There are thought to be three different kinds of dream. REM dreams are shown to account for around 80% of all dreaming (Dement and Kleitman), though this research may not be very reliable as the participants were all adults, so may not be generalisable to other age groups, as well as cultures, and the experiment has low ecological validity as was conducted in a sleep laboratory. NREM dreams occur less often, and are reported as being less dream-like (e.g. less visual imagery, bizarreness, and story like quality) (Antrobus, 1983). Lucid dreams have been shown to occur whilst we are in REM sleep (Laberge et al. 1981) in which we are self-aware, and tend to be pleasant and more straightforward. These different dream types show that individual differences occur and that one type of ‘dreaming’ doesn’t just occur, because ‘dreaming’ is a large variety of different behaviours.
- Outline and evaluate one theory of the functions of dreaming
(18 marks)
One theory of the functions of dreaming is the psychoanalytic approach, a psychological theory of dreaming by Freud. In contrast to neurobiological theorists, Freud saw the function of dreams being the dream experience itself. He believed that our personality is made up of 3 parts- the id, the ego and the superego. The id is most important when we are dreaming as is thought to be the unconscious source of our impulses and the source of the wishes and fantasies resulting from these. The thoughts produced are irrational and instinctive, relegated to dreams because it is unacceptable to the conscious mind, known as repression). One form of this is called ‘condensation’, when unacceptable desires are censored and fragments are recombined until they appear in a new form. This is supported by research on neural networks, showing that they deal with excess memory by conflating and condensing ‘memories’ (Hopfield et al. 1983). In this primary process we can act out our wishes and desires. Freud believed that the energy invested in these would build up until it threatened our sanity unless we dreamt. However, a lot of Freud’s research was based on case studies of repressed, neurotic Victorian, Viennese women and his personal experiences, so is historically and culturally biased as a sample.
Freud believed that all dreams represent unfulfilled wishes, so protect the sleeper whilst allowing some wish fulfilment to express these urges. However, Freud also said that there is a class of dreams that do not appear to fulfil wishes. These could be interpreted as a ‘sensible warning’ or suchlike instead. The contents are expressed symbolically, and the latent content of a dream is transformed into manifest content. The symbols in this can be interpreted by a psychoanalyst (e.g. a penis could be represented by a snake or a gun) who considered them in the context of a person’s life (e.g. a ram representing an Aries person in the dreamer’s life) as all symbols are personally. However, sometimes, there are objects with no hidden meaning at all.
Freud’s theory is difficult to falsify, therefore meaning that there is no way to prove it as correct either, although he saw a patient rejecting his theory as proof of it’s correctness, as the patient was repressing unacceptable thoughts. The theory lacks research support, though modern methods have provided more evidence. PET scans have shown that the prefrontal cortex is inactive during REM sleep, whilst the forebrain concerned with memory and motivation is active. Freud described this as- the ego becomes suspended whilst the id is given free reign. This is supported by that dreams are not activated by the brainstem but by the forebrain (Solms, 2000). Although, if the rational part of the brain is not active during REM sleep, how do we turn latent into manifest content, as it would require high level processing? (Braun, 1999).
Cartwright produced a similar theory, that dreams directly reflect our major conscious emotional problems. This was supported by a study finding that people undergoing marital separation and divorce had dreams related to their waking coping strategies (Cartwright et al. 1984). Cartwright agrees with Freud that dreams use symbols to portray real meanings, but believes that dream symbols convey real concerns rather than disguising them. It is also suggested that problems that have occurred throughout the day are also dealt with in dreams. Stickgold et al. (2000) found that 75% of people who played the game Tetris for several hours reported Tetris linked dreams.
In contrast, neurobiological theories of dreaming see the dream experience itself simply as a bi-product of the dream that occurs accidentally. They do not see dream experiences as the function of dreaming. Although the activation-synthesis hypothesis claims that dreams have no meaning however, and that they are bizarre and incoherent, Rittenhouse et al. (1994) found discontinuities in just 34% of 200 dreams studied and Hobson (1988) found in a study of one man’s dreams that they were highly consistent in content over a 3 month period.
