Bolger 1

Anna Bolger

Mr. Randolph

AP Psychology P6

9 December 2019

The Interpretation of Life Through Dreams

Every night billions of people around the world, fall asleep and then wake up the next

morning energized and ready for a new day. ​Sleep​ is the periodic, natural loss of consciousness,

which allows for ​dreams​ to occur, a sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing

through a sleeping person's mind. Sigmund Freud believed in multiple dream theories such as

latent content​ -the underlying meaning of a dream-, ​manifest content​ -the remembered

storyline of a dream-, and ​wish fulfillment​ -the process by which unconscious desires are met

when they cannot be met by the ego or superego-. There are a multitude of dream theories other

than just Sigmund Freud’s, that can be applied to our dreams, such as cognitive theory,

physiological function, and activation-synthesis. While my own dreams are best analyzed

through my wishes and the information processing of the encounters in my everyday life.

The manifest of a dream allows for a deeper analysis of the storyline, through the

underlying meanings of the latent content. I once had a dream where I was at a Cal Poly

sleepover camp with the whole school, and everyone was sitting down for dinner. We were all

trying to escape the mall where we were eating, to get back to Mercer Island. Once a group of us

were able to get onto a plane, we all realized that we could not escape the college. I think that the

act of me trying to get home in my dream symbolizes the fear of eventually leaving and being
 Bolger 2

away from home due to college. The underlying meanings of my dreams contain major symbols

that represent a deeper analysis of my emotions and thoughts.

Sigmund Freud’s wish fulfillment is a theory that emphasizes our desires and wants

through our unconscious dreams. In a dream of racing, I won a Spartan Race and my dad was

there waiting for me at the finish line. Once I finished the race, I decided to do another lap to

complete an Ultra Beast race distance alongside Ryan Atkins and Aaron Newell (Spartan pros).

This dream represents my strong desire for racing, the live atmosphere these events bring, the

amazing people I meet along the way, and the dream of eventually completing an Ultra Beast

race distance. Freud’s wish fulfillment theory represents my multiple dreams of desires to affirm

my real-life wishes.

Information-processing allows for the daytime memories to be further developed in the

dreams that occur during the ​REM sleep​ stage. In a particular dream that I had, there were scav

hunt team colors everywhere and everyone was playing games outside. I saw the yellow team

taunting a run-down house across the street. Then the owner, a dirty middle-aged man, came

outside and everyone started to run away. I believe that this dream occurred because of the abuse

training course, containing information on situations and how to prevent accusations of abuse,

that I had taken that evening. This dream of a molester targeting the students at my school

reinforced the importance and memory of the lessons displayed in the training course. The dream

theory of information processing allows for the small and large moments in our lives to be

relieved once again through dreams, which will encompass the most important ideas and

memories to stand out.

 Bolger 3

Through thorough documentation and analysis of my dreams, I can conclude that the two

dream theories that are most applicable to myself, are information processing and wish

fulfillment. While someone else’s dreams may be best analyzed through a different dream theory

other than the ones that pertain to mine. But what ties most humans together is the ability to

sleep and dream each night, unless they are affected by a sleep disorder. Our dreams are our own

stories that are created by our minds, with the intent of our own interpretation.