Our guest blogger is Dr. Wes Burgess, a specialist in evaluating and treating depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and panic disorder. Dr. Burgess is the author of The Depression Answerbook, The Bipolar Handbook, The Bipolar Handbook for Children, Teens, and Families, and Manual del Trastorno Bipolar. He is a practicing psychiatrist in Los Angeles.
As a psychiatrist, one of the most common questions I am asked by my patients, friends, and colleagues is, ???Wes, what do my dreams mean???? The simple answer is, ???Probably not what you think!???
Bookstores and the Internet are full of books and articles on dream interpretation by mystics, occultists, esoteric therapists, and self-proclaimed dream experts who treat dream images as mysterious codes. Unfortunately, interpretations disagree wildly between sources???one book may say that dreaming of an elephant means ???travel??? whereas another will say it means ???romance??? or ???a peanut butter sandwich.???
To understand dreams, you must start with the neurophysiological process of dreaming. If we were to record the electrical signals from your brain while you were asleep, the EEG would show rapid-low-voltage brain activity while you were dreaming and slow-waves between dreams. These waves reflect a process we call memory consolidation. Each night, your brain sifts through all your thoughts of the day and the memories related to them, compacting your memory space and readdressing all the information so it is easier for you to remember later. The process resembles defragging a computer hard drive. Each memory is assigned a priority according to its emotional strength and the number of times you thought of it on the previous day. In this process, your strongest, most frequent memories are made easier to remember and the weakest memories that you seldom think of are made harder to remember. After repeating this process daily for a lifetime, important memories and the things they remind you of become easy to recall, allowing you to access important information quickly and easily. Memories that are irrelevant are gradually moved to the back of you mind where they are stored and eventually forgotten.
For example, if you frequently thought of your love for your Mom during the day, then memories of your Mom and all things connected with her would become easier to remember when you wake. If you never thought of her awful apple pie, then thoughts associated with apple pie would be moved into the background.
While all these memories are being reviewed, the part of your brain that dreams is aware of them. As it is showered with strong, emotional memories, it tries to arrange them in the form of simple stories that are reviewed during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. After years of professional dream analysis, I have found that these stories serve to reduce the fear, anxiety, guilt, and sadness associated with your most provocative memories.
For example, if you have been recently grieving over a loved one, the dream may show them alive and happy. If you have been thinking about being helpless and vulnerable, the dream may show you to be all-powerful. Wives who are angry at their husbands may see them being punished for their transgressions. Smokers who are trying to quit smoking will see themselves enjoying a cigarette.
Dreams help locate the strongest, most emotional, and most negative memories???memories that your waking conscious mind may not even be aware of. Discussing your dreams with an experienced professional???such as a trained psychiatrist???can help pinpoint internal conflicts and emotional vulnerabilities that may be holding you back from your full potential. These issues are very personal and are different between everyone???this is why there is no dictionary or lexicon that can explain everyone???s dreams.
Also, the part of you that dreams is a relatively primitive part of your brain that is isolated and out of touch with your waking conscious mind (that is why it is so difficult to remember dreams). Using a system of dream interpretation can help this part of yourself communicate with your waking mind, so it can do its job better. In the process of dream analysis, your conscious mind gains some control over the way your thoughts and memories are organized. As dream analysis continues, most people find they can remember complex dreams nearly every night.
There are several systems of dream interpretation. Modern Freudian or psychodynamic dream analysis may focus on how your dreams reflect the therapeutic relationship between yourself and your doctor. Jungian analysis may see your dreams as a journey that resolves inner problems and conflicts. Dream analysis offers a tool to resolve personal and emotional issues that is not dependent on medications and does not require you to dig into painful past life experiences.
For individuals with mental or emotional diagnoses, once their disorder is under control by medications or modern psychotherapy, dream analysis serves as a low-stress way of resolving conflicts that does not create the anxiety commonly associated with many types of therapy.
One caveat???if you wish to try the process of dream analysis, make sure you are working with an experienced professional. Ask the doctor 1) ???Were you trained in dream analysis???? 2) ???Which dream interpretation system(s) do you use???? and 3) ???How much experience do you have using dream analysis to help individuals achieve their practical life goals???? You???ll be glad you did
As a psychiatrist, one of the most common questions I am asked by my patients, friends, and colleagues is, ???Wes, what do my dreams mean???? The simple answer is, ???Probably not what you think!???
Bookstores and the Internet are full of books and articles on dream interpretation by mystics, occultists, esoteric therapists, and self-proclaimed dream experts who treat dream images as mysterious codes. Unfortunately, interpretations disagree wildly between sources???one book may say that dreaming of an elephant means ???travel??? whereas another will say it means ???romance??? or ???a peanut butter sandwich.???
To understand dreams, you must start with the neurophysiological process of dreaming. If we were to record the electrical signals from your brain while you were asleep, the EEG would show rapid-low-voltage brain activity while you were dreaming and slow-waves between dreams. These waves reflect a process we call memory consolidation. Each night, your brain sifts through all your thoughts of the day and the memories related to them, compacting your memory space and readdressing all the information so it is easier for you to remember later. The process resembles defragging a computer hard drive. Each memory is assigned a priority according to its emotional strength and the number of times you thought of it on the previous day. In this process, your strongest, most frequent memories are made easier to remember and the weakest memories that you seldom think of are made harder to remember. After repeating this process daily for a lifetime, important memories and the things they remind you of become easy to recall, allowing you to access important information quickly and easily. Memories that are irrelevant are gradually moved to the back of you mind where they are stored and eventually forgotten.
For example, if you frequently thought of your love for your Mom during the day, then memories of your Mom and all things connected with her would become easier to remember when you wake. If you never thought of her awful apple pie, then thoughts associated with apple pie would be moved into the background.
While all these memories are being reviewed, the part of your brain that dreams is aware of them. As it is showered with strong, emotional memories, it tries to arrange them in the form of simple stories that are reviewed during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. After years of professional dream analysis, I have found that these stories serve to reduce the fear, anxiety, guilt, and sadness associated with your most provocative memories.
For example, if you have been recently grieving over a loved one, the dream may show them alive and happy. If you have been thinking about being helpless and vulnerable, the dream may show you to be all-powerful. Wives who are angry at their husbands may see them being punished for their transgressions. Smokers who are trying to quit smoking will see themselves enjoying a cigarette.
Dreams help locate the strongest, most emotional, and most negative memories???memories that your waking conscious mind may not even be aware of. Discussing your dreams with an experienced professional???such as a trained psychiatrist???can help pinpoint internal conflicts and emotional vulnerabilities that may be holding you back from your full potential. These issues are very personal and are different between everyone???this is why there is no dictionary or lexicon that can explain everyone???s dreams.
Also, the part of you that dreams is a relatively primitive part of your brain that is isolated and out of touch with your waking conscious mind (that is why it is so difficult to remember dreams). Using a system of dream interpretation can help this part of yourself communicate with your waking mind, so it can do its job better. In the process of dream analysis, your conscious mind gains some control over the way your thoughts and memories are organized. As dream analysis continues, most people find they can remember complex dreams nearly every night.
There are several systems of dream interpretation. Modern Freudian or psychodynamic dream analysis may focus on how your dreams reflect the therapeutic relationship between yourself and your doctor. Jungian analysis may see your dreams as a journey that resolves inner problems and conflicts. Dream analysis offers a tool to resolve personal and emotional issues that is not dependent on medications and does not require you to dig into painful past life experiences.
For individuals with mental or emotional diagnoses, once their disorder is under control by medications or modern psychotherapy, dream analysis serves as a low-stress way of resolving conflicts that does not create the anxiety commonly associated with many types of therapy.
One caveat???if you wish to try the process of dream analysis, make sure you are working with an experienced professional. Ask the doctor 1) ???Were you trained in dream analysis???? 2) ???Which dream interpretation system(s) do you use???? and 3) ???How much experience do you have using dream analysis to help individuals achieve their practical life goals???? You???ll be glad you did
