Exploring the Dreams of Human Psychology: Understanding the Mind During Sleep - Essay Sample

Introduction

Human psychology involves multiple and diverse concepts of the brain of individual brains. Dreams are significant aspects of human psychology and are associated with the functions of the mind and affect individual behavior while asleep. These aspects consist of thoughts, sensations and images that occur through an individual's brain while asleep (Graveline and Wamsley 97). Therefore during sleep, a human mind perceives various thoughts and creates images that trigger different emotions and sensations in a person. Primarily, dreams are visionary aspects of the brain that occur while a human being is asleep.

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Dreams are psychological aspects since they involve the mind of human beings. Psychologically, dreams are a conscious state of the brain that happens while an individual is asleep. The elements are believed to represent the real wish of an individual about the particular situation in the dream. The image, events and contents of a dream help to differentiate between the unconscious and conscious desires of the individual (Graveline and Wamsley 97). Ideally, dreams are related to the mind of a human since they represent the wishes of an individual in the conscious world.

Dreams are believed to occur during the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. During this sleep, part of an individual brain is put to rest while others remain active. The purpose of this stage is to help rejuvenate the neurotransmitters and other brain chemicals (Graveline and Wamsley 98). Therefore, the active part of the brain triggers the dreams to occur in an individual's mind. After waking up, the brain functions are restored and create the memory of the dreams. Therefore, an individual can tell about the dreams they had after they wake up. Humanistic, behavioral, cognitive, and neuroscientific approaches are the primary psychological aspects of dreams.

The humanistic psychological approach of dreams is associated with human wishes and desires in their lives. The approach believes that individuals continuously try to advance themselves to unveil their full abilities and potential (Zhang and Guo 1). Therefore, during sleep, humans dream about themselves, the people around them and the environment surrounding them. Human beings also dream about ways that they use to deal with the external forces as well as various stimuli. Primarily, the humanistic theory explains the reasons why human beings dream about themselves and people close to them.

The humanistic approach of dreams also describes how images and thoughts in dreams relate to the actual occurrences. In dreams, the pictures and the thoughts develop from the desire of human beings to actualize their potential and self-image (Bland and DeRobertis 2). Therefore, during REM sleep, the mind of individuals trances into thoughts of their wishes about people in their circles as well as their environment. Ideally, the humanistic theory psychology empathizes with the will and desires of human beings.

The cognitive approach is another theory that explains the psychological aspects of dreams. This theory describes the factors that affect the way individuals perform and learn. The elements are attention, reasoning abilities and memory of an individual. The approach describes the mental processes that happen as human beings dream. The theory also explains why individuals have dreams about their experiences during the day (Fogel, Ray, Sergeeva, Koninck and Owen 1). Additionally, the approach describes how human beings think, know and understand issues that surround their environment and their response to them. Primarily, the cognitive approach describes the relationship of experiences in dreams and the actual activities that occur while an individual is conscious.

Notably, the cognitive approach helps individuals to understand the reasons behind the remembrance of dream experiences after waking up. It is almost a common fact that human beings will always remember the occurrences that happened during a dream. This ability to recognize a dream experience is enabled by the mental processes in an individual's memory while asleep (Fogel et al. 1). The cognitive approach states that human beings can process the information and experience during their dreams, thus enabling them to remember their experiences. Ideally, the cognitive approach explains the ability of human beings to create a memory of the dream experiences, thoughts and images.

The behavioural approach is another psychological aspect used to describe and interpret dreams. This theory describes dreams as thoughts and experiences that occur as a result of stimuli experienced by an individual before going to sleep. The approach enables individuals to determine the character of human beings having dreams (Fogel et al. 1). For instance, if an individual who fears heights is exposed to a tall building during the day or prior sleep, they are likely to dream about experiences with height issues. This dream explains the character of the individual while exposed to extreme heights. Primarily, this approach helps to determine the impacts of the behavior of human dreams.

The behavioral approach also focuses on the characters of human beings when exposed to a new environment. When individuals change their environment, they are likely to change their behavior to suit the new location (Fogel et al. 1). Therefore, if individuals transfer to a new environment, they are likely to dream about new experiences. As a result, the new location acts as stimuli to the dreams of the people.

Another psychological aspect of dreams is the neuroscientific approach. This approach involves the biological aspect of the brain and its functions. This theory states that dreams are developed and consisted of the brain. The human brain is made of elements known as neurons that coordinate the functions of the human body (Shaw 46). These neurons snap at times resulting in the REM sleep. During this kind of sleep, the active brains are triggered to release the memories that are hidden in the deep end of the brain. As a result, human beings experience dreams that are connected to certain memories of experiences that occur in their lives. This approach states that dreams are not only unconscious desires but also memories that are fired off by the brain during sleep (Shaw 47). Moreover, the theory describes dreams as normal occurrences in sleep that happen since human beings' brains are alive and also function while sleeping. Primarily, the neuroscientific approach involves biology to describe the source of the memories that occur during dreams.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, dreams are psychological thoughts and images that occur while an individual is asleep. Dreams result from various psychological aspects of a human being. Humanistic, cognitive, behavioral and neuroscientific theories are the approaches that describe the psychology of dreams. These approaches describe the ways that dreams relate to the functions of human brains. Additionally, the theories describe the relationship of dreams to the behavior and the environment of human beings. Primarily, the dreams are psychological aspects since they involve the human mind as well as their behaviors and environment.

Works Cited

Bland, Andrew and DeRobertis, Eugene. Humanistic Perspective. Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. 2019. Accessed from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315761695_The_Humanistic_Perspective_in_Psychology.

Fogel, Stuart, Ray, Laura, Sergeeva, Valya, Konick Joseph and Owen Adrian. A Novel Approach to Dream Content Analysis Reveals Links Between Learning-Related Dream Incorporation and Cognitive Abilities. Frontier Psychology. 2018. Accessed from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01398/full.

Graveline, Yvette and Wamsley, Erin. Dreaming and Waking Cognition. Translational Issues in Psychological Sciences. Vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 97-105. Accessed from https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/tps-0000018.pdf.

Shaw, Bryony. Developments in the Neuroscience of Dreams. Journal for Neurocognitive Research. Vol. 58, no.1, 2016, pp. 45-50. Accessed from https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF03379951.pdf.

Zhang, Wei and Guo, Benyu. Freud's Dream Interpretation: A Different Perspective Based on the Self-Organization Theory of Dreaming. Frontiers in Psychology. Vol. 9, no. 1553, 2018, pp. 1-4. Accessed from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6115518/pdf/fpsyg-09-01553.pdf