FREE ESSAY ON WHEN YOU WISH UPON A DREAM

WHEN YOU WISH UPON A DREAM

The research of consciousness, or states of awareness, has provided numerous interesting
and influential studies. Sleep, dreams, and hypnosis are states of awareness that have
intrigued psychologists because they relate to the quality of psychological interaction
with the environment. States of awareness change constantly, which produces changes in
behavior. Studies in this area have made great contributions to the understanding of
psychology. Researchers pursuing answers about states of awareness discovered Rapid Eye
Movement sleep and how it relates to dreaming. Rosalind Cartwright, a leading researcher
in this area, takes the study of consciousness to another level by suggesting that people
may be able to control what they dream about. 
Many psychologists have theorized about why people dream. Sigmund Freud believed that
dreams were windows to your unconscious; that your greatest unfulfilled wishes and fears
would be expressed symbolically in your dreams. Freud's view has been highly influential,
and psychotherapists still use dream interpretation during therapy. Chrick and
Mitchilson's mental housekeeping hypothesis says that you need to dream to clean your
mind of information you collect over time that is useless, overly bizarre, or redundant.
Rosalind Cartwright developed the theory that dreams provide and extension of thought in
order for people to solve problems they face in life. This approach allows people to
experiment with, and gain insight into potential solutions. Cartwright suggested that if
a personally relevant presleep wish is made then the topic is likely to enter into
dreams. She believed people are most concerned with personality aspects they would like
to change, or cognitive inconsistency about the self. Cartwright predicted that dreams
that follow focus on a personally relevant problem would be related to that topic; and
that in the dream the person would approach the situation differently than while awake.
Cartwright used 17 paid volunteer college students to test her predictions. All the
volunteers claimed to be good sleepers, and spent a few nights in the laboratory in order
to adapt to the surroundings. Each subject had to sort a deck of cards with an adjective
such as selfish on each one. The cards were placed into seven categories ranging from
least to most like me. The subjects then sorted another deck for the person they would
most like to be. This allowed the researchers to find a negative aspect the subject
wanted to change, called a target adjective. The subjects were wired to electrodes during
sleep, so their periods of REM sleep could be monitored. Prior to falling asleep, the
subjects were told to say over and over; I wish I were not so (target adjective) The
subjects were awoke during REM sleep so they could report their dreams. Cartwright was
extremely thorough in the evaluation of the subjects. She chose two other words along
with the target adjective in order to eliminate other motivations for dreaming about a
certain topic. If only the target word is incorporated on a significant number of cases,
it might be argued that this is one model for how dreams are formed: A tension area is
brought to awareness prior to sleep, she wrote. The only way she could prove this was by
including the control words in each subject's analysis. 
Cartwright's results supported the predictions she made about why people dream. Fifteen
of the 17 subjects dreamed about the target adjective in some way. Only two subjects
dreamed the opposite of the target word was describing the self. This supported the
prediction that the way you approach a situation in your dreams is different from when
you are awake. Some of the subjects dreamed their ideal trait in another character, but
the trait caused problems for the character. Cartwright maintained the findings
demonstrate that dreaming occurs in order to explore the emotional areas of a tension
area. Researchers continue to build on Cartwright's findings. A recent study examines the
ability to control dreams while they occur. In the 1980's researchers showed it is
possible to be conscious during REM, called lucid dreaming. Lucid dreamers are often able
to control or alter the dream itself.
Mankind can benefit from a better understanding of consciousness in many ways. For
example, learning to control dreams could result in valuable psychotherapy as a way to
experiment with personal changes. Just learning how to properly interpret dreams would be
valuable psychotherapy as well. Lucid dreaming could be used as a way to eliminate
nightmares. Dreaming can provide great insight into the mind and soul of the self. If
people took the time to evaluate and understand what they dream, they could acquire
numerous ways to deal with what faces them in life. Having a better understanding of
yourself, and better approaches to problems are definitely benefits people could acquire
from what they dream.