Theories
Facts
Interpretation

An example of what is believed to be a dream influenced cave painting

A painting by Marc Chagall, an Russian-born French painter known for his dream influenced art work.

Facts and Information

          "Dreams are visual and auditory experiences that our minds conjure up during sleep", states the fifth edition of Understanding Psychology.  They are unexplained occurrences in the human mind that are recorded to have intrigued man since the Stone Age.  Wall paintings from thousands of years ago display scenes that are believed to be depictions of human dreams.  It is the inability to fully comprehend something as common as dreaming that in fact makes dreams so interesting.  When studying human behavior, it is always difficult to come to a final and concrete conclusion of reason.  Perhaps it is a result of the human tendency to be affected by, and vary drastically with, one's environment.  There is very little definite information about dreaming.  Why we do it and what it represents in our daily lives are just two of the questions that remain difficult to define.  There are however, a few areas of dreaming that may be studied through testing. 

          The first has to do with the sleep cycle, for without the unconsciousness of sleep one could never dream by definition, as defined by Webster’s dictionary to be "Images, etc. seen during sleep."  Sleep has five defined stages.  There are stages 1-4, and then a fifth stage called rapid eye movement or REM.  A sleeper starts at stage one and moves through the first four stages; once the person reaches the fourth stage he does not move onto the fifth, but instead ascends from the fourth back down to the first.  It is once the sleeper arrives back at the first that he moves to REM, or the fifth stage.  It is here that sleepers experience their heaviest and most active dreaming.  During REM, your blood pressure and heart rate increase substantially, yet your muscles remain more relaxed than at any other point in the cycle.  Although REM is the deepest of all sleep stages, your physiological functions most closely resemble those recorded during consciousness.  The high brain activity that occurs during REM is what in fact causes the 'rapid eye movement' behind the eyelids.  It is this high brain activity and low muscle function that enables us to dream as realistically and vividly as we do during REM.   A switch in our body puts our muscles into a state similar to paralysis, which prevents us from acting out our dreams as we otherwise would.  Doctors have surgically altered this muscle paralysis ‘switch’ in animals, in order to study their actions during REM.  What they witnessed was the animal attempting to move during their dreams.  Cats were recorded to hunt pray, wander aimlessly and sit as though watching moving objects while sleeping.  It is believed that emotional and mental states may alter the efficiency of this body response, and that as a result certain people have tendencies to sleep walk, etc.

          Now that we can understand what our body is doing during dreaming, let us look further into dreaming itself.  The average person has about 4 or 5 dreams during a night’s sleep, which added together account for only about 2 hours of the time spent actually sleeping.  Sleep patterns vary across cultures and age groups.  When sleep patterns vary, dream patters are similarly affected.  In young children there is substantial time spent in the REM cycle, and in the fourth stage.  Children can have very vivid dreams, and often have problems distinguishing between dream and reality.  Young adults spend less time in the fourth stage than children do, but slightly more in REM, allowing them to dream slightly more than children, but sleep perhaps less soundly.  The elderly suffer from very inconsistent sleep patterns, and that sleep which they do have is spent wavering between early sleep stages and consciousness. 

          Along with the varying sleep patterns in age groups, the dream content itself also evolves with age.  It is fairly simple to understand because the changes in content are mostly characteristic to the age group itself.  A child’s dream remains very unstructured; no story line or plot can be followed, and animals and imaginary beings play large roles.  As the child develops so do their dreams.  Eventually, although dream’s plots are often hard to follow, dreams do become more structured and take more shape. 

          The content of dreams is an area that is difficult to study.  There are several theories on why we dream and what dreams mean in our lives, but it is more difficult to scientifically study dreams in this way because of how sporadic they can be.  Studies have shown that dream content tends to vary across social classes and racial groups, which indicates that dreams are affected by the dreamer’s social position.  This shows that dream content has a certain degree of continuity with a person’s daily life.  Through watching certain sleepers for decades, scientists have found that a person’s dreams can have reoccurring themes for years, and even decades.  This is often the result of a person’s mental state and physical environment.  For example, if a person has been involved in an abusive relationship for a period of time, their dreams will show indications of helplessness, low self-esteem, etc.  This rule applies to most people, because certain areas of our lives always remain constant. 

          Dreams are a mystery; a question left to be explored, but never answered.  It is this fact that makes them so intriguing; the idea that we may never know the real reason we dream.  From the beginning of recorded history, man has shown interest in these nightly mysteries.  They have influenced everything in history as a result of their prophetic appearance, and influence peoples lives to this day.  A dream can only be as influential as you allow it to be; yet they are permanent and unavoidable.  They are part of our life cycle.  They are the magic of dreams.

Morris, Charles G., and Albert A. Maisto.  Understanding Psychology, 5th ed.  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 1991. 130-139.

Davi.  "Panel of Horses Cave Painting."  Primitive Cave Art
by Davi.  <http://www.angel-works.com/>.

Chagall, Marc.  "La Creation de l'Homme."  Musee National Message Biblique de Marc Chagall.  <http://www.mesexpo.com/
france/chagall/index.html>

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