| Dreams are especially fascinating. What are they? Fragmented recollections of fantastic journeys taken while sleeping? Are they bits of truth whispered to us by gods (on the condition that we not remember them for long)? Are dreams, as Freud believed, reflections of the primary process-visual echoes of the snarling and lurid passions of the id? Or are they just a jumble of nonsense, the mutterings of a brain left to idle like a car at a red light? |
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In Freud's time, little was known about sleep and dreams. It seemed natural to him to think of dreams as the pathway to the unconscious, given the surreal and symbolic qualities that often are prominent in them. In recent years, though, scientists have probed sleep and dreaming, and more is now known about their patterns. Some think we're coming closer to an understanding of why people dream, although the answer isn't quite the same as Freud envisioned (Winson, 1985, 1990; see also Hobson, 1988).
What do we know? To begin with, everybody has dreams, although many people don't remember them. A pivotal finding (Aserinky & Kleitman, 1953; Kleitman, 1963) was the discovery of a sleep state in which people's eyes move rapidly, breathing becomes irregular, heart rate increases, and most movement is suppressed. Because a key feature seems to be rapid eye movement (REM), the state is known as REM sleep. People awakened from REM sleep almost always report they are dreaming. People awakened from non-REM sleep rarely say they were dreaming. REM sleep occurs for of five times a night for adults; infants spend nearly 8 hours a day in REM sleep.
Several other things about REM sleep: First, REM occurs in other mammals as well as in humans. Second, it seems not to occur in animals other than mammals. Third, whatever's going on in REM sleep apparently is necessary. When people are kept out of REM sleep (by being awakened whenever REM starts), they show a stronger tendency to enter it.
Why is REM sleep necessary? And if REM sleep is dreaming, what in the world are infants dreaming so much about? After piecing together evidence about behavioral and brain properties of several different animals, Winson (1985) made the following argument. A basic problem in biological adaptation is how to integrate new experiences with old ones. Winson thinks the revolutionary solution to this problem among mammals was REM sleep. That is, he thinks the integration takes place during REM sleep. If this were so, a single set of neuronal structures could serve two purposes: guiding action when you're awake, consolidating and integrating knowledge when you're asleep. Thus, we can get most out of our nervous system, since it's being used round the clock rather than just when we're awake.
Why then do infants dream so much? It maybe that the same processes that produce consolidation also produce the final stage of cortical development (infants don't have fully developed cortexes). Or perhaps it's because the almost complete absence of a personal history means that infants have to do more integration and consolidation than adults.
Winson argues that the processes of REM sleep are the unconscious that Freud looked for in people's dreams. The paths of symbolic association that fascinated Freud reflect the fact that consolidation is a process of following mental associations, even associations that are odd and tangential. In this view, then, the brain is simply doing its homework in the dreaming state, sorting the experiences of the day (and the week) into all the categories to which they are potentially relevant.
1.Sleep by J. Allan Hobson
2. Teach Yourself to Dream by David Fontana
3. Stop Sleeping through your Dreams by Charles McPhee
4. Dreaming Insights by Gillian Holloway
5. The Secret Power of Dreams by David Fontana
| "Sometimes life seems like a dream, especially when I look down and see that I forgot to put on my pants." |
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Jack Handey
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Dream
