CHAPTER 3 Cognitive Patterns in Dreams and Daydreams*

Dreams and their meanings have challenged man for thousands of years. Numerous theories of dreams have had their day in the sun and then died. Among contemporary writers, certain assumptions seem to dominate. The major assumption is that dreams have some meaning. Stemming from this major premise, other assumptions or hypotheses have been advanced. 1. Dreams are wish fulfillment. Alternatively, following Freud, dreams are the guardian of sleep. 2. Dreams are an attempt at problem solving. This has been particularly elaborated by French. 3. Dreams are a manifestation of certain psychological processes of which the dreamer is totally unaware; that is, dreams spring from the unconscious. 4. The content of dreams is continuous with the content of the individual’s waking ideation and behavior (Adler). Or the opposite view has been advanced, namely that the content of the dream is reciprocal to the waking behavior