Free Energy and Virtual Reality in Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis: A Complexity Theory of Dreaming and Mental Disorder.
Jim Hopkins
Frontiers in Psychology 2016 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00922 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Keywords | Complexity Emotional conflict Free energy Memory consolidation Mental disorder Synaptic pruning |
| Key points | Argues that dreams and symptoms are produced to reduce computational complexity in the form of adverse emotional arousals, and that mental disorder is caused by this complexity together with evolved mechanisms for complexity-reduction. |
Abstract
The main concepts of the free energy (FE) neuroscience developed by Karl Friston and colleagues parallel those of Freud's Project for a Scientific Psychology. In Hobson et al. (2014) these include an innate virtual reality generator that produces the fictive prior beliefs that Freud described as the primary process. This enables Friston's account to encompass a unified treatment-a complexity theory-of the role of virtual reality in both dreaming and mental disorder. In both accounts the brain operates to minimize FE aroused by sensory impingements-including interoceptive impingements that report compliance with biological imperatives-and constructs a representation/model of the causes of impingement that enables this minimization. In Friston's account (variational) FE equals complexity minus accuracy, and is minimized by increasing accuracy and decreasing complexity. Roughly the brain (or model) increases accuracy together with complexity in waking. This is mediated by consciousness-creating active inference-by which it explains sensory impingements in terms of perceptual experiences of their causes. In sleep it reduces complexity by processes that include both synaptic pruning and consciousness/virtual reality/dreaming in REM. The consciousness-creating active inference that effects complexity-reduction in REM dreaming must operate on FE-arousing data distinct from sensory impingement. The most relevant source is remembered arousals of emotion, both recent and remote, as processed in SWS and REM on "active systems" accounts of memory consolidation/reconsolidation. Freud describes these remembered arousals as condensed in the dreamwork for use in the conscious contents of dreams, and similar condensation can be seen in symptoms. Complexity partly reflects emotional conflict and trauma. This indicates that dreams and symptoms are both produced to reduce complexity in the form of potentially adverse (traumatic or conflicting) arousals of amygdala-related emotions. Mental disorder is thus caused by computational complexity together with mechanisms like synaptic pruning that have evolved for complexity-reduction; and important features of disorder can be understood in these terms. Details of the consilience among Freudian, systems consolidation, and complexity-reduction accounts appear clearly in the analysis of a single fragment of a dream, indicating also how complexity reduction proceeds by a process resembling Bayesian model selection.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dreaming: a conceptual framework for philosophy of mind and empirical research | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Metaphor and hyperassociativity: the imagination mechanisms behind emotion assimilation in sleep and dreaming | 2015 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Varieties of Lucid Dreaming Experience | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Experimental Research on Dreaming: State of the Art and Neuropsychoanalytic Perspectives | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Neurobiology of Consciousness: Lucid Dreaming Wakes Up | 2009 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 12
- Brain Entropy During Aging Through a Free Energy Principle Approach Frontiers in Human Neuroscience March 22, 2021
- Psychoanalytic psychotherapies and the free energy principle Frontiers in Human Neuroscience August 9, 2022
- Nature heals: An informational entropy account of self-organization and change in field psychotherapy. Physics of Life Reviews December 1, 2024
- On Dreams and Motivation: Comparison of Freud’s and Hobson’s Views Frontiers in Psychology January 6, 2017
- Meaningfulness and attachment: what dreams, psychosis and psychedelic states tell us about our need for connection. Frontiers in Psychology June 20, 2024
and 7 more in the library
Cites 13
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- Graph analysis of dream reports is especially informative about psychosis Scientific Reports January 15, 2014
- Metaphor and hyperassociativity: the imagination mechanisms behind emotion assimilation in sleep and dreaming Frontiers in Psychology August 18, 2015
- Nightmares in Patients with Psychosis: The Relation with Sleep, Psychotic, Affective, and Cognitive Symptoms The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry August 1, 2015
- Dream-reality confusion in borderline personality disorder: a theoretical analysis Frontiers in Psychology September 15, 2015
and 8 more in the library