BENEFITS OF DREAMS AND HOW IT CAN AFFECT OUR LIVES
A Research Paper Presented to
The English Resource Center
School of Multimedia Arts
Asia Pacific College
Magallanes, Makati
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirement of the Course
ESERWRT - Research Writing
Christian Earl Obregon Sabijon
April 2014
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Psychologists. The study is also based on some psychological problems that people experience in their lives.
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirement of the Course
ESERWRT - Research Writing
Christian Earl Obregon Sabijon
April 2014
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
A. Background Of The Study
Dreams are the images that during sleep. They have been with us since birth. Dreams can affect us in our everyday living. Even though we have been dreaming since birth, we still don't know why we do it.
Roberta Ossana, wrote on an article entitled, "The Many Types of Dreams & Purposes for Which Dreams Come to Us." According to it, dreams have many purposes and that dreams aid us in mental to physical health. They help us through different types of dreams.
Ossana says, "They come for many purposes.... and the majority of people agree dreams ALWAYS come to benefit our physical, emotional and spiritual health and well-being nightmares and equally disturbing dreams" (http://www.understandthemeaningofmydreams.com/cgi-bin/article/news.cgi?act=read&cat=18&num=3).
A lot of people have nightmares, they ask if nightmares can actually help them.
Dreams are the images that during sleep. They have been with us since birth. Dreams can affect us in our everyday living. Even though we have been dreaming since birth, we still don't know why we do it.
Roberta Ossana, wrote on an article entitled, "The Many Types of Dreams & Purposes for Which Dreams Come to Us." According to it, dreams have many purposes and that dreams aid us in mental to physical health. They help us through different types of dreams.
Ossana says, "They come for many purposes.... and the majority of people agree dreams ALWAYS come to benefit our physical, emotional and spiritual health and well-being nightmares and equally disturbing dreams" (http://www.understandthemeaningofmydreams.com/cgi-bin/article/news.cgi?act=read&cat=18&num=3).
A lot of people have nightmares, they ask if nightmares can actually help them.
Kendra Cherry, wrote an article "Do Dreams Influence Your Daily Life" According to the article, Both dreams and nightmares can help us. They make us see things differently. Nightmares help us by making us aware of dangers and how we can overcome it. Dreams help us see the beauty in small things.
Cherry says that "Both nightmares and dreams can help us become more aware of ourselves. they bring strange ways of looking at things. They bring new perspectives, and in that way the dream is very creative" (http://psychology.about.com/b/2010/10/19/poll-do-dreams-influence-your-daily-life.htm).
Everyone gets depressed sometimes. People commit suicide because they get too depressed that they feel like they can't continue there lives. Some researcher say that dreams can cure depression.
Neil Osterweil wrote an article " The Health Benefits of Dreams" According to it, dreams can actually clear depression. Recently divorced women with untreated clinical depression who projects their ex-spouse or relationship into their dreams scored better on tests of mood in the morning.
Osterweil says that "It really shows that there was an ongoing working through the night in the dream material, and eventually that the depression lifted in those people" (http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/features/the-health-benefits-of-dreams).
All people get stressed. Some people sleep to feel calm and be less stressful. Can dreams really relieve stress?
Jeanna Bryner wrote an article entitled "7 Mind-Bending Facts About Dreams" According to it, dreams can relieve stress. It makes us wake up in the morning smiling. It helps us cool down, it softens the emotional strength of some emotional experiences.
Bryner says that "We know REM sleep there is a sharp decrease in levels of norepinephrine, a brain chemical associated with stress" (http://www.livescience.com/17290-facts-dreams-nightmares.html).
The researcher observes that dreams can help us be successful and that dreams can also help us with mental and physical problems.
Dreams are very abstract. They not only help us through health, they also help us into some situations like survival. Dreams are also symbols that give us warnings, they help us see danger or the danger in the future.
The purpose of the paper is to show how dreams can give us good benefits and how dreams can affect our lives.
B. Statement of the problem
This study aims to answer the following question:
1. Benefits of dreams and how it can affect our lives?
Cherry says that "Both nightmares and dreams can help us become more aware of ourselves. they bring strange ways of looking at things. They bring new perspectives, and in that way the dream is very creative" (http://psychology.about.com/b/2010/10/19/poll-do-dreams-influence-your-daily-life.htm).
Everyone gets depressed sometimes. People commit suicide because they get too depressed that they feel like they can't continue there lives. Some researcher say that dreams can cure depression.
Osterweil says that "It really shows that there was an ongoing working through the night in the dream material, and eventually that the depression lifted in those people" (http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/features/the-health-benefits-of-dreams).
All people get stressed. Some people sleep to feel calm and be less stressful. Can dreams really relieve stress?
Jeanna Bryner wrote an article entitled "7 Mind-Bending Facts About Dreams" According to it, dreams can relieve stress. It makes us wake up in the morning smiling. It helps us cool down, it softens the emotional strength of some emotional experiences.
Bryner says that "We know REM sleep there is a sharp decrease in levels of norepinephrine, a brain chemical associated with stress" (http://www.livescience.com/17290-facts-dreams-nightmares.html).
The researcher observes that dreams can help us be successful and that dreams can also help us with mental and physical problems.
Dreams are very abstract. They not only help us through health, they also help us into some situations like survival. Dreams are also symbols that give us warnings, they help us see danger or the danger in the future.
The purpose of the paper is to show how dreams can give us good benefits and how dreams can affect our lives.
B. Statement of the problem
This study aims to answer the following question:
1. Benefits of dreams and how it can affect our lives?
C. Significance of the study
Students. Students who are studying about dreams and how it affects us.
Dreamers. People who like to dream and want to know some benefits about it.
D. Scope and Delimitation
This study will focus on letting people know how dreams help us. How it affects our lives and some benefits that can be useful from time to time.
This study will no longer focus on the history of dreams and its origins. It only discusses a few benefits of how dreams can help us because of the time constraints.
E. Materials and Methods
The sources that are used are articles that focus on benefits and effects on how people live their life and also some psychological problems.
Every piece of information that is taken will be put here, and those who made the articles will be credited.
F. Definition of Terms
1. Lucid Dreams - Conscious while sleeping and the ability to control dreams.
2. Nightmares - Disturbing or scary images that appear during our sleep
3. REM Sleep - A kind of sleep that occurs at intervals during the night and is characterized by rapid eye movements, more dreaming and bodily movement, and faster pulse and breathing.
Benefits of dreams and how it can affect our lives?
I. Definition of dreams
Dreams are a series of thought, images, sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep. They are the images that move during unconscious state. Dreams expand our creativity, we can do almost anything in a dream. Dreams destroy the barriers of what a normal person can do.
Dreams usually consists of people who you may know, places where you might have been or places
that seem to be unrealistic. Dreams can also be pretty creepy and pretty disturbing, so be careful because some dreams can traumatize a person.
In an article "Why We Dream, And What Happens When We Do"written by Dennis Rosen there is a solution in fighting nightmares, a technique called lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is when you're conscious while sleeping, making you control your dreams. Since you can control your dreams you can now face your fears.
Rosen says that "Some people are able to "take charge" of their dreams, and manipulate them in certain direction through a technique known as Lucid Dreaming" (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sleeping-angels/200905/why-we-dream-and-what-happens-when-we-do).
Dreams are only moving images in our minds, anything creepy or hostile in our dreams cannot hurt us. The researcher wants to help people in overcoming fears using techniques in dreams.
II. Effects of dreams into people's lives
A. Positive
We now know that dreams can relieve stress, release depression, help us survive, overcome fears, Etc... Dreams are a big help to us. Without them we might be less cheerful in the morning and we won't have those magical and amazing images in our brains.
Robin Nixon wrote an article "Naps and Dreams Boost Learning, Study Finds" According to it, dreams can actually make someone smart. They did a test on participants who had to take a test on a virtual maze on a computer. The others took a nap and the others didn't. All the participants who took a nap did better than the once who didn't.
Nixon says that "99 participants were taught to navigate a virtual maze on a computer screen. Half were then allowed to nap for two hours, while the other half remained awake. Later that day, all participants were re-tested on the maze task" (http://www.livescience.com/9874-naps-dreams-boost-learning-study-finds.html).
Dreams also help us by showing us symbols to what dangers might happen to us in the future, though it is hard to decipher those symbols.
Christina Sponias wrote an article "Positive and Negative Dream Symbols" According to it, all dreams give a message to us that we need to carefully examine, because it may hold clues to future dangers or future luck.
Sponias says that "All dream images contain very important messages. Everything in a dream has a symbolic meaning. The dream language is a secret language. It is hidden from your dangerous anti conscience."
(http://www.divinecaroline.com/self/dreams/positive-and-negative-dream-symbols)
Dreams can warn us if danger is coming. It is very helpful that dreams can give us information that hasn't happen yet.
B. Negative
Even though dreams are helpful, there is also a down side to it. They give us nightmares which can traumatize us and scar us for life. There is even a myth that some people die from sleeping, that a demon takes their souls. In the Philippines it is called "Bangungot"
David Hambling wrote an article "Nightmare death syndrome" According to it, a man died just because he went to bed. No one knew what the cause was because doctors couldn't find any physical injuries.
Hambling says that "A man who goes to be fit and healthy is heard to cry out in his sleep, and the next morning is found dead. The same scene is repeated again and again" (http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/medicalbag/335/nightmare_death_syndrome.html).
People say that they are demons from deadly dreams. Some people go crazy in their beds, kicking and screaming.
5. There is a cure for nightmares or any fear that has developed into a person. A technique called Lucid Dream.
CONCLUSION
Based on the finding of this study, the following conclusions are drawn:
1. All good things have down sides. Even if it is a beautiful thing or something that can make us powerful it will still have a downside.
2. Dreams cannot hurt anyone even if there dreams project their worst fears.
3. Dreams have a ton of uses. It is not just an escape or random images that appear during sleep.
RECOMMENDATIONS
After drawing conclusions of the study, the researcher hereby makes the following suggestions/ recommendations:
1. People who experience a lot of nightmares should try lucid dreaming to overcome it. They can also use lucid dreaming as way to project real creatures that scare you and try to figure out what can help you overcome them.
2. People should try to read there dreams and decode the secret messages encoded to them. See what hidden messages are waiting for them.
3. Readers should try to sleep and dream to relieve depression and stress. A life with less stress and less depression is healthy.
REFERENCES
A. Electronic Media
Christina S. (2014) "Positive and Negative Dream Symbols" Retrieved April 21, 2014 from
http://www.divinecaroline.com/self/dreams/positive-and-negative-dream-symbols
David H. (February 2006) "Nightmare death syndrome" Retrieved April 21, 2014 from
http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/medicalbag/335/nightmare_death_syndrome.html
Dennis R. (May 31, 2009) "Why We Dream, And What Happens When We Do" Retrieved April 21, 2014 from
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sleeping-angels/200905/why-we-dream-and-what-happens-when-we-do
Dreamers. People who like to dream and want to know some benefits about it.
D. Scope and Delimitation
This study will focus on letting people know how dreams help us. How it affects our lives and some benefits that can be useful from time to time.
This study will no longer focus on the history of dreams and its origins. It only discusses a few benefits of how dreams can help us because of the time constraints.
E. Materials and Methods
The sources that are used are articles that focus on benefits and effects on how people live their life and also some psychological problems.
Every piece of information that is taken will be put here, and those who made the articles will be credited.
F. Definition of Terms
1. Lucid Dreams - Conscious while sleeping and the ability to control dreams.
2. Nightmares - Disturbing or scary images that appear during our sleep
3. REM Sleep - A kind of sleep that occurs at intervals during the night and is characterized by rapid eye movements, more dreaming and bodily movement, and faster pulse and breathing.
CHAPTER 2
DISCUSSION
DISCUSSION
Benefits of dreams and how it can affect our lives?
I. Definition of dreams
Dreams are a series of thought, images, sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep. They are the images that move during unconscious state. Dreams expand our creativity, we can do almost anything in a dream. Dreams destroy the barriers of what a normal person can do.
Dreams usually consists of people who you may know, places where you might have been or places
that seem to be unrealistic. Dreams can also be pretty creepy and pretty disturbing, so be careful because some dreams can traumatize a person.
In an article "Why We Dream, And What Happens When We Do"written by Dennis Rosen there is a solution in fighting nightmares, a technique called lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is when you're conscious while sleeping, making you control your dreams. Since you can control your dreams you can now face your fears.
Rosen says that "Some people are able to "take charge" of their dreams, and manipulate them in certain direction through a technique known as Lucid Dreaming" (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sleeping-angels/200905/why-we-dream-and-what-happens-when-we-do).
Dreams are only moving images in our minds, anything creepy or hostile in our dreams cannot hurt us. The researcher wants to help people in overcoming fears using techniques in dreams.
II. Effects of dreams into people's lives
A. Positive
We now know that dreams can relieve stress, release depression, help us survive, overcome fears, Etc... Dreams are a big help to us. Without them we might be less cheerful in the morning and we won't have those magical and amazing images in our brains.
Robin Nixon wrote an article "Naps and Dreams Boost Learning, Study Finds" According to it, dreams can actually make someone smart. They did a test on participants who had to take a test on a virtual maze on a computer. The others took a nap and the others didn't. All the participants who took a nap did better than the once who didn't.
Nixon says that "99 participants were taught to navigate a virtual maze on a computer screen. Half were then allowed to nap for two hours, while the other half remained awake. Later that day, all participants were re-tested on the maze task" (http://www.livescience.com/9874-naps-dreams-boost-learning-study-finds.html).
Dreams also help us by showing us symbols to what dangers might happen to us in the future, though it is hard to decipher those symbols.
Christina Sponias wrote an article "Positive and Negative Dream Symbols" According to it, all dreams give a message to us that we need to carefully examine, because it may hold clues to future dangers or future luck.
Sponias says that "All dream images contain very important messages. Everything in a dream has a symbolic meaning. The dream language is a secret language. It is hidden from your dangerous anti conscience."
(http://www.divinecaroline.com/self/dreams/positive-and-negative-dream-symbols)
Dreams can warn us if danger is coming. It is very helpful that dreams can give us information that hasn't happen yet.
B. Negative
Even though dreams are helpful, there is also a down side to it. They give us nightmares which can traumatize us and scar us for life. There is even a myth that some people die from sleeping, that a demon takes their souls. In the Philippines it is called "Bangungot"
David Hambling wrote an article "Nightmare death syndrome" According to it, a man died just because he went to bed. No one knew what the cause was because doctors couldn't find any physical injuries.
Hambling says that "A man who goes to be fit and healthy is heard to cry out in his sleep, and the next morning is found dead. The same scene is repeated again and again" (http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/medicalbag/335/nightmare_death_syndrome.html).
People say that they are demons from deadly dreams. Some people go crazy in their beds, kicking and screaming.
CHAPTER 3
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
SUMMARY
This paper attempted to determine the effects and benefits of dreams.
The researcher design used a descriptive research method wherein data and articles are used to answer the research questions. Research findings are:
1. Dreams have different types like lucid dreaming, nightmares, Epic dreams, daydreams, healing dreams, Repeating dreams, Etc.,.
2. Dreams can cure depression and stress.
3. Dreams can traumatize someone. Someone maybe traumatized if they experience a very disturbing or a very scary nightmare.
4. There is a myth called "Nightmare Death Syndrome"
This paper attempted to determine the effects and benefits of dreams.
The researcher design used a descriptive research method wherein data and articles are used to answer the research questions. Research findings are:
1. Dreams have different types like lucid dreaming, nightmares, Epic dreams, daydreams, healing dreams, Repeating dreams, Etc.,.
2. Dreams can cure depression and stress.
3. Dreams can traumatize someone. Someone maybe traumatized if they experience a very disturbing or a very scary nightmare.
4. There is a myth called "Nightmare Death Syndrome"
5. There is a cure for nightmares or any fear that has developed into a person. A technique called Lucid Dream.
CONCLUSION
Based on the finding of this study, the following conclusions are drawn:
1. All good things have down sides. Even if it is a beautiful thing or something that can make us powerful it will still have a downside.
2. Dreams cannot hurt anyone even if there dreams project their worst fears.
3. Dreams have a ton of uses. It is not just an escape or random images that appear during sleep.
RECOMMENDATIONS
After drawing conclusions of the study, the researcher hereby makes the following suggestions/ recommendations:
1. People who experience a lot of nightmares should try lucid dreaming to overcome it. They can also use lucid dreaming as way to project real creatures that scare you and try to figure out what can help you overcome them.
2. People should try to read there dreams and decode the secret messages encoded to them. See what hidden messages are waiting for them.
3. Readers should try to sleep and dream to relieve depression and stress. A life with less stress and less depression is healthy.
REFERENCES
A. Electronic Media
Christina S. (2014) "Positive and Negative Dream Symbols" Retrieved April 21, 2014 from
http://www.divinecaroline.com/self/dreams/positive-and-negative-dream-symbols
David H. (February 2006) "Nightmare death syndrome" Retrieved April 21, 2014 from
http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/medicalbag/335/nightmare_death_syndrome.html
Dennis R. (May 31, 2009) "Why We Dream, And What Happens When We Do" Retrieved April 21, 2014 from
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sleeping-angels/200905/why-we-dream-and-what-happens-when-we-do
Jeanna B. (December 02, 2011) "7 Mind-Bending Facts About Dreams" Retrieved April 21, 2014 from
http://www.livescience.com/17290-facts-dreams-nightmares.html
Kendra C. (October 19, 2010) "Do Dreams Influence Your Daily Life?" Retrieved April 21 2014 from
http://psychology.about.com/b/2010/10/19/poll-do-dreams-influence-your-daily-life.htm
Neil O. (February 25, 2009) "The Health Benefits of Dreams" Retrieved April 21, 2014 from
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/features/the-health-benefits-of-dreams
Robin N. (April 22, 2010) "Naps and Dreams Boost Learning, Study Finds" Retrieve April 21, 2014 from
http://www.livescience.com/9874-naps-dreams-boost-learning-study-finds.html
Roberta O. (2005) "The Many Types of Dreams & Purposes for Which Dreams Come to Us" Retrieved April 21, 2014 from
http://www.understandthemeaningofmydreams.com/cgi-bin/article/news.cgi?act=read&cat=18&num=3
http://www.livescience.com/17290-facts-dreams-nightmares.html
Kendra C. (October 19, 2010) "Do Dreams Influence Your Daily Life?" Retrieved April 21 2014 from
http://psychology.about.com/b/2010/10/19/poll-do-dreams-influence-your-daily-life.htm
Neil O. (February 25, 2009) "The Health Benefits of Dreams" Retrieved April 21, 2014 from
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/features/the-health-benefits-of-dreams
http://www.livescience.com/9874-naps-dreams-boost-learning-study-finds.html
http://www.understandthemeaningofmydreams.com/cgi-bin/article/news.cgi?act=read&cat=18&num=3
