Since ancient times, people have been interested in such psychological phenomena as dreams, their causes, and their meaning (Nicoll, 1979). A substantial number of studies have explored the concomitance of cognitive quality and quantity of recall on awakening and psychological states (Pick and Roper 2004). In sleep, one is oblivious to most stimuli; in drowsiness, he is oblivious to many (Nicoll, 1979). In sleep, reactions will be few, most stimuli of ordinary intensities being rendered ineffective by the marked condition of dissociation (Nicoll, 1979). As in other cases of human conduct, such responses may be symbolic, autonomic, or postural (Nicoll, 1979). If symbolic, they take the form of ideas, thoughts, pictures, verbal reports, intellectual interpretation of the “meanings” of the cues prompting them (Nicoll, 1979). The cues themselves are usually overlooked, as is the usual case even in waking perception, or hastily passed over, for the sake of the consequences to which they lead (Nicoll, 1979).
Dreams are defined as: “sequence of images and sounds occurred during the sleeping process” (Pace-Schott 2003, p. 4). The first attempts to define dreams were made by Aristotle (Pick and Roper, 2004). His concept extended temporally from the fragments of the earliest writings of the Egyptians and Sumerians; through the literature exemplified by Homer, the Old Testament, the Grecian plays, and the histories of Herodotus; into the collection of this extended literature by Artemedorus in the later Roman period of the second century A.D. (Pick and Roper 2004). As can be seen from these sources, with minor variations geographically, there was a common theme throughout the known world (Nicoll, 1979). While giving prototypical indexings of particular dreams and their meaning, Artemedorus emphasized the individual dreamer and the context of the time of the dream (Pick and Roper, 2004). These volumes were republished in 1518 under the title Oneicritica and published in English translation in 1606 (Pick and Roper, 2004). The continued popularity of this approach to dreams is attested to by a volume by Thomas Hall imprinted in London in 1576 (Pick and Roper, 2004). Another important contribution was made by Cicero (Pick and Roper 2004). Cicero considered dreams in his treatise, De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Divinatione (Pick and Roper 2004). Cicero included two kinds of divination: artificial, which “depends partly on conjecture and partly on long-continued observation,” e.g., astrology, augury, portents; and natural, which were “dreams and prophecies” (Pick and Roper, 2004). Cicero gives three arguments: (1) the human soul is an emanation of the Divine Soul and hence they are in contact; (2) the contact is enhanced when the soul is unencumbered by the senses and flesh; (3) fate is an orderly succession of causes and thus is predictable (Pick and Roper, 2004).
The next important stage in the development of the theory of dreams was made by Fraud (Pick and Roper, 2004). The basic elements of the “fresh hypotheses” are well known (Nagera et al 2003). Briefly: (1) The meaning of the manifest content (the dream itself) was comprehended in terms of the latent content;” (2) the latent content was expressing unresolved wish fulfillment; (3) these utilized the “day residues” and, to a lesser degree, sensory stimuli for expression; (4) “dream work” comprised of symbolism, condensation, and displacement, and “loosened” association occurred to make the impulses expressed acceptably; and (5) dreams must (and do) use “concrete imagery” for expression (Nagera et al 2003). So just as Sigmund Freud saw the dream as the “royal road to the unconscious,” so did Gestalt psychologists view perception (as well as other psychological processes, such as memory and thinking) as a window on the brain (Nagera et al 2003). That is the position of many contemporary psychologists regardless of their orientation (Nagera et al 2003). Webb and Cartwright (1978) describe and summarize three essential experimental approaches to the dream: their relations to trait-like characteristics (e.g., differences between sexes, cultures, and psychopathological conditions); their relations to specific states (e.g., presleep films, the laboratory surround, and signals presented during sleep); and dreams as an independent variable (i.e., the effect of dreaming on waking behavior) (McNamara, 2004). They summarize the evidence supporting the conclusion that dreams reflect waking emotional concerns and styles and that the relationship between the “target” (a specific state stimulus) and the dream is ephemeral (McNamara 2004). The approach to the latter area (dream function) has been primarily through the experimental suppression with an inferred “excision” of the dream (McNamara, 2004).
The main types of dreams are ordinary dreams, lucid dreams, telepathic dreams, premonitory and nightmares (McNamara, 2004). Ordinary dreams are explained as the subconscious activity of the mind and reflection on daily events (McNamara, 2004). In contrast to ordinary dreams, lucid dreams can be controlled by a dreamer (McNamara, 2004). Telepathic dreams are characterized by “real life” events or communication between two people at a distance (McNamara, 2004). Premonitory dreams reveal future events (McNamara 2004). In contrast to these dreams, nightmares reflect the fears and anxieties of a person (McNamara, 2004). This classification reminds us that dreams differ from other forms of visual imagery in many important respects, and it suggests that some of the striking differences between dreaming and waking cognition might be explained by the lack of any substantial contribution to dreaming by the dorsolateral prefrontal convexity (McNamara 2004). More than any other region, the prefrontal convexity provides thinking with its characteristic propositional structure, logical coherence, and volitional purpose (McNamara, 2004). This applies especially to the left prefrontal convexity, which imbues thinking with the predictive and abstract properties of language (Nicoll, 1979).
When the responses take the autonomic or affective form, the dream is an emotional state–a fear, and anxiety, and elation (Nicoll, 1979). There is usually along with responses on this level, also a set of cognitive or symbolic responses, giving an intellectual meaning to the situation (Nicoll, 1979). In its extreme form, the autonomic dream constitutes what is commonly called a nightmare (Nicoll, 1979). When the drowsiness responses take a postural form, some overt act is carried out (Nicoll, 1979). Thus sleep-walking, or other “somnambulic” behavior, would represent a drowsiness reaction carried out on the postural level (Nicoll, 1979). Such responses may or may not be attended by responses on the other levels as well (Nicoll, 1979). Probably in the usual cases, responses on all three levels are in process (Nicoll, 1979). In a sense, the behavior of the classical picture of psychoneurosis may be said to be a dream experience, since the essential feature is the execution of a response evoked by potent cues, while the system is relatively oblivious to other cues which the actual situation might afford (Nicoll, 1979). It is probable that studies of drowsiness and its dream responses may throw considerable light on the behavior of the more technically neurotic subject (Nicoll, 1979). Even the conditions to which drowsiness is usually ascribed–fatigue, ennui, exhaustion, or “hypnotic” drugs, suggest an intellectual weakness, which may be in various ways related to the chronic condition of the officially neurotic person (Hobson, 1999). Hence, reactions, however appropriate to past contexts, maybe bizarre and inadequate so far as present circumstances are concerned (Hobson, 1999). In the waking state, such bizarre reactions are held in check, or corrected by the synergy of other cues from the present situation (Hobson, 1999). These responses, overdetermined as they are by particular cues, constitute dreams (Hobson, 1999). In this context, sleep is likely to be viewed as a biological system such as digestion or the circulation of the blood–a homeostatic system with limited responsibility to learning, reinforcement, or motivation (Hobson, 1999). Those interested in the sensory or information input side of psychology see their interests disappear with the onset of sleep (Nicoll, 1979). In short, sleep can be viewed as a variable that fits neither our theoretical conceptions nor our methods of study (Hobson, 1999).
As one awakes from the dreams, the intrusion of more cues, and the synergy of the effects of diverse past contexts, is therapeutic (Hobson, 1999). The dreamer corrects his hallucinations, resists suggestion, dismisses his fixed ideas, logically evaluates his trains of thought, voluntarily controls his somnambulisms, recovers from his temporary amnesia and anesthesias, and continues to exhibit only those neurotic tendencies which he displays by virtue of his waking degree of sagacity (Hobson, 1999). The typical neurotic, as we have seen, never recover, or recovers with great difficulty, from a certain circumscribed drowsiness (Hobson, 1999). The conventional “hypnotic” phenomena are usually demonstrated with the aid of such persons as subjects, when they do not utilize, after the methods of the fakir, more highly specialized anesthesias, catalepsies and trance symptoms, which occur in the recognizable psychoses, such as dementia praecox, or the services of “trained” subjects (Hobson, 1999).
Dreams have meaning but their meaning is influenced by the personal experiences of a dreamer and his psychological type (Freeman et al 2001). This is why the careful study of such dream behavior may be made to reveal the dominating interests and preoccupation of the individual, and the outstanding concerns and interests in his past (Nicoll, 1979). As one awakes from the dream, the intrusion of more cues, and the synergy of the effects of diverse past contexts, is therapeutic (Freeman et al 2001). The dreamer corrects his hallucinations, resists suggestion, dismisses his fixed ideas, logically evaluates his trains of thought, voluntarily controls his somnambulisms, recovers from his temporary amnesia and anesthesias, and continues to exhibit only those neurotic tendencies which he displays by virtue of his waking degree of sagacity (Freeman et al 2001). People do not remember dreams because of different phases of sleep and memory functions (Freeman et al 2001).
Nightmares are defined as “strong unpleasant feelings and emotions experienced by a person during sleep” (Pace-Schott 2003, p. 8). In most cases nightmares are caused by seizure disorder, but in some cases, the latter diagnosis is uncertain (Freeman et al 2001). In the uncertain cases, the syndrome is less well defined and it overlaps with the syndrome of dream-reality confusion (Freeman et al 2001). It could be said that the syndromes of recurring nightmares and of dream-reality confusion represent two extremes on a nosological continuum; the boundary between them is blurred, but as the dreams become more repetitive in content and more unpleasant in emotional tone, so the likelihood of an underlying seizure disorder increases (Freeman et al 2001). The link between these two syndromes is probably attributable to the low seizure threshold and dense interdigitation of limbic tissues (Pick and Roper, 2004). These remarks confirm our qualified support for Whitty and Lewin’s (1957 cited Freeman et al 2001) hypothesis to the effect that the syndrome of dream-reality confusion is sometimes caused by discharging lesions in the temporal lobe (Freeman et al 2001). Researchers may speculate that seizure activity anywhere in the limbic system is apt to generalize within that system and overwhelm the frontal-limbic mechanisms that inhibit dreams and dreamlike thinking (Freeman et al 2001). Recurring nightmares had the least robust localizing significance among the four major disorders of dreaming that were identified in the present study (Freeman et al 2001). The radiological evidence suggested that recurring nightmares were commonly, but by no means always, associated with structural lesions of the limbic system (in either hemisphere) (Freeman et al 2001). The physiological and clinical evidence suggested that limbic-temporal epileptiform discharge (in either hemisphere) was highly characteristic of this group (Freeman et al 2001). However, seizure activity was not conclusively demonstrated in some cases (Freeman et al 2001). In those cases, the dream disorder was marked by increased frequency and vivacity of nightmares rather than by recurring nightmares (Freeman et al 2001). This confirmed the overlap between the present syndrome and the previous one (Freeman et al 2001). Following McNamara (2004) it is normal for a person to have nightmares as a response to busy daily life and inner fears.
It is possible to control dreams creating a pleasant atmosphere before sleep and avoiding deep emotional sufferings and fears (Freeman et al 2001). The major disorders of dreaming should be treated as valid neuropsychological syndromes were surrounded by an indefinite number of subtle changes in dreaming that do not warrant the same status (Dement and Vaughan 2000). Although many cerebrally impaired patients reported these changes in response to direct questions about aspects of their dreams, many control patients without cerebral impairment reported the same changes (Dement and Vaughan 2000). These reports did not correlate reliably with established neurobehavioral symptoms and signs (Dement and Vaughan 2000). In addition, although some of them correlated statistically with broad pathological anatomical categories (such as left vs. right hemisphere lesions), the site of the lesions in individual cases could not be reliably predicted from the subjective reports (Dement and Vaughan 2000). Such probabilistic correlations are of scientific interest, but of little clinical value (Dement and Vaughan 2000). These relative deviations from normal dreaming probably represent subclinical tendencies in the direction of the major disorders of dreaming in some cases, but they also represent nonspecific reactions to cerebral pathology, as well as purely functional effects in other cases (Dement and Vaughan 2000).
References
- Dement, W.C., Vaughan, Ch. (2000). The Promise of Sleep: A Pioneer in Sleep Medicine Explores the Vital Connection Between Health, Happiness, and a Good Night’s Sleep. Dell; 1 edition.
- Freeman, A., Rosner, R. I., Lyddon, W. (2003). Cognitive Therapy and Dreams. Springer Publishing Company; 1 edition.
- Hobson, J.A. (1999). The Dreaming Brain: How the Brain Creates Both the Sense and the Nonsense of Dreams. Basic Books.
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- Nagera, H. et a; (2003). Basic Psychoanalytic Concepts on the Theory of Dreams. Maresfield Library, 1990.
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- Pace-Schott, E. (2003). Sleep and Dreaming: Scientific Advances and Reconsiderations. Cambridge University Press,
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