本文选自《经济学人》9月5日刊文章。人们一直认为，梦有隐藏的含义，从西方《圣经》中创世纪对梦的解读，到中国的《周公解梦》，再到近代弗洛伊德的《梦的解析》，人类一直希望揭开梦的秘密。弗洛伊德认为暴力冲动和性压抑是梦的根源，而现代心理学认为，梦是做梦者日常经历的偶发再现，或是做梦者想在清醒时付诸实践的一些想法。对大量的梦境报告研究表明，男女做梦的方式不同，梦也会随着年龄的增长而改变，个人生活经历的变化也会影响梦境，然而人究竟为何会做梦仍未有明确答案。通过这篇文章，走进神秘人类的梦境。
选文精讲
Do dreams reflect reality?Computer analysis brings closer an understanding of what dreaming is aboutTHAT DREAMS contain hidden meanings is an old idea. The Biblical Book of Genesis, （written down about 2,500 years ago）, describes how Joseph, （son of Jacob）, interpreted the Egyptian pharaoh’s dreams of fat and thin cattle as predicting years first of plenty and then of famine. In China, meanwhile, the most popular work on dream interpretation has long been the “Zhougong Jie Meng”, a dictionary of explanations for weird and wonderful dreams written 500 years earlier still. It is, however, only since the publication of Sigmund Freud’s treatise “The Interpretation of Dreams”, in 1899, that dreams have become a subject of serious scientific scrutiny.
很早之前，人们就认为梦有隐藏的含义。约2500年前的《圣经创世纪》就描述了雅各的儿子约瑟如何将埃及法老梦到的肥瘦牛的梦，解读为预言未来几年的丰年和饥荒。中国最受欢迎的解梦著作一直是《周公解孟》，这本解释怪梦、奇梦的宝典比《圣经创世纪》还早500年。然而，直到1899年西格蒙德·弗洛伊德的论文《梦的解释》出版后，梦才成为严肃的科学研究对象。Things have moved on since Freud’s day. His emphasis on violent urges and sexual repression as the roots of dreaming now looks old-fashioned. Instead, the premise is that dreams reflect a dreamer’s quotidian experience—either because they are an epiphenomenon of the consolidation of memories or because they are a mental testing ground for ideas the dreamer may have to put into practice when awake. This resemblance between dreams and reality is dubbed the continuity hypothesis by psychologists. Data supporting it, however, are sparse. Such as exist come from clinical studies rather than examinations of people with healthy minds. And the numbers of participants involved tend to be small.
- continuity hypothesis: 连续假说
自弗洛伊德的时代以来，事情一直在发展。他强调暴力冲动和性压抑是梦的根源，现在看来已经过时了。相反，现在认为做梦的前提是，梦反映了做梦者日常的经历——要么是因为梦是固有记忆的一种偶发现象，要么是因为梦是做梦者的一些想法，梦境是这些想法在清醒时可能要付诸实践的心理测试场所。梦和现实之间的相似性被心理学家称为连续性假设。然而，支持它的数据很少，而且这些数据来自临床研究，而不是对心智健康的人的检查，而且参与的人数往往很少。
