Dreams and Dreaming

Dreams and Dreaming: Analysis, Interpretation and Meaning begins with a review of an integrative phenomenological approach to psychotherapy. More specifically, the authors outline the dream-interpretation method of Daseinsanalytical psychotherapy compared to Freudian and Jungian dream analysis. The main working method of Daseinsanalysis is dream interpretation, since the subject mostly reveals herself/himself through dreams. The authors go on to maintain that memory processing and lucidity are better viewed on the sleep-wake continuum, independent of the REM sleep versus non-REM question, as processes contiguous with waking. The strongest evidence supporting a special relationship between REM sleep and dreaming comes from studies addressing the types of thought present in different forms of dreaming. Next, dream motifs and experiences are described from personal and universal perspectives in the context of a simulation of 'madness'. The authors' sense of madness is derived from the cinematic semiosis presented by Patrick Fuery (2004) and Christian Metz (1991). Important aspects of dreams and of their probable interpretations are comparable to a cinematic experience, including time bending and various degrees of spectatorship involvement. Following this, this book makes considerations about, 'the value that the Freudian interpretation accords to latent contents and to the actual shape of dreams, the defaulting status of the object of desire, the relationship that the accomplishment of desire implies between encounter and confrontation and between deception and truth, and the problem of fetishism.' Lastly, the pair of Dora's dreams written down by Sigmund Freud in light of two modern functional theories concerning the phenomenon of dreaming are revisited. The authors shed light on new hypotheses regarding the dreams, confirming the accuracy of several theories.