DREAMS, DREAMS, DREAMS OH WHAT D0 THEY MEAN??? DEPENDS ON WHO YOU ASK…. DREAM THEORIES

Information-Processing  Dreams sift, sort and fix the day’s experiences into memory  REM sleep facilitates memory  Consolidates the day’s important memories for further storage

Evidence People who get more REM sleep have higher scores on memory exams

Physiological Theory  Dreams provide the sleeping brain with periodic stimulation that helps preserve brain’s neural pathways  Evidence- Infants spend more time in REM sleep than older people

Cognitive Theory  Dreams are a natural part of brain maturation and development  They draw on our working concepts and knowledge  Evidence- The dreams of small children are more like a slide show…not the active participants they will become

Problem Solving Theory  Cartwright is the theorist  Dreams are the continuity of waking thought but in dreams you are not constrained by logic or realism like you are when you are awake  Thus the idea of, “I’ll sleep on it.”

Evidence People self-report that they solve problems in their dreams

SIGMUND FREUD  Manifest Content: The story line of the dream  Latent Content: The hidden meaning (symbols) within the dream (This is what Freud was really interested in)  Dreams are key to understanding inner-conflict

FREUD  Carl Jung: Freud’s student picked up and expanded where Freud left off  Least scientific of the theories  Freud studied only housewives from Vienna  Jung believed that you could “decode” your dreams

Evidence  There is no scientific evidence for this theory

Activation-Synthesis Theory  Dreams are a product of activity from pons and/or brainstem)  Cerebral Cortex attempts to make sense of neuron firings by creating a story  Limbic system increase frontal lobe decrease  DREAMS HAVE NO MEANING!

Evidence  PET scans and other imaging techniques provide evidence for this.