Do dreams really mean anything?

Do dreams really mean anything? Your listening to psychology in ten minutes, I'm David B. Feldman. When I was fourteen, I had a dream I'll never forget. Though it wasn't dramatic or worthy of cinematic adaptation, it has stuck with me all these years. I found myself wandering through the endless hallways of an ancient and eerie mansion. The cobwebs that adorned its opulent furniture made it obvious that no one had been there for many, many years. Even in its abandonment, however, the electricity was on, and numerous ornate crystal lamps and chandeliers lent a glow to its gloomy countenance. I was anxious, though not terrified. Much like a character in a horror film, I felt strangely compelled to explore, even while dreading what I might encounter. In the garage, I found a crumbling horse-drawn carriage. In the dining room, a feast was laid out, but there were no diners. And throughout the house, I found more and more crystal lamps. There must have been thousands of them lighting my way. Then I woke up. Times have fascinated people since the beginning of recorded history. In ancient Egypt, people with vivid dreams were considered to be blessed with special insight, and many of their dreams have been found recorded on papyrus. In fact, the Egyptians believed that one of the best ways to receive divine revelation was through dreaming, and some people even slept on sanctified "dream beds" in order to gain wisdom from the gods. In the 19th and 20th centuries, scholars largely abandoned these magical ideas. Prominent figures such as Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung, instead, concluded that dreams provide insights into the inner workings of the mind. In his book The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud detailed a complex system of dream analysis. At its core, his theory stated that while our conscious minds slumber, our unconscious minds produce images that can give us special insight into our deepest selves. Regardless of whether dreams foretell the future, allow us to commune with the divine, or simply provide a better understanding of who we are, the process of analyzing them has always been highly symbolic. To understand the meaning of dreams, we must interpret them as if they were written in some kind of secret code. A quick search of the online dream dictionary at dreammoods.com will tell you that haunted houses symbolize unfinished emotional business. Dimly lit lamps mean you're feeling overwhelmed by emotional issues, a feast indicates a lack of balance in your life, and garages symbolize a feeling of lacking direction or guidance in achieving your goals. So there it is, at 14 I was feeling emotional about lacking balance and direction in my life. But what if there's no secret code, and we've been spending our time reading into a bunch of random images, much like people find shapes and objects hidden in the clouds? What if dreams don't actually mean anything? That's the conclusion drawn by some modern neuroscientists who believe the dreams are just a side effect of more fundamental neurological processes. Although people often think that the brain is shut down during sleep, researchers now know sleep is a period of intense neurological activity. One of the main reasons we sleep may be to allow the brain to consolidate and organize our memories. Much like computers must periodically optimize their hard disks, our brains must continuously consolidate the memories we have stored. You can think of it as a kind of neurological house cleaning, sweeping away unnecessary experiences from the previous day, and storing the important ones more securely. Research shows, for instance, that people's recall of recently learned tasks improves after a good night's sleep, and that memory suffers if sleep is interrupted. That's why parents and teachers often urge children to get a complete night's sleep before taking a test. Although not all researchers agree, many think that dreams may be an unintended consequence of these and other underlying neurological processes. Harvard professors J. Allen Hobson and Robert McCarley, for instance, proposed that, as various brain circuits become active during the night, this triggers sensations, emotions and memories, all of which are essentially random. Given that we're meaning-making creatures, however, our brains then assemble all of this underlying activity into a story, but this story doesn't actually mean anything. It's simply an attempt to make sense of the neurological activity that has taken place. This is why dreams often seem so illogical and strange. So why do people cling so tightly to their dream dictionaries? It may have something to do with what researchers call the Barnum Effect, named for Circus entrepreneur PT Barnum. Psychology professor Bertram Forer first demonstrated this effect way back in 1948 when he administered a fake personality test to 39 of his students, though they didn't know it, all of them received exactly the same results, including statements like, quote, "You have a great need for other people to like and admire you." And quote, "You have a tendency to be critical of yourself." Unquote. Afterwards, the students were asked to rate how accurate they felt these results were on a five-point scale. The average rating was an astounding 4.3, indicating that even though everyone received the same fake feedback, they felt that the test did an almost perfect job of summarizing their minds in her workings. Dozens of studies have replicated forerous findings in the intervening decades, instead involving horoscopes, handwriting analysis, and yes, even dream analysis. Term statements are so easily accepted as true because of their wide applicability. Even though they sound really specific, they can apply to almost anyone, much like the interpretation of my haunted house dream. Doesn't, quote, "feeling emotional about lacking balance and direction," unquote, apply to almost everyone, at least to some degree. We could reasonably ask the same question about almost any interpretation given by a dream dictionary, and if all interpretations apply equally well to almost anyone, then they're not truly accurate of anybody. But not all scientists agree that there's no inherent purpose or meaning to dreams. Researchers Torinielsen and Ross Levin have proposed a theory midway between Freud's almost magical symbol-based system of dream analysis and the view that dreams are simply random. Their perspective, known as "the neuro-cognitive model of dreaming," is complicated to say the least, and impossible to completely explain here. Although this theory still states that dreams are closely tied to neurological memory consolidation processes, this doesn't mean they're random. Instead, Neilson and Levin believe that the stories our brains weave from seemingly random dream images are guided at least in part by our emotional states. For instance, as the amount of negative experiences in our waking life rises, the probability of having bad dreams also rises. This may be why people who have experienced trauma are more susceptible to nightmares than other people. According to their theory, an important function of dreams is what they term fear extinction. That is, dreams help us to process our stressful experiences in a healthy way, putting them to rest, so we're not overwhelmed with negative feelings during our waking lives. When the process is working properly, dreams use the stresses and waking concerns in our lives as source material, taking them apart and reassembling them again into odd but generally harmless stories. A process that ultimately allows us to move past them. Though the neuro-cognitive theory of dreaming would suggest that the particular symbols in my haunted house dream probably don't have any objective or universal meaning. The overall emotional quality of the dream probably does have meaning. Like many fourteen-year-olds, I was full of youth-flanked as I encountered the stresses of growing up, feelings which showed up in my dream. So while dreams may not tell the future, allow us to commune with the supernatural or give us special insights into the depths of our unconscious minds, they do tell us something about our feelings. Because most of us occasionally get out of touch with how we're feeling, this is a useful insight. In other words, if you're experiencing a stream of bad dreams, it might be worth checking in with yourself about how you've been feeling, perhaps considering whether there's some action you could take to help improve your mood. I suggest you start by putting the dream dictionary down. And that was Psychology in 10 Minutes. If you enjoyed this episode, take a minute to write a review of the podcast on iTunes or through your favorite podcasting app. These reviews make a huge difference in whether our podcast gets featured high in search results. We really appreciate it. Thanks for listening.