From a scientific point of view, a dream is a special type of imagination that contains a person’s cherished desire. If a dream comes true, he, to one degree or another, becomes happy. The definition of “dream” has its own characteristics: first of all, the image of a dream is emotionally rich, moreover, our desires have a close connection with the confidence in their fulfillment.
Is there any benefit to daydreaming?
A dream is what you want to live for; it is what gives you a full life, filled with bright emotions. A dream is purely individual, that is, everyone has their own, with characteristic differences and features.
If a person makes plans for the future and dreams, it means that he has an incentive to grow and improve.
The life of a person who strives for something will never be devoid of meaning. A dream helps to strengthen fortitude and improve moral qualities. The presence of a goal helps you strive for it and look for ways to realize it. A dream undoubtedly gives joy and lifts your spirits. If a person plans something for the future, he definitely sees meaning in his existence.
Some people believe that dreaming is not useful: why dream if you can live a real life? This is where they are wrong. A person who does not have a specific goal and lives one day at a time is not as happy as someone who dreams. People who see no meaning in the future may be upset or disappointed about something, and there may be a bit of bitterness in them. But it is worth noting that even the most desperate person has his own dream: without desires, a person would be like a robot.
A dream drives us, it forces us to work and improve, it allows us to competently plan our lives. This or that goal may require a lot of time, physical and moral strength from us, but we will still come to it because we really want it.
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A dream can be completely different: someone wants to spend a vacation in a colorful corner of the planet, someone wants to buy a comfortable home, someone dreams of meeting a soul mate with whom they want to create a strong family. A dream distinguishes us from animals, for whom the main thing is needs.
On the way to making your dreams come true
To make our wish come true, we need to make some efforts. It cannot be said with certainty that few succeed in making their dreams come true. People plan, work, show persistence, patience, and their plans come true! To make your dream come true, you must first compare your capabilities, rationally calculate them, weighing all the pros and cons. A person who does not have sufficient determination may retreat on the path to his dream, and as a result, it will never come true.
A person with a strong spirit will be able to step over himself if his life goal requires it, and in the end he will get what he wanted. What is a dream and what is the line between it and an illusion? The question is quite complicated. An illusion is something that a person has imagined, which has nothing to do with a dream. The main feature of illusion is that it does not give a positive outlook on the future; a person does not receive moral nourishment from it. However, if we dream all the time and do nothing, our desires will turn into illusions; they can become an obsessive thought that will only irritate us. A person lives at the moment when he moves towards his goal.
Any dream can come true, it all depends on how strongly a person strives for this realization. Some people believe that very few wishes come true in life; everything is hindered by external circumstances that are not favorable to us. If something is really destined to happen, higher powers will definitely help, but this will not happen without the participation of the person himself - the creator of his own destiny. There is a very good rule of psychologists: if you cannot change your circumstances, change your attitude towards them.
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Sometimes circumstances are not the best, but if we really live our dream, truly want something, there will be no obstacles for us, we will try to find a way out of any, even the most difficult situation. The main thing is to listen to your inner voice, which will certainly never deceive you. It’s worth repeating: a dream is purely individual, it is what our heart wants.
How and why do we dream?
It is believed that adults do not dream, they make plans. However, the ability to dream is an important mechanism for personality development. How and why do we dream? Why are dreams needed? How do they develop and what function do they perform?
It is natural for a child to dream. By adolescence and adolescence, dreams become the strongest and most vivid. However, not every adult retains this ability. What is a dream? What is its purpose in human life? Why do children and adults need dreams? Let's try to find answers to these questions.
What is a dream?
A dream is a special type of imagination, characterized by intentionality, awareness and aimed at forming an image of the desired future. A dream as a type of imagination is at the junction of cognitive processes: thinking, memory, perception.
Psychologist B.I. Dodonov identifies the characteristic features of a dream:
- A dream manifests itself in the work of the imagination.
- She is aware.
- Emotionally saturated.
- Strongly connected with personality.
Manifesting itself in the work of the imagination, the dream develops and becomes more detailed over time. Having initially arisen, it can have a rather vague form, but over time it acquires clear, extremely specific outlines.
Filling dreams with specific images is associated with a person’s direct personal experience.
The dream image is emotionally rich. It evokes positive feelings in its owner. A strong dream can act as a motivator, an incentive for human development. Forces him to take steps towards his realization.
However, specific ways to realize a dream are usually poorly defined. The desired future is presented in its finished form. Making a dream come true involves building a plan based on it. As a rule, the owner of a dream understands how feasible it is.
How does a dream appear?
Firstly, a dream can be a way of emotional release in a stressful or frustrating situation. Dreams “...help to maintain weak hopes, alleviate feelings of inferiority, or reduce some real grievances.” According to research by B.I. Dodonov, a situation of negative stress is the source of dreams in 70% of cases.
Secondly, a dream appears as a reaction to a situation of success or approval.
Emotional uplift increases faith in one's strength and abilities. The imagination “plays out”, generating pictures of even greater success. For this reason, dreams arose in 30% of cases.
Regardless of the reason for its occurrence, the dream does not disappear when the stressful situation ends (both positive and negative stress). It remains and develops further, changing its function.
Dream functions
The functionality of dreams changes over time:
- Initially, at the moment of its appearance, a dream plays the role of a kind of “defense mechanism”, protecting the psyche from a traumatic situation.
So, in a situation where one or a loved one is ill, a child may begin to dream about how he will invent cures for all diseases.
At the same time, in the process of daydreaming, a complex process of assimilation of the experience gained in a frustrating situation occurs. With the help of the dreaming mechanism, a person is able to transform negative experiences into real positive life achievements.
“To illustrate this “mechanism,” we present excerpts from the work of a student at the Faculty of Mathematics of our university, Marina S. Since childhood, the girl dreamed of becoming a teacher. She writes: “How did this dream begin for me? It happened like this... I hadn’t seen my parents for three years, and now they arrived. A week after my arrival, it’s my mother’s birthday. And on this day I received a remark from the teacher. Since it is not the first, she calls her mother to school. I ask you to wait at least a day, I explain the reason. But our strict “class lady” remains adamant. And I remember all her mistakes, she seems to me the most unpleasant, the most callous and cruel person. I'm desperate that I can't convince her. I say: “You acted unfairly, someday I will prove it to you.” Somehow it turned out that this small event became not only the basis of my dream, but also decided the future of my life. I began to dream... I dreamed of a school in which there would only be teachers who could understand the feelings of the children and would be close and dear to them. And she herself dreamed of becoming the best among teachers. I dreamed of how I would be loved by children, how I would give everything to them, and they would appreciate me for it. It was interesting for me to dream about how I could replace someone’s mother. My dreams changed something for me, in my character, in my attitude towards life.”
The type of general emotional orientation of Marina S. determined by our method is altruistic; The girl has proven herself well in social work with children and attends a special pedagogical elective. All this allows us to take her statements with sufficient confidence.”
- In a situation of resentment or aggression, when it is impossible to respond to the aggressor, a person takes revenge on him in his dreams.
In the latter case, the dream is a way of “acting out” aggression. Emotions experienced in the imagination do not spill out. This mechanism is described by L.S. Vygotsky. It.
- Subsequently, the function of the dream changes. It becomes a way of “saturation” with desired experiences, a way to cope with boredom, to blossom and fill one’s own life in situations of “emotional hunger.” The limitations of external impressions can be compensated by immersion in dreams.
- With emotional saturation, a dream itself can become an internal need.
“Sometimes it seems to me that I am always dreaming,”
writes student Tatyana K.
“If you don’t dream, then life is not at all interesting.”
Dodonov B.I. marks this statement as typical.
- A dream allows you to “escape” the unsightly reality into your own world. If external circumstances do not satisfy a person, then in his dreams he is able to build a comfortable and beautiful world according to his own ideas.
For adults, in situations of dissatisfaction with their own lives, retreating into dreams becomes a way of living a kind of “alter-life.” Immersion in a dream allows you not to think about the need for external changes and makes real life more bearable. However, moments of “epiphany” in this case become especially painful.
- One of the most significant functions of a dream is its ability to “project” the desired future. In dreams, an image of a “needed future” is created, which provides an incentive for development and external actions.
In adolescence, this dream function is most significant. It is expressed in the imagination of the desired social roles. With age, the significance of the “designing” function of dreams does not fade away. For adults, dreams allow them to form images of realizing current needs.
One and the same dream can realize several functions at the same time: escape from reality is combined with its simultaneous projection of the desired image of the future, protection from frustration and stress goes hand in hand with “acting out” aggressive emotions.
Dreams and age
The ability to dream and the content of dreams changes with age.
In dreams, a child projects his attitude towards the environment. Dodonov B.I. compared the students’ naive childhood dreams with their current emotional orientation. In more than half of the cases they completely coincided. The author offers the following explanation. On the one hand, a dream is the mechanism that shapes the orientation of the individual, on the other hand, it allows us to identify an already emerging system of relationships. Thus, a dream is a two-way process; it itself forms and, at the same time, transmits a system of relationships of the individual. It is likely that the younger the child, the stronger the “creative” function of dreams. In adolescence, the “designing” task comes to the fore.
The productive function of dreams in adults is to “design” the realization of current higher needs. For example, the need to help others, improve the world, make loved ones happier. In dreams, these needs receive options for their possible implementation. And it depends on the person himself whether this dream will be realized. Making your dreams come true helps make adult life more attractive, fulfilled and interesting.
Failure to realize the dreams of youth at an older age can lead to disappointment and dissatisfaction with the way life has turned out. Sometimes attempts may be made to “go back to the past” in order to still realize the plan. In some cases, one can observe “compensatory” behavior when a dream is partially realized, taking into account adjustments to reality.
Thus, the ability to dream is an important mechanism for the development of personality at different stages of its life. Maintaining the ability to dream and realizing dreams becomes one of the conditions for a full, rich, deeply lived life.
Dream, make your dreams come true and be happy!
Literature:
- Vygotsky L.S. Psychology of art. M., 1986.
- Dodonov B.I. Emotion as a value. M., Politizdat, 1978. 272 p.
- Maklakov A.G. General psychology: Textbook for universities. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2008. - 583 p.
- Shibutani T. Social psychology. Rostov n/d: Phoenix, 1999, 539 p. — page 74
