What Is The Cause Of Our Dreams?
Let us know, what does not cause our dreams? Our dreams do not come from “another world”. They are not message from some outside sources. They neither look into the future, nor do they prophesy anything.
As a matter of fact, our dreams are connected with our emotions, fears, longings, needs, wishes and memories. But something on the ‘outside’ may influence, what we dream. If someone is tired, hungry or cold his dreams may include this feeling. If the covers have slipped off your led, you may dream you are on an iceberg. The material for tonight’s dreams is likely to come from today’s experiences.
The ‘content’ of the dreams comes from something that affects an individual. While asleep the noise, a discomfort, cold etc. coupled with past experiences and the present urges and interests are dreamt. The children are likely to dream of wizards and fairies, the older children of school examinations, hungry people of food, homesick soldiers of their families and the prisoners of freedom.
The wishes, needs and what is happening while asleep are combined in a dream. The story of an experiment is related. A man was asleep and the back of his hand was rubbed with an absorbent cotton. He dreamt as if he was in hospital and his sweetheart was visiting him, sitting on the bed and stroking his hand.
There are psychoanalysts who have studied why we dream, what we dream and what the dreams mean. Their interpretation of dreams is not accepted by all, but it offers an interesting approach to the problem. The belief is that the dreams are expressions of wishes of what did not come true of frustrated yearnings. In other words, a dream is a way of having the wishes fulfilled.
During sleep, according to this theory, our inhibitions are also asleep. We can express or feel what we really want to. So we do this in a dream and thus provide an outlet for our wishes and they may be wishes we did not even know we had.
