Sleep and dreams are always at all times aroused keen interest on the part of the people. Once upon a time our ancestors believed that everything that happens in a dream, the reality is the same as everyone else, and now in Africa there are tribes who hold the same views. In our time, there are still many myths about dreams. Let's try to understand why we have dreams and whether they have any meaning.

The psychic activity of man

The psychic activity of man consists of conscious and unconscious activity. During the day we make some kind of action, the question - is the conscious level of our psyche. But sometimes our actions make automatic, for example, when we perform the usual morning procedures. All the internal organs are also working on a subconscious level, otherwise we would have to constantly monitor the activities of the heart, lungs, etc. At night comes the realm of the unconscious: we do not remember and do not realize their actions during sleep. Therefore, the dream so quickly forgotten, they, too, come to us from the unconscious.

What is dream and what is it for

Day of the cells of our brain are active, expending their energy, and by the end of the day their ability to respond to external stimuli significantly reduced, we have a sense of fatigue at first, and then comes a dream - inhibition of the cerebral cortex. During sleep, the nerve cells completely restore its function and in the morning ready to begin active work.

The human need in a dream no less important to him than the need for food. A person can live without food for about two months, and no sleep - no more than two weeks.

The slow and fast sleep

It has been found that the incidence rate of brain biocurrents a sleeping person is 5-6 times less than that in a state of wakefulness. It was found that sleep during the night proceeds in cycles. Sleep cycle is approximately 90 minutes, during which sleep may proceed differently.

There is a so-called slow or quiet sleep, in which the marked decrease in the frequency of breathing and heartbeat, muscle relaxation and a reduction of sleep movements to a minimum. At that time, people did not see dreams.

With the rapid and active sleep in front all physiological functions are activated, increasing physical activity, there are rapid eye movement, which indicate that sleep at that moment she sees dreams. But a person sleeps at this time stronger than during REM sleep. With sleeping people conducted experiments and found that if a person is deprived of REM sleep, despite an adequate common dream, a week later he may begin mental disorders.

It is now established that during REM sleep the human brain continues to function actively. It collects and analyzes information that is received during the day in order to use it in a state of wakefulness. There is a sort of recycling, rethinking of the facts and in the morning we get up often with a ready solution, despite the fact that yesterday it seemed that the situation seemed absolutely hopeless. "Sleep on it" - teaches the popular wisdom.

Dreams

Nowadays, some people honestly believe that every dream foretells the future, others believe it is complete nonsense. Where is the truth?

Our unconscious desires, feelings, needs and intentions are in the depths of our unconscious, on the bottom of a deep well. Sometimes they are given up and brought to consciousness in the form of different images. Decipher the images that gives us the subconscious - it is art.

Dreaming - a "royal road" to our unconscious. So said the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, who put a lot of effort to the study of the symbolism of dreams.

The images in the dream

An integral part of psychoanalysis is to analyze the patient's dreams. The images in the dream may take strange character, does not correspond to reality, is the result of the fact that they distort our inhibitions. Some parts of sleep we remember and understand immediately, while others are a mystery to us. Here is their something and helps to recall and interpret the analyst. And when the problem came to the surface, it is not so terrible, and it can work.

The Interpretation of Dreams

The work of the psychoanalyst in charge of the interpretation of dreams, is subject to certain rules: to apply this method can only be for the purpose of treating a patient, with his presence necessary, as to draw a detailed image of the dream and find individual associations that occur while a person can only be with him . This hidden content as it is translated into an explicit form, and thoughts are transformed into visual images that make up a new script. If a single script in a dream not, appear in the dream fancy disparate images.

Once the analyst has collected together all the images and related associations from sleep, it starts to interpret. This is an art based on experience and intuition, as it requires to link all the information from the patient's personality and tell the words that it can be seen at the bottom of his soul. The interpretation of dreams is usually brief and psychoanalyst particularly captures the essence of the hidden messages of our unconscious conscious.

The value of individual images in dreams

Let's try to go a little bit down the road from the unconscious to the conscious and understand how our thoughts are transformed into images during sleep.

If in a dream someone shows aggression towards you, the more likely it is your own aggression, which in reality you can not express. Such a situation, when there is no escape feelings can result in depression Depression .

Disturbing dreams of being unprepared for the exam can dream, if a person feels anxiety about how it looks in the eyes of others.

Dreams about the persecution. Here you need to carefully sort out who or what haunts a man may well be that when we look at it would not be so terrible. Such dreams often say that the unconscious part of the personality of man trying to come to the surface, make contact with the conscious. Consciousness, for whatever reason, is afraid of contact.

Often we see in dreams his own death or the death of someone else. This death (and even kill) rarely has to do with real death, it often indicates a process of deep inner transformation, or the desire of such transformations.

The sense of grief at the loss of loved ones in dreams may occur within six months after the death of a loved one, then the frequency of such dreams is gradually reduced. If this does not happen, then the image of the dead in dreams may acquire negative traits or starts asking to let him go.

Our mental activity is reflected in his sleep at home or in the form of its individual parts. If you unconsciously want some inner transformation, you can dream, for example, the kitchen, where everything boils and changes. The sense of liberation from something may come in the bathroom. Especially visually it looks like if the action takes place in some familiar house.

The car in a dream symbolizes a person's identity. If he drives the car, it speaks of his active role in this or that situation. On the contrary, if he is sitting in the back seat and did not participate in driving, it means in real life is far from not proactive.

Images of alcohol and drug use occur when a person has some problem with them. If such a succession of dreams, here you can see the unconscious willingness to change lifestyle.

Snakes appear in dreams in many different forms and may be associated with wisdom, with healing, poison and danger. It will be important to have a personal association of the patient.

We dismantled the basic common in dreams images. In the wild dreams of much more and, of course, they are very individual. Therefore, to solve the symbolism of his dream with the help of dream book seems to be very problematic. It is better to see a shrink.

Galina Romanenko, psychotherapist, psychiatrist

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