ANALYZING DREAMS

AILEEN HA, managing editor

Amidst the hours between midnight and 7 a.m., dreams make their way into my unconscious state of mind. I have this recurring dream where I am contently lost in conversation, sometimes with family, sometimes with friends, but the feeling of tranquility is soon interrupted as an ominous feeling creeps in. In this state of my subconscious, I run to the nearest mirror where a troubling sight stands before me: I stand there shocked as my previously 32-teeth-filled mouth is replaced by an atrocious gap in the top row. Of course, panic seeps in as I plan out my anticipated absences from school since naturally, I cannot attend school in this current state; as I ponder having to visit the orthodontist, a place I usually aim to avoid, my anxiety further escalates. While my comatose self is stuck struggling with dental dilemmas, relief sets in at 6:45 a.m. when the blaring alarm rings from my iPhone, signaling the start of a brand new day. Dreams take on multiple forms; whether it involves one’s self, an alter ego or some random manifestation of your psyche, dreams are specific to the dreamer and are a reflection of life. One of the most commonly adopted dream theories was proposed by Sigmund Freud, a renowned psychologist, in which he suggested that dreams are composed of two forms: the latent content and the manifest content. While the manifest content is the surface-level summary of one’s dream, the latent content is the underlying meaning of the dream, which according to Freud, is the brain’s way of compensating for both physiological and psychological states through memory consolidation, regulating emotions and deciphering events or stimuli that occur in the conscious state. Freud’s theory proposes that dreams are the mind’s way of releasing our id, the instinctive personal desires that conflict with our super-ego, the moral conscience aspect of our mind, allowing us to live our deepest unfulfilled wishes that people are unaware of vicariously through dreams.

Throughout the night, humans pass through varying stages of sleep every 90 minutes: Non-Rapid Eye Movement Stage 1, NREM Stage 2, NREM Stage 3 and Rapid Eye Movement sleep. While the NREM stages are known to be the precursor stages that allow the body to relax into a static state, the REM stage is the peak time for dreams during sleep. At this stage, our eyes rapidly move despite our paralyzed bodily state, and, our brain activity rises and both our heart and breathing rates increase. According to G. William Domhoff, who utilized brain imaging technology and electroencephalograms (EEGs) to study brain activity, dreams are linked to the daydreams we experience in our conscious state and lead to a high level of brain activity, reflecting the stimuli we experience in our daily lives. In a way, dreams act as mental therapy; they aid in emotional processing where the mind regulates and controls emotions that may be a reaction to external stimuli that occur in our wakeful condition, allowing for memory reinforcement by acting as a medium for the nervous system to process short-term memories into long-term ones and serve as an outlet to foster creativity and boost brain performance. After intense research into my dream, or in other words, surfing the interwebs, I learned possible meanings that might underlie my recurring dream of my teeth falling out. According to the results, it seems that dreams regarding teeth terrors are common. These unconscious hallucinations can either reflect dental problems in the wakeful state, an idea

much more surface level or a notion that runs deeper, such as anxiety about aging, stress of sudden life changes or a subconscious reaction to experiencing loss. Well, I don’t have any dental problems that I know of but I do have a fear of going to orthodontists, so that reasoning could be a possibility. On a more profound level, as a senior, submitting applications and making decisions regarding universities does induce stress as I near the finish line of high school and prepare for the leap into adulthood, something many consider to be a significant life change. No matter the “Dreams take on multiple meaning, whether it reflects my forms, whether it involves inane fear of visits to the orthodontist one’s self, an alter ego or or anxiety about maturing towards some random manifestation the next steps in life, it’s apparent of your psyche...” that dreams are much more than a simple figment of one’s imagination. While many more theories of dreams exist or have yet to be discovered, one thing is clear: they prove to be much more beneficial for both our internal and external states than one might previously believe. These fantasies that we experience in our sleep-induced state process what we cannot during the times we are awake, and they are the key to helping understand our needs, our desires and ourselves as a whole on a much deeper level than we could ever know. Whether they include a fantastical element or something much more realistic, dreams are an excellent representation of mental thoughts that ache to bubble up to the surface, so maybe it’s time to run to your nearest Target, buy a notebook and keep record of one’s dreams to reveal the thoughts that so desperately wish to be known.