Sleep researchers in different disciplines disagree about how fully dreaming can be explained in terms of brain physiology. Debate has focused on whether REM sleep dreaming is qualitatively different from nonREM (NREM) sleep and waking. A review of psychophysiological studies shows clear quantitative differences between REM and NREM mentation and between REM and waking mentation. Recent neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies also differentiate REM, NREM, and waking in features with phenomenological implications. Both evidence and theory suggest that there are isomorphisms between (...) the phenomenology and the physiology of dreams. We present a three-dimensional model with specific examples from normally and abnormally changing conscious states. Key Words: consciousness; dreaming; neuroimaging; neuromodulation; NREM; phenomenology; qualia; REM; sleep. (shrink)
Sleep researchers in different disciplines disagree about how fully dreaming can be explained in terms of brain physiology. Debate has focused on whether REM sleep dreaming is qualitatively different from nonREM (NREM) sleep and waking. A review of psychophysiological studies shows clear quantitative differences between REM and NREM mentation and between REM and waking mentation. Recent neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies also differentiate REM, NREM, and waking in features with phenomenological implications. Both evidence and theory suggest that there are isomorphisms between (...) the phenomenology and the physiology of dreams. We present a three-dimensional model with specific examples from normally and abnormally changing conscious states. Key Words: consciousness; dreaming; neuroimaging; neuromodulation; NREM; phenomenology; qualia; REM; sleep. (shrink)
What, if anything, do dreams tell us about ourselves? What is the relationship between types of sleep and types of dreams? Does dreaming serve any purpose? Or are dreams simply meaningless mental noise--"unmusical fingers wandering over the piano keys"? With expertise in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, Owen Flanagan is uniquely qualified to answer these questions. In this groundbreaking work, he provides both an accessible survey of the latest research on sleep and dreams and a compelling new theory about the nature (...) and function of dreaming. Flanagan argues that while sleep has a clear biological function and adaptive value, dreams are merely side effects, "free riders," irrelevant from an evolutionary point of view. But dreams are hardly unimportant. Flanagan argues that dreams are self-expressive, the result of our need to find or to create meaning, even when we're sleeping. Written with remarkable insight, Dreaming Souls offers a fascinating new way of apprehending one of the oldest mysteries of mental life. (shrink)
The aim is to discover a principle governing the formation of the dream. Now dreaming has an analogy with consciousness in that it is a seeming-consciousness. Meanwhile consciousness exhibits a tripartite structure consisting of (A) understanding oneself to be situated in a world endowed with given properties, (B) the mental processes responsible for the state, and (C) the concrete perceptual encounter of awareness with the world. The dream analogues of these three elements are investigated in the hope of discovering (...) the source of the kinship between dream and consciousness. The dream world (A) proves to be a logically impossible world, limited by nothing more than sheer narratability. The internal world (B) of the dreamer is notable for the limitlessness of the scope allotted to the imagination (exactly taking over the offices of rational function), together with the presence of two important phenomena encountered in waking consciousness: a measure of interiority, and the positing of a world. Finally (C), the dream further replicates consciousness in so far as we seem in dreaming concretely to experience our physical surrounds in the form of perceptual imagining. These properties play their part in enabling the dream to be a seeming-consciousness. At the same time they are such as to necessitate its not being consciousness. It is proposed that in the light of these properties, and those composing the state of consciousness, the dream simply is the imagining of consciousness. (shrink)
I argue that being wide awake is an epistemic virtue which enables me to recognize immediately that I'm wide awake. Also I argue that dreams are imaginings and that the wide awake mind can immediately discern the difference between imaginings and vivid sense experience. Descartes need only pinch himself.
Penultimate draft; please refer to published version. I argue, on philosophical, psychological, and neurophysiological grounds, that contrary to an orthodox view, dreams do not typically involve misleading sensations and false beliefs. I am thus in partial agreement with Colin McGinn, who has argued that we do not have misleading sensory experience while dreaming, and partially in agreement with Ernest Sosa, who has argued that we do not form false beliefs while dreaming. Rather, on my view, dreams involve mental imagery and (...) propositional imagination. I defend the imagination model of dreaming from some objections. (shrink)
Several theories claim that dreaming is a random by-product of REM sleep physiology and that it does not serve any natural function. Phenomenal dream content, however, is not as disorganized as such views imply. The form and content of dreams is not random but organized and selective: during dreaming, the brain constructs a complex model of the world in which certain types of elements, when compared to waking life, are underrepresented whereas others are over represented. Furthermore, dream content is consistently (...) and powerfully modulated by certain types of waking experiences. On the basis of this evidence, I put forward the hypothesis that the biological function of dreaming is to simulate threatening events, and to rehearse threat perception and threat avoidance. To evaluate this hypothesis, we need to consider the original evolutionary context of dreaming and the possible traces it has left in the dream content of the present human population. In the ancestral environment human life was short and full of threats. Any behavioral advantage in dealing with highly dangerous events would have increased the probability of reproductive success. A dream-production mechanism that tends to select threatening waking events and simulate them over and over again in various combinations would have been valuable for the development and maintenance of threat-avoidance skills. Empirical evidence from normative dream content, children's dreams, recurrent dreams, nightmares, post traumatic dreams, and the dreams of hunter-gatherers indicates that our dream-production mechanisms are in fact specialized in the simulation of threatening events, and thus provides support to the threat simulation hypothesis of the function of dreaming. Key Words: dream content; dream function; evolution of consciousness; evolutionary psychology; fear; implicit learning; nightmares; rehearsal; REM; sleep; threat perception. (shrink)
What could it mean to be conscious in your dreams? For most of us, dreaming is something quite separate from normal life. When we wake up from being chased by a ferocious tiger, or seduced by a devastatingly good-looking Nobel Prize winner we realize with relief or disappointment that "it was only a dream.".
The target articles in this volume address the three major questions about dreaming that have been most responsible for the delay in progress in this field over the past 25 years. These are: (1) Where in the brain is dreaming produced, given that dream reports can be elicited from sleep stages other than REM? (2) Do dream plots have any intrinsic meaning? (3) Does dreaming serve some specialized function? The answers offered here when added together support a new model of (...) dreaming that is testable, and should revitalize this area of study. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Revonsuo; Solms; Vertes & Eastman]. (shrink)
Penultimate draft; please refer to published version -- especially important in this case, as the official version has been Britishized; even the title's second letter is not the same. Abstract. Ernest Sosa has argued that the solution to dream skepticism lies in an understanding of dreams as imaginative experiences – when we dream, on this suggestion, we do not believe the contents of our dreams, but rather imagine them. Sosa rebuts skepticism thus: dreams don’t cause false beliefs, so my beliefs (...) cannot be false, having been caused by dreams. I argue that, even assuming that Sosa is correct about the nature of dreaming, belief in wakefulness on these grounds is epistemically irresponsible. The proper upshot of the imagination model, I suggest, is to recharacterize the way we think about dream skepticism: the skeptical threat is not, after all, that we have false beliefs. So even though dreams don’t involve false beliefs, they still pose a skeptical threat, which I elaborate. (shrink)
The paradigmatic assumption that REM sleep is the physiological equivalent of dreaming is in need of fundamental revision. A mounting body of evidence suggests that dreaming and REM sleep are dissociable states, and that dreaming is controlled by forebrain mechanisms. Recent neuropsychological, radiological, and pharmacological findings suggest that the cholinergic brain stem mechanisms that control the REM state can only generate the psychological phenomena of dreaming through the mediation of a second, probably dopaminergic, forebrain mechanism. The latter mechanism (and thus (...) dreaming itself) can also be activated by a variety of nonREM triggers. Dreaming can be manipulated by dopamine agonists and antagonists with no concomitant change in REM frequency, duration, and density. Dreaming can also be induced by focal forebrain stimulation and by complex partial (forebrain) seizures during nonREM sleep, when the involvement of brainstem REM mechanisms is precluded. Likewise, dreaming is obliterated by focal lesions along a specific (probably dopaminergic) forebrain pathway, and these lesions do not have any appreciable effects on REM frequency, duration, and density. These findings suggest that the forebrain mechanism in question is the final common path to dreaming and that the brainstem oscillator that controls the REM state is just one of the many arousal triggers that can activate this forebrain mechanism. The “REM-on” mechanism (like its various NREM equivalents) therefore stands outside the dream process itself, which is mediated by an independent, forebrain “dream-on” mechanism. Key Words: acetylcholine; brainstem; dopamine; dreaming; forebrain; NREM; REM; sleep. (shrink)
Recent work on functional brain architecture during dreaming provides invaluable clues for an understanding of dreaming, but identifying active brain regions during dreaming, together with their waking cognitive and cognitive functions, informs a model that accounts for only the grossest characteristics of dreaming. Improved dreaming models require cross discipline apprehension of what it is we want dreaming models to “explain.” [Hobson et al.; Neilsen; Revonsuo; Solms].
Having fascinated some of the greatest philosophers from the earliest times, dreaming figures importantly in the history of philosophy, as in Plato’s Theaetetus, Augustine’s Confessions, and, perhaps most famously, Descartes’s Mediations. By far the greatest philosophical focus on dreaming has been epistemic: Socrates suggests to Theaetetus that since he cannot tell whether he is dreaming, he cannot trust his senses to know contingent facts about the world around him. And a similar worry drives Descartes’s radical doubt in the First Meditation. (...) We might think that dream skepticism is, among the radical Cartesian skeptical scenarios, a particularly worrying one, since dreams, unlike evil demons, are a commonplace of everyday life. (shrink)
After resolving the dreaming doubt at the end of the Sixth Meditation, Descartes concedes to Hobbes that one could apply the criterion for waking experience in a dream and thus be deceived, but he no longer considers this possibility to have skeptical force. I argue that this is a legitimate response by Descartes since 1) the dreaming doubt in the Sixth Meditation is no longer a global skeptical hypothesis as it is in the First, and 2) the level of certainty (...) that sensory experience must meet in the Sixth Meditation is lower than it must meet in the First. (shrink)
I have argued that Wittgenstein's treatment of dreaming involves a kind of anti-realism about the past: what makes "I dreamed p " true is, roughly, that I wake with the feeling or impression of having dreamed p . Richard Scheer raises three objections. First, that the texts do not support my interpretation. Second, that the anti-realist view of dreaming does not make sense, so cannot be Wittgenstein's view. Third, that the anti-realist view leaves it a mystery why someone who reports (...) having dreamed such-and-such is inclined to report what she does. The Reply defends my reading of Wittgenstein against these objections. (shrink)
In a recent, and influential, article, Crispin Wright maintains that a familiar form of scepticismwhich finds its core expression in Descartes’ dreaming argumentcan be defused (or, to use Wright’s own parlance, “imploded”), by showing how it employs self-defeating reasoning. I offer two fundamental reasons for rejecting Wright’s ‘implosion’ of scepticism. On the one hand, I argue that, even by Wright’s own lights, it is unclear whether there is a sceptical argument to implode in the first place. On the other, I (...) claim that even on the supposition that Wright has indeed succeeded in setting-up such an argument, he nevertheless fails to follow-through with an adequate response. A diagnosis of the failure of Wright’s approach is then given in the context of the wider sceptical debate. (shrink)
For the anti-realist, the truth about a subject's past thoughts and attitudes is determined by what he is subsequently disposed to judge about them. The argument for an anti-realist interpretation of Wittgenstein's view of past-tense statements seems plausible in three cases: dreams, calculating in the head, and thinking. Wittgenstein is indeed an anti-realist about dreaming. His account of calculating in the head suggests anti-realism about the past, but turns out to be essentially realistic. He does not endorse general anti-realism about (...) past thoughts; but his treatment does in some cases involve elements of anti-realism, unacceptable in some instances but possibly correct in others. (shrink)
The research program defended by O'Regan & Noë (O&N) cannot give any plausible explanation for the fact that during REM-sleep the brain regularly generates subjective experiences (dreams) where visual phenomenology is especially prominent. This internal experience is almost invariably organized in the form of “being-in-the-world.” Dreaming presents a serious unaccountable anomaly for the sensorimotor research program and reveals that some of its fundamental assumptions about the nature of consciousness are questionable.
Lucid dreaming provides a test case for theories of dreaming. For example, whether or not “loss of self-reflective awareness” is characteristic of dreaming, it is not necessary to dreaming. The fact that lucid dreamers can remember to perform predetermined actions and signal to the laboratory allows them to mark the exact time of particular dream events, allowing experiments to establish precise correlations between physiology and subjective reports, and enabling the methodical testing of hypotheses. [Hobson et al.; Solms].
The biological theories of dreaming provide no explanation for the transduction from neuronal discharge to dreaming or waking consciousness. They cannot account for the variability in dream content between individuals or within individuals. Mind-brain isomorphism is poorly supported, as is dreaming's link to REM sleep. Biological theories of dreaming do not provide a function for dreaming nor a meaning for dreams. Evolutionary views of dreaming do not relate dream content to the current concerns of the dreamer and using the nightmare (...) as the paradigm dream minimizes the impact of poor sleep on adaptations. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Revonsuo; Solms]. (shrink)
The paper proposes a minimal definition of dreaming in terms of immersive spatiotemporal hallucination (ISTH) occurring in sleep or during sleep–wake transitions and under the assumption of reportability. I take these conditions to be both necessary and sufficient for dreaming to arise. While empirical research results may, in the future, allow for an extension of the concept of dreaming beyond sleep and possibly even independently of reportability, ISTH is part of any possible extension of this definition and thus is a (...) constitutive condition of dreaming. I also argue that the proposed ISTH model of dreaming, in conjunction with considerations on the epistemic relationship between dreaming and dream reports, raises important questions about the extent to which dreams typically involve a detailed body representation—an assumption that plays an important role in philosophical work on dreaming. As a commonly accepted definition of dreaming is lacking in current dream research, the ISTH model, which integrates conceptual analysis and epistemological considerations with results from empirical research, is an important contribution to this field. By linking dreaming to felt presence, full-body illusions, and autoscopic phenomena such as out-of-body experiences in wakefulness and in the hypnagogic state, the ISTH model of dreaming also helps integrate dream research, both theoretically and experimentally, with the study of other altered states of consciousness involving hallucinations. It makes straightforward and investigable predictions by claiming that all of these experiences have amodal spatiotemporal hallucinations as their common denominator. Finally, it is theoretically relevant for the philosophical discussion on minimal phenomenal selfhood. (shrink)
A minority position is presented in which evidence will be cited from the Hobson, Solms, Revonsuo, and Nielsen target articles and from other sources, supporting major tenets of Freud's theory of dreaming. Support is described for Freud's view of dreams as meaningful, linked to basic motivations, differing qualitatively in mentation, and wish-fulfilling. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Revonsuo; Solms].
There are two epistemological problems connected with dreaming, which are of different kinds and require different treatment. The internal problem is best seen as a problem of rational consistency, of how we can maintain all of: Dreams are experiences we have during sleep. Dream-experiences are sufficiently similar to waking experiences for the subject to be able to mistake them for waking experiences. We can tell that we are awake. (1)-(3) threaten to violate a requirement on discrimination: that we can only (...) tell Xs from Ys if there is some detectable difference between Xs and Ys. Attempts to solve the problem by Descartes and Williams are considered. It is suggested that if we take account of levels of epistemic risk, we can use Descartes's criterion of lack of coherence, at least with hindsight - which is the time when we need to use it. (shrink)
The five papers in this issue all deal with the proper evolutionary function of sleep and dreams, these being different. To establish that some trait of character is an adaptation in the strict biological sense requires a story about the fitness enhancing function it served when it evolved and possibly a story of how the maintenance of this function is fitness enhancing now. My aim is to evaluate the proposals put forward in these papers. My conclusion is that although sleep (...) is almost certainly an adaptation, dreaming is not. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; revonsuo; Solms; Vertes & Eastman]. (shrink)
This review describes central difficulties in the interdisciplinary study of dreaming, summarizes Jouvet's account of his role in the history of modern dream science, queries his positive speculations on the semantics of dreaming, and suggests work for historians of neuroscience.
Although the work of Revonsuo is commendable for its attempt to use an evolutionary approach to formulate a hypothesis about the adaptive function of dreaming, the conclusions arrived at by this author cannot be fully shared. Particularly questionable is the idea that the specific function of dreaming is to simulate threatening events. I propose here a hypothesis in which the dream can have a different function. [Revonsuo].
It has been widely demonstrated that dreaming occurs throughout human sleep. However, we once again are facing new variants of the equation “REM sleep = Dreaming.” Nielsen proposes a model that assumes covert REM processes in NREM sleep. I argue against this possibility, because dream research has shown that REM sleep is not a necessary condition for dreaming to occur. [Nielson].
This essay discusses Walter Benjamin's development of 'dream' as a model for understanding 19th- and 20th-century urban culture. Following Bergson and surrealist poetics, Benjamin used 'dream' in the 1920s as an heuristic analogy for investigating child hood memories, kitsch art and literature; during the early 1930s, he also developed it into an historiographic concept for studying 19th- century Parisian culture. Benjamin's interpretative use of the dream cuts across Ricoeur's distinction between the hermeneutics of 'recol lection' and the hermeneutics of 'suspicion'. (...) The political dream analyst seeks to discharge the 'fatal powers' of the ideological dream, while at the same time fostering the experience of waking in which dream elements may recollectively be grasped. Benjamin extends this dialectic of dreaming, interpreting and waking to the relation between historical epochs and the tasks of the materialist historian. Puzzling out the recent past's dreamlike rebuses may serve in the task of a present historical awakening. Key Words: Walter Benjamin • city • dream • hermeneutics • surrealism. (shrink)
The validity of dream recall is discussed. What is the relation between the actual dream and its later reflection? Nielsen proposes differential sleep mentation, which is probably determined by dream accessibility. Solms argues that REM sleep and dreaming are double dissociable states. Dreaming occurs outside REM sleep when cerebral activation is high enough. That various active sleep states correlate with vivid dream reports implies that REM sleep and dreaming are single dissociable states. Vertes & Eastman reject that REM sleep is (...) involved in memory consolidation. Considerable evidence for this was obtained by REM deprivation studies with the dubious water tank technique. [Nielsen; Solms; Vertes & Eastman]. (shrink)
There are strong resemblances between the neurobiological characteristics of hallucinations occurring in the particular case of schizophrenia and the hallucinatory activity observed during the rapid-eye-movement (dreaming) sleep stage: the same prefrontal dorsolateral deactivation; forebrain disconnectivity and disinhibition; sensory deprivation; and acetylcholine, monoamine, and glutamate modifications.
Definitions of dreaming are not required to map formal features of mental activity onto brain measures. While dreaming occurs during all stages of sleep, intense dreaming is largely confined to REM. Forebrain structures and many neurotransmitters can contribute to sleep and dreaming without negating brainstem and aminergic-cholinergic control mechanisms. Reductionism is essential to science and AIM has considerable heuristic value. Recent findings support sleep's role in learning and memory. Emerging technologies may address long-standing issues in sleep and dream research.
The following review summarizes and examines Mark Solms's article Dreaming and REM Sleep are controlled by different brain mechanisms, which argues why the understanding of REM sleep as the physiological equivalent of dreaming needs to be re-analyzed. An analysis of Solms's article demonstrates that he makes a convincing argument against the paradigmatic activation-synthesis model proposed by Hobson and McCarley and provides provocative evidence to support his claim that REM and dreaming are dissociable states. In addition, to situate Solms's findings in (...) concurrent research, other studies are mentioned that are further elucidated by his argument. [Solms]. (shrink)
This study investigated the relationship between dream emotion and dream character identification. Thirty-five subjects provided 320 dream reports and answers to questions on characters that appeared in their dreams. We found that emotions are almost always evoked by our dream characters and that they are often used as a basis for identifying them. We found that affection and joy were commonly associated with known characters and were used to identify them even when these emotional attributes were inconsistent with those of (...) the waking state. These findings are consistent with the finding that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, associated with short-term memory, is less active in the dreaming compared to the wake brain, while the paleocortical and subcortical limbic areas are more active. The findings are also consistent with the suggestion that these limbic areas have minimal input from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the dreaming brain. (shrink)
There has been no generally accepted cognitive definition of dreaming. An electrophysiologic correlate (REM sleep) has become its defining characteristic. Dreaming and REM sleep are complex states for which the Dreaming + REMs model is over-simplified and limited. The target articles in this BBS special issue present strong evidence for a dissociation between dreaming and REM sleep. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen, Revonsuo; Solms; Vertes & Eastman].
Dreaming can provide a marvelous opportunity for the “playful” exploration of dramatic events. But the chance to learn to deal with danger is only a small part of it. More important is the chance to discover what it is like to be the subject of strange but humanly significant mental states. [Revonsuo].
The five authors vary in the degree to which the recent neuroscience of the REM state leads them towards multiple dimensions and forms of dreaming consciousness (Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Solms) or toward all-explanatory single factor models (Vertes & Eastman, Revonsuo). The view of the REM state as a prolongation of the orientation response to novelty fits best with the former pluralisms but not the latter monisms. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Revonsuo; Solms; Vertes & Eastman].
Two meta-analyses of pharmacological research are presented, demonstrating that psychoactive drugs have consistent effects on EEG and sleep outside of their effects on REM sleep, and demonstrating that drugs other than those affecting sleep neurotransmitter systems and REM sleep can also alter reported nightmare occurrence. These data suggest that the neurobiology data terrain outside activation-synthesis may include sleep and dream electrophysiology, cognitive reports of dreaming, effects of alterations in consciousness on dreaming, immunology and host defense, and clinical therapies for sleep (...) disorders. (shrink)
The central question facing sleep and dream science today seems to be: What is the physiological basis of the subset of NREM dreams that are qualitatively indistinguishable from REM dreams (“apex dreams”)? Two competing answers have emerged: (1) all apex dreams are generated by REM sleep control mechanisms, albeit sometimes covertly; and (2) all such dreams are generated by forebrain mechanisms, independently of classical pontine sleep-cycle control mechanisms. The principal objection to the first answer is that it lacks evidential support. (...) The principal objection to the second answer (which is articulated in my target article) is that it takes inadequate account of interactions that surely exist between the putative forebrain mechanisms and the well established brainstem mechanisms of conscious state control. My main response to this objection (elaborated below) is that it conflates nonspecific brainstem modulation – which supports consciousness in general – with a specific pontine mechanism that is supposed to generate apex dreaming in particular. The latter mechanism is in fact neither necessary nor sufficient for apex dreaming. The putative forebrain mechanisms, by contrast, are necessary for apex dreaming (although they are nor sufficient, in the limited sense that all conscious states of the forebrain are modulated by the brainstem). (shrink)
In this book, which distills a lifetime of study, Foulkes shows that dreaming as we normally understand it--active stories in which the dreamer is an actor-...
The three-dimensional “AIM model” proposed by Hobson et al. is imaginative. However, many kinds of data suggest that the “dimensions” are not orthogonal, but closely correlated. An alternative view is presented in which mental functioning is considered as a continuum, or a group of closely linked continua, running from focused waking activity at one end, to dreaming at the other. The effect of emotional state is increasingly evident towards the dreaming end of the continuum. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Solms].
The “problem” of dreaming in NREM sleep continues to challenge models that propose a causal relationship between REM mechanisms and the psychological features of dreaming. I suggest that, ultimately, efforts to identify correspondences among multiple levels of analysis will be more productive for dream theory than attempts to reduce dreaming to any one level of analysis. [Hobson et al. ; Nielsen].
I agree with Revonsuo that dreaming, particularly about risky scenes, has a great selective advantage. Although the paleoamygdala system generally facilitates stress and alarm, the system which inhibits stress and alarm, initiates bold actions, and mediates learning in risky scenes is the arche, hippocampal system (Papez circuit). Because all thalamic nuclei are inhibited during sleep except arche, Papez probably also dreams in risky scenes. [Revonsuo].
Dreams are used figuratively throughout Greek literature to refer to something fleeting and/or unreal. In Plato, this metaphorical language is specifically used to describe an epistemological distinction: the one who has false knowledge or opinion is said to be dreaming while the one who has true knowledge is said to be awake. These figures are also central to Philo of Alexandria's philosophical language in De somniis 1-2 and De Iosepho . Although scholars have documented these epistemological metaphors in Plato and (...) related treatments of the concept of sleep in Heraclitus, it has not been discussed in any detail in relation to Philo's treatment of Joseph in these two treatises. In De somniis 1-2, Philo primarily emphasizes his role as a dreamer and thus one incapable of true knowledge. In De Iosepho , Joseph is a dream interpreter who is not only awake but also capable of interpreting the figurative dream of life to which most people are subject. Although some scholars have considered these treatises contradictory in terms of their treatments of Joseph, an analysis of Philo's figurative use of sleep and dreaming reveals that they are a part of a coherent exegetical framework. (shrink)
From the perspective of modern dream research, Freud's hypotheses regarding repression and dreaming are difficult to evaluate. Several studies indicate that it is possible to study these topics empirically, but it needs a lot more empirical evidence, at least in the area of dream research, before arriving at a unified theory of repression.
In this commentary the “incredibly robust” evidence for the relationship between sleep and procedural memory is questioned; inconsistencies in the existing data are pointed out. In addition, some suggestions about extending research are made, for example, studying REM sleep augmentation or memory consolidation in patients with sleep disorders. Last, the possibility of a relationship between dreaming and memory processes is discussed.
New findings point to a role for mesolimbic DA circuits in the generation of dreaming. We disagree with Solms about these structures having an exclusive role in generating dreams. We review data suggesting that dreaming can be interrupted at different levels of processing and that anterior-subcortical lesions associated with dream cessation are unlikely to produce selective hypodopaminergic dynamic impairments. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Solms].
Part I of a two part article on the effect upon dreaming on physical illness briefly explores the historical medico-philosophical antecedents of the notion that dreams can be diagnostic of bodily disease. Modern sleep research findings relating REM sleep to physiologic changes are also explored. The controversy of whether dreams are merely the consequence of random brain activity or whether they are a valid psychological phenomenon is discussed. Six contemporary views of the function of REM sleep are outlined. A seventh (...) view of dreaming, that of a cognitive monitoring system is suggested. Like earlier historical notions, it is suggested that dreaming is a cognitive activity that processes bodily cues indicating illness or disease. Part II. presents a clinical compendium of dreams relating to Part I. (shrink)
In this manuscript Hobson et al. propose a model exploring qualitative differences between the three states of consciousness, waking, NREM sleep, and REM sleep, in terms of state-related brain activity. The model consists of three factors, each of which varies along a continuum, creating a three-dimensional space: activation (A), information flow (I), and mode of information processing (M). Hobson has described these factors previously (1990; 1992a). Two of the dimensions, activation and modulation, deal directly with subcortical influences upon cortical structures (...) – the reticular activation system, with regard to the activation dimension and the locus coeruleus and the pontine raphe neuclei, with regard to the modulation dimension. The focus of this review is a further exploration of the interaction between dreaming and the cortical and subcortical structures relevant to REM sleep eye movements. [Hobson et al. ]. (shrink)
Part II of this two-part article on the effect of dreaming on physical illness presents clinical research and case study data of the relation of REM sleep on physiologic change. Content analysis and the symbolism of dreams is explored for their cognitive significance in terms of their diagnostic functions. The medico-ethical implication of the findings are discussed, along with areas of future research.
What, if anything do dreams tell us about ourselves? What is the relationship between types of sleep and types of dreams? Does dreaming serve any purpose? Or are dreams simply meaningless mental noise--'unmusical fingers wandering over the piano keys'? With expertise in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, Owen Flanagan is uniquely qualified to answer those questions. And in Dreaming Souls he provides both an accessible survey of the latest research on sleep and dreams and a compelling new theory about the nature (...) and function of dreaming. Flanagan argues that while sleep has a clear biological function and adaptive value, dreams are merely side effects, 'free-riders', irrelevant from an evolutionary point of view. But dreams are hardly unimportant. Indeed, Flanagan argues that dreams are self-expressive, the result of our need to find or create meaning, even when we are sleeping. Rejecting Freud's theory of manifest and latent content--of repressed wishes appearing in disguised form--Flanagan shows how brainstem activity during sleep generates a jumbled profusion of memories, images, thoughts, emotions, and desires, which the cerebral cortex then attempts to shape into a more or less coherent story. Such dream narratives range from the relatively mundane worries of non-REM sleep tot he fantastic confabulations of deep REM that resemble pyschotic episodes in their strangeness. But, however bizarre these narratives may be, they can shed light on our mental life, our well being, and our sense of self. Written with clarity, lively wit, and remarkable insight, Dreaming Souls offers a fascinating new way of apprehending one of the oldest mysteries of mental life. (shrink)
"Dreaming with open eyes" is a tagline for Spinoza's critique of Descartes; the dreams in question are principally those of volition and the active imagination. In this article, I compare the Cartesian theory of imagination as an active, but not fully rational, power of the mind and the Cartesian account of the volitional self to Spinoza's views. Descartes's own dreams and theories of dreaming are the focus of the first part of the article. Thereafter I examine Spinoza's critique of Descartes (...) and his alternative account of imagination. Finally, I argue that there is a positive sense of dreaming with open eyes to be recuperated in Spinoza's thought. Construed positively, to dream with open eyes is to understand dreams and imagination as natural phenomena and so to be able to respond constructively to them in ethical and political, as well as epistemological, life. (shrink)
"The main spine of this book stems from a comprehensive series of interviews with subjects recalling their experiences of 1930s cinemagoing. Your feel the breath of life in these spectators, a rarity in film studies, thanks to the painstaking work contracting the interview subjects and recording and tabulating their testimony."- JUMPCUT In the 1930s, Britain had the highest annual per capita cinema attendance in the world, far surpassing ballroom dancing as the nation's favorite pastime. It was, as historian A.J.P. Taylor (...) said, the "essential social habit of the age." And yet, although we know something about the demographics of British cinemagoers, we know almost nothing of their experience of film, how film affected them, how it fit into their daily lives, what role cinema played in the larger culture of the time, and in what ways cinemagoing shaped the generation that came of age in the 1930s. In Dreaming of Fred and Ginger , Annette Kuhn draws upon contemporary publications, extensive interviews with cinemagoers themselves, and readings of selected film, to produce a provocative and perspective-altering ethno-historical study. Taking cinemagoers' accounts of their own experiences as both "the engine and product of investigation," Kuhn enters imaginatively into the world of 1930s cinema culture and analyzes its place in popular memory. Among the topics she examines are the physical space of the cinemas; the role film played in growing up; the experience of being a member of a cinema audience; film-inspired fantasies of American life; the importance of cinema to adolescence in offering role models, ideals of romance, as well as practical opportunities for courtship; and the sheer pleasure of watching such film stars as Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Nelson Eddy, Ronald Colman, and many others. Engagingly written and painstakingly researched, with contributions to film history, cultural studies, and social history, Dreaming of Fred and Ginger offers an illuminating account of a key moment in British cultural memory. (shrink)
In his discussions of dreaming in the Parva Naturalia, Aristotle neither claims nor denies that dreams serve a natural purpose. Modern scholarship generally interprets dreaming as useless and teleologically irrelevant for him. I argue that Aristotle's teleology permits certain types of dream to have a natural role in end-directed processes. Dreams are left-overs from waking experience, but they may, like certain bodily residues, be used by nature, which does ‘nothing in vain’ and makes use of available resources, for the benefit (...) of the beings in which they occur. Contrary to prevalent opinions, Aristotle does not assimilate dreams to sensory illusions and does not hold that they have no interaction with our reasoning capacity. Dreams constitute a special class of the products of phantasia, but this does not prevent them from functioning like other (waking) phantasmata. In Aristotle's view, dreams regularly generate 'natural signs' of diseases and cause waking actions. I show that this preparatory power of dreams, often dismissed or attributed to divine intervention in antiquity, is captured within Aristotle’s natural philosophy, and provides evidence that (some) dreams are (or should be) regarded by him as having a teleological significance. (shrink)
Two aspects of consciousness are first considered: consciousness as awareness (phenomenological meaning) and consciousness as strategic control (functional meaning). As to awareness, three types can be distinguished: first, awareness as the phenomenal experiences of objects and events; second, awareness as meta-awareness, i.e., the awareness of mental life itself; third, awareness as self-awareness, i.e., the awareness of being oneself. While phenomenal experience and self-awareness are usually present during dreaming (even if many modifications are possible), meta-awareness is usually absent (apart from some (...) particular experiences of self-reflectiveness) with the major exception of lucid dreaming. Consciousness as strategic control may also be present in dreams. The functioning of consciousness is then analyzed, following a cognitive model of dream production. In such a model, the dream is supposed to be the product of the interaction of three components: (a) the bottom-up activation of mnemonic elements coming from LTM systems, (b) interpretative and elaborative top-down processes, and (c) monitoring of phenomenal experience. A feedback circulation is activated among the components, where the top-down interpretative organization and the conscious monitoring of the oneiric scene elicitates other mnemonic contents, according to the requirements of the dream plot. This dream productive activity is submitted to unconscious and conscious processes. (shrink)
Freud saw the dream as occupying a very important position in his theoretical model. If there were to be problems with his theoretical account of the dream then this would impinge upon proposed therapy and, of course, education as the right balance between the instincts and the institution of culture. Wittgenstein, whilst stating that Freud was interesting and important, raised several issues in relation to psychology/psychoanalysis, and to Freud in particular. Why would Wittgenstein have seen Freud as having some important (...) things to say, even though he was sharply critical of Freud's claims to be scientific? The major issues to be considered in this paper are, in Section 1, the scientific status of Freud's work—was it science or was it more like philosophy than science; the analysis of dreams; rationality, and dreams and madness. Section 2 considers Freud and education, including the indignity of Freud's notion of 'the talking cure.' Section 3 considers psychoanalytic explanations not as theory but as a manner of speaking: 'une façon de parler.'. (shrink)
Does the material basis of conscious experience extend beyond the boundaries of the brain and central nervous system? In Clark 2009 I reviewed a number of ‘enactivist’ arguments for such a view and found none of them compelling. Ward (2012) rejects my analysis on the grounds that the enactivist deploys an essentially world-involving concept of experience that transforms the argumentative landscape in a way that makes the enactivist conclusion inescapable. I present an alternative (prediction-and-generative-model-based) account that neatly accommodates all the (...) positive evidence that Ward cites on behalf of this enactivist conception, and that (I argue) makes richer and more satisfying contact with the full sweep of human experience. (shrink)
