Theoretical issues. Inspired by Sigmund Freud and David Foulkes

1. Theoretical issues.Inspired by Sigmund Freud and David Foulkes • A functional theory of dreams and dreaming, implies a model of the mind. • In assessing dream content, is the reprentational mode and not the thematic content, that is of theoretical interest. • If you can’t account for dreams, you are not even close to getting it right.

2. Established wisdom concerning dreams • Dreams are primarily visual, but any sense modality can be experienced in dreams • There has not been established any convincing connection between dream content and any psychological variable • Dreams are usually commonplace in narrative and setting, even if bizarre dreams do exist • Dreams are believable world analogs (Foulkes) • The single-mindedness of dreams (Rechsthaffen)

3. Hartmann’s data • After proper examination of 456 dream reports from various sources, no instance of reading, writing or typing was found, and only one (questionable) instance of calculating. • In a questionnaire to frequent dream recallers, around 90% answered that they “never” or “hardly ever” dreamt of reading, writing, calculating and typing. • Through the same questionnaire it was ascertained that the respondents used a substantial part of their waking time to read, write or type.

4. Methodological notes concerning Hartmann’s data • A remarkable agreement between the two judges in the content analysis of the 456 dream reports. • The sample was of persons highly interested in dreams and probably also knowable of dream research and with strong convictions concerning dreams and their own dreamlife. • It was 60% return of the questionnaire, which probably underlines that the sample consists of persons knowable and highly interested in dreams. • The frequency of the items in their dream life was assessed by the respondents on a five point scale.

5. Responses to the question:”I have had dreams where I was watching TV””I have had dreams where I was reading””I have had dreams where public persons participated” Adapted from Hem 1994, Hem 2002

6. Method • A questionaire with some 60 items • Each question is a yes/no-question, or a modified version with four alternatives • The questionaire was distributed in the beginning of a lecture, it was answered in the pause and it was delivered at the end.

7. The sample • The sample was an opportunity sample of first year students in mathematics and psychology (mean age 20years) • The questionaire was answered by 242 persons (161 in mathematics and 81 in psychology) • The return rate was assessed at over 90% • The gender rate of the sample is 41% female and 59 % men. • Among the mathematic students 74% is men, among psychology students 20% is men.

8. The Århus-data as a support of Hartmann’s observations • Only 10% says “yes” to the statement “I have had dreams where I was reading” • The support is strengthened by the different sample and sampling method • The support is also strengthened by the fact that the results are the same, even if the style of quistionnairing is different

9. The Århus data as a supplement to Hartmann’s data • That only 5% can say yes to the statement “I have had dreams where I was watching TV” put that activity in the same bracket as the three r’s as far as dreaming is concerned • It underlines the lack of connection between the waking activity and the dream content that Harmann observe for the three r’s • However watching TV is a very different activity from the three r’s, it is not an activity “involving rapid, serial, focused, feed-forward processing”, which Hartmann suggests is the reason why the three r’s are relatively lacking in dreams

10. The lack of politics and societal events in dreams • Hall’s observations concerning the lack of the mentioning of the Hiroshima bomb in his first collected dream samples • That we seldom do dream of politics or societal events is part of the assumed common knowledge • The Århus data support this notion

11. Responses to the question:Have you ever had dreams about political or societal issues?Have you ever dreamt that you participated in war?Have you ever had expllcit sexual dreams? i war Adapted from Hem 1994, Hem 2002

12. Dreams of reading and politics: Two cases • The dream of Volume IV of Karl Marx’ “Das Kapital” • The dream of a homoerotic scene with President Giscard d’Estain

13. Two theoretical notions • Hobson: The waking ego does the best of a bad job in making a coherent cognitive experience out of a randomly activated limbic system and cortex. The three r’s might not have a limbic representation /function • Hartmann: The three r’s is, in PDP-language, feed forward processes, while dreams are expression of an auto-associative net, guided by the dominant emotional concern of the dreamer.

14. Dreams as an expression of a noncultivated mind • The waking mind is in many respects a soft-ware product, created through a societal process. The human mind is a cultural product. • The sleeping mind might not have taken part in the general cultivation of the processes of the mind • The mentality that is exhibited in dreams, and the mental capacities exhibited, might therefore be the same as before we started civilizing ourselves