Dreaming, Adaptive Functions, and Cultural Uses
The MIT Press eBooks October 4, 2022 DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/14679.003.0012 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Key points | Argues that dreaming has no adaptive function, citing four empirical findings: infrequent dream recall, likely absence of dreaming in early childhood, loss of dreaming after lesions without cognitive loss, and the stability of dream content over time. The author contends these findings are inconsistent with all proposed adaptive theories of dreaming. |
Abstract
Based in large part on four different types of descriptive empirical findings, which are inconsistent to varying degrees with every theory of dream function that has been proposed, this chapter argues that dreaming has no adaptive function.In addition, still other empirical findings refute specific aspects of one or another adaptive theory.The four general findings are already familiar to readers because they were discussed in previous chapters, so they can be briefly summarized for the purposes of this chapter's introductory section.First, the extremely infrequent recall of the several dreams during sleep onset and at night seems to be much lower than would be expected if dream content contains useful information people need to consciously know in waking life.This result alone has contributed strongly to the promulgation of new adaptive theories since the late 1990s, which claim that dreaming has an impact on neurocognitive processes and/or waking behavior without any need for recall.Second, the likely absence of dreaming during the preschool years, and its infrequency and lack of complexity until ages 9-11, seem to limit any adaptive function to the adolescent and adult years.However, most adaptive theories, including those not requiring recall, currently assume there is dreaming at an early age, or by age 6 at the latest.Third, the lesion studies, which show that people can lose dreaming without losing necessary cognitive functions, provide a strong challenge to most adaptational theories.Fourth, the consistency of dream content over months, years, and decades, and the fact that dream content changes only gradually when it does change, calls into question any adaptive theory claiming that dreams deal with new problems as they arise or help people to prepare for the future. Dreaming, Adaptive Functions, and Cultural Uses
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 |