Alethea Carr

Dr. Baumeister

Mind and Body

18 September, 2020

The unit one theme the class has chosen relates to the topic of dreams and the

subconscious mind as a whole. This particular topic has always troubled me in some way

because the mind is something that no one has ever understood completely. Many philosophers,

like Freud, have voiced their theories on how they perceive dreams and the subconscious mind.

Some philosophers believe that dreams are simply neurological impulses firing in the brain while

others believe dreams are compensations for our reality in some way. When we discuss dreams

in class, the wheels in my brain begin to turn and I have a hard time wrapping my head around

any truth to the matter because each person hypothesizes something different in regards to

dreams, with each hypothesis having just as much likelihood as the next. My question is do we

subconsciously control our dreams or are they just highlight reels of our worries come to life?

When I wake up from a dream, good or bad, I can usually trace back and find out why I

dreamt about a certain topic. For example a few weeks ago I was talking to my friend about the

good example my parents have set for a healthy marriage in my eyes. Almost as if it was

lingering in my mind, that same night I dreamt that my parents tragically divorced and I was

devastated. It made sense to me that I had a dream about my parents because I was discussing

their relationship the previous day but the nature of the dream did not make any sense to me. If I

was talking so highly about my parents, why then, did my dream contradict my thoughts or

feelings? Freud raised this question in his Interpretation of Dreams when he asks “What is the
source of the many peculiarities that are to be observed in dream thoughts-such for instance, as

the fact that they may be mutually contradictory?”(page 148) I often wonder if my subconscious

mind was worried that their relationship may not be as glorious as it had seemed to me for all my

life and that I caused that dream to happen somehow. Certainly this dream could not have been a

wish fulfillment. Freud believed “On the contrary, they are psychical phenomena of complete

validity—fulfilments of wishes; they can be inserted into the chain of intelligible waking mental

acts; they are constructed by a highly complicated activity of the mind.” (page 147) Although the

idea of wish fulfillment aligns in most cases of dreams, I would not say every dream can be

classified as a wish fulfillment. Freud would argue that the wish was disguised in some way

during my dream. However, I believe that this dream was somehow manifested in my mind by a

consistent worry of mine that existed without my knowledge. This brings up the idea behind my

question of control in dreams. Sometimes I think I control my dreams in order to live out a bad

situation in a healthy way. Of course in real life I would never wish for my parents to separate

but I wonder if I dreamt of their separation in order to cope with the idea in real life. Maybe this

was my subconscious mind’s way of feeling the effects of a situation before it happened in real

life and in some way I wanted to control that dream and see the events play out for a specific

reason.

The easiest way for me to fathom my dreams is to assume that my mind is just worrying

while I am asleep. When I have a worry, I will actively try to think of something else in order to

get through my day without having a panic attack. These thoughts that I am trying so hard to

forget often appear in my dreams despite my thorough suppression of them in my waking hours.

In the reading we discussed in class, we learned about Wegner and his theory of repressed

thoughts coming to life in our dreams, proving that maybe Freud’s theory of wish fulfillment was
more credible than people believe. I found myself wondering about Wegner’s theory, his

hypothesis states, “We know that a large number of our dreams come from REM sleep, so

Wegner hypothesised that we would see a lot of suppressed thoughts making a reappearance in

dreams.”(page 2) Wegner believed that somewhere deep down the things that show up in our

dreams are thoughts that are only able to come to light because we are unable to actively

suppress them. The idea of dream suppression allows me to further understand the peculiar

things that show up in my dreams. I may not consciously believe that I am dreaming about things

that I wish for but Wegner brings up the point that my subconscious might know more about my

wishes than even I know about. However, if my subconscious mind worries more than I am

aware of, then who am I to say I have any control over what comes to life in my dreams.

After reading all the material presented in class, I have decided that our dreams may in

fact be a highlight reel of our worries that we somewhat control. Overall I think we dream about

things to compensate for reality whether that be a worry, fear, happiness, and even indulgences.

We may not be able to actively decide what we dream about but I feel like the subconscious

mind has a way of giving us what we need. For example, if we are worried about an exam, we

may dream about the exam in order to mentally prepare for what lies ahead. Even if the worry

for the exam was suppressed by the conscious mind, the subconscious will step in and bring that

worry to the surface and may cause a dream.

These questions behind dreams and the meaning they hold causes my mind to go into

distress. I wish that my questions about dreams could be answered logically but dreams are often

too abstract and the human mind is too complex to be understood. I almost feel as if I am

rambling when I talk about the meaning behind dreams. My mind jumps from one theory to the

next making it difficult to have a thought that flows in any way. However, I find that the
unknowns of dreaming also create the beauty of dreaming. I love the idea that when we dream

we create a world in our mind that is only ours unless we choose to share it with someone else.

When I look at my dreams in the terms of my own world, I always wonder how much of that

world I can actually control and how much is just leftover or repetitive thoughts from the long

day.