dreams and nightmares

I read an article called "Night School" by Jay Dixit. The article was in Psychology Today's November/December 2007 issue. The article was all about Annti Revonsuo's thoughts about dreams and nightmares. Revonsuo thought that dreams were the time that humans and animals go over behaviors that are key to their survival. Revonsuo talks about how majority of our dreams are of us being chased or in a dangerous situations or other negative emotions. Revonsuo says that we have these dreams so that we can practice in case the situation comes up in real life we will be preprared to react automatically.

This article correlates with Ch. 4 when we talked about dreams and Freud. Freud said that dreams are a disguised form of wish fulfillment. He also said they are ways of satisfying unconscious urges or resolving unconscious conflicts. I found this article fascinating because it was a new way of looking at dreams than what we had discussed in class. There is a study that was done in the magazine on rats and not allowing them to have dreams. After the rats did not dream for a few nights they were put in situations to see if they would act the same. The rats were acting as if they were lost in every situation, and did not respond like they should have. This experiment helps to prove Revonsuo's theory, but some people are still not convinced.

Behavior

I read an article in the June 11, 2008 Los Angeles Times. It talked about a unique gibbons facility that is in Santa Clarita. A man, by the name of Alan Mootnick, is the founder of the place. There is a lot of development going on near the facility because of the Southern California Edison project. All of the construction and noise is causing the apes stress and causing them to leap eratically. This is really bad for the health and even causes some female gibbons to loose their babies.

Alan Mootnick talks about getting a new facility but he is having to find funds for it. I was thinking that he could try to change the behavior of the monkeys so that they could get use to the noise. Right now there is a unconditioned stimuli, which is the noise, and an unconditioned response which is to be stressed. Maybe Mootnick could work with the monkeys and relate a good behavior or activity that they do with the noise. If he did this maybe the monkeys would not be so afraid of the noise.

Incentive Theory

I was watching USA on July 25, 2008. I saw an Arby's commercial that related to our class discussion on the 24th. In the commercial there was a squad of Arby's employees marching and saying a cadence. The leader yells "Beef n cheddar, oh so nice" "2 for 4, is one great price". Then the two guys at the back of the squad stop and look at each other. One says to the other "2 for 4 beef n cheddars" and the other guy says "are you thinking what I'm thinking". Then the two guys run off in the other direction to get Arby's sandwhiches.

This is a good example of the incentive theory. Incentive theory emphasizes the role of external simuli that motivate behavior. It is also when people are pulled toward behaviors offering positive incentives. The positive incentive in this commercial is the deal on the beef n cheddars. The two guys thoguht it was such a great deal they left to get it right away. Arby's is not the only fast food restaurant that uses the incentive theory to pull us in. All fast food restaurants do, they will do anything to make us "think" we are getting a good deal. The sad part is that it works.

Id

I was looking through the Los Angeles Times comics and found one that explained the id. The comic was a little character that made fake wings and had on a helmet. It shows him trying to fly and obviously he crashes. When he started to fly he says "I do what I want" then he says "if it works..." "it works." As he makes each comment he is getting closer and closer to the ground. He continues falling and says "If not," "I will blame others." Then he crashes to the ground and says "It's a risk I'm willing to take.."

In this comic id is the main thing controlling the characters behavior. I say this because he says I do what I want. He is not rationally thinking about anything. The character is showing child like behavior which is what the id does as well. Espciallay when he says I will blame others if it does not work. If the character's super ego had kicked in he would have realized he can not fly and he would never have crashed.

Displacement

I was watching an episode of Law and Order SVU, on USA, and I realized it correlated with our psychology class. The episdoe was about a family with tow boys and the parents were divorced. Only the youngest son would visit his dad. The oldest son would not visit his dad because his dad molested him when he was a child. When the youngest son visited his father the visitation was supervised because of the incidents with the older son. It was discovered that the youngest son had been molested as well, and everyone thought it was the father. However, it turned out the older brother was the one molesting the youngest son.

The older boy demonstrates displacement which is a defense mechanism we learned in Ch. 11. Displacement is when someone shifts repressed motives and emotions from an original object to a substitute object. The older boy shifted his emotions onto his younger brother. Seeing this episode helped me to understand displacement. Now that I have this example it will be easier for me to remember what displacement is.