Dreams and nightmares meanings professional#

Water is thought to symbolize emotions, Loewenberg says, and different types of water can mimic different emotions. Though there's no true evidence that the elements have particular meanings (it's mostly speculation, Kryger says), there are some associations that seem common. Maarten Wouters/The Image Bank/Getty Images What does it mean when you dream about water, wind and fire?ĭreaming about water, wind or fire may offer some insight into your emotions. Below, Kryger, Kuras and Loewenberg discuss meanings about common dreams and symbols in dreams. That said, certain dreams do have meanings attached to them, if for no reason other than holding significance for many people.

Dreams and nightmares meanings professional#

Lauri Quinn Loewenberg, a professional dream analyst, says the problem with arriving at proof across the board 'is that dreams and their meanings are so very personal because they are based on the person's individual life experiences.'Īdditionally, neuroscience tends to focus on the function of dreaming (like memory retention) rather than the 'comparative analysis between the imagery in dreams and the content of the previous day, which is how I approach dream analysis,' Loewenberg says. The first train of thought can be attributed to Sigmund Freud, who is recognized as the first person to assign definitive meanings to dreams - like that dreaming about a king and a queen actually means you're dreaming about your mother and father, Kryger says.Īlthough dream psychoanalysis may have only begun in the last century or two, people have studied dreams for far longer: Aristotle wrote about dreams as early as 325 B.C., according to Kryger. Kryger says that dreams are 'mostly speculation in terms of specific meanings.' Among the scientific community, he continues, there are two main trains of thought: One is that every part of a dream has a specific meaning, and the other is that dreams are entirely spontaneous and mean nothing. That dreams are significant indicators of one's subconscious mind is a basic assumption in various cultures, but in different ways.' What does my dream mean?ĭream meanings are mostly speculation, but what matters is how your dreams relate to your own life.ĭifferent cultures throughout history have ascribed meaning and importance to dreams, though there's little scientific evidence that dreams have particular meanings attached to them, Kuras says, 'No one has yet determined with exactitude what dreams or the images in dreams mean. Research has shown that people who wake up during REM sleep report more vivid, detailed dreams, whereas people who wake up during non-REM sleep report fewer dreams, no dreams or dreams of little significance. It's likely that it's more common to forget dreams than it is to remember them, Kryger says. Unless you write it down or repeat it in your head over and over, there's a good chance you'll forget the dream. But the catch is that the memory only lasts for a short time. Meir Kryger, a sleep medicine doctor at Yale Medicine, tells CNET that most people remember their dreams when they're awakened in the middle of a dream, or in the first few moments after a dream has ended. Part of this is biological, Kuras says, as neurotransmitters forming memory are less active during sleep, and dream forgetfulness also appears to be related to the level of electrical activity in the brain during dreams.Īdditionally, it could have something to do with the content of your dreams, Kuras says: Early psychoanalytic theory suggested that difficult or traumatic information in dreams is suppressed, and the dreamer is less likely to retrieve or analyze it.ĭr.

If you're one of those people who 'doesn't dream,' you probably just forget them. One concept that's generally accepted is that dreaming is a highly emotional process, because the amygdala (an emotional center in your brain) is one of the areas of your brain that's most active during dreams, according to neuroimaging studies. But people without PTSD have nightmares, too, so it can't be said that nightmares always accompany psychological conditions. For example, researchers know that people with post-traumatic stress disorder are likely to have nightmares. While scientists know a great deal about what happens physiologically when people dream, there's still much to be studied about what happens psychologically. 'They appear to assist in memory formation, integration, problem-solving and consolidation of ideas both about ourselves and the world,' he says, adding that neuroscientists have discovered that dreams help with information processing and mood regulation, too. There are many theories of the function of dreams, Kuras says. Dreams may serve multiple purposes, including memory formation.