THE ORIGIN OF DREAMS

193 Pages·2014·3.44 MB·English

THE ORIGIN OF DREAMS: A PSYCHOBIOLOGICAL APPROACH
Joseph Griffin B.Sc.
The London School of Economics and Political Science
1996
Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Philosophy in the faculty of
Science, University of London.
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UMI Number: U615417
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Corrections
p line
33 17 unsuitable
38 4 keeper’
39 last 1 ine If
42 20 insert ’told’
43 5 there (not their)
49 3 from bottom delete ’releasing’
G3 G comma after discharge
123 13 spat ial
125 13 imagined
12 G 19 spat ial
13G last 1 ine Freud
U3 13 Leopold
1G2 11 insert *u’ in stimulus
1G 7 7 th of quote I
17G 11 Hall
187 Strachey
ABSTRACT
This thesis puts forward three hypotheses concerning the
origin, meaning and function of dreaming.
Hypothesis no. 1. Dreams are the sensory analogue of
emotionally arousing introspections from waking (activated
drive - schemata) not manifested or acted out during
waking.
Hypothesis no. 2. Dreams de-activate the drive-schemata
still active at sleep onset. It is suggested that this
releases the resources of the cortex and limbic system to
deal with the emotionally arousing contingencies of the
next waking period.
Hypothesis no. 3. Evidence is reviewed which suggests that
the REM state, which is closely associated with dreaming,
evolved to programme instinctive behaviour in the foetus
and neonate. It is argued that such programming of
genetically anticipated knowledge must necessarily be in
the form of incomplete schemata for which analogous
sensory components must be identified. It follows that a
prime directive of information processing in the REM
state is to search for sensory analogues for incomplete
schemata. Unlike the genetically anticipated knowledge
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the waking introspections do include identified sensory
components. It is ,therefore, hypothesized that the
activated drive-schemata released during REM sleep will be
processed as a sensory analogue.
Evidence in support of these hypotheses is derived from
four sources (1) The biological studies of dreaming
carried out in recent decades. (2) The author's own dreams
and their corresponding waking introspections. (3) Other
people's dreams including the analysis of a famous dream
of Freud's and also of Jung which demonstrates their
metaphorical identity with their known waking concerns.
(4) The work of Silberer (1909, 1951) on the 'autosymbolic
effect' is analysed to demonstrate the existence of an
analogue process that converts introspections from waking
into sensory analogues.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge the helpful advice of my
supervisor, Professor H. Farr particularly with regard to
layout, structure and presentation of material in this
thesis. Dr. A, Mayes of Manchester University was kind
enough to supply me with detailed analysis, criticism and
encouragement of my ideas at various stages in their
evolution. I am also grateful to Professor H. Eysenk of
the Institute of Psychiatry, and Dr. M. Blagrove of
University College of Swansea for their helpful comments
on an earlier draft of this thesis.
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CONTENTS
1. Introduction 6
2. Theoretical and Experimental Background 12
3. The Biology of Dreaming 51
4. The Psychology of Dreaming (1) 82
5. The Psychology of Dreaming (2) 106
6. Freud's Specimen Dream and Jung's House Dream 134
7. Dreams, Creativity and Psychotherapy 156
8. Conclusion and Summary 176
9. References 186
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(1)
INTRODUCTION
The recognition that a comprehensive understanding of
human natur?. requires a holistic approach i.e. a
recognition of the interdependence of the biological and
the psychological has increasingly developed in recent
years.. This is commonly referred to as the 'mind-body'
approach. In this thesis I hope to show that our
understanding of human dreaming can be advanced by such an
integrated approach. Traditionally, theories that seek to
explain why we dream tend to dividei nto two broad
categories of explanation namely psychological and
biological.
Psychological theories tend to be either of a
psychodynamic type such as Jung's and Freud's or of an
information processing type such as Calvin Hall's
cognitive theory or Evan's computer theory. The discovery
in (1953) by Aserinksy & Kleitman of the special state of
physiological arousal known as 'rapid eye movement' or
'REM' sleep which appears to have a close relationship
with dreaming gave a great boost to the biological
approach to the understanding of the function of
dreaming. Biological theories stimulated by this finding
include the Crick and Mitchison (1983) 'elimination of
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parasitic connections in the neural net hypothesis' to the
'activation - synthesis' hypothesis of Hobson and McCarley
(1977). These biological theories are reviewed in chapter
(3) and the psychological theories referred to are
reviewed in chapter (2).
The need for an integration of the biological and the
psychological approaches to account for the full
complexity of human dreaming was apparent to Hudson (1985)
when he wrote:
" This evolutionary puzzle (dreaming and REM sleep) and
the question of the brain's operating principles are tied
together, as Crick and Mitchison correctly assume. What
they do not entertain is the possibility of an altogether
more sweeping synthetic and at the same time more rigorous
explanation, in which these biological considerations are
gathered together with another more strictly psychological
one; the question of the formal properties implicit in the
meaning of dreams themselves. In such a synthesis 'bottom
up' and 'top down' theorising about the sleeping brain and
its products would knit together, and the conceptual gap
within psychology between mechanistic and interpretative
modes of explanation would close............. Such a
synthesis is as exciting a prospect as any psychology now
offers, and eminently achievable - although at present it
hovers in mid-distance, still out of reach "
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The psycho- biological approach put forward in this thesis
seeks to develop hypotheses that can explain the function
meaning and origin of dreams by integrating data from both
the biological and psychological fields. The biological
research to be reviewed in chapter two clearly shows that
there is a close relationship between dreams and REM
sleep. Dreaming occurs primarily during REM sleep. The REM
state occupies the greater proportion of sleep time in the
foetus during the last trimester (80%) and in the
neonate (67%) and further declines to about 25% in later
childhood. The REM state also occurs in mammals. A theory
of dreaming that could integrate the ontogenetic and
phylogenetic data about the REM state and dreaming would
be very attractive. Such a theory is the 'activation -
synthesis theory' developed by Hobson and McCarley, which
we referred to earlier. However this theory sees dreaming
as essentially a meaningless phenomenon resulting from a
synthesis of endogenous random brain stimulation. Such a
theory cannot ,therefore, provide the kind of integration
of the psychological and biological data that Hudson is
looking for and, as we have seen, believes possible.
If we could develop a theory of dreaming that would have
the advantages of combining the ontogenetic, phylogenetic
and psychological perspectives without invalidating the
richness of the psychological data, than we might have a
very powerful theory indeed. Such a theory would need to
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