Old School paper

 This is just an old paper I wrote real quick in school a long time ago, just reading it makes me remember that class so well, I loved it, but hated it all at the same time..It may not be interesting to you, and I was not the best at avoiding rambling. Still not..ha

Joyce Barrett
Psych2301
Tues, Thurs 10:15am
October 3, 2002

Personal Experiences on chapter Six
 
After reading chapter six in my textbook, I can say it was the most interesting chapter that we have covered in class so far.  One thing I found interesting was that I have never realized how much I do have selective attention until I learned more about it in the book.  I have become aware of what selective attention actually is, and I now notice that it happens more than I thought.
Another thing I liked in chapter six was the section on daydreaming.  I have a big difficulty trying to stay focused on things a lot of time.  Not that I have a small interest in a subject at school, or a project I am doing, but just that my mind seems to wonder from me.  For example, I could be working on a painting, in which I have great interest in, and I may come to a point where I need to paint something such as an open door.  This door would then pull me into a memory of a friend in high school when he had walked in to door, in which he had busted his nose.  This would cause a domino effect and it could take me as far as a Christmas present 5 years ago and how I wish id gotten something better.  This daydream can cause me to have wasted most of my time that I wanted to spend on painting.  I do not daydream because I am simply bored, or I do not like what I am doing, but only because something may remind me of something else and from that memory I begin to daydream.  I wonder if I should go as far as saying, I have a fantasy-prone personality, though I can distinguish the difference between both worlds, but fantasy prone people have hard times deciphering between reality and a dream.
Another point in the textbook that was interesting is the mention of dreams, sleepwalking and night terrors.  It stated that people might say they hardly ever dream but in fact, everyone dreams all the time, they just might not remember their dreams when they wake.  As a young child, I could remember every dream I had.  Eventually I did not think I had as many dreams as I used to.  I could not remember most of my dreams if I had any, but my parents would always tell me about how I would wake up crying about something.  The next morning I would have no idea what they were talking about, and in some cases, I would think they had made the whole thing up, because I would not believe I did anything in my sleep.  I read that you will forget anything that happens during the five minutes just before you fall asleep, so this explains why it was hard for me to believe someone if hey say I had woken up from a dream and told them about it then fell back to sleep.
Just for the entertainment, I had looked on the internet for Freud’s book, The Interpretation of Dreams.  I had only skimmed through to see if anything caught my eye.  As I looked through the chapter headings, I noticed a chapter on why we forget dreams.  In that chapter I read that, most people do not pay much attention to there dreams and that is one reason why they can be easily forgotten.  Freud said that unless you spend time analyzing dreams or your attention is suddenly directed to dreams, you would not notice, and remember if you even had a dream.  This may not be related to Freud’s statement, but in the past 2 months, I cannot say I even remember having a dream. Within the few days we have talked about dreams, fantasies, night terrors, and daydreaming, in this chapter I have had a couple of dreams, and are able to remember them.