Reflection Essay Example about Dreams

Everyone has dreams, they can be wild or crazy and can have hidden meanings that you don’t realize unless you look deeper. I have a memory of a dream that was so deranged when I woke up that I had to think about it. It had patterns of food and friends. I can use two theories to help interpret my dream. These being the Freudian Wish Fulfillment Theory and the Activation Synthesis Theory. The idea of the Freudian Wish theory is to get a look into our unconscious and fulfill the ID’s desires and wishes that we cannot in our waking life. The Activation Synthesis Theory says that our brain reflects past memories, fears, hopes, and desires which causes our cortex to activate and fire off signals at random, and then in turn it uses those signals to synthesize a story.

I recorded details from a dream that I had a few weeks ago. This dream specifically included hanging out with old friends that I no longer talk or interact with. After that, we all went to a high school football together, which was very busy. During the game, I remember leaving early because those friends were leaving me out. Following leaving the game, I went to a fast-food restaurant where I ate something and got the news that one of my friend’s houses had collapsed on itself. After hearing this news I went to an art class in a mall.

I can interpret this dream, first by using Freud’s Wish Fulfillment Theory. Using this theory I know that the ID’s desires are being fulfilled and getting a deeper look into my unconscious. Three symbols stood out to me in my dream. These being, old friends that I no longer talk to, food, and being at a mall. According to the dream dictionary, old friends in a dream mean you are going through healing, food represents mental nourishment, and being in a mall constitutes acquiring or obtaining something valuable or needed in your life. Beyond the dictionary’s definition, I have a way to connect these to my waking life. Old friends connect to the fact that I lost a very close, important friend. It was rough going through that time; however, I am healing from it. The symbol of food has a few meanings to me. These being possible memories from eating disorder recovery, or the lack of mental nourishment in the aspect of friends. The last of the three symbols that identified was the mall. As stated by Dream Dictionary, a dream that happens in a mall represents the acquiring or obtaining of something valuable or that you need in your life. I can relate this meaning to myself by possibly missing something from my life that I need, such as an important social aspect of friendship. From all of these symbols and the plotline of my dream, I can analyze it to say that my dream means that I am lacking parts of social life and am going through a healing process of losing a friend.

There is another theory that can be used to interpret my dream. This theory is the Activation of Synthesis. The meaning of this theory is the reflection of past memories, fears, hopes, and desires which causes the cortex to activate and send signals at random to synthesize a story. Some things that I found in my dream that this theory can explain are fears and memories. The fear of being left out and memories of being left out and having friends leaving. At the football game, it was busy, so that could represent a fear of crowds. The collapse of the friends’ house could represent the fear of something destructive or devastating happening. After all of these clues, I was able to realize possible fears of mine such as fear of being left out, losing friends, crowds, and fear of destruction or devastation. I also discovered the many memories I have of being left out by people around me.

In conclusion, there is much importance when it comes to looking deeper into the meaning of your dreams. My dream that seemed so out of the ordinary in the fact of hanging with someone who is no longer in my life, that person’s house collapsing upon itself, and taking an art class in a mall, brought me to two realizations. The first being, that I am possibly lacking parts of social life and am going through a healing process of losing a friend. I was able to come to this first analysis using Freud’s Wish Fulfillment theory. The second was the apprehension of my fears and prominent memories. Losing friends, being left out, destruction, devastation, and crowds.