Psychology of Dreaming ... How?

[DreamingBig]

Hey everyone! 

I'm new to the forum and I'm glad I found this site because I have wanted to ask this question to someone. I have a deep interest in dreaming, more specifically why we humans dream and the psychology of our dreaming. I am currently a third year undergraduate student doing an honours in psychology and I have always wanted to spend my life studying dreams as some sort of psychologist (or however one would go about becoming a dream researcher). What path would you guys/girls recommend I take if this is my desire?:) I don't even know what field of psychology to specifically specialize in because there are just so many haha! My GPA trough 2.5 years is about 3.87/4.00, and I'm hoping I could get this up a touch by the end of my degree. I included that because perhaps knowing my grades would help steer me in some direction!:) Thanks guys!

[Neposydko]

50 minutes ago, DreamingBig said:

Hey everyone! 

I'm new to the forum and I'm glad I found this site because I have wanted to ask this question to someone. I have a deep interest in dreaming, more specifically why we humans dream and the psychology of our dreaming. I am currently a third year undergraduate student doing an honours in psychology and I have always wanted to spend my life studying dreams as some sort of psychologist (or however one would go about becoming a dream researcher). What path would you guys/girls recommend I take if this is my desire?:) I don't even know what field of psychology to specifically specialize in because there are just so many haha! My GPA trough 2.5 years is about 3.87/4.00, and I'm hoping I could get this up a touch by the end of my degree. I included that because perhaps knowing my grades would help steer me in some direction!:) Thanks guys!

I think going into a research Masters or PhD in Psychology will be the best bet for you. If you think you will enjoying doing research in that field, you can apply for a masters in a University that has a faculty who does research in the field of dreaming. I have encountered a few of those throughout the Canadian Universities while researching potential supervisors for my applications. You can easily find them by looking through the faculty of the Universities that interest you. Shoot them an email stating that you'd be interested in working them as a grad student. Talk about what interests you of the field, and a few ideas you might have that relate to their current research. Writing a quick email will help you know which prof is looking for grad students for the upcoming application cycle, which will be September 2018 in Canada. 

I would think with your GPA you stand a fair chance, especially given that you're doing honours and so are probably getting research experience. This would be the route if you're interested in research solely. If you're interested in working clinically though, you would have to consider the clinical programs, which are much more competitive (and not worth the trouble and headaches (jesus that application process hell.... =.=) if you're solely interested in research). 

I would also recommend you ask the graduate studies or the prof you're interested in working with if you might be able to skip Masters and apply right away into a PhD. This is sometimes possible given that you will have a honours degree.

Hope this somehow helps you get started

 

[hd397]

Hello!

As someone who is interested in sleep (not dreaming specifically) I can tell you from looking through labs and applying twice that there are not too many labs in clinical psychology departments doing sleep or dream research. I've found that sleep labs tend to be more common in medical school settings, so you may want to consider a PhD in neuroscience. I can't speak for other areas of psychology (behavioral, experimental, etc), since I only applied to clinical psych and neuroscience, so I'll let someone else weigh in on those.

Offhand, I know that Robert Stickgold at Harvard has done some pretty interesting research on dreaming, and I believe he takes grad students through their neuroscience program. That being said, look up some recently published papers that you really like and check out the authors to get a feel for where this research is being done, and what type of students the PIs are advising. I hope this helps!