Dreaming as Delirium: A Reply to Bert States

When analyzed from a formal mental states point of view, REM sleep dreaming evinces all four of the cardinal defining features of delirium: visual halluncinosis; disorientation; memory loss, and confabulation. This new formulation is supported by neurobiological findings at the level of neurones and neuromodulators, which indicate a dramatic shift in the balance of the same aminergic and cholinergic neuromodulatory systems that mediate delirium upon the ingestion or withdrawal of drugs that upset that balance. Convinced that all of the symptoms and signs of delirium that have been emphasized above could be the natural manifestations of hyperassociation, Bert States has challenged both the validity and heuristic value of this Dreaming as Delirium paradigm. Arguing that no natural process like dreaming can be dysfunctional, and wishing to advance the thesis that all naturally determined mental content obeys the law of associativity, States commits himself to a paradigm of interpretability which is linked to a metaphorical-analogical function of memory. States (and most other students of dreaming) have difficulty accepting my claim that discontinuity and incongruity are in a dialectical and oppositional struggle with associativity. These dissociative processes, which arise at the neuronal level described by the reciprocal interaction model, translate into the universal and generically nonsensical aspects of dream content that are explained by the paradigm of dreaming as delirium. In this essay, I urge that States and all others who share with me the fond hope of a scientifically respectable approach to the interpretation of dreams, recognize that both associativity and dissociation are hard at work in REM sleep dreaming and other autocreative states of mind. Once the both/and replaces the either/or mind set, it is possible to separate the emotionally salient signals from the cognitively disjunctive noise. The same step allows us to recognize that all complex natural systems have both functional and dysfunctional aspects and that these are sometime mutually enhancing as well as mutually entailed by the mechanisms that engender them. Turning Polonius on his head I thus suggest: Though this be method, yet there's madness in it!     

Self-awareness in dreaming.

The process by which self-awareness or subjective experience (consciousness) is maintained has been conceptually and phenomenologically associated primarily with the waking state. In the present study the authors investigate, through introspective reports, the existence and variety of self-awareness in dreaming and whether this phenomenon could, under certain conditions, be distinguished into primary and reflective consciousness. For consistency with theory and dreaming research, instead of reflective consciousness we used the term 'reflective awareness.' Findings indicate that self-awareness in dreaming can be found in its both primary and reflective modes. Phenomenologically, primary consciousness exists in four basic modalities: perceptual, experiential, cognitive, and memory-based recognition. Expressions of these primary consciousness modalities are accessible through introspective interviews during waking. Based on participants' statements, reflective consciousness (awareness) in dreaming was initiated by noticing positive and negative feelings and by personally defined oddities. These findings point to a possible oscillation between primary and reflective consciousness in dreaming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In Bed With Mark Solms? What a Nightmare! A Reply to Domhoff (2005).

Bill Domhoff (2005) has challenged the activation synthesis model of dreaming on the basis of a misreading of the neurobiological literature and an individualistic view of dream psychology (see record 2005-02950-001). The author begins his reply by clarifying and emphasizing the formal approach to dream cognitions. Instead of focusing on the individual aspects of dreaming that interest Domhoff, activation synthesis strives to identify and measure the generic differences that characterize all dreams and that are likely to correlate with the neurobiological findings. He then goes on to point out that such formal features as the visuomotor imagery, the emotional intensification, and the defective cognition of dreams do correlate with the cellular and molecular neurobiological data from animal studies and with the brain imaging and lesion data from human studies. Individual differences may also exist but these are not relevant to the main task of sleep psychophysiology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Virtual reality training of lucid dreaming

Metacognitive reflections on one''s current state of mind are largely absent during dreaming. Lucid dreaming as the exception to this rule is a rare phenomenon; however, its occurrence can be facilitated through cognitive training. A central idea of respective training strategies is to regularly question one''s phenomenal experience: is the currently experienced world real, or just a dream? Here, we tested if such lucid dreaming training can be enhanced with dream-like virtual reality (VR): over the course of four weeks, volunteers underwent lucid dreaming training in VR scenarios comprising dream-like elements, classical lucid dreaming training or no training. We found that VR-assisted training led to significantly stronger increases in lucid dreaming compared to the no-training condition. Eye signal-verified lucid dreams during polysomnography supported behavioural results. We discuss the potential mechanisms underlying these findings, in particular the role of synthetic dream-like experiences, incorporation of VR content in dream imagery serving as memory cues, and extended dissociative effects of VR session on subsequent experiences that might amplify lucid dreaming training during wakefulness.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Offline perception: voluntary and spontaneous perceptual experiences without matching external stimulation''.     

Why Did Empirical Dream Researchers Reject Freud? A Critique of Historical Claims by Mark Solms.

Neuropsychologist and psychoanalyst Mark Solms (1997) made a major contribution to dream research through his clinico-anatomical studies, which reveal the outlines of the neural network that underlies dreaming. However, in more recent work (see record 2002-17656-000) he misunderstands the history of the rapid eye movement (REM)/non-REM (NREM) controversy in a Freudian-serving way and ignores the considerable systematic empirical evidence that contradicts the key claims of the Freudian dream theory he is trying to revive. After summarizing Solms's claims about the history of laboratory dream research, this article suggests a different version of that history and summarizes the empirical findings that explain why Freudian theory is not considered viable by most dream researchers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dreaming correlates of alexithymia among sleep-disordered patients.

Increasing evidence supports the clinical view that alexithymia is associated with disturbed dreaming. However, a consistent, replicable pattern of relationships between alexithymia and different dreaming components has not yet been identified. Groups of sleep-disordered outpatients (N = 580; 46.0 ± 13.2 years) and nonclinical controls (N = 145; 22.9 ± 4.2 years) were administered the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and a 14-item Dreaming Questionnaire. Sleep diagnoses were assessed from polysomnography and clinical histories following the American Academy of Sleep Medicine classification system. The Dreaming Questionnaire was reduced by principal-components analysis to a 3-factor solution that distinguishes nightmare distress, dream recall, and dream meaning items. Factor coefficients were correlated with TAS total score and TAS subscales while age was controlled as a covariate. TAS total score was found to correlate positively with nightmare distress and negatively with dream recall for both clinical and nonclinical groups and for both men and women considered separately. TAS total score also correlated negatively with dream meaning for nonclinical participants. TAS subscales were differentially correlated with the 3 dream factors: difficulty identifying feelings (DIF) with increased nightmare distress, difficulty describing feelings (DDF) with decreased dream recall and externally oriented thinking (EOT) with decreased dream meaning. With some exceptions, these patterns were obtained independently for clinical and nonclinical groups and for men and women within these groups. Findings suggest a consistent and replicable pattern of relationships between alexithymia and dreaming components that implicates processes regulating emotion during both wakefulness and dreaming, for example, affect distress, expressive anxiety, and openness to experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dreaming and schizophrenia: a common neurobiological background?

Normal waking mentation is the outcome of the combined action of both electrophysiological and neurochemical antagonistic and complementary activating and inhibitory influences occurring mainly in the cerebral cortex. The chemical ones are supported principally by acetylcholine, and noradrenaline and serotonin, respectively. During rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the monoaminergic silence - except dopaminergic ongoing activity - disrupts this equilibrium and seems to be responsible for disturbances of mental activity characteristic of dreaming. This imbalance could cause disconnectivity of cortical areas, failure of latent inhibition and possibly the concomitant prefrontal dorsolateral deactivation. Moreover, the decrease of prefrontal dopaminergic functioning could explain the loss of reflectiveness in this sleep stage. All these phenomena are also encountered in schizophrenia. The psychotic-like mentation of dreaming (hallucinations, delusions, bizarre thought processes) could result from the disinhibition of dopamine influence in the nucleus accumbens by the noradrenergic and serotonergic local silence and/or the lifting of glutamate influence from the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. We hypothesize that, during REM sleep, the increase of dopamine and the decrease of glutamate release observed in nucleus accumbens reach the threshold values at which psychotic disturbances arise during wakefulness. Whatever the precise mechanism, it seems that the functional state of the prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens is the same during dreaming sleep stage and in schizophrenia. The convergent psychological, electrophysiological, tomographic, pharmacological and neurochemical criteria of REM sleep and schizophrenia suggest that this sleep stage could become a good neurobiological model of this psychiatric disease.     

Cerebral specialization during lucid dreaming: A right hemisphere hypothesis.

Research has shown that certain individuals are able to carry out prearranged tasks while lucid dreaming, and that these tasks produce physiological effects on the body similar to what is observed during waking. It was hypothesized that the difficulty of performing cerebrally lateralized tasks during a lucid dream would vary with the dominant hemisphere for that task, with less difficulty for right hemisphere tasks. Twenty-seven participants rated the difficulty of performing three matched pairs of left hemisphere and right hemisphere tasks, first in a lucid dream, and later in their waking imagination. Results indicated right hemisphere dominance during lucid dreaming, especially among right-handed participants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Historical Loop of One Hundred Years: Similarities Between 19th Century and Contemporary Dream Research

Contemporary cognitive and neuropsychological approaches to dreaming show striking methodological and conceptual similarities with the scientific dream literature of the last century. The use of introspective dream reports and the emphasis on dream phenomenology are characteristic of both periods but were bannished during the first half of this century, the former by behaviorism, the latter by psychoanalysis. Three main common axioms of 19th century and contemporary dream research are described: (a) dream experience results from cognitive syntheses realized in the absence of external constraints; (b) dream narrative or dream coherency involves mental associative mechanisms; (c) dream bizarreness emerges from a cerebral state characterized by functional dissociation. According to these three axioms, the observation of dream phenomena reveals that distinct cognitive processes might function in a partly autonomous, automatic, and dissociated way, making dreaming a unique model of these cognitive processes.     

Association of lucid dreaming frequency with Stroop task performance.

Lucid dreaming involves the attentional skill of having metacognition about the dreamer's state of consciousness at the same time as being engaged in the dream scenario. A combination of two levels of cognition also occurs in the incongruent condition of the Stroop task, where there is interference between the attentional demands of a relatively difficult (color naming) and an easy (reading) task. It was thus hypothesized that frequent lucid dreamers would perform better on the Stroop task than would nonlucid dreamers. Individuals who reported having lucid dreams more than once per month (n = 15) were found to be significantly faster on the incongruent condition of the Stroop task than were occasional lucid dreamers (n = 15) or nonlucid dreamers (n = 15). The groups did not differ on the standard colored nonword control condition. Continuity in attentional ability between waking and dreaming cognition was thus found. This continuity may counteract the psychophysiologically dominant and possibly evolutionarily selected lack of self-awareness in dreams. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dream Recall Frequency and Dream Detail as Mediated by Personality, Behavior, and Attitude

Many studies investigated how personality, behavior, and attitude mediate dream recall, but few distinguish between measures of dream recall frequency: the number of dreams experienced in a specified time frame and dream detail: individual ratings of vividness or detailed content of dreams. This study compared undergraduates' (n = 173) self-reported dream recall frequency, and dream detail, with behaviors, attitude toward dreaming, and scores on scales of Extraversion/Introversion and Type A/B. Dream recall frequency and dream detail manifested different patterns of association in relation to behaviors, attitude and personality. Dream recall frequency was associated with the frequency of experiencing emotionally disturbing dreams and trying to interpret dreams, while detail of dreams was associated with positive attitude toward dreaming and Type B personality. Although males and females both held positive attitudes toward dreaming, females experienced more emotionally disturbing dreams and felt unable to control their dreams. Interactions between personality and gender emerged for behaviors associated with dreaming. Researchers are encouraged to differentiate between dream recall frequency and dream detail.     

Lucid Dreaming Treatment for Nightmares: A Series of Cases

Goal of this series of cases was to investigate lucid dreaming treatment for nightmares. Hypotheses were that lucid dreaming treatment would decrease nightmare frequency and state/trait anxiety, and improve the quality of sleep. Eight participants received a one-hour individual session, which consisted of lucid dreaming exercises and discussing possible constructive solutions for the nightmare. Nightmare frequency and sleep quality were measured by a sleep questionnaire, anxiety was measured by the Spielberger State and Trait Anxiety Inventory. At the follow-up two months later the nightmare frequency had decreased, while the sleep quality had increased slighty. There were no changes on state and trait anxiety. Lucid dreaming treatment seems to be effective in reducing nightmare frequency, although the effective factor remains unclear.     

Lucid dreaming frequency and change blindness performance.

There are reports of lucid dreaming being cued by the recognition that a dream event is bizarre from the point of view of waking life. However, for dreams in general, there is a lack of ability to notice or question bizarre occurrences. A waking-life analog of this inability is here proposed to be change blindness. In change blindness tasks, a prominent alteration to a photograph occurs repeatedly, but it is rare for these changes to be spotted immediately. It was hypothesized that lucid dreamers would perform better on change blindness tasks than would nonlucid dreamers. Contrary to the hypothesis, individuals who reported having lucid dreams more than once per month (n = 13), occasional lucid dreamers (n = 13), and nonlucid dreamers (n = 12) were found not to differ significantly on performance on 6 change blindness tasks. How the usually proficient unconscious detection of errors during waking life is disabled during dreams remains to be determined, but it does not seem from the results here to have a simple relationship with the waking-life phenomenon of change blindness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do the Blind Literally "See" in Their Dreams? A Critique of a Recent Claim That They Do.

This article provides a critique of a recent inaccurate claim by Bértolo et al (see record 2003-04658-011) that the congenitally blind literally "see" in their dreams, which flies in the face of findings that were established in 3 careful previous studies. It first shows how this claim arose through a blurring of the distinction between actual seeing through the visual system and imagery that preserves spatial and metric properties without specific reliance on the visual system. It then discusses the 3 mistaken reasons for this blurring. This correction is important beyond the specific issue of seeing in dreams because the original findings lend important support for a cognitive theory of dreaming by showing that the imagery necessary for dreaming develops between ages 4 and 7. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Significance of Automatically Detected Word Recurrences in Dream Associations

Verbal data files including dream reports and associations with the report items were subjected to automatic analysis aiming at the recognition of word recurrences. The research was based on the following assumptions: the associations can provide information about the dream sources; the recognition of word recurrences in text files can be a useful tool for the study of dreaming; the identification of links between different dream sources can provide an interesting insight into the phenomenon of dreaming. The principal result obtained was that word recurrences often evidence possible significant links between dream sources. A number of the possible links evidenced by the automatic analysis not only escaped the subject's notice, but might also be unexpected for an analyzer not assisted by a computer.     

Lucid Dreaming and Personality: A Replication.

This article reports an investigation of personality variables that may be associated with the reporting of lucid dreaming. The present study confirmed that lucid dreamers, both frequent and occasional (n = 26), were more internal on J. Rotter's (1966) locus of control measure and scored higher on J. Cacioppo and R. Petty's (1982) need for cognition measure than did nonlucid dreamers (n = 24). Frequent but not occasional lucid dreamers were more field independent on H. A. Witkin et al.'s (1971) Group Embedded Figures Test than the nonlucid dreamers. Need for cognition, internality on locus of control, and field independence all correlated with each other. The results can be argued to show a continuity between styles of waking and dreaming personality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using dreams in cognitive behavioral psychotherapy: Theory, method, and examples.

Dream analysis can be a fruitful complementary technique in cognitive–behavioral therapy, providing it is based on a theoretical conception of dreaming and an interpretation method that are both compatible with the principles and methodology of CBT. The present paper first presents some aspects of a cognitive conception of dreaming explaining the occurrence and specificities of dream representations by their production processes. The next section describes an interpretation method that gives the patients the opportunity to find some sources and meanings of their dreams. Finally examples are given of the different ways in which the result of a dream interpretation contributed to therapy. Thanks to their condensed and often exaggerated treatment of a theme, dreams often facilitate becoming aware of cognitive distortions and schemas and help to proceed to cognitive restructuring. They also give to the therapists an opportunity to underline the patient’s resources. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dream logic—The inferential reasoning paradigm.

Dream thought is both impoverished and non-logical. While some inferential reasoning is present in dreaming, many illogicalities that would demand cognitive attention during waking go unnoticed during sleep. The physiological basis of this illogicality may include frontal lobe inactivation and amionergic demodulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phenomenal Qualities of Nightmare Experience in a Prospective Study of College Students

The present study investigated the relationship between both state and global measures of phenomenal qualities of nightmare experience and nightmare prevalence as measured prospectively by dream logs. Sixty three frequent nightmare individuals and 53 controls completed a retrospective measure of their sleep and dreaming processes and kept a dreaming and nightmare log for 21 consecutive nights. Nightmare prevalence was unrelated to all three state-based rating dimensions including a concurrent rating of how distressing the actual nightmare was but was significantly associated with a global measure of nightmare distress. Similarly, global ratings of dream and nightmare saliency showed greater predictive validity than ratings of the same dimensions rated concurrently. The results suggest that whether a person reports having a nightmare on any given night is more associated with how they view their global dreaming processes than with the phenomenal qualities of the actual nightmare itself.     

A reply to Hobson (2005).

J. A. Hobson's (2005) commentary merely repeats his past theoretical assertions (see record 2005-02950-002). It asks questions that rest on the refuted hypothesis that real dreaming occurs only in REM sleep and that are already answered in the author's critique. Despite many studies, there is still no evidence that neurophysiological changes during REM are responsible for any unique formal features in dreams. As for the psychological consequences of the neuromodulatory environment during REM, there are no studies. Most important, Hobson overlooks a key point in regard to a new neurocognitive approach to dreams: The many parallels between dreaming and waking cognition raise the intriguing possibility that relatively small changes from waking to sleeping can account for the unique features of dreams, rendering his REM-based speculations irrelevant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)