Dream interpretation in clinical contexts.
Currently dreams are studied by sleep researchers using scientific techniques such as Electroencephalography, which allows to monitor the electrical activity of the brain through waves or with functional magnetic resonance, that allows to view what parts of the brain are active/inactive while sleep/awake. They have found that dreams have important functions in consolidating new memories(learning), organizing emotions, and healing tissues. They have learned also the most of the dreams appeared in REM sleep phase (Rapid eye movement phase this view tend to examine dreams content are unimportant. Other researchers point out that dreams are connected in a meaningful and functional way with improvements on memory, overcoming traumatic events and rewiring and strengthening neural connections.
Benefits of dreams interpretation
Engaging in therapeutic dream work have shown to be very useful for both therapist and patients/clients. The most evident benefits is an increase on insight and self awareness. From a clinical perspective, dreams are oftenly used as a starting point to highlight issues or problems that are often repressed or neglected from clients. Moreover, it is used to speak about some themes that could be recurrent or very important on the patients outcome. Clinical dream interpretation allows the therapist to focus on selective parts or themes present in the dream that will support therapeutic positive outcome. Due to its relation with the unconscious dreams also can facilitate to consciousness disturbing topics that cannot be easily managed through consciousness.
In clinical contexts, dreams are seen as another door to foster important information about a patients life, such as history, personal connections, fears, environments or traumatic experiences.
How does dream interpretation work
Freudian and Jungian approaches places the therapist in the role of the interpreter of the dream, where they interpret the content of the dream and how the person tells the content the dream to create metaphors and interpretations about the dreams. They don’t consider the dreams literally, but they see figurative themes or recurrent topics that might be crucial for therapeutic progress. In this approaches dreams are subject to deformations, and condensations that doesn’t allow them to be ready for consciousness, they are subject to repression and need to be decoded in the search for symbols or archetypes. Viewed this way the dreams are disguised representations, hidden symbolisms that need to be disclosed in order to solve the puzzle.
Gestalt therapies and other humanistic approaches focus more on the images and sensations recalled in the dream rather than conceptual content. They focus more in evocating and reproducing images and sensations felt in dreams, especially the time, the same patient is the one who confers significance to the dream. In Gestalt approach, dreams are forgotten because we refuse to take them as real. Individuals are seen literally as dream makers, therefore, dreams are projections of own personality, like dispersed elements that need to be gathered and to be integrated, but first need to be recognized by the dreamer, who ignores the gaps in his awareness.
Interesting view on nightmares.
Researchers at the university of Turku in finland thinks that nightmares are the main reason why we dream, they think that nightmares are some kind of almost real simulators of scary encounters or threats, simulators that allow us to be more prepared in waking life. They argue that about two thirds of dreams of healthy adults involve threats (fights, running away from attackers, being caught by police.
Sources
CAIN, E. (2013). Between Image and Voice: Dream Work in Gestalt Therapy. Gestalt Journal Of Australia & New Zealand, 10(1), 48-59
Young, E. (2011). The I in dreaming. New Scientist, 209(2803), 36-39.
Matalon, N. (2011). The riddle of dreams. Philosophical Psychology,24(4), 517-536
