Dreams are directly connected to what we are feeling and our intuition. Now what if I told you that’s not always the case, and that there are many more factors that contribute to our dreams and why we have them. Have you ever had a dream that felt so real it took you a while to fully snap back to reality, or one so scary that you felt “off” the rest of the day. Or maybe you had a dream that felt extremely symbolic, and you took it as a sign of what is happening in your real life. No matter what your dream is, we all have them. But the question is why? And are they directly connected to our emotions and personal lives? These are the type of questions that scientist Christopher L. Edwards explored so we would have more answers to these age old questions.

There have been many theories and beliefs surrounding dreams for thousands of years. Different theories coming from all sorts of different religions, civilizations, cultures, etc… but what is really true about dreams? Well thankfully this is a well researched and high demand scientific topic that has been thoroughly researched and will continue to be, because everyone has dreams. 

         The theory in discussion is that dreams can give us insight on our emotions and personal life. There is solid evidence that supports this theory related to REM sleep and the part of our brains that stores emotional memories. To discover these findings, the Ullman Dream Appreciation Technique was used. The technique was done by having 11 group discussions, with 11 people. During these sessions, the dreamer would describe their dream to everyone in detail, as well as any relation to their walking life the dream had. They also discussed if any emotions in the dream are directly related to emotions in their waking life. The other 10 participants then asked questions to better clarify the dream, and were asked to imagine what emotions they would feel if the dream was their own, and if it has any correlation to their waking life. The dream is then recited back to the dreamer in second person to give further insight and understanding to the dreamer.

The findings were that the participants' attitudes towards their own dreams played a big role in the insight they could gain from their dreams. For example, if someone was able to connect their emotions that they had in their dream to the emotions they have been feeling in their waking life, it will allow them to gain more insight into what the meaning of their dream is. An example of this would be if you were really worried about an interview you had coming up, and you dream about the interview going wrong. But it can be more subliminal than that! Have you ever had a dream where you were in a car that was out of control? That is just one example of how underlying emotions we feel during the day can manifest in our dreams. Why does this happen though? Our brains store our emotions that we feel as memories themselves which come out during REM sleep. The point of this study was not only to show the connection between dreams and emotions, but also to prove that we can gain insight into our personal lives by analyzing, journaling, and processing our dreams. 

You may ask yourself, how do I start analyzing my own dreams, and gain insight from them to better understand myself? The most important thing is to start writing down your dreams, look for patterns, do the emotions you feel in your dreams reflect the emotions you feel in your waking life. Finding these connections and starting to study how your emotions manifest themselves in your dreams can help you identify patterns and recognize what your subconscious is telling you. You may not be able to conduct a science experiment with pages of statistics and professionals analyzing you, but through your own practice you can use their studies to better understand yourself!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3872037/