快猫短视频

THIRTY years ago, Calvin Hall and Robert Van de Castle, pioneering dream
researchers in the US, had a brave thought. They would use science to test
Sigmund Freud鈥檚 famous idea that women suffer from 鈥減enis envy鈥� and men from
鈥渃astration anxiety鈥�. Their method was simple: dissect people鈥檚 dreams to test
whether symbols denoting penis envy (such as items with a phallic shape) cropped
up more often in the dreams of women, and castration anxiety symbols (such as an
inability to fire a gun) in the dreams of men.

Things looked good for Freud at first: men鈥檚 dreams did contain more symbols
of castration anxiety than women鈥檚 dreams, while women鈥檚 dream were higher on
penis envy content than men鈥檚. Unfortunately when Hall and Van de
Castleincreased the sample tested, the neat correlation fell apart. Men turned
out to have more penis envy and women more castration anxiety.

Now, as then, there is not a single shred of empirical evidence supporting
Freud鈥檚 theory that suppressed desires鈥攕exual or otherwise鈥攔ise up
in our dreams disguised as symbols which therapists can usefully decode. Nor is
there any scientific evidence to support the ideas of Carl Jung, Freud鈥檚
renegade disciple, who believed symbols in dreams aren鈥檛 disguised but have more
direct meanings, some of them universal (a circle, said Jung, stands for
鈥涡苍颈迟测鈥�).

Indeed these days nobody thinks such dream theories are even worth testing,
according to William Domhoff, a psychologist at the University of California at
Santa Cruz. 鈥淩esearchers say, this isn鈥檛 going anywhere,鈥� he says, while the
therapists who use dream psychoanalysis can鈥檛 see the point in testing theories
which, as they see it, work just fine as long as patients (and therapists)
believe in them.

And despite the lack of evidence, there are plenty of true believers out
there in therapyland. In a 1995 survey of Florida psychologists in private
practice, 83 per cent of respondents said they used clients鈥� dreams in their
work, usually plumping for Freudian or Gestalt interpretations. In the latter,
every item in a dream, down to the last fish or fountain, represents a facet of
the dreamer. Scientifically speaking, it鈥檚 a 鈥渢angle鈥� and a 鈥渢ragedy鈥�, says
psychologist David Foulkes, formerly of Emory University in Atlanta,
Georgia.

But here鈥檚 the rub: while researchers like Foulkes scoff at dream symbols and
the kind of dream books you see in New Age bookshops, they stop short of saying
dreams are utterly meaningless. Far from it. Dreams do mirror the people we are
and the concerns we have, they say鈥攂ut much less cryptically than
psychoanalysis would have us think. Freudian and Jungian dream analysis may be a
dead issue for scientifically minded psychologists, but a new way of analysing
dreams, more pragmatic than mystical or ideological, and with a greater claim to
scientific respectability, is emerging out of the muddle.

One who holds great hopes for this movement is Domhoff. For years, he has
been compiling a grand overview of what different kinds of people
dream鈥攎en versus women, children versus adults, hunter-gatherers versus
urban yuppies, and so on. To do this, Domhoff has pulled together scores of old
dream studies. Most of these use a special coding system to categorise the
contents of dreams, developed by Hall and Van de Castle in the 1960s when they
were at the University of Miami in Florida. Using the code, for instance, a
torrid sexual encounter in a dream reads steamily as:

D S2 > 1FKA

1FKA S4R (R = reciprocates) D

DS5 = 1FKA

where the first line stands for 鈥渄reamer (D) makes sexual overture (S2) to an
adult female known to him (1FKA)鈥�.

It鈥檚 easy to be flippant, but the system has already proved to be a powerful
way of picking up differences between the average contents of male and female
dreams (see 鈥淲ho dreams what鈥�). In future, Domhoff hopes scientists will use
such dream norms to make sense of the contents of individual dreams. Only with
good 鈥渂aseline鈥� information about what people in different cultures and social
groups dream, he says, can we hope to pick up on quirks in the psychology of
individual dreamers.

That goes for dream theorists, too. Comparing the dream reports of Freud with
those of Jung, Domhoff notes that Freud鈥檚 dreams contain more aggression between
himself and women, more friendly interactions with men and more general
successes over failures than usually occur in dreams. They clearly mirror
Freud鈥檚 personality as a striving man who loved the company of men and developed
theories that many construed as hostile towards women. Those of Jung, on the
other hand, contain fewer people, more animals and more friendly encounters with
women. These scores, says Domhoff, are in line with Jung鈥檚 solitary,
nature-loving personality, and his obvious love of female company.

So dreams do have some meaning. But can understanding them help us in any
way? Yes, says Deirdre Barrett, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. At the
very least, dreams can be used to pinpoint concerns that we鈥檙e reluctant to
admit to or bother with in the hurly-burly of our lives. 鈥淒reaming isn鈥檛 a
`wiser鈥� or `better鈥� mode,鈥� says Barrett, 鈥渂ut it can sometimes bring home a
message more forcefully.鈥�

And sometimes, they can even help solve little problems. A few years ago,
Barrett asked college students to ponder a problem as they were drifting off to
sleep. About half had a dream that independent assessors felt addressed the
problem, and most of these dreams offered a solution. One student, pondering how
to fit a chest of drawers into his new apartment, dreamed of it sitting by the
window in his living room. 鈥淭he chest actually fitted there real well,鈥� he
reported. Another student was wondering which graduate school to attend: he
dreamt of flying in a plane looking down on a map of the US. The university
sites near his home glowed red for 鈥渦nsafe to land鈥�, and others green, for
鈥渟afe鈥�. He decided to move away from home. Not all problems could be solved,
though, says Barrett. Students who tried to solve maths problems in their sleep,
for instance, failed.

Others believe that our dream work can be more profound. Dreams do important
emotional work for us, says Rosalind Cartwright, a psychologist at
Rush-Presbyterian-St Luke鈥檚 Medical Center in Chicago. That鈥檚 why more of them
are unsettling than pleasant in tone. A nice dream, quips Cartwright, is simply
time off for good behaviour. During the day, we often don鈥檛 have time to deal
with the things that upset us: the fallout from a messy divorce, a rebuke from a
cranky boss. We may not even register that we鈥檙e upset, and then we go to sleep.
And that鈥檚 when we deal with these emotional loose ends.

Nice idea, but where鈥檚 the evidence? Well, don鈥檛 expect large-scale,
controlled studies, they鈥檙e difficult and costly, and dream researchers work on
a shoestring. But what they can do is wake up subjects during each of the
night鈥檚 REM sleep periods and ask them to report the contents of their dreams.
These reports can then be analysed by researchers who know neither the subjects
nor the hypothesis that is being tested. Cartwright has done this with people
struggling through divorce and other stresses. When people are coping well,
their dreams may well be about the failed marriage itself, but the last dream of
the night will provide some resolution, perhaps that in spite of the good times,
the marriage had simply run its course. The mood of such dreamers will be better
in the morning.

Poor copers are another cup of tea, says Cartwright: they simply reiterate
their 鈥減roblem鈥� again and again in each dream, come to no resolution and feel no
better in the morning. Poor copers also spend less time in REM sleep, suggesting
they dream less. Add this, says Cartwright, to preliminary evidence that a year
later, the people who dreamt about their failed relationship are coping better
than those whose dreams 鈥渋gnored鈥漷he issue, and you have some suggestion that
dreaming is emotionally important. But only a suggestion, because there鈥檚 an
unresolved鈥攁nd perhaps unresolvable鈥攃ause-and-effect dilemma here.
Does 鈥渇aulty dreaming鈥� impede people鈥檚 abilities to resolve problems? Or is it
merely a reflection of a poor coper鈥檚 waking state of mind?

Whatever the answer, we can definitely find a use for dreams, says Stephen
LaBerge, visiting scholar at Stanford University. What fires his imagination is
not so much 鈥渇aulty dreaming鈥� as 鈥渆xpert dreaming鈥�. LaBerge believes we can all
learn to control our dreams by becoming 鈥渓ucid鈥�, or aware of them, even as we
sleep. And he believes our lives would be the richer for it.

Tennis strokes

There are no carefully controlled studies to test LaBerge鈥檚 claims, but he
has a wealth of anecdotes about people who practised doing everything from
perfecting their tennis strokes to achieving easy, effortless orgasms in their
sleep, only to find that the night-time drills improved their daytime
performances as well. Lucid dreaming, claims LaBerge, can also help people
鈥渕aster鈥� nightmares by confronting the fearsome dragon or interloper instead of
cravenly running away.

LaBerge advocates various drills for exercising dream control, such as
meditating before sleep on your intention to have a lucid dream and what you
would like to do in it. He and his coworkers have even designed a contraption
designed to improve the odds of dreaming lucidly when it is strapped onto the
head. Sensors over the eyes monitor eye movements; when these become frequent
enough, lights start flashing and dreamers are reminded that they鈥檙e supposed to
be lucid.

Some dream researchers are intrigued by LaBerge鈥檚 work. Everyone who
experiences lucid dreaming, says Barrett, 鈥渇eels it is a profound state of
consciousness鈥�. But others aren鈥檛 impressed. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a typically American idea.
We鈥檙e not willing to let nature happen, we鈥檝e got to control it,鈥� says Foulkes.
鈥淲hy do it? Are you just a control freak?鈥�

In the end, says Foulkes, only one thing is really clear: 鈥淒reaming is the
most impractical thing in the world you could propose studying.鈥� Who could
disagree? And yet, as the scores of fanciful dream books filed under
鈥渕etaphysics鈥� or 鈥渟elf-improvement鈥� in bookshops amply illustrate, there will
always be someone prepared to wax authoritative about our night-time fantasy
life.

* * *

Who dreams what

• Children鈥檚 first dream reports, between the age of three and five, appear
  as very simple, bland accounts such as 鈥淚 saw a doggie鈥�, slowly building in
  complexity and frequency until they become full-fledged, adult-like dreams by
  adolescence.
• Men dream twice as often of men as they do of women. Women dream equally of
  both sexes鈥攅xcept in more gender-segregated societies like Japan, where
  they dream more of women. Women are more often victims, or 鈥渞ejected鈥�, while men
  have more aggressive encounters, mostly with other men.
• Hunter-gatherer societies dream more often of animals than do American
  college students; urban Japanese hardly dream of animals at all.
• Swiss and Dutch dreams are less aggressive than American dreams.
• Mexican-American dreams are higher on emotions, and good and bad fortune,
  than Anglo-American dreams.
• In one Australian aboriginal society, the Yir Yoront, dreams are often
  about aggression and friendliness, mirroring the people鈥檚 tendency to engage
  unusually intensely with one another.
• Also in Yir dreams, sexual encounters with women in taboo kinship
  categories are more likely to have unsatisfying outcomes.
• Devout Hindus, who live in highly gender-segregated societies, have fewer
  members of the opposite sex in their dreams than their more secular peers.
• Child-molesters dream of molesting children, cross-dressers dream of
  cross-dressing.

Source: Finding Meaning in Dreams: A Quantitative Approach by
William Domhoff (Plenum Press, 1996]. Also see Domhoff and Adam Schneider鈥檚 Web
page http://zzyx.ucsc.edu/~dreams/

* * *

Dream myths

These are thicker on the ground than solid facts, many originating in
academic arenas. For example:

• If you die in your dreams, you really die.
  This is probably a contortion of a different myth: that only people with
  terminal illnesses or suicidal thoughts dream of dying. Death dreams are,
  naturally enough, more common among such people, but healthy people have them
  too.
• Dreams happen in shades of grey rather than in colour. Again, the roots of
  this myth may be scholarly. Old psychological theories held that only psychotics
  dream in colour. Few people would have rushed to challenge this by owning up to
  having technicolour dreams.

* * *

Creative acts

OVER the centuries, thousands of famous people have claimed that they gained
inspiration for their work from dreams. Here are just a few:

• The visionary poet and artist William Blake said that he dreamt up an
  inexpensive technique for copper engraving which he used to illustrate his
  poems.
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge said he composed the poem Kubla Kahn in a dream,
  but was bothered by a visitor while busy transcribing it. By the time he got
  back to work, he鈥檇 forgotten the rest.
• The Russian chemist Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev said he 鈥渟aw鈥� the periodic
  table of the elements in a dream, and wrote it down when he awoke. Only one
  correction was later needed.
• Hermann Hilprecht, the 19th-century expert on eastern civilisations,
  decoded writing on two Babylonian stone tablets after a 鈥減riest鈥� appeared in a
  dream, instructing him to fit the two together.
• The famous pianist Vladimir Horowitz said that he often solved tricky
  keyboard fingerings in his dreams.
• The 19th-century chemist Friedrich Kekul茅 hit on the chemical
  structure of benzene after dreaming of snakes holding onto their tails.
  Psychoanalysts have speculated that the snakes symbolised frustrated sexual
  desires.
• Biological theorist Margie Profet dreamt of 鈥渂lack triangles鈥� in the lining
  of the womb prior to developing a theory that menstruation evolved to wash out
  bacteria. The triangles, to her, represented pathogens.