Dream Interpretation, Essay Example

Main Theme

The “Night Pilot” discusses the work of dream researcher Rosalind Cartwright, detailing the important role that dreams can play in psychotherapy.

Sub-points

Rosalind Cartwright also discusses her experiences working with noted psychologist Carl Rogers.  Although she admired his work, she feels that he “shortchanged the unconscious” (Lamberg), an area which can provide deep insight into an individual’s self-understanding.  During the period that she worked in psychotherapy with Rogers,  a neighbouring lab was studying REM sleep.  This forged a crucial link between the two fields for Cartwright, leading her into further study of the role played by dreaming on the waking mind.

Additionally, Cartwright discusses several studies that she has conducted on dreaming, including a study of drug users which found that drug users continued to dream while under the influence of hallucinogenics.  She concluded from this that dreams and hallucinations both draw information from the subject’s waking world, demonstrating that dreams are not accidental or random but a “meaningful reflection of emotional concerns central to the dreamer’s life” (Lamberg).  Her current work focuses on pilot groups of depressed individuals in order to determine whether it is possible to change the content of one’s dreams and thus improve their endings.  Cartwright believes that dream therapy may prove to be an alternative to psychotherapy and a way for people to take greater control over both their waking and sleeping lives.

Integration

“The Night Pilot” is related to Sigmund Freud’s psychodynamic theory of dreaming discussed in our textbook.  This theory looks at how our unconscious desires and emotions are expressed through dreams, often exhibiting elements of wish fulfilment.  The dreamer’s desires often take symbolic form through images and pictures that have deeper meaning than it might first appear.  For example, our textbook suggests that a woman who is sexually attracted to her friend’s husband might dream of stealing her friend’s wedding ring.

Rosalind Cartwright discusses the symbolic nature of dreams when recounting a study she conducted with homosexual men and medical students who had both viewed an erotic film.  She found that the medical students were reluctant to reveal whether they had experienced sexual imagery in their dreams after watching the film.  However, a large aquarium had been present in the room where they viewed the film, and many of the students reported dreams of water, fishing, and other aquatically-themed dreams.  Cartwright concluded that “the code for sex in their dreams was sea imagery” (Lamberg), and notes that the study also demonstrated the manner in which the recollection of dreams can be influenced by the presence of experimenters.

Although Freud acknowledged that dreams can sometimes be nothing more than “day residues” (Coon) that linger into sleep, both he and Cartwright express the belief that all dreams have significance.  This is because dreams “tend to reflect a person’s current concerns” (Coon), thus providing insight into the self that can be useful to both the dreamer and psychotherapists.  Cartwright emphasized that therapists can play a crucial role in helping dreamers understand the symbolic content of their dreams, in effect reconstituting the equivalent of a “500-page novel  from just the last page” (Lamberg).

Application

My sister is the mother of a ten-month-old son, and has been home with him since birth.  Prior to having a child, she was a successful professional who rose quickly in her field.  She is happily married, but her husband is generally away during the week on business, leaving her the sole responsibility for their son.  She recently had a dream in which she threw a dinner party for her former boss and coworkers.  There was a knock on her front door and when she opened it she found our mother holding her son, who was naked, shivering, and screaming.  Our mother reported that she’d found the child crawling around in the snow.  My sister realized simultaneously that she had left the front door ajar and that she had not thought to check on her son for hours.  The telephone rang and my sister’s boss told her that her husband was on the phone and that he was coming home angry because he knew that she had put their son out in the snow to die.

Rosalind Cartwright might point out that the dream was an opportunity for my sister to review and rehearse some of the fears that she experienced in her daily life, primary among these  the worry that she is not a good mother.  Her enjoyment during the party with coworkers can be juxtaposed against her fear at the appearance of her son, demonstrating the inner war being waged between these two conflicting roles.  The appearance of our mother again speaks to her own unease as a mother and her fear of being unable to provide the proper care for her son.

I think that this dream is deeply symbolic, representing my sister’s insecurity as a mother and regret for her former life.  She has not yet found a way to accept her new role as a mother, and the dream speaks to her enjoyment of the professional world and her occasional dislike of the domestic world.  As well, her husband’s absence is symbolized through the telephone call, which illustrates her fears that he does not feel she is a good mother.  The fact that he was not physically present in the dream represents how he is generally not physically present in their home, making him a figure of authority with no actual ability to effect change on their lives.