Are you dreamer or visionary?

Do you know there is a difference between a dream and a vision? People have vision when they are awake and dreams when they sleep.
 
Carl Jung came up with the above explanation while exploring the concept of collective unconscious (psychic innate dispositions to experience and represent basic human behaviour) and focusing on dreams, vision and symbol interpretation.
 
Dr. Raymond H. Hamden, Clinical & Forensic Psychologist, Human Relations Institute & Clinics, said dreams are the unconscious, comprising memories, emotions, thoughts and actions that are hidden from the person.
 
The unconscious does not allow these memories and feelings to be brought on willingly. The idea of the unconscious fascinated majority of the class, especially when considering how we access the unconscious mind, he said.
 
During sleep, defenses are lowered and repressed feelings present themselves. These repressed feelings often surface through dreams.
 
According to Dr. Hamden, there are two different contents of a dream: manifest content and latent content. Manifest content is what the dreamer remembers when they wake up and latent content is the emblematic or symbolic meaning that allows the latent content to reveal itself in a less-threatening way.
 
Sigmund Freud called this dream-work, the ego’s defense system lowering so that the repressed material can come into awareness.
 
“There are multiple ways that the mind protects itself; the unconscious can defend against feelings of guilt, anxiety, anger and sadness.  It even protects us when our mind is at its most vulnerable state – sleep - through various methods. This includes displacement and condensation and multiple other techniques that protect us through dreams,” Dr. Hamden, said.
 
There are also universal symbols. In Sigmund Freud explains in his The Interpretation of Dreams the possibility of universal symbols. For example, everyone has dreams of being chased, flying, drowning or being inappropriately dressed.

However, he advised to be careful when interpreting what the manifest content of a dream means, this is because in order to correctly interpret the dream, the analyst cannot just focus on the aspects of the manifest content without knowing the individual’s situation
 
•         What should a person do when he is stressed about a dream?
 
Dreams are also called ‘paradoxical sleep’ as they are not part of sleep that provides rest.
 
During REM sleep, we have more stress hormones released. Hence, over dreaming can be stressful to the system leaving us exhausted when we wake up.

A person stressed out due to his dreams, can seek support (friends/family) – talk about it; set a sleeping schedule; exercise to release stress;  adopt relaxation techniques to reduce muscle tension (warm bath before bed); avoid caffeine or other stimulants that can contribute to disturbed sleep.

This is according to a research complied by Lily Michele Rainey,

Internship from Middlesex University; Ummehani Topiwala, Pre-graduate Internship; Oliver Lehmann, Pre-graduate Internship. It was supervised by  Dr. Hamden.

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