Dreaming

汪汇+虞聪

For centuries people have pondered the meaning of dreams. Early civilizations thought of dreams as a medium between our earthly world and that of the gods. In fact， the Greeks and Romans were convinced that dreams had certain prophetic powers. While there has always been a great interest in the interpretation of human dreams， it wasnt until the end of the nineteenth century that Sigmund Freud（西格蒙德佛洛伊德） and Carl Jung （榮格）put forward some of the most widely-known modern theories of dreaming.

First and foremost in dream theory is Sigmund Freud. Falling into the psychological camp， Dr. Freud's theories are based on the idea of repressed longing -- the desires that we aren't able to express in a social setting. Dreams allow the unconscious mind to act out those unacceptable thoughts and desires. For this reason， his theory about dreams focuses primarily on sexual desires and symbolism . Freuds theory tell us the idea that dreaming allows us to sort（go）through unresolved， repressed wishes. Manifest content often masks or covers latent content.

It was in his book The Interpretation of Dreams （published in 1900） that Freud first argued that the motivation of all dream content is wish-fulfillment（愿望的实现）， 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 ". Later， Freud revised his theory to suggest that dreams may also represent the repetition compulsion ， which is a psychological phenomenon in which a person repeats a traumatic event or its circumstances over and over again. This can take the form of reenacting the event—which can include "reliving" the theme in the form of dreams—or putting oneself in situations where the event is likely to happen again.

Every night when we sleep， we disconnect from our conscious thought processes. The lights go off and we're protected from external stimuli （like noise， temperature and pain）. But our internal stimuli （like emotions and fears） are still rumbling around， seeking a way to be heard. And so dreams form.

Freud said that dreams are a way to express unconscious emotions while we're asleep - otherwise we'd be constantly disturbed by them in our sleep and wake up.

So if you asked Sigmund Freud "why do we dream？" he would say our dreams are a secret outlet for these repressed desires.

So why do we dream？ Freud said it was to protect our sleep.

And do not be afraid if we have a nightmare or something ridiculous happens in our dreams，because it is just a dream and it is only a secret outlet for the repressed desires. What is more，the dreams to some extent protect our sleep.

Actually，our Chinese also have a long history of dreaming researching.Here is an example.

In the East， the dream argument is well known as Zhuangzhou Meng Die . After he woke up， Zhuangzi philosophized over whether he was a man who had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly who was dreaming that he was a man.

It is an interesting story but it tells us that sometimes we may confuse dreams with reality.We can not make a distinguish between dreams and reality，and we will believe that what happens in our dreams is true，therefore，we feel really afraid when we make nightmares，because we believe it really exists in our daily life.If we dream about being run after or being killed by someone，we think it is true and believe that we are died.

However， what we should know is that what happens in our dreams are not true ，they are only some feelings and thoughts we have ever had or seen before. They may be a response to real life trauma and situations which we have ignored or refused to accept， but the reality life will not go on the way the dreams reflect.We can still control our lives. And if we want to solve this situation， we need to be combing our heart carefully and find the root.

In a word， dreaming is a very magical and interesting thing，and there is still a lot need to be found and discovered about it.