Thursday, September 13, 2012

Dreams tell us age, ethnicity, gender etc....

Extensive dream research has shown that researchers can identify participant's age, gender, ethnicity, personality traits, and other pertinent details from their dream images. It appears that dreams are in fact a "finger print" of the dreamer's waking day life at many levels. A recent study by Hoekstra, Stos and Swendson (2012) examined the dreams of individuals who watched specific television programs and found that their dreams reflected their own ethnicity, and, the ethnicity of the characters from the programs. What does this say about the dreaming mind in terms of waking day events and the personality of dreamers?

68 comments:

  1. This research supports the idea that our dreams reflect waking day events and mirror the personalities of dreamers. For example in the book the giant compass it was stated that an outgoing person has many different characters in their dreams whereas a person who is more shy has fewer characters in their dreams. Therefore I truly believe that the personalities of the dreams are reflected in their dreams. We dream about occurrences, obstacles and fears apparent in our daily lives.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Some of these findings seem obvious on the surface (dreamers dreaming of their own ethnicity...familiarity would play a role I would think), but it is interesting what other details make their way into dreams, both from day-to-day life and from the dreamer's own thought processes and personality. Dreams are clearly influenced by waking events, whether on an overt or deeper level. How these bits of information manifest in dreams is the fascinating part. What elements of waking life are represented in dreams, and how those elements are represented opens a window into the unconscious processes of the dreamer's mind.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I always found it fascinating when I notice things in my dreams that I have thought about that day. Its not so simple as thinking about math homework and having a dream based on math. It is more along the lines of having a random thought about batman and then dreaming that I am batman or that I am with batman. However, I think that many thoughts in our waking lives that are tied to strong emotions tend to manifest themselves in our dreams more. Thus reflecting our strongest memories and thoughts. I agree with Brent that dreamers ethnicity would be easy to identify from dream images due to familiarity. Since none of us will ever know how it feels to be a different ethnicity, or sex. However, I am sure it is not outside the realm of possibilities of imagining how these things feel and in-turn manifest them in a dream. But I doubt it would be easy to do so night to night.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I find the part mentioning ethnicity to be an interesting point. If a dream researcher can indeed tell the ethnicity of a person via their dream how does this work for mixed race people? I haven't read the research regarding ethnic representation in dreams however it would be interesting to know how a researcher interprets dreams of those that are mixed race? Also does a mixed race person have dream imagery closer to one race than the other?
    Having read this post I do have some question about a researcher able to pin point age (although I assume they select an age range not an exact age). Is it that younger people haven't developed at integrated or complex dreams, or is it different types of imagery being brought forth? I would think that age would be rather difficult to determine once early adulthood has been reached.
    What the research is getting at I believe is that the people we are when we dream are the same people we are during waking day life. The only difference would be that dreams manifest as imagery that is actually the brain sending us messages of waking life events or future ideas/problems. Could it be even compared to our 'conscience'. Dreams are our conscience sending us messages during the sleep state to help us work through waking day events.
    This is all so interesting and I assume there are still many unanswered questions around this area of research.

    ReplyDelete
  5. As Jade Legacy has mentioned, i find it quite interesting that researchers are able to tell a persons age from their dream. I would assume, the older the participant, the more complex and possibly realistic the dreams are. I believe that our waking day life absolutely carries over into our dreams, which is why dream therapy is so useful when helping people who suffer from depression or anxiety. In the slide show this week, this was shown with the girl who dreamt about holding two pig heads, and thus in turn after her dream therapy used this to determine she is too pug headed and that is why her relationships are not working out, which gives her a complete new insight to her waking day that she may not have ever figured out if it weren't for dissecting her dreams.
    I always find it kind of spooky in a way,when i dream of something and then within the next few days it happens, something as simple as having a dream that someone at work cuts their hair super short, then you go to work the next day and its true.
    In relation to culture, it would be interesting to view the dreams of those who believe dreaming is bad... and how they block out even remembering these dreams, or if their dreams are similar to nightmares due to the fact they have been raised being taught that dreams are bad.
    Not many people who suffer with depression and/or anxiety think about dream therapy as a possible cure for their disorder, but with more and more research being completed i believe this could one day be a regular type of therapy diagnosed by many physicians.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Our dreaming mind is only a reflection of our waking day and who we are. It should be expected, then, that our dreams reflect who we are in our waking lives. Everyone changes as they grow older or emotionally mature. Cultures are a part of who we are and our culture is engrained into our personality as well as our understanding of the world.
    All of the aspects of our lives will show themselves in some form through the dreams we have. It is then relatively easy to see that looking at a persons dreams can tell you their age, approximately, their culture and who we are as a person. You can tell if the person may be an introvert or extrovert, anxious or calm, frustrated or happy, and on and on.
    I think this attribute of the dreaming mind is a great window into the soul of a person and through this understanding we can help ourselves, as well as those who share their dreams with us, understand life and who we are, how to help each other overcome obstacles and reach a higher level of happiness and fulfillment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree that dreams let us see inside of people (figuratively). Something like this could allows us to help others with any deep-seated issues they have. This especially would be more pronounced in helping those who won't admit their problem. I believe dreams may help persuade others to get help even more so if they can be interpreted for them. I do wonder though, if we did not have a specific culture attributed to ourselves could we dream of other cultures? It would be very difficult to even try to test this as we are immediately exposed to culture right from birth. Even so, it would be interesting.

      Delete
  7. I definitely believe that dreams reflect our waking thoughts and experiences. However, I think it is important to note that dreams often distort everyday realities. Seldom do we dream of a straightforward event or thought that we have had throughout the day. Instead, at least in my experience, a mix-match of thoughts, emotions, and experiences combine in a non-sensible way to form a bizarre dream. However, when I break down the dream and think about each separate element, I can usually explain why I am dreaming about these things in relation to my waking life.
    I also think that Thomas Guerette had a valid point when he stated that thoughts and experiences attached to a strong emotion tend to manifest themselves more often in our dreams. This is definitely the case for me, especially if I am worrying about something right before I go to sleep. Therefore, our dreams do give important insight into our personalities, and could be used to identify the source of anxieties and other problematic emotions.
    In regards to the study about people who watched television shows and then dreamt about the ethnicities of the characters within those shows, I think it would be interesting to conduct a study looking at the relationship between the time of day the shows were watched and an individual’s dreams. For me, I know that if I fall asleep watching a show or reading a book, I will quite often dream about the characters. This is another example of how waking events manifest themselves in our dreams.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I definitely believe that dreams represent things or aspects in our waking lives. I tend to worry about a lot of things in my life and I often find myself dreaming about the thing or person I am worried about. I agree with Jessica Upton on the fact that dreams can distort the reality as when I do dream about something I am worried about, it tends to over exaggerate my worry for the subject. Because of this, I do believe that dreams often represent or give an insight on people and their personalities.

    With regards to individual's ages, I do believe that as people grow older, their dreams are much more complex. This may just be something that I notice within my own dreams, but I find that as I've gotten older, some of my dreams have become much more related to my daily life than when I was younger. For example, if I find myself worrying about work I will often dream about myself at work in a nervous state.

    As far as the study of people watching television shows and dream about the ethnicities of the characters of the shows doesn't surprise me as Jessica Upton said, I also often find myself dreaming about things I've watched and have fallen asleep to. However, with regards to the ethnicity aspect of the dream, as Jade Legacy stated, it would be very interesting to see if someone of a mixed race had dreams about one race more so than the other.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree with what you say about the dreams becoming more complex as we age, Sarah. I think it's the same as how our language and communication skills evolve as we get older. We become more competent and adept at expressing ideas or understanding concepts. It would make sense that our dreams would reflect the same kind of growth we've had in our waking life.
      Also, as we get older we probably have more complex issues to deal with so it would seem logical that our dreams try to keep up.

      Delete
    2. I agree that age helps our dreams become more complex. As we age our brain changes too, with neural connections growing and dieing and so on. These help change the structural aspects of the brain and maybe these changes account for newer elements and abilities in our dreams. Maybe even experiences help too as adults tend to have much more worldly experience than a child would. I've also had the same issue though, worry about something so much that my dreams also show it.

      Delete
    3. I agree that our brains, and likely dreams, mature with age. But I think it’s interesting to note other age-related changes, such as the realism of the dreams, which I think increases with age. I remember as a child my dreams were very disorganized (which fits in with the changes in cognition others have mentioned ) but they also involved a lot of action and unrealistic activities, situations and locations, some of which I had never really experienced except in books or TV shows. I find that my dreams now are usually centered on school or work, and take place in locations I am familiar with.

      Another age-related change I haven’t experienced, but have heard others mention, is the amount of dream recall. I have heard many people lament the fact that they used to remember all their dreams very vividly, but now they have trouble remembering if they even dreamt at all. I don’t know how many people experience this, but it might be another age-related difference worth studying (if it hasn’t already). It’s possible it’s just the quality of sleep that diminishes when we’re older.

      Delete
  9. What this says about the dreaming mind in terms of waking day events is that what ever is on the persons mind that maybe bothering them is more likely to show up in their dream because this might have been the last thought before they went to sleep.

    The personality of the dreamer may differ in many ways. For example, if two indivduals are worried about the same thing that maybe bothering them, the indivdual that is worrying the most will have the dream that is more intense and may cause the indivdual to wake up with anxiety.

    I agree with Sarah and Jessica, I myself will find that if I am worrying about and upcoming exam I will find myself in my dream either being late or not knowing any answers to the exam and waking up the next morning fearful.

    I also agree with the study of indivduals watching television, when I watch a horror movie I will either have on and off nightmares or dream of the setting that took place within the horror film.

    As for indivdual's who are in different age groups I believe that no matter what age you are, you're likely to have a similar to someone older or perhaps even younger than you.

    Part of the research that I found interesting are age, gender and dreaming about the ethnicity of the characters in the program that the indivdual watched. I myself have never found my dreams to have the ethnicity of the characters in the program. It would be very interesting for someone to be able to determine my age and gender just by my dreams alone.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Glenda Zomer-VandermeulenSeptember 15, 2012 at 2:19 PM

    If our dreams are a ‘fingerprint’ of the dreamer’s waking life it seems logical that our own ethnicities would be represented in our dreams. Our life experiences would also influence how meaning in our dreams is represented. The older we get and the more open we are to new experiences should influence the content of the dreams we have; there would be a greater pool of information from which to draw. Experiences would certainly include television and movie viewing and the imagery created by reading or playing a video game in addition to day-to-day life events. Our dreams can seem bizarre and nonsensical because we attach seemingly unrelated objects and experiences together. Dreams are not subject to the limits of waking day events therefore anything is possible. Perhaps the more recent an experience occurs the more likely some aspect of it will be included in a dream. Perhaps too, the more contact we have with those who are ‘different’ from us increases the likelihood that those differences will be represented in our dreams.

    ReplyDelete
  11. It makes sense to me that our dreams would be a refelction of who we are. When we're asleep our brain has an opportunity to sort through the massive amounts of information we have absorbed that day/week/life, etc...
    I liken it to a scenario where we're casting a movie. Of course we'd put ourselves in the starring role. It just happens that the movie is our dream and we're trying to make sense of things.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I definitely agree that dreams are a 'finger print' of the individual’s life. When we dream, we go beyond our custom personalities that we obtain while being awake.

    I know for myself, if I'm anxious or upset about something through the day; my dreams are more intense that night with no filters on my dreaming personality. However, if my day is uneventful, I don't recall dreaming about anything the next morning, waking up feeling more refreshed. As Scott mentioned above, when our body is finally resting, our brain sorts through the daily events and begin to solve problems that we were unable to while awake.

    As mentioned in the book, Our Dreaming Mind, as human beings, we are possessed by our dream self. Our dream self has the capability to step out of boundaries and the complexity of our society and culture to allow us to make sense of everything around us; whereas while we are awake, this is a very difficult task to do.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You bring up an excellent point of our dream self acting as a processing unit for our waking life. Perhaps, the notion of permitting our bodies to rest and taking time to ponder the thoughts from the waking life allow for this. In waking life, we are constantly on the go and bombarded with influences from others and society. In our society, we often have multiple stimuli seeking our attention, making it difficult to focus on only the task at hand. This makes it complicated to make sense of everything in our waking life. Sometimes we are not even consciously aware of issues that are mentally bothering us. While, we are still the same person with our same personality in our dreaming life, we escape some of the influences and chaos from our waking self and thus have the ability to better process the desired information.

      Delete
  13. The idea that dreams are a finger print of one’s waking day life is interesting and sensible. This demonstrates that there is a closely connected link and may not be as separated as one may think. In “Our Dreaming Mind”, the author refers to a novelist Bullett who refers to sleep and waking life as two self contained rooms with a swinging door between them. He believes individuals are equally themselves in both rooms. In relation to the above studies and discussion, it seems plausible that this swinging door is merely never shut and yet an open passage between both the sleeping and waking world. Through this passage a person remains the same individual with the same thoughts, feelings, ethnicity, and personality. This results in the dreaming mind working in the same way that it does during an individual’s waking day. With this open door between both rooms, tensions, beliefs, and other notions from the waking world are brought into the dreaming world.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I definitely agree with the fact that our dreams are reflections of our waking lives. I will say that personally I have noticed that from some of my dreams, that they have been reflective of my thoughts from the previous day, supporting this idea of their being a connection between our dreams and our waking day thoughts. Something I didn’t realize until taking this course is the fact that characteristics such as individual personality, age, ethnicity and gender are all key components of dream imagery which is definitely something I find fascinating and would be interested in knowing more about. What I do question however is how age can be accurately determined based on dream imagery in regards to people who suffer from mental developmental challenges, for example those whose metal functioning does not match their chronological age. As per previous posts from others, I too also question the effects of mixed ethnicity on dream imagery. For those of mixed ethnicity, does the extent to which they identify themselves as being one ethnicity over the other affect their dream imagery?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was wondering the same thing Paige. How do you quantify / qualify the person's age? Is it chronological, emotional, what if they are immature or somehow have delayed development? I'm gathering there is no "one size fits all", but is there a general template?

      Delete
    2. I think you bring up some really good points Paige! Of course many personal characteristics can be derived from our dreams. One however could not accurately determine the age of someone with an intellectual or developmental disability. I would think that should citizens of mixed ethnicity identify themselves as being one ethnicity more than another it would certainly affect their dreams and relations to their waking lives. Also it would depend on the method of dream analysis used as some are more about retrieving meaning and insight from stories containing aspects from your dreams such as the storytelling method which we are currently using for this week's lab. If someone were to interpret our dreams they cannot alter the feelings, emotions or outcomes that we experience through our dreams. Nor can they derive the same meanings that the dreamer would, as dreams are very subjective.

      Delete
    3. I have a feeling that the "age" that they are able to determine is probably 1 of 3 categories. Either child, adult or elder. I really don't see how they would be able to reliably and accurately determine someone's age from dreams.

      Delete
    4. Paige's question of those with mental exceptionalities most certainly crossed my mind as well! Similar to Jason, I believe they are able to zone in on a category of not necessarily age, but maturity.

      The anxieties and thoughts stemming from the unconscious are highly influenced by the experiences one is undergoing in his/her daily life. If one's mentality varied from the norm of that age, I believe researchers would have an easier time detecting the level/age at which the individual is functioning. For example, those suffering from mental retardation would be categorized at an age younger than their own. That being said, gifted individuals would be approximated at an age older than they currently are.

      Delete
    5. Glenda Zomer-VandermeulenSeptember 16, 2012 at 5:47 PM

      I suspect that one way dreams could be used to determine age, ethnicity, gender etc. would be content based. There are certain experiences that are unique to specific groups of people. For example, someone who is middle aged would be much more familiar with rotary dial telephones which may appear in one of their dreams but for someone much younger this would probably be a cell phone. This could be further broken down into the style/brand/colour etc. of the phone. Experience of world events would also play a role, as would clothing style, model years of automobiles, modes of transportation, tools, forms of entertainment, etc. Though specific age would be difficult to pinpoint I do think the range of age catagories could be much smaller than child, adult, and elder.
      I'm not sure that it would be easier to detect the functioning level of people who are mentally retarded based on their dreams. It would be very difficult to collect dream information from someone who is non-verbal and has very limited capacity to understand what is being asked of them.

      Delete
  15. I have to follow suit with pretty much everyone who has posted so far. To me it makes perfect sense that our personality while awake is the same as when we're dreaming. I would think someone who is a very introverted, shy individual while awake, would be an introverted shy individual while dreaming. To add to that point, if that introverted individual were to be outgoing in a dream, I think ti would make sense if this caused anxiety.
    Like Thomas, the images that often come into my dreams are not a major event that occurred the previous day, but often something very small that occurred.
    I think it is very interesting that researchers can determine so much about an individual from the images in their dreams. It would be interesting to know the reliability of the methods they use. Also, what factors can increase and decrease the reliability.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Since dreams are so highly influenced by daily life, it is not surprising that so many characteristics are identifiable. Majority of my peers so far have acknowledged ways in which it is obvious that information would be discovered. Since majority of the unconscious uses factors from the waking day, everyone would have a differing perspective. For example, the dreams of a child would incorporate very different imagery, problems, and resolutions, than that of a mature adult. Like Jason had commented in response to Heather's post, I am left to believe that researchers would be able to detect a stage in one's life (rather than pinpoint an age). Growing up, I found my childhood dreams to be much more creative and abstract; however, I believe my current dreams have an equal depth to the symbolism despite the life-like events. Similarly, as noted in the Giant Compass readings, personalities clearly shine through in the expressions of an individual within his/her unconscious mind. Since the anxieties and encounters of daily life translate to sleeping thoughts, one would think that children's dreams would vary significantly based on their circumstances. For example, would a home-schooled child have anxiety regarding social situations in the classroom? Not fitting in with classmates? I certainly notice a shift in my own dreaming character. If I am under constant stress it translates to a frantic self in my dreams; however, when I am in a routine of practicing yoga/meditation, I notice calmer thoughts. This is a concept I am looking forward to studying more in the upcoming weeks.

    For those who live in areas dominated by a single race, they lack interaction in daily life with other ethnicities. Television and media in general are introducing new races to individuals’ schemas. With modern societies becoming more multi-cultural, this is also broadening waking-life experience, apparent to the unconscious; however, this may not come to the awareness of the dreamer. I would like to assume that beyond simple dream presence, the traits of interracial characters is molding for majority of the Canadian population. I believe if one were to compare the dreams of individuals when society was so explicitly racist (throughout the majority of the 20th century) to the current day, incorporation/personas of other ethnicities would be significantly different. As for the media craze taking place in our time, it is yet another mean for society to observe races other than their own. There is still ongoing controversy over the predominance of Caucasian characters in multiple shows. This is a potential reasoning behind the prevalence of white individuals in dreaming, regardless of one's ethnicity. Likewise, there are other channels geared towards an African American audience (i.e. "BET: Black Entertainment Television"). These viewers' dreams in contrast with those who follow interracial programs would differ in exposure; thus, likely having different aspects of race in their dreams.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I fully believe that our dreams reflect who we are and even further who we want to be and who we have been. We use our dreams to sort out different aspects of life which can often bring up past events or bring in 'visions' of what we want the outcome to be or who we want to be. I found it so interesting just how much someone can learn about another person just based on their dreams. Some things i find a little more obvious then others such as personality traits and gender as our personalities more then show through into our dreams and gender is a little easier because males and females have in many cases much different ways of thinking which would probably care over into our dreams. Ethnicity and age however i found very interesting. I did not really think about those two factors before and think that it would be quite challenging to learn that about someone solely based on their dreams.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Dreams are much related to waking day events and the personality of the dreamer. For instance, I was at the gym yesterday and saw someone who looked like the sister of an old friend and last night I had a dream about that friend. It makes so much sense when you think about it. Your brain is filled with thoughts and images that you come across all day, some you remember and some are subconscious but as you go to sleep your brain does not shut off so therefore these images and thoughts come up in different ways in your dreams. There has been so many times that I have dreamt about something and woke up and said to myself it was because I had thought about it earlier that day. It shows the direct relation between waking day events and thoughts and your dreaming mind.

    ReplyDelete
  19. It makes sense to me that a persons dreams represent so much of who they are. A dream reflects an individual so I found it to be no stretch to hear that a person's gender and ethnicity can be determined through dream analysis considering how central these qualities are in a person. However, I did find it interesting that the researchers could determine ages through dreams, it was not a factor I had ever thought much of in regards to dreaming but after reading some of the posts above it does indeed make sense to be able to roughly determine different ages.I also understand how dreams are shaped by an individuals daily life. We take in so much information in our waking hours that our brains need the time to sort through everything it was given throughout the day, and so it is played back to us in random and choppy bits while this happens. I find that I have many dreams that center around things in my day that I only briefly focused on, when I would have a fleeting thought about something, it sometimes tends to return in a dream, with more focus. Dreams, for me anyways, also seem to center around stressful events more so than positive ones, like my mind is trying to take as much time possible to find a solution to the stressor. So overall this research is very interesting of course, but for the most part not so surprising.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree with everything you have said. Dreams represent our lives and our thoughts so it's not surprising that gender and ethnicity can be determined through our dreams. The research was definitely interesting but was not anything that I would not have expected.

      Delete
    2. I agree with Stephanie. I did not find it very surprising that a person's gender and ethnicity could be determined through their dreams. Everyone's dreams reflect how they view the world around them, so it is almost expected that their gender and ethnicity would be expressed in their dreams. Although it is interesting that age can be determined by a person's dreams i do not find this surprising either. It is not very likely that a middle aged adult would dream about the same things that an elderly person would dream about or what a child would dream about. People at different stages in their lives would dream about very different things, making it possible to determine a person's general age from their dreams.

      Delete
  20. Society and the experiences we encounter are a foundation for dreaming. The people we interact with and aspects of our daily lives are methods in which we dream. Culture within society may occur in dreams as we experience different cultures throughout the world. The things we touch, taste, smell, and eat are all formed within our dreams. Throughout daily life we go through experiences that make curiousity apart of dreams. Memory is an important factor in the process of dreaming. Dreams are based on our memory of situations and experiences we encounter through every day life.

    ReplyDelete
  21. This research tells us that our unconscious mind processes more of our waking days than we realize, which I find very interesting. There have been many times where something that seems small and insignificant will happen during the day, and then will make an appearance later on in my dreams, showing that I observe and retain a lot more than I realize. I am always surprised at how the most random little things pop up in my dreams. I however do not find it surprising at all that people's gender/ethnicity can be identified through their dreams, considering dreams are a representation of our own lives and thoughts. People are more likely to dream about things that are familiar and pertinent to them than things that are foreign and don't have a lot of meaning to them. So even though this research is very interesting, it makes complete sense and isn't much of a surprise.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I’ve never thought about ethnicity or age in dreams before but I’ve realized something. I can’t remember having a dream with a person who was a different ethnicity than myself, unless I personally knew them. For example, my brothers are adopted and of a different race than I am but I still dream about them. Every time there is a random person in my dream, even if I can’t see their face, I know they are my ethnicity and around my age. I think this is really interesting and makes sense that researchers could tell age and race from a dream.

    I also find that in my waking life manifests in my dreams. For example if I spend most of my time at work during the day I have at least one dream about being at work. I agree with Sarah Langton that as I’ve gotten older my dreams relate more to my waking life than when I was younger. I remember I used to have dreams that I could fly or had some other supernatural power but I don’t have those as much anymore. I think that Scott Henderson’s reply to Sarah’s post makes complete sense as to why this occurs. I definitely wouldn’t have been dreaming about the anatomy of a heart or a brain when I was 10.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This makes a lot of sense, although I have had dreams in which I was of a different ethnicity. I think that although we have the ability to "stretch" in that way, the themes that are common to us will be more likely to manifest, and will contain more accurate detail when they do.

      Delete
    2. To expand on that, it seems to me that sometimes when things that are unusual to us (such as, perhaps, being of a different Creed or ethnicity) appear in our dreams, it might serve as a useful method of exploration of the unknown.

      Delete
  23. It makes sense to me that dreams are a fingerprint of our waking lives, though some dreams can seem impossible to translate to our waking life. I expect that in this circumstance the fingerprint may be more on an emotional level vs. an obvious literal interpretation. For instance, a recurring dream of an elevator speeding upward when the dreamer has never experienced this in waking life. Clearly there is more of an emotional interpretation to be explored in this case. I look forward to examining the emotional aspect of dreams throughout this course. The statement that researchers are able to pinpoint a participant's age, gender, ethnicity and personality traits through their dreams is not entirely surprising, however, it does cause me to want to examine my own dreams to determine if the answers to these questions are obvious.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I believe that dreams do act as ‘finger prints’ of our waking day lives, and that the supporting research on this aspect of dreams will make them more pertinent to many people. It’s very interesting that dream researchers can identify so many factors about participants through their dreams. I had never put much thought into the seemingly straightforward elements of my dreams such as age, ethnicity, and gender. This week I’d like to look at these elements in my dreams more closely and see if I can see any relations to my own personality. I have to wonder though if these elements are more easily identified in simplistic dreams, than dreams with strong emotional elements. From my own experience so for in an average dream I can often remember story like details, while in a more emotional dream my memory often focuses on that overwhelming feeling.

    I would be interested in seeing more research on dreamer characteristics. I’d be curious if age and gender trends or archetypes are seen by dream researchers. For example, are age cohorts reflected through dreams due to changing life tasks and milestones? Or can gender be determined through different types of dreams such as relationship orientated versus task orientated dreams?

    While I find that many aspects of my waking life manifest in my dreams, I am always the most surprised when something seemingly irrelevant appears in a dream and I can often clearly remember these various things. In this sense I can relate to the Hoekstra study as I often find elements from a TV show or commercial makes its way into my dreams. I would like to know if researchers have an explanation for this phenomenon, as I’m curious about what makes certain elements of a TV show more likely to be included in our dreams than others. Overall this new research on dreams is very interesting, and I would enjoy reading more on the topic of dreamer fingerprints.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Since one’s dreams are entirely related to one’s waking life it completely makes sense that ones age, gender, ethnicity and personality traits are identifiable by analyzing one’s dream. According to the Giant Compass, dreams reveal what the dreamer is thinking and feeling- so dreams can therefore integrate what is going
    on in one’s waking life into its imagery. I agree that identifying one’s age through dream research seems to be reasonable as a child’s waking life differs so drastically from that of an adolescent or adult. This is due to the difference in every day struggles and lifestyles that people experience at different ages (for example it
    seems obvious that a 5 year old child will not have a dream that entails sexual imagery about cheating on a non-existent spouse). Therefore estimating the stage of life a person is at by analyzing one’s dreams would be much easier than pinpointing one’s specific age. The ability to identify gender through dream research interests me as there are many females who possess very masculine traits and many males that possess very feminine traits as defined by society- no two
    men or two women are exactly the same and personally I don’t believe there is one definition of what it means to be man or woman other than the obvious physical properties of men and women. The ability to
    identify ethnicity through one’s dreams does and does not surprise me. If one is entirely and purely involved in just one ethnicity/heritage that involves very specific traditions and customs and has a very definitive lifestyle then yes,ethnicity should be clearly identifiable through ones dreams. However as many of my peers have stated, when one is a mix between two or more races/ethnicities or lives in a multicultural area, it may be more complicated to identify one’s specific ethnicity through dream imagery. Hoekstra, Stos and Swendson’s finding that peoples dreams incorporated their own ethnicity as well ethnicity of characters in a television program they watch seems completely reasonable as technology can be considered an
    agent of socialization in today’s society. As agents of socialization, television, the Internet and other forms of media shape people’s attitudes, the way people behave, the way people dress and the way they interact with others. Therefore, it is not surprising that one will dream about not only the way they were raised in terms of their own heritage, but also what they may have learned from various forms of technology which have helped shape their personality.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. (not really sure what happened to the format when I posted it, sorry!)

      Delete
  26. I also do believe that dreams can be considered as or fingerprints because our dream is in part our subconscious. A persons dream is a representation of who they are. if someone has a nightmare it means that they are dreaming about something that they are afraid of. If this same person ran into what was in their dream in real life they would still be scared showing that their real life fears are connected to their dream.

    The same thing would happen if the person had a good dream. For an example a person might be trying to find a job in real life and because of this they might have a good dream about getting a job, or a bad dream about not finding a job. It all depends on the subconsciousness of the dreamer.

    With these common factors happening it would also be common that if the dreamer came into a dilemma in their dream in order to solve it they would use the same tactics as they would in real life. By doing so it would show their personality through their dream.

    This is why i feel that a persons dream does show their every day life and their personality.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree with Alisha. Most of my dreams are closely related to my waking life events. Our personalities definitely affect our dreams content. I also think our dreams depend on our past and present experiences in life. For instance, a person may dream of someone he/she has not spoken to in a long, long time. Perhaps because he/she misses the person.

      Delete
  27. Like it was mentioned in "Our Dreaming Mind" I do think that dreams are just another way of expressing our personality. I also believe it may express our culture to us as well. Like someone had said earlier, I agree that a big reason as to why these people (and ourselves) dream our own ethnicity is because we never experienced it ourselves. I also believe that maybe experience with certain ethnicities may have an effect. It would be cool to see a follow-up study in which they compared those who lived among a different ethnicity than their own to those who did not do that. Would that affect the representation of ethnicities in dreams? I think it would but not enough to make us a different ethnicity.
    I also think that things we see from the previous day may be represented in our dreams somehow even if it's barely noticeable. Like the other day I watched "The Walking dead" and in a dream that night someone said "you shouldn't make fun of zombies" even though none were around. I doubt it's reflected on interests either considering those people watched the TV program and saw the characters in their dreams.
    Sometimes I think dreams try to make a playback of events from any days ago. At the same time I think dreams try to prepare us for what happens next, many times I've heard people of having dreams of an entire day. Usually the dream is similar to what they do in reality. So not only do dreams reflect our personality but I think they help remind us of information that may be salient later on or was important in the past.

    ReplyDelete
  28. This topic reminds me of a video I've seen recently.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXGxZUno5qY

    This presenter has, through his research, advanced the notion that our individual perceptions of the world around us are largely contingent on our physical make-up. For example, a heavier person will see a hill as much steeper than someone who is in shape. If this is true, might it be possible that a similar mechanism underlies the generation and perception of dreams? That would make a very interesting study, I think.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for posting this! Quite interesting...

      Delete
  29. The article by Hoekstra, Stos and Swendson (2012) suggests that the dreaming mind is strongly related to all waking day activities. In the book the Giant Compass further demonstrated that the mind is continually working all the time and that dreams are pieces of our waking day activities. The Giant Compass also suggests that the personality of dreamers is also present in the dreams. Someone that is passive is their day lives will also tend to have passive dreams (DeCicco, 2008). I agree with Lee that dream are a fingerprint of one’s’ lives and that it can be difficult to translate the meaning of dreams as they can be very complex and are unique to each person.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Like others have said, this research doesn’t come as a huge surprise after reading the first portion of The Giant Compass. Since our brains are writing the dreams we experience, it seems as though they are operating under the golden rule of writing, “Write What You Know”. Except in the rarest of circumstances it would certainly be hard to dream about something you’d never experienced, or seen/understood. As some people have mentioned, we often experience things in dreams we haven’t exactly experienced in waking life (such as a divorce, or the death of a loved one) but we understand the experience (we’ve seen these things on TV, or in the lives of those close to us) so we can replicate it in the dream.

    Just as our experiences shape our perception of the world when we are awake, they seem to shape our dreams as well. I think the ethnicity study is particularly interesting for reasons already cited by others (does a person have to define themselves as being a certain ethnicity? What about those of mixed descent?) but not surprising. I think what this says about the personality of dreamers is that in most cases a person’s personality will determine how they act in a dream. As mentioned, the brain will write what it knows, which means a person’s personality will be in the dream because it’s the personality they know best (given that they live with it every day). In this way, a person’s choices or actions in a dream might provide valuable insight into their choices or actions in waking life.

    ReplyDelete
  31. As mentioned in “The Giant Compass”, our mind consolidates waking day scenarios in sleep which result in dreams. Since we are consistently aware about our gender, ethnicity and personality characteristics, this information about ourselves will be imbedded most easily in our mind through consolidation. It will also be readily accessed in our brain in the form of dreams. Our waking life representations are reflected in our dreams in the domains of age, gender, ethnicity and personality. Since everyone has their own representations of the world, each person will have an own ‘finger print’. Regarding ethnicity and television programs, we may put ourselves in the shoes of others during the program, creating a mental representation, thus increasing the likelihood of that particular waking image to appear in our dreams.

    Concerning personality, we may want to be more outgoing and think about it often, and thus have dreams of being extremely social. The opposite may also be true. Due to our constant awareness of our own characteristics, the waking life representations that take flight in our dreams are those that we pay strong attention to.

    ReplyDelete
  32. This shows that our mind remains ‘conscious’ and that we remain ‘ourselves’ while we are dreaming. Our 'conscience' and our ‘personality’ remain the same. Not only our waking-day interactions, thoughts, worries, and events, etc., influence our dreams, but our personalities contribute to the experience of our nighttime ‘dreamscape realities’ as well. Our dreams are subjective.

    In ‘Real World’, everyone sees the world from a slightly different perspective or ‘lens’. It makes sense that this ‘lens’ would be carried over into ‘Dream World’. If everybody’s ‘Real World’ lens is different, everybody’s ‘Dream World’ lens must be different too. No two dreamers should ever have the same dream then. And since ‘Real World’ experiences influence and carryover into ‘Dream World’ when we go there for a visit every night, no two dreamer’s dreams will ever be exactly the same, since ‘Real World’ experiences and beliefs grow and change everyday. No two people can ever have the exact same dream and no two dreams can ever be exactly alike…

    The personality of the dreamer remains the same in the dream as in the dreamer’s waking life. You are the same person whether you are asleep or awake. You see both ‘Real World’ and ‘Dream World’ through your own eyes. But since the aspects of your dreams are simply ‘traces of’ or ‘insights to’ your waking daily thoughts; if dreams are made up of your waking day experiences, wants, worries, desires, wishes, etc., then aren’t your dreams are just your dreaming-self’s perspective on your ‘conscience’…?

    ReplyDelete
  33. As previously discussed, the dreaming mind is a different level of consciousness, but continues to represents our true-self and personality. It has been said that dreams help individuals make tough decisions in their life and even gain insight into their waking world. If clarity in the waking world can be achieved through the dreaming-mind then our individual personality must be represented and shown through the dreaming state.
    I know that I have had some dreams that were connected to something that I had done or even watched the previous day. I think that waking day events can be quite influential on the individuals’ dreaming-mind. It is the dreaming mind processing or recounting the previous day’s events.

    ReplyDelete
  34. The dreaming mind will reflect what we do throughout our days and what seems to be important to us will stick with us in our dreams. After reading a book the first thing I think of as I close my eyes is the book I have just read and I replay it in my mind. Instead of seeing the characters in my mind I see myself in a character's place but I can actually feel how the character must feel and it's kind of cool. Most of the time that happens just as I'm closing my eyes and I don't know if I would clasify that as part of my dreams or not. I recently went on a trip to the states before school started and found myself dreaming about a time not exactly as it had happened but reflecting some of the activities I did while I was down there so that was one way that I could directly link my waking day life with the dreams I have. I agree with the fact that we dream in our own ethnicities because every time I remember my dreams there are only caucasions in them which I am and I don't remember dreaming about any other ethnicities.

    I find that in my dreams my personality is the same as it is during waking life. There are no surprises when it comes to myself but about what is going on around me and about other people that I would not expect. I think that if I see changes in my personality in my dreams then my waking day self personality will also change and maybe that is a way we can measure our changes in life is by seeing it in our dreams. So I'm thinking that dream interpretation should be used in counselling to measure if a person has truly changed or is just hiding their true selves and not changing in the ways that they are supposed to through the coounselling process. I also think that change is gradual so there should also be a gradual change in personality in dreams as there is in waking day life. I think that if there is a great change in personality in dreams then it is the person hoping for that change but at the time they can not reach that and it is a goal for them to try to achieve.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Personality and dreams appear to be very closely linked. Personally, I find my dreams to be incredibly accurate in terms of my personality, as Colleen stated. I also find my dreams to be closely linked to how I would react in certain situations, mainly emotionally. They may not be situations that would occur regularly in everyday life, but the reactions that occur in my dreams are very in tune with my waking life. I believe that is why in stressful dreams a person can wake up still feeling stressed and even may take a while to come to in the realization that it was indeed just a dream. The same is true for stimulating or happy dreams, I find I have a great day when my dreams are set in that mood.
    It makes a great deal of sense that researchers can determine so much information about someone. Typically one wouldn`t have a dream that they were older or younger than they are. And again most likely wouldn`t have a dream that differed to far from their own waking life. Having a dream that you belonged to a different ethnicity or gender would not be something a person would dream about often. It is very logical to assume dreams are a finger print of a person`s waking life.

    ReplyDelete
  36. dreams are linked to the person's personality. If a person is shy in waking life than the person will be shy in their dreams as well, they will not change their personality in their dreams. It is more likely that they will try to represent themselves as a person from the program that closely reflects their personality in waking life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am a shy person, especially when meeting new people. It takes me awhile to warm up. As a result, I usually don't feel I'm heard some times. I've had many dreams where I act out the opposite of shyness. I've used aggression, yelling, or even in more joyful dreams, I was loud and friendly. Perhaps I've been neglecting a part of my "true" personality. And maybe it's trying to come out in my dreams to remind me who I am, or give me courage to not be afraid to be more myself or express myself. But that leads me to wonder. People assume I am shy. A scientist may also assume I am. How then does a dream accurately portray my personality? I'm certainly not shy in my dreams.

      Delete
  37. The idea that our dreams are like a fingerprint and reflect the dreamer is a sensible one. The source of the dreams come from the one mind and person, so it seems natural to me that the things being processed and organized during sleep (thoughts, emotions, experiences, books read, shows watched) are reflected directly in the dreamer's dream rather then content that is very outside the world of the dreamer. The study by Hoekstra, Stos and Swendson (2012)supports the idea that experiences of the dreamer reflect in the dreams and dream content comes from the self of the person.

    ReplyDelete
  38. I would have to say that dreams are definitely connected to waking day events, and so it is no wonder that dreams reflect people’s own ethnicity. We usually all dream about experiences that we’ve been through before or that we are afraid to go through. We aren’t going to start dreaming that we are a certain ethnicity than the one we are. Our dreams relate to who we are and that includes our gender, age, and ethnicity. I think dreams would be confusing if ‘we’ were a different gender, age, or ethnicity than our waking lives.

    I think dreams help us figure certain things out when it comes to our waking day events. Dreams can show signs of anxiety for something that we may be doing in a couple of days – like a presentation. Dreams can also show signs of happiness when we are anticipating something exciting – like getting to see an old friend or being reunited with a boyfriend/girlfriend after time apart. Dreams can help us solve problems in our waking lives. If we have lost something (like a set of keys) we can think about finding them before we go to sleep and our dreams can tell us where to find them. This has happened to me a few times. Or if I’ve forgotten to get something from the grocery store and Im unaware of it, I will sometimes dream about it and that will trigger my memory.

    When it comes to the personality of dreamers, I think dreams say it all. If people always have anxious dreams then they are probably an anxious person. If people have dreams that are dark and sad, then maybe they are depressed. Obviously not all dreams are going to be full of happiness, but I think if people continue to have the same dreams with the same themes, then it shows a good description of their personality.

    ReplyDelete
  39. I too have to say that I agree with the majority of the previous posts. Our dreams are most definitely related to our everyday waking lives. Whether it be how we felt that day, what we watched, was learned, all make way to our dreams. I also have to agree with a comment posted earlier, that we are so in touched with our dreams and personalities, that it sometimes comes out in our waking day lives. I for one know that sometimes if I am crying in my dream, I'm crying when I wake up. If I hurt my elbow while I'm dreaming, it is usually the first pain that I would feel once awake.

    I also find it interesting how sometimes we may dream personality traits of ourselves that we wouldn't dare include in our everyday waking lives, or just something that would make one say to themselves "that's not me, nor what I would do." Makes one wonder if that's a part of who we naturally are, just haven't been able to accept it yet, or just something that was seen or thought of that day and was transformed differently in our dreams.

    Overall, if it's research or an individual really getting to understand their dreams, we can definitely link them to our waking day lives and personalities.

    ReplyDelete
  40. I think this tells us something about the way people incorporate what they see, and how they perceive what they see, with their own personality—their own ideas, thoughts, opinions, or views of the world around them. If people’s dreams from Hoekstra, Stos and Swendson’s (2012) study reflected either their own ethnicity or those from the characters on screen, it’s clear just how much dreams can distort your real image based on what you see. On a different note, it’s interesting how dreams can make connections between every single part of life, even if it makes no sense in waking life, and somehow make connections in the subconscious as though every part of life is connected. In dreams, my ethnicity does not matter, nor does my age or gender, etc. For example, people dreamt of being different ethnicities. When I was little I dreamt of what it was like to be a woman who experienced heart-ache over the loss of her lover. Even now, I can some times dream of being in the mind of a child. It’s as though dreams challenge us to think beyond what we are, to think beyond our image, our religion, our person, our ethnicity, our personality or upbringing to be something more than what we are. We live with boundaries in everyday life. In dreams, there are none. There are no limitations. I can see why dreams may be a driving force to lead people to something greater than what they are. If we but believe in our dreams, perhaps we really can come by our true life path.

    On another note, though I haven’t read the chapter yet, I wonder just how accurate scientists are at determining a participant’s age, gender, ethnicity, or personality traits through one’s dream images. I, as mentioned prior, for instance, once dreamt I was a woman who suffered the loss of her husband. It was devastating. I never felt that pain before and it felt so real. And I dreamt this when I was much younger. In Navigating the Life of Dreams too, it was mentioned that Charlotte Bronte learnt a lot of experiences, which she had never experienced in waking life, in her dreams. I wonder then how scientists can determine age, if a child can dream up a life in a future world where they are mature and experiencing sensations that they yet do not know, or if anyone simply dreams up an experience not yet known to them.

    ReplyDelete
  41. As we have discussed in this class so far dreams are connected to our waking-day life. I remember a couple times where I have watched a show before bed and then dreamt about it that night, even putting myself in the show representing a character I thought was most like myself or being friends with someone who I thought was a good person. Some participants in the study conducted by Hoekstra, Stos and Swendson (2012) could have done the same, by paying the most attention to characters that are similar to themselves. I do agree that our dreams are finger prints of our waking day, and didn’t realize this until I began this course. I have found that my dreams often represent who I am, including things I often worry about or people I dislike or miss greatly.I am not surprised that researchers can find out specifics about personality, age, gender or ethnicity from derams, as our dreams really do represent who we are and what is important to us.

    ReplyDelete
  42. The dreamers mind shows that what a person experiences in their walking day can be reflected in their dreams, as well as the dream will also show their own personality in these situations created. Thinking back on my own experience my dreams have changed through age and currently are complex as well as relate to problems encountered that have been on my mind. In relation to gender, after watching a movie my dream will always have connection to a female character that I have connected with and can relate to. I find that the character I am portraying will always show my habits even if they were not present within the movie. An example that I can remember is biting my nails in one of my dreams when I was unsure of which direction to go. In this situation, my own habit came into the situation as biting my nails is something that occurs often in my waking life. Finally, in terms of ethnicity because dreams are our “finger prints” it is no surprise that we dream what is familiar. Overall, I can see how dreams are “finger prints” from our walking day and can show a person’s age, gender, personality and ethnicity.

    ReplyDelete
  43. I find it very interesting that dream researchers are able to reveal so much about a person by examining their dreams. This research shows that, as stated in “The Giant Compass”, one’s personality influences and shapes their dreams.
    I agree that dreams are a reflection of our waking lives. I regularly dream about events and issues that are taking place in my life, therefore I am always trying to find meaning in my dreams. I think this research shows that dreams are highly influenced by waking day events.

    ReplyDelete
  44. At an earlier age (underage) when I deemed cigarette smoking demonic, or rather a behaviour I was certain not to have ever tried or wished to participate in, I set the goal of dreaming this specific experience. The goal then, was to have a dream of that which was not experienced in day-to-day life, and in as far as my conscious knowledge, believed would be vetoed from occurring in actuality. Speculatively, I would say I succeeded in manifesting the scenario behaviourally, by purchasing a single cigarette for a dollar, borrowing a lighter, and inhaling (within a dreamwork), but it wasn't until a decade later that I could falsify the dream experience to be nothing like the first real experience.
    Smoking aside, dreams may have limitations, the same limitations which likely work toward inductively reconstructing the age, gender, and ethnicity of dreamers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brewster, I find your blog very interesting. I don’t believe that we typically dream about things in which we have not yet experienced – however, if it’s something on our mind (i.e. like your goal) then it makes perfect sense that we would dream about it. But of course, the dream of something we never actually experienced would be nothing like the real thing in our waking life, because we can’t possibly know of something we have not directly been exposed to – This is why I find your blog so interesting. Our brain can attempt to experience something, but that experience will only be based on our own ideas of the experience.
      Dreams don’t really have limits; they have no gravity, they can’t hold us down, and they are timeless – these are all limits that we have in real life, but not in our dreams…so I feel that if we have limitations in our dreams, they are only limitations that we have put on ourselves.
      Now, this may sound contradictory – we can’t actually experience something through our dream that we haven’t experienced in waking life…yet, dreams are limitless? So although we can dream about things we haven’t experienced, because dreams our limitless, it doesn’t mean that it’s possible for the experience to be equal. But I do agree with you that dreams do seem to have limitations in that sense for this exact reason. But maybe the big picture here is that we fail to utilize our entire unconscious mind BECUASE of limitations we BELIEVE we have which originated from our waking life. I’m not sure, but this is some interesting stuff! Researchers may be interested in doing a study across dreams of those who feel they are less limited in their life, and their ability, compared to those who feel they are somewhat more limited in their life, and their ability – perhaps the people who feel less limited would have more vivid, sensual dreams. There has been some research done in “Our Dreaming Minds” which indicates those who are closer to nature have more unlimited dreams; and the belief here is that this is because nature has a strong connection to the universe, which is unlimited.

      Delete
  45. I think our dreams are always related to the events of our waking life. Our emotions, personality, mood and daily events greatly affect our dreams through our subconscious mind. As mentioned in “The Giant Compass”, there have been research evidences of the relationship between our personalities and dreams. For instance, individuals with introverted personalities report fewer characters in their dreams, whereas extroverted individuals have dreams with more characters in them.
    I think that our dreams accommodate to our own personalities to a certain extent. Perhaps in our dreams as well, other characters that are repressed in our waking life appear (perhaps as a result of being suppressed by our conscious mind when we are awake?) I think this would explain why some people would have dreams of themselves as someone else with different personalities and events that are unlikely to happen in real life.
    In terms of the research findings, I think that the things we do in our waking life sometimes would reappear in our dreams (could even appear differently, for example in a different environment setting). Thus, it is not surprising that those individuals who watched the television programs incorporated pieces of their waking life into their dreams.
    As for me, my dreams are always related to my waking life events, be it from the past or the present. Most of the times, my dreams are related to something that I think of constantly during my walking life. I’ve always been fascinated with my dreams and often times wonder if it’s my waking day events that influence my dreams or if it’s the other day around.

    ReplyDelete
  46. The ability to identify age, gender, and ethnicity from ones dreams is in direct support with the theory that dreams are a reflection of our waking day experiences. As explained in The Giant Compass, our dreams are composed of all thoughts, experiences, and desires we both consciously and unconsciously acquire throughout life. In result, our dreams paint a picture of our life that is unique to the individual dreamer. Through analysis and interpretation of dreams, common themes can be used to determine specific characteristics of the dreamer, as shown by the Hoekstra study. What is most potent in our waking life, will be most dramatically recalled in the dream state. The dreaming mind is a direct interpretation of the waking day experiences of the dreamer, as well as their personality traits and habits.

    I agree with Jesse on the concept that individuals view the waking world from a unique perspective, and this unique perspective would also continue into the dream state. As each human being has an exclusive set of finger prints, each human being has an exclusive personality and way of interpreting their waking life. The Hoekstra study shows that dreams reflect this exclusive individualism and lends support to the accepted theory that our dreaming mind is a varying reflection of our personalized experience through waking day life.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Dreams happen for a reason. When we dream our unconscious mind is trying to tell our conscious mind something important. When we have subconscious thoughts during our waking day life, we have a hard time articulating them, for the simple fact that they are subconscious. Many of our subconscious thoughts are subconscious because these are thoughts that we are having a hard time dealing with, thus, we supress them, and they remain in a part of our brain that doesn’t communicate with our waking life…that is until we dream about them, wake up in the morning, and start thinking about that dream, and the semantics of that dream. Dreams create that communication between our unconscious, and our waking day life, so if something is to be supressed to our unconscious, it’s something we have experienced in our waking life. If we are exposed to a particle culture, then our dream will reflect that, as would our life. It’s almost ambiguous to dream about something that we have not been exposed to. I feel that if researches compared dreams across countries, they would find similar meaning within many of the dreams among each particular country. For example, people in Africa may be dreaming about their everyday struggle with food, whereas most of my Canadian girlfriends, are dreaming about problems they have with their boyfriends/girlfriends. The concern from culture, to culture is very different. And I actually find it interesting that whenever I’m exposed to something new, I dream about it immediately. Just to be clear, I’m not saying that whenever we dream it is because we are experiencing a problem in our waking life. Dreams are a reflection of who we are, and our own thoughts, so it’s no wonder that researchers can depict our age, gender, ethnicity from our dream images. Taking gender for example, I feel like this is an element that would be clearly depicted as different genders typically have different thoughts, and thus, imaging would vary dramatically from men to women – It might actually be interesting for psychologist concerned with the psychology of gender to study dreams across the genders! When looking at personality traits, social psychologist would probably be very interested in doing a meta-analysis on different dreamers dream images; I bet type A personalities across the charts would dream similar dreams about their un-finished work, whereas type A personalities across the charts would be dreaming about something much less stressful – like watching a nice movie. Our dreams are like our own little virtual diaries, so it makes sense that they reflect our lives – and everyone’s life is different. We can only know what we are exposed to. What I find fascinating however, is the odd time when I catch myself dreaming about things that don’t relate to my waking life in anyway; that’s simply mystifying.

    ReplyDelete
  48. *Correction: whereas type B personalities across the charts would be dreaming about something much less stressful

    ReplyDelete
  49. Daiana Locatelli 0405414September 26, 2012 at 9:46 AM

    In the Giant Compass book it stated that an extroverted person has many different characters in their dreams whereas an introverted person has fewer characters in their dream. There probably would be a connection between the individuals dreams based on the programs they watched that matched their ethnicity and personality. If you are outgoing (extroverted) you may have much more vivid characters in your dream versus a shy individual (introverted) who has fewer characters in their dream. Based on the personality you show in your waking life there is a connection between the shows you watch that match your personality, and what is reflected from that tv show in your dreams.

    ReplyDelete