Dreams Essay, Research Paper

As I examine each of my dreams it becomes clear to me that not all, but most experiences reflect that of real life. Although these dreams seem to have farfetched events all seem to connect to my thoughts and feelings that are overwhelming to me. Within the first dream I am faced with the decision to either follow my heart or return to an old love or to remain with the new love that I found. Although the decision is hard, the dream always stops before my subconscious reveals the outcome to me. Based on this dream, the faces within the dream are always different, but the event are always the same I always am separating from one man and having to choice between a new and old love. Like real life, I am faced with a choice to make, do I stay with the new man I have found or do I follow my dream within my dream and ran back to the old love who continues to devout his life to me? Recently, I broke up this an amazing individual because although we truly cared for each other, the relationship with not the most healthy. Following the breakup with Pat, I was faced with the decision to either go back to my high school sweetheart Taylor or to move on and follow my heart, which had introduced me to Brian. The struggle became tedious and I became overwhelmed with the phone calls from Taylor proclaiming his love, but at the same time I liked the idea of already knowing the person and being able to begin a relationship with complete trust instead of the beginning steps of gaining that trust. In the end I realized that my dream was trying to remind me that I didn t break up with Taylor because I didn t love him but because there where problems that could not be solved. Unlike my dream I discovered

the outcome, but my dream did help remind me that I will always love and care for Taylor.

Unlike my first dream, my second dream seems farfetched and someone strange to me even though it came true the next day. In my dream, I was getting ready to pick up my friend Bobby Bonds Jr. who was returning from a baseball game in New Hampshire at the airport. I was so nervous because his father Bobby Bonds Sr. was going to be returning home with him so I invited my friend Lauryn with me to the airport. The same event really happened to me. My mother same season tickets to the Newark Bears independent league system and this past summer I became really good friends with some of the players. Because of the expense of housing in New Jersey players this year are beginning to life with host families and mine received Bobby Bonds Jr. The day before he arrived over spring break, I had this dream that after he was returning from New Hampshire and when Lauryn and I went to the airport I began to cry. The moment I felt like he was near I looked up to see him standing there wearing a black shirt, khaki pants and a pair of hot sunglasses. In reality when he arrived, yes I was scared, nervous but not crying, and his father was not with him. Like the dream I did bring Lauryn along with me because I didn t want to make a complete fool of myself in the airport while I cried. When he arrived and his plane landed I kept thinking about the outfit he was wearing in my dream and questioned whether I was psychic or not? When I stopped crying and looked up, Bobby was standing there wearing the same outfit I had pictured in my dream.

Like my second dream, the third dream is more of a dream that questions my ability to predict my life. I had this dream that my school was having a carnival and I was getting my fortune told. The little lady told me that I was going to meet someone at a party one night who was Italian, brown hair, brown eyes and muscular. Also in my dream my roommates and I went to a party with a group of friends and this hot guy sitting across the room mesmerized me. I woke up after learning his name in the dream Matt . I didn t think anything of it unlike one of my roommate s friends invited us to a party. That night I was pretty bored and wanted to leave when this guy walked toward me. He asked if I wanted anything to drink and I said yes. While he was getting my

drink I asked my friend who he was and he replied Matt, I was in shock. He was Italian, brown haired, brown eyes and so muscular. He and I quickly became the best of friends and soon became involved. I truly enjoyed my dreams simply because good things have

happened within them that have either come true or helped me realize what I wanted in life.

Although all my dreams seem very pleasant enjoyable dreams, they do not all reflect an underlying motivation of love and achievement. I think that my dreams truly do express my true desires and hopes. One of my strongest desires and what truly motivates me is love. Not just for another person, but a love for the activities I involve myself in. Within the first dream, I do reflect my underlying motivation through love. This dream also shows my strong desire for my greatest achievement because I have to make a decision between two amazing people. The idea that I have to choose between the guy I once loved and the guy I know care about was truly a struggle. My dream helped me see that I truly cared about my old love but if we ended once, what makes me think that it won t end twice. Because of this dream, I learned that my old love would be better to keep as a friend and move on to this new person who I really care about.

The third dream also shows my will and desire to exceed in love. The dream reveals that I was going to find the man of my dreams at a party. By dreaming about falling in love illustrates my desire to be happy. The idea that I would find my best friend and my new relationship at a party seems somewhat unreal and unbelievable, but that s what my dream described. In reality, when I woke up from my dream I did not believe that it could happen, but after meeting Matt at the party I now believe that dreams can help you see the future or help you to see what you want out of life. Even after I met Matt it wasn t until I started to learn who he really was that I believed that dreams could come true.

Unlike the first and third dream, my second dream does not have anything to do with my desire for achievement or for love. This dream merely reveals my fear of meeting new people and the surprise I experienced when I arrived at the airport. If an underlying motivation would be fear, then this dream would fall into that category. I am not a person who gets really shy but when meeting someone famous or meeting someone for the first time I get backed off. My fear of rejection might have sparked the reason I cried in my dream. I think that an underlying motivation for me is to learn to get over my fear of new people and I think that the dream revealed that new encounters truly do back me off.

While observing the three theories of dreaming, the two that I investigated more closely where the problem- solving theory and Freud s psychoanalytic theory of dreams. Both of these theories believe that dreams help to understand the problems and events of your life. The Problem-solving theory is the theory, which describes REM sleep activity a state in which to handle the problems in your life. During REM sleep the brain in given the ability and time to reorganizes itself and attempt to accommodate for all the new information it gained during the days events. Considering that your dreams do not consist of logical activity, one is given the ability to be more creative when it comes to solving problems in this stage of sleep. The Problem-solving theory also applies to daydreaming. Freud s psychoanalytic theory is related to Freud s theory of personality. Freud believes that dreams connect the unconscious minds to that of the dreams, which are part of the subconscious. Freud s theory, describes the ideas of manifest versus latent content. According to Freud, the manifest content is the surface content, the exact activities within the dream. Even though it is not the important part of the dream, it is a series of symbols on the surface of the dream. Unlike the manifest content, the latent content is the important piece of the dream. The latent content is information, which uncovers the true hidden meaning of the dream. The series of symbols encode the meaning behind the dream itself. Freud s theory also involves an idea called Wish Fulfillment, which is the idea that dreams serve as a way to fulfill our wishes.

Although I believe that both theories are strong and help explain the underlying motives within your dreams, Freud s psychoanalytic theory interests me. It is interesting to me to learn and question whether or not dreams are wish fulfillment. Why do people dream about money, power and sexual fantasies, its fascinating to think that this is because your dreams are trying to complete events that one will never be able to fulfill. Because this theory also incorporates into it the idea of manifest versus latent, I question what the true underlying of all my dreams truly is. The idea that is most intriguing to me is that by observing a dream symbols one can discover the hidden meaning within the dream. This theory seems to suggest that by dreaming one can either learn what is missing from there lives or that the dreams help to fulfill one s fantasies.

When applying Freud s psychoanalytic theory to each dream I learned how meaningful each dream truly was. Within the first dream, I was torn between an old love and a new love. This dream relates to my desire to find happiness and love but it also shows the struggles I faced while making a decision about my life. On the surface or Freud s idea or manifest, the dream appears to just be a triangle of caring about two people and figuring out whom I like more. But underneath the triangle is a dream of true struggle, the latent stage. Dreaming is like traveling through a sea of mixed emotions. This dream seems to leading me into the past in order to uncover and explore my feelings of a former love. Even though the dream also shows that as I am, a new relationship has formed, the dream could be expressing a journey of healing. Healing is a life long journey and the scars and bruises that we bear following a broken relationship lead us into one s personal history. As I believe it appears that the man from the past represents in your emotional landslide. The idea of fulfillment also relates to this dream. Which individual will fulfill me more, the old love or the new love. By talking to both of the love prospects I will either find closure and by gaining insight into our inner needs I will gain perspective.

As Freud s theory is applied to the second dream of overwhelmed emotions by meeting a new individual, helps to determine the nature of our dreams. The dreaming experience is only to awaken and wonder whether it relates to real life. The manifest period purely shows the anxiety of meeting a new person and the surprise of learning that he was wearing the outfit I predicted. The underlying stronger point of the dream is does this guy and myself connect on another level or is it merely an in tuned style that you both possess. The emotions that are experienced by dreaming are one of the strongest values of determining the nature of our dreams. It seems weird to me that the dream is placed into an airport but any transportation department is a place in where to meet and great loved ones and old friends. Embracing the dream and meeting someone new is a scary experience and by dreaming about it seems to suggest that I am more afraid of meeting new people and how they are going to react to me. The fact that I dreamed the exact outfit that he showed up with kind of scares me. Is it a connection between the two of us or am I a psychic. Either way the idea seems to suggest that by using the theory Freud gave us shows my fears of new people and my struggles of rejection.

Within the third dream, I find love first from a fortuneteller and then in real life at a party. Like the first dream, this dream relates to my desire and motivation to find true love and happiness, but unlike the first dream, the third dream does not consist of struggles. The pure substance of this dream merely shows that I was told by a fortuneteller that I would find love at a party and in the dream I did. As in real life, the dream reveals that I fall in love at a party and I did. This dream illustrates how vital it is to differentiate between feelings and the messages they hold. The latent message that the dream also holds is that I might have discovered a new love interest. The dream reveals my ultimate potential in finding love and that if as long as you don t look to hard but let it happen love will find you. Like the first dream, this dream holds some sense of wish fulfillment. The dream is helping to fill the gap of missing love. I am longing to be happy in a relationship and this dream inspired me to search for that happiness.