Research shows that everyone dreams quite frequently every night. We usually

Good afternoon, everyone. Today we’ll talk about some facts of dreaming. Some people thought that they never dreamed or hardly ever dreamed. Only a third of the men and nearly half of the women thought that they dreamed several times a night. In fact, research shows that everyone dreams quite frequently every night. Moreover, we all dream many times every night but we don’t usually remember our dreams. If we do remember our dreams, they are usually the last ones that we had before waking up. Other people know when we are dreaming because they can see our eyelids moving. If they wake us up at that moment we will remember our dream. Research by Dr Keitman at the University of Chicago has shown this. He has also tried waking people up when their eyelids aren’t moving, and they have told him that they weren’t dreaming. If a person is prevented from dreaming but allowed to sleep, he or she becomes very upset. So the dream is important to us, and we need to dream.
   Then why do we dream? One popular theory is that we spend most of our day thinking about practical matters, shopping, getting to work, seeing our friends, etc. We spend very little of our time thinking about our deep anxieties, fears, and hopes, although these are very important. When the mind doesn’t have to think about everyday matters it is free to think about these deeper concerns, and it doesn’t have to be logical and sensible because it doesn’t have to communicate to other people. For example, time is unimportant in dreams. If something happened to you ten years ago and something else yesterday then it doesn’t matter if they are combined. Also if you haven’t experienced something but would like to, then it can be real in your dream. Very often your deeper minds don’t seem to have words in them and we have to represent our anxieties, fears and hopes through pictures.
   Two important psychologists are often referred to when people talk about dreams. One is Freud who believed that the deep, unconscious mind has a powerful influence over the conscious mind. He held the belief that the conscious mind tries to control and cover up the enormous feeling which have such power, and he thought that the unconscious feelings which we struggle to cover up are largely sexual. Freud said that the conscious mind would not allow the unconscious mind to express its wishes in a clear kind of way, so the unconscious mind had to symbolize its feelings. He thought that all long pointed objects represent the male: sticks, umbrellas, trees, knives, etc., and that all hollow objects represent the female: boxes, cupboards, ovens, ships, rooms, etc.
   The other famous psychologist is Jung. He was a friend of Freud and worked with him. However, he developed his own ideas about people. Jung was interested in world of religions and in mystical and spiritual ideas. He believed that our personalities are divided into three parts: the conscious, the unconscious and the "collective unconscious". He thought that we all share the same "collective unconscious" and he studied religions and beliefs all over the world to prove it. He found that there are heroes and magicians and fairies and dragons in stories everywhere, and he believed that these heroes, etc. represent our wish to be brave and good, our need for help against difficult problems and our fear of the unknown and the frightening within ourselves. He had another theory which is useful when people want to interpret a dream. He believed that every man has within him the characteristics of a woman, imagination, poetry, gentleness. He called this other, inside person the "anima" of a man. And he said that in every woman there is an "animus" which is aggressive, forceful and decisive. If a woman dreamed of a man, Freud would say that she was wishing for a lover, but Jung might say that she was dreaming of the animus part of herself, or she was dreaming of an original model of a hero or evil person, etc.
   As to the language of dreams, it is very difficult to find a clear meaning behind a dream, and usually the only person who can really find the meaning is the person who had the dream. It is true that we all share many of the same anxieties, fears and hopes and it is also true that we use some of the same symbols for expressing these feelings. But the particular balance of feelings is individual to us, and we also use symbols for these feelings which are only meaningful to us. These personal symbols obviously can’t be looked up in a book! Now I will mention several common symbols we share with others. When you dreamed of flying, perhaps you have an inferiority complex, which means that you feel inferior to other people. Another explanation for flying is that we are trying to escape from our problems. The expression "Don’t miss the boat" means don’t miss an opportunity for success. Perhaps missing the boat is your fear of failure and getting behind anyone else. If you are chased in a dream, it may represent that there is something you want to avoid, or you think you have done something wrong.
   OK, that’s the general knowledge about dreaming. I hope you’ve found it interesting, and if you want to know more, please read Chapter 6 of your textbook.