1. Dreams
sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person’s mind
hallucinatory imagery, discontinuities and incongruities
delusional acceptance of the content
difficulties remembering
NREM – boring, short
REM – Vivid, “real time”, long

2. Dreams Dreams Early dreams – daily events
Late dreams – longest, most vivid, strangest
8 out of 10 dreams are negative in feeling
Most common dream themes:
Falling, Being Chased, Teeth Falling Out, Flying Back at School, Nakedness

3. Dreams
Dreams
Women dream of men and women equally; men dream about men 65% of time
Sensory stimuli of sleep environment can intrude into dreams

4. Lucid Dreaming
Lucid Dreaming: dreams where you realize you are dreaming and are able to control the dream
Incubated Dreaming: conscious suggestion to the unconscious to dream about certain content

5. Dreams: Freud Sigmund Freud– wrote The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
Manifest Content
remembered story line
Latent Content
underlying meaning (usually sexual according to Freud)

6. Dream Theories Freud’s Theory: 1. Wish Fulfillment
Dreams express otherwise unacceptable feelings;
“psychic safety valve”
Called dream the “royal road” to the unconscious

7. Dream Theories 2. Information-Processing
Dreams are for “mental housekeeping”
Dreams help us sort out the day’s events and consolidate memories
Learning and reverse
learning (to forget)
Ex: High grades – high sleep correlation

8. Dream Theories 3. Physiological Functioning
Brain stimulation from REM sleep may help develop and preserve neural pathways
Explains why infants spend so much time in sleep and REM

9. Dream Theories 4. Activation-Synthesis
Dream is your brain trying to make sense out of random neural firings
Limbic system (emotion) and visual cortex have increased activity while dreaming
Bottom line: Dreams are
personal but meaningless

11. Dream Theories 5. Cognitive Theory
Dream content reflects dreamer’s cognitive development
Children under 9: Dreams are like slideshows that don’t make sense
Older: Coherent storylines in which we are actors

12. Sleep Learning?
Can we learn while sleeping?
No.