what is the science behind interpreting dreams?

Question

There seem to be some general beliefs around the symbolism in dreams (eg. teeth crumbling = death.) How were these symbolisms developed, and is there a science behind it? How did people arrive at the more common dream associations?

Answer 1

To understand a dream, it’s helpful to keep in mind why and how we dream. When we sleep, the body and perception systems are shut down, but the brain stem continues to fire and the cortex remains active. The thoughts that have been most active during waking hours—perceptions, experiences, thoughts and feelings, processed consciously or unconsciously—are still “peaked” and they associate with other images already linked in your cortex. In other words, the brain references this content, but not in a rational way, not using input from the external real world as in waking hours. So the story connectedness isn’t like everyday experience, but rather a strange flow from one image to the next. Therefore, dreams aren’t magical messages to guide our life, but sequences of associated images taken from everyday experiences - thoughts and feelings that matter a lot to us during our waking life. So it’s a mistake to apply one-size-fits-all symbols, such as Freudian meanings or standard “dreammoods” formulas. All you need to do is think about what kind of imagery it is and how it relates to your daily life.

Answer 2

The history of dream interpretation started (as a psychological science anyhow) with Freud and Jung. It's based on roughly to aspects: universal aspects of how women and men relate, what water means for people, how important teeth are for survival - and on cultural and personal associations. A cross obviously means something different in the dream of a Christian and a dream of an Amazon Indian with a complete lack of knowledge what Christianity even is. So that's culturally dependent. The stories we tell each other about the meaning of symbolism in dreams in turn change the dreams. They reinforce, for our subconscious brain, the association of those symbols with that specific meaning.

In many cases specific symbols are also personal. One person I know often dreams of the one house he lived in longest in his life. What that means to him is not clear to me, but it is clear that no universal meaning, or even cultural meaning is likely behind that situation for him.

Answer 3

There really isn't a "science" to dreams. Dreams are highly personalized and are based upon your individual experiences and memories. Researchers believe that dreams are your brain's way of integrating your experiences into long-term memory while you sleep. It is really your own unconscious process. Since dreams are so very personal, the symbolism really varies from person to person. Therefore, a snake in my dream may symbolize unrequited love, while it may symbolize fear of men to someone else.
I tend to be the minority in my belief that there is no universal dream interpretation or a science behind dreams, so I am sure that there are many that disagree with me. For the countless websites and books that offer dream interpretation, perhaps they polled people with common dreams and then compared it to what was happening in their life.

Answer 4

Dream interpretation was introduced by Sigmund Freud who said that dreams were part of our unconscious being expressing itself. Analyzing and interpreting dreams was theororized to show us what our conflicts between our being and reality are. There is no evidence or data that backs any of this, it's just a very intriguing theory by Freud and psychoanalysis. It has become popular today in modern society mainly as something fun and interesting to do. Again, it is just interpretation and based on loose theory so don't read too much into it.

If you want to read the real book by freud it's called "interpretation of dreams"

Answer 5

Yes. There are symbols in everything. Ex. water is your sexuality. It is a paranormal science.

Answer 6

when you put it that way, it's not science at all. no offense.