The document discusses various theories about dreaming throughout history. It begins with early theories from ancient times that saw dreams as connecting to the supernatural or predicting the future. Freud's theory from the 19th century proposed that dreams fulfill desires by re-experiencing moments. Modern research has led to three main theories: the mental housekeeping theory which sees dreams eliminating unwanted thoughts; the activation synthesis hypothesis which sees dreams building stories from memories; and the dream-soul hypothesis where the soul experiences things during dreams. The document advocates continuing research to better understand dreams and how they could potentially be beneficial.
1. THE THEORY OF DREAMING
By Thoughts Deciphered into Words
Writer – Raja Abdarrahman
http://thoughtsintowords.hol.es/
http://www.thoughtsdecipheredintowords.blogspot.com/
2. For ages people have been scratching their heads to discover the real
reason behind various sets of familiar and unfamiliar images that are
projected in human minds while sleeping. Dreaming has always been
a fascinating subject and like all the fascinating subjects, it infects you
with the craving to find out more and more about it. However, satisfying
that hunger hasn’t proven to be an easy task.
3. HISTORY OF THE RESEARCH
For millions of years, humans have been trying to discover the
reasons behind the appearance of dreams.
Some started to believe that people dream to connect to the
supernatural universe.
Some argued that they’re but a type of God gifted attributes that
every human being possesses. This feature lets the people to predict
the future and plan accordingly.
Others stated that humans actually dream to relax themselves,
they’re just mere images and they don’t mean anything.
4. EVOLUTION OF THE RESEARCH
People had many different notions about how and why humans
dream. Some of them made sense and still do, but most of them
always stood on the other side of sanity.
A scientific and technological base was given to dreaming in the
19th century. That’s when Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist,
first got a theory on dreams recognized on a large scale.
This theory of Sigmund Freud is called: The Freud’s Theory.
5. The Freud’s Theory
The theory says that dreams are actually a way to re-experience a
moment in the manner that fulfills your desires.
Meaning that dreams are a way adapted by human beings to
relive life in order to get rid of the imperfections.
This theory has been a base to many researches that are being
carried out today.
6. Modern Research on Dreaming
Since the formation of Freud’s theory, many learners of
neuroscience from around the world have been involved in the
process of continuing the quest.
Some of them have been trying to find out why do we dream.
Others have given all their devotion to conclude the legitimate
answer to one of the most convoluted questions ever asked: How
do we dream?
And in this quest, three most significant theories have managed to
be formed.
7. The Three Theories
The three most significant out of all the theories formed are:
Mental housekeeping theory
Activation synthesis hypothesis
The dream-soul hypothesis
8. Mental Housekeeping Theory
The root of this theory links with “The Freud’s Theory”.
The mental house keeping theory proposes that we dream so that
the unwanted content can be eliminated from our everyday
experiences.
Indicating that dreaming is a self-driven stress removing function of
the brain that activates whenever humans do not like the
circumstances they’re undergoing.
9. Activation Synthesis Hypothesis
Dreams are nothing but mere signals transmitted while humans
sleep to gather notions and moments from their memories.
And when they wake up, they build a story out of the dreams to
make sense out of it all.
This theory has been extensively researched upon, and so far,
neurologists have come to advocate that dreams have a strong
connection with our memories, which is not anything supernatural.
10. Activation Synthesis Hypothesis
The neurobiologists say that we have already lived what we see in
the dreams.
However, this argument does not appease the situations where a
person visits the place completely strange to him.
But, this theory is being extensively researched upon so that it can
be neared to perfection.
11. The Dream-Soul Hypothesis
Unlike the theories stated above which have a completely scientific
origin, this theory was basically initiated by religious thought and is
now taken on by a group of neurologists in Australia.
As indicated by the name, this theory says that dreaming is actually
a process related with one’s soul.
When a person sleeps, his soul departs the body though still
connected through an invisible medium.
12. The Dream-Soul Hypothesis
It further says that the person gets to see where ever the soul goes,
meet whoever the soul meets and literally experience whatever the
soul goes through in the dream.
This theory answers the following questions:
Why we meet dead people in our dreams?
Why you feel like you’ve been to a place before, when actually it’s
your first time there?
13. The Dream-Soul Hypothesis – how
the dream ends?
When the soul comes back from this expedition, the person is ready
to wake up.
It is also said that in order for the soul to re-enter the body, it has to
find it’s way back.
Have you ever wondered why you get so disturbed when someone
tries to wake you up from a deep sleep? It’s because your soul is
trying to find the right way.
14. The Dream-Soul Hypothesis – the
extension
An extension to this theory is that if somehow the soul does not
manage to find the way back, the person enters a stage where he
can feel everything but not wake up.
This situation is commonly known as “coma”.
The period a person takes to get out of coma depends on the time
his soul takes to get back to the body.
15. The Dream-Soul Hypothesis
This theory does lack the proper scientific reasoning, because science
rejects to admit the presence of souls. But, it’s still the most intriguing of
all and scientists have agreed to excerpt the truth out of it.
16. Benefits of the Research
Along with work being done on the theories stated above, there are
many researches presently going on around the globe to take the
idea of dreams to perfection. The neurologists are doing all they
can in all the possible dimensions to extract the information. And,
they’re doing it not only to cool the global curiosity, but also to take
proper benefits from dreaming.
Yes, dreams do have benefits!
17. Benefits of the Research – why
possible?
In some societies, dreams are used to cure illnesses.
In some, dreams can be used to predict the future.
These benefits do not seem to exist at all, but who believed in a light
bulb before it was brought into existence?
18. Imagine a world, where dreams could be used to
make things right. Imagine a world where illusions
could be used to construct a better reality.
Believe in science.
Have hope.
19. Thank You!
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