The Trapping of the Mind

As humans, it is not our fault that we are tricked into thinking or believing something. The reason is called a “common reasoning error”. In a reasoning error, we believe something due to an inner factor in our psychology that pushes us to act in that manner. Here is a look at a few common reasoning errors that people fall victim to in our myth of symbolic dreams:

1) The first is called confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is when we have the inclination to search for information that confirms their bias. Basically, people will gather information that supports their established belief, and only that which supports them. They will ignore information that might challenge their belief. For example, when we get buy a new pair of jeans at a store, we then look for the same pair at other stores for a more expensive price. We are looking for that extra affirmation that we have done right. In this myth, we will see people looking for their dream topics avidly in their waking life.

2) Another reasoning error is self-fulfilling prophecy. Self-fulfilling prophecy is when someone alters their actions to fit their belief. They believe something and change the way the act in order to support themselves. For example, someone will say that they will do horrible in a boring class, and will not pay attention or be studious in that class. In our myth, this is like when someone will have a dream about making more money at a job, and start to work exceptionally harder to get a raise. The difference between self-fulfilling prophecy and confirmation bias is the action. In self-fulfilling prophecy, we act towards our belief, while in confirmation bias, we look for the world to act towards it.

3) Probably the most common reasoning error in our myth is called post hoc, ergo propter hoc. This is a Latin term for “after this, therefore because of this.” When something happens after our belief is instated, it was automatically because of our belief. For example, if you cut your hair one day, and the next day your significant other breaks up with you, we believe it is because of our haircut. We don’t look at the past relationship; just what has happened. The reason this reasoning error is so common in our myth is because dreams happen before the events that we link them to occur. Therefore, any event can be linked to our dreams!

These three common reasoning errors are the most relevant to our myth. There are plenty of others that people may run in to, such as availability heuristic, clustering illusion, false consensus effect, regression fallacy, and self-serving assessment. These errors are the foundation of the myth. Because people experience the above listed, our myth lives on.