Dreams: A Wake-Up Call from the Unconscious Mind - Essay Example

Dreams: A Wake Up Call From The Unconscious Mind Introduction Dreams and nightmares are very mysterious parts of life. Human being does not have any control over his dreams. The different and the incoherent sequences of the dreams baffles man when he wakes up from the sleep. Some people remember the whole dream while others don’t. It is quite impossible for a common man not trained in psychoanalysis or dream interpretation to understand what his dream is trying to say. After all, dreams are not random. They exist to give a message to a dreamer. The message has a deep meaning and most of the times, it carries a warning for a person who is dreaming. According to Sigmund Freud, dreams are the creation of the unconscious mind and it is through the dreams that the unconscious mind tries to tell the person that there is some important aspect about the life that he is not dealing with (Gamwell, 2000, p.19). Hence, dreams and nightmares are wake up calls from the unconscious asking the human being not to suppress the reality, but to face it by expressing it. The dream sequence I remember a time in my life when I was haunted by a dream sequence regularly. It was a struggling period of my life. I was going through a problem in my personal relationship and was not taking a decision. The relationship was working negatively for me and was causing immense stress and misery in all aspects of my life. Even after suggestions from my friends to get out the relationship, I was somehow avoiding the decision. The nightmares I had were regular. My dream sequence was very confusing and still, very vivid. I dreamt that I was in a deserted building. There was a open lift hanging loosely and to get to the ground floor, I had to get into it and then go down. Also, the lift was little far from the podium. The lift was moving and the lift doors had no handles. But somehow I got into the lift by jumping into it and with lot of efforts, balanced myself. The lift was huge and was moving from left to right. The lift started going to the ground floor. It was going fine but suddenly the lift stopped and started swinging from left to right violently. I was scared and in that moment a pair long hands(kind of a super hero) came in from somewhere and hugged me and the next thing I know was that I was in a safe room and drinking a glass of water. Then I looked at my hands and I saw blood on them. Then, I heard voices from the other room. I was extremely scared but still followed the noise. I went to the next room and found that there was party going on and loud music was playing. Everyone was enjoying and were drinking and dancing. I was thinking of getting in the party but suddenly I looked to my right side and saw a girl lying on the floor and she was in the pool of blood. Suddenly, I was paralyzed as I remembered the blood on my hands. The girl got up and said that I did something bad to her. She started coming towards me with rage. I saw blood on her forehead. Her eyes were big and she was glaring at me. To save my life, I tried to hide behind one guy. But still she came after me. I tried to run from one room to another. Now I could see that she was following me with a knife and wanted to hurt me. I was still running. I was trying to run fast but could not. My legs became heavy and I was tired. The fear of getting killed was making me gasp for breathe. I was running from one room to another and was trying to shout for help. But my voice was choked. I was desperately trying to find a door so that I could get out and get someone to help me. But no one from the party came to help me, so I figured out that I will have to get out of the building to save myself. But there was no way I could find the door. Finally, I found a door and was getting out. Blood stains on my hands started getting darker and this scared me more. I started crying with fear and tears were flowing from my eyes but still, I could not shout. I ran out of the door but there were no stairs. I kept running in a passage to find the staircase to get to the ground floor. Finally, I saw a lift hanging in the dark passage. But this time, the lift was broken. It had shutter but there were no handles. It was swinging very heavily but to save myself from the girl, I got on the lift and lost my balance. I fell in the space between the floor and the lift and was getting dragged down. Somehow I managed to hold on to the rope that balanced the weight of the lift. The lift started falling and with the lift, I started falling down. I got down on the ground floor and started running to the street to find some help. But when I got to the street, I found the street completely deserted. I started screaming and this time the my voice came out. Then I heard voices from above and looked up. I could see all the people who were enjoying the party staring at me from the top floor but they were doing nothing to help me. I saw the girl running towards me. I again started running and found myself on a railway track. I was running madly on a railway track. The stones on lying on the track were hurting my feet but I could not stop because the girl was still following me. Suddenly, I heard a train coming towards me. I saw a bright light coming from the train. I was extremely happy to see the train coz I thought someone will notice me and will save me from the girl. When I tried to get out of the track, some force was pulling me back. Now, the train was coming closer and with great speed. The girl was also coming closer from behind. I was desperately trying to get out but could not. The train was extremely close now and I could feel the death. The train was about to hit me when suddenly big hands grabbed me and pulled me out of the track. These were the same hands that helped me to come out of the lift in the beginning of the dream. I was so scared with the flight that I woke up. This nightmare was a regular part of my sleep during the time I was going through a crisis. I understood that my mind and my heart was trying to tell me something through the dreams. The purpose of the dreams according to psychoanalysis The existence of dreams has a very meaningful purpose. Dreams have a very potent message for people who have it. It is a non-verbal language of the mind which needs to be decoded . Sigmund Freud, through his theories of psychoanalysis, explained the meaning behind the existence of dreams. Through the study of the unconscious mind, he was able to unravel the secrets of the dreams and what it tries to tell us. According to Sigmund Freud, dreams are the means through which man tries to fulfill his suppressed desires (Gamwell, 2000,p.22). The feelings and the thoughts that are suppressed in the unconscious due to the fear of the society and some other reasons, raise their head and show up in the dreams. Freud said that the sexual desires, feelings and the thoughts which the conscious mind thinks are irrational, are suppressed in the unconscious without dealing with it. These irrational thoughts and sexual desires hidden in the unconscious mind are expressed in dreams through different images and imaginations (Gamwell, 2000,p.22). Also, Freud proposed in his psychoanalytical theory that as dreams are the manifestation of the primitive and socially unconditioned thoughts and wishes, it mostly is visual in nature (Gamwell, 2000,p.20). This explains why there were no dialogues in my dream. I was trying to scream but there was no voice coming out. But at the same time, I could perceive my thoughts. According to Freud, dreams are made up of visions and abstract images because for dreaming, mind uses the primitive part of the mind which knows the language of abstract visuals and images (Gamwell, 2000,p.20). Sigmund Freud believed that because of freedom from the conscious mind, dreams expresses the deepest desires of man without any inhibitions or fear of being caught (Gamwell, 2000,p.22). Freud believed that dreams give “more direct access to unconscious mind than hypnosis” (Gamwell, 2000,p.23), because dreams function more freely and are created without the fear of exposing the deepest desires to anyone(Gamwell, 2000,p.23). Freud believed that most of the psychological problems are developed because people suppress their wishes, emotions and thoughts in their unconscious mind (Gamwell, 2000,p.20). Society does not allow human being to express freely. People do not express themselves freely with the fear of being criticized or condemned by the society. The expression of thoughts about sex, wishes and pleasure are forbidden by the society. These emotions and thoughts get suppressed in the mind and hamper the normal functioning of the mind. This, in turn, disturbs the mundane life of people. In my case, I was trying to avoid the decision of leaving the bad relationship as I feared people’s reaction. I was so worried about acceptance by the society that I was ready to suffer a bad relationship rather than facing people’s reaction. This fear was being expressed through my dreams. Hence, Freud was right when he said that the forbidden thoughts which are pushed to the darkest corner of the unconscious mind, due to fear of the social reaction, can be brought in the light with the help of interpreting the dreams(Gamwell, 2000,p.20). “His case histories document that many patients were relieved of their symptoms through the interpretation of their dreams (Gamwell, 2000,p.20). The creation of dreams. There are many experiences in life to which we do not have rational explanation. For example, a man meets a stranger and feels a sudden repulsion towards him/her. However, if asked why he felt that way, he does not have any explanation as he is not able to understand why he felt that way. The reason is hidden in the unconscious. Maybe, the perfume that the stranger is wearing is mentally associated with someone in the past who he hated or maybe the way the stranger talks reminds him of someone who had a negative influence in his life. What this shows is that everything that man experiences in life, is experienced in two ways, consciously and unconsciously. There is an unconscious aspect and association to every conscious acts and events in life (Jung & Hull, 1977, p.186). The unconscious part of the mental perception of events is rejected by the conscious mind so strongly that it goes very deep in the unconscious and comes to the conscious mind only in indirect ways like intuition and deeper reflections(Jung & Hull, 1977, p.186). However, when the suppression becomes too strong and affects the mind strongly, it is manifested in the unconscious aspect of mind, which is dreams (Jung & Hull, 1977, p.186-187). Dreams have wildness to it as it is manifested with the help of colorful and variety of pictures and images. The technique that Freud used to unravel the secret of the unconscious mind was “free association” (Jung & Hull, 1977, p.187). He used to ask “the patients to go on talking about his dream images” (Jung & Hull, 1977, p.186). Freud said that unless the dreamer was willing to reveal all the associations and images that he sees in the dream without any hesitation or inhibition, it is not possible to interpret the dream (Gamwell, 2000,p.20). Initially, the person describes the dream with caution and reveals only those parts which he wants to reveal. However, if a person talks about his dream for a long time, he begins to contradict himself and hence, ends up revealing everything (Jung & Hull, 1977, p.188). According to Jung, dreams become important only if man accept the existence of the unconscious mind (Jung, Adler & Fordham, 1954, p.139). However, when the existence of the unconscious mind is accepted, it becomes easy to interpret the dreams that we have because dreams are nothing but an attempt of the unconscious to tell us something. Jung says that if a man is suffering from some psychological or emotional problem, the dreams that he gets during that time definitely reveals the root cause of those problems (Jung, Adler & Fordham, 1954, p.141). He says that dreams are easy to interpret as they show the symbols that are familiar to human beings and nothing new is invented in the dream (Jung, Adler & Fordham, 1954, p.141). He gave an example of a dream that a successful man was having. In his dreams there were scenarios which show anxiety and tension like ‘the man was in hurry to go on a journey’, ‘looking for things but could not find it’, ‘leaves the house and realizes that he has forgotten his suitcase’, ‘reaches the station only to find that the train has left’ etc (Jung, Adler & Fordham, 1954, p.141). This dream describes the desire of the man to hurry to reach ahead in life and instead of taking a retirement, his conscious mind was driving him to be more ambitious (Jung, Adler & Fordham, 1954, p.141). The unconscious was trying to gave him a signal that he should take it easy now. The dream that I had was somewhat similar to this dream. The creation of my dream can be interpreted by understanding the symbols. I was stuck in a building, which can be a symbol of ‘relationship’ that I was stuck in. The girl chasing me was a person I was having a relationship with. The broken lift and the absence of staircase may be the symbol of me unable to find a way to leave the relationship. No one coming to my help even after shouting can symbolize that people are not going to help me find solution to my problem and hence, I should find the solution myself. The most positive aspect of the dream were those big, super-hero sort of hands that saved me twice in the dream. I can positively say that maybe those are the symbol of divine help which might come to me once I decide to get out of the poisonous relationship. Jung says that if we try to study and analyze the symbols in the dream, we can interpret the dream ourselves. After all, no one knows our mind better than us. But because we stop listening to the voice inside and live under the influence of the society, our life becomes hell. Then, the unconscious takes the help of the dreams to give a wake up call to us so that we wake up from the sleepy state and live a happy life. Hence, dreams are one of the most important tools to understand our life. References Gamwell, L. (2000). Dreams Nineteen Hundred to Two Thousand. New York: Cornell University Press. Jung, C.G. & Hull, R.C. (1977). The Symbolic Life. Great Britain: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd. Jung,C.G., Adler, G. & Fordham, M. (1954). The Collected Work of C.G.Jung: Essays on the psychology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd. Read More