梦的过度诠释

伤我心太深

梦的过度诠释

梦的过度诠释

为什么人们认为似乎梦能预见未来。

我们都活在两个精神世界中。清醒时，生活在行为和身体上都有序，合理，线性且受规矩约束。

沉睡时，梦杂乱无章，非线性，没有规矩，没有理性。

据某些心理学家的说法，梦不过是大脑在不接受正常感官刺激时的副产物，是在夜间的天马行空。其他人认为梦表示夜间学习或解决问题的过程，甚至是思想碎片的自动筛选过程，像清除思想垃圾一样清除无效信息。

然而公众对梦的力量持更坚定的信念。最近研究表明，这个信念如此之强，以致人们似乎相信梦能预见未来

Freudians

相信弗洛伊德学说的人

为了解人们将梦赋予多少涵义，Carey Morewedge和Michael Norton要求参与者比较看待梦的四种方式。

弗洛伊德学说：梦揭示关于自己被隐藏的真相。

解决问题说：梦有助于我们在睡觉时解决问题。

学习说：梦是我们如何处理和排解白天事务的过程。

随机说：梦是生动的幻象，源于大脑试图诠释随机的冲动。

注意后三种理论有一个共同的观点，即无论做梦有没有心理目的，梦境的实际内容仍是思想垃圾：或有趣，或惊恐，或怪诞，但梦本身不具实际意义。梦境的内容只在弗洛伊德学说中才有深刻意义。

来自美国，韩国和印度的参与者更倾向于认同梦的弗洛伊德学说，而非其他三种理论。在美国，认同弗洛伊德学说的占56%，认同解决问题说的占8%，认同随机说和学习说的各占18%。

坠机

尽管56%的人认同弗洛伊德可能有点高，但Morewedge和Norton认为这个数字仍然低估人们对梦的重视程度。于是第2和3轮研究同时要求相信弗洛伊德学说的人和不相信弗洛伊德学说的人评估梦对他们行为的影响 。

参与者设想明天他们将搭乘飞机，而前天夜里发生以下事件：

他们清醒地考虑到所乘航班可能坠机，

他们梦到该航班坠机，

或当夜该航班坠机实际发生。

要求按能令他们取消航班的可能性从大到小排序。我猜你和我想的都一样：实际坠机是影响最大的。然而，对于相信弗洛伊德学说的人们来说，我们都错了。令人难以置信的是，他们认为坠机的梦是促成他们取消航班的最大动机，甚至比实际坠机影响更大。

不相信弗洛伊德学说的人认为实际坠机比坠机梦影响更大，但仅仅是更大一点。令不相信弗洛伊德学说的人尴尬的是，他们认为坠机梦比清醒时考虑到坠机可能性的想法更严重。

故大部分人认为梦会影响他们清醒时的生活，甚至比清醒时同样的一个想法影响更大。但实验者想进一步深入：如果梦境传达的信息与个人最佳利益相冲突？

梦境骗子

Morewedge和Norton在接下来两个实验中使用一个惯常的梦境，即我们喜欢的人对我们干坏事。这种情况下，梦境是朋友因讨好我们的伙伴而背叛我们。

实验者发现当梦境中是朋友讨好他们的伙伴时，人们倾向于认为这个梦境没有意义，但当梦境骗子是他们不喜欢的人时，梦境充满意义。这表明人们只在意义切合动机时，才将意义暗含梦中。

在最后一项研究中，实验者设计梦境，使其与人们的宗教信仰相冲突。参与者再一次表现出他们对梦境的动机性诠释。

白日梦信徒

人们有时如此相信梦的部分原因在于释梦的长期文化史，且我们时常在书中，电影和电视里接触到释梦的相关信息。

但不仅于此

Morewedge和Norton认为有一个基本的心理过程支撑人们对梦的信念。我们总是有各种想法，比如白日做梦时，工作中得到晋升。如果我们清醒时产生一个想法，这个想法会像痴心妄想一般消散。但同样的想法出现在梦境中时，我们往往难以释怀。

尽管逻辑上不成立，但梦可能来自外在的自我。伴随着析梦的长期文化史，梦的神秘渊源可能是为什么有些人认为梦具有如此的有影响力。


The Over-Interpretation of DreamsThe Over-Interpretation of Dreams


Why people act as though their dreams can predict the future.
We all live two mental lives. When we are awake it is mostly ordered, rational, linear and bounded by rules, both behavioural and physical.

But when we are asleep it is chaotic, non-linear, without rules, often without sense.

According to some psychologists, dreams are nothing more than the by-product of a brain disconnected from its normal sensory inputs, free-wheeling its way through the night. To others, dreams denote night-time learning or problem-solving, even automatic sifting of the mind's detritus, the skimming off of useless information to be dumped like so much mental junk.

Amongst the general public, though, there are much stronger beliefs about the power of dreams. So strong that, according to recent research, people seem to believe dreams can predict the future.

Freudians

To see how much meaning people ascribe to their dreams, Carey Morewedge and Michael Norton asked participants to compare four ways of thinking about dreams (Morewedge & Norton, 2009):

Freudian: dreams reveal buried truths about the self.
Problem-solving: dreams help us work through our problems while we sleep.
Learning theory: dreams are how we process and sort out the day’s events.
Random: dreams are vivid hallucinations that result from our brains trying to interpret random impulses.
Notice the last three theories all share the idea that, while dreaming may or may not have a psychological purpose, the actual content of our dreams is still mental junk: sometimes entertaining, sometimes frightening, often weird, but with no real meaning in and of itself. The content only has a strong meaning in the Freudian approach.

Participants from the United States, South Korea and India were all more likely to endorse the Freudian view of dreams than the other three. In the US sample it was 56% Freudian, 8% problem-solving, 18% random and 18% learning.

Plane crash

Although 56% endorsing Freud might sound high, Morewedge and Norton thought it was still an underestimate of how much store people put by their dreams. So a second and third study asked both Freudians and non-Freudians to estimate the effect of their dreams on behaviour.

Participants were asked to imagine they were taking a flight tomorrow when each of the following events happened the night before:

They consciously thought about the plane crashing on the route they were going to take,
They had a dream about the same thing,
Or, it actually happened the night before!
They were then asked to put these in order of most to least likely to make them cancel their flight. My money was in the same place as I’d guess yours is: on the real plane crash being the most off-putting. For the Freudians in the group, though, we’d both be wrong. Incredibly, they thought the dream would be the greatest motivator to cancel the flight, even more so than an actual, real-life crash.

Non-Freudians rated the real-world event as more influential than the dream, but only just. Giving the lie to their non-Freudian stance, though, they still thought dreams would be more influential than thoughts they had while they were awake.

So the majority of people think their dreams will influence their waking life, often more so than a similar waking thought. But the experimenters wanted to push it further: what if a dream's message conflicted with a person's best interests?

Dream cheats

Morewedge and Norton’s next two experiments used a common dream in which someone we like does something nasty to us. In this case it was dreaming that a friend had betrayed us by kissing our partner.

What they found was that people who remembered a dream about their friend kissing their partner tended to think it was meaningless, but when the dream cheat was someone they didn’t like, it was filled with meaning. This suggests people only imply meaning into their dreams when the implications fit their motives.

In a final study experimenters pitted people’s dreams up against their religious beliefs. Again, participants demonstrated a motivational interpretation of their dreams. They were happy to endorse the meaningfulness of their dreams, unless it contradicted their religious beliefs, in which case they deemed them meaningless.

Daydream believer

Part of the reason people sometimes place so much belief in dreams is because of the long cultural history of dream interpretation which we are regularly reminded about in books, films and on TV.

But it's more than just that.

Morewedge and Norton argue that there is also a basic psychological process supporting people's belief in dreams. We have random thoughts all the time, like day-dreaming about getting a raise at work. If a thought comes while awake, it can be consciously dismissed as wishful thinking. But when the same thought comes during a dream, it's harder to dismiss.

Although logically impossible, dreams can feel like they come from outside ourselves. Along with the long cultural history of dream analysis, their apparently mysterious source may be partly why some people find dreams so influential.