Psychology of dreams. Symbols and analysis of dreams. Prophetic dreams are the messengers of fate? What is human sleep

Sleep, dreams and dreams, theories of sleep.
From the moment we fall asleep, we are at peace unlimited possibilities. In our dreams, we can be anyone and do anything. In the world of dreams, nothing is impossible. You can be on Mars, or in the distant past, somewhere in primeval caves, or you can climb the career ladder in an instant and earn millions, or vice versa, lose everything that was acquired by overwork ...
Dreams are often vague and difficult to interpret. But sometimes our dreams are so vivid and realistic that it is very difficult for us to draw a line between reality and fantasy.
So what is the significance of his dreams in a person's life? It would be logical to assume that sleep is only a product of experiences experienced by a person during the day, but is it really so? In this article, we will look at the main theories of sleep: Freud, and Jung.
The previous post explained

First, let's look at some known facts about dreams:
1. Everyone dreams and this is a fact. The only exceptions are people suffering from serious mental disorders. If you ask someone to tell you their dream and they say they never dream, they are lying. He just doesn't remember his dreams. This fact brings us smoothly to point number 2.
2. We forget 90% of our dreams. Within five minutes of waking up, 50% of your dreams will be forgotten. In another five minutes, you will forget 90% of what you saw in a dream. 10% is what will remain in your memory. Often these are the highlights of your dreams.
3. We often believe in what we saw in a dream. For example: the faces of people who in reality have never seen. Or faith in the information received, about which they did not know or hear anything before. If you try to object and hint to the interlocutor that perhaps these were images from the distant past, the faces of strangers who met, or snippets of phrases heard in the subway, on the radio, TV, etc. You will most likely hear in response: "I don't have doubt about it, in a dream, I definitely saw it for the first time." In fact, our brain is capable of doing incredible tricks, it can remember faces that we saw for only a fraction of a second, but previously, this information was hidden so as not to overload memory with unnecessary garbage.
4. Polls have shown that 20 - 40% of people have had a prophetic dream at least once in their lives.
5. 12% of people see exclusively black and white dreams, and among people under the age of 25, the figures are even lower, only 4.4%.

sleep theories. Freud.

Freud classified the mind into three areas:
"Super-I", or Super-Ego: This is a reflection of social norms, morality, the imposition of prohibitions, the formation of ideals. The super-ego strives to be socially acceptable. Let's compare it to the "Angel on the right shoulder", which keeps it under control and is in constant conflict with the "It". In essence, the "Super-I" is your conscience.

"I" or "Ego": This is the conscious mind. "Ego" seeks to please "It" without causing problems and conflict situations. This is the balance between "It" and "Super - Ego", which in turn receive their objective existence through "I".

"It": lives by the principles of achieving pleasure at any cost and just wants everything now. Food, water, sex and other basic instincts are controlled by the id. "It" seeks only pleasure, this is your "Devil on the left shoulder."

Freud believed that during the day, your "Superego" controls the "I" and you act, socially appropriate, as your conscience requires. This means that the "Super-I" manages to suppress the "It". So when you sleep, your "It" releases all repressed, socially unacceptable desires. Our brain reproduces repressed desires in symbolic images that are more acceptable for censorship. This is why dreams are so difficult to understand and interpret.

You probably already know that Freud was a little... Okay, too obsessed with sex. All his theories are based on sex. And this is what causes skepticism towards Freud's theories. So, for example, it is not difficult to guess what Freud symbolized; (tree trunks, sticks, rockets, and all elongated objects), or (stoves, vases, pots, pans, and anything containing inner space). The most common walking up the stairs has a sexual connotation, but if you, God forbid, dreamed that you were putting flowers in your mother-in-law's vase... Then you are a 100% pervert...
However, Freud's sexual insanity does not make his achievements in the field of the study of dreams and psychology in general less significant. In addition, Freud's vision is explained by the puritanical mores of those times and the overly repressed sexuality of the Victorian era.

sleep theories. Jung.
Carl Gustav Jung - One of the best students of Freud, like Freud, Jung agreed with the theories of his teacher, he believed in the existence of the unconscious, and attached great importance to understanding the human psyche. Of course, Jung's theories are based on the ideas of his teacher, but unlike Freud, Jung gave less importance to sexuality and gave priority to spirituality. Freud reproached Jung for an excessive penchant for mysticism, and Jung could not agree that Freud considered the unconscious from the point of view of base instincts, and the content of dreams, as hidden behind images, satisfaction, socially unacceptable norms. These disagreements, and became a stumbling block in the path of Freud and Jung, they became the reason for the final break, after which, each went his own way in the study and understanding of the unconscious.

Jung proposed another structure of human personality:
The "ego" was considered by him as self-consciousness, the perception of the outside world by the personality, and all traits rejected by the personality (socially unacceptable) form an unconscious "counter ego", which Jung called the shadow. Like Freud's "It", the "Shadow" is a part of yourself, your primitive instincts, the Shadow is that side of the personality that you are not willing to accept.

"Animus" in men and "Anima" in women - archetypes representing personality traits, masculine and feminine, often repressed into the unconscious.

Self- this is the main archetype in the structure of the Ego, the archetype of the integrity of the personality, the quality that transcends the "Ego", it covers both the conscious and unconscious areas human psyche. The self is the whole potential of the individual, the ultimate goal of self-realization, self-realization.

Everything in Jung's theories is based on the presence of opposites: black - white, good - evil, man - woman, "Ego" - counter Ego, or shadow.

Regarding dreams, Jung believed that dreams were not a disguise for your unconscious, rather they were a window to it. Dreams are a kind of recommendations for solving problems in real life it is your adviser, guide to life. Dreams were considered by Jung as a process of communication between the conscious and the unconscious. The purpose of dreams is to guide, to help a person manifest his full potential ...

As you can see, both Freud's theory of dreams and Jung's theory are not particularly different, and both have a right to exist. Which one is more plausible?
Give dreams a sexual, or a more spiritual meaning?
And in general, do they give any meaning? ...
Everything is purely individual, and the choice is yours!

Sleep well and have pleasant dreams!

It has long been known that people are in a state of sleep for about one-third of their lives. From the point of view of psychology, sleep is a loss of consciousness. The content of sleep is influenced by life events, the environment and the information available in a person’s memory. Physiologically, sleep is intended for rest, but the body is able to rest only until the onset of the stage REM sleep. It is characterized increased activity brain and takes up about 20% - 25% of a night's sleep. Overnight periods of fast and slow sleep may be repeated several times.

In REM sleep, the brain is active on a par with the period of wakefulness, but the human psyche works differently. Blocked physical activity, as a result, in a dream it is difficult for us to run away from someone and commit other quick action. In response to brain signals, a slight muscle contraction follows.

The founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, put forward his theory of the psychology of sleep. In his opinion, sleep is a way of realizing the unconscious desires of a person that are not realized in real life. As a result, unrealized plans appear in a dream when the body is relaxed and devoid of movement.

The great neuro- and microbiologist Francis Crick proposed the theory that sleep is getting rid of the accumulated unnecessary information in the brain. And the most interesting thing is that his theory is partly confirmed. For a good example, try to remember the day before yesterday in great detail. What did you do, what did you talk about and think about.

There is another untested hypothesis that suggests that during sleep, the brain links various information together and helps us remember many life events.

Scientists have proven that the dreams of men and women are different from each other. Men often dream conflict situations, active movement. Women see opposite more calm images, consisting of conversations and events, mainly taking place in enclosed spaces. Many people, both men and women, often see scary dreams, which are a sign of serious life problems and upheavals. The causes of nightmares are varied: the presence of psychological trauma, medication and alcohol abuse.

Very a rare species sleep is the so-called conscious dream. This is when a person during sleep is fully aware of what is happening, as his own virtual reality. A sleeping person can have absolutely unlimited influence on the events of his dream, simulate situations, instantly move in space, have incredible opportunities, etc.

After all, dreams are most often an unconscious reflection of reality and indicate the weakest points in our lives, therefore they deserve special attention from our side.

Dreams, from the point of view of psychology, are a journey into our subconscious, a reflection of everyday emotions, an internal experience of any events, hidden desires, problems, etc. It is noted that the content of dreams can be influenced by various factors.

1. The appearance of dreams can be facilitated by increased emotionality, both positive and negative.
2. The state of human health can directly affect the depth and content of sleep.
3. Even the position in which you sleep affects what you will dream about.

Often, experts are asked what dreams mean; psychology has several interpretations of this term:

1. Sleep is defined as the natural state of a person in which he periodically stays. At the same time, there is a decrease brain activity and slowdown internal processes organism.
2. Concretizing this state, scientists point out that a dream is a sequence of certain images.
3. And finally, sleep is one of physiological needs organism, which he daily (daily) satisfies.

When they talk about dreams, they often talk about colored dreams that this or that person periodically sees. For a long time it was believed that such dreams come only to people with increased emotional excitability, often mentally unbalanced. In addition, it has been proven that in most people they are black and white. Today, the attitude towards the color of dreams has changed somewhat, and color dreams, as psychology explains, are dreamed, as a rule, by creative people with a rich imagination, and not at all with a disturbed psyche. At the same time, it is argued that almost any person, at least occasionally, manages to see a colored dream.

Often in dreams you can see quite real people, places that are familiar, or events that are associated with you or your loved ones. Realistic dreams, as psychology explains, are a reflection of certain concepts, ideas, situations that you are familiar with and about which you are different time remember. A picture repeatedly imprinted in the brain will sooner or later be projected in your dream, while it can be both static, if you see both a photograph, and dynamic: with conversations, movements, etc. As a rule, in realistic dreams you can see people and places that you know well.

Such dreams are seen by both men and women. Often, childhood nightmares are associated with attacks and chases, which are remembered for a lifetime. What might be behind them?

The attacker may be a reflection of a fear hidden within us or a desire that is suppressed by our ego while we are awake. Or a threat in a dream may be a reflection of some real danger. Finally, such dreams may be echoes of the instincts inherited from primitive ancestors, who all the time had to be on their guard and be wary of attacks by large predators.

2. Educational institutions, teachers

Our survey mainly involved students for whom the problem of studying was especially relevant (moreover, for women, to a greater extent). Such dreams are characteristic not only for our era: there is evidence that in Ancient China similar nightmares were dreamed by those who were preparing for state exams on which the whole subsequent fate of man depended.

3. Sex

It turned out that men had dreams of sexual content more often than women. It is difficult to say whether these differences are innate or whether they arise as a result of upbringing and the influence of society and the environment. It is possible that culture suppresses women's sexuality, and because of this, they are less likely to have such dreams.

Modern research is not yet ready to give an unambiguous answer to these questions. Perhaps in such dreams, our biological instinct for reproduction and the problems that we face in trying to realize it under the conditions of the moral restrictions that society imposes are manifested.

4. Fall

We dream of falling much more often than flying. It is highly likely that such dreams are associated with sharp drop neurotransmitter levels ( chemical substances through which impulses are transmitted from one neuron to another. - Approx. ed.) in the brain during a change in sleep phase.

But besides physiological reasons, dreams about falling can also have a symbolic meaning, reflecting drastic changes, destruction of the usual way of life, loss and psychological trauma. Occasionally, in such a dream, a fall can develop into global catastrophe, apocalypse, the collapse of the whole world.

5. Repeated attempts to do something

Sometimes the sleeping mind seems to get stuck thinking about something. This usually applies to real life situations, causing stress. Often, we experience discomfort: discontent, fear, feeling of impotence.

That may be physiological cause- paralysis of the muscles that occurs during sleep. But besides this similar dream reflects the fear hidden deep inside us of falling into vicious circle which we cannot get out of, no matter how hard we try. This fear is at the heart of the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus. At modern man such a feeling of existential horror can be caused, for example, by work, study, personal relationships.