![\"Dream](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Dream-Door.jpg\")
<\/a>Are dreams a window to another world or dimension? Maybe a look into the future? A physiological process in response to something in the environment? A biological necessity? In short: when our heads hit the pillow and we get some shut eye, what on earth are we thinking?<\/span><\/p>\n\u2026Perchance to Dream<\/h2>\n
Dreams can come in many variations. Some dreams are extremely vivid. Others are much hazier. Some dreams wake you up and you can describe them in great details. Others you don\u2019t even remember having. Sometimes, in dreams, you have superpowers and can do incredibly unnatural things. Other times you\u2019re inept, like you\u2019re running in glue, barely able to move or escape. Some people notice recurring dreams or recurring themes in their dreams. I used to have this recurring dream that I was sitting in a college classroom taking a test, but I had never gone to the class. When I looked at the test, I didn\u2019t know anything. I had it probably 50 times through college and grad school. The night after I defended my doctoral dissertation, the recurring dream started, but this time I threw down the paper and walked out of the class. That was the last time I had it. Don\u2019t need to be Freud to figure that one out! Some people can explain certain aspects of their dreams as relating to things they have seen or experienced in the past couple of days. Or recently some of my cops have delved into their own police psychology<\/strong> when they describe dreams of dangerous shoot-no shoot situations where they can\u2019t make up their minds because the perpetrator is a minority. Pretty safe one to interpret given the news of the United States. But all this still begs the question: what is a dream?<\/span><\/p>\n Early psychoanalysts explained that dreams are a way to safely live our unconscious fantasies and desires. It is a way for us to experience things that society may deem inappropriate or detrimental. Like dreaming of burning down your school building or office, or dating your celebrity crush. However, when you dream about a killer ballerina chasing after you with a bloody ax, or a girl you\u2019re dating turning into a huge nasty boa constrictor and choking you out (no wonder I stayed single such a long time) \u2026you\u2019d probably need to ask yourself what\u2019s wrong with your unconscious and why you would ever have such strange desires. True, your unconscious may not be playing out your desires literally, but that doesn\u2019t negate the fact that there\u2019s probably more to the story. So, let\u2019s put the idea that dreams help us live out our unconscious fantasies on the back burner and explore some other possibilities.<\/span><\/p>\n When we sleep, we go through different cycles. REM sleep, which stands for Rapid Eye Movement, is when our dreams occur. During REM sleep, our limbic system is activated. This includes the amygdala (which is involved in our fight-or-flight response) and the hippocampus (which is involved in memory consolidation and storage). The activation-synthesis model of dreaming suggests that when these internal processes are triggered, our brain synthesizes and interprets the information provided and attempts to makes sense of it by creating visuals for us: dreams.<\/span><\/p>\n There are many studies that suggest the necessity of dreaming. Studies in which participants were woken right as they were entering REM sleep showed that these individuals experienced higher rates of tension, anxiety, irritation, and irritability. They also ate a lot more food and gained weight more easily. Without dreams, memory consolidation would be a lot harder, and the information that typically travels into our long-term memory during this time would not do so. Although it is still unclear exactly why all these things occur, depriving people of the ability to dream can have severe consequences on their mental and physical health. They can even start having hallucinations. One of the first things I do when someone comes in physically disturbed or in PTSD is try to get them sleeping right. Need to get that full REM time.<\/span><\/p>\n Some physiologists say we are just eating up old neurotransmitters when we dream. Are you getting the idea we don\u2019t really agree on things. It goes back to my old saying when you have many interpretations of the same phenomenon maybe that is because there is not just one cause. When multiple causes are behind something we often call it an interaction effect<\/a>. Maybe sometimes our dreams are eating up neurotransmitters, maybe we are living out our unconscious desires in some dreams, maybe we are just entertaining ourselves with other dreams. It is hard to say when you have an interaction effect. So how do you interpret them if there is no one cause? That I leave to the simple steps below.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Police Psychology | Dreams: What Do They Mean? In police psychology we often get asked the question, \u201cwhat does my dream mean?\u201d A dream is a wish your heart makes when you\u2019re fast asleep\u2026When Cinderella sang this song many years ago, she was just adding to an age-old psychological and philosophical debate. Are dreams a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17168888],"tags":[17168855,17168797,17168831],"class_list":["post-862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-information","tag-dreams","tag-police-psychology","tag-police-stress"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5610,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=5610","url_meta":{"origin":862,"position":0},"title":"Police Psychology: Wish List","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"March 9, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology:\u00a0 Wish List by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.\u00a0 ABPP When I finished my doctoral dissertation, I had mesmerized my committee with a great presentation and knew just about everything ever published on my topic: \u201ctraining parents to make kids behave.\u201d\u00a0 I literally knew more then anyone in the room\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mastering Thoughts"","block_context":{"text":"Mastering Thoughts","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168878"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Cop-with-family1-300x236.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2644,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=2644","url_meta":{"origin":862,"position":1},"title":"Police Psychology | Police Divorce Part 2: Hate to Admit","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"June 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | Police Divorce Part 2: \u00a0Hate to Admit by Dr. Gary S. Aumiller When I was in my late 20\u2019s and just married, I asked a friend of ours (who was really old, a few years short of 40) what was it like to be divorced?\u00a0 Does it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mastering Change"","block_context":{"text":"Mastering Change","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168881"},"img":{"alt_text":"police, divorce, psychology","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/post-divorce-242x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":810,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=810","url_meta":{"origin":862,"position":2},"title":"Hogwarts and Police Psychology","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"October 26, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Hogwarts and Police Psychology by Drs. Gary Aumiller and Scott Stubenrauch (Guest Blogger) What if we told you that Hogwarts was real and police psychology is used frequently with the new students? What if there really was a Sorting Hat that could define your personality and place you into a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Public Information Bureau"","block_context":{"text":"Public Information Bureau","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168888"},"img":{"alt_text":"POLICE PSYCHOLOGY, testing","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/testing-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1334,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=1334","url_meta":{"origin":862,"position":3},"title":"Police Psychology | Rising from the Chains of Addiction","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"March 15, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | Rising from the Chains of Addiction Guest Blogger -- Law Enforcement Officer's Child (name redacted for potential of negative future consequences) \u00a0 The Little Blue Pill. \u00a0An instrument of healing that leads to drowning. \u00a0My first experience with Oxycontin was gleefully numbing and chemically satisfying. \u00a0It served\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mastering Resilience"","block_context":{"text":"Mastering Resilience","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168882"},"img":{"alt_text":"oxycontin, police psychology","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/oxy.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5092,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=5092","url_meta":{"origin":862,"position":4},"title":"Police Psychology | The Obsessed Mind-Body Connection","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"January 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | The Obsessed Mind-Body Connection by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D. ABPP","rel":"","context":"In "Mastering Thoughts"","block_context":{"text":"Mastering Thoughts","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168878"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4552,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=4552","url_meta":{"origin":862,"position":5},"title":"Police Psychology | Emotional Pinball","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"October 26, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | Emotional Pinball by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.\u00a0 ABPP \u00a0","rel":"","context":"In "Mastering Emotions"","block_context":{"text":"Mastering Emotions","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17165629"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p60sbO-dU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":870,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions\/870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Function of Dreams<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Some psychologists who explored the function behind dreams, say that dreams help us organize and evaluate our memories and emotions from the past few days, making it easier to solve our current problems. This is called the information-processing theory of dreams: when we dream, our synapses are strengthened, thus strengthening the connections we made and the information we learned during the day. There is some evidence for that. Dreams are also said to be cathartic\u2014like our own personal therapy. Instead of talking, we dream. Others suggest that we dream in order to prepare ourselves in case we ever encounter threatening situations. Dreams, in other words, are test-runs or practice drills for us. When we dream, our amygdala is activated and firing in similar ways as when we are in threatening situations. Our fight-or-flight response tends to kick in too. In other words, when we\u2019re trying to escape from a hammerhead shark (or that damn boa constrictor, those things move fast you know), that\u2019s our brain\u2019s way of saying, \u201cIf you can do it in your sleep, you can do it in real life.\u201d So, when you find yourself in the middle of the street in Smurf underwear, your brain is going to be patting itself on the back knowing it prepared you for this very moment. \u00a0Don\u2019t quite buy that!<\/span><\/p>\nSo What\u2019s in a Dream?<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Simple Steps to Interpreting Your Dreams<\/h2>\n\n
\u00a0Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.<\/span><\/h5>\n
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