Cyclical Changes in Emotional Information Processing in Sleep and Dreams

Abstract

Our scientific tools have rapidly advanced in recent decades. Urine tests and hormone assays allow us to know exactly where a woman is in her menstrual cycle and to document precisely her hormonal rhythms. Sleep-laboratory techniques allow us to know exactly when someone is dreaming so that we can obtain that communication that Freud prized so highly. Furthermore, we now have quantifiable means to measure accessibility to nonverbal mental representations, which derive from important advances in theory and method in cognitive psychology in the last several decades. None of the studies we surveyed combined these tools. The sleep-laboratory studies did not document menstrual-cycle phase with either temperature or hormone levels. Moreover, the relationship between their findings and daily functioning is still unclear. The psychoanalytic study by Benedek and Rubenstein carefully documented cycle phase, but statements about fantasy and conflict were large and sweeping and the focus was on drive-related rather than information processing effects. Careful work must be done by modern investigators before the field of medical psychoanalysis can address the basic questions of mind-body functioning that are at issue here. We have presented one approach to entering the communication network of mind-brain functioning, that is, the application of the dual-code model to dreams, in the context of the influence of hormones across the menstrual cycle. Although prior research has demonstrated cyclical fluctuations of psychodynamic themes in dream content (Baron, 1977; Benedek & Rubenstein, 1939a, b; Hertz & Jensen, 1975; Lewis & Burns, 1975; Swanson & Foulkes, 1968), the existence of a cyclical cognitive pattern as regulated by gonadal function has not previously been explored. While the findings are preliminary and limited, this is the first study to provide evidence that there are psycholinguistic styles characteristic of different phases in the menstrual cycle, and that this variation in verbal expression reflects a correspondence between hormone production and the ability to access and communicate nonverbal representations. Although the relationship between referential activity and phases of the menstrual cycle represents a statistical relationship and is hardly conclusive, the article does demonstrate how the dual-code model permits us to translate our psychoanalytic observations into operational terms. This provides one means of access to the network of communication between neuropeptides and mental representation, or in more general terms, between body and mind.

The Effects of Menstrual Cycle on Dreaming

“…Previous observations have also noted a fluctuation in cognitive/emotional function of dreams during menstrual cycle. Dreams were reported to have a higher degree of vividness, imagery, specificity and concreteness, during the luteal phase of the cycle, when passive themes also appeared to predominate (Benedek & Rubestein, 1939a, 1939bSeverino et al, 1989). The connection with progesterone production in this phase of the cycle has, however, never been made before.…”

Dreaming in quarantine: linguistic analysis of referential process of dreams during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown

“…Dreams are par excellence the trait d'union of the subsymbolic and symbolic system. Moreover, precisely because of their properties, some dreams are easier to describe verbally, while other dreams are more emotionally activating but more complex to verbalize (Severino, Bucci & Creelman, 1989).…”

The effects of menstrual cycle hormones on dreams.

“…A small literature exists that addresses fluctuation in the emotional contents of dreams across the menstrual cycle. This has been reviewed previously (Severino et al, 1989). Some authors found dream content to be highest in manifestly sexual content during menstruation (Swanson and Foulkes, 1968; Lewis and Burns, 1975); and highest in maternal themes during the luteal phase (Baron, 1977).…”