Seeing is believing: Implications of the dreamlike cognitive style for waking spontaneous thought and psychopathology

Dreaming involves a continuous, reciprocal influence between visual images and verbal or abstract thoughts, rather than a simple bottom-up flow from images to thoughts. The dream environment is internally generated, making dreams more like imagination than perception. During wakefulness, a similar dreamlike dynamic of image-thought associations with reduced agentive control over images may occur, varying with individual differences in fantasy proneness, suggestibility, dissociative absorption, or imagination tendencies. This distinction between dreamlike associations and general mind-wandering may be relevant for understanding psychopathology, as some individuals may experience intrusive or alluring visual images that interact with verbal thoughts, as seen in obsessive-compulsive disorder, dissociative disorders, or maladaptive daydreaming. Clinicians should attend to clients' spontaneous visual imagery and how a visual thinking style may impact mental health.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The intuitive experience of dreaming is that we “see” something with our mind’s eye and react to it. Indeed, dream formation conceptualizations have often focused on the visual image-to-verbal thought direction of causality, inspired by bottom-up models of perception. However, despite being experienced as external to us, the dream environment is internally generated, meaning that dreams are more like imagination than perception. Dream thoughts (experienced with a sense of agency or selfhood) also affect subsequent dream images (experienced as non-agentive or external to one’s self). Thus, oneiric experiences are made up of reciprocal, continuous, moment-to-moment influences between the dream and the dreamer: visual images and verbal, abstract, or otherwise imageless thoughts. During wakefulness, a dreamlike cognitive processing dynamic of ever-changing meaningful image-thought-image momentary associations coupled with reduced agentive control of images may be present to a greater or lesser extent. Non-agentive visual images as a significant driving force in one’s spontaneous mental activity may relate to individual differences in fantasy proneness, suggestibility, dissociative absorption, or imagination tendencies. This feature carries implications for the field of spontaneous thought. Off-task thinking, or mind-wandering, are non-specific labels that may be used to denote internally generated mentation. Considering the tendency for dreamlike associations may represent a specific distinction, which may be relevant for understanding psychopathology. Whereas some individuals may find themselves distracted by abstract or semantic associations (e.g., verbal self-derogatory inner speech), others may find themselves drawn to intrusive—or alluring—visual images, which may interact significantly with their verbal thoughts and associations and even be experienced with decreased sense of agency. This may occur in obsessive-compulsive disorder, dissociative disorders, or maladaptive daydreaming, suggesting that clinicians need to pay attention to their clients’ spontaneous visual imagery. If a picture is worth a thousand words and seeing is believing, psychologists should be curious of how a visual thinking style may impact mental health.