-- Erich Fromm

Everyone dreams. People have been dreaming since the beginning of time, and will continue to dream until the dying days of the universe. In the beginning, dreams were thought to be divine messages sent by gods that foretold the future, or they were thought of as being deceiving tricks played on the dreamer by demons. Also early primitive societies considered the content of their dreams to be more significant than their waking lives. Scientists as late as the 1800s considered dreams to be meaningless. It wasn’t until the twentieth century that dreams became the focus of in-depth scientific study, which shows not only when we dream, but also how and why we dream. The question of dreams has no definite answer; however, there are many theories describing the interpretations of dreams, and these theories help society as a whole to better understand their dreams.

Sigmund Freud is the founder of psychoanalysis and the “first physician to see dreams as a ‘window to the soul’” (Koch 52). Freud was a pioneer. He brought the study of dreams into the modern scientific world. He studied the

Michael Wannon, a psychologist at The Catholic University of America, explains his theory about dreams, the use of professional guidance, and dream symbols in the USA Today Magazine article, “Are Dreams Trying to Tell Us Something?”

Calvin Hall is an academic psychologist who set out to find out what the “average” person dreams. “From his Institute of Dream Research in Santa Cruz, California, Hall collected and analyzed an astonishing ten thousand dreams from the general population” (Koch 65). With this research, Hall embarked in a new direction in the study of dreams. After his research was completed, Hall came to a conclusion that dreams are actually about present-day concerns, and not repressed conflicts in the latent content of the dream. “Hall believed that ‘there is no such thing as the latent content of a dream…[that] a dream is a manifest experience…that possesses great psychological significance’” (Koch 65). With this now in the minds of other theorists, it can be seen that the analysis of peoples’ dreams can be used as a tool in personality research.

A powerful archetype found in a dreams is the Shadow Figure, “who represents the darker side of the self” (Koch 59). Jung believes that every human being has a Shadow Figure that appears in one form or another; whether it is a bloodthirsty criminal, a beast, or any other type of threatening figure. Dreams are a way to help a person see their dark side. These archetypal references Jung made are very complex, therefore it was difficult for a dreamer to figure much out about his or her dream without professional guidance. More modern psychologists will disagree with Jung about this.

dreams of not only his patients, but of himself as well. All of his work on dreams was compiled into “twenty-six different volumes, including The Interpretation of Dreams, which he liked to call his ‘dream book’” (Koch 53). According to Freud, all dreams come from one’s unconscious, which is the part of the brain that represses or forgets memories. “The basis of much of his theories lies in the idea of sexual repression” (Walden 113).

While there may be common symbols and scenarios in all dreams, each person

Freud believes that the meaning of dreams is hard to figure out because one’s conscious mind cannot deal with latent dream content. This is then where the unconscious steps in and masks the meaning from the person by disguising the s

Some topics in this essay:
California Hall, Amy Lemley, Goodnight Angel”, Erich Fromm, Alfred Adler, Basically Jung, According Freud, Shadow Figure, Carl Jung, Tell Something”, dream content, latent dream, latent dream content, manifest dream, manifest dream content, dreams person, own theories, sexual aggressive, theories dreams, shadow figure, study dreams, dream content level, according freud dreams, content level,