Lubek's Psychological Theories on Dreams, Night-Mares, Fears... 'Dreams n Science' by: Jan Lubek, Copyrighted 2003 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dreaming is a phenomena that can not be, nor is it, nor will it be fully explained. Even long explanation will not get meaninfgul answer, except create more queries. Dreams come from every day occurances, situations, experiences, unresolved current or past problems. Dreams are given to us for a purpose, one can learn from them, they may remind us of something we forgot or need to do, to finish. Dreams sort every day events out. They regenerate bodies in every organism of all species. Also it's been shown that every species have some kind of dreams, all need rest. Even when asleep, the brain constantly works in a living organism. Most of the dreams are very confusing and they can not and should not influence our lives, yet dreams are part of our lives. Sleeping helps restore the body and it helps store both long and short range. Dreams may be messengers if you are suddenly awaken. In dreams all the bodily activites function even if you dont know it with your conscious mind, your subconscious mind still works. During the REM dream stage, your body is blocked so you dont hurt yourself when you are dreaming or when you are in some dangerous act in dream, whatever is happening inside your mind is real in that world. It's a virtual reality. Those dreams come from strong emotions, feelings, memory. They come from an urge to create something, from waiting for something to happen. During those dreams our heart rates increase but not 100% as if awaken. Probably the % is something in between. The experience of dreams can only sometimes be 100%, most of the time is close but never over 99%. Why ? Because the feeling is not real even if it feels 100% accurate. It's all an illusion. But it's an illusion that comes from every day realities and occurances. Most of the dreams can not be remembered, science can not explain why but I think that is because they are irrelevant to our lives and the brain does not record them for a later use. They can be recorded only if you think about them and want to remember them after waking up. But that is a waste of time. The dreams that are most significant are those that you can remember exactly and those which can wake you up. By nature, human beings are sinful creatures and because of imbalances in our lifes many night-mares derive from that, however there are signs, sometimes, when you awake in fear, that you know that this particular dream is one in a thousand (or more) and it came from the other side as a sign or warning. Improvement in our lifes and approach towards those close to us should resolve your daily problems and your well being. The fear we experience in dreams is because usually we are faced alone with strange creatures, creepy sounds, strange situations and usually we are without a weapon, so it's natural for the fear to come into play. But it's the creatures who are ignorant and have fear, not us. Why ? Because that is the only form of intimidation they have. And it's natural to have some fear. But, I simply tell the fear to hit the road... And dont put too much emphasis on it, however, again, this may signify unresolved problems in real life (except of course if some idiot is playing tricks on you with stupid noises). A soldier may dream of conflict for a long time. He knew he killed somebody and those were her/his orders, but his moral code and ethics he was thought tell him otherwise, that you should not kill out of intent but only in order to stop those who want to kill you, kill or be killed, but it should be in such a way to stop enemies, but not always to kill them, because they were under orders as well and had no intentions harming anybody. It was just something out of soldier's hands/control. But still the value of life prevails over stupid ideology and machinery of war. This is the reason many soldiers never get cured from post combat syndrome & stres. With the specialists & help military provides them with, after their tour of duty, many times t doesnt work because those 'specialists' have the wrong approach to the problems, the approach that everything is ok as it should be, the only ok thing about that is that everything is not ok. It's exactly the opposite. And if some get cured, they only get brainwashed. Going to war for the wrong reasons in the first place is wrong & the truth is the first casualty. Most of the wars could have been avoided in the first place anyways. And all the wars America waged, after Korea were illegal in the first place. Congress didnt declare war after World War II on any country out of fear of losing it like in Vietnam. It's a failure at the end of the day and for personal reasons of dumb politicans whose behinds were safe behind their comfy desks, far away from any combat. Starting an illegal war (like Iraq 2003) where there is peace, just to bring peace and freedom is complete idiotic absurdity. Darfur needed help, women were raped, etc... They needed freedom & to call Iraq's war, Iraqi freedom is very ignorant n insult to injury! It's amazing how people are dying in Africa every day from wars and AIDS, Polio but nobody does much about it. Why ? There is no interest for those lands & its people and there is nothing to gain in return, but people are wrong as usual, things like that bounce back and innocent blood must be paid back, even if it takes generations. If you eat fat and a lot of bad food before going to sleep and have lots of daily problems in your life, the nightmares will refelct them in your dreams, all in twisted form and shape. Most of the time it does not signify anything, it does not mean anything except that you need to live a more normal and ethical/moral life, a life with less stress is the key to better dreams & health, many times that can not be accomplished, so in order to do that you must change your personal life, even if moving out is required, not just from the apartment/house but from everything that surrounds you, whether that be living or dead. FEELING OF EMPTINESS: Did you ever have a feeling of emptiness when you were driving around a place that once seemed to shine with love, light and life ? Not only when driving, but left misunderstood and smeared upon, disappointed at somebody? It's not what you thought it will be. But did you ever ask yourself why, is it may be because deep inside of you there is a big disappointment and you did not find a solution to your troubles ? We all must assist each other in times of weakness, even the best of them get into bottomless emotional whole, there are times in life when we get depressed and left all alone without anybody on our side. Nobody understands us. I know how that feels. And I wish I can always be there and understand those who need some help. Did you ever have a moment of weakness where you were left all alone in this world, nobody understood you, nobody cared, everybody wanted to use you? If you want something special in life to happen, you have to give it a chance, you have to understand it and you have to nourish, cherish it, just like friendship. Many precious things are fragile, handle it with care. It's hard to build something, but easy to destroy it. Sometimes more than one chance must be given in order for something to grow, you just dont plant a tree, water it once and expect it to bloom, grow and bring fruits and harvest immediately. UNLEARNING FEAR: Researcher Elizabeth Phelps and colleagues at New York University have found that a brain structure called the AMYGDALA becomes most active as fears are unlearned. In addition, a connected area called the ventral medical prefrontal cortex appears to be critical of the extinction of fear. AMYGDALA is key area involved in fear conditioning, learning to fear something because it occured with aversive consequences, thus it created negative memory side-effects. Predisposition to a particular fear requires fear itself to be activated. If you do not know if something is dangerous and it does not seem dangerous, your mind will not even notice it. You can watch other humans and learn from them that something is dangerous, wrong but if you do not experience it, it will never be the same. Scientists have traced the neutral pathways of fear to a small, almond-shaped structure in the brain's emotional system called amygdala. It appears to translate the perception of danger into action in 2 ways: Our cortex is always bombarded with information from our eyes, ears and other sensory organs. One route for this pipeline sends a torrent of detailed, refined information from high-level cortical regions to the amygdala, which turbocharges the processing of fearful or other emotional stimuli over less urgent information. If you are driving and listening to music and when the driver in front of you hits the brakes, your attention immediately drops off whatever you are listening to and signals your foot to hit the brakes. A second, faster pathway sends crude information from the senses through subcortical regions directly to the amygdala, bypassing the cortex altogether. If the car in front makes a full-fledged panic stop, this more primitive pathway signals you to slam the brakes, even before information reaches the cortical regions that make you conscious of your actions and before you realize what you have even done or what it means. The milliseconds head start of your reaction may be enough to mean difference between life & death. Except, if under DUI, response time is limited, impaired.