The Effects Of Clinical Depression On An Individual s...

There is never ending research in the field of dreaming. Social scientists and psychologists are so keen to delve into the workings of the unconscious brain, resulting in countless breakthroughs and theories as to why and how we dream. There is an article about the effect of clinical depression on an individual’s dreaming. It has been found that people suffering from depression dream three times more than those without depression. This is due to the higher levels of emotional arousal to get out of their system. â€Å"Depression causes (and is caused by) a lot of emotionally-arousing introspection, or rumination, that endless sort of worrying that never seems to go anywhere and just makes you feel bad...Dreaming literally takes the ‘charge’ out†¦show more content†¦The subtopic that I will be analyzing is the Continuity Hypothesis. This theory states that the content of our dreams reflects our everyday waking experiences. For example, the people we see on a daily basis such as our family, close friends, or coworkers are usually the main characters in our dreams. This theory suggests that since the recent experiences of your life are not yet ‘filed away’ deep in your brain yet, they are easy to manipulate into clear images and plot lines. In 1972, this hypothesis was presented by Calvin Hall, an American psychologist. He was the first dream researcher to suggest that the daily concerns and happenings of the dreamer’s life could be mirrored in their dreams as opposed to the popular belief that hidden libidinal (the instinctual energies and desires that are derived from the id) wishes or offsetting emotional strategies as proposed by psychodynamic theorists like Freud and Jung. Hall devised this theory through standardized dream content scoring inventories. He used this method to demonstrate that the most frequently occurring images or ideas were not peculiar events but rather routine social interactions between the dreamer and their most regular acquaintances. The psychological factors that affect one’s dreaming would be any type of mental disorder such as depression, anxiety, multiple