TOW #3 - Article: "The Science Behind Dreaming"

                Dreaming is a complex concept, one people, even scientists, have trouble wrapping their heads around. Yet new discoveries are made every day that link us closer and closer to the true science behind dreams. In the article “The Science Behind Dreaming”, different research studies are depicted and the answer to what dreams are and how they affect us is revealed. The author, Sander van der Linden, a social-psychologist and professor at Princeton, compares the historical misconceptions of dreams to the idea of dreams that we have today, ideas with a surplus of technological backing.

            Trying to reach the general public, Linden aims to inform about the science behind dreams, an action each and every person goes through in their lifetime. He also clears up common misconceptions and gets straight to the truth, what dreams are really made of. In reality, dreams turn on electrical brain waves in our mind and trigger parts of the brain such as the amygdala and the hippocampus, areas that control our emotions and memories. This explains why dreams have such strong emotional connotations.

            Linden constructs her ideas in a very successful manner, making her evidence highly relevant and the purpose, to inform the general public about the science behind dreams, very clear. Using coherence, exposition and ethos, Linden constructs a purpose and gets it across to the audience. By using a historical analysis of dreams, leading into various different current studies and theories about dreams and eventually concluding with a summary of the research findings, Linden’s article flows and has coherence. He also establishes ethos by giving credible and current research from research teams located all over the world.

            All in all, Linden was successful in communicating his purpose to the audience of un-informed citizens. He backed up his ideas with an abundance of research and clearly laid out the true science behind dreams.