Sweet Dreams

Oneirology is known as the study of dreams. People have all types of dreams, in all types of places with all types of subjects. There are many interpretations of dreams like some believing that they have hidden meanings while others think they are just random images. The world of dreams can have unnerving sites while at the same time leave someone thinking, how in the world did that get in there. Dreams are generally associated with REM or rapid eye movement sleep. It is considered to be the time when people have the most brain activity and are more likely to remember what they have dreamed. It is not precisely known what part of the brain dreams come from or why dreams occur at all. Ancient empires such as Egypt and Greece were some of the first to interpret dreams with supernatural communication or meaning. Only those with special powers could unravel and understand what dreams truly meant. In today’s world people interpret their dreams to mean various things such as access to their spirit, reflections of the subconscious, messages from God or experiencing déjà vu. It was from the 1940’s to 1985 that Calvin S. Hall reported on more than 50,000 dreams. He found that the most common emotion in dreams was anxiety and that negative emotions were more common than positive. There is also a difference in the characters that the different genders dream. Hall reported that men dream more about men because of their more aggressive emotions while women have about an equal amount of men and women in their dreams. The most common themes of dreams are falling, being late, being cased, something relating to work or school and failing an examination. A common side affects of dreaming intense, emotional dreams are talking, moaning or the occasional leg jerk that is so hard that people wake themselves up. Since people generally forget what they dream very quickly after waking up, many people keep a dream diary. Author Stephen LaBerge recommends that when people wake up they should lay in bed and try to remember what they dreamed that night and not about the day ahead. When someone can’t go to sleep at the moment, daydreaming is a popular distraction from what is going on around them. There are so many different types of daydreams that psychologist do not have a solid definition for it. The daydream begins with a train of thought that leads people farther and farther away from the present surroundings while observers notice the person has a blank stare. The daydreamer can only be brought out of this state by a sudden or surprising stimulus. People generally regard daydreaming as lazy but some believe it to be an important part of creativity or the development of new ideas. Whether it is the occasional nightmare or the relaxing daydream, dreaming is a part of people’s everyday life. Dreaming is considered more of an art than science to some people but it is up to the dreamer to interpret what they see.