User:KarleeButler

=Analytical Writing=

Statement of Intent
&lt;You are responsible for deciding what you will produce this quarter, with the one caveat that I will vet your project idea(s) based on appropriateness of scope. Your statement of intent must be 300 words, free of typos, and posted to your Wikiversity userspace. It will include the following:&gt;

Overview
&lt;What I intend to accomplish is to keep a dream journal and analyze what my dreams mean and why we dream in the first place.&gt;

Rationale
&lt;I hope to gain knowledge in the study of dreams and sleep.&gt;

Publication
&lt;My dream journal and my analysis will be put into a book or a three ring binder&gt;

Schedule
&lt;Build a realistic order of events.&gt;


 * 1) week 2- I will start my dream journal
 * 2) week 3- I will go to the library and check out books about dreams and sleep
 * 3) week 4- I will continue to write in my dream journal and do some research on the computer
 * 4) week 5- I will write an analysis on what I have so far with my dream journal
 * 5) week 6- More research and continue writing in journal
 * 6) week 7- I will analyze my friends dreams and tell them my reasearch
 * 7) week 8- I will write my research paper rough draft
 * 8) week 9- I will do more research and complete my dream journal
 * 9) week 10- I will put everything into one complete piece
 * 10) week 11- I will show my friends my analysis

Anticipated Problems
&lt;What could go wrong is not having any dreams, but if that is to happen I will figure out a way to force myself to dream or again analyze other peoples dreams&gt;

Week 6 Project Review
&lt;Write a 200-word assessment of your project thus far.&gt; So far into my project, I have researched why we have dreams, what is their purpose and how you can analyze dreams. I will begin to write my papers and have two sides. I will write one paper on the psychological point of view and the other on facts and information about dreams and sleeping. I have three books which some of my information will come from and a few web sources I have looked at. I'm also keeping a dream journal and analyzing my own dreams as I go along this project. Once I am finished with my dream journal I will ask my friends to tell me one of their dreams and analyze it for them and see what they have to say about what I tell them.

Before Or During Week 6

 * Stephen LaBerge &lt;i&gt;Lucid Dreaming&lt;/i&gt;.
 * Sigmund Freud "On Dreams."
 * 1) Science
 * 2) Psychology/Interpretation
 * 3) Autobiographical - own story.
 * 4) Friends interviews.

Project
&lt;Post your completed project here, neatly formatted.&gt;

Scientific Research on Dreams

Headline text
We all dream, humans, mammals and even dogs and cats. Why do we dream has been a question asked for centuries, it is still uncertain why we dream, which is difficult to put a scientific perspective on the subject, but many scientists have researched and done many studies on the dream world. There have been speculations that dreams have evolved to periodically make sure that everything is working in the central nervous system and to be alert. For example if your having a scary dream and you wake up to find that someone broke in or that something unnatural has happened your brain was sparked first and you can wake up in a quick jolt. The current thinking is that dreaming is an important component of memory and that we do know that when people are learning new things. Even if we're allowed to sleep, but our dreaming is interrupted. There is a lot of evidence now that suggests dreaming is an important component of short-term memory. People often wonder why we don’t always remember our dreams when we wake up or only remember the first dream that occrued right before we wake up and scientist Rita Miller states, “When we remember anything it's connected to regency and intensity. So when we wake up from a dream unless it's very powerful, very intense, there isn't this impact that makes us pay attention to it.” A lot of our dreams can be considered chatter, nothing too memorable. The early dreams of the night last about 10 minutes long and get longer toward morning. If you wake up naturally, you will be waking up from the dream cycle, and the dream is a half to three quarters of an hour long, and that's the dream that people remember because there's more to remember then. Dreams are kind of picture thinking rather then meaningful, unless you believe that, the images speak to our mind and play a picture, almost like a black and white film. We create these pictures by our emotions. For example if you feel like a relationship is really in trouble, instead of dreaming you're having trouble with that person in the relationship, you're more likely to dream about an earthquake. Dr. Garfield states, “Dreaming is like poetry.” We are using ourselves in these images that say more than we could say by just repeating pictures of what happens in our lives. So much of dreaming is symbolic, and metaphoric, but not all of it is, it’s up to you to decide what you want to be real or meaningful. Lucid dreams, which are dreams that you have and you know your dreaming. Dr. Garfield did research on the subject and came up with the facts that it gives you the consciousness of the unconscious, its like an adventure and you get to decide what happens. A lot of people don’t enjoy having lucid dreams which is understandable because it is pretty weird, and a lot of lucid dreams turn into nightmares. It takes effort and concentration to control the lucid dreams, there is a lot of distortion in lucid dreams that is something that you may not believe you would naturally think of. Its not because your crazy but it just happens to people. Different things you think of could come down to something you wouldn’t normally think of. Most lucid dreams are people who are having reoccurring dreams or nightmares. Posttraumatic dreams is another word for it, which has difficult scenes to comprehend. You have to notice the differences in the dreams that keep happening and realize yourself while your sleeping that it is just a dream and to wake yourself up. The amount of dreaming varies over our lifetime. We even dream in the womb. With newborns there's a tremendous amount of the physical component of dreaming. As we get older, that shifts. For an adult, approximately 20 to 25 percent of sleep time is in this REM state. When a woman is pregnant and has dreams her dreams are ten times more crazy and she has twice as many dreams as anyone who isn’t pregnant. Although nobody knows the true reason why we dream, the studies still continue and will always be out there. Scientists and doctors will continue to research and do studies on dreaming and why we do it.

Analysis on Dreams

Headline text
Symbols are the language of dreams. And acquiring the ability to interpret your dreams is a powerful tool. In analyzing your dreams, you can learn about your deep secrets and hidden feelings. Every detail, even the smallest element in your dream is important and must be considered when analyzing your dreams. Each symbol represents a feeling, a mood, a memory or something from your unconscious. Sigmund Freud first argued that the motivation of all dream content is wish-fulfilment, and that the instigation of a dream is often to be found in the events of the day preceding the dream, which he called the "day residue." Freud maintained the notion that the dream fundamentally acts as the guardian of sleep. Freud believed the dream was to be composed of two parts; the manifest and the latent content. We disconnect from our reality by extinguishing all external stimuli. I began my own research by keeping a dream journal next to my bed. Every time I would have a dream and wake up in the middle of the night I would record it, when I woke up in the morning I would read them over and I couldn’t believe half of the things I dreamt about. I then analyzed them in depth by using a book called “The Dream Dictionary.” It has many symbols in it and the interpretations of them. Every symbol in the book describes an emotion on how you feel and why the dream occurred. For instance if you had a dream and your teeth were falling out it means that you are having anxiety and feel like you cant control anything in your life. I had many of these dreams where teeth would fall out or that I was falling and couldn’t get up. Freud believed in 4 methods of dreaming; condensation, displacement, symbolism, and secondary revision. Condensation is when two or more latent thoughts are combined to make up one manifest dream image or situation. Which is where you are thinking of two separate things that day and combine them into a dream while you are sleeping while the dream doesn’t make sense it does when you put them together. Displacement is when the emotion or desire toward the intended person or object it is transferred onto a meaningless and unrelated object in the manifest dream. Which means that an object could represent something totally different then what you were thinking about. A person could signify an emotion so that you weren’t really thinking about that person but the emotion was strong that you dreamt of that. Symbolism is the objects in your dream represent your emotions and each emotion can be explained by definition. Secondary Revision is the final stage of the dream work. According to Freud, this is where the dream loses 'the appearance of absurdity and incoherence. Freud used the method of 'free association' to discover the underlying meaning behind the dream. A patient would describe a dream as accurately as possible. The patient would then be told to focus on a specific element of the dream and form as many associations as they could. Essentially, allowing the patient to let their mind wander. Dream analysis, in psychoanalysis, provides the possibility to decipher the mystery of neurotic disorders, specifically hysteria, and secondly, it opens the road towards unconscious. Dreams are very important and if you take a moment to analyze them you will learn a lot about yourself, and it could help you out with life and yourself. Freud's phrase: "The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious.”

Works Cited

Headline text
Websites

http://health.discovery.com/centers/sleepdreams/experts/garfield.html

http://www.insomnium.co.uk/text/freud.htm

Books:

1. Decoding your dreams by Robert Langs MD 2. Our Dreaming mind by Robert van de castle PHD 3. Dreamtime and Dreamwork by: Stanley Krippner PHD 4. Dream Work By: Jeremy Taylor 5. Dream Dictionary By: Russell Grant