Why We Dream

Stickgold, Robert; Wamsley, Erin J.

doi:10.1016/b978-1-4160-6645-3.00055-4

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 75 publications

(81 reference statements)

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“…Dreaming represents the conscious experience of brain mechanisms that perform offline emotional and memory reprocessing during sleep 9 . Depending on whether the memories are spatial or emotional, recent and remote memories differentially activate the hippocampus and neocortex 10 11 .…”

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confidence: 99%

Different neural circuitry is involved in physiological and psychological stress-induced PTSD-like “nightmares” in rats

Cui

Zhang

et al. 2015

Sci Rep

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Posttraumatic nightmares are a core component of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and mechanistically linked to the development and maintenance of this disorder, but little is known about their mechanism. We utilized a communication box to establish an animal model of physiological stress (foot-shock [FS]) and psychological stress (PS) to mimic the direct suffering and witnessing of traumatic events. Twenty-one days after traumatic stress, some of the experimental animals presented startled awakening (i.e., were startled awake by a supposed “nightmare”) with different electroencephalographic spectra features. Our neuroanatomical results showed that the secondary somatosensory cortex and primary auditory cortex may play an important role in remote traumatic memory retrieval in FS “nightmare” (FSN) rats, whereas the temporal association cortex may play an important role in PS “nightmare” (PSN) rats. The FSN and PSN groups possessed common emotion evocation circuits, including activation of the amygdala and inactivation of the infralimbic prefrontal cortex and ventral anterior cingulate cortex. The decreased activity of the granular and dysgranular insular cortex was only observed in PSN rats. The present results imply that different types of stress may cause PTSD-like “nightmares” in rodents and identified the possible neurocircuitry of memory retrieval and emotion evocation.

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confidence: 99%

Different neural circuitry is involved in physiological and psychological stress-induced PTSD-like “nightmares” in rats

Cui

Zhang

et al. 2015

Sci Rep

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“…To our knowledge, this was the first time that empirical evidence has shown that individual differences in implicit learning ability correlate with the incorporation of waking‐life experiences into dreams. Some researchers propose that “dreaming is simply the conscious perception of the stream of images, thoughts, and feelings evoked in the brain by one or more of the many forms of off‐line learning and memory processing that occur during sleep” (Stickgold & Wamsley, 2017, p. 514). In this light, dream reports can be seen as a reflection of sleep‐dependent memory consolidation.…”

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confidence: 99%

Integration of waking experience through dreams considered in light of individual differences in implicit learning ability

et al. 2020

Journal of Sleep Research

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The present study explored whether individual differences in implicit learning were related to the incorporation of waking events into dreams. Participants (N = 60) took part in a sequence learning task, a measure of implicit learning ability. They were then How to cite this article: Wang J, Li X, He J, et al. Integration of waking experience through dreams considered in light of individual differences in implicit learning ability.

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“…These shifts and the continual injection of novel elements into the dream may to some extent allow the dreamer to witness and interact with emotionally laden imagery without becoming overwhelmed. Several theorists (Nielsen & Levin, 2007;Stickgold, 2005;Stickgold & Walker, 2013) support this as a function of dreaming, to replay emotional memory in combination with novel associative elements, as a means of integrating salient experiences into broader autobiographical memory. However, this process is often interrupted by intense emotion, as evident in the case of nightmares (Nielsen & Levin, 2007;.…”

Section: Agency Over Dreamsmentioning

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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Why We Dream

Cited by 6 publications

References 75 publications

Different neural circuitry is involved in physiological and psychological stress-induced PTSD-like “nightmares” in rats

Different neural circuitry is involved in physiological and psychological stress-induced PTSD-like “nightmares” in rats

Integration of waking experience through dreams considered in light of individual differences in implicit learning ability

The role of attention and intention in dreams

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