From Meaningless Dreams to Meaningful Thoughts

I am a researcher who has engaged advanced, original, historical research for the past 30 years and that has obviously had a huge impact on the way my brain functions.

In 2003, I was left for dead in a serious accident I miraculously survived and I suffer posttraumatic stress disorder as a consequence. To be brief, posttraumatic stress disorder is simply a common response to a traumatic, life threatening situation.

I initially did not have a clue about what posttraumatic stress disorder was, and when a psychologist indicated that I suffered from this condition, his words simply went in one ear and out the other because I did not understand what posttraumatic stress disorder was. After researching the condition on my own, I finally discovered that "posttraumatic stress disorder is the sudden dislocation of everything we believe in."

In my particular circumstance, without going into great detail because it is still inexplicable, I was almost killed when I responded to somebody who asked for my assistance, and since the person who almost killed me has still failed to explain his actions, it has been extremely difficult to get over the trauma of a lifethreatening situation that has imposed the added burden of not knowing why I was put in the position that almost claimed my life.

To understand the process which produced the sentence "posttraumatic stress disorder is the sudden dislocation of everything we believe in" I need to explain it.

For example, in September of 2009, I read the New York Times article "The Holy Grail of the Unconscious", about Carl Jung's Red Book, which will be published tomorow after almost 100 years since it was originally written.

The morning after reading this article and thinking about Carl Jung, I awoke reciting the sentence, "Self-Discovery is the key to effective psychotherapy."

Such sentences, like the one about posttraumatic stress disorder, are repeated without thinking, verbatim. They are evidently processed during sleep and available, first thing in the morning, in words that prove to be very meaningful to me.

I actually read "The Holy Grail of the Unconscious" out loud, and my family and I subsequently engaged a lively discussion about our dreams. The problem is, I don't dream, or at least, I do not remember any of mine. Others had stories to relate, but the last dream I had had was about 6 years ago and it was a nightmare.

Moreover, on about two occasions, just as I was about to fall in a deep sleep, I somehow managed to maintain consciousness and I was able to control my dream the way you control your computer screen when you scroll up and down the page or from side to side.

It must sound strange to think that a person can control a dream, but it's probably not as unusual as we think. I have a feeling that many other people have had this same experience, but it is easily forgotten as I would have, if recent discussion about Carl Jung had not jogged my memory.

Moreover, it is a phenomenon that is very difficult to describe and really quite impossible to adequately understand unless you have been through this unusual experience yourself.

In fact, when I was trying to describe it to my better half, she said, "you were hallucinating" and that is certainly an interesting response. Perhaps a hallucination is a dream-like state in the waking hours, but unlike myself, who was aware of the fact that I was dreaming, people who hallucinate are simply unable to comprehend the difference between a hallucination and reality.

Is it any wonder that I now firmly believe that dreams are merely like the streams of light that pass through your computer when it is warming up or shutting down? I now believe that dreams are unprocessed ideas influenced by individual experience and the content is merely a reflection of what has gone on inside the brain throughout the day.

I contacted a brilliant, forensic psychologist about my views and he said, "I am no expert on dreams, but I suspect that your comment 'I believe that dreams are unprocessed ideas influenced by individual experience and the content is merely a reflection of what has gone on inside the brain throughout the day' may accord pretty well with the science of human cognition."

Indeed, we know that thinking is a biological function performed by the brain, but has anybody explored the fact that "processing" is also a biological function that is performed by a brain that has completed the thinking phase of its activity?

The fascinating thing is that in my experience, there is no difference between the "processing" that occurs during sleep and the highly developed thinking process that is responsible for completing sentences in the waking period.

When I was in university, I will never forget the words of my psychology 101 professor who said something like "Carl Rogers approach to treatment was very simple. He never said anything. He simply listened to his patient and nodded his head." This is obviously not a verbatim quote, it is a figurative interpretation of what I heard, but the point is, these thoughts about Carl Rogers lay dormant in my head, and I suspect they were somehow processed with my recent thinking and discussions about Carl Rogers.

Like a computer, this "processor" that spit out the summary about what effective psycotherapy is must have its capacity, and I strongly suspect that I rarely recall my dreams because all the "programs" in my head are occupied and I need to close some of them, in order to provide the opportunity to recall my dreams.

Do we know anything about the brain activities that process thought content during sleep? Is it not natural to suspect that this process that produces completed sentences is a form of dreaming with a purpose or a rational structure?

If the idea that the brain can change its own structure and function through thought and activity is accurate, then is not also reasonable to assume that years of non-stop research have had a profound effect on mine and that my "dream-like" experiences that process thoughts are a reflection of the fact that my brain has changed?

Dr. Norman Doidge, a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and researcher has written a book called "The Brain that Changes Itself", and he is evidently breaking new ground in this area that acknowledges the plasticity of the human brain.

I have not read his book but I obviously find the claim that the brain changes itself, enticing. This possibility leads me to believe that I do not remember my dreams because my brain is too busy processing real thoughts that are somehow made available to me as soon as I awake. It appears as if the very same process that produces meaningless dreams can produce meaningful thoughts, if the brain has been exercised enough to function in this extraordinary capacity.

Finally, I note that Carl Jung found himself in opposition to Freud and other psychiatrists who spoke the exclusive, clinical language of symptom and diagnosis. Carl Jung focused upon the task of resolvimg the unbalanced equilibrium of the psyche as a whole, and in my view, that is the only legitimate role of an otherwise intrusive profession.