The world of dreams occupied the human mind since ancient times, and tried to interpret it constantly, at times it sees it as a divine revelation, and at other times it sees it as childhood fears or desires that it seeks, or as a discharge of brain activity that results from certain processes that occur during sleep, and despite the diversity of theories and their differences, they were unable to say the word Separation in the world of dreams, and this world remained subject to multiple different interpretations.
From Mesopotamia to Ancient Egypt
It is not known exactly when humans began interpreting dreams;
But the oldest historical record talking about the meanings of dreams and their interpretation dates back to the third millennium BC, written by the ancient Babylonians and Sumerians.
According to writings from Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, dreams at that time were a way to predict the future, and a means to receive divine revelation, and it was believed that the gods visit dreamers to order them to take specific actions, so cities may have been built and others destroyed at that time just because of a dream that one of the kings saw. .
The interpretation of dreams is common to different civilizations and countries, such as: China, India and Persia.
Among the ancient Hindu beliefs that view dreams as one of the three states in which the soul lives: dream, wakefulness, and sleep.
The dream occurs when the soul leaves the body and wanders in the world of dreams until the dreamer wakes up.
Interpretation of dreams in monotheistic religions
The Jewish religion paid special attention to the interpretation of dreams, because they believed in the ability to draw lessons from them and considered them a means of receiving revelation.
The ancient Hebrews linked their dreams to their religion greatly, and distinguished between good dreams (which come from God) and bad dreams (which come from evil spirits).
Christians also cared about the interpretation of dreams, and gave them the same importance after being a source of receiving revelation.
As for Muslims, they classified dreams into 3 types:
“The vision” is from God Almighty, and it may be intended to preach good or warn against evil.
"Satan's talk", which is what the sleeper sees as hateful.
"Bags of dreams", which are daily dreams that do not carry any meaning or that they reflect what the dreamer experienced during his waking life.
Freud's approach to dream interpretation
Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, was the first to talk about the interpretation of dreams and link them to psychology, and he wrote a famous book on this matter called "The Interpretation of Dreams."
In the late 19th century, Freud theorized that dreams are a reflection of the "desires of the unconscious mind" of the dreamer, in other words, the dreamer tries to fulfill his unconscious desires through dreams, and most of the time those desires are related to childhood memories and experiences, and may reflect fears hidden in the subconscious world and appear In dreams.
Freud's analysis leads to a conclusion that shows that there is no single interpretation of dreams that applies to everyone. Each person sees in his dreams his experiences, desires and fears that do not necessarily resemble the desires and fears of others.
Many support this theory in our time, despite the criticisms of Freud at the time, as many believe that dreams tell them a lot about their unconscious desires, and researchers conducted a survey that included students from the United States, India and South Korea, and found that 74% of Indians, and 65% Of South Koreans, 56% of Americans believe that their dreams have an implicit content that provides them with insight into their unconscious beliefs and desires.
American psychologist Calvin Hall believes that dreams are just thoughts that appear during sleep (Shutterstock)
Calvin Hull's approach to dream interpretation
The American psychologist Calvin Hall does not see that our dreams are a reflection of our underlying desires - unlike Freud - but presented another theory that says that dreams are just thoughts that appear during sleep and represent reflections from personal life, including:
A person's view of himself: For example: one may dream of becoming a strong businessman, but then losing everything, and the meaning of this type of dream, according to Hull, is that this person sees himself as strong, but he is worried that he will not be able to maintain this strength.
One's view of others: For example: if a person believes that his mother has many requests and directions, or that his father is harsh on him, then this will be reflected in his dreams.
A person's view of his environment: A person may think that he lives in vain in a place where he does not feel belonging to him, and he sees in his sleep that he is in a dark or cold environment.
Understanding repressed desires: Dreams may also be a reflection of understanding repressed desires, and Hull differs with Freud on this point. with it.
Confronting challenges: According to Hull, dreams largely reflect the challenges and difficulties that one faces, and the struggles and battles that one wages daily.
It is worth noting that Hull reached his conclusions from an approach he developed with Robert van de Castel in the 1960s.
He and his colleague collected more than 50,000 reports of dreams from university students, analyzed and studied them, in contrast to Freud's approach to dream interpretation, which lacked scientific accuracy.
The neurobiological interpretation of dreams
Research of a different kind has appeared since the beginning of the 20th century to try to interpret dreams from a neurological and biological point of view.
Two Harvard psychiatrists - Alan Hobson and Robert McCarley - put forward a different theory in 1977 stating that dreams are an attempt by the brain to understand the neural activity that occurs during sleep, as brain activity does not stop during that period.
So the two scientists, Hobson and McCarley, saw that during sleep, activity in some of the lower levels of the brain that are mainly responsible for basic biological processes are interpreted by the parts of the brain responsible for higher functions such as thinking and information processing.
In other words, brain activity during sleep is what ultimately generates dreams.
According to Hobson and other researchers, the circuits in the brain stem are active during the rapid eye movement phase, and once these circuits are activated, the regions involved in emotions, sensations, and memories are also activated, including the amygdala and the hippocampus, and then the brain synthesizes and interprets this internal activity and tries to create meaning from it. These signals, leading to the dream.
Hobson affirms that his theory does not contradict the existence of a dream meaning, and believes that dreaming may be the most creative state of consciousness, as it results from the random and spontaneous recombination of cognitive elements and the creation of new ideas.
Dreams.. Our brain's way of protecting us from dangers
Other scientists believe that dreams serve important purposes, most notably training the psyche to face risks and threats, as it is - as they put it - a way for the brain to protect against risks by training primitive instinct, as dreams usually provide "simulation" of the threats that a person may face in reality, and then It sharpens its defense skills and increases the mental capacity to deal with scenarios that pose a threat to us or may be harsh on us, including:
Escape while being chased by someone.
Falling into the abyss.
Attending exams without studying.
Walking naked in public places.
This theory believes that there is no specific explanation for this type of common dream, but rather an attempt by the brain to train for potential threats in real life.
"consciousness" temporary storage
One of the most prominent theories that explain dreams from a scientific point of view is that proposed by the psychiatrist Ji Zhang, who says that the brains store memories permanently, regardless of whether one is asleep or awake, and therefore it is possible to count dreams as a kind of temporary storage of consciousness, as the region of A cache is a place where one holds memories before they are transferred to the long-term storage area of the brain.
Why does the dream happen?
Despite the existence of all these theories that try to interpret dreams, there is no accurate and definitive scientific answer that explains dreams and shows the reason for their existence.
Scientists believe dreams serve a range of purposes including:
processing memories.
Processing of emotions.
A reflection of our unconscious desires.
A method for dealing with potential risks.
That is, a person cannot interpret dreams according to only one theory. Dreams may, in fact, serve multiple purposes.
Mixing reality with dream (Shutterstock)
How does the dream happen?
The scholars are unanimously agreed on the mechanism of dream occurrence, which is:
In the first stages of sleep, a person enters the “non-rapid eye movement” stage, which in turn is divided into 3 stages:
The first stage: the eyes are closed, but the sleeper can easily wake up during this stage, which lasts from 5 to 15 minutes.
The second stage: the stage of light sleep, as the sleeper becomes less aware of what is around him, the heart rate slows down, and the body temperature decreases in preparation for deep sleep. This stage lasts for 20 minutes.
The third stage: It is the stage of deep sleep, in which the muscles relax, the blood pressure and breathing rate decrease, and it becomes difficult to wake the sleeping person.
After the sleeper transitions into deep sleep, the "rapid eye movement" stage begins.
This stage is accompanied by intense brain activity, and it usually begins after 90 minutes of sleep. Here, breathing becomes faster and more regular, eyes move quickly and in different directions, heart rate increases, and blood pressure rises. At this specific stage, a person enters the world of dreams.