Onierology : The Study of Dreams

1. Onierology :The Study of Dreams By Ali Pizza

2. What is Dreaming? Dreams, as defined by Merriam Webster, are ‘stories that a person ‘watches’ or appears to take part in during sleep.

3. Why do we Dream? -Freud – Wish fulfillment -Cartwright and Lambert – An opportunity to work out everyday problems -Hobson and McCarley – Simply the byproduct of bursts of activity emanating from the subcortial areas in the brain.

4. Who sleeps? Through brain wave studies and behavioral observations, scientists have concluded that amphibians do not sleep, reptiles may or may not sleep, and birds and humans display two different stages of sleep. Scientists also have gathered that while some people may or may not have senses such as taste, smell sound or touch in each dream occurrence, most dreams contain visual imagery.

5. Blind Studies - G. Heermann in 1838 - Studies indicate that when considering the age of the onset of blindness, five is the general cutoff point for the experience of visual imagery in dreams.

6. The History Of Dreams Mesopotamians, 2700 B.C. Sumerians record the epic tale of Gilgamesh where dreams are important to what will happen in the future. Assyrians were said to have three different classifications for dreams; Message dreams, mantic dreams and symbolic dreams

7. History of Dreams Continued Egyptians – 2000 B.C. Chester Beatty Papyrus III – Named for Chester Beatty, the man who donated the document to the British Museum Hebrews – 500 B.C. -Messages from God. -Angels and Demons could influence dreams -In dreams, the soul travels.

8. History of Dreams Continued Chinese – 1000 B.C. T’ung Shu life almanac contained seven categories of dreams, each dealing with different aspects of life. Indians – 1500 B.C. Atharva Veda was a sacred book of wisdom that the Indians used to interpret meanings in dreams. Also believed that the time of night the dream occurred related to the time of realization in waking life.

9. History of Dreams Continued Greeks – 700 B.C. – 130 A.D. Points to be considered come from many sources. Homer, Aristides, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle and Galen were among the most prominent. The years after Jesus Christ Much of the next 1500 years or so, not many new ideas or new concepts developed. Mostly old ideas were expanded on or manipulated to fit the researcher’s ideas.

10. History of Dreams Continued The Dark Ages – 500-1500 A.D. -Dreams were demonized by well respected Church figures such as Macrobius and Saint Thomas Aquinas -Dreams were considered to be demon-inspired with the exception of dreams sent by God -People who repeatedly had dreams that contained ‘Unholy Nature’ were burned alive or tortured -Since only prophets or holy patriarchs could receive dreams from God, this left people with a crippling stress of trying to decide whether dreams were demon-inspired -Let to the practice of suppressing dreams for most people

11. History of Dreams Continued As quoted from Dr. Robert Van de Castle, by the eighteenth century, dreams are “Finally liberated from the centuries of shackles imposed on us by the black-frocked inquisitors.” Sigmund Freud – 1856-1939 -Interprets dreams as a source of unconscious desires, mainly sexual interpretations Carl Jung – 1875-1961 -Interprets dreams not so much as scientific interest but as maintaining and restoring mental health. Each dream requires its own set of rules for interpretation Alfred Alder – 1870-1937 -Asserted that the absence of dreams indicated good mental health.

12. Empirical Approaches to Dream Research -External Stimulus -Physiological connections to dreams -REM sleep phase – dream relationship -Brain wave patterns

13. Frida Kahlo – The Dream

14. M.C. Escher Waterfall

15. Salvador Dali – The Persistence of Memory