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Hayley King

UWRT 1103

The Truth about Dreams

During my inquiry project, I researched details and statistics about dreams and what their

purpose serves. Dreaming is a unique process that we humans endure because it is a way to

escape the real world and encounter new journeys in our minds. Everyone dreams at some point

during the night, particularly during REM sleep, and many of us may recall some very weird

dreams.

The first inquiry question I developed was simple: Why do we have dreams? Scientific

studies have been performed on peoples brains while they were asleep to develop theories and

ideas on why we have such vivid dreams at night. One article I reviewed was developed by a

clinical psychologist named Michael J. Breus. Michael claimed, While some scientists posit that

dreaming has no direct functionbut instead is a consequence of other biological processes that

occur during sleepmany studying sleep and dreams believe dreaming serves

a primary purpose (Breus, 2015). What purpose can this be? Most peoples dreams have no

connection with their real life. Dreams are usually sudden and random with people that we may

not even recall. If dreams serve a primary purpose, what is their exact role? Since these words

came from an actual psychologist, it really changed my view on the importance of dreaming. I

researched how reliable this psychologist is, who is also known as the sleep doctor. Michael

Breus has been on the Dr. Oz show and owns his own clinic. He has been interviewed on several

others shows as well because he is one of the few psychologists in the world who specialize in

sleep disorders and dreaming. His information was valuable and seemed to be based off a lot of
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fact. After hearing that there is still no definite answer to why we dream and only theories to base

from, I am shocked that no one can dig deep enough to find one common answer.

The next question I formulated was related to lucid dreaming. I wanted to understand the

meaning behind lucid dreams and what they consist of. I found a blog that explained lucid

dreaming as the ability to consciously observe and/or control your dreams (Turner, n.d.). Lucid

dreaming is a unique form of dreaming that I never even knew about beforehand. This author

went on to explain how to teach your mind how to lucid dream on its own. This author seemed to

be genuine, and once I dug deeper, I found that she was the founder of the blog. She also created

an intensive online course about the process of lucid dreaming that you can purchase on the

web. The author, Rebecca, quit her job as a journalist to create this whole website about the ins

and outs of lucid dreaming. After reading this article, I wondered- if you can teach yourself to

lucid dream so easily, why do more people not do it? Why is it rarely heard or talked about if it is

such a unique experience? You can search through the web and find several lucid dream stories

that others have shared, but I chose not to include these in my annotations because a story from

some random person on the internet may not be totally authentic. Including stories from informal

people on the web with no skilled backgrounds may give false leads about lucid dreaming.

My favorite source I used for the whole project was also about lucid dreaming. This

source talks about how lucid dreaming can actual be dangerous to a human. The article says, Its

sort of like living a double life. Except you cant really talk about it. (Rossen, 2016). We are so

caught up in the moment and love sharing our weird dreams with others that we dont realize

how influential they can be. The article talks about several specific incidents where people

literally caused harm to others because of how intense their dreams were. One lady indisputably

struggled with her lucid dreaming practices after she could not depict a dream memory from a
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real memory. The article claims, People think its a safe high. No high is safe. (Rossen, 2016).

The lucid dreaming can cause false awakenings and become dangerous to the dreamer because

they may not be fully aware of the location their body is in. The author of this text, Jake Rossen,

seemed to have key facts that made the reader, myself, really concerned about lucid dreaming

and its effects. Jake has published many other articles through this website, and I believe he is a

genuine source to get key information from.

One of my other leads referred to Sigmund Freud, who had a strong influence on the

research of dreams and the raw facts revolving around the concept of sleep. According to the

author, Freud developed a topographical model of the mind, whereby he described the features

of the minds structure and function (McLeod, 2013). The author goes on throughout the article

to explain Freuds work and what he discovered. I researched more about the author of this

article to determine how reliable his facts were, and the author actually has a psychology degree

and a masters degree in research. The author claimed to begin this website back in 2007 by

publishing some of his teaching notes. Freud is a popular psychologist known to many and I

believe this former college student provided valuable information.

The last source I want to be critical of is the one about nightmares and night terrors.

Nightmares are basically a scary dream, so these are an important topic to cover. The article said,

Nightmares most often later at night during REM sleep where dreaming is most prevalent

(Phillips, 2014). Since the article mentioned dreaming, I knew that it would be significant to

include in my project. I believe this source was able to correctly define the difference between

night terrors and nightmares, but it did have one negative side to it. The title of the article was

How to Deal with your Terrified Child. I was not looking for a solution, and definitely not for

children in general, because nightmares can occur at any age. The article was posted on a site
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called, Alaska Sleep Clinic Blog which made it seem like it would be a great place to look

into. Sleep clinics are able to treat patients who have trouble sleeping and possibly with

nightmares so the source should be credible, however I am not sure this was the case. I dug

deeper into who the author was and found more information about him. He has no degree related

to the field and only wrote for the blog to promote marketing. This means he wasnt even part of

the sleep expert team, only a young guy looking for business inquiries.
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References

Breus, M. J. (2015, February 13). Why Do We Dream? Retrieved from

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sleep-newzzz/201502/why-do-we-dream

McLeod, S. A. (2013). Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html

Phillips, K. (2014, December 23). Night Terrors Vs Nightmares: How to Deal with Your Terrified

Child. Retrieved from http://www.alaskasleep.com/blog/night-terrors-vs-nightmares-

how-to-help-terrified-child

Rossen, J. (2016, September 25). The Dark Side of Lucid Dreaming. Retrieved February 21,

2017, from https://vanwinkles.com/lucid-dreamings-dark-side

Turner, R. (n.d.). What is Lucid Dreaming? Retrieved from http://www.world-of-lucid-

dreaming.com/what-is-lucid-dreaming.html