Mysteries of Dreams: Part One
Dreams. An enigma that remains as deep a mystery to us as in the days of the ancients, despite our burgeoning scientific and technological knowledge. Their function remains inaccessible, still located in secret vaults nestled within the deepest layers of the labyrinthine tunnels of our psyche. Complicating the matter is the equally unanswered question as to whether dreams even have a function. Perhaps this assumption is reflective of our bias toward pragmatism and objectivity.
In this first of two posts, I will outline some of the major Western scientific psychological theories of dreaming. Given the breadth of the topic, I have necessarily left out at this stage discussions around the form, phenomenology and experience of dreaming. These issues, as well as some thoughts from traditionally Eastern cultures, will be covered in the second post. This will centre around a descriptive account of a recent dream I experienced, which I think carried intense personal (and maybe, just maybe, more global?) significance.
In a thinking, analytical culture such as ours, it is not surprising that Western theories abound regarding dreams and their function. This domain of study has even been reified with a label: Oneirology (named after The Oneiroi, who in Greek mythology, are the deities that rule over you guessed it, dreams and nightmares). Morpheus the God of Dreams, Phobetor who ruled over the Nightmare realm and the brothers responsible for prophetic dreams Ikelos and Phantasos were perhaps pre-modern examples of humanity's fascination and attempts to generate explanatory models for this compelling realm.
These theories at their core, disagree as to whether dreams have function and meaning, or as I hinted at above, are meaningless. Our father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, was convinced that dreams allow for wish fulfilment. That is, if there are issues that terrify or are unacceptable to you for a myriad of reasons but nonetheless you feel the need to express literally or symbolically, dreams are a vehicle for the safe, inner expression of these conflicts. He enshrined his theory in the famed and landmark publication: 'The Interpretation of Dreams".
In more recent times, psychoanalyst and neuroscientist Mark Solms has accumulated evidence from brain lesioning studies and subjective reports from patients that support Freud’s theory, locating a neural network involving our frontal cortex. However, neuroscientist J Allan Hobson has gathered equally convincing evidence that he has enshrined in his ‘Activation-Synthesis’ Theory. Allan-Hobson’s theory is at the polar opposite of Freud and Solm: he argues that dreams have no inherent meaning (in Existentialist terms, dreams have no primary ‘essence’), they are just the brain’s efforts to make sense of entirely random activation patterns in our sleep: a ‘brain fart’ if you like.
Between these theoretical extremists are innovative and interesting ideas incorporating dreams with memory and problem solving functions. In my humble opinion (probably biased by my clinical work with patients suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), the most intriguing hypothesis is that proposed by Finnish philosopher/neuroscience researcher Atti Revonuso. His 'Threat Simulation' theory proposes that some dreams function to simulate a past, present or future threat within the ‘safety’ of our minds, and allow the space for novel threat resolution ideas as well as an implicit, anxiety reducing ‘graded exposure’ process. A major weakness in this theory can be easily found in asking those with PTSD about their nightmares: to them such dreams never feel ‘safe’ and can be overwhelmingly terrifying.
Jie Zhang, a Psychiatrist, proposes via his ‘Continuing Activation’ Theory that dreams lie within a spectrum of neural processes that perpetuate continuous memory storage in the service of learning. Here, dreams function as a short term memory processing space, where memories are implicitly filtered for disposal or transfer to longer term memory networks. This dovetails with a ‘Reverse learning’ theory which similarly but more exclusively states that dreams act as ‘garbage disposal’, essentially clearing mental space for more ‘relevant’ future memories to be stored and utilized.
From my first person experience as one who dreams, and even from the more detached role as a clinical psychiatrist, I am yet to be convinced by the theories discussed so far. At face value, they appear too rigid; too mechanistic and deterministic. It feels almost as if, as exemplified in many of our activities in the waking world, we are trying to impose a sense of order and control upon an ever changing, complex, dynamic and non-linear experiential field. As such, these theories are certainly valuable heuristics however unlike their founders’ claims, they are far away from uncovering the metaphorical vaults mentioned in the opening paragraph.
From the Western scientific canon, there is a final group of theories that perhaps take us deeper into the serpentine labyrinths. The Dream Theatre theory (Deidre Barrett) suggests that when we dream, our unconscious mind and brain more effectively make associations between previously unrelated fragments of information. These vestigial associations then persist into our daytime working memories, can then help us to solve problems we were previously having difficulties with. We can perhaps rename this the “Sleep /Dream on It” hypothesis.
Ernest Hartmann evolved this idea further in the early 2000s, with his Contemporary Dream theory. He speculates that dream functions by enabling the associations of emotions, symbols and images within our internal, global workspace. These emotional and symbolic associations are, via the vehicle of memory, connected and woven intricately into our personal narratives. Essentially therefore, dreams are crucial in the weaving and construction of our individual life stories. From a pragmatic perspective this process can reduce emotional arousal and thus perpetuate and support adaptive means of coping with stress and trauma. From a deeper philosophical viewpoint, perhaps this subsequently contributes to the meaning and purpose we seek to make living worthwhile.
This move toward a more holistic approach also completes the Ouroboros of Western dream theories by bringing us back to Freud’s student and later competitor, Carl Jung. Jung disagreed entirely with Freud by opining that Dreams do not require interpretation. Jung opines that is their implicit function in helping us integrate experience and memory in the process of individuation and wholeness. Hence Jung viewed dreams in a future orientated manner while Freud thought they required analytical interpretation as past events.
I will end this summary of some psychological theories on Dreaming here. My second post will delve more into the experience of and phenomenology of dreaming, scaffolding around two dreams I have experienced involving Morpheus's sibling: Thanatos or Death.
