Psychological Theories of Dreams

Dreams have been one of the most captivating mysteries known to man throughout the ages, yet it has only been since the late 19th century that we have begun to create formal theories around this phenomenon. Since the birth of psychology, the field of dream analysis has flourished, and it still continues to grow all the time. Some ground-breaking psychological dream theories have been developed.

Freud

• Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic approach to dream analysis focused on the unconscious mind. He believed that in order for modern society to function as harmoniously as it does, humans must adapt by repressing their more primal urges, such as the urges to copulate and kill. Due to humans not being given a waking expression of these urges, they manifest into the minds of dreamers while they are sleeping. Freud was known for frequently taking dream symbols as representations of repressed sexuality.

Jung

• Carl Jung was perhaps a visionary before his time who coined the term "collective unconscious." He believed that various dream symbols that come up while individuals are sleeping are tied in with the deeper meaning that the symbol has accumulated throughout time and history. He wrote about the use of analyzing archetypes in dreams to help dreamers tune into the universality of an iconic symbol. He also wrote about the anima and animus, which are an individual's opposite gender counterpart that may appear within his or her dream.

Gestalt

• Gestalt dreamwork is based on the theory that we contain within ourselves various contradicting elements, but we cannot consciously hold such immenseness. We therefore disown and deny many parts of ourselves and the world, which may then become active in the unconscious dreamworld. In Gestalt, an individual will tell her dream and then identify all the elements in it, including human figures, animals, inanimate objects and even actions. The individual will then use her imagination to "become" each element, which then reveals hidden attitudes, feelings or possibilities.

Adler

• Alfred Adler, a contemporary of Freud, believed that dreams are a way for humans to deal with their insecurities in a more direct fashion. He thought that dreams were a mental realm in which individuals could test out different strategies of compensating for their imperfections before actually trying it out in real life. The strategy which an individual may use to cope in a dream was something he considered extremely important for revealing personality.