Dreams

1
Dreams
2
REM sleep

• rapid eye movement sleep stage during which vivid
  and bizarre dreams commonly occur

3
Manifest content

• according to Freud, the remembered storyline from
  a dream. It often incorporates experiences and
  preoccupations from the days events.

4
Latent Content

• according to Freud, the underlying, but censored
  meaning of a dream.
• It consists of unconscious drives and urges that
  would be threatening if expressed directly
• He believed that the latent content functioned as
  a safety valve.

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Sigmund Freud - The Interpretation of Dreams
(1900)

• Argued that by fulfilling wishes, a dream
  provides a psychic safety valve that discharges
  otherwise unacceptable feelings
• Although most dreams have no overt sexual
  imagery, Freud argued that dreams could be traced
  back using psychoanalysis to reveal sexual
  desires/erotic wishes.

6

• Critics view Freuds dream analysis as one of his
  greatest failures
• They argue that even if dreams are symbolic, they
  meaning of the symbolism is open to
  interpretation.
• Some critics maintain there is nothing hidden in
  dreams a gun is just a gun.

7
Other Theories

• Dreams are simply information processing may
  help sift, sort and fix in memory our days
  experiences

8

• Dreams serve a physiological function brain
  activity during REM sleep provide the sleeping
  brain with periodic stimulation which preserve
  the brains neural pathways

9

• Dreams erupt from neural activity in the
  brainstem our ever-active brain weaves a story
  line from whatever is available residual from
  the days experience, an alarm clock ringing, or
  the brief visual hallucination triggered by the
  brainstem

10

• Despite their differences, most theorists agree
  that REM sleep and its associated dreams serve an
  important biological or psychological function.