab, connected electrodes to their heads, and put them to sleep. When the EEG appears fast waves, their eyeballs also begin to move rapidly.
Collitman and Axesky hurriedly woke them up and asked if they were dreaming, to which they replied: Yes. When there was no rapid eye movement, most of the participants who were woken up said that they were not dreaming.
As a result, people found that dreams are linked to fast waves and rapid eye movements of EEG.
The origin of the dream
In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud conducted systematic studies of dreams from a psychological point of view, and these studies gradually clarified the relationship between dreams and diseases.
Austrian psychologist Adler believes that dreams are self-adjustment and motivation in the subconscious, as well as the setting of future goals.
American psychologist Fromm believes that the function of dreams is to explore the interpersonal relationships of dreamers and help them find answers to these problems.
In addition, Freud believed that the essence of dreams is the tortuous expression of subconscious desires, the disguised and symbolic satisfaction of repressed subconscious desires. People's dreams are divided into "explicit dreams" and "hidden dreams".
"Explicit dreams" are what we usually call dreams, and "hidden dreams" refer to the true meaning of dreams, that is, people's repressed subconscious desires.
Jung believed that the symbolism of dreams was not meant to be disguised, but to be expressed more clearly, but only to be illustrated by symbolic metaphors. Dreams are not the fulfillment of wishes, but the prediction or foreshadowing of the future, so we should pay attention to the wisdom of dreams. Dreams that show the neglected and repressed side of the dreamer's own heart can often serve as a warning.
Jung believed that dreams show "the primitive man in our hearts", and if we can understand the dream, it is like knowing many "primitive" friends, and their wisdom can help us greatly. That is, "dream" is understood as a bridge between modern people and primitive people.
Jung believed that if a person's personality developed one aspect of himself excessively and suppressed other aspects of himself, the dream would remind him of the repressed side. Thus the basic purpose of dreams is not to satisfy desires through disguise, but to restore mental balance, which he calls the compensation of dreams.
Jung believed that most dreams were compensatory, that by bringing unconscious information from dreams into consciousness, the client might be able to determine the goal of the dream.
For example, when a person overemphasizes his brave side and does not admit that he also has a weak side, he may dream of being a timid child. The therapist helps the client discover this through dream analysis, making it possible for the client to integrate different characteristics within themselves.
One of the most significant contributions of psychoanalysis to psychology is the revelation of human dream life and its unconscious processes, and the understanding and application of the psychology of symbolism and symbolism has become one of the important tools and ways for analysts to approach the true meaning of the unconscious and dreams.
Xi Huan Xinyu: Dreams are common, dreams have a unique meaning from our cultural point of view, western psychology from the physiological structure of dreams to further explain. But so far, the academic community is still exploring the emergence of dreams. If you feel something about this, let's explore it together.