The Psychology of Dreams

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• The Psychology of Dreams

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What are dreams?

• People used to view dreams as images from God or
  omens
• Today we study them as a psychological phenomena
• Freud was particularly interested in dreams
  dream interpretation

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Types of Dreams

• Recurring Dreams
• Happen repeatedly
• Usually relates to a personality issue,
  insecurity, or sometimes a preoccupation
  (something you think about a lot or are often
  concerned about)
• Predictive Dreams
• Déjà vu type dreams where you dream about
  something that happens
• Unreliable unproven

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• Lucid Dreams
• Dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming
• Sometimes you can control what happens in your
  dream
• Two levels of lucid dreams
• High Level Dreamer is aware he/she is dreaming
  and asleep in bedknows characters situations
  arent real
• Low Level Dreamer is aware he/she is dreaming,
  but not that he/she is asleep and safe in bed.
  Often think the dream or characters are real

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• Nightmares
• Scary or violent dreams that result from some
  anxiety which bursts through into dreams
• Especially in childhood
• Often can relate to past experiences which still
  cause concern or anxiety
• Occur during REM sleep are usually remembered
• Night Terrors
• Occur during Stage 4 of NREM sleep are not
  remembered
• Cant wake someone up from a night terrorusually
  takes 10-20 minutes to rouse someone
• Usually not a situation, just panic that strikes
  while sleeping accompanied by movement
  screams
• Children ages 2-6 are most common

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Freud Dreams

• Dreams are key to understanding the subconscious
• Believed most dreams had sexual associations
• Created list of dream interpretations
• Said we withdraw from reality take-in all
  things in our environment which then appear in
  our dreams, combined with our subconscious

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Freuds Dream Symbolism
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• Case study!!