Amanda Mercereau

UWRT-1104-029
Ingram
19 September 2016
SOURCE
Domhoff, G.
William.
Web source.
19
September
2016.

USCS
Research
Department.
Web source.
5 October
2016.

Annotated Bibliography
ANNOTATION

THOUGHTS/CONNECTIO
N
Dream research and the study of dreams is
This citation broke down very
constantly being changed and monitored.
briefly and very basically the
As of most recent discoveries, dreams serve first developing studies of
no purpose. Sigmund Freud, the most
dream research and how those
famous and influential dream scientist and
theories have been disproven
researcher of the century, originally believed over time as science and
that the function of dreams was to preserve
technology develop.
as much sleep as possible. However, his
theory has been disproven by more recent
I always thought that dreams
studies proving that you dream on average
were your bodys way of telling
six times per night. Following Freud, Carl
you something or deeper
Jung believed that dreams were there as a
thoughts that your brain hides,
way of making up for the thoughts and
but it turns out that they really
actions undeveloped by your woken self.
serve no psychological purpose.
Since we remember a select few of our
dreams, if any at all, the point that dreams
This source led me to further
serve a purpose is false in the sense that if
research how dreams work and
they were important our brains would store
what a dream really is.
them so we could remember them when we
awoke. In this new age of technology, the
best way to summarize the purpose of a
dream is your brains way of clearing out all
of the thoughts and memories processed that
day. Despite having no specific
psychological functions, many cultures use
dreams as a way of diagnosing illnesses or
predicting the future.
A dream is a way of thinking when the brain This source led me to continue
has little activity, is blocking out external
researching what dreams are
sources, and the body is shut down. A
and how they work.
dream is considered to be real because it
involves out human emotions, particularly
sight and sound, and because they involved
human emotions. What we remember in the
morning is a memory of what we believed
we experienced the night before during our
sleep. No one knows for sure what a dream
is or what its purpose is, but as scientists
further their research, connections have

Loewen,
Stanley. Web
source. 19
September
2016.

Gregorie,
Carolyn.
Web source.
5 October
2016.

been made and theories have been stated.

Dream research and the study of dreams is
fairly new to the scientific world, and it is
very hard to understand. This being, people
often jump to conclusions and make theories
of their own; romanticizing dreams and
creating their own ideas that are more
exciting than they really are. From this,
people believe that they are able to predict
illness, natural disasters and death- even
though it all just happens to be purely
circumstantial. There is no 100% purely
factual understanding of what dreams are
and how they work, but from what science
has discovered thus far we can understand
that they occur when the brain receives
sensory input during REM sleep. From that,
our brain takes that information and puts it
into a narrative-like sequence known as
activation synthesis theory. However, the
sequences are jumbled up and put in no
particular order which is why we can
sometimes only remember parts of our
dreams and why they often make no sense.
In summary, dreams are compositions of our
desires, memories and inner-thoughts.
Since we barely understand our dreams, we
often fill in the missing links with thoughts
or ideas we wish occurred. This is often
why people believe that dreams can predict
the future- because dreams and reality seem
closer than they really are.
Carl Jung was one of the first scientists to
research dreams and how they can greatly
impact an individuals life. Dr. Kelly
Buckeley believes that dreams are
representative of a greater meaningspiritual, creative, and self-awareness. She
also states that dreams are representative of
spiritual, cultural and religious beliefs. By
analyzing dreams, researchers have found
that very few dreams have a greater
impact on someones life. Dreams are your
bodys way of connecting mind and spirit,
therefore religious people believe that it is
God communicating with them. While

I never believed that dreams

could predict the future, but I
can understand how people of
other cultures with less
education would believe it. I
think it is interesting that we
replace the holes in what we
remember of our dreams with
what we wished happened, and
that is why we think that it is
deeper than it really is; it is
purely coincidental.
This source led me to research
the correlation between religion
and dreams.

Dream theory and dream

research is a continually
growing field, and from what I
can gather it is completely
subjective.

scientists argue that dreams do not have any

deeper meaning, Christians take their
dreams and the themes within very
seriously. People that dream a lot have been
proven to be more creative and intellectual.
Dreaming is your bodies way of cleansing
out your thought processes from throughout
the day.
Psychology
The first major dream theory was created by
department
Freud called the Fulfillment Theory. He
at the
states that dreams are our minds way of
University of satisfying our deepest thoughts and impulses
California
that are unsatisfied in our awake state. Next
Fullerton.
is the Activation- Synthesis Theory which
Powerpoint. states that dreams come from random
19
movements of brains cells that do various
September
activities such as muscle movement and
2016.
vision, and then your brain combines these
movements with memories. How we
interpret the dream is what we consider to
be the dreams meaning. Another popular
dream theory is the Dream as Problem
Solving theory. This theory states that
dreams come from conscious thoughts, and
what you see in dreams come from images
you see in everyday life. However, unlike
Freuds theory, this theory believes dreams
are at the surface level. Finally comes the
Mental Housekeeping Theory. It states that
during sleep, your brain is essentially
cleaning out your thoughts while you were
conscious, sorting out and searching through
your memories.
ASD
A nightmare is a stressful dream that causes
International. the body to awake, making the individual
Web source. feel uncomfortable emotions- most
19
commonly stress and anxiety. Children
September
aged three to four and seven to eight are the
2016
most affected by nightmares, but anyone can
have them. Nightmares have multiple
causes, ranging from drugs to illness to
withdrawal. Most commonly, adults
experience nightmares after suffering a
traumatic event and they typically occur
over and over again. Often, people
experience nightmares when undergoing

I think it is interesting that there

are so many theories about
dreams and the whys of
dreams, and they are all
different.
Since dream theory is fairly
new to science, it is not a very
sure thing and there is still
much to be discovered.
After all of this research, I
really wanted to research about
the opposite of dreamsnightmares.

I think that the differences

between dreams and nightmares
is very interesting because
nightmares directly correlate
with your conscious self.
This source led me to wonder
other differentiations within
dreams, which led me to
inquire about if men and
women dream differently.

stress during their awoken state, such as

work or school. If an individual is affected
by nightmares frequently, they usually
choose to speak with a therapist to
furthermore understand what is happening.
A more severe form of a nightmare is a
night terror, which occurs during the first
two hours of sleep and causes the individual
affected to scream and thrash around. The
person typically does not remember
anything at all, or will only remember a
single thought or feeling.
McNamara,
Women dream differently than men; women
Patrick Ph.D. remember their dreams more and experience
Web source. nightmares more often than men. Men also
5 October
tend to dream more about men while women
2016.
dream about both men and women. Women
also tend to dream about familiar people and
their dreams occur more than often in
familiar places, while men think about
aggressive encounters with strangers.
Dream recollection and dream sequences are
so different among the sexes because each is
biologically different. Scientists call this the
sexual selection theory, a derivative of
evolutionary theory, because it consists of
some of the most basic human instincts;
women being more selective and men
having more aggressive tendencies due to
the competition of other males- an instinct
that developed in the earliest of humans.

Based upon my previous

sources, I have learned that no
one dreams exactly the same
way. This led me to consider if
different genders dreamed
differently in whole.
This source led me to research
how dreams develop as you
age.

Ferber,
Richard.
Web source.
5 October
2016.

News office
of MIT. Web
source. 5
October
2016.

Over your lifetime, the amount of sleep your

body requires changes. Newborns need
approximately twenty hours of sleep while
fully developed adults can properly function
on eight hours of rest. As you get older and
mature, your sleep patterns also
dramatically change. Infants sleep
sporadically and rarely sleep through the
night. Children sleep through the night with
a few additional naps throughout the day
and from approximately 8 years old through
the teen and adult years you sleep in a solid
eight-hour block.

Comparing the developmental

stages of dream and sleep
development shows how the
mind develops over time, even
during the resting stage.

Pet owners have taken note of their animals

having dreams, but MIT researchers have
recently concluded that animals have sleep
patterns similar to humans. Researchers
studied rats during their sleep stages and
examined their brain activity. They noted
that the activity occurring was similar to that
of what occurs in the brain when they are
running through a maze. Scientists then
determined that while the rats slept, they
were thinking in their heads about the
movement and patterns they ran in the
maze. These recollections were at the same
speed and timing as that when they would
be running in real-time. Repetitive motions
during sleep can improve that skill when the
body is awake. Thus, they concluded that
the rats would replay their movements in the
mazes to better understand how they can
reach the end faster, resulting in muscle
memory.

Comparing human and animal

sleep patterns show how similar
our brains work, even during
sleep.

Researching the dream patterns

of humans and their
developments as they age, it
made me wonder if other
species also dream.

Rutherford,
Zack. Web
source. 5
February
2016.

Dreaming occurs in the deepest stages of

sleep- particularly REM sleep. Bodily
functions such as heart rate, body
temperature and brain movements go into
overdrive, while only the muscles needed to
breathe are used and the rest of your body is
paralyzed. While researchers have yet to
find a specific purpose for dreams, there
have been many theories developed. The
most famous theory is Freuds, stating that
dreams are our minds deepest desires and
impulses that we refuse to act upon during
our awake stages. Some scientists have
taken this theory and determined that if
Freuds theory is true, then the way you
dream can determine your perception of life.
Others believe that it is simply your bodies
way of turning thoughts into memories and
clearing out your brain.
According to Christian belief, God
communicates to his people through dreams.
Buddhists also believe that dreams serve a
deeper and more meaningful purpose.

Throughout my research, I have

learned that Sigmund Freuds
theory is the most famous, and
most people relate back to his
initial discoveries.
While dream theory and the
purpose of dreams is a
controversial and unsettled
topic, it is something that will
continue to be researched for a
long time.
Religious views play a large
determining factor in how
people view the significance of
dreams.