User:ClovenBunny326/sandbox

All my work is in Ccapece sandbox for some reason my edits didn't reflect on our group project so I had to delete my work and allow her to copy and paste it in hers so we can edit as a group. Below is the my research that I contributed.

Pre-Freudian Interpretations of dreams:

Hippocrates 460 to 370 BCE:

As others before him, he interpreted dreams as something divine from beyond. He believed dreams to be an ability that allowed the universe to communicate with our person. According to him “dreams were a representation of one’s personal situation in relation to the universe and vice versa: a dialectic between the microcosm, and the macrocosm”. (1) This according to him meant that dreams were reflections of one’s internal system, which he used to diagnose his patients. Known as the father of modern medicine he used dreams to create criterion for diagnosis. Dreams of one’s past viewed in an illogical unreal manner would be considered abnormal and would be diagnosed for immediate therapy. Therapy would consist of patients retelling their dreams so that they would be aware of their inconsistencies. His goal was finding how the therapeutic use of dreams could be used to reveal illnesses and also how illnesses affect dream content(2).

Aristotle 384 to 322 BCE:

Aristotle is one of the first to discuss dreams as something that doesn't come from the divine but something physical. Aristotle's On dreams questions "whether the affection is one which pertains to the faculty of intelligence or to that of sense-perception; for these are the only faculties within us by which we acquire knowledge".(3) As early as 350 we have accounts of Aristotle questioning the purpose and process of dreams. He concludes that dreams are not the result of sense-perception since our senses do not functioning as we sleep. Yet, debates this notion since in our dreams we have the ability to see images and identify colors so some type of sense perception is occurring in dreams. The dreams are believed to be asserted by the soul which is what controls our ability to dream. Aristotle also mentions how our personal opinions also reflect in dreams since we still maintain the ability to think we interpret what we saw in our dream state through personal perspective. So these dreams are evolving since we able able to think exercising our opinions thus proving that dreams aren't simply a static image. Our dreams are a different type of sense-perception (3).

Artemidorus of Daldis 2 AD :

Known as probably having on of the most popular dream books in history, he wrote a treatise on oneirocristism or interpretation of dreams. He divided dreams into two categories insomnia or clear dreams and the second as dreams in relation to the future or premonitions. The first category refers to dreams that are of the present or ‘fantasies’ such as exaggerated fears or incredible tendencies. The second are dreams that can be read as symbolic. For him “the dream is a living thing, a movement of the mind and when if refers to the future may have a positive or negative premonitory meaning”(1). He also went into further classification of dreams by detailing personal dreams and the non personal dreams, as well as specific and generic dreams. A personal dream is specific to only the dreamer almost like a monologue while a non personal is more generic and interactive with others in the dream. He also was one of the first to notice a connection between dreams and their fulfillment classifying dreams into categories of interpretation according to theme. His books of interpretation were highly regarded since dream interpretation was viewed as an important way to achieve insight on one's future. Dreams were looked as omens and signs on the decisions one should take in life or as a reflection of one's past life(2).

Post Freudian theories:

Dr. Ernest Hartman : His work is on the contemporary theory of dreaming which he describes a “neurocognitive state” or mental functioning. This functioning in the cerebral cortex ranges from waking thought and dreaming on the other end of the spectrum. He mentions how the connections are not made randomly but are made in relationship to the dreamer which is guided by their emotions, and emotional concerns. Ernest found that in the “Central Image (CI) ..,the intensity of the imagery is a measure of the power of the emotion”. He hypothesizes that these emotionally triggered dreams may have an adaptive function. He states that the “connections guided by emotion “because they, ““weaves in” or integrates new material. In other words new experiences, especially if they are traumatic, stressful, emotional, are integrated, interconnected into existing memory stores located in the cortex“. With these new connections it makes it creates more accessibility to  discovery, creation and self knowledge(4).

References: (1) Resnik, Solomon Theatre of the Dream Psychology Press, Feb 28, 1987 pg. 25 (2)Biele, Albert M., Dreams: A Key to Self-knowledge Psychology Press, 1986 pg.12-13 (3)On Dreams translation, http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/dreams.html (4)Dr. Hartman,Ernest "The Contemporary Theory of Dreaming" 2007

ClovenBunny326 (talk) 07:26, 17 November 2013 (UTC)