The Psycology of Dreams

Dreams

I . Introduction

One way to study dreams is to study dreams is to study their content This can be done by laboratory studies in which sleepers are awakened during REM sleep and their reports are tape recorded . Subjects can also keep a dream diary in which they write all they can remember about their dreams . These different methods have revealed some interesting facts about the nature of dream content

What causes you to dream the things you dream ? That question cannot be answered as yet (see Rados Cartwright , 1999 . Research

can point to individual cases where the dream content is obviously related to immediate events in a person 's life , but the reason why a lot of dreams occur is something of a mystery . One explanation of dream content proposes that during REM sleep specific brain neurons are activated such as those involved in running or laughing or hearing . In an attempt to make sense of this specific neural activation , the brain produces a dream based on a synthesis of the stimulation present . Called the activation-synthesis hypothesis of dreaming , this view does not account for the seemingly random dream content that often occurs , and it is consistent with the neurological changes known to accompany REM sleep (Hobson McCarley , 2001 . However , it does not explain the coherence detail , and purposefulness common to many dreams . Studies of dream content must now recognize that dreamers may alter their content while they are actually dreaming

For most people , the content of their dreams is beyond their control How often have you gone to bed wishing you could dream about a particular someone , or afraid you might dream about an especially distressing subject ? Sometimes in dreaming we think ourselves that this is a dream ' Yet in the morning if we remember the dream and recall thinking that we knew it was a dream at the time , we find that we still accepted the content as plausible , even if events in the dream would be unlikely or impossible in real life . Some people are able to carry this awareness during dreaming a step further : they claim the ability to know when they dreaming and to actually control some or all of the content of their dreams . This phenomenon is known as lucid dreaming . In the past such claims have attracted little interest from dream researchers because there seemed no way to test these assertions However , working with the sleep research lab at Stanford University Stephen LaBerge , a lucid dreamer , was able to demonstrate his special ability . LaBerge told the researchers that during the dreams he would suddenly become aware that he was dreaming and that he could signal the researchers of this awareness by a prearranged pattern of eye movements They agreed on a mixture of horizontal and vertical eye movements . They agreed on a mixture of horizontal and vertical eye movements that he would use when he knew he was dreaming . The probability that the particular eye movement pattern would appear by chance was...