PSYC 444 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Lucid Dream, Dream Yoga, Non-Rapid Eye Movement Sleep
14 May 2018
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PSYC 444 – LECTURE 13
CONSIOUS EXPERIENCES IN SLEEP
What is dreaming? How is dreaming defined?
These are all fundamental questions for which there is not yet a good answer.
• Dreaming can be as vague as any mental activity when sleeping
• There are many differences between dream studies, including methodological differences.
• Post 80’s, thee ee epots of people haig deat duig REM sleep. This was mainly due to the way the question was phrased: was there anything
on your mind? Did you experience the spatiotemporal and emotional aspects of dreaming?
Does everyone dream? Is there any function for dreams?
• A good scientist would say that we cannot know for certain that everyone dreams, as the phenomena is derived mainly from patient reports.
• The function for dreaming may be epiphenomenological with no particular advantage or disadvantage
IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS
Are dreams a special state of consciousness? What qualities of consciousness are proper to dreams?
• Three main states: wake, deep sleep and REM sleep.
• Opposed to segregated states, dreaming could be seen as a continuum of mental experience in sleep
• However, even if dreaming is a special state, it is obviously different from being awake.
Lucid dreaming: how can it be possible to be aware of the fact that one is dreaming?
• Lucid dreaming is a hybrid state of being awake and sleeping that goes against everything known about REM sleep
Dreams and their neural correlates
• Possibility of a brain signature or pattern that verifies state of dreaming
Dreams as a passive event vs. learned skill
• It’s just a drea
• No agency or something we can control?
What about cultural context? Are there universal invariants in dreaming?
• To what extent is dreaming influenced by our culture and context?
DREAMS AND DREAM RECALL
Are we dreaming all night? Are we only dreaming during REM sleep?
• Temporal scale of dreaming is unknown
• It is possible that we dream all night and forget, only being able to recall certain portions
• However, it is known that e do’t only dream during REM
Why are we unconscious during sleep? Why are we not aware of the fact that we are dreaming? What about dream amnesia? How useful/useless are dreams?
• Dreaming requires that we are not engaged nor consciously aware
Crick hypothesized that we are dreaming about things we should be forgetting (e.g. parasitic memories)
• There is no empirical evidence for the removal of toxins during dreaming
• However, according to Crick, remembering dreams would be bad for our mental health
DREAMS, HALLUCINATIONS AND IMAGINATION
Are these discrete phenomena or is there is a continuity? What is the relationship between dreams and creativity?
• Mind-wandering and imagination are less pathological activities that we are capable of during wake
Currently, there are no good answers to these questions.
WHO STUDIES DREAMS?
Two different camps
1. Dream theory
• Textual studies
• Psychoanalysis
• Psychology
• Cognitive science, neuroscience
• Qualitative analysis of dream content
2. Dream practices
• Dream interpretation
• Dream work in therapy settings
o The real meaning of the dream is not important per se; it is the process of interpretation that results in therapeutic gains
• Lucid dreaming
• Mystical/spiritual practices (e.g. dream yoga, shamanism)
o Using dreams to prepare for death
o More traditional approach
o Interpretations of dreams often done by authoritative figure, such as a priest
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
HOW TO STUDY DREAMS
Retrospective self-report
• Ask people directly about their dream
• Ask participants to keep a dream diary
• Questionnaires
• More quantitative measures of dreaming
Experimental awakenings in the lab
Expert participants
• Only those who remember their dreams every morning or recruited
• Only those who experience lucid dreams (if this is the phenomena of interest)
Sleep science
• Usig REM sleep as a po fo deaig
• Wild implications are made based on neurophysiology of REM sleep extrapolated from animal studies
LASCAUX CAVE
• Earliest known representation of a dream
• Humans have been preoccupied with dreaming for a very long time
ASCLEPIOS
Dream incubation:
Snakes were believed to a connection between the world of the living and spirits
The only person who can interpret dreams and reach a diagnosis is God. Therefore, people were brought to snakes that lived under the temple and put to sleep.
While asleep, spirits communicated with the priestess about the content of the dreams in order to reach a diagnosis.
FREUD: TRAUMDEUTUNG
Dream science began with Freud
• The ego is not the master in its own house
• There are mind processes that we cannot understand without requiring help
• We have no direct access to our own motivations
Published in 1990 to sole the ste of deaig ith the tu of the etu
• Text was meant for the new century
• Decentering of the self and demystification of dream experiences
Dea itepetatio is the oal oad to the uosious
• Method of understanding the consciousness
• Reveal hidden sources of trauma, impulses and desires
However, the initial reception was not favorable
• 600 copies sold; 10 years before they were sold out
Psychoanalysis was done on a couch because it is the best way to remember your dreams
• Re-enacting bodily sensations when dreaming
Study of dreams (and of the unconscious) is much like archeological work
• Must peel off layers of distortion or effects of time
• Everything is not as it seems
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
These are all fundamental questions for which there is not yet a good answer. Dreaming can be as vague as any mental activity when sleeping. There are many differences between dream studies, including methodological differences. Post 80"s, the(cid:396)e (cid:449)e(cid:396)e (cid:396)epo(cid:396)ts of people ha(cid:448)i(cid:374)g d(cid:396)ea(cid:373)t du(cid:396)i(cid:374)g (cid:374)rem sleep. A good scientist would say that we cannot know for certain that everyone dreams, as the phenomena is derived mainly from patient reports. The function for dreaming may be epiphenomenological with no particular advantage or disadvantage. Three main states: wake, deep sleep and rem sleep. Opposed to segregated states, dreaming could be seen as a continuum of mental experience in sleep. However, even if dreaming is a special state, it is obviously different from being awake. Lucid dreaming is a hybrid state of being awake and sleeping that goes against everything known about rem sleep. Possibility of a brain signature or pattern that verifies state of dreaming.
