Dreaming as a story-telling instinct
E. Pace-Schott
Frontiers in Psychology April 2, 2013 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00159 (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 dreams are not simple assemblages or collages of waking-life memories but newly woven narratives that produce an immersive, life-like experience with its own timeframe and causality. The author contends that this phenomenology underlies some indigenous animist beliefs in a dream world parallel to waking life, while noting that neuroscience offers other explanations. |
Abstract
Dreams create new stories out of nothing. Although dreams contain themes, concerns, dream figures, objects, etc. that correspond closely to waking life, these are only story elements. The story itself weaves these mnemonic items together in a manner far more novel than a simple assemblage or collage, producing an experience having a life-like timeframe and life-like (if often bizarre and impossible) causality (Pace-Schott, 2007; Hobson, 2009). It is as if one is immersed in another “reality” entirely of one's own non-volitional, making (see Rechtschaffen, 1978). Given this phenomenology, it's not difficult to see why some indigenous animist societies believe dreams represent a separate world parallel with waking life (Nielsen, 1991). But neuroscience offers some other explanations.
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 22
- The myth of cognitive agency: subpersonal thinking as a cyclically recurring loss of mental autonomy. Frontiers in Psychology 2013
- Sleep and dreaming are for important matters Frontiers in Psychology 2013
- What is a global state of consciousness? Philosophy and the Mind Sciences December 30, 2020
- The evolutionary origin of psychosis Frontiers in Psychiatry January 20, 2023
- Gauging oneiromancy—the cognition of dream content and cultural transmission of (supernatural) divination Religion, Brain & Behavior March 10, 2023
and 17 more in the library
Cites 16
- A default mode of brain function Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences January 16, 2001
- Resting-State Functional Connectivity Reflects Structural Connectivity in the Default Mode Network Cerebral Cortex April 9, 2008
- Decoupling of the brain's default mode network during deep sleep Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences June 19, 2009
- Lucid Dreaming: a State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming Sleep September 1, 2009
- Development of the Brain's Default Mode Network from Wakefulness to Slow Wave Sleep Cerebral Cortex February 17, 2011
and 11 more in the library