Does Jean Piaget Have a Theory about Dreams and Symbolic Representation?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53103/cjess.v3i6.190Keywords:
Symbolism, Cognitive Development, Dreams, Egocentrism, Animism, Moral HeteronomyAbstract
Appreciating and critiquing Sigmund Freud's contributions and psychoanalysis, Jean Piaget explored children's dreams from the perspective of developmental cognitive psychology. Jean Piaget's concern is to arrive at a meaningful theory of cognitive development, and he proposed a comprehensive theory about the nature and development of human intelligence. For him, dreams are part of our cognitive processes. And they are a reflection of our thoughts and experiences. Piaget's fundamental aim is to comprehend what meaning children get from their dreams and how they understand the genesis, character, and nature of dreams. Piaget examined childhood dreams and explained how they develop in children's growing competence in symbolic reasoning. One of the central theses of Jean Piaget is that children arrive at diverse conceptualizations and meaning constructions concerning dreams on their own. He strongly believed that to understand children's dreams, it is necessary to explore their conceptions of dreams in relation to their other characteristics, like egocentrism, animism, moral heteronomy, dreams as external, a lack of classification and conservation abilities, etc. Jean Piaget explains dreams by referring to the child's mental processes and associating thinking with their dreams. This paper attempts to reconstruct Piaget's theory of dreaming and symbolism.
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