Dreaming as a Mood-Regulation System

Cartwright, Rosalind D.

doi:10.1016/b978-1-4160-6645-3.00054-2

Cited by 16 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 50 publications

(28 reference statements)

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“…Moreover, during wakeful functioning the limbic structures such as amygdale are associated with emotional responses especially fear responses (Adolphs, Tranel, Damasio, & Damasio, 1995; Feinstein, Adolphs, Damasio, & Tranel, 2011), and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is involved in emotion regulation and fear extinction processes (Hänsel & von Känel, 2008; Urry et al, 2006). These results support the psychological models that connect dreaming with one’s affective experiences and suppose an emotional regulational function of dreams (Cartwright, 2011; Cartwright, Luten, Young, Mercer, & Bears, 1998; Nielsen & Levin, 2007). Theories and empirical findings suggest that REM-sleep and/or dreaming may indeed promote the resolution of emotional difficulties and the improvement of next-day mood (Cartwright, Agargun, Kirkby, & Friedman, 2006; van der Helm et al, 2011; Walker & van der Helm, 2009).…”

supporting

confidence: 85%

The development of cognitive and emotional processing as reflected in children’s dreams: Active self in an eventful dream signals better neuropsychological skills.

Sándor¹,

Szakadát²,

Bódizs³

2016

Dreaming

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The development of dreaming and its association with brain maturation and cognitive development are rarely studied in spite of adult studies showing a close relationship between dreaming and cognitive functioning. In order to bridge this gap in the literature we aimed to depict the associations between individual differences in neurocognitive maturation and the formal and content related characteristics of children's dream reports. We analyzed the dream reports of 40 children between the ages of 4 to 8 years. Specific dream content categories, found to change significantly throughout development, were correlated with cognitive performance. To measure the latter we used neuropsychological tests (a modified version of the Fruit Stroop Test and Emotional Stroop Test for Children, and the Attention Network Test [ANT]) and intelligence tests (subscales of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children [WISC-IV], and the Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices [CPM]). Results suggest that the dreamer's presence in their dreams (manifested in activities, interactions, self-effectiveness, willful effort, and cognitive reflections) indicates more effective executive control in waking life. The quality and content of these activities and interactions are correlated with the child's capacities of emotional processing. Contrary to previous findings dream bizarreness and dream recall frequency were

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supporting

confidence: 85%

The development of cognitive and emotional processing as reflected in children’s dreams: Active self in an eventful dream signals better neuropsychological skills.

Sándor¹,

Szakadát²,

Bódizs³

2016

Dreaming

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“…It may also offer a simple, low-cost intervention and source of practical help. Talking about dreams enables the expression of complex feelings, memories, and concerns that cannot be easily articulated in other ways (Cartwright, 2011; Hartmann, 2011; Hill & Knox, 2010; Kramer, 2007; Pesant & Zadra, 2004). In describing a distressing dream, the individual creates an externalized version of the experience, which allows for a more reflective response to its frightening contents (Hill et al, 2001).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dreaming and the COVID-19 pandemic: A survey in a U.S. sample.

Schredl

Bulkeley²

2020

Dreaming

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This study analyzes the responses of 3,031 U.S. adults who, in early May of 2020, completed an online survey regarding their dreams and the COVID-19 outbreak. The results indicate that those people most strongly affected by the pandemic also reported the strongest effects on their dream life (heightened dream recall, more negatively toned dreams, and pandemic-related dreams). Pronounced negative effects of the pandemic on dreaming were also found to be more likely among women and people with higher levels of education. These findings support the notion that changes in the frequency, tone, and contents of dreaming can help identify specific people who may be most at risk for mental health problems during the COVID-19 outbreak.

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“…Another kind of theory is that dreams act much like an ''emotional thermostat'' in order to regulate emotions. 42,43 From dream journals there is some evidence that more emotional dreams predict better recovery from disorders like depression, 44 although sample size for this sort of research is prohibitively small throughout oneirology. From neuroimaging there is evidence that emotional processing centers like the amygdala show greater activity during REM even than during wake, 45 although the role of the amygdala ranges widely from emotions to rewards to motivations.…”

Section: Dreams Are For Emotional Regulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The overfitted brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalization

Hoel

2021

Patterns

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Understanding of the evolved biological function of sleep has advanced considerably in the past decade. However, no equivalent understanding of dreams has emerged. Contemporary neuroscientific theories often view dreams as epiphenomena, and many of the proposals for their biological function are contradicted by the phenomenology of dreams themselves. Now, the recent advent of deep neural networks (DNNs) has finally provided the novel conceptual framework within which to understand the evolved function of dreams. Notably, all DNNs face the issue of overfitting as they learn, which is when performance on one dataset increases but the network's performance fails to generalize (often measured by the divergence of performance on training versus testing datasets). This ubiquitous problem in DNNs is often solved by modelers via ''noise injections'' in the form of noisy or corrupted inputs. The goal of this paper is to argue that the brain faces a similar challenge of overfitting and that nightly dreams evolved to combat the brain's overfitting during its daily learning. That is, dreams are a biological mechanism for increasing generalizability via the creation of corrupted sensory inputs from stochastic activity across the hierarchy of neural structures. Sleep loss, specifically dream loss, leads to an overfitted brain that can still memorize and learn but fails to generalize appropriately. Herein this ''overfitted brain hypothesis'' is explicitly developed and then compared and contrasted with existing contemporary neuroscientific theories of dreams. Existing evidence for the hypothesis is surveyed within both neuroscience and deep learning, and a set of testable predictions is put forward that can be pursued both in vivo and in silico. ll

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Dreaming as a Mood-Regulation System

Cited by 16 publications

References 50 publications

The development of cognitive and emotional processing as reflected in children’s dreams: Active self in an eventful dream signals better neuropsychological skills.

The development of cognitive and emotional processing as reflected in children’s dreams: Active self in an eventful dream signals better neuropsychological skills.

Dreaming and the COVID-19 pandemic: A survey in a U.S. sample.

The overfitted brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalization

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