However, clinical literature often treats dream tracking exogenously, noting only that patients “brought dreams into therapy” . One known method of improving recall and persisting dream memory long enough for conscious use is dream tracking , the process of creating some record of a dream experience upon waking up.
In Western culture, however, there is no clear solution to the challenge of dream memory loss. For the Ongee, this challenge is overcome through cultural practices: group sleeping arrangements and morning/evening social routines serve to keep dreams in conscious awareness so they can be used for group decision making. This is notoriously difficult given the rapid memory loss that occurs after awakening from a dream .
Regardless of intention, if a dream is to be engaged with in waking life, some memory or record of the dream must be persisted beyond the time the dream initially takes place. While dream interpretation sessions are common in therapy contexts , individuals are also engaging with dreams informally as evidenced by the online communities dedicated to dreaming, such as Reddit's subreddits /r/dreams and /r/luciddreaming, which together have over 500,000 members. Dreams can provide sources for creativity, aid in understanding the self, and help solve problems in waking life . Nightmare frequency is correlated with measures of well-being and disproportionately affects individuals managing severe mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) .Īpart from managing nightmares, dreamwork can be used for more general personal growth and development. While true nightmare prevalence is unknown , representative surveys of German citizens indicate that roughly 9–14% of the population experience nightmares on at least a monthly basis , and 5% on a weekly basis . Modern-day therapists use the phrase “dreamwork” to describe a variety of therapy strategies that utilize dreams both in informal and formal (clinical) settings .Īn important purpose of dreamwork is to reduce suffering from nightmares. Perspectives on dreaming in Western cultures have been shaped by 20th century psychologists, namely Freud and Jung , who saw dreams as an invaluable way to access the subconscious self.
Many Native American cultures have even been considered “dream cultures,” given their emphasis on dream life even above and beyond waking life . For example, the group may decide to search for berries in a certain area of the forest based on intelligence derived from dreams . For the Ongee, an indigenous group on the island of Little Andaman in India, dreams are a kind of instruction or guide for what to do in waking life. The extent to which dream experiences influence waking life, however, varies across cultures and across individuals. Dreaming is a fundamental component of the human experience.
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