Dreaming and consciousness

Abstract

Research in the second half of the twentieth century may finally have succeeded in constraining the boundaries of reasonable discussion about dreams and dreaming. Largely owing to physiological discoveries and psychophysiological methods for the representative sampling of human dreamlife, we now have a body of observations that delimits plausible explanations and theories.

For example, we now know that neither REM sleep nor its dreaming is a sporadic, fleeting response to intense psychic needs or peripheral organ states, but rather is an autonomous, cyclically recurring process which consumes relatively much of our sleep, indeed of our lives. We also know that the content of representatively sampled dreams of both adults (Snyder, 1970) and children (Foulkes, 1982) is generally realistic and mundane, rather than fantastic and bizarre. From this finding, and from direct com parisons of representatively sampled laboratory-collected dreams with spon taneously remembered home dreams (e.g. Foulkes. 1979). it has become apparent that the idea of dreaming as being full of strange and discontinuous imagery is a stereotype based on limited acquaintance with our own dreamlife. Specifically, our most ordinarily memorable dreams seem to be those relatively few that are particularly emotionally engaging, particularly unrealistic, or particularly odd in their imagery or thematic sequence. This leads us to underestimate the orderliness of a process that typically functions plausibly and coherently, in a similar if not identical manner to that which we believe (perhaps also stereotypically) characterises our non-dreaming experience.

Thus, studies of representatively sampled dreaming have shown that dream imagery itself typically is realistic or plausible (Dorus, Dorus, & Rechtschaffen, 1971). that dream speech typically is both grammatically correct and appropriate to the imagined situation in which it is embedded (Heynick, 1983). that the feelings accompanying dream imagery typically are appropriate to the imagined situations which they accompany (Foulkes, Sullivan, Kerr, & Brown, 1988), and that, overwhelmingly often, dreams progress over time in a continuous rather than a discontinuous way (Foulkes & Schmidt, 1983).

Such data indicate the need to radically revise or replace most older dream theories from the clinical tradition. Given the role that physiologists and physiological methods played in the development of these data, it was perhaps inevitable that dream theories would begin to be framed in reductionist terms. And, since the 19505, there have been many attempts to “explain” dream phenomena through their reduction to neurophysiological processes (e.g. Crick & Mitchison, 1983; Hobson & McCarley, 1977)     

Dreaming and bereavement

Bereavement dreams provide an important, though seldom mentioned or recognized, component of the grief process. As the unconscious presses for recognition of the pain and extent of the loss, dream material is presented to help the bereft move to a new and integrative life position. Religious symbols present themselves to give the grieving a new sense of themselves as individuals and an expanding view of the world. Grief therapists have generally ignored this important component of the grief process, and as a result, little significant clinical research has been done. A comprehensive picture of bereavement will not be developed until increased attention is given to this important area.     

Dreaming without REM sleep

To test whether mental activities collected from non-REM sleep are influenced by REM sleep, we suppressed REM sleep using clomipramine 50mg (an antidepressant) or placebo in the evening, in a double blind cross-over design, in 11 healthy young men. Subjects were awakened every hour and asked about their mental activity. The marked (81%, range 39-98%) REM-sleep suppression induced by clomipramine did not substantially affect any aspects of dream recall (report length, complexity, bizarreness, pleasantness and self-perception of dream or thought-like mentation). Since long, complex and bizarre dreams persist even after suppressing REM sleep either partially or totally, it suggests that the generation of mental activity during sleep is independent of sleep stage.     

Accessing the Eternal: Dreaming "The Dreaming" and Ceremonial Performance

Australian Aboriginal cosmology is centered on The Dreaming, which has an eternal nature. It has been referred to as “everywhen” to articulate its timelessness. Starting with the assumption that “waking” reality is only one type of experienced reality, we investigate the concept of timelessness as it pertains to the Aboriginal worldview. We begin by questioning whether in fact “Dreaming” is an appropriate translation of a complex Aboriginal concept, then discuss whether there is any relationship between dreaming and The Dreaming. We then discuss Aboriginal ceremonial performance, during which actors are said to become Dreaming Ancestors, using as a frame of reference the “flow” experience explicated by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi together with Alfred Schutz's “mutual tuning‐in relationship.”     

Dreaming a New Future

“Mission from the Margins” is not about the victims but about confronting the forces of marginalization. It is about naming and dismantling cultures and structures that keep the world unjust by legitimizing abuse of human beings and creation. The Ecumenical Conversation “Dreaming a New Future” was an attempt to be enriched by the yearnings for justice, freedom, and life of those who are thus pushed to the margins. It calls the churches to resist the schemes and solutions of those who occupy the centres and instead opt to be signs and symbols of God's reign by partnering with the marginalized in their struggles. As such, “Mission from the Margins” is both a subversive and a creative mission engagement. It insists that our actions of love, reconciliation and unity must critically engage with the dispensers of injustice. This essay proposes Life-centred affirmations and actions, repatterning “sentness,” partnership for justice as a way toward unity, and the need for the church to be a moral force as signposts for the Pilgrimage of Justice, Reconciliation and Unity.     

Dreaming in the multilevel framework

Biological realism ( [Revonsuo, 2001] and [Revonsuo, 2006] ) states that dreaming is a biological phenomenon and therefore explainable in naturalistic terms, similar to the explanation of other biological phenomena. In the biological sciences, the structure of explanations can be described with the help of a framework called ‘multilevel explanation’. The multilevel model provides a context that assists to clarify what needs to be explained and how, and how to place different theories into the same model. Here, I will argue that the multilevel framework would be useful when we try to construct scientific explanations of dreaming.     

Wittgenstein on Dreaming and Skepticism

In this paper I aim to elucidate Wittgenstein’s claim that the so-called dream argument is senseless. Unlike other interpreters, who understand the sentence “I am dreaming” as contradictory or self-defeating, I intend to elucidate in what sense one should understand it as senseless or, more precisely, as nonsensical. In this sense, I propose to understand the above-mentioned claim in light of Wittgenstein’s criticism of skepticism from the Tractatus logico-philosophicus to his last writings. I intend to show that the words “I am dreaming” are nonsensical in the same sense as the alleged proposition “There are physical objects” or the expression of doubt about the existence of external objects.

     

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.