Thursday, February 2, 2012

Dreams as Wish Fulfillment.....

Several authors have written extensively about the notion that dreams are a reflection of the wish fulfillment of the dreamer. Freud for example, stated that some dream imagery is a direct link to wish fulfillment such as dreaming about food when one is hungry (Halliday, 2010). Victor Frankl (1963) wrote that the most common dreams of people in concentration camps during World War II were of "bread, cake, cigarettes, and a nice warm bath (p. 44)." If you were a clinician working with individuals in jail for long term incarceration, what would you expect their wish fulfillment to look like in terms of dream imagery, and why?

24 comments:

  1. Of course it depends on the individual and why are they are in jail but I think two very important themes found in the dreams of individuals in jail would be about family and freedom. Being enclosed in an institution for years upon years who probably make an inmate yearn for freedom and this could be reflected in dreams as wide open spaces and the ability to make their own decisions in their dreams. The loss of family when an individual goes to jail is a major one and this would also be expected to show up in their dream content. This includes family members appearing as characters in dreams, and friends as well. Other simpler dream imagery such as different clothing may also appear since inmates are stripped of their individuality upon being incarcerated. I would imagine better food would also show up in their dreams because I can't imagine prison food is that great. Basically their dreams would contain wish fulfillment involving things that they have suddenly been deprived of and have not experienced for a long period of time.

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  2. If I were a clinician working with people in jail I would expect their dreams to combine openness (freedom, social interactions and many scene changes. As prisoners who are sentenced to long-term jail time, they are limited to the areas they spend time in and who they spend time with. I would expect their wish fulfillment dreams would encompass lots of openness, for example, fields and bodies of water, as well as social interactions, for example, them interacting with others in a public place (i.e. movie theatre) and lastly, I would expect their dreams to have constant scene changes, for example, being on a beach and then being at a friend's house, to show their desire to be able to go to different places with different people whenever they want. Agreeing with Megan, their dreams would consist of longings and hopes for their future, or potential things they may have taken for granted prior to their incarceration.

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  3. If I were a clinician working with individuals in jail for long term incarceration I would expect their wish fulfillment to show things such as freedom, spending time with family, spending time with friends, food and forgiveness from the wrong they have done. Since they are incarcerated for a long period of time they would be feeling lonely, maybe guilty about the criminal offence they committed, may miss their family, or be wishing for a favourite meal. I believe that these wishes would come up in their dreams. Everyday simple things that are often taken for granted would be things that these prisoners would be thinking about and missing and therefore they would show up in their dreams.

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  4. What to expect from an individual who is in jail for a long time is really difficult to say. There is a lot of variable in the question, because each individuals emotion regarding the imprisonment might be different. For the sake of this question, lets assume the individual is someone who desperatly wants to be out of jail. We would expect his dreams to relate to these waking day emotions. We could assume these emotions relate to what they miss from their world outside of jail. Their habits, home, family, and the freedom associated with it. There dreams would most likely incorperate all the aspects of their life that they miss the most, and the emotions associated with the want for those things.
    Grace Williamson

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  5. If I were a clinician working with individuals in jail for long term incarceration, I would expect their wish fulfillment in terms of dream imagery would depend on the person. I believe for some I would expect to see either their favourite meals, or family, or even their favourite recreational activities. I think for the most part that dream imagery will consist of the things they miss the most, and may never have the chance to experience again. This would be a case of compensatory dreaming.

    However, because dreams are reflective of waking day, there may also be a lot more negative imagery as well as having a darker scenery in their dreams of wish fulfillment. This would be a case of continuity.

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  6. It is hard to predict what an individual in jail for that period of time would dream about. I believe it would all depend on the individual and what they miss about their life prior to their jail time. Personally for me, if I spent that amount of time in jail I would probably dream about my family, and friends, or activities that I miss and wish to have in my life. I think all of those could be possibilities for anyone in jail. However, if the individual is in a negative frame of mind they could be experiencing dreams of the act that got them in the spot they are now in, as they wish to experience the feelings they did during the illegal actions. Also, some people may hate jail as their life prior was pretty good and they are now realizing this, so they wish to be out of jail (freedom) or some may prefer jail over their previous life and would rather never leave jail and thus that will show in their dream imagery. Overall, all individuals have their own wishes and desires and thus it would be hard to predict what to expect to see in the dream imagery of these individuals.

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  7. If I was a clinician looking at wish fulfillment of incarcerated individuals, the imagery could be a lot of things that go in many directions. I think it also depends on the person them self and how they are as an individual. However, as a whole I think they would be dreaming of the simple things that "people on the outside" take for granted. These things could be privacy, freedom, doing things you want to do on your time (leisure activities) or spending time with family (being there for birthdays, holidays, etc). It also depends on the type of crime that was committed that landed them that long term prison sentence. If that person is remorseful I feel that they would have images of the victim(s) of their actions and that person's family.

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  8. I would expect that they dreamt that the situation that landed them in jail might have played out differently and they either wouldn't have committed the crime or they would have gotten away with it in their dream.
    Another possibility is that they could have dreams that they are still out committing similar crimes, if that's what they enjoy doing.
    Another thing you could expect is dreams of freedom, a variety of other things like being with friends or family, cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, females...

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  9. Long-term incarceration in Canada is defined by jail terms of more than two years that are federally imposed for crimes against the person, versus crimes dealing with property. This is necessary background information to speculate on what kind of images may be inside the head of such an inmate.
    Since this population also includes those with anti-social personality disorder, sociopaths and psychopaths, one must be attentive to the possible profile as well.
    On the surface, wish fullfillment could include better food, open space, freedom, reunification with loved ones, power, money, company of the opposite gender, sex, and any other item denied as a matter of conditions of incarceration.
    Bearing in mind potential psychopathology however,wish fullfillment could include hurting other people with varying degrees of violence. Sociopaths would likely not disclose honestly anyway,so the clinician would do well to scrutinize the client against other evaluators as well as the client's history.

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  10. I would expect the wish fulfillment of those incarcerated to be represented in their dream imagery in several ways. I would expect those individuals to have dream imagery around freedom or the outdoors. I would expect to see images of the sky, trees, nature, etc. because those are all things that they would have experienced before but no longer have access to. I would also expect to see dream imagery of loved ones. Perhaps an individual who is married would dream of their wife or children. I would imagine that they would dream of watching their children grow and milestones that their kids might be experiencing without them. Perhaps their wish fulfillment might include images of living their life over again or differently. Maybe they would dream about the choices they made that put them behind bars in the first place and wish that they had made different choices. I would also expect to see very simple, every day images that we on the outside of the prison system take for granted. When I used to work with offenders in institutions they would often talk about missing certain smells and sounds. For instance one man once told me that the thought of getting to choose the TV show that he wanted to watch would be so exciting for him. I think you would see images of favourite shows, music, sports and food. I think the most prominent imagery I would expect to see would be around freedom and making their own choices. This is so critical to our mental health and they are always reminded of their lack of freedom and individuality in prison. I think that if their waking day experience is one of confinement and conformity, than their wish fulfillment in their dreams would be about freedom and individuality.

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  11. I would expect the dream imagery of inmates to be about things they miss dearly from the outside world that they can no longer enjoy while being incarcerated. While these dreams of wish fulfillment would depend on personal preferences, I would also imagine that there would be a social or emotional significance attached to what they would want, such as interactions with friends and family, or being back ‘home’. The Compensatory Hypothesis could explain for dreams about things the inmate could no longer experience, and as such, their dream world makes up for this. Limited mobility and lack of freedom in a prison or jail cell could facilitate dreams about freedom, traveling or driving. Being stuck in a small prison cell most of the day could be compensated through dreams of large open spaces, being out in nature, and seeing the blue-sky overhead. In addition, repetitive experiences of poor tasting jail food could be compensated with dreams of steak dinners, fast food, and alcohol consumption.

    Another possible explanation for the wish fulfillment phenomena in prison dreams is that individuals incarcerated for a long period of time would have lots of free time to themselves to think about things. For the most part, these thoughts could be reflections about life on the outside, and the things that they want but are currently missing out on. As a result, inmates could be dreaming about what they want (the wish fulfillment), because during the day they have a great amount of time to think about these things, which in turn creates thought patterns and neural connections in the brain that are associated with what they want. When the inmate sleeps, these neural connections may be activated, thus allowing the inmate to experience the things they want while they dream.

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  12. If I were a clinical working with individuals in jail for long term incarceration, I would expect their wish fulfillment to be represented in their dream imagery as simple things such as physical aggressive acts, sex, food and family. With that, I also think their dream imagery would have lots of success in it. As they are incarcerated, a wish fulfillment I expect to see is success once out of jail, whether that is represented in money, success or a good job and following societies rules. Of course personal success will be subjective, but the general pattern I believe, would be visible to a clinician.

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  13. If i were a clinician working with inmates who in jail serving a long term sentence I would expect to see a large amount of wish fulfilment in their dream imagery. Although aggressive imagery may seep in to dream imagery, I would suspect more wish fulfilment. They spend a majority of the day in their cell which would give them time to reflect on their past and perhaps the mistakes that they have made. In these cases of inmates feeling remorseful for their actions, perhaps they would relive the crime that they committed not take part in the crime. They may also dream about the things they are unable to possess in jail such as freedom or material objects.

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  14. If I were to ever analyze the dreams of individuals who have been in jail, I would expect to see dream imagery reflecting items and needs that this certain individual is deprived of. Specific dream imagery thst i would expect to see would be the individual dreaming about friends or family or potentially a dream where he or she was simply running as fast as they could, experiencing the feeling of freedom. Also i would imagine that some if these individuals would dream about eating amazing food and elaborate meals. All in all it would bevery interesting to work with these individuals and be able to study their dreams.

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  15. If I were working with individuals who were in jail long-term, I would expect their dream imagery to resemble past experiences. That being said, I also believe that freedom would be a prominent theme within all prisoner’s dreams, but it depends on the individual – as there are a lot of variables that could affect the situation. I do not think that prisoners who were committed for a horrible crime would dream about family and friends, I believe that they would dream about hurting people (rape, assault, etc…), stealing, drug crimes, etc… whatever they were involved with prior to their incarceration (this only deals with one type of criminal). These individuals are not your everyday, run of the mill people, they were committed to a long-term incarceration for a reason. However, on the other hand, there may be individuals who do want to get better, and may dream of being a “better/good” person. They may have a family (children and wives) who they don’t get to contact frequently, and want to spend more time with them. I believe that wish fulfillment truly depends on the individual, their personality, and the psychological well-being. The men mentioned in the example above may be men who didn’t want to be in the war (though not many people want to be in jail) but they were not necessarily forced and committed. Incarcerated individuals get caught for doing crimes that they enjoy and take pleasure in doing. These two situations and their means could have very different outcomes in wish fulfillment and dream imagery.

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  16. If I were a clinician working with individuals in jail for long term incarceration, I would you expect their wish fulfillment in dreaming to include their favourite meal (hot, homecooked, wide variety, etc), freedom and openness which could be represented several differnt ways for each individual, and I would expect to see lots of interactions with family members and friends as there is none of this while in jail. I would also expect these individuals to dream about common, everyday occurances that they were unable to experience while in jail. These things could be as simple as going to the grocery store, watching thier children play sports, going for tea, ect. Also, I could imagine these people dreaming about their personal future in terms of what they want to accomplish in life outside of jail, etc.

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  17. If I were a clinician working with individuals in jail, I would expect their dream imagery, in terms of wish fulfillment to consist of: breaking out of jail, or somehow being granted their freedom (i.e. getting released before his/her sentence was up, getting bailed out, etc.), dreaming of family and friends visiting them, dreaming of being away from the jail with loved ones/ and having intimate relationships (i.e. sexual fantasies), or even simple things that an individual would take pleasure in or goals that he/she would like to accomplish but can't because of their circumstance. For example, going to school, getting married, going to the movies, shopping, going out for dinner, having a home cooked meal, etc.

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  18. If I were a clinician working with individuals in jail for long term incarceration, I would expect to see some similarities across dream content in regards to spouses, friends, children, etc. Many inmates would probably dream about their families, because they would definitely all miss the people that were closest to them. They could also dream about their hobbies and interests that they cannot participate in while in jail. This aspect of their dream content would probably vary from one person to another. If an individual was feeling guilty about his/her actions that landed him/her in jail, this person might dream about becoming a better person. If the person is resentful about being confined behind bars, he or she might dream about what he or she would be doing in the outside world.

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  19. If I were a clinician working with individuals in jail for long term incarceration, I would expect their wish fulfillment to look like in dream imagery of gourmet food as the food they are served in prison is not the greatest. I would also expect them to dream about spending time with their families doing things they used to do for fun as they probably don't get much time to enjoy their families. I would also expect them to dream of different solutions to the problem that got them into prison because they probably wished they handled that situation differently. I would also expect them to dream about taking vacations in nice areas because they really only get to see the inside of the prison and maybe the outside.
    Tara-Lee Upshall

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  20. Well based on the compensation theory I would expect to see them perhaps dreaming of the things they don’t have and of things they find pleasurable and are deprived of. This could include anything such as people they miss, food they crave, and activities they found enjoyable before they were incarcerated. This may also include dreaming of a different life. Someone sentenced to jail for a long period has a lot of time to ruminated about “what if.” They may feel regret about what they were charged with and thus the individual may dream of a different outcome or maybe dream of being a different person altogether. I think it would really depend on the situation and on the crime. If it's severe enough, the individual may have a serious mental illness that interferes with their dreaming patterns.

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  21. I agree that it would depend on the individual, but a prisoner that has left a life and a family at home would probably have dream imagery about those individuals. They could wish to see their son/daughter learn to walk or talk, or be there with them for their next birthday. If they have a partner at home, they might also dream about being with them, hugging and kissing them and spending time with them. If the individual liked to joy ride around, they might have dream imagery about the freedom of being able to get up and go wherever they wanted, wind blowing through their hair as they drive down a winding road. Many prisoners might also dream about a nice meal at home, or at a restaurant, being able to do all the things most people take for granted. Just being able to have the freedom that they are deprived of would probably be a common occurrence in their dream imagery.

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  22. i would expect them to dream of their families, friends, home, objects in their home, pets, etc. because they are longing to be with them again, and remember them vividly.

    Melissa Van Grootel

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  23. In the dreams of individuals in jail for long term incarceration, I would expect imagery of their lives before jail. Specifically, imagery that they feel nostalgic for, such as places or people of their youth they felt at peace in or with. Images of freedom and entrapment would be common in these dreams, I believe, as both themes would likely be in the everyday thoughts of these individuals. Wish fulfillment would most likely be seen in imagery, therefore, through items that are considered synonymous with freedom and security for the individual in question, such as family members.

    -Carey-Ann Bette

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  24. I agree with what a lot of people said in the sense that it can depend on what they are in there for and where they came from to begin with. But in general I think that they would be dreaming of open spaces and freedom would be a main theme. They would be dreaming of maybe their happy place or just anywhere in general that is outside of the grounds of the prison. They would be in a pretty awful place so I think they would dream of the exact opposite of what they experience everyday. Doing, saying, wearing and eating whatever they may please when they want to. I think they would be very happy dreams and for the inmates dreams would become an escape for some prisoners.
    This could also go a complete opposite way and the prisoners could be haunted by why they are in jail, they could be feeling guilt and regret about their actions that put them there. But this is a big leap because I think each and every one of the inmates would feel different about how they acted before coming to jail.
    I think over time their dreams could also change at they maybe come to terms about their situations of more emotions surface about what they are going through and what the future lies ahead for them.

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