This article throws light upon the three main types of dreams. The types are: 1. Dreaming is Passive Imagination 2. Dream Illusions 3. Dream-Hallucinations.
Type # 1. Dreaming is Passive Imagination:
Daydreaming is passive imagination in the waking condition. Dreaming also is passive imagination during light sleep. It is more free from control and criticism than daydreaming. Images come of themselves owing to suggestive forces and are combined in various ways.
They are the work of the subconscious mind. They are apprehended as actual perceptions during dream. But they are not percept produced by external objects and do not agree with them.
They are images produced by the unconscious mind. Sometimes dream-images are vivid and distinct. They are projected to outer space and appear to be real objects of perception. The critical faculty is mostly suspended during sleep. Hence dream-images are often combined in an absurd and coherent manner.
James Sully divides dreams into two kinds, dream-illusions and dream-hallucinations.
Type # 2. Dream Illusions:
They are excited by external stimuli. A man sleeping in a well-lighted room sometimes dreams of a conflagration. A man sleeping with insufficient clothes in winter may dream of swimming in a river when exposes to a shower of rain. A man who had a hot water bottle at his feet, dreamt that he was walking on the crater of a volcano. These are dream-illusions.
Type # 3. Dream-Hallucinations:
They are excited by central stimuli or a train of thoughts and images. A young man enamoured of a girl dreams of his beloved. Some dreams are actuated by the un-gratified sex desire (Freud). Some are actuated by other desires also, e.g., poetic impulse, musical impulse, artistic impulse, etc.
Some dreams are actuated by the mastery motive (e.g., flight dreams). Some dreams are a mere fantastic play of imagination. Images are suggested spontaneously by one another with some desire giving impetus to them.