Dreaming,religion, and health

Summary Dreaming has been presented as a universal human phenomenon. Ancient as contrasted with modern peoples have viewed the dream as a mysterious, powerful, yet comprehensible experience within the context of their theological world view. After hypothesizing that our contemporary state of alienation and fragmentation is related to our tendency to dichotomize experience into real and unreal, I reviewed psychoanalytic and depth psychological approaches to dreaming, concluding that an ego-analytic-depth approach is most compatible with theological perspectives. Following a review of empirical dream research supporting the hypothesis that dream process is related to health, I presented a structural model linking six ego and theologically analogous constructs: integration-creation, synthesis-dependence, selection-choice, cognitionincarnation, regulation-redemption, and anticipation-eschatology. Finally, I presented a patient's dream, suggesting how the model might be applied for a more comprehensive view of the dreaming process.This article is a revised version of a series of lectures presented as part of a Nursing Education Workshop on Using Dreams with Patients at the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Administration Hospital in 1976–1977.     

Jungian Psychology, the Body, and the Future

Impressive reaffirmation of Jung's archetypal hypothesis has come from developments in behavioural biology (Tinbergen 1951; Cosmides 1985), psycholinguistics (Chomsky 1965), structural anthropology (Lévi-Strauss 1967), developmental psychology (Bowlby 1969), dream research (Jouvet 1975). neuroscience (MacLean 1976), sociobiology (Wilson 1978), and evolutionary psychiatry (Gardner 1988; Gilbert 1989). A close correspondence exists between Jungian theories of dreaming in human beings and modern biological theories of dreaming in animals. A paradigm shift is under way in the direction of a growing cross-disciplinary awareness that all human sciences are about archetypal manifestations and that these apply as much to the body as to the mind. Jungian psychology must keep abreast of these developments if it is not to be sidelined and superseded by less humane therapeutic philosophies.     

The reinterpretation of dreams: an evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming

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.     

Integration versus conflict between schools of dream theory and dreamwork: integrating the psychological core qualities of dreams with the contemporary knowledge of the dreaming brain

The various ways schools of psychotherapy relate to dreams have been marked by isolationism and mutual conflict rather than self-examination and then integrating the discoveries and methods of other schools. Jung’s method was in opposition to Freud’s psychoanalysis. Existential psychology was dismissive of Freud’s and Jung’s discoveries, while cognitive dream interpretation and cognitive therapy sought other roads entirely. In addition, scientific and neuropsychological dream research has been only insignificantly tied to the psychotherapeutic dream theories. These conflicts and the lack of a comprehensive dream theory has made it convenient for the current rationalist collective consciousness and treatment systems to reject the often times challenging knowledge about ourselves that dreams can provide. This paper describes how contemporary theories of complex cybernetic information networks can create an overriding, constructive framework for uncovering common traits within the above-mentioned branches of dream research and dreamwork. Within this framework, ten core qualities are delineated, supported by both therapeutic knowledge as well as scientific research: 1) Dreams deal with matters important to us; 2) Dreams symbolize; 3) Dreams personify; 4) Dreams are trial runs in a safe place; 5) Dreams are online to unconscious intelligence; 6) Dreams are pattern recognition; 7) Dreams are high level communication; 8) Dreams are condensed information; 9) Dreams are experiences of wholeness; 10) Dreams are psychological energy landscapes. For each core quality I describe short dreamwork sequences from my own practice and a schematic image of how I perceive the overriding interaction between systems in the dreaming brain. For each core quality recommendations for practical dreamwork are provided. Finally, I draw attention to dreams as a huge psychological resource for humankind.     

How to integrate dreaming into a general theory of consciousness--a critical review of existing positions and suggestions for future research

In this paper, we address the different ways in which dream research can contribute to interdisciplinary consciousness research. As a second global state of consciousness aside from wakefulness, dreaming is an important contrast condition for theories of waking consciousness. However, programmatic suggestions for integrating dreaming into broader theories of consciousness, for instance by regarding dreams as a model system of standard or pathological wake states, have not yielded straightforward results. We review existing proposals for using dreaming as a model system, taking into account concerns about the concept of modeling and the adequacy and practical feasibility of dreaming as a model system. We conclude that existing modeling approaches are premature and rely on controversial background assumptions. Instead, we suggest that contrastive analysis of dreaming and wakefulness presents a more promising strategy for integrating dreaming into a broader research context and solving many of the problems involved in the modeling approach.     

I did not expect to be dreaming: Explaining realization in lucid dreams with a Bayesian framework

The commonsense view is that a lucid dream starts when the dreamer realizes that they are currently dreaming. The notion of realization, however, has been accepted at face value, with little consideration of whether the dreamer realizes that they are dreaming in the sense of actual reasoning, or if it is a mere epiphenomenon of lucid dream initiation. This article offers a solution to this problem by, first, arguing that the transition to lucidity can occur as a result of successful reasoning, and second, building a model of this reasoning in terms of probabilistic reasoning. The established Bayesian model explains realization in lucid dreams taking under consideration two factors: the beliefs that the dreamer holds on what is generally probable and improbable, and the dreamer’s admissibility of being in a dream. Defended against important objections, the model offers an explanation of lucid dream initiation, relevant for future research on dreaming.     

On not being able to dream

In this paper, the author explores the phenomenon of not being able to dream (as opposed to not being able to remember one's dreams) from three different vantage points. First, from the point of view of psychoanalytic theory, he discusses Bion's idea that the work of dreaming creates the conscious and unconscious mind (and not the other way around). A person who cannot dream is unable to generate differentiable conscious and unconscious experience and, consequently, lives in a psychic state in which he is unable to differentiate waking from sleeping, dreaming from perceiving. The author then approaches the problem of the inability to dream from the perspective achieved by a literary work. He discusses a Borges fiction that creates, in a singularly artful way, the experience of not being able to dream. Finally, the author utilises the vantage point of a detailed account of a clinical experience to explore what it means not to be able to dream. He describes an initial state characterised by the patient's proliferation of unutilisable 'psychic noise' which, over a period of years, led to the analyst's experiencing 'reverie-deprivation' and brief periods of countertransference psychosis. Two analytic sessions are presented and discussed in which psychological work was done that contributed to an enhanced capacity on the part of both patient and analyst for genuine dreaming - both in sleep and in analytic reverie states.     

The immersive spatiotemporal hallucination model of dreaming

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.     

Last night I had the strangest dream: Varieties of rational thought processes in dream reports

From the neurophysiological perspective, thinking in dreaming and the quality of dream thought have been considered hallucinatory, bizarre, illogical, improbable, or even impossible. This empirical phenomenological research concentrates on testing whether dream thought can be defined as rational in the sense of an intervening mental process between sensory perception and the creation of meaning, leading to a conclusion or to taking action. From 10 individual dream journals of male participants aged 22–59 years and female participants aged 25–49 years, we delimited four dreams per journal and randomly selected five thought units from each dream for scoring. The units provided a base for testing a hypothesis that the thought processes of dream construction are rational. The results support the hypothesis and demonstrate that eight fundamental rational thought processes can be applied to the dreaming process.     

Phenomenal consciousness in dreams and in mind wandering

Dreaming can be explained as the product of an interaction among memory processes, elaborative processes, and phenomenal awareness. A feedback circuit is activated by this interaction according to the associative links and the requirements of the dream scene. Recently, it has been hypothesized that a partial similarity exists between dreaming and mind wandering and that these two processes may involve the same neural default network. This commentary discusses the differences and similarities between phenomenal consciousness during dreaming and phenomenal consciousness during mind wandering from the perspective of the “continuity” of engagement of cognitive systems. The greatest difference consists in the lack of reality testing during dreaming. Dream imagery is hallucinatory by nature. Consequently, the simulated world in dreams makes dream imagery more akin to perception. In contrast, the imagery of mind wandering is more similar to imagination. The level of meta-awareness is preserved more frequently and to a greater degree in mind wandering.     

The Deaf and Their Problems by Kenneth W. Hodgson

Abstract

This article is an attempt to develop a coherent, unified, and consistent conceptualization of dreaming and dreamtelling in the clinical setting. Dreams told in a therapeutic setting are challenging events: fantastically rich in content, but often overwhelming in their implications for peoples’ relationships. When told in therapy groups, dreams provide additional challenges for all participants. Learning to work with dreams not only enhances understanding of unconscious intrapsychic and group processes, but may also have a strong impact on the therapeutic culture and working relationships in the group. After differentiating dreaming from dreamtelling, I briefly describe three uses of dreams in groups—the classical “informative” and more familiar “formative” uses, and a new perspective that focuses on the “transformative” aspects of a dream told. According to this perspective, a dream told has an interesting past, an important present, and a worthwhile future because of its interpersonal, intersubjective influence on the dreamer–audience relationship.     

Waking and dreaming: related but structurally independent. Dream reports of congenitally paraplegic and deaf-mute persons

Models of dream analysis either assume a continuum of waking and dreaming or the existence of two dissociated realities. Both approaches rely on different methodology. Whereas continuity models are based on content analysis, discontinuity models use a structural approach. In our study, we applied both methods to test specific hypotheses about continuity or discontinuity. We contrasted dream reports of congenitally deaf-mute and congenitally paraplegic individuals with those of non-handicapped controls. Continuity theory would predict that either the deficit itself or compensatory experiences would surface in the dream narrative. We found that dream form and content of sensorially limited persons was indifferent from those of non-handicapped controls. Surprisingly, perceptual representations, even of modalities not experienced during waking, were quite common in the dream reports of our handicapped subjects. Results are discussed with respect to feedforward mechanisms and protoconsciousness theory of dreaming.     

Jungian theory of dreaming and contemporary dream research – findings from the research project ‘Structural Dream Analysis’

The research method ‘Structural Dream Analysis’ (SDA) is described which allows for systematic and objective analysis of the meaning of dreams produced by patients in Jungian psychotherapies. The method focuses especially on the relationship between the dream ego and other figures in the dream and the extent of activity of the dream ego. Five major dream patterns were identified which accounted for the majority of the dreams. The clients’ dream series were dominated by one or two repetitive patterns which were closely connected to the psychological problems of the dreamers. Additionally, typical changes in the dream series’ patterns could be identified which corresponded with therapeutic change. These findings support Jung's theory of dreams as providing a holistic image of the dreamer’s psyche, including unconscious aspects. The implications for different psychoanalytic theories of dreaming and dream interpretation are discussed as well as implications for the continuity hypothesis.     

Frequency of lucid dreaming in a representative German sample

Lucid dreams occur when a person is aware that he is dreaming while he is dreaming. In a representative sample of German adults (N = 919), 51% of the participants reported that they had experienced a lucid dream at least once. Lucid dream recall was significantly higher in women and negatively correlated with age. However, these effects might be explained by the frequency of dream recall, as there was a correlation of .57 between frequency of dream recall and frequency of lucid dreams. Other sociodemographic variables like education, marital status, or monthly income were not related to lucid dream frequency. Given the relatively high prevalence of lucid dreaming reported in the present study, research on lucid dreams might be pursued in the sleep laboratory to expand the knowledge about sleep, dreaming, and consciousness processes in general.     

Personality Judgment at Zero Acquaintance: Agreement,Assumed Similarity,and Implicit Simplicity

Measures of frequency of dream recall for 47 Ss and of amount of dreaming for 18 Ss, as determined by the Dement-Kleitman method, were available as part of a larger investigation of the influence of personality factors on dream recall. Rorschach Test indices obtained from these Ss were intercorrelated among themselves and correlated with the appropriate dream variable in order to assess the presumed affinity of dream phenomena and Rorschach response processes. The results were: (1) indices of fantasy predominance correlated positively with both amount of dreaming and frequency of dream recall; (2) indices of associative productivity correlated positively with frequency of dream recall; (3) an index of introspective constriction correlated negatively with frequency of dream recall. Further exploration of this area seems promising.     

Dreamtelling as a request for containment: three uses of dreams in group therapy

This article is an attempt to develop a coherent, unified, and consistent conceptualization of dreaming and dreamtelling in the clinical setting. Dreams told in a therapeutic setting are challenging events: fantastically rich in content, but often overwhelming in their implications for peoples' relationships. When told in therapy groups, dreams provide additional challenges for all participants. Learning to work with dreams not only enhances understanding of unconscious intrapsychic and group processes, but may also have a strong impact on the therapeutic culture and working relationships in the group. After differentiating dreaming from dreamtelling, I briefly describe three uses of dreams in groups-the classical "informative" and more familiar "formative" uses, and a new perspective that focuses on the "transformative" aspects of a dream told. According to this perspective, a dream told has an interesting past, an important present, and a worthwhile future because of its interpersonal, intersubjective influence on the dreamer-audience relationship.     

Intentionality Analysis and the Problem of Self and Other

Dennett recounts an alarm clock dream which he experienced as taking a long time even though the alarm presumably sounded for only a short time. His explanation of this paradoxical behavior of time in dreams is that there actually is no dream experience but that unexperienced dreams are composed directly into memory banks and are subsequently played back on awakening. I critique Dennett's theory of dreams in Heideggerian terms on the grounds that he takes temporality in a common-sense superficial way. I review Heidegger's theory of time and using Dennett's own dream show that “temporality temporalizes itself' in dreams too as a free production of dreaming Dasein. Dream time is what dreaming temporality produces whatever the clocks of waking show, and is entirely consistent with authentic dream experience. An appreciation of the process of dreaming temporality temporalizing itself supports Heidegger's concept of temporality as an a priori of Dasein's Being.     

When does a dream begin to ‘have meaning’? Linguistic constraints and significant moments in the construction of the meaning of a dream

The paper investigates the origin of the meaning of dreams starting with a discussion of psychotic dreams. The author distinguishes the dream as dream from the remembered and the narrated. A two-step dream phenomenology is proposed that both acknowledges the objectivity of the dream and traces the origin of its meaning to its translation into language. Following a review of recent neurobiological theories of dreaming, the paper focuses on certain aspects of the psychoanalytical understanding of the dream phenomenon and in particular on the interpretation of dreams from the perspective of intersubjectivity and phantasy.     

Dreaming and personality: Wake-dream continuity,thought suppression,and the Big Five Inventory

Studies have found relationships between dream content and personality traits, but there are still many traits that have been underexplored or have had questionable conclusions drawn about them. Experimental work has found a ‘rebound’ effect in dreams when thoughts are suppressed prior to sleep, but the effect of trait thought suppression on dream content has not yet been researched. In the present study participants (N = 106) reported their Most Recent Dream, answered questions about the content of the dream, and completed questionnaires measuring trait thought suppression and the ‘Big Five’ personality traits. Of these, 83 were suitably recent for analyses. A significant positive correlation was found between trait thought suppression and participants’ ratings of dreaming of waking-life emotions, and high suppressors reported dreaming more of their waking-life emotions than low suppressors did. The results may lend support to the compensation theory of dreams, and/or the ironic process theory of mental control.