International Association for the Study of Dreams

[timeisnotlinear]

I was doing some reading on dream theory and have read lots of different theories on why we dream. I thought it might be fun to run a poll to see what the dominant theory here on IASD was.

Here is a brief synopsis on the different theories listed. If you have a different theory and you chose other, please post what that other is.

Activation synthesis theory

Activation synthesis theory asserts that the sensory experiences are fabricated by the cortex as a means of interpreting chaotic signals from the pons. They propose that in REM sleep, the ascending cholinergic PGO (ponto-geniculo-occipital) waves stimulate higher midbrain and forebrain cortical structures, producing rapid eye movements. The activated fore brain then synthesizes the dream out of this internally generated information. They assume that the same structures that induce REM sleep also generate sensory information.

Continual-activation theory

Combining Hobson's activation synthesis hypothesis with Solms's findings, the continual-activation theory of dreaming presented by Jie Zhang proposes that dreaming is a result of brain activation and synthesis; at the same time, dreaming and REM sleep are controlled by different brain mechanisms. Zhang hypothesizes that the function of sleep is to process, encode and transfer the data from the temporary memory to the long-term memory, though there is not much evidence backing up this so-called "consolidation." NREM sleep processes the conscious-related memory (declarative memory), and REM sleep processes the unconscious related memory (procedural memory).

Dreams as excitations of long-term memory

Eugen Tarnow suggests that dreams are ever-present excitations of long-term memory, even during waking life. The strangeness of dreams is due to the format of long-term memory, reminiscent of Penfield & Rasmussen’s findings that electrical excitations of the cortex give rise to experiences similar to dreams. During waking life an executive function interprets long term memory consistent with reality checking. Tarnow's theory is a reworking of Freud's theory of dreams in which Freud's unconscious is replaced with the long-term memory system and Freud's “Dream Work” describes the structure of long-term memory.

Dreams for linking and consolidation of semantic memories

A 2001 study showed evidence that illogical locations, characters, and dream flow may help the brain strengthen the linking and consolidation of semantic memories. These conditions may occur because, during REM sleep, the flow of information between the hippocampus and neocortex is reduced. Increasing levels of the stress hormone cortisol late in sleep (often during REM sleep) cause this decreased communication. One stage of memory consolidation is the linking of distant but related memories. Payne and Nadal hypothesize that these memories are then consolidated into a smooth narrative, similar to a process that happens when memories are created under stress.

Dreams for removing junk

Hughlings Jackson (1911) viewed that sleep serves to sweep away unnecessary memories and connections from the day. This was revised in 1983 by Crick and Mitchison's 'reverse learning' theory, which states that dreams are like the cleaning-up operations of computers when they are off-line, removing parasitic nodes and other "junk" from the mind during sleep. However, the opposite view that dreaming has an information handling, memory-consolidating function (Hennevin and Leconte, 1971) is also common. Dreams are a result of the spontaneous firings of neural patterns while the brain is undergoing memory consolidation during sleep.

Dreams for Darwinian random thought mutations

Dreams create new ideas through the generation of random thought mutations. Some of these may be rejected by the mind as useless, while others may be seen as valuable and retained. Blechner calls this the theory of "Oneiric Darwinism."

Psychosomatic theory

Dreams are a product of "dissociated imagination", which is dissociated from the conscious self and draws material from sensory memory for simulation, with sensory feedback resulting in hallucination. By simulating the sensory signals to drive the autonomous nerves, dreams can affect mind-body interaction. In the brain and spine, the autonomous "repair nerves", which can expand the blood vessels, connect with pain and compression nerves. These nerves are grouped into many chains called meridians in Chinese medicine. While dreaming, the body also employs the chain-reacting meridians to repair the body and help it grow and develop by sending out very intensive movement-compression signals when the level of growth enzymes increase.

[masters3311]

I had to choose OTHER, although I do believe that any one of those could be the reason why we dream. I just don’t see any of those explaining why I dream what I do and how I feel about my dreams. Maybe that wasn’t the question being asked but it’s really hard to believe the brain is just performing some routine operation every night and the result is me dreaming. I am way to emotionally connected to my dreams too think that they are just a product of some work being done by the brain. If that were the case I should see random images or moments instead of dreams.

I have many different theories on why I think we dream. The one I am fixated on right now is...that the brain must believe it is in some type of consciousness to work. So when we are sleep or physically unconscious the brain makes up a pseudo consciousness from what it can piece together from our memories and this is what we dream. It does this so that it can maintain its normal state and continue to perform its normal brain functions. Because of this I also believe that we dream much longer than what we can remember. I don’t know if there is a technical name for this theory.

[timeisnotlinear]

Sounds as good as any other theory. I went with Dreams for linking and consolidation of semantic memories almost as a default. Like you, I think it could be any of the above as well as multiple different others. For none of these even seem to attempt to explain precognitive or lucid dreaming.

[A MM]

I think this poll and Leebalz's summaries are a good idea.

I voted.

Maybe I'll explain my self - but later.

& unfortunately I have to be without a computer for a while.

[timeisnotlinear]

Great, I look forward to hearing what your "other" theory is.

[Amy]

I think it's great that we're doing a poll for fun, and I want to participate, but I don't understand these descriptions at all. So hard to follow. so I haven't yet voted.

Maybe something to do with memory? Maybe an earlier evolutionary step in consciousness?

I guess dreams are for me, a lay person rather than a scientist - "other".
They seem to be one of the most creative parts of us; the art that we make effortlessly, with grace and supreme insight into our lives and our shared human condition.

[Dreamdeer]

I voted "Other" for lack of an "All of the Above" option. I believe that many different factors go into dreaming, just as many different factors go into why and how the body shifts positions during sleep. And that includes the contradictory ideas of dreams fomenting new ideas/trashing old ideas. We can, after all, use the same hand to pick something up or throw it away--why shouldn't the mind have multitasking functions, too?
_________________
Life is beautiful and dangerous. Beware! Enjoy!--Dolores J. Nurss

[TracyN]

I think dreams allow us an opportunity to be safely insane every night. I certainly know that I would be certified as crazy if the contents of some of my dreams were analyzed, lol!

[waveluv]

I probably lean more toward the Darwinean theory. I look to dreams and dreaming as idea generating, and there is a fortuitous pruning out of some stuff, and the keeping of other stuff, which may then be made manifest in art or other meaningful musings.
Perhaps its like altered functions of things over time, for instance; feathers that originally functioned as radiators and eventually, over millions of years, became useful for flight.
_________________
SZZZZZZZZZ!

[Dreamdeer]

Now that's what I'm talking about, Waveluv! Dreams might have started with one function, but developed many others over time.
_________________
Life is beautiful and dangerous. Beware! Enjoy!--Dolores J. Nurss

[timeisnotlinear]

Isn't it amazing though that in this day and age when we seem to be on the cusp of understanding so much about the human body and how to manipulate it, that dreams are almost still a total mystery? That there’s no real consensus?

[Amy]

Yes

[Spiral Jetty]

Thanks Leeballz for putting this list together. When it comes to dream theory I go back to a dream I had when I was eighteen (now fifty-one) in which I was being given a college oral exam on the nature of dreams. Every question was designed to make me think deeply about my relationship to my dreams and the professor kept changing form during the exam, starting out as a college professor wearing a suit, then turning into an American Indian sitting on the ground, then a yogi and finally a mummy. My basic answer to his dream questions was "dreams are the other half of who I am". When I gave him this answer, I had no doubt that I had another existence within the dream which was at least equal in import to my waking life. After this dream I began to pay much closer attention to my dreams and to keep a dream journal, which I still do to this day.

For me, the attempt to reduce the dream state to a bunch of chemical processes does not work. My personal view is that we are much more than our physical bodies and in our dreams and visions we are able to get a taste of that larger reality and explore other dimensions which we also inhabit.

[DrmDoc]

Hi Leeballz,

Of those listed, the Activation Synthesis theories comes closest to the perspective I've uncovered through my investigation of how we evolved a dreaming brain. My investigation suggests that dreaming is a product of the vestigial metabolic processes associated with sustaining our neural systems amid sleep. If I may further explain, functional studies suggest that the brain in dream sleep arouses to wakeful levels of activity. Some researchers associate this arousal with memory consolidation or some neuronal repair or upkeep. The evidence in evolution suggests that this arousal is an effect of the vestigial uptake of energy by the primitive subsystems of our brain amid prolonged inactivity.

When ancestral animals experienced prolonged periods of food privation, they entered a low metabolic state that allowed them to conserve their energy reserves by freeing energy stores for use by physiological systems more vital to survival. The evolving brain of ancestral animals was probably one of those vital systems that drew upon the energy reserves of these earlier animals amid a restful state.

When the contemporary brain enters REM or dream sleep, the body experiences a state of muscle inelasticity called atonia. This state is concurrent with an increase in energy usage by the brain, heart, lungs, and other vital systems. Before ancestral animals evolved those parts of the brain associated with cognition (cortex), they evolved those parts associated with their metabolic and autonomic function (brainstem). It is likely that atonic sleep processes evolved to sustain these primitive brain systems amid periods of privation. As the contemporary brain experiences vestigial uptake of energy by its primitive systems, the neural impact or reverberation of that energy uptake initiates arousal in several brain regions associated with its cognitive processes. Keep in mind these processes probably evolved after those associated with the brain's primitive subsystems.

When the cognitive regions of the brain arouse amid sleep, they do what they were evolved to do--to perceive, assess, and respond to neural stimuli via its primitive subsystems. There are indications that the imagery and experiences we recall as dreams form during the arousal process; i.e., dreams may depict how our waking state brain interprets the neural stimuli that continues to resonate within brain structure from its arousal amid the vestigial process involving energy uptake. Although our dreams may merely be a synthesis of neural stimuli, they are no less meaningful because their imagery suggests how our waking brain interprets the experience that aroused its activity and disturbed its peace amid the sleep process.
_________________
"Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart; live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours." --Dale Carnegie

[YouAreDreaming]

I've decided on Other.

And by other, I mean dream / reality dualism. Where dreams one day come true like Déjà vu vu, but are really Déjà vu rêve.

Seems a logical choice considering dreams come true and all...

[rcwilk]

Here is another:

In 1989, Harry Hunt's book the Multiplicity of Dreams was published. In this close examination of the coginitive science of dreaming, Hunt revealed how bias of perspectives also bias the not only the interpretation of empirical results, but choice of the objects of study and the funding as well. Hunt also recognized the core of dreaming as "exterioriz(ing) the processes of cross-modal synesthetic translation and mutual reorganization that may constitute the core of all symbolic intelligence." (Hunt 1989 206).

Here the process of cross-modal synesthetic (hearing colors, tasting sounds) translation and mutual reorganization refers to a post-representational presentation in which meaning is generated in the freeplay of being, becoming and re-becoming.
_________________
Richard Wilkerson | asdreams.org | office@asdreams.org

[timeisnotlinear]

[Ultravioletfrog]

Hi Leeballs and Richard

I love our DEEP MIND and the way it communicates through SYNCHRONISITY.

At noon today (Saturday 30 January) here in Adelaide, I listened to (and taped) a radio program call All In The Mind.

It was an interview with Proffessor David Eagle Man a neuro scientist who heads up a Centre for Synthhesia Research at the Balo College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.

It excited to me and I wanted to share it. But I didn't know how to introduce it on saltcube, or iasd PsiDreams (yahoogroups), or here.

Then (just now) I visited here and in the above posts YOU are sharing about synethesia.

It is 10:30pm Saturday 30 January here now, but tomorrow or Monday I will come back and put in the link and share on this Dream Theory thread.

[Ultravioletfrog]

Hi Leeballs and Richard

Here is the promised link

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2010/2745028.htm#transcript

I have opened the transcript.

Hit the “audio download” you get a visual delight as you listen to the 30 minute interview with:

Neuroscientist by day, novelist by night - David Eagleman has just written an extraordinary little novel about the afterlife. He's also a leading researcher in synesthesia, studying people who taste sounds, hear colours, and live in a remarkable world of sensory cross-talk. He joins Natasha Mitchell in conversation about life, death and the in-between.

15 minutes is about his book.
15 minutes is about synesthesia.

Enjoy.

Another “All in the Mind” interview more to do with this Thread is this:

Again, I have opened the transcript.

Hit the “audio download” you get a visual delight as you listen to the 30 minute interview with:


Jungian psychoanalyst and psychotherapist Robert Bosnak is a dream worker. To him dreams are an ecosystem of imaginings—powerful bodily experiences populated by characters with their own intelligences. When you encounter the images of your dreaming mind do you find one Self, or many? And, next week, a leading neuroscientist probing the possible link between memory and dreaming.


http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2010/2745020.htm

Enjoy.

[unclesirbobby]

Dreams represent the key thoughts in our minds - new insights during sleep. They are symbolic versions of our insights. I like to translate dream symbols into those key thoughts.

Here is an example. The day before I had been taking pictures of surfers during a major storm. I had taken too many risks and destroyed a valuable camera.

That night I had a dream about a soldier from the Napoleonic wars. He wasa fictional character called major sharpe. He always led charges and was always the hero. Its all very unrealistic.

So just this one symbol could be translated in the following way. It represented this thought "I took too many risks with my surfing photos. I thought I invincible(like the invincible major sharpe). What an idiot!"

So the dream represents my own judgment on myself. Most dreams work in that way pinpointing key emotions and feelings
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http://www.dreamsymbolism.info

[Dreamdeer]

I have a friend who went on a vacation led by Robert Bosnak, of prehistoric and other charged sights in Europe, which integrated dreamwork with the tour--a really interesting concept, seeing how their travels affected their dreams.
_________________
Life is beautiful and dangerous. Beware! Enjoy!--Dolores J. Nurss

[rcwilk]

Keeping with the theory that there are now many reasons we dream...

One often overlooked theory is recreational dreaming. IE we dream to have fun and amuse ourselves. Some people like to to fly and breathe underwater and just play around... and set an intention to do so before going to sleep, just as others set intentions to get messages and have psychospiritual encounters. Recreational dreamers can be either lucid or non-lucid or even mutual dreamers.

RC
_________________
Richard Wilkerson | asdreams.org | office@asdreams.org

[timeisnotlinear]

Put me in that category then, I like that one.

[Amy]

I definitely can relate to the recreational dreaming category, too! I was 15 when I read Patricia Garfield's Creative Dreaming. I was so turned on by it, really wanting to have some of those pleasurable dream experiences she described. I'm thinking about rereading it....

[RockNRollStrega]

"A growing number of physicists, myself included, are convinced that the thing we call ‘the universe’ — namely space, with all the matter and energy it contains — is not the whole of reality. According to quantum theory — the deepest theory known to physics — our universe is only a tiny facet of a larger multiverse, a highly structured continuum containing many universes." David Deutsch

I take the quantum physics approach called Multiverse Theory, and apply it to innerspace too because I’ve had too many anomalous experiences, which the other theories listed could not explain such as OBE’s that revealed waking life realities I couldn’t have known any other way, PSI dreams, lucid dreaming, visits with the dead before I found out they had passed on, etc.
_________________
"...we are all a part of a Higher Being's dream who will one-day awaken, and we will all be set free." from a poem titled Secret Society by Maria Carla Cernuto

[timeisnotlinear]

Oooooooo, another good theory. I like that one too.

[Epic Dewfall]

Maybe the human brain thinks it was originally a fish.

One that can only maintain an inflated awareness of high resolution complexities in short daily bursts.

Maybe then the fish must collapse it's complexities perception bubble each night, so it can get back to having only four or five pixels of complexity to think about.

Maybe a fish can only handle a small amount of complexity in a picture when it has to do some overall problem solving thinking like it has done well for eons.

Maybe this is called abstraction, or simplification of the complex.

[Mileschaser]

I chose other. I think I did this because I think in my dreams. They do not look like hallucinations, they make sense to me most of the time. I do not remember hallucinating, ever. I do not see them as just a way to remove junk from my mind. I do not see them as a thought process for waking reality, actually I see them as just a thought process for dreaming reality 'cause that is as far as they go. I have never randomly seen things in a dream or had things just randomly happen. My dreams, especially lately, have taken a step by step approach; I do one thing in the dream to an object or talk to this dream figure or go in this direction, and I do something else that relates to what I just done or react to what the figure says or does. What I mean is that when I walk through a door the door doesn't lead to a room where I see myself or fall off the edge of a cliff. If I see my reflection in a mirror in a dream I do not see the reflection jumping out and grabbing me. So I do not see how they say that dreams are completely random.
I am certain that my dreams are not Darwinian. That is way too simple a theory to explain what I see.
I do not think that my brain removes parasites from my mind in dreaming either. I mean how could it do that?
Well if those are their best suggestions on how/why we dream then they have accomplished nothing by trying to dissect what the brain does physically, what sense would it make to know what the brain does physically?
Other for me. My theory is that I live in reality during waking reality then when I fall asleep I have backwards memories of what the conscious unconscious think about when I am not stimulating it with what my eyes see. If it is bored I think that it just thinks up random dreams that have some things to do with me, my life and all the other little psychological/sociological things that it wants to include. Maybe...

[seaa]

tracyN and rocknrollstrega both struck a chord.
i chose other also- heres a few thoughts of possibilities related to dreams.

Often we are in locations in which in the dream they are familiar but upon waking they dont at all relate to the "known" dream local.

what if, the food and beverage origins are translated in our dreams. the minerals and toxins from the food and beverage locations are digested and translated in dream?

this would be an interesting dream study.

for me, i have had numerous future dreams,all symbolically "remembered" in which in the future, i recognize the symbols from the dream..

heres an example- in 2001- i dreamt of a suburban neighborhood, i dreamt of a person whom i didnt know personally only saw around the city,
who lived down the street in this suburban neighborhood.
7 years later,
I was living in a suburban neighborhood that resembled the one from that dream and became associated with the person in that dream while living there and learned thier parents lived across town...

in a simple way of understanding this, that person who was once a stranger in my dream represented someone "close to home" and i close to thier home....which was true. the fact it was futuretense provokes the question of my psyche somehow sensing thier connection to the area in my dream.

that same person,i dreamt in 2002-3was responsible for breaking into my vehicle,smashing the window and stealing a beautiful brass box that i kept odd nature findings, four& five leaf clovers, butterflies birdskulls etc.

then in 2007 when i was living in the suburban neighborhood and we became associates, i told them of my dream of them smashing my window and stealing my box with weird nature stuff in it- and they said yeah it had 5 and 6 leaf clovers in it.....so in essense they confessed.

on one hand i was really angry they did that and one the other i was fascinated my psyche accurately revealed who was responsible of all the possibilities. and at that point of the dream02-03, we were still strangers only familar by surroundings.

this proposes the possibility that our belongings hold our essence, thereby causing theft of our essense to be potentially tracked when dealing with theft and translated in dream...?

okay- sorry im going on tangents...smiles

[LifeIntoDreams]

Without reading any descriptions I chose "Dreams for linking and consolidation of semantic memories" because the idea seems to explain more dream content than any other. After reading the descriptions I still think it explains more dream content than the other theories. More than, but not all. There's probably more than one thing going on when we dream and picking any one of these options might be like saying the purpose of being awake is to eat and drink. True but not complete.
_________________
Dream Diary :: Website

[droomcoach]

[dreamintheshell]

I believe that during REM sleep our subconscious receive copies of cerebrals activities and what we call a dream is what the conscious is able to recover from it.

The key of interpreting dreams is by understanding the distortion that occur wile the conscious recover information from the subconscious.

[timeisnotlinear]

[waveluv]

I want to keep this topic alive so I offer this:
This post is more of a wish for dream functioning, and may point to one or more of the above theories: I Wish dreams functioned as MEME producers. Memes are ideas that go viral and can shape the course of a culture such as myths have over the eons. If one were to think of the scale of a single dream, or aspect of it, as virtual; many people having been influenced by it may increase the scaleing to make something actual out of it.
_________________
SZZZZZZZZZ!

[waveluv]

This is the grandiose theory of dreaming
_________________
SZZZZZZZZZ!

[timeisnotlinear]

That's as good a theory as any other.

So how are other people being influenced by a single dream?

[nightmare]

seems like you people believe in certain death, i should of made it a bit clearer with my mutant law theory, backup of a supernatural force means immortality

i was never a religious person until after attaining super powers i proved flaws in science and science to be false

once again dreaming has nothing to do with your brain , you re physicaly there like teleporting to other dimensions or parts of the universe

in god i trust