Is it possible to decode dream?

_{Is it possible to decode dream?}

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Christopher Nolan's sci-fi thriller Inception has been the hottest movie in town since it hit the screens on Sept 1. Many audiences say this has been a rare film which respects audiences' wisdom in recent years.


The arrangement of many plots of this film is related to features of the dream. Are these seemingly reasonable plots of this film based on science?



It's true that there is a dream within one's dream

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This film stresses that it's difficult for a person to know whether he is in reality or in a dream. However, the outsider finds it easy to judge.


According to Su Changjun, a Chinese sleep expert, it's easy to know whether a person is awake, in a dreamless sleep or in a dream by Polysomnography. The electroencephalogram (EEG) shows a chaotic picture when a person in a dream.


A dream within one's dream is an important plot of this film. In this film, there is no fundamental difference between a dream within one's dream and a dream in the reality. According to Su, people sometimes do have dreams within their dreams but the case is not special, because everything is possible in a dream. People only dream of the action of "dreaming", but don't really enter into the "second layer" of a dream.



Do dreams have to obey the laws of physics?


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This is a fondly debated topic, and Inception has it both ways. Sometimes impossible things happen - in one dream Paris gets folded like a huge sheet of paper - and optical illusions become "real".


However, the dreams follow some "real life" rules. As writer and producer Jeff Warren wrote about his own dream investigations:


Without sensory input, consciousness appears to behave in predictable ways. Informal laws can be deduced, for example, the "law of self-fulfilling expectations" (what you expect to happen will happen) the "law of narrative momentum" (linger too long in one place and the dream world begins to fray).


Dreams can be controlled

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In this film, the dream-snatcher tells his counterpart he's in a dream and the dream snatcher himself is the protector.
This plot is related to lucid dreaming - a dream in which one is aware that one is dreaming.


According to scientists, some people can have lucid dreams easily.


The easiest way to experience a lucid dream is to train yourself to ask, "Am I dreaming?" while you are asleep. Keen video gamers, probably because they focus on a single task for hours per day, are particularly good at lucid dreaming.


The dream team of Inception is highly trained at this, which may be why they are able to perform complex tasks - such as reading - which most normal lucid dreamers find difficult. Some of the characters in the movie have also militarised their dreamscapes, to protect themselves against the invasive dream snatchers.


How does subjective time pass in a dream?


In this film, dream time runs much slower than real time, and there is a scaling effect, such that if you dream within a dream, time passes even more slowly. So 5 minutes of real time equals 1 hour of dream time, a 5-minute dream inside a dream equals one week of second-level dream time, and so on.


This is perhaps the cleverest part of the movie, but though intuitively pleasing, there is little evidence for it. In fact there is some evidence that in lucid dreams, at least, the perception of time in similar to that when the dreamer is awake.


A more pressing question for researchers is what happens when our brain's time perception goes faulty. In fact, the illusion of time may be created by the brain itself, which is at least as much of a head-scratcher as the plot of Inception.


Dream interpretation


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Zhou Gong


Like most cultures, the Chinese put much emphasis on dreaming. In fact, the first recorded information about dreams can be found in the Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, a Chinese manuscript that talks about the relationship between dreams and illness. Each night, as you began to dream, the Chinese believe your soul leaves your body for the dream world. If awakened too suddenly, they fear the soul might not return to the body.


The Chinese believe that dreams and dream analysis could help you learn more about your inner most secrets. This dream analysis could be used to make important decisions or make positive changes in life.


Duke of Zhou (1600-1046 BC) is often referred to as the god of dreams with Zhou gong meaning sleep. Zhou Gong’s Book of Auspicious and Inauspicious Dreams offers interpretation of all types of dreams, including those about weather, planets, home and surroundings, gods and spirits, people, the body, music, living creatures, and other miscellaneous items.


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Freud

Freud thought A dream is a disguised fulfilment of a repressed wish. The interpretation of dreams has as its object the removal of the disguise to which the dreamer's thoughts have been subjected. It is, moreover, a highly valuable aid to psycho-analytic technique, for it constitutes the most convenient method of obtaining insight into unconscious psychical life.


Freud derived dream symbols from the resistance of dream interpretation. He noticed that resistance regularly occurred with certain elements of dreams even in dreams of mentally healthy people. He claimed that formation of visual answer on stimulus (dream) is not coincidental. He figured out that some parts of manifest content typically correspond with certain latent content. Freud called these manifest elements symbols - to which he ascribed constant meaning. The dream symbols are in his opinion more or less sexual.



The function of dreams


Much modern research suggests that dreams help in information processing and memory storage.


Dreams occur in both rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep, and non-REM sleep. REM dreams are more story-like, with emotion and aggression, and non-REM dreams often involve friendly social interactions. People with depression often experience more REM sleep than non-depressed people.



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Is it possible to decode dream?


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What is dream?