DREAMS

1. DREAMS What Do We Really Think About?

2. Dreams • REM Rebound: Extra rapid eye movement sleep following REM Sleep deprivation • Psychodynamic (Freudian) Theory: Emphasizes internal conflicts, motives and unconscious forces • Wish Fulfillment: Freudian belief that many dreams are expressions of unconscious desires • Much evidence to refute this • Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis: Dream content may be affected by motor commands in the brain that are not carried out

6. Dream Interpretation • Freud identified four dream processes (mental filters) that hide true purposes of dreams • Condensation: Combining several people, objects, or events into a single dream image • Displacement: Directing emotions or actions toward safe or unimportant dream images • Symbolization: When feelings or ideas are expressed symbolically in dreams; not literal expression • Secondary Elaboration: Making a dream more logical and adding details while remembering it • Perls: Most dreams are a special message about what is missing in our lives, what we avoid doing when awake, or feelings that we need to re-own • Lucid dreaming: Person feels fully awake within the dream and feels capable of normal thought and action

7. Daydreams • Can be helpful in: • 1. Rehearsing future actions • EX: Breaking up with your boyfriend • 2. Finding solutions to problems • EX: Figure out when you will make time to study • 3. Help you find motivation to achieve a goal • EX: Picture yourself graduating and getting the job that you want

8. Mental Alertness • Most people experience two distinct peaks of mental alertness: one in the morning, usually around 9-10AM, and one in the evening, around 8-9PM. In between these peaks, you’ll probably experience a slump in mental alertness at about 3pm and 3am.

9. Mental Alertness • Circadian Rhythms (from Latin “about” and “day”) the cyclical daily fluctuations in biological and psychological processes, Fluctuations from high to low that we feel every day • Managed by the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN), a small group of neurons in the hypothalamus, “the body’s clock,” is set by Environmental Cues (Bright light, or sunlight, is the most significant cue (in morning to wake up turn on the light)

10. Mental Alertness • How does sunlight help regulate the sleep-wake cycle and other circadian rhythms? As the sun sets each day, the decrease in available light is detected by the SCN through its connections with the visual system. In turn the SCN triggers an increase in the production of a hormone called melatonin. Melatonin is manufactured by the pineal gland, an endocrine gland located in the brain.

11. Sleep Interesting Facts: • Everyone dreams • Yawning increases arousal, it is not contagious, although thinking about yawning can make you yawn • Deaf people often “sleep sign” in their sleep • It is not dangerous to wake a sleepwalker • In a lifetime, a person spends about 22 years sleeping

12. Onset of Sleep/Pre-sleep • When you are awake and alert you have beta brain waves, once your head hits the pillow and you get sleepy (but not yet asleep) your brain’s electrical activity gradually gears down, generating slightly larger and slower alpha brain waves. As drowsiness sets in, your thoughts may wander and become less logical.

13. Onset of Sleep/Pre-sleep • Hypnagogical hallucinations – during this drowsy, pre-sleep phase, you may experience odd but vividly realistic sensations. You may hear your name called or a loud crash, feel as if you’re falling or floating, smell something burning, or see kaleidoscopic patterns or an unfolding landscape. These vivid sensory phenomena that occasionally occur during the transition from wakefulness to light sleep are called hypnagogic hallucinations. Some are so vivid they cause you to awake suddenly.

14. Onset of Sleep/Pre-sleep • Probably the most common hypnagogic hallucination is the vivid sensation of falling. The sensation of falling is often accompanied by a myoclonic jerk – an involuntary muscle spasm of the whole body that jolts the person completely awake. Also known as sleep starts, these experiences can seem really weird (or embarrassing) when they occur. But, you can rest assured, they are not abnormal.

15. Stages of Sleep 5 Stages of Sleep: (First 4 are Non REM, 5th is REM) • Stage 1: • Alpha brain waves replaced by even slower theta brain waves • Lasts less than 15 minutes • Lightest period of sleep, characterized by slow rolling eye movements • Transition period between wakefulness and deeper sleep • More responsive to sounds and external activities and are more easily awakened

16. Stages of Sleep Stage 2: • Theta waves dominate, but even slower delta waves start to emerge • Heart rate and breathing slow down • Lasts longer than Stage 1 sleep • Return to it several times throughout the night • 44 and 55 % of total sleep time

17. Stages of Sleep Stages 3 & 4: • Stages 3&4 very similar; when delta waves represent more than 20% of total brain activity, the sleeper is said to be in stage 3 NREM. When delta brain waves exceed 50% then they are in stage 4 NREM. • Referred to as deep sleep or delta sleep • In the deepest stage of sleep, when delta waves are 100%, heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate drop to their lowest levels. Sleeper is almost completely oblivious to the world. Sounds as loud as 90 decibels won’t wake.

18. Stages 3 & 4 continued • However, muscles are still capable of movement. EX: sleepwalking occurs, it typically happens during stage 4 NREM. Dreams are more common; people are more likely to talk to themselves. It’s even possible to answer a ringing phone, carry on a conversation for several minutes, and hang up without ever leaving stage 4 sleep. Researchers have tested this by asking people to perform simple tasks, and most people don’t remember. • Time spent in these stages of sleep decreases with age • Stage 5 - REM (rapid eye movement)

19. Stage 5 • Stage 5 - REM (rapid eye movement) • After deeply relaxed in stage 4, the sequence reverses. In a matter of minutes, the sleeper cycles back from stage 4 to 3 to 2 and enters a dramatic new phase: REM sleep. • Occurs in an unpredictable pattern throughout the night • Brain activity is close to waking levels; visual and motor neurons in the brain activate repeatedly, just as in wakefulness. • Heart and breathing rates increase dramatically (similar to early stage 1) • Eyes dart back and forth behind closed eyelids – the rapid eye movements

20. Stage 5 • Muscle tone is greatly reduced (do not move during this time, if you wake up during this time you may be temporarily paralyzed) • Vivid dreams, nightmares • Usually occurs 90 minutes after sleep begins and reappears throughout the night during a normal sleep cycle • Research shows that REM sleep is important for memory, increases after learning a new task (one reason why children need more than adults) • Just before and after REM sleep, sleeper usually shifts positions

21. Sleep Patterns • Larks = morning person that likes to get up early and go to sleep early • Owl = like to sleep until about 10 or 11 and then go to sleep around 2 or 3 in the morning • 6 ½ hours seems to be the minimum amount of sleep required by most people (studies constantly disagree) • You will need less sleep as you get older • Genetics play a big role in how much sleep we need, but also people need more sleep when they are depressed, under stress, or experiencing big life changes

22. Dreams • Sleep thinking – although dreams may be the most spectacular brain productions during sleep, they are not the most common. More prevalent is sleep thinking, which takes place during NREM sleep and consists of vague, uncreative, bland, and thought-like ruminations about real-life events. • Dream – in contrast to sleep thinking, a dream is an unfolding episode of mental images that is storylike, involving characters and events.

23. Dreams • On average, about 25% of a night’s sleep, or almost two hours every night, is spent dreaming. So, assuming you live to a ripe old age, you’ll devote more than 50,000 hours, about 6 years, to dreaming.

24. Dreams • Dreams occur during both REM and NREM sleep, but dreams during REM sleep are more frequent and longer in duration. People who are awakened during REM report a dream 90% of the time – even those who claim they never dream • People usually have 4 or 5 episodes of dreaming per night. • Contrary to popular belief, dreams happen in real time, not in split seconds; in fact dreamers are often quite accurate in estimating how long they’ve been dreaming

25. Researcher J. Allan Hobson (1988) 5 basic characteristics of dreams: • emotions can be intense • content and organization are usually illogical • sensations are sometimes bizarre • even bizarre details are uncritically accepted • dream images are difficult to remember

26. Allen Braun (1998) • Frontal lobes are shut down during REM sleep; this explains the unquestioning acceptance of the illogical nature of dreams • The amygdala and hippocampus are highly active during REM, structures involved in emotion, memory, motivation • Visual areas outside the primary visual cortex (which is also shutdown) are highly active.

27. What Do We Dream About? • Tied to our daily concerns, environmental cues can also influence what we dream about • Certain themes, such as falling, being chased, or being attacked are surprisingly common across cultures. • Many cultures have shown that dreamers around the world report more instances of negative events than of positive events.

28. What Do We Dream About? • There is more aggression in men’s dreams than in women’s dreams, but women are more likely to dream that they are the victims of physical aggression. • Environmental cues during dreaming can also influence dream content. In sleep labs, researchers have played recordings of a rooster crowing, a bugle playing reveille, and a dog barking. Researchers have even sprayed water on sleeping subjects. Depending on the stimulus, up to half the dreamers incorporated the external stimulation into their dream content.

29. The Significance of Dreams • For thousands of years and throughout many cultures, dreams have been thought to contain highly significant, cryptic messages. Do dreams mean anything? Do they contain symbolic messages?

30. Sigmund Freud: Dreams as Fulfilled Wishes • In this landmark work, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Freud wrote that dreams are the “disguised fulfillments of repressed wishes” and provide “the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious mind.” Freud believed that dreams function as a sort of psychological “safety valve” for the release of unconscious and unacceptable urges.

31. Sigmund Freud: Dreams as Fulfilled Wishes • Freud believe that dreams have two components; the manifest content, or the dream images themselves, and the latent content, the disguised psychological meaning of the dream. EX: Freud believed that dream images of sticks, swords, and other elongated objects were phallic symbols, representing the penis. Dream images of cupboards, boxes, and ovens supposedly symbolized the vagina.

32. Sigmund Freud: Dreams as Fulfilled Wishes • In many types of psychotherapy today, especially those that follow Freud’s ideas, dreams are still seen as an important source of info about psychological conflicts. However, Freud’s belief that dreams represent the fulfillment of repressed wishes has not been substantiated by psychological research. Furthermore, research does not support Freud’s belief that the dream images themselves – the manifest content of dreams – are symbols that disguise the dream’s true psychological meaning.

33. Alfred Adler: Will to Power • Adler coined the term “inferiority complex” • These feelings of inferiority were based in early infancy when we are literally powerless. We spend the rest of our lives trying to compensate for this early lack of power and to gain more control of our lives. • Dreams were a way of addressing our insecurities.

34. Alfred Adler: Will to Power • Adlerian dream analysis involves looking at the parts of a dream and analyzing what problems or inferiorities they might represent. Then how we act in response to those dream elements represents a way of overcoming the issue. • EX: a dream about falling could express a direct fear – especially if the dreamer is soon to fly or climb a mountain. However it could be subtler, representing a “fall from grace” or loss of face and social standing.

35. Jung’s Dream Theory • Dreams are the direct, natural expression of the current condition of the dreamer’s mental world. • Rejected Freud’s claim that dreams intentionally disguise their meanings; rather, Jung believed that the nature of dreams is to present “a spontaneous self-portrayal, in symbolic form, of the actual situation in the unconscious”

36. Jung’s Dream Theory • Dreams speak in a distinctive language of symbols, images, and metaphors that is the unconscious mind’s natural language – hard to understand since it is so different from our waking language. • Dreams work on two levels: objective and subjective

37. Jung’s Dream Theory • Objective: deals with external world; with the people, events, and activities of the dreamer’s daily life. • Subjective: dream elements are personifications of thoughts and feelings within the dreamer’s own psyche • Dreams serve two functions: One is to compensate for imbalances in the dreamer’s psyche. • Second function: to provide prospective images of the future.

38. HYPNOSIS

39. Hypnosis • Altered state of consciousness characterized by intensely narrowed attention and increased openness to suggestion • Mesmer: Believed he could cure diseases by passing magnets over body; true “animal magnetism.” Mesmerize means to hypnotize • Must cooperate to become hypnotized • Hypnotic Susceptibility: How easily a person can be hypnotized • Basic Suggestion Effect: Tendency of hypnotized people to carry out suggested actions as though they were involuntary • Hidden Observer: Detached part of the hypnotized subject’s awareness that silently observes events

40. Hypnosis Can’s and Cannot’s • Hypnosis CAN: • Help people relax • Reduce pain • Get people to make better progress in therapy • Hypnosis CANNOT: • Produce acts of superhuman strength • Produce age regression • Force you to do things against your will