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Dreams are a language of imagery. This imagery ranges from the normal to the surreal; in fact, dreams often provoke artistic and other forms of inspiration. Forms of dream include the frightening or upsetting nightmare and erotic dreams with sexual images and nocturnal emission.

Most scientists believe that dreams occur in all humans with about equal frequency per amount of sleep. Therefore, if individuals feel that they did not dream or that they only had one dream in any given night, it is because their memory of the dream has faded. This "memory erasure" aspect of the dream state is mostly found when a person naturally awakes via a smooth transition from REM sleep through delta sleep to the awake state. If a person is awoken directly from REM sleep (e.g. by an alarm clock), they are much more likely remember the dream from that REM cycle (although it's most likely that not all dreams will be remembered because they occur in REM cycles, which are interrupted by periods of delta sleep which in turn have a tendency to cause the memory of previous dreams to fade.)

True dreaming has only been positively confirmed in Homo sapiens, but many believe that dreaming occurs in other animals as well. Animals certainly undergo REM sleep, but their subjective experience is difficult to determine. The animal with the longest average periods of REM sleep is the armadillo. It would appear that mammals are the only, or at least most frequent, dreamers in nature, which is perhaps related to their sleep patterns.

1 History

Dreams have always been featured prominently in literature; for example, the biblical book of Genesis features Joseph interpreting the dreams of members of the Egyptian court.

Many historical figures were reputed to have been influenced by their dreams. Some believed that a god was speaking to them through dreams. (Joseph, for example, is given this view.)

2 Psychology of dreams

Dreams are, according to some psychologistsPsychology is the study of mind, thought, and behaviour. It is largely concerned with humans, although the behaviour and thought of animals is also studied; either as a subject in its own right (see animal cognition), or more controversially, as a way of (most famously, Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud ( May 6, 1856 September 23, 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology, a movement that popularized the theory that unconscious motives control much behavior. He became interested in hypnotis), rich in symbolA symbol or (in many senses) token is a representation of something — an idea, object, concept, quality, etc. Nature of symbols A symbol can be a material object whose shape or origin is related, by nature or convention, to the thing it represents: for inism and offer a window into the unconscious mindThe unconscious mind (or subconscious is the aspect (or puported aspect) of the mind of which we are not directly conscious or aware. The unconscious mind should not be confused with "being unconscious" and unconsciousness which is loss of consciousness.. Interpretation of dreams is a regular part of psychoanalysisPsychoanalysis is the revelation of unconscious relations, in a systematic way through an associative process. The fundamental subject matter of psychoanalysis is the unconscious patterns of life revealed through the analysand's (the patient's) free assoc. It is said that one may control the course and content of dreams by a technique called lucid dreamingLucid dreaming is consciously perceiving and recognizing that one is in a dream while one is sleeping, and having control over the " dreamscape", the faux-reality dream world within a dream. Stephen LaBerge, a published author and expert on the subject, h. However, this could distract one from the dream-matter provided by the unconscious mindThe unconscious mind (or subconscious is the aspect (or puported aspect) of the mind of which we are not directly conscious or aware. The unconscious mind should not be confused with "being unconscious" and unconsciousness which is loss of consciousness..

Most mainstream academic psychologists do not believe that dreams have a coherent meaning. Carl JungCarl Gustav Jung ( July 26, 1875 June 6, 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and founder of the neopsychoanalytic school of psychology. At university, he was a student of Krafft-Ebing. For a time, Jung was Freud's heir-apparent in the psychoanalytic school.'s view of dreams was more precise than this: that dreams have meanings, but their meanings are idiosyncratic, complicated, and not susceptible to more than vague, uncertain, and sometimes superficial interpretations. In particular, interpretation needs to be based on the thoughts of the individual dreamer, and not on any formula.

The art of interpreting dreams from a proto-psychological point of view is known as oneirocriticism. The usage of this now obsolete word occurs at the conclusion of Sir Thomas Browne's 1658 Discourse The Garden of Cyrus:

Besides Hippocrates hath spoken so little, and the Oneirocritical Masters have left such frigid interpretations from plants that there is little encouragement to dream of Paradise itself.