Prompt Question #1: Do you think dreams have meaning? Do you believe that they are just random or do you think that they hold meaning? Please elaborate.

I do believe that dreams have meanings and especially for nightmares. Because I remember when I was younger, every time I have a terrible nightmare, my parents would tell me to remain calm and shed aways the fears because dreams are always the opposite of reality. Come to think of it now as an adult, is there some truth to that analogy? There could be, but ultimately, I believe that dreams are a reflection of one’s personal experience. Think of it as a flashback to a traumatizing event. Coming from my own experience, I was bullied back in elementary and middle school, and during that time, I always had nightmarish dreams such as someone pushing me off of a cliff, someone beating me up, or laughably absurd that I finally made peace to those people bullying me. Sometimes I would even dream about finally becoming best friends to those guys and that they are so protective of me to a point they would beat up other kids that bully me. It sounds really preposterous, right? But in reality, regardless of what the dreams are, they are all tied up to a “significant” event that happened in a person’s real life. Dreams, in my opinion, are either a reflection of a person’s own prospects of a particular event or flashbacks to a particular event. And don’t worry, those dreams are long gone, although COVID still haunts me by taking away my karaoke microphone in my dream. 😂

Prompt Question #2: Do you spend time analyzing your dreams? How often do you remember your dreams? Have you ever had a dream that seemed to predict the future?  Please elaborate. 

Dreams in my opinion are also like movie scripts or screenplays written on toilet paper. Dreams are meant to be fantasized and being surreal. They are certainly not meant to be part of permanent memory and are often single-use disposables just like our face masks. So with that said, most of my dreams are forgotten, or disposed of in this case, the moment I wake up. While some specific ones last longer, they usually won’t last longer than a week or so. Nevertheless, for those dreams that I could still recollect, I do often try to figure out the hidden meaning behind them and especially from a religious point of view. My religious parents, in particular, my mom believe that dreams are messages from God. Therefore, I would usually share my dreams with my mom and see how she decipher that dream in a biblical context. Although I have to admit, my mom’s interpretation rarely comes true. Which give or take, could be a good thing, ya know.

Prompt Question #3: Do you believe that dream dictionaries can give an accurate meaning for a dream? Or do you think dreams are personal and can’t be interpreted with a standard dream dictionary? Please elaborate. 

I don’t believe so myself. However, I wouldn’t be able to rule out the possibility that a dream dictionary may interpret some dreams correctly. That is, provided that the dictionary’s interpretation was based on an enormous amount of past surveys of people with near-identical dreams. Although, I would note that there is also the possibility that one would’ve guessed it right based on just sheer luck or trial and error. Also, coming from a statistical point of view, whenever we get a larger sample size, it will most certainly make the margin of error smaller and hence dramatically increase the chance of getting a correct interpretation.

Prompt Question #4: Do you personally know anyone with a sleep disorder (examples can be found in the chapter, and some can be found in a simple google search)? If so, what is it, and how does it impact the person?  Please elaborate. If you don’t happen to know anyone with a sleep disorder, pick one to discuss and say how you think it would affect that person. 

Honestly speaking, if we were to talk about sleeping disorders, I am quite sure everyone has it, and it greatly attributes to a person’s stress levels. At the end of the day. it is just a matter of magnitude, seriousness, the ability to cope with that stress, and the person’s tolerance levels. I mean, think about it, everything that we do in our “modern” society surrounds the idea of giving the right amount of stress. Without stress, a person will have depression and they will lose sight of their goals and meaning in life, and will likely stay in bed all day, and sleeping too much is also a sleeping disorder. Likewise, if we give too much stress, the person also loses sight of their goal and meaning in life, so they will grow very anxious. That anxiety is what ultimately turns into stress and if the person’s tolerance is low, they will gradually experience sleeping disorders with likes of insomnia for example. So it is crucial that we manage our stress levels and most importantly, know our stress tolerance.

Prompt Question #5: Many people often criticize psychology and say that it is not a “real science”. They say that it is all common sense and that it is a “soft science.” Do you agree or disagree with these comments? Please elaborate in your answers. Points will be awarded based on how thorough you are (not on whether you agree or disagree), so please be honest.  You may wish to discuss what you think “science” is and whether psychology fits that definition. (minimum of 100 words required for the answer to #5). 

Well, I disagree with the fact that people believe that this is a soft science or worst, it’s just all common sense. If something does not immediately appear as self-evident, then it is not common sense. Psychology is one of those subject areas where it requires the scholar, or in this case, the psychologists, both clinically or research specifically, to have an immense amount of societal knowledge and life experiences. Psychologists will need to look beyond the scope of things that have been portrayed and conveyed to you and look further and dig deeper into the root cause of a particular issue. This is actually why when I read the first couple of chapters of the textbook, it is immediately evident to me that psychology has a strong resemblance to that of philosophy. Psychology, in my opinion, is a combination of expertise from sociology, neurology, and philosophy. All of which requires us to think and interpret things critically.

Responses to the professor or other students:

Response #1: First of all, I have to say, your post is super detailed. I really like how you broke things down and spoke from experiences, it is undoubtedly very helpful in following your train of thoughts. It reminds me of the major that you’ve mentioned in the week 1 discussion which is early childhood development. I feel like these type of story-telling techniques is crucial in conveying messages to the adolescent population, so definitely keep it up! Secondly, even though our opinion has a bit of a difference, I do see where you are coming from with your stance on dream dictionaries. I do agree that some particular events that happen in dreams are simply unexplainable through “common” knowledge or definition. Just as a medical procedure, nothing is 100% effective. Although it most certainly can and may provide some clarification of the confusion through a broader perspective, and from the experiences of others. It is almost similar to “算命 (psychic / fortune teller),” there is undoubtedly some truth to it, but at the end of the day, there is no real science behind any of it. It could simply just be from the interpreter’s life experiences, and quite frankly, by mere chance. I guess this is also why my mom’s accuracy rate in interpreting my dreams is nearly 0 percent, haha. And lastly, I totally agree with you that whatever our dreams are though, they must have some form of attachment or links to our reality.

Response #2: Do you know what it reminds me of upon reading your unfinished college application story? It reminds me of the brutal 高考(Chinese college entrance exam). Although I never had the chance (thankfully) to live through it, I could still relate to it because I’ve heard so many horrifying stories about it over the years. Similar to what I mentioned in my post, I believe that stress is technically the number one cause of anxiety and sleep irregularities. Similarly, I believe that stress predominately comes from the people and the environment around us. Thankfully my parents are supportive of my own decisions. Nonetheless, coming from a Chinese family, I had the chance of witnessing all of the incredibly unrealistic high expectations from other parents, as well as those aunt and uncle’s child comparison moments. These are all, in my opinion, unnecessary stresses that are placed on us that would eventually progress into a constant state of anxiety, or worst, mental breakdowns. Quite frankly, the toxic cultural norms are also things that need to take into account in evaluating someone’s psychological wellbeing. So, I hope you are doing well. Although not stressless, I genuinely hope that it’s manageable. After all, I still expect you to appear on the Forbes 500’s list, ya know. 😂

Response #3: To answer your question, I actually believe that significant events do not always have to correlate to something that has happened, but also life events that have helped change or shape the very person you are over the years. For example, in those zombie apocalypse dreams of yours, I am reasonably confident that you are not one of the “zombies” right? I hope not. 😂 Therefore, in those dreams, I believe humans are usually the ones that prevail at the end, regardless of how steep of a price people had to pay in order to get there. So circling back to you as a person of kind heart, if you’ve rescued an incapacitated person or helped someone in need within that dream and/or contributed to fighting off those zombies, this, in my opinion, could also be categorized as a significant event. Because, at the end of the day, something, in reality, helps shape your behavior or the way you react to those catastrophic situations. Your heart will not allow you to leave behind those very people in need. Therefore, in my opinion, although it sounds absurd, there’s always a subconscious of you inside of the dream that is less outrageous while achieving the hopeful and perhaps the best outcome. Hopefully, this helps you! 

Response #4 (Professor): Yes, that’s it, patterns. I do also believe that there isn’t and shouldn’t be a dictionary that interprets dreams. Because I believe interpreting dreams ought to come from a thorough evaluation of the patient’s cultural background, personal experiences, and most importantly, moral values. Although, I would note that a dream dictionary might provide some value to statisticians working in this field to help provide some insight to see whether there’s a correlation between dreams and ethnic background or region/country of origin. As I mentioned in my response to Kelly’s post, I believe some cultural factors, toxic or not, may have immense influences on the dreams within certain groups of people.