An image is a visual representation. An image can be two-dimensional , such as a drawing , painting , or photograph , or three-dimensional , such as a carving or sculpture . Images may be displayed through other media, including a projection on a surface, activation of electronic signals, or digital displays ; they can also be reproduced through mechanical means, such as photography , printmaking , or photocopying . Images can also be animated through digital or physical processes.
114-498: A dream is a succession of images , ideas , emotions , and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep . Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5–20 minutes, although the dreamer may perceive the dream as being much longer than this. The content and function of dreams have been topics of scientific, philosophical and religious interest throughout recorded history . Dream interpretation , practiced by
228-416: A World Happiness Report has been published. Happiness is evaluated, as in "How happy are you with your life as a whole?", and in emotional reports, as in "How happy are you now?," and people seem able to use happiness as appropriate in these verbal contexts. Using these measures, the report identifies the countries with the highest levels of happiness. In subjective well-being measures, the primary distinction
342-463: A graph or function or an imaginary entity. For a mental image to be understood outside of an individual's mind, however, there must be a way of conveying that mental image through the words or visual productions of the subject. The broader sense of the word 'image' also encompasses any two-dimensional figure, such as a map , graph , pie chart , painting , or banner . In this wider sense, images can also be rendered manually, such as by drawing ,
456-476: A "cult" value as an example of artistic beauty. Following years of various reproductions of the painting, the portrait's "cult" status has little to do with its original subject or the artistry. It has become famous for being famous, while at the same time, its recognizability has made it a subject to be copied, manipulated, satirized, or otherwise altered in forms ranging from Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q . to Andy Warhol 's multiple silk-screened reproductions of
570-492: A "quasi-therapeutic" function, enabling the dreamer to process trauma in a safe place. Revonsuo's 2000 threat simulation hypothesis, whose premise is that during much of human evolution, physical and interpersonal threats were serious, giving reproductive advantage to those who survived them. Dreaming aided survival by replicating these threats and providing the dreamer with practice in dealing with them. In 2015, Revonsuo proposed social simulation theory, which describes dreams as
684-436: A (usually) male viewer. The documentary film scholar Bill Nichols has also studied how apparently "objective" photographs and films still encode assumptions about their subjects. Images perpetuated in public education, media, and popular culture have a profound impact on the formation of such mental images: What makes them so powerful is that they circumvent the faculties of the conscious mind but, instead, directly target
798-465: A 3-dimensional object with less effort; the advent and development of " 3-D printing " has expanded that capability. "Moving" two-dimensional images are actually illusions of movement perceived when still images are displayed in sequence, each image lasting less, and sometimes much less, than a fraction of a second. The traditional standard for the display of individual frames by a motion picture projector has been 24 frames per second (FPS) since at least
912-455: A Swedish philosopher and phenomenological researcher, posited that the perception of time affects the change in focus throughout life. In early adulthood, most view life optimistically, looking to the future and seeing an entire life ahead of them. Those that fall into the middle life, see that life has passed behind them as well as seeing more life ahead. Those in older adulthood often see their lives as behind them. This shift in perspective causes
1026-475: A coding system to study 1,000 dream reports from college students. Results indicated that participants from varying parts of the world demonstrated similarity in their dream content. The only residue of antiquity's authoritative dream figure in the Hall and Van de Castle listing of dream characters is the inclusion of God in the category of prominent persons. Hall's complete dream reports were made publicly available in
1140-410: A diary. This prevented the selective memory effect, and the dreams no longer seemed accurate about the future. Another experiment gave subjects a fake diary of a student with apparently precognitive dreams. This diary described events from the person's life, as well as some predictive dreams and some non-predictive dreams. When subjects were asked to recall the dreams they had read, they remembered more of
1254-691: A divine revelation. For example, the Hebrew prophet Samuel would "lie down and sleep in the temple at Shiloh before the Ark and receive the word of the Lord", and Joseph interpreted a Pharaoh's dream of seven lean cows swallowing seven fat cows as meaning the subsequent seven years would be bountiful, followed by seven years of famine. Most of the dreams in the Bible are in the Book of Genesis . Christians mostly shared
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#17327652545131368-426: A dream is one of three states that the soul experiences during its lifetime, the other two states being the waking state and the sleep state. The earliest Upanishads , written before 300 BCE, emphasize two meanings of dreams. The first says that dreams are merely expressions of inner desires. The second is the belief of the soul leaving the body and being guided until awakened. In Judaism, dreams are considered part of
1482-512: A dream of a dim star high in the night sky indicated problems in the head region, while low in the night sky indicated bowel issues. Greek philosopher Plato (427-347) wrote that people harbor secret, repressed desires, such as incest, murder, adultery, and conquest, which build up during the day and run rampant during the night in dreams. Plato's student, Aristotle (384–322 BCE), believed dreams were caused by processing incomplete physiological activity during sleep, such as eyes trying to see while
1596-455: A form of record-keeping; as an element of spiritual, religious, or magical practice; or even as a form of communication. Early writing systems , including hieroglyphics , ideographic writing, and even the Roman alphabet , owe their origins in some respects to pictorial representations. Images of any type may convey different meanings and sensations for individual viewers, regardless of whether
1710-474: A lot of evidence to support this idea that happiness is affected in some way by genetics. In a 2016 study, Michael Minkov and Michael Harris Bond found that a gene by the name of SLC6A4 was not a good predictor of happiness level in humans. On the other hand, there have been many studies that have found genetics to be a key part in predicting and understanding happiness in humans. In a review article discussing many studies on genetics and happiness, they discussed
1824-507: A number of works by Philip K. Dick , such as The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Ubik . Similar themes were explored by Jorge Luis Borges , for instance in The Circular Ruins . Image In the context of signal processing , an image is a distributed amplitude of color(s). In optics , the term "image" (or "optical image") refers specifically to the reproduction of an object formed by light waves coming from
1938-477: A person feels more whole, alive, self-sufficient, and yet a part of the world. This is similar to the flow concept of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi . The concept of flow is the idea that after our basic needs are met we can achieve greater happiness by altering our consciousness by becoming so engaged in a task that we lose our sense of time. Our intense focus causes us to forget any other issues, which in return promotes positive emotions. Erich Fromm said "Happiness
2052-680: A person's happiness. From abstract: "A friend who lives within a mile (about 1.6 km) and who becomes happy increases the probability that a person is happy by 25%." Various writers, including Camus and Tolle , have written that the act of searching or seeking for happiness is incompatible with being happy. John Stuart Mill believed that for the great majority of people happiness is best achieved en passant, rather than striving for it directly. This meant no self-consciousness, scrutiny, self-interrogation, dwelling on, thinking about, imagining or questioning on one's happiness. Then, if otherwise fortunately circumstanced, one would "inhale happiness with
2166-496: A person's memories and experiences, but conversation can take on highly exaggerated and bizarre forms. Some dreams may even tell elaborate stories wherein the dreamer enters entirely new, complex worlds and awakes with ideas, thoughts and feelings never experienced prior to the dream. People who are blind from birth do not have visual dreams. Their dream contents are related to other senses, such as hearing , touch , smell , and taste , whichever are present since birth. Dream study
2280-572: A physician from Hamburg, was the first who suggested that dreams are a need and that they have the function to erase (a) sensory impressions that were not fully worked up, and (b) ideas that were not fully developed during the day. In dreams, incomplete material is either removed (suppressed) or deepened and included into memory. Freud , whose dream studies focused on interpreting dreams, not explaining how or why humans dream, disputed Robert's hypothesis and proposed that dreams preserve sleep by representing as fulfilled those wishes that otherwise would awaken
2394-401: A physiological effect of light impressions remaining on the retina of the eye for very brief periods. Even though the term is still sometimes used in popular discussions of movies, it is not a scientifically valid explanation. Other terms emphasize the complex cognitive operations of the brain and the human visual system. " Flicker fusion ", the " phi phenomenon ", and " beta movement " are among
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#17327652545132508-441: A positive dream about a friend to be meaningful than a positive dream about someone they disliked, for example, and were more likely to view a negative dream about a person they disliked as meaningful than a negative dream about a person they liked. According to surveys, it is common for people to feel their dreams are predicting subsequent life events. Psychologists have explained these experiences in terms of memory biases , namely
2622-527: A result of observation of his dreams. Ignorant as he was, he could have come to no other conclusion but that, in dreams, he left his sleeping body in one universe and went wandering off into another. It is considered that, but for that savage, the idea of such a thing as a 'soul' would never have even occurred to mankind.... In the Mandukya Upanishad , part of the Veda scriptures of Indian Hinduism ,
2736-572: A rite of passage, fasting and praying until an anticipated guiding dream was received, to be shared with the rest of the tribe upon their return. Beginning in the late 19th century, Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud , founder of psychoanalysis , theorized that dreams reflect the dreamer's unconscious mind and specifically that dream content is shaped by unconscious wish fulfillment. He argued that important unconscious desires often relate to early childhood memories and experiences. Carl Jung and others expanded on Freud's idea that dream content reflects
2850-462: A selective memory for accurate predictions and distorted memory so that dreams are retrospectively fitted onto life experiences. The multi-faceted nature of dreams makes it easy to find connections between dream content and real events. The term "veridical dream" has been used to indicate dreams that reveal or contain truths not yet known to the dreamer, whether future events or secrets. In one experiment, subjects were asked to write down their dreams in
2964-521: A shift in the pursuit of happiness from more tactile, object based happiness, to social and relational based happiness. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a pyramid depicting the levels of human needs, psychological, and physical. When a human being ascends the steps of the pyramid, self-actualization is reached. Beyond the routine of needs fulfillment, Maslow envisioned moments of extraordinary experience, known as peak experiences , profound moments of love, understanding, happiness, or rapture, during which
3078-522: A simulation for training social skills and bonds. Eagleman's and Vaughn's 2021 defensive activation theory, which says that, given the brain's neuroplasticity , dreams evolved as a visual hallucinatory activity during sleep's extended periods of darkness, busying the occipital lobe and thereby protecting it from possible appropriation by other, non-vision, sense operations. Erik Hoel proposes, based on artificial neural networks, that dreams prevent overfitting to past experiences; that is, they enable
3192-481: A virtue to be considered a key strength in the field of positive psychology it must meet the demands of 12 criteria, namely ubiquity (cross-cultural), fulfilling, morally valued, does not diminish others, be a nonfelicitous opposite (have a clear antonym that is negative), traitlike, measurable, distinct, have paragons (distinctly show up in individuals' behaviors), have prodigies (show up in youth), be selectively absent (distinctly does not show up in some individuals), and
3306-946: A whole." People have been trying to measure happiness for centuries. In 1780, the English utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed that as happiness was the primary goal of humans, it should be measured as a way of determining how well the government was performing. Today, happiness is typically measured using self-report surveys. Self-reporting is prone to cognitive biases and other sources of errors, such as peak–end rule . Studies show that memories of felt emotions can be inaccurate. Affective forecasting research shows that people are poor predictors of their future emotions, including how happy they will be. Happiness economists are not overly concerned with philosophical and methodological issues and continue to use questionaries to measure average happiness of populations. Several scales have been developed to measure happiness: Since 2012,
3420-442: Is a Greek term variously translated as happiness, welfare, flourishing , and blessedness. Xavier Landes has proposed that happiness include measures of subjective wellbeing, mood and eudaimonia. These differing uses can give different results. Whereas Nordic countries often score highest on swb surveys , South American countries score higher on affect-based surveys of current positive life experiencing. The implied meaning of
3534-402: Is a single static image. This phrase is used in photography, visual media , and the computer industry to emphasize that one is not talking about movies, or in very precise or pedantic technical writing such as a standard . A moving image is typically a movie ( film ) or video , including digital video . It could also be an animated display , such as a zoetrope . A still frame
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3648-404: Is a still image derived from one frame of a moving one. In contrast, a film still is a photograph taken on the set of a movie or television program during production, used for promotional purposes. In image processing , a picture function is a mathematical representation of a two-dimensional image as a function of two spatial variables . The function f(x,y) describes the intensity of
3762-465: Is affected by life circumstances and situation, and a remaining 40 percent of happiness is subject to self-control. When discussing genetics and their effects on individuals it is important to first understand that genetics do not predict behavior. It is possible for genes to increase the likelihood of individuals being happier compared to others, but they do not 100 percent predict behavior. At this point in scientific research, it has been hard to find
3876-508: Is between cognitive life evaluations and emotional reports. The UK began to measure national well-being in 2012, following Bhutan , which had already been measuring gross national happiness . Academic economists and international economic organizations are arguing for and developing multi-dimensional dashboards which combine subjective and objective indicators to provide a more direct and explicit assessment of human wellbeing. There are many different contributors to adult wellbeing, such as
3990-504: Is freed from the body during slumber to journey in a dream realm, while the other remained in the body. This belief and dream interpretation had been questioned since early times, such as by the philosopher Wang Chong (27–97 CE ). The Babylonians and Assyrians divided dreams into "good," which were sent by the gods, and "bad," sent by demons. A surviving collection of dream omens entitled Iškar Zaqīqu records various dream scenarios as well as prognostications of what will happen to
4104-412: Is high and resembles that of being awake. Because REM sleep is detectable in many species, and because research suggests that all mammals experience REM, linking dreams to REM sleep has led to conjectures that animals dream. However, humans dream during non-REM sleep, also, and not all REM awakenings elicit dream reports. To be studied, a dream must first be reduced to a verbal report, which is an account of
4218-440: Is mostly used in relation to two factors: Some usages can include both of these factors. Subjective well-being (swb) includes measures of current experience (emotions, moods , and feelings) and of life satisfaction . For instance Sonja Lyubomirsky has described happiness as " the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one's life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile. " Eudaimonia ,
4332-488: Is often associated with positive life experiences, such as achieving goals, spending time with loved ones, or engaging in enjoyable activities. However, happiness can also arise spontaneously, without any apparent external cause. Happiness is closely linked to well-being and overall life satisfaction. Studies have shown that individuals who experience higher levels of happiness tend to have better physical and mental health, stronger social relationships, and greater resilience in
4446-513: Is popular with scientists exploring the mind–brain problem . Some "propose to reduce aspects of dream phenomenology to neurobiology." But current science cannot specify dream physiology in detail. Protocols in most nations restrict human brain research to non-invasive procedures. In the United States, invasive brain procedures with a human subject are allowed only when these are deemed necessary in surgical treatment to address medical needs of
4560-401: Is still an image, even though it does not fully use the visual system's capabilities. On the other hand, some processes can be used to create visual representations of objects that are otherwise inaccessible to the human visual system. These include microscopy for the magnification of minute objects, telescopes that can observe objects at great distances, X-rays that can visually represent
4674-433: Is supported by some institutions. Numerous short-term self-help interventions have been developed and demonstrated to improve happiness. A person's level of subjective well-being is determined by many different factors and social influences prove to be a strong one. Results from the famous Framingham Heart Study indicate that friends three degrees of separation away (that is, friends of friends of friends) can affect
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4788-534: Is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence: the productive realization of his potentialities and thus, simultaneously, being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self. In spending his energy productively he increases his powers, he „burns without being consumed."" Self-determination theory relates intrinsic motivation to three needs: competence , autonomy , and relatedness . Competence refers to an individual's ability to be effective in their interactions with
4902-463: Is the true dream (al-ru’ya), then the false dream, which may come from the devil ( shaytan ), and finally, the meaningless everyday dream (hulm). This last dream could be brought forth by the dreamer's ego or base appetite based on what they experienced in the real world. The true dream is often indicated by Islam's hadith tradition. In one narration by Aisha , the wife of the Prophet, it is said that
5016-467: The Babylonians in the third millennium BCE and even earlier by the ancient Sumerians , figures prominently in religious texts in several traditions, and has played a lead role in psychotherapy. The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology . Most modern dream study focuses on the neurophysiology of dreams and on proposing and testing hypotheses regarding dream function. It is not known where in
5130-569: The Society for Neuroscience , "Because no adequate alternatives exist, much of this research must [sic] be done on animal subjects." However, since animal dreaming can be only inferred, not confirmed, animal studies yield no hard facts to illuminate the neurophysiology of dreams. Examining human subjects with brain lesions can provide clues, but the lesion method cannot discriminate between the effects of destruction and disconnection and cannot target specific neuronal groups in heterogeneous regions like
5244-817: The battle of the Milvian Bridge if he adopted the Chi-Rho as his battle standard ." In Buddhism, ideas about dreams are similar to the classical and folk traditions in South Asia. The same dream is sometimes experienced by multiple people, as in the case of the Buddha-to-be , before he is leaving his home . It is described in the Mahāvastu that several of the Buddha's relatives had premonitory dreams preceding this. Some dreams are also seen to transcend time:
5358-1104: The state of things ." The idea of motivational hedonism is the theory that pleasure is the aim for human life. Since 2000 the field of positive psychology , which focuses on the study of happiness and human flourishing rather than maladjusted behavior or illness, expanded drastically in terms of scientific publications. It has produced many different views on causes of happiness, and on factors that correlate with happiness, such as positive social interactions with family and friends. These factors include six key virtues: 1. Wisdom and knowledge, which includes creativity, curiosity, love of learning and open-mindedness. 2. Courage, which includes bravery, persistence, integrity, and vitality. 3. Humanity, which includes love, kindness, and social intelligence. 4. Justice, which includes leadership, fairness, and loyalty. 5. Temperance, which includes self-regulation, prudence, forgiveness, humility, patience and modesty. 6. Transcendence, which includes religious/spirituality, hope, gratitude, appreciation of beauty and excellence, and humor. In order for
5472-481: The Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Benjamin argues that the mechanical reproduction of images, which had accelerated through photographic processes in the previous one hundred years or so, inevitably degrades the "authenticity" or quasi-religious "aura" of the original object. One example is Leonardo da Vinci 's Mona Lisa , originally painted as a portrait, but much later, with its display as an art object, it developed
5586-659: The Buddha-to-be has certain dreams that are the same as those of previous Buddhas , the Lalitavistara states. In Buddhist literature, dreams often function as a "signpost" motif to mark certain stages in the life of the main character. Buddhist views about dreams are expressed in the Pāli Commentaries and the Milinda Pañhā . In Chinese history, people wrote of two vital aspects of the soul of which one
5700-546: The Good Life" became the most popular course in the history of Yale University and was made available for free online to non-Yale students. Some commentators focus on the difference between the hedonistic tradition of seeking pleasant and avoiding unpleasant experiences, and the eudaimonic tradition of living life in a full and deeply satisfying way. Kahneman has said that ""When you look at what people want for themselves, how they pursue their goals, they seem more driven by
5814-513: The Greek philosopher Plato described our apparent reality as a copy of a higher order of universal forms . As copies of a higher reality, the things we perceive in the world, tangible or abstract, are inevitably imperfect. Book 7 of The Republic offers Plato's " Allegory of the Cave ," where ordinary human life is compared to being a prisoner in a darkened cave who believes that shadows projected onto
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#17327652545135928-746: The Looking-Glass . Unlike many dream worlds, Carroll's logic is like that of actual dreams, with transitions and flexible causality. Other fictional dream worlds include the Dreamlands of H. P. Lovecraft 's Dream Cycle and The Neverending Story ' s world of Fantastica, which includes places like the Desert of Lost Dreams, the Sea of Possibilities and the Swamps of Sadness. Dreamworlds, shared hallucinations and other alternate realities feature in
6042-502: The Prophet's dreams would come true like the ocean's waves. Just as in its predecessors, the Quran also recounts the story of Joseph and his unique ability to interpret dreams. In both Christianity and Islam dreams feature in conversion stories. According to ancient authors, Constantine the Great started his conversion to Christianity because he had a dream which prophesied that he would win
6156-487: The Solms 2000 paper that certified the separability of REM sleep and dream phenomena, many studies purporting to uncover the function of dreams have in fact been studying not dreams but measurable REM sleep. Theories of dream function since the identification of REM sleep include: Hobson's and McCarley's 1977 activation-synthesis hypothesis , which proposed "a functional role for dreaming sleep in promoting some aspect of
6270-562: The art of painting, or the graphic arts (such as lithography or etching ). Additionally, images can be rendered automatically through printing , computer graphics technology, or a combination of both methods. A two-dimensional image does not need to use the entire visual system to be a visual representation. An example of this is a grayscale ("black and white") image, which uses the visual system's sensitivity to brightness across all wavelengths without taking into account different colors. A black-and-white visual representation of something
6384-597: The beliefs of the Hebrews and thought that dreams were of a supernatural character because the Old Testament includes frequent stories of dreams with divine inspiration. The most famous of these dream stories was Jacob's dream of a ladder that stretches from Earth to Heaven . Many Christians preach that God can speak to people through their dreams. The famous glossary, the Somniale Danielis , written in
6498-432: The best way to receive divine revelation, and thus they would induce (or "incubate") dreams. They went to sanctuaries and slept on special "dream beds" in hope of receiving advice, comfort, or healing from the gods. From a Darwinian perspective dreams would have to fulfill some kind of biological requirement, provide some benefit for natural selection to take place, or at least have no negative impact on fitness. Robert (1886),
6612-409: The brain dreams originate, if there is a single origin for dreams or if multiple regions of the brain are involved, or what the purpose of dreaming is for the body or mind. The human dream experience and what to make of it has undergone sizable shifts over the course of history. Long ago, according to writings from Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt , dreams dictated post-dream behaviors to an extent that
6726-445: The brain involves significant neural activity downstream from eye intake, and it is theorized that "the visual imagery of dreams is produced by activation during sleep of the same structures that generate complex visual imagery in waking perception." Dreams present a running narrative rather than exclusively visual imagery. Following their work with split-brain subjects, Gazzaniga and LeDoux postulated, without attempting to specify
6840-465: The brain stem. Denied precision tools and obliged to depend on imaging, much dream research has succumbed to the law of the instrument . Studies detect an increase of blood flow in a specific brain region and then credit that region with a role in generating dreams. But pooling study results has led to the newer conclusion that dreaming involves large numbers of regions and pathways, which likely are different for different dream events. Image creation in
6954-644: The brain's effort to make sense of sparse and distorted information.... The cortex combines this haphazard input with whatever other activity was already occurring and does its best to synthesize a story that makes sense of the information." Neuroscientist Indre Viskontas is even more blunt, calling often bizarre dream content "just the result of your interpreter trying to create a story out of random neural signaling." For many humans across multiple eras and cultures, dreams are believed to have functioned as revealers of truths sourced during sleep from gods or other external entities. Ancient Egyptians believed that dreams were
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#17327652545137068-498: The cave's wall comprise actual reality. Since art is itself an imitation, it is a copy of that copy and all the more imperfect. Artistic images, then, not only misdirect human reason away from understanding the higher forms of true reality, but in imitating the bad behaviors of humans in depictions of the gods, they can corrupt individuals and society. Echoes of such criticism have persisted across time, accelerating as image-making technologies have developed and expanded immensely since
7182-399: The commercial introduction of "talking pictures" in the late 1920s, which necessitated a standard for synchronizing images and sounds. Even in electronic formats such as television and digital image displays, the apparent "motion" is actually the result of many individual lines giving the impression of continuous movement. This phenomenon has often been described as " persistence of vision ":
7296-424: The common findings. The author found an important factor that has affected scientist findings this being how happiness is measured. For example, in certain studies when subjective wellbeing is measured as a trait heredity is found to be higher, about 70 to 90 percent. In another study, 11,500 unrelated genotypes were studied, and the conclusion was the heritability was only 12 to 18 percent. Overall, this article found
7410-407: The common percent of heredity was about 20 to 50 percent. Theories on how to achieve happiness include "encountering unexpected positive events", "seeing a significant other", and "basking in the acceptance and praise of others". Some others believe that happiness is not solely derived from external, momentary pleasures. Research on positive psychology, well-being, eudaimonia and happiness, and
7524-427: The degree of happiness depends on economic and cultural factors that enable free choice in how people live their lives. Happiness also depends on religion in countries where free choice is constrained. Sigmund Freud said that all humans strive after happiness, but that the possibilities of achieving it are restricted because we "are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment only from a contrast and very little from
7638-446: The distinction between joy and happiness is that "joy accompanies the process through and through, whereas happiness seems to be more strictly tied to the moment of achievement of the process... joy is not only a direct emotional response to an event that is embedded in our life-concerns but is also tightly bound to the present moment, whereas happiness presupposes an evaluative stance concerning one period of one's life or one's own life as
7752-399: The dreamer to learn from novel situations. Dreams figure prominently in major world religions. The dream experience for early humans, according to one interpretation, gave rise to the notion of a human " soul ," a central element in much religious thought. J. W. Dunne wrote: But there can be no reasonable doubt that the idea of a soul must have first arisen in the mind of primitive man as
7866-500: The dreamer's unconscious desires. Dream interpretation can be a result of subjective ideas and experiences. One study found that most people believe that "their dreams reveal meaningful hidden truths". The researchers surveyed students in the United States, South Korea, and India, and found that 74% of Indians, 65% of South Koreans and 56% of Americans believed their dream content provided them with meaningful insight into their unconscious beliefs and desires. This Freudian view of dreaming
7980-526: The dreamer. Freud wrote that dreams "serve the purpose of prolonging sleep instead of waking up. Dreams are the GUARDIANS of sleep and not its disturbers. " A turning point in theorizing about dream function came in 1953, when Science published the Aserinsky and Kleitman paper establishing REM sleep as a distinct phase of sleep and linking dreams to REM sleep. Until and even after publication of
8094-435: The dreamers, where they entered through a keyhole, exiting the same way after the divine message was given. Antiphon wrote the first known Greek book on dreams in the 5th century BCE. In that century, other cultures influenced Greeks to develop the belief that souls left the sleeping body. The father of modern medicine, Hippocrates (460–375 BCE ), thought dreams could analyze illness and predict diseases. For instance,
8208-499: The environment, autonomy refers to a person's flexibility in choice and decision making, and relatedness is the need to establish warm, close personal relationships. Ronald Inglehart has traced cross-national differences in the level of happiness based on data from the World Values Survey . He finds that the extent to which a society allows free choice has a major impact on happiness. When basic needs are satisfied,
8322-552: The experience of the world that can be interpreted and from which lessons can be garnered. It is discussed in the Talmud, Tractate Berachot 55–60. The ancient Hebrews connected their dreams heavily with their religion, though the Hebrews were monotheistic and believed that dreams were the voice of one God alone. Hebrews also differentiated between good dreams (from God) and bad dreams (from evil spirits). The Hebrews, like many other ancient cultures, incubated dreams in order to receive
8436-457: The face of adversity. The pursuit of happiness has been a central theme in philosophy and psychology for centuries. While there is no single, universally accepted definition of happiness, it is generally understood to be a state of mind characterized by positive emotions, a sense of purpose, and a feeling of fulfillment. "Happiness" is subject to debate on usage and meaning, and on possible differences in understanding by culture. The word
8550-416: The following: Psychologist Robert Emmons has identified the centrality of goals in pursuing happiness. He found that when humans pursue meaningful projects and activities without primarily focusing on happiness, happiness often results as a by-product. Indicators of meaningfulness predict positive effects on life, while lack of meaning predicts negative states such as psychological distress. Emmons summarizes
8664-493: The form of idols . In recent years, militant extremist groups such as the Taliban and ISIS have destroyed centuries-old artifacts, especially those associated with other religions. Virtually all cultures have produced images and applied different meanings or applications to them. The loss of knowledge about the context and connection of an image to its object is likely to result in different perceptions and interpretations of
8778-635: The four categories of meaning which have appeared throughout various studies. He proposes to call them WIST, or work, intimacy, spirituality, and transcendence. Throughout life, one's views of happiness and what brings happiness can evolve. In early and emerging adulthood many people focus on seeking happiness through friends, objects, and money. Middle aged-adults generally transition from searching for object-based happiness to looking for happiness in money and relationships. In older adulthood, people tend to focus more on personal peace and lasting relationships (ex. children, spouse, grandchildren). Antti Kauppinen,
8892-461: The illusion of depth in an otherwise "flat" image, but "3-D photography" ( stereoscopy ) or " 3-D film " are optical illusions that require special devices such as eyeglasses to create the illusion of depth. Copies of 3-dimensional images have traditionally had to be crafted one at a time, usually by an individual or team of artisans . In the modern age, the development of plastics and other technologies made it possible to create multiple copies of
9006-529: The image and even of the original object itself. Through human history, one dominant form of imagery has been in relation to religion and spirituality. Such images, whether in the form of idols that are objects of worship or that represent some other spiritual state or quality, have a different status as artifacts when copies of such images sever links to the spiritual or supernatural. The German philosopher and essayist Walter Benjamin brought particular attention to this point in his 1935 essay "The Work of Art in
9120-471: The image's creator intended them. An image may be taken simply as a more or less "accurate" copy of a person, place, thing, or event. It may represent an abstract concept, such as the political power of a ruler or ruling class, a practical or moral lesson, an object for spiritual or religious veneration, or an object—human or otherwise—to be desired. It may also be regarded for its purely aesthetic qualities, rarity, or monetary value. Such reactions can depend on
9234-503: The image. In modern times, the development of " non-fungible tokens " (NFTs) has been touted as an attempt to create "authentic" or "unique" images that have a monetary value, existing only in digital format. This assumption has been widely debated. The development of synthetic acoustic technologies and the creation of sound art have led to considering the possibilities of a sound-image made up of irreducible phonic substance beyond linguistic or musicological analysis. A still image
9348-635: The interior structures of the human body (among other objects), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) , positron emission tomography (PET scans) , and others. Such processes often rely on detecting electromagnetic radiation that occurs beyond the light spectrum visible to the human eye and converting such signals into recognizable images. Aside from sculpture and other physical activities that can create three-dimensional images from solid material, some modern techniques, such as holography , can create three-dimensional images that are reproducible but intangible to human touch. Some photographic processes can now render
9462-405: The invention of the daguerreotype and other photographic processes in the mid-19th century. By the late 20th century, works like John Berger's Ways of Seeing and Susan Sontag 's On Photography questioned the hidden assumptions of power, race, sex, and class encoded in even realistic images, and how those assumptions and such images may implicate the viewer in the voyeuristic position of
9576-615: The king of the Sumerian city-state of Lagash (reigned c. 2144–2124 BCE), rebuilt the temple of Ningirsu as the result of a dream in which he was told to do so. After antiquity, the passive hearing of visitation dreams largely gave way to visualized narratives in which the dreamer becomes a character who actively participates. From the 1940s to 1985, Calvin S. Hall collected more than 50,000 dream reports at Western Reserve University . In 1966, Hall and Robert Van de Castle published The Content Analysis of Dreams , in which they outlined
9690-435: The learning process...." In 2010 a Harvard study was published showing experimental evidence that dreams were correlated with improved learning. Crick's and Mitchison's 1983 " reverse learning " theory, which states that dreams are like the cleaning-up operations of computers when they are offline, removing (suppressing) parasitic nodes and other "junk" from the mind during sleep. Hartmann's 1995 proposal that dreams serve
9804-694: The making of images, even though the extent of that proscription has varied with time, place, and sect or denomination of a given religion. In Judaism, one of the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai forbids the making of "any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under earth." In Christian history, periods of iconoclasm (the destruction of images, especially those with religious meanings or connotations) have broken out from time to time, and some sects and denominations have rejected or severely limited
9918-456: The mid-1990s by his protégé William Domhoff . More recent studies of dream reports, while providing more detail, continue to cite the Hall study favorably. In the Hall study, the most common emotion experienced in dreams was anxiety . Other emotions included abandonment , anger , fear , joy , and happiness . Negative emotions were much more common than positive ones. The Hall data analysis showed that sexual dreams occur no more than 10% of
10032-516: The name of Daniel , attempted to teach Christian populations to interpret their dreams. Iain R. Edgar has researched the role of dreams in Islam . He has argued that dreams play an important role in the history of Islam and the lives of Muslims, since dream interpretation is the only way that Muslims can receive revelations from God since the death of the last prophet, Muhammad . According to Edgar, Islam classifies three types of dreams. Firstly, there
10146-592: The narrative; The Book of the Duchess and The Vision Concerning Piers Plowman are two such dream visions . Even before them, in antiquity, the same device had been used by Cicero and Lucian of Samosata . Dreams have also featured in fantasy and speculative fiction since the 19th century. One of the best-known dream worlds is Wonderland from Lewis Carroll 's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , as well as Looking-Glass Land from its sequel, Through
10260-410: The neural mechanisms, a " left-brain interpreter " that seeks to create a plausible narrative from whatever electro-chemical signals reach the brain's left hemisphere. Sleep research has determined that some brain regions fully active during waking are, during REM sleep, activated only in a partial or fragmentary way. Drawing on this knowledge, textbook author James W. Kalat explains, "[A] dream represents
10374-433: The night before flying (while awake), and that they would be as likely to miss their flight if they dreamt of their plane crashing the night before their flight as if there was an actual plane crash on the route they intended to take. Participants in the study were more likely to perceive dreams to be meaningful when the content of dreams was in accordance with their beliefs and desires while awake. They were more likely to view
10488-519: The object. A volatile image exists or is perceived only for a short period. This may be a reflection of an object by a mirror, a projection of a camera obscura , or a scene displayed on a cathode-ray tube . A fixed image , also called a hard copy , is one that has been recorded on a material object, such as paper or textile . A mental image exists in an individual's mind as something one remembers or imagines. The subject of an image does not need to be real; it may be an abstract concept such as
10602-577: The person who experiences each dream, apparently based on previous cases. Some list different possible outcomes, based on occasions in which people experienced similar dreams with different results. The Greeks shared their beliefs with the Egyptians on how to interpret good and bad dreams, and the idea of incubating dreams. Morpheus , the Greek god of dreams, also sent warnings and prophecies to those who slept at shrines and temples. The earliest Greek beliefs about dreams were that their gods physically visited
10716-523: The philosophy of art. While such studies inevitably deal with issues of meaning, another approach to signification was suggested by the American philosopher, logician, and semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce . "Images" are one type of the broad category of "signs" proposed by Peirce. Although his ideas are complex and have changed over time, the three categories of signs that he distinguished stand out: A single image may exist in all three categories at
10830-420: The point at coordinates (x,y). In literature, a " mental image " may be developed through words and phrases to which the senses respond. It involves picturing an image mentally, also called imagining, hence imagery. It can both be figurative and literal. Happiness Happiness is a complex and multifaceted emotion that encompasses a range of positive feelings, from contentment to intense joy. It
10944-503: The point that happiness judgements partly reflect the presence of salient constraints, and that fairness, autonomy, community and engagement are key aspects of happiness and wellbeing throughout the life course. Although these factors play a role in happiness, they do not all need to improve simultaneously to help one achieve an increase in happiness. Happiness has been found to be quite stable over time. As of 2016 , no evidence of happiness causing improved physical health has been found;
11058-404: The same human subject. Non-invasive measures of brain activity like electroencephalogram (EEG) voltage averaging or cerebral blood flow cannot identify small but influential neuronal populations. Also, fMRI signals are too slow to explain how brains compute in real time. Scientists researching some brain functions can work around current restrictions by examining animal subjects. As stated by
11172-471: The same time. The Statue of Liberty provides an example. While there have been countless two-dimensional and three-dimensional "reproductions" of the statue (i.e., "icons" themselves), the statue itself exists as The nature of images, whether three-dimensional or two-dimensional, created for a specific purpose or only for aesthetic pleasure, has continued to provoke questions and even condemnation at different times and places. In his dialogue, The Republic ,
11286-508: The search for satisfaction than the search for happiness." Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist and prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II, noticed that those who lost hope soon died, while those who held to meaning and purpose tended to live on. Frankl observed that joy and misery had more to do with a person's perspective and choice than with their surroundings. Three key sources of meaning that he highlights in his writings include
11400-517: The sleeper's eyelids were closed. Marcus Tullius Cicero , for his part, believed that all dreams are produced by thoughts and conversations a dreamer had during the preceding days. Cicero's Somnium Scipionis described a lengthy dream vision, which in turn was commented on by Macrobius in his Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis . Herodotus in his The Histories , writes "The visions that occur to us in dreams are, more often than not,
11514-447: The subconscious and affective, thus evading direct inquiry through contemplative reasoning. By doing so such axiomatic images let us know what we shall desire (liberalism, in a snapshot: the crunchy honey-flavored cereals and the freshly-pressed orange juice in the back of a suburban one-family home) and from what we shall obstain (communism, in a snapshot: lifeless crowds of men and machinery marching towards certain perdition accompanied by
11628-574: The subject's memory of the dream, not the subject's dream experience itself. So, dreaming by non-humans is currently unprovable, as is dreaming by human fetuses and pre-verbal infants. Preserved writings from early Mediterranean civilizations indicate a relatively abrupt change in subjective dream experience between Bronze Age antiquity and the beginnings of the classical era . In visitation dreams reported in ancient writings, dreamers were largely passive in their dreams, and visual content served primarily to frame authoritative auditory messaging. Gudea ,
11742-986: The successful predictions than unsuccessful ones. Graphic artists, writers and filmmakers all have found dreams to offer a rich vein for creative expression. In the West, artists' depictions of dreams in Renaissance and Baroque art often were related to Biblical narrative. Especially preferred by visual artists were the Jacob's Ladder dream in Genesis and St. Joseph's dreams in the Gospel according to Matthew . Many later graphic artists have depicted dreams, including Japanese woodblock artist Hokusai (1760–1849) and Western European painters Rousseau (1844–1910), Picasso (1881–1973), and Dalí (1904–1989). In literature, dream frames were frequently used in medieval allegory to justify
11856-500: The terms that have replaced "persistence of vision", though no one term seems adequate to describe the process. Image-making seems to have been common to virtually all human cultures since at least the Paleolithic era . Prehistoric examples of rock art —including cave paintings , petroglyphs , rock reliefs , and geoglyphs —have been found on every inhabited continent. Many of these images seem to have served various purposes: as
11970-653: The theories of Diener, Ryff, Keyes, and Seligmann covers a broad range of levels and topics, including "the biological, personal, relational, institutional, cultural, and global dimensions of life." The psychiatrist George Vaillant and the director of longitudinal Study of Adult Development at Harvard University Robert J. Waldinger found that those who were happiest and healthier reported strong interpersonal relationships. Research showed that adequate sleep contributes to well-being. Good mental health and good relationships contribute more to happiness than income does. In 2018, Laurie R. Santos course titled " Psychology and
12084-501: The things we have been concerned about during the day." The Dreaming is a common term within the animist creation narrative of indigenous Australians for a personal, or group, creation and for what may be understood as the "timeless time" of formative creation and perpetual creating. Some Indigenous American tribes and Mexican populations believe that dreams are a way of visiting and having contact with their ancestors . Some Native American tribes have used vision quests as
12198-488: The time and are more prevalent in young to mid-teens. Another study showed that 8% of both men's and women's dreams have sexual content. In some cases, sexual dreams may result in orgasms or nocturnal emissions . These are colloquially known as "wet dreams". The visual nature of dreams is generally highly phantasmagoric; that is, different locations and objects continuously blend into each other. The visuals (including locations, people, and objects) are generally reflective of
12312-552: The topic is being researched at the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health . A positive relationship has been suggested between the volume of the brain's gray matter in the right precuneus area and one's subjective happiness score. Sonja Lyubomirsky has estimated that 50 percent of a given human's happiness level could be genetically determined, 10 percent
12426-579: The tunes of Soviet Russian songs). What makes those images so powerful is that it is only of relative minor relevance for the stabilization of such images whether they actually capture and correspond with the multiple layers of reality, or not. Despite, or perhaps because of, the widespread use of religious and spiritual imagery worldwide, the making of images and the depiction of gods or religious subjects has been subject to criticism, censorship, and criminal penalties. The Abrahamic religions ( Judaism , Christianity , and Islam ) all have had admonitions against
12540-512: The use of religious imagery. Islam tends to discourage religious depictions, sometimes quite rigorously, and often extends that to other forms of realistic imagery, favoring calligraphy or geometric designs instead. Depending on time and place, photographs and broadcast images in Islamic societies may be less subject to outright prohibition. In any religion, restrictions on image-making are especially targeted to avoid depictions of "false gods" in
12654-407: The viewer's context. A religious image in a church may be regarded differently than the same image mounted in a museum. Some might view it simply as an object to be bought or sold. Viewers' reactions will also be guided or shaped by their education, class, race, and other contexts. The study of emotional sensations and their relationship to any given image falls into the categories of aesthetics and
12768-423: The word may vary depending on context, qualifying happiness as a polyseme and a fuzzy concept . A further issue is when measurement is made; appraisal of a level of happiness at the time of the experience may be different from appraisal via memory at a later date. Some users accept these issues, but continue to use the word because of its convening power. German philosophy professor Michela Summa says that
12882-486: Was believed significantly more than theories of dreaming that attribute dream content to memory consolidation, problem-solving, or as a byproduct of unrelated brain activity. The same study found that people attribute more importance to dream content than to similar thought content that occurs while they are awake. Americans were more likely to report that they would intentionally miss their flight if they dreamt of their plane crashing than if they thought of their plane crashing
12996-456: Was sharply reduced in later millennia. These ancient writings about dreams highlight visitation dreams, where a dream figure, usually a deity or a prominent forebear, commands the dreamer to take specific actions, and which may predict future events. Framing the dream experience varies across cultures as well as through time. Dreaming and sleep are intertwined. Dreams occur mainly in the rapid-eye movement (REM) stage of sleep —when brain activity
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