What I was teached about dreams...

[Ryuk]

We had the psychology class today and It was about imagination and it s products like hypnogogic and hypnopompic state(dont have to say that they werent explained in any way and were just briefly mentioned)
The topic moved along to dreams and how people die If they dont dream and I asked the teacher what happens with our mind when we have lucid dreams.
She looked shocked at me and started to tell us that dreams are nothing more than leftovers from our unconcious mind, that they dont have any meaning at all and that we should forget them as soon as we wake up, because they are useless.Even more she told us that lucid dreams DONT exist and we have the impresion that we become lucid just because our brains are MALFUNCTIONING and they dont behave in an normal way.
I myself had a few lucid dreams and can tell how vivid they can be and at that time I didnt had the idea to tell her about the  experiments done by LaBarge that show that persons can become lucid in REM sleep.
I am really disapointed that such an interesting topic like dreams is given only 5 minutes from our entire school year and even more, we are told to forget them and to not encourage any experience, because they are garbage and that normal and healthy persons dont have lucid dreams.If it was for me I would dedicate entire hours for ths topic.

How was this subject presented to you by experts, teachers, etc.

[kurtykurt42]

LOL... I haven't laughed that hard in a while, your teacher is a comedian!

I have begin keeping a dream journal and find that it helps tremendously with astral projection training. Often times I will wake up in the middle of the night and then a million memories will flood into my mind about the experience I was having. Sometimes the experience seems to be at least 30 minutes or more!

[Stillwater]

That is a shame.... if nothing else, dreams make up some of my fondest memories 

[CFTraveler]

Does your teacher have any degree in neurology or psychology?  Many biologists have that view of dreams, and some psychologists used to say that lucid dreams didn't exist (mainly because they don't have them, and we know that if it doesn't happen to you it doesn't exist,  )  Apparently your teacher needs to become more educated about contemporary psychology, tell him/her to read Stephen La Berge, who is a real scientist, before dismissing experiences that are widely documented.

[Stookie]

My old psychology teacher (high school) said the same thing, but at least said it was his OPINION, not fact. He was also the wrestling coach.

[CFTraveler]

Maybe I should reword my post, because I may have been too harsh on your teacher- but here's something about them (I used to be one, and I deal with them a lot)- in the level of school, many teachers of a discipline are mainly historians of that discipline- they teach you Freud and Jung (if you're lucky) and your basic theories on behavior- the ones that were in vogue when the textbook was written.  Many have degrees on that field but are not 'up on the latest discoveries', because they are not practicing, or because they are so happy with the specific discipline that they have embraced, and ignore (or even discount the validity) any school that is not the one they prefer.
Now, like I said before, in the time of Freud and Jung, the theories were very 'clear cut'- Freudians believed that everything psychological is tied to sexuality in one way or another, and Jungians went with the subconscious as grounds that are as collective as they are subjective, and therefore subject to interpretation.
The Freudian way of looking at things took precedence over many others-because it was mainly based on biology, and we know that the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were dedicated to looking at the world we see.  Not wrong, it was necessary in many ways- but to a point it led us to the extreme other side, and not balanced. 
I'm ignoring the behaviorists because I think of them as 'technicians', etc.

There are very traditional psychologists (like La Berge, who I mentioned previously) that within the orthodoxy of psychology have broken ground in the study of such things as Lucid Dreams (which like I said before, are widely documented and at some point, 'proven to exist' in the lab (look up alpha intrusion, for example),  and then there are the transpersonal psychologists, who are breaking new ground every day, but are probably looked at sideways by 'traditional' psychologists.  Which is too bad, because if you look at what Freudians believe (mainly because it was what Freud believed) you'd be shocked and appalled.

Unfortunately most psychology teachers are still living in the twentieth century, with the viewpoint that we are animated robots.

[kurtykurt42]

In my freshman year of college I took philosophy and psychology and asked the professors what they thought about astral projection / OBEs. The philosophy teacher told me that he read an article about how the brain produces these weird 'out of body' visual/auditory hallucinations. I asked him if it was possible that our conscious mind could detach from our physical body and explore the interdimensional universe, and he couldn't stop laughing. Then I asked the psychology professor and she said she had never heard of projection / OBEs... This happened about the same time I signed up as a member on this forum and soon I began to realize that most professors are not very bright. 

[Ryuk]

Maybe I should reword my post, because I may have been too harsh on your teacher- but here's something about them (I used to be one, and I deal with them a lot)- in the level of school, many teachers of a discipline are mainly historians of that discipline- they teach you Freud and Jung (if you're lucky) and your basic theories on behavior- the ones that were in vogue when the textbook was written.  Many have degrees on that field but are not 'up on the latest discoveries', because they are not practicing, or because they are so happy with the specific discipline that they have embraced, and ignore (or even discount the validity) any school that is not the one they prefer.
Now, like I said before, in the time of Freud and Jung, the theories were very 'clear cut'- Freudians believed that everything psychological is tied to sexuality in one way or another, and Jungians went with the subconscious as grounds that are as collective as they are subjective, and therefore subject to interpretation.
The Freudian way of looking at things took precedence over many others-because it was mainly based on biology, and we know that the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were dedicated to looking at the world we see.  Not wrong, it was necessary in many ways- but to a point it led us to the extreme other side, and not balanced. 
I'm ignoring the behaviorists because I think of them as 'technicians', etc.

There are very traditional psychologists (like La Berge, who I mentioned previously) that within the orthodoxy of psychology have broken ground in the study of such things as Lucid Dreams (which like I said before, are widely documented and at some point, 'proven to exist' in the lab (look up alpha intrusion, for example),  and then there are the transpersonal psychologists, who are breaking new ground every day, but are probably looked at sideways by 'traditional' psychologists.  Which is too bad, because if you look at what Freudians believe (mainly because it was what Freud believed) you'd be shocked and appalled.

Unfortunately most psychology teachers are still living in the twentieth century, with the viewpoint that we are animated robots.

Everything you said really decribes my teacher.She tells us about freud and basic knowledge about the mind but that's about it, I really can't imagine her researching more "new stuff" or updating her lessons.
The problem is that it's affecting every student because we are given an opinion as a fact without other points of view and it also stops us from researching more about sleep, dreams, different states of the mind because they all are "trash".School should elighten us or at least give us different opinions.IMO these are things that could have bigger impact on our lives.I'm not saying they should teach about OBE's and others but to say that "sleep is just a state were your body relaxes, there's nothing special about it, and know let's continue the lesson" stops everyone's curiosity or anyone's wish to find out more about these kind of things, especially when 2 of my classmates told me in one ocassion that they have lucid dreams and that they really are amazed by them.

[Zino]

What we must take into consideration is people have certain reasons why they may not believe in dreams or such. Definitely the general public don't really believe in OBE's or spirits, they generally think that it's the same thing as religion and many people are no longer religious.

It may seem blunt or narrow minded but it's true, but people in the masses can believe in the wrong thing, as I believe about Jesus.

This post was not meant to offend anyone or their beliefs I apologize if I have. But we must all learn to take into consideration peoples opinions and beliefs and live with them.

[CFTraveler]

What we must take into consideration is people have certain reasons why they may not believe in dreams or such. Definitely the general public don't really believe in OBE's or spirits, they generally think that it's the same thing as religion and many people are no longer religious.

It may seem blunt or narrow minded but it's true, but people in the masses can believe in the wrong thing, as I believe about Jesus.

This post was not meant to offend anyone or their beliefs I apologize if I have. But we must all learn to take into consideration peoples opinions and beliefs and live with them.

Hi Zino.
I fail to see what is offensive in your post.

Sure, people have certain walls that they have built to protect themselves against ideas that may rock the foundations for their worldview- that's in the bottom of a lot of 'fake' skepticism.  But I think that in the case of certain teachers, what does them in is the lack of information, and the fear of not being accepted in what they consider their peer group, which in this case is other freudians.

[Zino]

Well, for me...I've had an OBE before and I'm not necessarily spiritual probably because I haven't experienced APing for long enough, only long enough to go around my house...

However I'm still open minded that dreams can mean things and help us learn and I take everything everyone says on here seriously while applying some laws and limits to the idea. So, people can change in time. They just need to experience something great like APing, sadly -because- they can't leave their body because they don't believe they will never get the chance.