The Use Of Dreams In Modern Psychotherapy

Hill, Clara E.; Knox, Sarah

doi:10.1016/s0074-7742(10)92013-8

Cited by 37 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…It should be noted that such a restriction to the first two Hill stages is also present in much clinical work with dreams. As stated by Hill and Knox (2010, p. 9): “although both cognitively and psychoanalytically oriented therapists used many activities to work with dreams, they most often focused on exploring and understanding the dreams; they rarely addressed how clients might change their dreams or make changes in waking life based on their understanding of dreams.”…”

Section: Ullman Dream Appreciation Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dreaming and insight

et al. 2013

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This paper addresses claims that dreams can be a source of personal insight. Whereas there has been anecdotal backing for such claims, there is now tangential support from findings of the facilitative effect of sleep on cognitive insight, and of REM sleep in particular on emotional memory consolidation. Furthermore, the presence in dreams of metaphorical representations of waking life indicates the possibility of novel insight as an emergent feature of such metaphorical mappings. In order to assess whether personal insight can occur as a result of the consideration of dream content, 11 dream group discussion sessions were conducted which followed the Ullman Dream Appreciation technique, one session for each of 11 participants (10 females, 1 male; mean age = 19.2 years). Self-ratings of deepened self-perception and personal gains from participation in the group sessions showed that the Ullman technique is an effective procedure for establishing connections between dream content and recent waking life experiences, although wake life sources were found for only 14% of dream report text. The mean Exploration-Insight score on the Gains from Dream Interpretation questionnaire was very high and comparable to outcomes from the well-established Hill (1996) therapist-led dream interpretation method. This score was associated between-subjects with pre-group positive Attitude Toward Dreams (ATD). The need to distinguish “aha” experiences as a result of discovering a waking life source for part of a dream, from “aha” experiences of personal insight as a result of considering dream content, is discussed. Difficulties are described in designing a control condition to which the dream report condition can be compared.

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Section: Ullman Dream Appreciation Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dreaming and insight

et al. 2013

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“…In any case, studies conducted did not find dreamwork to be superior to other techniques used in therapy; treatments using dream interpretation have overall been found to be effective or not damaging (Diemer, Lobell, Vivino, & Hill, 1996;Hill, 1996;Hill & Knox, 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Esoteric power, useless, useful: considerations about dreams in cognitive-behavioural therapy

Carcione

Santonastaso

Sferruzza

et al. 2021

ResPsy

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For a long time dreamwork in cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) was considered useless and as a technique specific to psychodynamic approaches, consequently overlooked in the treatment course. In the last twenty years, thanks to the contribution of neuroscience studies on sleep and dreams, dreams joined the attention and interest of authors belonging to the CBT field. The central feature of dreamwork in CBT is the abandonment of the exploration of latent meaning, which is instead considered in continuity with the waking life. Dreams reflect a patient’s view of self, world, and future, and are subject to the same cognitive biases as the waking state. Consequently, the dreamwork can be used to get information about the patient, overcome impasses in therapy, restructure self and interpersonal schemas, and stimulate reflective functioning. Therefore, guidelines have been defined and models of well-articulated intervention in terms of process and content, replicable and teachable through specific training structured. This paper aims to provide an overview of theories regarding the use of dreams in CBT, from a clinical perspective, from Beck to more recent proposals.

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“…By bringing dreams into the shared space of narrative and interpretation, it was suggested (Blagrove et al, 2019) that attending to and sharing dreams with others has a social bonding function and potentially increases empathic response towards the dreamer. Similarly, attending to dreams in context of psychotherapy has been shown to increase connection and trust between therapists and patients (Hill & Knox, 2010;Hill et al, 2014;Pesant & Zadra, 2004).…”

Section: Paying Attention To Dreams During Waking Lifementioning

confidence: 99%

The role of attention and intention in dreams

Solomonova¹,

Carr²

2021

Preprint

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Traditionally, dreams have been seen as experiences that one cannot control, as something that happensto the dreamer (at times through involvement of supernatural powers), without the dreamer’s permission,volition or agency. This view was famously challenged in the advent of psychoanalysis: in his Interpretation ofDreams, Freud proposed that while we may not be consciously in control of our dreams, our unconscious mindis actively constructing dream content, and that dream content is symptomatic of our repressed, accumulatedneuroses (Freud, 1900/2010). This shift in perspective signaled that dreams may in fact be subject to individualexperience and to one’s mental state (which is something that is possible to change, or even to control),therefore bringing, at least partially, responsibility for dreams to the dreamers themselves. Emergingneuroscience of dreams, in 1970s, however, adopted a more conservative behaviorist position, and for arelatively long time the dominant view has been one of neuro-reductionism, where dreams were seen as randomhallucinatory products of the activity of the sleeping brain (Hobson & McCarley, 1977). In recent years, a more2nuanced picture of dreams is gradually emerging. Research from psychology, philosophy and anthropologyconverges on the idea that dreams may be individual or even collective practices rather than uncontrolled brainevents. Developmentally and temporally, dreaming can be recognized as cognitive achievement (alongside othercognitive abilities, such as memory, perception, attention, etc.) (Foulkes, 2014). And dream qualities, includingwhat is possible in the dream state, how rich the dream experience is, and how well the dream will beremembered, may change as a result of attentional practices during waking hours. Research on dreamincubation, dream sharing and lucid dreams shows that the dreamer is an active participant and co-creator oftheir dream life, and that the dreamer’s agency, awareness and degrees of control are all dynamic, continuousand potentially trainable skills. Further, in line with work on 4E cognition (Menary, 2010) and followingevidence from sensory incorporation studies (Nielsen, 1993, 2017; Sauvageau, Nielsen, & Montplaisir, 1998), ithas been proposed that dreams are not simply experiences of virtual reality confined in the sleeping brain, butrather can be conceptualized as processes of embodied imagination (Thompson, 2014; Solomonova & Sha,2016; Solomonova, 2017), rooted in lived sensorimotor experience and responsive to sensory information fromthe outside world.In this chapter, we review the different ways that attention works in relation to dreams and how it mayfunction in dreams, and apply the framework of attention, proposed in this volume – as a means of accessingand mediating interactions with the world - to the dreaming world. We first review prior work on the role ofattention as 1) access to dreams, e.g., how practices of recording and sharing dreams act as enabling factors forimproving dream recall and enhancing richness of dream experience; and as 2) a mediator of dreams, e.g., howincubation, imagery rehearsal, and ultimately lucidity can be cultivated as cognitive skills enabling agency in thedream experience. We propose that attention functions as a constitutive factor in dream experience and that it isa trainable, developmental cognitive skill. We argue that dreams are not simply experiences that happen to thedreamer, rather, through employing attentional techniques in various ways, the dreamer may cultivate differentdegrees of agency in the dream.

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The Use Of Dreams In Modern Psychotherapy

Cited by 37 publications

References 56 publications

Dreaming and insight

Dreaming and insight

Esoteric power, useless, useful: considerations about dreams in cognitive-behavioural therapy

The role of attention and intention in dreams

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