Although many regard Sigmund Freund as the one that first assigned interpretations to dreams, this has been a practice dating back to ancient times, when people believed to posses spiritual powers would interpret the disguised messages found in dreams.
In modern psychology, the establishment of dream analysis as a field of study can be attributed to Sigmund Freud and his work entitled “The Interpretation of Dreams”, a fundamental piece of writing, which not only dared to find interpretations to different dreams but also sought to create a pathway between the conscious and subconscious. Although his work was met with positive reviews and success a few years following its release, modern psychologists still debate the topic of whether or not his theories meet the rigorous standards of scientific publications and if dream analysis can be considered anything more than a pseudo-science.
Psychologists are not the only ones who are reluctant to dream interpretation, as most people do believe that certain dreams do hold “hidden meanings”, which only our subconscious mind can decode, and two separate dreams, although have a similar course of events, cannot be compared or have the same meaning. Thus, each person has a different interpretation to the same dream, based on each individual’s personal experiences, perspective and emotions.
While most researchers explore this area of psychology in an untraditional manner, attempting to create “dream dictionaries” of sorts, some seek to find the scientific and mechanical reasons behind the dreams people have, explaining that dreams are nothing more than a translation of our daily experiences created by our subconscious. From the 1950s, scientists have been more drawn to the first approach, with researchers such as Ann Faraday publishing books which people can use to interpret their own dreams.
Still, even though this area has been thoroughly debated and researched, the interpretation of dreams is far from an exact science and it may very well never fully develop, as each person’s dreams are different from one another and dream analysis cannot account for the unique meaning each part, character or event has to different persons.
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