The Science and Art of Dreaming

271 Pages·2023·45.356 MB·English

by  Mark Blagrove, Julia Lockheart

‘This unique collaboration between a dream researcher and an artist provides
a comprehensive summary of decades of dream research and a novel idea for
a function of dreaming, while at the same time celebrating the creativity and
uniqueness of our dreams, along with beautiful artworks.’
— Katja Valli, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience,
University of Skövde, Sweden
‘Why we dream is a major question in neuroscience and psychology. Bla-
grove and Lockheart provide novel and compelling insights into this debate
and extend it to the realms of our social world, art and evolution.’
— Antonio Zadra, PhD, University of Montreal,
co-author of When Brains Dream
‘Each chapter of this book presents major research findings while maintain-
ing the personal touch of a dream relevant to each topic and Julia Lockheart’s
evocative paintings to remind us how predominantly visual dreams are.’
— Deirdre Barrett, PhD, Harvard Medical School, author
of The Committee of Sleep and Pandemic Dreams
‘An innovative multidimensional work that dovetails highly creative artis-
tic renderings of dreams with an authoritative account of current trends in
dream research and theory.’
— Tore Nielsen, PhD, Dream and Nightmare
Laboratory, University of Montreal
‘This book accomplishes the rare feat of being delightful, informative, and
provocative all at the same time. As one small example of its many insights, it
argues that dreams may not have a function during sleep, but nonetheless may
have been important in human evolution because our ancestors increasingly
shared and discussed their dreams when they gathered around their nightly
fires.’
— G. William Domhoff, PhD, University of California Santa Cruz,
author of The Neurocognitive Theory of Dreaming:
The Where, How, When, What, and Why of Dreams
‘The Science and Art of Dreaming constitutes an utterly unique project. For cen-
turies, poets and philosophers have explored how art functions like dreams;
psychologists have analyzed how dreams resemble art. But has anyone till
now both methodically and creatively responded to the universal phenom-
enon of dreaming by marrying art to research and theory, and putting sci-
ence to the service of creative expression? Blagrove and Lockheart’s work
literally illustrates our most common questions about dreams and dreaming
with a selection of 22 dreams, accompanied by artworks that in their own
way address the same issues as the explanatory text: Why are dreams so often
bizarre? Why do they transport us to the past, and in such detail? Is Freud’s
view still relevant? This book vividly justifies the appreciation of art associ-
ated with dreaming – Surrealism and oneiric cinema, for example – as intel-
lectually on a par with the theoretical contributions and empirical research of
science, and convincingly demonstrates the benefits of recalling and sharing
dreams, especially for people in creative endeavors.’
— Bernard Welt, PhD. Professor Emeritus, The
Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, George Washington
University. Author of Mythomania: Fantasies, Fables, and
Sheer Lies in Contemporary American Popular Art;
Co-author of Dreaming in the Classroom: Practices,
Methods, and Resources in Dream Education
The Science and Art of Dreaming
The Science and Art of Dreaming is an innovative text that reviews the neuro-
science and psychology of how dreams are produced, how they are recalled
and their relationship to waking life events and concerns of the dreamer.
Featuring beautiful original artwork based on dream representations, the
book delves deeply into what happens when we dream, the works of art we
produce when asleep and the relevance of dreaming to science, art and film.
The book examines the biological, psychological and social causes of
dreaming, and includes recent advances in the study of nightmares and lucid
dreaming. It shows how sleep can process memories and that dreams may
reflect these processes, but also that dreams can elicit self-disclosure and
empathy when they are shared after waking. The playfulness, originality
and metaphorical content of dreams also link them to art, and especially to
the cultural movement that has most valued dreams – Surrealism. The book
details the history of scientific research into dreams, including a re-reading
of the two dreams of Freud’s patient, the feminist hero Dora, and also the
history of Surrealism and of films that draw on dreams and dream-like pro-
cesses. Each chapter starts with a dream narrative and accompanying painting
of the dream to highlight aspects of each of the chapter themes.
This highly engaging book will be relevant to researchers, students and
lecturers in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, psychoanalysis, conscious-
ness and social evolution. It will also be of value within the study and practice
of visual art, design and film, and will be of interest to the general reader and
anyone who holds a personal interest in their own dreams.
Mark Blagrove is a Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Sleep
Laboratory at Swansea University, UK.
Julia Lockheart is an Associate Professor at Swansea College of Art, Univer-
sity of Wales Trinity Saint David, and an Associate Lecturer in the Depart-
ment of Design, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK.

The Science and Art of
Dreaming
Mark Blagrove and Julia Lockheart
Designed cover image: Julia Lockheart
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Mark Blagrove and Julia Lockheart
The right of Mark Blagrove and Julia Lockheart to be identified as
authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Blagrove, Mark, author. | Lockheart, Julia, author.
Title: The science and art of dreaming / Mark Blagrove, Julia Lockheart.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022030900 (print) |
LCCN 2022030901 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367479961 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780367479947 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003037552 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Dreams.
Classification: LCC BF1078 .B555 2023 (print) |
LCC BF1078 (ebook) | DDC 154.6/3—dc23/eng/20220824
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022030900
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022030901
ISBN: 9780367479961 (hbk)
ISBN: 9780367479947 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003037552 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003037552
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
Mark Blagrove and Julia Lockheart, with painting of flying dream with lucidity (see Chapter 7).
Photo: Paul Duerinckx
For our parents,
Monica and Frank,
Margaret and Bob.
Contents
List of diagrams xi
List of figures xii
Preface xiii
Acknowledgements xv
1 What are dreams and what affects dream content? 2
2 Why do some people recall dreams more than others? 18
3 Nightmares 28
4 Sleep 36
5 Sleep and memory 46
6 Dreaming and the brain 58
7 Lucid dreams 68
8 Freud, psychoanalysis and dreams 80
9 Freud and Dora 90
10 How to find meaning in dreams: The Montague Ullman
dream appreciation method 104
11 Dreaming and insight 116
12 Functions and theories of dreams 128