Experimental Research on Dreaming: State of the Art and Neuropsychoanalytic Perspectives
Frontiers in Psychology 2011 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00286 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Citations | 63 |
| Key points | Argues that cognitive neuroscience's approach to dreaming neglects psychoanalytic concepts like personal meaning and the subject's history, and that incorporating these perspectives is necessary for a comprehensive understanding of dreaming. |
Abstract
Dreaming is still a mystery of human cognition, although it has been studied experimentally for more than a century. Experimental psychology first investigated dream content and frequency. The neuroscientific approach to dreaming arose at the end of the 1950s and soon proposed a physiological substrate of dreaming: rapid eye movement sleep. Fifty years later, this hypothesis was challenged because it could not explain all of the characteristics of dream reports. Therefore, the neurophysiological correlates of dreaming are still unclear, and many questions remain unresolved. Do the representations that constitute the dream emerge randomly from the brain, or do they surface according to certain parameters? Is the organization of the dream's representations chaotic or is it determined by rules? Does dreaming have a meaning? What is/are the function(s) of dreaming? Psychoanalysis provides hypotheses to address these questions. Until now, these hypotheses have received minimal attention in cognitive neuroscience, but the recent development of neuropsychoanalysis brings new hopes of interaction between the two fields. Considering the psychoanalytical perspective in cognitive neuroscience would provide new directions and leads for dream research and would help to achieve a comprehensive understanding of dreaming. Notably, several subjective issues at the core of the psychoanalytic approach, such as the concept of personal meaning, the concept of unconscious episodic memory and the subject's history, are not addressed or considered in cognitive neuroscience. This paper argues that the focus on singularity and personal meaning in psychoanalysis is needed to successfully address these issues in cognitive neuroscience and to progress in the understanding of dreaming and the psyche.
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 | |
| The Neurobiology of Consciousness: Lucid Dreaming Wakes Up | 2009 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| A cognitive model of recurrent nightmares | 2008 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 32
- Characteristics of the memory sources of dreams: A new version of the content-matching paradigm to take mundane and remote memories into account PLoS One October 11, 2017
- Incorporation of fragmented visuo-olfactory episodic memory into dreams and its association with memory performance Scientific Reports October 30, 2019
- Anomalous Experiences, Trauma, and Symbolization Processes at the Frontiers between Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Neurosciences Frontiers in Psychology December 21, 2015
- Converging theories on dreaming: Between Freud, predictive processing, and psychedelic research Frontiers in Human Neuroscience February 16, 2023
- 'I love you': the first phrase detected from dreams. Sleep Science 2022
and 27 more in the library
Cites 32
- Factors of home dream recall: a structural equation model Journal of Sleep Research May 12, 2003
- The threat simulation theory in light of recent empirical evidence: A review The American Journal of Psychology April 1, 2009
- Typical Dreams: Stability and Gender Differences The Journal of Psychology 2004
- Incorporation of concern- and nonconcern-related verbal stimuli into dream content. Journal of Abnormal Psychology February 1, 1981
- A Comparison of Mental Activity During Sleep Onset and Morning Awakening Sleep August 1, 1998
and 27 more in the library