By Samantha Bailey Have you ever had a dream that made you second-guess a decision or make you think about something in a new way? As we get older we are told that dreams don’t matter. But, that is not true. What you dream about helps you when you are awake. In the 1960s in Brooklyn psychologist Fredrick Snyder analyzed 600 dream reports about how strange and bizarre situations in dreams are. He found that 38 percent were real places that the dreamer recognized, 43 percent were places that resembled familiar places that the dreamer knew, five percent were considered exotic places, and less than one percent was considered a fantastic situation. Dr. Snyder recorded each dream on various measures of coherence. The overall result was that nine out of ten dreams could be considered descriptions of everyday experiences. Another study conducted by Dr. Revonsou and Dr. Salmivalli involved the emotions surrounding dreams. After analyzing dreams from a group of students they found that the emotions experienced in dreams were appropriate to the situation, no matter how odd the situation seemed. In 2014, neurologist Isabelle Arnulf decided to conduct an experiment relating dreams to test grades. She reached out to a group of doctors on the day they were scheduled to take their medical school entrance exams. Around 539 students out of the 719 students said they had a dream about the exam prior to taking the test. The dreams were not just dreams but nightmares that consisted of losing their way to the test center, finding it impossible to figure out test questions, realizing that the test questions were written in invisible ink, being late for the test, or not having enough time to complete the exam. Dr. Arnulf compared the dreaming patterns of the students to the grades that they received on the entrance exam. She found that students who dreamed more about the exam tested better than those who did not. Some people believe that dreams are an accident of biology and do not mean anything at all. This has been proven against by many doctors and scientist from many years. The most recurring and popular hypothesis about dreams is that they let people work through anxiety in a low-risk environment, which is proven in the experiment conducted by Dr. Isabelle Arnulf. Another recurring aspect of dreams involves emotions. The most common emotions experienced if fear, helplessness, anxiety, and guilt. These emotions prove the popular hypothesis above and they relate to the study conducted by Dr. Revonsou and Dr. Salmivalli. I have always found dreams to be very interesting. I do not record my dreams but it has been found that the more you write down your dreams there are an increasing amount of details. Usually I do not think about a dream a have, maybe recount it’s unusual characteristics to a friend or remembers it when I wake up, but other than that I move the dream to the back of my head. A while ago I was in the midst of making a decision and I had a dream about the decision I had to make. The answer was not clear cut or written out to me, I had to think about what the events in my dream meant. Like I said before, I would usually brush the dream off but the bizarre events made me think twice. Ever since then I have been thinking about my dreams more and about what they mean, I have also been wanting to write them down, once I find the time! Our dreams help us solidify new memories and cut irrelevant information about who we are! To view the full article click here
References (in APA). Robb, A. (2018, November 10). Why Do You Keep Dreaming You Forgot Your Pants? It's Science. Retrieved May 22, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/10/opinion/sunday/dreams-meaning-science.html?rref=collection/timestopic/Psychology and Psychologists&action=click&contentCollection=health®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=search&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=collection Images: Dream image
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