Brittany Rexroat 
Lacy Hanson If I were to ever write a thesis or do some in depth study on one subject, it would be on sleep and dreaming. I have always been extremely fascinated with the way our body ebbs and flows in and out of deep sleep, causing many unpredictable actions. I however, am no expert on the things our body does while sleeping.
Plato, a nativist, believed that while sleeping individuals did not have as much control over certain appetites. He describes the appetite that “skips about, casts off sleep, and seeks to find a way to its gratification” as the “wild and animal part, fill of food and drink”. He goes on to state his opinion that deep inside us “there is a dangerous, wild and lawless kind of desire in everyone, even the few of us who appear moderate. This becomes obvious in our sleep.” He indirectly refers to dreams as well, but does not specifically talk about them. I am not sure how I feel about this philosophy, but I can definitely relate to having some unexpected personality traits in some of my dreams that surprise me frequently. Here is a video on Plato and going to sleep.
Aristotle had both rational and empirical components to his theories. The empirical component is shown when you examine his beliefs about dreaming and the imagination. The text states that “According to Aristotle, when sensations occur, they create images that long outlast the stimulation that caused them. The retention of these images is what constitutes memory.” This is something that I agree with fully. I have experienced many recollections due to my sense of smell, or a lasting image in my mind. The five senses and their sensations last much longer than the experience itself. He also believed that images of past experience could be stimulated by events inside or outside the body during dreaming. He explained the oddness of the images in our dreams by stating that they are not organized by reason during sleep, and we do not have ongoing sensory stimulation during sleep, which control our images and their interactions while awake.
The most interesting part to me about Aristotle’s beliefs on dreaming is his being skeptical about their ability to provide information on future events. He thought that most cases were mere coincidences, but some were capable of predicting important future events.
I know people today at my church that study dreams and actually teach classes on dreaming. They believe that the Lord or the enemy influence almost all of our dreaming, and that it is possibly that prophecy can come from dreaming if it is analyzed according to colors and events.
I hope that one day I can learn more about dreaming and sleep so that I may create my own philosophy and agree or disagree with these greeks.
Anna Brinkman
10:04 am, 02.02.11
I think it’s really cool that you are so interested in this because dreaming is something that a lot of people are really intrigued by, but have little information about. Since dreaming is so subjective it is hard to have any fool proof theory. Bringing Aristotle’s view about sensations and retention of images in to analyzing dreams makes it a lot more concrete, I feel, because just looking a dreams alone is hard to prove anything (by this I mean it is hard to understand when you have not experienced it first hand) but taking the behaviors or deja vu kind of things that come up with dreams really makes it something worth looking at.
Adrienne Lackey
12:46 pm, 02.02.11
I find sleep and dreams to be an extremely interesting topic as well. Personally, I find that if I do not pray before I fall asleep, I do not dream. But when I do pray, I have the most intense dreams that are usually just a blur when I wake up.
Taeyanna Pannell
12:57 pm, 02.02.11
Dreaming is something that is not explored very much but is something that is often a topic of captivation. Since you you cannot really study dreaming, but you can study sleep that does leaves dreams often analyzed. You cannot really study dreams are so abstract and they differ basically each night is concrete, so when people do say the saw the future we often think of it as deja vu and we tend to write it off as a humorous coincidence. I do believe we should try and find new ways to look at and study dreaming.
Brady Campbell
6:33 pm, 02.02.11
I think what you mean Taeyanna is that because dreams are perceptions, they are difficult to compare. I would definitely assume that dreams can be studied. I’ve been doing some light personal research this semester on dreams, specifically-dream vividness. I have looked through numerous dream studies. I have found that there is a huge gap in almost every variable among different people. Bradye, I like that you’re so interested in dreaming as well, probably because I think about my dreams a ton but never hear much of other people talking about dreams. Maybe some of my interest has been raised because of my sleep troubles for about 4 years. I hope that’s not why you’re interested in dreams. Anyway, that was rather unconnected. I would say that our “wild and animal part” is our egos’ way of satisfying our id with much less damage. Furthermore, our dreams are very related to and affected by numerous things, such as the subjects of our daily thoughts. Think about it, if you spend most of tuesday working, worrying, and studying, you are more likely to dream that you wake up and start your homework, but if you then spend wednesday largely thinking about some cute girl, you’re more likely to see her in a dream that night than you were tuesday night. Furthermore, if you have a boring/routined month, you are more likely to have adventurous/dangerous dreams, and if you have a very exciting month, you are likely to dream of certain goals fulfilled, or specific pleasures.
It would be really interesting to have a class project on dreaming or something…
I will not include sources as I would rather each of you go study this stuff yourself and uncover more than I would show you. It’s some awesome stuff.
Candice Watson
1:12 pm, 02.02.11
This is definitely an interesting topic that I think many people would love solid answers to. I wonder if Plato is referring to our subconscious when he speaks of the “wild and lawless kind of desire” that “becomes obvious in our sleep”. I know that I have had some pretty crazy dreams but I’m with you, I’m not sure about his philosophy. I don’t think that I would say that I desire some of the things I dream about. Actually I’ve heard that people who have really bad nightmares may sometimes be struggling with anxiety, more than they are consciously aware of. So maybe the wildness isn’t necessarily some sort of desire but a restlessness within the person. I just think there could be many other causes besides “wild desire within”. I liked some of the other things he said about the lack of reason in the organization of dreams and the oddness of images. I appreciate this post, I like reading different theories on dreams.
Brady Campbell
6:36 pm, 02.02.11
So, I replied my post to Taeyanna, but only part of it was about her reply, I guess I shouldn’t have. I was also referring to Bradye and Candice.
Brady Campbell
6:39 pm, 02.02.11
and when I said “post”, I actually meant my “reply”.
I wonder how many more errors I’ll make tonight…
John Day IV
10:30 pm, 02.02.11
One thing that is odd to me is Aristotle who is extremely dedicated to empirical thought and yet he appears to be using his own thoughts and experience which exist solely in his own mind to explain dreaming. I say this because of his comments of dreams being blurred after thoughts and disorganized surly if he asked around enough someone would have had clearer dreams. Or at least more organized but then again I am talking in hindsight after we have discover that many of us cannot remember a single dream from the night before and that few can recall them clearly. I guess he could have just omitted those cases by calling the exaggerations of what they actually remember, but still I feel a bias from him on the subject.