http://www.abnormalpsy.org
Christopher Shaw
[email protected]
Dreams as a natural defence / Unconscious wish fulfillment
In light of the mental scars that society brings forth, the brain has a natural defence, it try’s to clear out the garbage of every day life to bring things back to an equilibrium state. That is why sleep is important as it allows our body to recuperate and let the built up stimuli accumulated dissipate from everyday living. Now I am going to borrow an idea Freud proposed, dreams in general do fulfill our needs, if we have a desire while we are sleeping, we end up acting out the desire and I have experienced this myself on multiply occasions. However it isn’t a message, all it represents is a prevailing idea to the activity going on in our head and that activity takes precedence over anything else because it deals with a need that we need to satisfy at that moment whether it be a want in every day life to a personal emotional need, and in a way it also represents the balance that our body is constantly trying to reach, if we need something then it reacts accordingly. It really is that simply, but using Freud’s model that he proposed I am going to take it one step higher. Right up to the unconscious level of activity as his model proposed deals only with the conscious part. However the unconscious part deals with the annual cleaning out of ideas that would be considered clutter, and hence dreams are born. Clutter that has accumulated from the context of everyday life, ideas that have been discussed or thought about in relation to important events, ideas associated with daydreaming, anything really but I cant explain the context of the dream itself, just what the mind is doing in the process. Dreams are derived from the calming of neurons, when the neurons enter hibernation they release the ideas which in affect turn into dreams, and it is also why we forget them almost instantly, simply because an idea is being released. However if those ideas are not cleaned out then they cause conflicts. Conflicts such as schizophrenia that arise in the middle of the day to turn the person into a walking dreamer, basically making the person lose conscious control of their body while the unconscious takes control to provide emergency cleaning. Again the unconscious was developed first and therefore still controls aspects of who we are, and therefore we are still a slave to it when the need arises. This also lends to the notion that people who live rather sheltered lives develop better, I am talking about the general here simply because it encompasses most of the population. Ailments among people who grew up in a good home rarely come forth. I personally believe just like anything else, if the foundations are thwarted then everything after that point gets modified in a negative way as well. It really is that simple. If people want to find a cause for today’s various ailments, then they have to start listening to every aspect of life, the environment around us, and even start thinking outside the box but most of all, start listening. You will get a lot further in life if you just listen and incorporate as many ideas as you possible into your thought process. Just because something is taught in a linear fashion doesn’t always make it correct, it just makes it common. And dreams certainly are a part of a larger scheme of things. To equalize the body back to an optimal state that evolution itself was founded on.
What I just outlined are normal dreams, however there are dreams that come across so vivid that they can be exhilarating or scary. Both fulfil the same purpose but with two very different outcomes, one being a nightmare and other being a wild ride.
There are two types of stimuli that affect dreams.
There are 2 types of stimulus that affect the vivid dreams.
1. Stimuli that is positive in nature
2. Stimuli that is negative in nature
If you lead a very positive life and all your psychological needs are taken care of then your dreams are going to be very positive in nature, and for good reason.
And then there is negative stimuli that causes nightmares which are usually based on insecurity.
In both cases the dream is very vivid and causes you to wake up. Now if the nightmares represent insecurities of some sort, and my gf used to have them a lot before I came along in which they disappeared, and I had them because of other things that I was able to pinpoint to the exact hour. Then it shows at least some evidence in why people have them, at least with me and my gf. Probably others as well and in all the cases it showcases why nightmares do pop up every once in a while.
Positive dreams would work the same way. They would generate additional stimulus creating an escalation in overall feeling because of the strong emotion that the dream is originating from. This would represent positive stimuli and a good state of mind making for a very vivid memorable dream.
I think when the mind is trying to clean out ideas that hold emotional content, that attachment creates additional emotion and activates other neurons which hold other ideas leading up to a state where you have to wake up.
In the normal case if nothing emotional is stimulated the neurons calm and dreams are forgotten almost instantly.
There is another aspect to this as well. Schizophrenics who go into a dream like state while having an attack will experience a change in thought sometimes. They will think one thing but get back another msg, like the mind intervened and changed it a long the way because they are still fully awake. When you are sleeping this does not happen as the conscious isn’t fully present. This tells me that the mechanism responsible for the change in thought pattern isn’t active and dreams are allowed to run wild with the connections making the dream illogical and intelligible. And for this reason I believe there is a greater purpose to the dreaming state. Because if there is nothing to intervene and fix things with some logic. The mind is allowed to run wild to restore the equilibrium. Just like the body would react to somebody taking cocaine. Increases the metabolism to get rid of whatever foreign substances are in body. Same type of affect takes place. And once the ideas are purged. The mind is ready for the next day.
