Dreams are mental activities which occur when we sleep. Everybody has them, although we may not always remember them. The question is, do our dreams actually mean anything to us? The two main theories of why we dream are psychological theories and neurobiological theories.
Psychological theories offer an explanation of the meaning behind our dreams. Freud (1900) produced a psychoanalytic theory which suggested that the unconscious mind expresses itself via dreams and so, as a result of this, the content of a person’s dream can uncover their unconscious thoughts. One reason to suggest why we dream is due to the need to repress our unconscious mind. Our primary-process thought (irrational unconscious thought- the id) is unacceptable to the conscious mind and so must be relegated to our dreams (repression). Therefore, without dreaming, levels of unconscious thoughts would become intolerable and would threaten our sanity. Another meaning dreams have for us is to fulifl our wishes. Freud thought that the reason for dreaming was to fulfil our wishes which could not be satisfied within the conscious mind. Dreams therefore allow us to complete wish fulfilment while protecting us from the content (primary-process thought). Furthermore, Freud believed that the content of our dreams is represented through symbols. Through dreamwork, the latent content is converted into a more discrete form known as manifest content. Dreamwork therefore carries out symbolism which replaces ideas or actions with symbols while we sleep.
On the other hand, the neurobiological theory provides that the experience of a dream is an epiphenomenon, in other words, a by-product of neurobiological processes within the brain. The majority of dreams take place in conjuction with rapid eye movements; therefore, they are said to occur during REM sleep (taking up 20-25% of total sleep period). Hobson and McCarley (1997) proposed that the neurobiological activity associated with REM sleep can account for what we experience as dreams. During REM sleep, the brainstem generates random signals that are indistinguishable from external stimuli. During the synthesis part of the process, dreams are produced. This happens when electrical signals from the brainstem (activation) reach the prefrontal cortex in the brain, essentially, these areas in the brain try to make sense of stimuli which is recieved. Electrical signals are mixed with images from our memory which is the reason why our dreams are often bizarre. Hobson (1988) stated that the dreams we experience, according to the neurobiological theory, have no inherent meaning yet they may hold meaning to the dreamer due to the fact that they are derived from our memories. Thereofore, the activation-synthesis hypothesis assumes that the dreams we experience are as meaningful as they can be, taking into the account that they are generated by random impulses.
Many reserchers have argued in favour of each of these theories, making it difficult to decide on the greatest approach. Zhang (2005) suggested that a combination of the two theories provides the best explanation of the nature of our dreams, therefore the continual-activation theory was proposed by Zhang offering a bridge between both of the approaches. Zhang states that the brain must remain constantly active. Activity levels drop during sleep and once this happens, the continual-activation mechanism is triggered in order to generate a stream of data (similar to activation). As well as this, other activities occur during sleep at the same time; data is transferred from temporary to long-term memory, and the unconcious mind processes memory. Zhang believed this aspect of the theory possibly fits with Freud’s psychoanalytic theory.
In my opinion, I believe Zhang’s theory of continual-activation may be the best approach to explaining the nature of dreams, what do you think?