Decoding the Meanings

　　Today, psychologists are applying modern technology to probe the content of dreams. Hoss uses a computer based approach called content analysis to interpret the colors in dreams. More than 80 percent of people dream in color, he says, though only a quarter of them recall the shades the next morning. To collect data, he analyzed nearly 24,000 dreams, catalogued in two databases at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Bridgewater State College in Massa-chusetts. His study suggested that specific colors represent particular emotions.

　　But, as with symbols and action, one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to interpretation. Every dreamer draws on a different palette to reflect personal associations. “Using color is your brain’s way of painting your dreams with your emotion,” says Hoss, who just published his results in Dream Language (Inner source, 2005).

　　Some researchers scoff at the need for computers or even therapists to interpret dreams. Psychologist Gayle Delaney, founding president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, believes that dreamers themselves are the best interpreters of their time in dreamland.

　　What Dreams Can Do for You

　　Psychologists have long known that people can solve their problems at work and home by “sleeping on it.” The challenge has always been to train yourself to dream up the solutions. Deirdre Barrett, an assistant psychology professor at Harvard Medical School and editor of the journal Dreaming, advises individuals to ponder questions just before falling asleep (Should I take this job? Should I marry that guy?) and then let the subconscious provide the answers. “I’ve known artists looking for inspiration who simply dream up a future show of their art and wake up with plenty of new painting ideas,” says Barrett. “More and more people are learning these techniques to control their dreams.”

　　Some researchers believe that you can guide your dreams while youre sleeping. In recent years, Stephen LaBerge, has pioneered a way of directing the sleeping mind through “lucid dreaming,” in which a sleeping person realizes he or she is dreaming while it is happening. Lucid dreamers can experience fantasy adventures—like flying to the moon or traveling through time—while being fully aware that theyre dreaming. “It’s like a poor man’s Tahiti,” says LaBerge, a psycho physiologist who directs the Lucidity Institute in Palo Alto, California. “Just being in a lucid dream is a turn-on for people.”

　　According to LaBerge, lucid dreamers can use the experience for a variety of purposes: problem solving, developing creative ideas and healing. Patricia Keelin, a 55-year-old graphic cartographer from northern California, has used lucid dreaming for everything from talking to her longdead father to gorging on sweets. “Chocolate always tastes better in a lucid dream because you don’t have to worry about the calories,” she says. A weak swimmer in her waking life, she often likes to go skin diving when she realizes she’s having a lucid dream, diving to the bottom of the dream ocean without worrying about breathing (or her swimming skills). “It’s exhilarating,” she says. “Lucid dreaming is great because it’s free and available to everybody.”

　　Well, not entirely free. Although everyone has the potential to dream lucidly, it rarely happens routinely without special training or temperament.

　　Indeed, your dreams are like private movies where you are the star, director and writer all at once. And as the latest research indicates, you are also the most insightful movie critic—without the need of a couch. The best interpreter of your dreams is you.

　　1. The red and black colors that dominate the anthropologist’s dream .

　　A) combine a sign of his experiencing difficult times

　　B) spiked when he is unpleasant with things around

　　C) is the reflection of what he thought

　　D) is nothing but imagination

　　2. The passage mainly reveals .

　　A) how dreams occur during our sleeping

　　B) why we will dream and the outcome of dreaming at night

　　C) some of the newest discoveries on dreams and the role dreaming plays in our lives

　　D) dreaming has very deep influence on our life

　　3. Dreaming is .

　　A) more conscious than subconscious

　　B) a mood regulatory system

　　C) less conscious than subconscious

　　D) the conscious mind

　　4. Studies found that it is likely for people to dream of .

　　A) new images combined with old emotional experiences

　　B) old images combined with new emotional experiences

　　C) images irrelevant with old emotional experiences

　　D) images irrelevant with new emotional experiences

　　5. By observing dreams of 30 divorced adults, Cartwright found that .

　　A) overcoming the marriage problems is difficult for the people who dreams a lot at night

　　B) overcoming marriage problems is very easy for the spouse who just have been married

　　C) the marriage problems exist in any spouse who have no chance of overcoming marriage problems

　　D) those having the best chance of overcoming marriage problems usually were angry at their spouse in dreams

　　6. Koninck believes that .

　　A) each person is the best dream interpreter of his own dreams

　　B) any person can interpret others’dreams

　　C) dreaming is very easy to interpret

　　D) no one can interpret his own dream

　　7. Gayle Delan holds that .

　　A) therapists are very helpful to interpret the dreams

　　B) it is ridiculous to use computer to interpret the dreams

　　C) computers and therapists are most helpful in dreaminterpretation

　　D) computers are very helpful to interpret the dreams

　　8. Lucid dreaming is different from dreams of common belief in that it enables people to .

　　9. For anyone intends to dream lucidly, is necessary.

　　10. The latest research indicates that play the combined role of actor, director, writer, or even critic in the private movies of your dreams.

　　Test 2—Test 5(略)

　　解析略

节选自：《大学英语四级考试强化集训—阅读理解》

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