What I make up when I wake up: anti-experience views and narrative fabrication of dreams

Abstract

I propose a narrative fabrication thesis of dream reports, according to which dream reports are often not accurate representations of experiences that occur during sleep. I begin with an overview of anti-experience theses of Norman Malcolm and Daniel Dennett who reject the received view of dreams, that dreams are experiences we have during sleep which are reported upon waking. Although rejection of the first claim of the received view, that dreams are experiences that occur during sleep, is implausible, I evaluate in more detail the second assumption of the received view, that dream reports are generally accurate. I then propose a “narrative fabrication” view of dreams as an alternative to the received view. Dream reports are often confabulated or fabricated because of poor memory, bizarre dream content, and cognitive deficits. It is well documented that narratives can be altered between initial rapid eye movement sleep awakenings and subsequent reports. I argue that we have reason to suspect that initial reports are prone to inaccuracy. Experiments demonstrate that subjects rationalize strange elements in narratives, leaving out supernatural or bizarre components when reporting waking memories of stories. Inaccuracies in dream reports are exacerbated by rapid memory loss and bizarre dream content. Waking memory is a process of reconstruction and blending of elements, but unlike waking memory, we cannot reality-test for dream memories. Dream experiences involve imaginative elements, and dream content cannot be verified with external evidence. Some dreams may involve wake-like higher cognitive functions, such as lucid dreams. Such dreams are more likely to elicit accurate reports than cognitively deficient dreams. However, dream reports are generally less accurate than waking reports. I then propose methods which could verify the narrative fabrication view, and argue that although the theory cannot be tested with current methods, new techniques and technologies may be able to do so in the future.

Reporting dream experience: Why (not) to be skeptical about dream reports

“…The first accepts that there is a deep, perhaps even conceptual connection between dreaming and dream reporting, but argues that this very fact speaks against, rather than for, a naturalistically minded approach to dreaming and its occurrence during different sleep stages (Malcolm, 1956, 1959/1962; Squires, 1973, 1995; McFee, 1994; Schröder, 1997). The second regards the question of dream experience as an empirical question, but claims that dream reports are too untrustworthy to study dream experience in any detail (Dennett, 1976; Schwitzgebel, 2011; Rosen, 2013). Either way, the strategy of using dream reports for the scientific investigation of conscious experience during sleep is threatened.…”

“… 7 In Windt (in press) I argue that a similarly constructive reading can be applied to Rosen's (2013) narrative fabrication thesis of dreaming.…”

Why are dreams interesting for philosophers? The example of minimal phenomenal selfhood, plus an agenda for future research1

“…It also bears on the methodology of dream research itself, because it calls into doubt the status of dream reports. In principle, subjects in sleep laboratories could suffer from massive memory losses or distortions, or confabulate about their own phenomenology without knowing (Rosen, 2013). In practice, however, when taking into account all our background knowledge, prior probabilities and considerations of simplicity, we are justified in a simple inference to the best explanation stating that dream reports, at least when gathered under certain ideal reporting conditions, will be veridical (Windt, 2013).…”

I’m thinking your thoughts while I sleep: Sense of agency and ownership over dream thought.

“…A complicating factor is poor memory and dream report confabulation, which is common when report dreams (Rosen, 2013). Poor memory may cause inaccurate reports, especially regarding such subtle distinctions as absent SoA and pre-reflective SoA.…”

“…There are many limitations to the ability to report dreams, including reduced memory in sleep and confabulation upon awakening (see Rosen 2013 for an in-depth discussion). An interesting contradiction exists in our reporting tendencies:…”