Dreaming: What’s Going on?

1. Dreaming: What’s Going on? • Dream behavior • Theories of Dreaming • Conclusions • What can we learn from our dreams? • Are they meaningful? True / predictive? • Basic Methodology (if we have time…)

2. Some Questions: • Are Dreams meaningful--what do they mean? • Are the predictive or “true”? • How do they differ from other states? • What is their function do they even have one? • Are they brain functions or mind functions?

3. Dream behavior & description • Within sleep • Amount • Brainwave activity & bodily quietude • the paradox • REM

7. Dreams & REM sleep • REM amount & periodicity • Brainstem cholinergic & adrenergic promoting & inhibiting areas • A regular activity rooted in the brain

9. Outline • Characteristics and Descriptions • Theories of Dreaming • Conclusions • What can we learn from our dreams? • Are they meaningful? True / predictive? • Basic Methodology (if we have time…)

10. Theories of Dreaming • Dreams as meaningful events: • Freud Are dreams meaningful???--the big question

11. Psychoanalytic Theory • Mental conflict • Unconscious motivations • Two forces: impulses & defenses (repression) • Dreams as a release • Dreamwork and its results • Latent dream • Manifest dream • Remembered dream Dreamwork and forgetting as protective mechanisms Poetzel Effect,

12. Freud & Neuroimaging • Michael Anderson- Validates Repression: Forebrain active in inhibiting hippocampus on repressed items • Allen Braun: Limbic system-emotion active during REM) • Prefrontal cortex (working mem. Att’n, logic & self-monitoring) inactive during REM • Above consistent with dream bizarreness & emotional disinhibition/wish fulfillment • Visual cortex inactive but higher visual areas active so we see w.o. visual input • Mark Solms: injured Pons vs. injured Forebrain • Pons-disrupts REM but dreaming goes on, -- Forebrain-lose dreaming but REM goes on

13. Variations on Psychoanalytic Explanation + Challenges • Dement & Kleitman: REM & implications • Hall and Cartwright: Dream Series • Challenging Views • Dreams as random activity (Hobson +) • Synthesis (perhaps)

14. Other Neuroscience Views • Crick: Purge extraneous connections • Evans: Sorting function on day’s events • Winson: Sorting for survival: Neurons reactivated during dreams • Wilson: Rat Dream article- maze learning during dreams • Hobson: random activity & activation-synthesis hypothesis

15. Hobson: Dream Transformations • From: inanimate animate character • To: • inanimate 21 0 0 • Animate 2 0 7 • Character 0 0 14

16. Outline • Characteristics and Descriptions • Theories of Dreaming • Conclusions • What can we learn from our dreams? • Are they meaningful? True / predictive? • Basic Methodology (if we have time…)

17. Dream Characteristics • Lack of active volition • Absence of ongoing reflective judgment • Limited to phenomena of the immediate present • Diffuse cognitive slippage--dreamlike confusion - transformations of perception, thought, memory, emotion, relationships, etc. • Gaps in experience: 20% • Confusion of thought & irrational intuitions: 41% • Problems in sustained attention: 5% • Memory deficiencies within the dream: 15% • Overall, even 51% of "clearest dreams" had clouding • But not radical (scz, psychedelic) but rather more like that of waking life • Can even have hallucinations or psychedelic experiences in dreams (as in waking life!) • Ex. flying 4%, bizarre figures, 4%, changed identity 3%, LSD-like transformations of vision 13%. Mostly visual 47%. Somatic 10%, audit. 14%.

18. Conclusions • Can we obtain meaningful insights about ourselves through our dreams? • What can we learn from our dreams? • Are they meaningful? True / predictive?

19. Outline • Characteristics and Descriptions • Theories of Dreaming • Conclusions • What can we learn from our dreams? • Are they meaningful? True / predictive? • Basic Methodology

20. Basic Methodology • Experimentation • Independent vs. Dependent variables • Observational vs. Experimental studies • Causation vs. Correlation • Experimental “control”

21. Making Observations • Scientific observations often begin with a question or hypothesis. • The hypothesis must be testable. • This calls for an operational definition of key terms to specify the study’s dependent variable. • Data must also be systematically collected. • Researchers ignore anecdotal evidence.

23. Defining the Sample • Based on observations of a sample, psychologists want to draw conclusions about a broad population. • Random sampling • All members of the population have an equal chance of being picked to participate. • Researchers also use other procedures, including stratified sampling and case studies.

24. The Power of Experiments • The two groups must be matched at the outset of the experiment. • To ensure matching groups, researchers use: • random assignment. • within-subject comparison. • taking precautions to address problems created by the sequence of conditions

25. The Control Condition

26. Assessing External Validity • Researchers want their study to mirror circumstances of the broader world. • external validity • External validity depends on many factors. • The study should not change behaviors the researchers hope to understand.

27. Assessing External Validity • One concern here involves the study’s possible demand characteristics: • cues that can signal to participants how they’re supposed to behave • One way of avoiding this problem is to use a double-blind design.

29. Measurement • The Description of Data • Central tendency • Mean, median, mode • Variability • Variance • Standard deviation • Correlation & significance level

31. Measurement

32. T H HT TT TH HH T = tails H = heads

33. More Measurement