Theories of dreaming Flashcards
there are number of different theories to explain..
the nature of dreaming
Who is Sigmund Freud ??
Sigmund Freud is one of the ‘founding father’ of psychology. Although many of his ideas are seen as bizarre, some of his work is seen as valid
What is the central idea of Freudian theory
that the human mind is mainly up of the unconscious mind. This is the part of the mind that we are not consciously aware of, despite being the key drive behind many of our behaviour.
Freud believed that actions do not happen randomly,and that they are motivated by unconscious urges and desires. For example: Freud was interested in mental illness and thought the best way to understand someone’s psychology was through understanding what was happening in their unconscious
What problem was Freud faced with and his solution?
He wanted to investigate the unconscious mind, but this is part of the self into which people have no insight. However Freud believed that dreams were a product of the unconscious mind. He decided that through analysing dreams, he would have a way of accessing what was happening in the unconscious mind.
What is a large part of the unconscious mind, according to Freud?
division of the personality called the id.
What is the ID and EGO?
What does Freud believe about repression?
id = our instinctive urges ( esp. related to aggression and sex) the urges are repressed by the unconscious mind to keep them in check
Ego = our regulator, that compromises on the urges of the id
According to Freud, repression works to a degree - these urges eventually need to be released . He believes this could occur during dreaming, when the egos defence are down
What did Freud believe dreams act as?
wish fulfilment . People often cannot fulfil their deepest desires so they are dreamt about instead. = releases anxiety around it
( Someone may be angry at their boss so they verbally abuse their boss in their dream which they wouldn’t do in real life because they don’t want to lose control.
Dreaming about it = repressed emotions let out, fulfilled wish and way of dealing with difficult situation)
What is the manifest content
The actual content of a dream and the latent content is the underlying meaning of the dream, what the dream really represents.
For example, Freud proposed objects like poles, swords may make up the manifest content of a dream, but they are really phallic symbols. -> experiencing penis envy
dreams about dancing, riding horse = sex
2 Criticisms
- The theory is considered too subjective. Dream interpretation is very open to opinion. A number of people can have the same description of dreams but diff way of explaining what it means. Why is Freuds symbol of dreams more valid than any other persons? What evidence is there?
- Freud’s dream theory is difficult to test.
This is partly because its concepts are not objective enough and dreams can’t be verified, How do we know people are recalling their dreams accurately? In addition, big part of the theory relies on unconscious mind which cannot be observed.
3 criticisms
- The theory is based on unreliable research
The evidence is mainly case studies, making generalisability about the meaning of dreams for all may not be fair - The theory has a narrow interpretation of dreams. It only relates them to wish fulfilment, and mainly sex and aggression. Critics say that dreams can represent many aspects of our lives, what was done that day, things we look forward to. Further , its hard to accept nightmares as wish fulfilment .
- The theory can be accused of cultural and historical bias.
Freud’s themes including in terms of how dreams are interpretated may have reflected the culture at the time. For example at the time he was writing, society had very strict and moralistic views about sexual intercourse so the idea of repressing lust and desire make sense .But in this day and age, people have more liberal attitudes towards sex -> manifest content of dreams are different
