'Throughline': The history of understanding our dreams

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'Throughline': The history of understanding our dreams

Transcript¹

Our dreams can haunt us. Recurring² dreams about failing tests or running late are a common occurrence, but what are we to make of them? And are there hidden meanings in our dreams?

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

During the pandemic, many people have reported that they're dreaming more frequently and that their dreams have become more intense. What effect does dreaming have on our waking lives? Do dreams carry meaning? Today, scientists are actively³ studying these questions, but this wasn't always the case. Throughline's Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei take us on a trip back in time to when the study of dreams started in the West.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RUND ABDELFATAH, BYLINE⁴: For much of human history, dreams were considered messages from the deep. They were a source of inspiration of ideas and even guided the way many people lived their lives. But beginning in the 16th century in Europe, dreams lost much of their power. The Christian⁵ church saw dreams as a possible source of sin. Some philosophers regarded dream interpretation⁶ as nonsense. One writer thought they were merely the result of indigestion.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI, BYLINE: But then, in the late 1800s in Austria, a man came along who questioned that approach.

CASEY HERMAN, BYLINE: (Reading) I started my professional activity as a neurologist trying to bring relief to my neurotic⁸ patients.

ARABLOUEI: Sigmund Freud was one of the first scientists who thought deeply about dreams and attempted to better understand the science behind them and the emotions and behaviors they conjured⁹.

SIDARTA RIBEIRO: When Freud was a young doctor, he was a scientist. He saw himself as a scientist.

ARABLOUEI: This is Sidarta Ribeiro. He's a neuroscientist and author of the book "The Oracle¹⁰ Of Night: The History And Science Of Dreams."

RIBEIRO: And he was trying himself in different fields of science, of neuroscience.

ARABLOUEI: At this time, scientists were trying to understand the connection between the brain and the mind, the body and consciousness. One of the most common diagnoses of the time was hysteria. It was often a kind of catchall diagnosis¹¹ for people, especially women, who might have been suffering from symptoms like depression, anxiety, shortness of breath, insomnia¹² and even something called sexual forwardness. When Sigmund Freud was a medical student studying hysteria, he came to believe that it was a psychiatric disorder¹³. And after graduating, he opened his own private practice to treat patients and further study the condition.

RIBEIRO: And until the very end of the 19th century, he was pursuing a clinical work that was very strongly rooted in the neuroscience and psychiatry¹⁴ of his time.

ARABLOUEI: But then...

RIBEIRO: His father died. He entered a crisis and had these major dreams.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RIBEIRO: And this is when he undergoes the big change, when he produces his seminal¹⁵ book, "The Interpretation Of Dreams," and creates a new field of knowledge that we call psychoanalysis.

ABDELFATAH: Psychoanalysis is the idea that investigating the unconscious, often through dreams, can possibly treat the psychological symptoms patients are suffering, conditions that people still experience today, like depression, anxiety, obsessive¹⁶ behavior and so on. Using his own dreams and his patients as evidence, Freud put forth¹⁷ an idea in a book called "The Interpretation Of Dreams" that would become his lasting¹⁸ legacy¹⁹.

RIBEIRO: What Freud did that was so important is that he reclaims²⁰ dreams as something meaningful.

ABDELFATAH: But even after Freud published his book, it's not like everything instantly changed. Dreams were still mostly dismissed in the scientific community.

RIBEIRO: Why? Because in the 19th century, science was completely sure that dreams were nonsense, that nobody should pay attention to dreams, that they reflected at most bad digestion⁷.

HERMAN: (Reading) What is common in all these dreams is obvious. They completely satisfy wishes excited during the day, which remain unrealized. They are simply and undisguisedly realizations²¹ of wishes.

RIBEIRO: He would say dreams have a meaning. They are related to people's lives. They are not something that can be dismissed, but they also cannot be predetermined. If you want to make sense of somebody's dream, you need to understand that person. You need to listen to that person. You need to share the context of that person. And this is what is done in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in general. So Freud was able to say, yes, dreams have a meaning, but this meaning is centered in the dreamer.

ABDELFATAH: This idea that people dream for a reason, that it's a way to cope with problems the conscious mind can't do while it's awake, was radical²², that by reflecting on your dreams, you were confronting something deep inside of you that followed like a shadow you didn't know was there.

RIBEIRO: Dreams are meaningful if we pay attention to them. So it's a relationship that we built, not just with ourselves but with those mental creatures that inhabit ourselves.

ARABLOUEI: Most of Freud's ideas about psychology²³ have been debunked²⁴. But still, his ideas about the relationship between mental health and dreams sparked an area of scientific research that has been refined over time. In almost 125 years after he published "The Interpretation Of Dreams," there is now research that supports the idea that dreams can have a significant impact on our waking lives.

RIBEIRO: We had to wait until 2010 for the first paper that showed that when you dream about a task, you become better at completing that task. They showed that when people navigate²⁵ a virtual maze²⁶ and they dream about it, they become much better at navigating²⁷. And that does not happen if they stay awake thinking about the maze or if they sleep without dreaming about the maze. To dream about something has a lot to do with succeeding in doing that. And this is something that many, many people believed for ages, but there was no empirical demonstration²⁸ of that until quite recently.

(SOUNDBITE OF RAMTIN ARABLOUEI'S "CHAUVET DREAMS")

MARTIN: That was Sidarta Ribeiro talking with Throughline hosts Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei. You can listen to the whole episode wherever you get your podcasts.

[POST BROADCAST CORRECTION: In this story, we incorrectly say most of Sigmund Freud’s ideas about psychology have been debunked.]

(SOUNDBITE OF RAMTIN ARABLOUEI'S "CHAUVET DREAMS")

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 recurring   

adj.往复的，再次发生的

参考例句：

• This kind of problem is recurring often. 这类问题经常发生。
• For our own country, it has been a time for recurring trial. 就我们国家而言，它经过了一个反复考验的时期。

3 actively   

adv.积极地，勤奋地

参考例句：

• During this period all the students were actively participating.在这节课中所有的学生都积极参加。
• We are actively intervening to settle a quarrel.我们正在积极调解争执。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

6 interpretation   

n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理

参考例句：

• His statement admits of one interpretation only.他的话只有一种解释。
• Analysis and interpretation is a very personal thing.分析与说明是个很主观的事情。

7 digestion   

n.消化，吸收

参考例句：

• This kind of tea acts as an aid to digestion.这种茶可助消化。
• This food is easy of digestion.这食物容易消化。

8 neurotic   

adj.神经病的，神经过敏的；n.神经过敏者，神经病患者

参考例句：

• Nothing is more distracting than a neurotic boss. 没有什么比神经过敏的老板更恼人的了。
• There are also unpleasant brain effects such as anxiety and neurotic behaviour.也会对大脑产生不良影响，如焦虑和神经质的行为。

9 conjured   

用魔术变出( conjure的过去式和过去分词 )； 祈求，恳求； 变戏法； （变魔术般地） 使…出现

参考例句：

• He conjured them with his dying breath to look after his children. 他临终时恳求他们照顾他的孩子。
• His very funny joke soon conjured my anger away. 他讲了个十分有趣的笑话，使得我的怒气顿消。

10 oracle   

n.神谕，神谕处，预言

参考例句：

• In times of difficulty,she pray for an oracle to guide her.在困难的时候，她祈祷神谕来指引她。
• It is a kind of oracle that often foretells things most important.它是一种内生性神谕，常常能预言最重要的事情。

11 diagnosis   

n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断

参考例句：

• His symptoms gave no obvious pointer to a possible diagnosis.他的症状无法作出明确的诊断。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做一次彻底的调查分析。

12 insomnia   

n.失眠，失眠症

参考例句：

• Worries and tenseness can lead to insomnia.忧虑和紧张会导致失眠。
• He is suffering from insomnia.他患失眠症。

13 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

14 psychiatry   

n.精神病学，精神病疗法

参考例句：

• The study appeared in the Amercian science Journal of Psychiatry.这个研究发表在美国精神病学的杂志上。
• A physician is someone who specializes in psychiatry.精神病专家是专门从事精神病治疗的人。

15 seminal   

adj.影响深远的；种子的

参考例句：

• The reforms have been a seminal event in the history of the NHS.这些改革已成为英国国民保健制度史上影响深远的一件大事。
• The emperor's importance as a seminal figure of history won't be diminished.做为一个开创性历史人物的重要性是不会减弱的。

16 obsessive   

adj. 着迷的, 强迫性的, 分神的

参考例句：

• Some people are obsessive about cleanliness.有些人有洁癖。
• He's becoming more and more obsessive about punctuality.他对守时要求越来越过分了。

17 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

18 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

19 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

20 reclaims   

v.开拓( reclaim的第三人称单数 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救

参考例句：

• Society reclaims criminals by teaching them skills. 社会通过教给罪犯技能来改造他们。 来自辞典例句
• When next collecting comes, garbage collector reclaims its memory. 等下一轮回收时，垃圾回收器才会将其回收。 来自互联网

21 realizations   

认识，领会( realization的名词复数 )； 实现

参考例句：

• Popular realizations of MPI standard are CHIMP and LAM and so on. 目前，公用的MPI实现有CHIMP、lam等。
• The author presents some realizations from the certificate assurance work. 本文介绍了笔者在ISO9001质量体系认证工作中的几点体会。

22 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。

23 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

24 debunked   

v.揭穿真相，暴露( debunk的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• His theories have been debunked by recent research. 最近的研究揭穿了他的理论的真相。
• Some advertising slogans should be debunked. 某些夸大的广告用语应予揭露。 来自《简明英汉词典》

25 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

26 maze   

n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑

参考例句：

• He found his way through the complex maze of corridors.他穿过了迷宮一样的走廊。
• She was lost in the maze for several hours.一连几小时，她的头脑处于一片糊涂状态。

27 navigating   

v.给（船舶、飞机等）引航，导航( navigate的现在分词 )；（从海上、空中等）横越；横渡；飞跃

参考例句：

• These can also be very useful when navigating time-based documents, such as video and audio. 它对于和时间有关的文档非常有用，比如视频和音频文档。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Vehicles slowed to a crawl on city roads, navigating slushy snow. 汽车在市区路上行驶缓慢，穿越泥泞的雪地。 来自互联网

28 demonstration   

n.表明，示范，论证，示威

参考例句：

• His new book is a demonstration of his patriotism.他写的新书是他的爱国精神的证明。
• He gave a demonstration of the new technique then and there.他当场表演了这种新的操作方法。