Dreams: Understanding Biology, Psychology, and Culture [2 volumes] [1 ed.] 1440856168, 9781440856167

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Dreams

DREAMS

Understanding Biology, Psychology, and Culture Volume 1

Katja Valli and Robert J. Hoss, Editors

Copyright © 2019 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Valli, Katja., editor. | Hoss, Robert J., editor. | Gongloff, Robert P., 1940editor. Title: Dreams : understanding biology, psychology, and culture / edited by Katja Valli, Robert J. Hoss, and Robert P. Gongloff. Description: Santa Barbara, California : Greenwood, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2018025799 (print) | LCCN 2018037756 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440856174 (eBook) | ISBN 9781440856167 (set : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440856181 (vol. 1) | ISBN 9781440856198 (vol. 2) Subjects: LCSH: Dreams—Physiological aspects. | Dreams—Psychological aspects. | Dream interpretation. Classification: LCC QP426 (ebook) | LCC QP426 .D74 2019 (print) | DDC 612.8/21—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018025799 ISBN:

978-1-4408-5616-7 (set) 978-1-4408-5618-1 (vol. 1) 978-1-4408-5619-8 (vol. 2) 978-1-4408-5617-4 (ebook)

23 22 21 20 19  1 2 3 4 5 This book is also available as an eBook. Greenwood An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 147 Castilian Drive Santa Barbara, California 93117 www.abc-clio.com This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

CONTENTS



Preface xiii Introduction: Sleeping Brains, Conscious Minds xv Jennifer M. Windt

PART I:  THE BIOLOGY OF SLEEP AND DREAMING Chapter 1

1

Sleep: Evolution, Regulation, and Function 3 Evolutionary Perspectives on Sleep3 John Lesku, Anne Aulsebrook, and Erika Zaid

Regulation of Sleep

Henna-Kaisa Wigren and Tarja Porkka-Heiskanen

16

Human Sleep Architecture24 Mary A. Carskadon and Scott Coussens

Genetic Basis of Human Sleep32 Tiina Paunio



Chapter 2

The Function of Sleep42 Lukas B. Krone and Vladyslav V. Vyazovskiy

The Neuroscience of Dreaming55 Electroencephalographic Correlates of Dreaming55 Alejandro Ezquerro-Nassar and Valdas Noreika

Neuroimaging Studies of Dreaming63 Dylan Smith, Umberto Moretto, and Thien Thanh Dang-Vu

Neurochemistry of Dreaming71 Brenda L. Bressler and Edward F. Pace-Schott

vi

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Contents

Effects of Brain Lesions on Dreaming78 Mark Solms

The Function of Dreaming: Biological and Evolutionary Theories87 Continuity Hypothesis of Dreaming88 Michael Schredl

The Neurocognitive Theory of Dreaming95 G. William Domhoff

Memory Consolidation and Dreaming99 Carlyle Smith

Emotion Regulation in Dreaming105 Caroline L. Horton and Josie E. Malinowski

Dreams and Attachment112 Patrick McNamara, Luke Dietrich-Egensteiner, and Brian Teed

Dreams as Self-Simulation and World Simulation117 Jennifer M. Windt and Katja Valli

Predictive Coding and Protoconsciousness122 Jarno Tuominen and Katja Valli

The Threat Simulation Theory125 Antti Revonsuo and Katja Valli

The Social Simulation Theory132 Jarno Tuominen, Antti Revonsuo, and Katja Valli

Dreaming and Play137 Kelly Bulkeley

Do Animals Dream?141

Carlyle Smith

PART II:  DREAM CONTENT AND EXPERIENCES Chapter 5

151

How to Study Dream Experiences153



Pilleriin Sikka

Chapter 6

Dream Recall and Content167 Dream Recall and Individual Differences167



Michael Schredl

The Content of Dreams173 Robert J. Hoss and Katja Valli

Typical Dream Themes180 Michael Schredl

Dream Recall and Content in Different Sleep Stages188 Michelle Carr and Elizaveta Solomonova

Contents

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

vii

The Dream-Lag Effect195 Elaine van Rijn, Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub, Josie Henley, and Mark Blagrove

Ontogenetic Development of Dreaming201 Monique Lortie-Lussier, Allyson Dale, and Joseph De Koninck

Dreams of People with Disabilities208 Kelly Bulkeley and Robert J. Hoss

External Influences on Dream Content213 Incorporation of External Stimuli into Dream Content213 Elizaveta Solomonova and Michelle Carr

The Effects of Media on Dreaming219 Jayne Gackenbach and Johnathan Bown

Medication That Affects Dreams and Nightmares224 James F. Pagel

Disturbed Dreaming231 Nightmares and Bad Dreams231 Nils Sandman

Dreaming in Parasomnias238 Isabelle Arnulf

Dreaming in Mental Disorders249 Joacim F. Skancke

Lucid Dreaming257 The Experience of Lucid Dreaming258 Robert Waggoner

Hyperspace Lucidity269 Fariba Bogzaran

Neuroscience of Lucid Dreaming271 Sérgio Mota-Rolim, Benjamin Baird, and Martin Dresler

Psychological and Lifestyle Correlates of Lucid Dreaming278 David T. Saunders

Lucid Dream Induction283 Tadas Stumbrys, Melanie Schädlich, and Daniel Erlacher

Chapter 10 Exceptional Dreams291 Somatic and Health-Related Dreams292

Robert J. Hoss



Deirdre Barrett



Creative and Problem-Solving Dreams301 Impactful Dreams309 Donald L. Kuiken, Kelly-Ann Albrecht, and Megan Cook

viii

Contents

Chapter 11 Extraordinary Dreams317 History of Anomalous Dream Research317

Stanley Krippner



Fariba Bogzaran



Telepathic and Precognitive Dreams324 Mutual Dreaming327 Luke Dietrich-Egensteiner, Brian Teed, and Patrick McNamara

Spontaneous Healing Dreams330 Robert J. Hoss

Out-of-Body Dreams331 Robert J. Hoss

Spiritual Dreams332 Robert J. Hoss

Past-Life Dreams334 Robert J. Hoss

PART III:  THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAMING

337

Chapter 12 The Function of Dreaming: Psychological Theories339 Psychological Processes in Dreaming340

Robert J. Hoss



Milton Kramer



Mood Regulation and Emotional Problem-Solving349 Social Influence: Theory of Mind and Self-Reflection355 David Kahn

Contemporary Theory of Ernest Hartmann358 Robert J. Hoss

Chapter 13 Learning Theories365 Counterfactual Operations366

Patrick McNamara



Robert J. Hoss



Memory Operations367 Declarative and Procedural Learning376 Carlyle Smith

Advanced Learning Functions378 Robert J. Hoss

Chapter 14 Theories of Meaning391 Imagery Formation394

Robert J. Hoss and David Kahn

Contents

ix

Self-Organization Hypothesis395 David Kahn

Meaningful Association397 Robert J. Hoss

Latent Content in Dream Imagery401 Robert J. Hoss

Typical or Universal Dream Themes413 Robert J. Hoss

Chapter 15 Influential Contributions to Dream Psychology415 Historical Perspective415

Robert J. Hoss



Suzanne Saldarini



Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalytic Psychology426 Carl Jung and Analytical Psychology434 Robert J. Hoss

Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy449 Kenneth Meyer

Montague Ullman and Group “Dream Appreciation”455 Jacquie Lewis

Chapter 16 Clinical Application of Dreamwork461 Benefits of Dreamwork in Psychotherapy461

Clara E. Hill



Michael Schredl



Application of Dreamwork in Psychotherapy466 Evidence of Insight from Dreamwork469 Josie E. Malinowski and Chris Edwards

Chapter 17 Nightmare Therapies479 Chronic Nightmares480

Antonio Zadra



Antonio Zadra



Dream Lucidity and Nightmares486 PTSD Nightmare Therapies490 Antonio Zadra and Alan Siegel

Chapter 18 A Lifetime of Dreaming497

Alan Siegel

PART IV:  DREAMWORK AND CULTURAL PRACTICES

517

Chapter 19 Dreamwork Principles519 Dreamwork Evolution519

Robert P. Gongloff

x

Contents

The Personal Dreamwork Experience522 Robert P. Gongloff

Dreamwork Ethics and Safety527 Carol D. Warner

Chapter 20 Group Dreamwork531 A Brief History of Group Interest in Dreaming531

Jeremy Taylor



Robert P. Gongloff



How to Start a Dream Group533 Montague Ullman’s “Dream Appreciation” Group Dreamwork535 Robert P. Gongloff

Haden Institute’s Dream Group Protocol536 Robert J. Hoss (Courtesy of Bob Haden)

Projective and Group Projective Dreamwork Principles538 Jeremy Taylor

Culture Dreaming (or Deep Dreaming)543 Richard Russo

Chapter 21 Associative Dreamwork549 Dream Interview Method549

Gayle Delaney



Teresa L. DeCicco



The Storytelling Method (TSM)554 Theme Work558 Robert P. Gongloff

Dream Translation562 Milton Kramer

Body Dreamwork: Using Focusing566 Leslie Ellis

Hartmann’s Contemporary Approach569 Robert J. Hoss

Chapter 22 Integrative Dreamwork571 The Cognitive-Experiential Dream Model (CEDM)571

Clara E. Hill



Jacques Montangero



Cognitive Behavioral Dreamwork575 Transformative Dreamwork581 Robert J. Hoss

The Fivestar Method590 G. Scott Sparrow

Contents

xi

Embodied Imagination (EI)594 Robert Bosnak

Integral Dreaming599 Fariba Bogzaran and Daniel Deslauriers

Chapter 23 Dreamwork Enhancement Practices605 Sandplay Therapy606

Barbara A. Turner



Sven Doehner

Sound Imagination612

Chapter 24 Religious and Spiritual Treatment617 Comparative History617

Kelly Bulkeley



Melinda Powell



Metaphoric Presence in Spiritual Dreams628 Psychospiritual Transformation: Light, Color, and Symmetry634 Nigel Hamilton

Chapter 25 Dreams and the Arts641 Dreaming, Creativity, and Imagination641

Bernard Welt



Sheila McNellis Asato



Dream Artists644 Photography and Dreams648 Richard Russo

Music and Dreams650 Craig Webb

Dreams and Literary Narrative656 Bernard Welt

Graphic Novels and Dreams660 Jeremy Taylor

Dreams and Poetry664 Betsy Davids

Dreams and Cinema666 Bernard Welt

Chapter 26 Dream Education671 The Diverse Nature of Dream Education672

Philip King, Bernard Welt, and Kelly Bulkeley



Philip King, Bernard Welt, and Kelly Bulkeley



The Future of Dream Education677 Resources: Dream Databases680 Philip King, Bernard Welt, and Kelly Bulkeley

xii

Contents

Chapter 27 Dreams in Ancient and Non-Western Cultures683 Prehistoric, Tribal, and Ancient Middle Eastern683

Curtiss Hoffman



Susan Benson



Western, Islamic, and Eastern691 Shamanism and Dreams706 Stanley Krippner

Chapter 28 Technological Influences711 The Influence of Media Understood through Video Game Play712

Johnathan Bown and Jayne Gackenbach



Ryan Hurd

The Internet and Social Media715 References721 About the Editors and Contributors791

Index805

PREFACE

This reference book was born out of a love for sleep and dreaming. The three editors come from very different backgrounds but share a deep interest in sleep and dream research. They also share the desire to educate people on topics such as what dreams are and how we can study them, how dreams are brought about by the sleeping brain, whether dreams serve a function, how dreams are influenced by our waking experiences, how we can alleviate the suffering caused by bad dreams and nightmares, how we assign meaning to dreams psychologically and culturally, and how working with dreams can increase self-knowledge. The book is an in-depth authoritative tutorial reference, written by over 70 researchers, psychologists, humanities professionals, and other leading subjectmatter experts. It is written for students, professionals, and anyone interested in the most recent understanding of dreams and dreaming. The book spans the evolutionary perspectives on sleep and dreaming to the most current research into the neuroscience, as well as current psychological theory, therapeutic application, and the artistic and cultural treatment of dreams. Part 1 in Volume 1 focuses on the biology of sleep and dreaming. First, the phylogeny, neural mechanisms, and functions of sleep are discussed, along with description of human sleep architecture. Given dreams occur during sleep, addressing questions about dreaming is greatly aided by understanding what the underly­ ing sleep state is like and why we sleep. Following this, the neural correlates related to dreaming are explored: what brain areas seem to be active when we dream and what kind of brain activity patterns might be necessary for dreaming to occur. Then we move on to discuss whether dream consciousness might be just a side-effect waking consciousness or whether dreaming might serve a specific function. Do dreams contribute to emotion processing or memory consolidation, or has dreaming about particular topics possibly enhanced the survival and reproductive success

xiv

Preface

of ancestral humans? Part 1 concludes with discussion whether animals other than humans are likely to dream. Part 2 in Volume 1 concentrates on dream content. Issues such as how we can study dreams, what features are frequent and typical in dreams, are dreams similar in different stages of sleep and at different times of night, and how external stimuli or medications affect dream content are discussed. In the chapter on disturbed dreaming, nightmares and bad dreams are explained, and dream alterations in parasomnia and mental health patients are discussed. After this, multiplicity of dream experiences is explored. The phenomenology and correlates of lucid dreams, as well as induction procedures that may be helpful in eliciting lucid dreams, are described, and information on dream experiences classified as exceptional and extraordinary is presented. Part 3 in Volume 2 focuses on the psychology of dreaming—the research, the­ ories, and clinical practices. It begins with the studies and theories related to a psychological function for dreams, such as emotion regulation, problem resolution and learning, and how we assign meaning to dreams. It covers the history of psychological theory and research, including the influential contributors from Freud to today. The sections on clinical application of dreams and nightmares, and studies on the efficacy of dreamwork, suggest that dreams provide insight and can be understood in relation to emotional experiences in our waking lives, which can serve as a valuable tool to health professionals. Part 4 in Volume 2 focuses on dreamworking practices and the cultural history and treatment of dreams. This section describes the ethical considerations and details some of the more common associative and integrative dreamworking approaches in use today as practiced by professionals and individual dreamworkers in group and non-group settings. The section covers dream appreciation practices in the expressive arts, including photography, music, literature, graphic novels, poetry, and cinema, as well as spiritual and religious treatments. It includes a perspective on the diverse nature of dream education. Part 4 also provides an in-depth history of dreaming in ancient and non-Western cultures as well as the impact of modern-day technology, such as the Internet. We wish to thank all the entry authors for their invaluable contributions; without their hard work, this book would not have been possible. We also wish to thank the International Association for the Study of Dreams, a prime source for connecting with dream researchers, psychologists, and subject-matter experts. Finally, we are grateful to our families for their endless patience during the process. —The editors Robert J. Hoss Katja Valli Robert P. Gongloff

INTRODUCTION: SLEEPING BRAINS, CONSCIOUS MINDS Jennifer M. Windt

THE ELUSIVENESS OF DREAMS Sleep and dreaming involve profound alterations in conscious experience, behavior, and neural processing. Altered states of waking consciousness tend to occur in the context of pathologies or require specific induction techniques, such as psychedelic substances or meditation. By contrast, dreams occur spontaneously and throughout healthy sleep. Sleep as a physiological phenomenon has been studied extensively, but its subjective side, including dreaming, remains strangely elusive. The dreams we spontaneously recall upon awakening offer a tainted and highly selective view of dream activity throughout the night. Most of us rarely remember our dreams, whereas laboratory studies show that almost everyone dreams multiple times per night. Typical dreams of flying, falling, or being chased, which most people have experienced at some point in their lives, are often intensely emotional and subjectively feel realistic. Such dreams shape our waking convictions about what it is like to dream; but what makes them memorable may be exactly what sets them apart from the majority of forgotten dreams. Timed awakenings in the sleep laboratory show that we dream much more than we remember and also that, for the most part, our dreams are different and more variable than we think: dream content is often continuous with waking thoughts and concerns and overall is much less bizarre and fantastical than our most memorable dreams suggest. Dreams are also theoretically elusive, and questions that sound straightforward tend to stubbornly resist quick-and-easy answers. What do our dreams look like?

xvi

Introduction

Do they resemble high-resolution photographs, or are they blurry in the manner of impressionist paintings? Do we dream in color or in black and white? And what would answers to these questions tell us about the nature of dreaming? For example, is dreaming akin to wake-state hallucinations or psychotic delusions? Or is dreaming continuous with waking fantasy and perhaps even the fullest expression of our imaginative and creative capacities (Windt, 2015, 2016)? Sometimes this theoretical elusiveness indicates that there is something wrong with the question. For example, if the question is whether dreams are similar to or different from waking experience, it is prudent to not force a choice. Dream content can be continuous with our waking lives, even if the way in which we experience our dreams turns out to be quite different. One question is whether our dreams revolve around the same topics as our waking thoughts and concerns; another is whether their experiential character is similar to waking perception or imagination. To answer these questions, a complex account of different types of continuity versus discontinuity between dreaming and wakefulness may be needed that also takes different types of dreams into account. This, in turn, suggests that the original questions themselves require reformulation and need to be made more precise. This project is demanding, but it also holds great promise: analyzing and investigating dreams can advance our understanding of our conscious minds, both in sleep and in wakefulness. SLEEP, DREAMS, AND CONSCIOUSNESS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF A MULTIFACETED RELATIONSHIP Throughout the history of Western philosophy, the relationship between sleep, dreaming, and wakefulness has been continuously renegotiated, and this process is ongoing (Kroker, 2007). Aristotle advanced the first naturalistic theory of sleep and dreaming, but both before and after there was a parallel history in which dreams were conceived of as messages from the gods, continuous with visions in wakefulness. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Aristotle (1986) thought dreams stemmed from internal sources, arising from residual movements of the sensory organs during sleep. Like reflections in a pool of water, he thought these movements and the resulting dream imagery were clearest in the quiet of deep sleep. Aristotle’s account ascribed dreaming to strictly natural causes but nonetheless did not encourage the scientific investigation of dreams. Aristotle conceptualized sleep and waking as opposites, defining sleep through the absence of perception. He regarded dreams as the aftereffects of waking perceptions arising under the condition of sleep, thus clearly distinguishing dreams from wake-state visions. But because he thought the clearest dreams occur in deep sleep, independently of contemporaneous sensory stimuli and outward bodily movements, he also divorced dreams from outwardly observable signs. The associated idea that sleepwalking and sleep talking are essentially zombie-like behaviors, occurring independently of subjective experience, persists to this day. The systematic investigation of dreaming was further discouraged by Aristotle’s rejection of the practice of dream prophecy. He allowed that, in rare cases, dreams

Introduction

xvii

provide a glimpse of distant or future events, but he thought these were most likely to happen in people whose minds resemble an empty desert. The basic idea of sleep and waking as opposites persisted well into the 20th century. Sleep was commonly regarded as a uniform period of reduced brain activity, a state in which we are largely dead to the world and outward behavior and mental activity are absent. Dreams, because of their occurrence in sleep, were regarded as essentially private, unobservable, and, hence, unscientific phenomena. Early attempts to investigate dreams scientifically can be traced back to the late 19th century (Schwartz, 2000), but Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams steered popular dream theory in a different direction. Freud’s focus on the psychic sources of dreaming and the mechanisms of disguise and censorship placed the elusiveness of dreaming at the very heart of dream imagery formation. The pivotal moment for the science of sleep and dreaming was the discovery of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep by Nathaniel Kleitman and Eugene Aserinsky in 1953. REM sleep gets its name from the characteristic rapid eye movements and is additionally characterized by a loss of muscle tone and EEG recordings of brain activity that strongly resemble the fast, low-voltage patterns measured during wakefulness. Following awakenings from REM sleep, a majority of participants report dreams, but they are less likely to do so following awakenings from nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. These findings marked the beginning of both scientific dream and sleep research and revolutionized the conceptions of sleep and dreaming in a number of ways. One, the existence of a complex sleep architecture with distinct sleep stages suggested that sleep is neither uniform nor completely passive. Two, REM sleep contradicted the accepted view of sleep as a state of unconsciousness and rest. As Michel Jouvet, one of the pioneers of dream research, put it, REM sleep appeared as “neither sleeping nor waking. It was obviously a third state of the brain, as different from sleep as sleep is from wakefulness” ( Jouvet, 2000, p. 5). Three, the association between REM sleep and dreaming turned dreaming into an objective phenomenon, diagnosable through REM sleep polysomnography. Four, the resulting focus on REM sleep led to a comparative neglect of NREM sleep, which was now defined negatively through the absence of REM sleep and conscious experience. The supposed identification of dreaming and REM sleep was not, however, borne out scientifically, and most researchers now accept that dreams occur outside of REM sleep and that not all REM periods are associated with dreaming. This double dissociation between dreaming, as measured through dream reports, and polysomnographic measures casts doubt on the feasibility of using sleep stages as a proxy for the presence versus absence of conscious experience in sleep. While important progress has been made, the neural mechanisms underlying dream formation continue to be elusive—though this elusiveness may not be so much a matter of principle as an artifact of an overly narrow methodological focus on REM sleep. In philosophy, the shift toward a science of dreaming met with significant resistance. Following the discovery of REM sleep, Norman Malcolm (1959) argued that sleep, as a matter of conceptual necessity, is a state of unconsciousness, and

xviii

Introduction

dreams are not conscious experiences in any meaningful sense. Much as in Aristotelian dream theory, the scientific investigation of dreams through objective, outwardly observable measures seemed misguided. Much of the philosophical discussion of dreaming subsequently focused on the question of whether dreams are experiences at all. Daniel C. Dennett (1976) proposed that, contra Malcolm, the question of dream experience was to be decided on purely scientific grounds, through measures of brain activity in sleep. By contrast, retrospective dream reports were too flawed and subjective to count as evidence for the occurrence of dream experience during sleep. These disputes were driven by disagreement about the possibility of a science of dreaming, and they also raised broader questions about the timing and occurrence of conscious experience. Prior to the discovery of REM sleep, sleep had been regarded as a uniform state of unconsciousness. Wakefulness had been seen as largely synonymous with conscious experience, whereas dreams, as in Freudian and Jungian dream theory, were the products of the unconscious mind. This latter view persists in large parts of psychology, where states that are automatic and largely involuntary—such as dreams, but also repressed memories and desires—are often termed unconscious. By contrast, in philosophy and consciousness science, states are considered to be conscious if there is something it is like to undergo them, that is, if they have qualitative or experiential character. Today, most philosophers and consciousness researchers consider dreams as conscious experiences in the sense that it feels like something to have thoughts, images, and emotions during sleep. What remains controversial is the relation between dreaming and dream reports. Both Malcolm’s and Dennett’s views are instances of a broader tendency to regard dream reports as opposed to supposedly more objective criteria, such as neurophysiological measures. But given that dream reports are our most direct window on experience during sleep—and therefore constitute the primary source of evidence about the occurrence and phenomenology of dreaming—the idea that a science of dreaming will eventually have to move beyond the study of dream reports seems problematic. A science of dreaming that was devoid of subjective reports would arguably be hopelessly impoverished. The real challenge is how to improve both the study of dream reports and neuroscientific measures in concert (Windt, 2015; Windt et al., 2016). FROM DREAMING TO CONSCIOUSNESS SCIENCE Dream research can also address more basic questions at the heart of consciousness research. An example is the search for the neural correlates of consciousness, or the neural markers distinguishing conscious states—such as wakefulness, but also dreaming—from states in which consciousness is lost, such as coma or periods of unconsciousness in dreamless sleep. Finding reliable markers for a loss of consciousness is an important challenge because states that outwardly appear unconscious may still involve subjective experience. Examples include anesthesia, which in some cases is accompanied by dreamlike experiences (Radek et al., 2018), and minimally conscious and vegetative states (Owen, 2017).

Introduction

xix

Early interest in dreaming and its association with REM sleep stemmed, in part, from the hope to identify objective markers for discerning the presence versus absence of consciousness. While researchers no longer identify dreaming with REM sleep, the view that dreaming is the only kind of conscious experience in sleep persists. To this day, consciousness is often defined as what disappears in deep, dreamless sleep and reappears in dreams. However, this conceptual identification of dreaming and conscious experience in sleep may not do justice to the richness of sleep-related experience. Recent years have seen increasing convergence on simulation views of dreaming, in which dreaming is defined as the subjective presence of a self in a world. While dreams share this immersive here-and-now structure with waking experience, in dreams, both the experienced self and the world are in fact mental simulations brought about by spontaneous neural processing that is only weakly constrained by external stimuli and bodily sensations. Simulation views are useful because they define dreaming independently of sleep stages while also giving precise meaning to kinds of sleep experience that are distinct from dreaming (Windt et al., 2016). For example, conscious experiences in sleep that lack the immersive character of dreaming—such as purely propositional sleep thinking or isolated visual imagery that is experienced from the outside, as if on a screen, and lacks integration into a larger scene—would not count as dreamful. The possibility of such kinds of dreamless sleep experience suggests that standard definitions of consciousness need revision: if kinds of sleep experience exist that are distinct from dreaming, then consciousness cannot be contrastively defined by pointing to its disappearance in dreamless sleep. Thinking about these issues requires a fresh perspective and novel approach, and it may be particularly helpful to look beyond both Western philosophy and dream research, for instance, to classical Indian and Buddhist views on sleep, dreaming, and consciousness (Thompson, 2014). If dreams are just one subtype of conscious experience in sleep, it may also be necessary to look beyond dreaming and focus on simpler kinds of dreamless sleep experience to identify the neural correlates of conscious versus nonconscious sleep states, or periods in which any kind of (dreamful or dreamless) experience is lost. A promising approach is to contrast reports both of dreaming and dreamless sleep experience with reports of nonconscious sleep from the same sleep stage (Noreika et al., 2009; Siclari et al., 2017). Similarly, transitions from nonconscious to dreamless and dreamful experience—either during the deep stages of NREM sleep or at sleep onset (Nielsen, 2017)—may shed light on the mechanisms underlying more complex kinds of imagery formation. Combining a refined taxonomy for describing different kinds of sleep experience with more fine-grained sleep-stage scoring may eventually help fulfill the old dream of identifying the sleep-stage correlates of dreaming and of conscious experience in sleep. But where early dream researchers focused on REM sleep, it now seems that the investigation of NREM sleep is more promising, as it contains greater variation in types of experience reports. Aside from distinguishing dreams from potentially dreamless kinds of sleep experience, a refined taxonomy that distinguishes different types of dreams and

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Introduction

acknowledges the variability of dreaming will be crucial. While dreamless sleep experience plausibly occupies the lower end of the spectrum of sleep-related conscious experience, many have thought that the higher end consists of lucid dreams, in which dreamers realize they are now dreaming and often have some degree of control over the unfolding dream narrative (Voss & Hobson, 2016). Whereas nonlucid dreams are often marked by cognitive and mnemonic deficiencies, lucid dreams more strongly resemble conscious wake states on counts of self-consciousness, meta-awareness, rational thought, and control (see Windt, 2015, for discussion). Again, this raises interesting questions about the neural correlates of lucid versus nonlucid dreams, along with the possibility that lucid dreams may arise during a hybrid state combining features of REM sleep and wakefulness (Voss et al., 2009), or perhaps even during a distinct substage of REM sleep. Another area that may benefit from a refined understanding of different kinds of sleep experience is the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders (Windt et al., 2016). These include insomnia as well as such complex sleep behaviors as sleepwalking and sleep talking. The relation between different kinds of sleep experience and subjective sleep quality on the one hand and muscular activity during sleep (including overt sleep behavior) on the other is poorly understood. Given the impact of sleep on cognitive performance in wakefulness and emotional wellbeing, investigating the subjective side of sleep disorders and their association with experience in sleep seems both promising and relevant. Finally, it may also be useful to look beyond both dreams and sleep to wakestate phenomena that bear a surface similarity to dreaming, such as fantasy, daydreaming, and imagination. Recent years have seen a virtual flood of research on mind wandering, or spontaneous thought in wakefulness, that unfolds in a highly dynamic fashion and is only weakly constrained by ongoing tasks and environmental demands (Smallwood & Schooler, 2015; Christoff et al., 2016). So far, this research has remained largely separate from dreaming. However, important phenomenological and neurophysiological similarities between dreaming and waking mind wandering exist, and dreams have even been proposed to be an intensified form of waking mind wandering (Fox et al., 2013). Integrating these lines of research therefore seems promising. Placing dreams on a continuum with spontaneous thought in wakefulness may also help unlock the cognitive and mnemonic sources of dreaming. Dreams are clearly continuous with waking experiences, thoughts, and concerns (Domhoff, 2003; Hartmann, 1998; Schredl, 2006). In childhood, the emergence of dreaming may occur in tandem with the development of imaginative capacities, such as visuospatial imagery (Foulkes, 1999). Dreams also draw from waking memories in a highly selective fashion—though what governs this selectivity is insufficiently understood. Investigating dreams in the context of memory consolidation in sleep may shed light on the precise patterns with which waking memories are reactivated and reorganized in sleep and to what extent these processes are reflected in our dreams (Nielsen & Stenstrom, 2005).

Introduction

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F U TURE PERSPECTIVES AND CHALLENGES Ultimately, a complete theory of dreaming will require careful investigation of its neural basis as well as of its cognitive and mnemonic sources. This is as it should be: dreams are both natural phenomena, occurring in concert with neurophysiological changes in sleep, and intensely personal experiences, mirroring the cognitive and mnemonic makeup, past experiences, and emotions of the dreamer. Sometimes they can even come to have personal significance and impact on our waking lives. A future theory will therefore have to do justice to the dual sides of mental simulation in sleep. It will have to account for presence and here-and-now experience, in which dreaming, like wakefulness, involves the experience of being a self in a world. And it will have to do justice to the affinity with mental simulation in wakefulness, in which dreams can be seen as continuous with (and perhaps even the fullest expression of ) our waking imagination and capacity for spontaneous thought. In this process, it will be necessary to integrate findings from different lines of research that to date remain largely separate. And, paradoxically, it may also be necessary to look beyond sleep to investigate fluctuations in experience and spontaneous thought across the sleep-wake cycle.

Part I

THE BIOLOGY OF S LEEP A N D D R E A M I N G

Chapter 1

SLEEP: EVOLU TION, REGULATION, AND F UNCTION

The first chapter in this book focuses on the evolution, regulation, architecture, genetic basis, and function(s) of sleep. Given that dreaming occurs in this altered state of consciousness, a thorough understanding of dreaming may not be possible without understanding the basics of sleep. Although the amount of sleep varies greatly among different animal species, as do the behavioral manifestations, all animals that have been studied thus far exhibit sleep. It is an evolutionarily old and preserved feature, and thus it could be expected to be essential to life. Yet, its functions remain debated. This chapter describes how different animals sleep and what that tells us about how different forms of sleep may have evolved. Then, the neural circuitry and neurotransmitters that regulate wakefulness and sleep are discussed, along with the circadian organization and homeostatic regulation of sleep. This is followed by a description of human sleep architecture, that is, what human sleep looks like. Given that the capacity and propensity to sleep are largely determined by our genetic makeup, and specific genetic factors contribute to variation in sleep traits between individuals, the genetic basis of sleep and particular sleep disorders, as well as how genes and the environment interact to modulate sleep, is explored next. Finally, we return to the enigmatic function of sleep, and the different theories and hypotheses put forth to explain why we must sleep are discussed and evaluated.

Evolutionary Perspectives on Sleep John Lesku, Anne Aulsebrook, and Erika Zaid

Humans and other animals spend much of their lives sleeping. A 75-year-old person will have spent 25 of those years asleep. Yet, despite the prominence of

4

Dreams

sleep, its specific functions remain enigmatic and hotly debated (see the “Function of Sleep” section in this chapter). This uncertainty is not due to a lack of effort, nor for a lack of hypotheses. Most ideas for the function of sleep are rooted in the restoration and maintenance of the brain, including facilitating the early development of the central nervous system, clearing metabolites, and strengthening and weakening the junction between neurons (synapses) to optimize brain performance during subsequent wakefulness. Outside the brain, sleep is also thought to conserve energy, to enforce immobility when activity would be unproductive or dangerous, and to maintain the immune system. None of these hypotheses can explain all aspects of sleep, however, suggesting that sleep serves many functions. Given that some of these benefits of sleep have only recently been described, other sleep functions probably remain to be discovered. One approach that provides insight into the adaptive value of sleep is the comparative method. Natural selection has given rise to incredible diversity across the animal kingdom, and the benefits of different sleep processes are likely to depend on age, sex, condition, immune status, cognitive demands, ecology, and recent sleep/ wake history. By comparing sleep between species, scientists can answer fundamental questions about the evolutionary history of sleep. When and why did sleep first evolve? Did sleep evolve multiple times, or just once? Have any animals lost sleep? Is there more than one type of sleep? This chapter provides a comprehensive view of our current understanding of the evolution of sleep and adaptive sleeplessness. It proceeds in phylogenetic fashion, detailing what is known of sleep in various groups of animals, including mammals, avian and nonavian reptiles, amphibians and fishes, and invertebrates. Bringing sleep research into wild environments can also be particularly informative. First, we review an operational characterization of sleep behavior that enables scientists to demonstrate the presence, or absence, of sleep in diverse animal types (or phyla). CHARACTERIZATION OF SLEEP Outside of sleep, there are many quiescent states that living animals can exhibit, including diapause, torpor, and hibernation. Thus, diagnostic criteria are needed to distinguish sleep from these outwardly sleeplike states. In many animals, sleep occurs at predictable times during the 24-hour day, and it is accompanied by a specific posture (often recumbent with eyes closed) in a particular habitat type (e.g., the tree canopy or a burrow). Sleeping animals are less responsive to stimuli; therefore, the intensity of stimulation required to evoke wakefulness (or the arousal threshold) is higher. However, unlike other quiescent states, sleep will rapidly give way to wakefulness with sufficient stimulation. Sleep is also homeostatically regulated: animals deprived of sleep will attempt to recover lost sleep by sleeping longer and more deeply, with the depth of sleep measured by arousal thresholds (Tobler, 2011; see also the “Regulation of Sleep” section in this chapter). Finally, sleep is also associated with changes in brain activity, typically measured by the electroencephalogram (EEG). Some species pose exceptions to these criteria, at least in regard to behavior, such as grazing animals that sleep with both eyes open, sleeping

Sleep: Evolution, Regulation, and Function

5

ruminants that stand and chew cud, and marine mammals that simultaneously swim and sleep. These criteria are therefore best used in combination (e.g., behavior and brain activity) to confidently distinguish sleep from other states. MAMMALS Most mammals engage in two temporally segregated types of sleep: non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. These states can be distinguished from one another, and from wakefulness, by changes in behavior (as discussed above), brain activity, skeletal muscle tone, and occurrence of eye movements. For instance, the EEG of an awake animal shows low amplitude, high frequency brain waves; variable, but high, muscle tone; and frequent eye movements. When that mammal transitions to sleep, it first enters NREM sleep. Its brain waves slow and become larger, which is why NREM sleep is also referred to as slow wave sleep (SWS) in nonhuman animals (see the “Human Sleep Architecture” section in this chapter). Skeletal muscle tone relaxes, and eye movements become infrequent during this sleep state. After a period of time, the animal enters REM sleep, which has a wake-like EEG and is the state in which the most vivid dreams are reported in humans. During REM sleep, muscle tone is either reduced relative to preceding levels (hypotonic) or is abolished (atonic), and the eyes move under closed eyelids. Periods of skeletal muscle atonia are interrupted by occasional twitches of the extremities and penile erections in most species. Although NREM sleep can occur with the eyes open or closed, REM sleep only occurs with the eyes closed. In mammals, sleep homeostasis manifests differently for NREM and REM sleep. During NREM sleep, slow wave activity, or low frequency (30 Hz). The EEG features most prom­ inent in each sleep stage are listed in Table 1.1 and illustrated in Figure 1.5. Among the first to use EEG to study sleep in humans were Davis, Harvey, Hobart, and Loomis, who devised a classification system for the EEG during sleep in the late 1930s (Davis et al., 1937; Loomis et al., 1935a, 1935b). They divided the brain waves during sleep into five patterns (Table 1.1), and their division nicely matches modern sleep staging (comparably presented in Table 1.1). These investigators also identified a large biphasic wave pattern that occurred in light sleep and could be seen following auditory stimuli. This wave form was assigned the letter K, which stands for knock, indicating it is inducible, and is known today as the K-complex. K-complex is defined as a brief negative high-voltage peak that is followed by a positive peak that stands out from the background EEG activity with a duration ≥ 0.5 seconds (see Figure 1.5). Electrooculography In the early 1950s, a group under the direction of Nathaniel Kleitman at the University of Chicago began to study the eye movement patterns of sleeping subjects (Aserinsky & Kleitman, 1953; Dement, 1955). These investigations required direct visual observation of the orbits moving beneath the eyelids. Subsequently, electrical recording of eye movements through electrooculography (EOG) was used in conjunction with the brain wave recordings. This new technique facilitated identification of rapid eye movements occurring concurrently with a recurring pattern of low-voltage, fast EEG activity. Kleitman’s group then attempted to localize dreaming to these periods and found a high association of dreaming mentation with arousals from this state of sleep (Aserinsky & Kleitman, 1953). In 1957, Dement and Kleitman published their now classic description of the EEG and eye movement patterns during overnight sleep in humans, coining the term rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep and describing the cyclic nature of NREM and REM sleep. The classification system they proposed is substantially the same as the systems subsequently developed by expert consensus. The eye movement characteristics typical for different sleep stages are listed in Table 1.1 and illustrated in Figure 1.5. Shortly after publishing the description of REM cycles in humans, Dement (1958) reported a similar cyclic pattern of REM and NREM sleep in cats. This finding was also initially met with skepticism because the direct implication—from the association of REM sleep with dreaming in humans—was that cats also dream (Dement, 1955). Dement (2003) notes that he had difficulty finding a journal willing to publish this finding; it ultimately found a home in Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology.

28

Dreams

Electromyography The next seminal discovery with a significant lasting impact on basic polysomnography was first reported by Michel Jouvet’s group in 1958. Jouvet, a French physiologist, noted that the periods of low-voltage, fast EEG and rapid eye movements Dement had described in cats were accompanied by postural relaxation. That is, the animals maintained an initial sleeping posture until the appearance of the activated EEG pattern, whereupon total postural relaxation, loss of muscle tonus, occurred ( Jouvet et al., 1959a, 1959b, 1959c). This finding led to the routine electrophysiological measurement of muscle tone in sleep research studies known as electromyography, or EMG for short. Jouvet is also noted for coining the term sommeil paradoxal (paradoxical sleep) to describe this phase where motor silence accompanies cortical activation. The muscle tone features typical for different sleep stages are listed in Table 1.1 and illustrated in Figure 1.5. MODERN SLEEP STAGING Sleep Staging Methods The developments outlined above combined to provide the three basic measures still used to characterize sleep: electroencephalography (the measurement of changing neural potentials at the scalp), electrooculography (the measurement of eye movements using the polar nature of the eye), and electromyography (the measurement of muscle activity via surface electrodes). Although myriad other physiological measurements can be made during sleep, these three variables recorded in a standard manner are the basis of sleep polysomnography (PSG). In the mid-1960s, the first consensus exercise in the newly emerging field of sleep research produced a standard manual for recording and scoring sleep stages in human subjects (Rechtschaffen & Kales, 1968), A Manual of Standardized Terminology, Techniques and Scoring System for Sleep Stages of Human Subjects. Now known as the Rechtschaffen and Kales manual (or R&K) to most human sleep researchers, this manual has provided the standard for sleep staging for over 50 years. In addition to providing criteria for identifying the sleep stages in human adults, the manual makes a compelling argument and strong recommendation for defining the stages on an epoch-by-epoch basis. Sleep recordings at the time and up until about 1994 were recorded on ink-writing polygraphs, and the R&K manual recommends assigning stages to relatively short epoch lengths of 20 or 30 seconds (Hirshkowitz & Moore, 1994). The still-used parsing of PSG data into discrete 30-second epochs for sleep staging is essentially an arbitrary convenience that is a vestige from technological requirements of early sleep research. Accumulated across the night, these 30-second stage-scoring epochs joined together comprise a graph of the sleep architecture called the hypnogram. Such display reduces the complexity of tens of thousands of seconds of information across multiple measures into a simple figure (see Figure 1.6). The epoch data is also combined to yield a statistical summary of the night, including such variables as total sleep time, aggregated stage times and percentages, and wake time after sleep onset.

Sleep: Evolution, Regulation, and Function

29

Figure 1.6. Hypnogram.

The figure represents a fairly typical sleep architecture of a young adult over the course of about eight hours of sleep. Clock time is represented on the horizontal axis and sleep stages along the vertical axis. The R&K scoring system and the newer AASM scoring system are superimposed in the figure. REM sleep is indicated by black squares, and NREM sleep stage 4, which is only scored when using the R&K scoring system, is indicated with black-and-white diagonal stripes.

A newer staging system was developed by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) in 2007 (Iber et al., 2007), with a major revision in 2012 (Berry et al., 2012), and is in common use in sleep disorders clinics. Many scientists, however, continue to use the R&K manual. The AASM manual made a number of somewhat cosmetic recommendations, but more substantively, the AASM manual recommended changing the standard electrodes (two central, C3 and C4, and two occipital, O1 and O2, with auricular reference leads, A1 and A2) for staging sleep. Evidence indicated that K-complexes and slow waves were seen maximally in frontal derivations, sleep spindles from central EEG placements, and arousals (and alpha rhythm) from occipital regions. In the AASM manual, the idea of six derivations of EEG (two frontal, F3 and F4, two central, C3 and C4, and two occipital, O1 and O2, electrodes, with mastoid reference leads, M1 and M2); two EOGs; and one chin EMG were codified, and the scoring by 30-second epochs was still retained. No evidence was found to justify dividing slow wave sleep into two stages, as done in the R&K scoring system. It is noteworthy that the change of the standard electrodes for staging NREM sleep from C3 or C4 to F3 or F4 alters the identification of slow waves and can impact comparison of current stage data to norms collected using the R&K system. Also, minor terminology changes may provide some confusion without illuminating the sleep staging data, including renaming NREM stages 1, 2, 3, and 4 as N1, N2, and N3 (combining NREM 3 and 4). Those using the R&K manual often report NREM 3 + 4 as slow wave sleep (SWS). The AASM manual also calls REM sleep stage R. Table 1.1 lists the terminology equivalents. Additionally, movement time epochs were removed from staging, and major body movements were defined as

30

Dreams

discrete within-sleep events. We note as well that electroencephalographers use the nomenclature A1 and A2 (rather than M1 and M2) for the auricular placements. Sleep Cycles Regardless of the staging criteria, sleep unfolds across the night in a predictable manner in healthy individuals living on a reasonably consistent schedule. The pattern is termed the NREM-REM sleep cycle, wherein these two distinctive states alternate with a period of approximately 90 minutes in older children, adolescents, and adults. The initiation of sleep typically starts through the lightest state and proceeds to deep sleep. At sleep onset, wakefulness transitions to NREM stage 1, or N1, sometimes taking several minutes to achieve stable stage 1 (N1) sleep. A deepening of sleep is evident by transition into the other NREM sleep stages, with the occurrence of sleep spindles and K-complexes in the EEG marking NREM stage 2 sleep, or N2, and high-voltage (≥ 75 µV if using R&K) amplitude, slow (≤ 2 Hz) delta EEG waves occurring in ≥ 20 percent of an epoch (≥ 50% for NREM stage 4) identifying slow wave sleep (SWS), or NREM stage 3 or N3 (Table 1.1, Figure 1.5). (In R&K, ≥ 50% of an epoch should include slow waves to be scored NREM stage 4.) The first two of the approximately 90-minute cycles of sleep are typically domi­ nated by SWS, or N3, with NREM stage 2, or N2, predominating in the NREM phases later in the night. The early-night predominance of SWS has been shown to represent a “recovery process,” and the duration and intensity of SWS increases as the waking day is extended. REM, or R, episodes are brief in the early half of the night. Toward the morning, the probability of REM sleep increases, and longer REM bouts emerge in the late part of the night. Dreaming is commonly associated with REM sleep; however, mentation has been shown to occur during NREM sleep as well. In adult humans, REM sleep takes up about 20–25 percent of the night; the NREM stage 1, or N1, about 2–5 percent; the NREM stage 2, or N2, approximately 45–55 percent; and slow wave sleep (NREM stages 3 and 4, or N3) approximately 20 percent. These values differ based on a number of factors, as described below. FACTORS THAT CHANGE SLEEP ARCHITECTURE Factors that can change sleep architecture include age, illness, medication, and prior sleep/wake history. As mentioned above, for example, slow wave sleep episodes early in the night respond to longer periods of wakefulness and sleep deprivation by becoming longer and more intense. The enhanced intensity, manifested by increased number and amplitude of slow waves, is often marked by higher arousal thresholds for sounds and other environmental stimuli. Because of the link between REM sleep and circadian timing, a person sleeping at the same time every night will often experience more REM sleep (and sometimes more intense as marked by dream content) by “oversleeping” by an hour or two. As to the effects of age, the most profound differences are found in neonates, where sleep duration is longer, REM sleep comprises nearly 50 percent of total

Sleep: Evolution, Regulation, and Function

31

Figure 1.7. Effects of Age on Total Sleep Time and NREM and REM Sleep Quota.

The total amount of sleep decreases linearly with age, and the proportions of sleep stages also change. The percentage of slow wave sleep decreases linearly from age 20 up to the age of 60 years. In parallel, there is an increase in N1 and especially N2 sleep. The percentage of REM sleep also slightly diminishes through the adult years. Data for ages 1 day to 5 years extracted from Roffwarg et al. (1966) and for ages 5 to 90 years from Ohayon et al. (2004).

sleep, REM sleep occurs at sleep onset, and sleep EEG is staged differently due to critical brain waves not yet having an appropriate neuronal and pathway infrastructure. The EEG patterns used to categorize sleep in the very young are thus different from those of older children, adolescents, and adults. Age-related differences in sleep also occur at the older end of the life cycle. A meta-analysis by Ohayon et al. (2004) of 65 sleep laboratory studies representing 3,577 healthy subjects of different ages has shown that the total amount of sleep decreases linearly with age, with a loss of approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes from age 20 years to age 60 years, and there is a further 30-minute decline from age 60 years to age 90 years. Also, sleep onset latency becomes longer, and there is an increase in nocturnal awakenings. Sleep efficiency diminishes due to increased sleep latency, arousals from sleep, and time awake after sleep onset. Further, the percentage of slow wave sleep roughly decreases linearly at 2 percent per decade from age 20 up to the age of 60 years. In parallel, there is an increase in N1 and especially N2 sleep. The percentage of REM sleep also slightly diminishes through the adult years, although the decrease in REM sleep is steepest in infancy and early childhood. The changes in sleep duration and proportion of REM sleep to NREM sleep with age are illustrated in Figure 1.7. There are often fewer sleep cycles per night, and the circadian phase may become more fragmented with increased number of nocturnal awakenings.

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Dreams

Certain medications alter sleep patterns both when administered and when withdrawn. One example is the tricyclic antidepressant medications formerly used to treat narcolepsy because they are REM suppressing. Another example is found in individuals with schizophrenia or those at risk for this psychiatric condition in which sleep spindles (and sigma band frequency EEG) are impoverished. CONCLUSION Over the last century, we have benefited from pioneering observations and science that has opened our eyes to the predictably orchestrated process that unfolds nightly. The ancients proposed that sleep was a more or less inert state resulting from the passive withdrawal of wakefulness when sensory input diminished. Even then, however, the mysteries of dreaming and the melancholy that comes with poor sleep were captivating. As electrophysiological measures were applied to sleeping humans, details of the complex pattern and flow of sleep became evident. The human inclination to see patterns and to name and classify them has given us the structure and language we use to describe sleep architecture: two states of sleep (NREM and REM) and several stages of NREM flowing with a predictable cycle. Thus, for example, we expect to see the deepest stage of NREM (SWS) in the early night, with greater intensity when we are young or when sleep deprived, and we see that REM sleep accounts for greater portions of the sleep cycle as the night progresses. The utility and convenience of such a map of sleep has served scientific and clinical communities well, providing an avenue to define normal and diseased sleep and to examine how sleep features are altered by natural development and by pharmacological interventions. As we move further into the new millennium, sleep descriptions may come to rely less on the architectural design described here and more on quantitative analyses of such features as EEG spectra. At the end of the day, however, the simple elegance of states and stages is likely to endure.

Genetic Basis of Human Sleep Tiina Paunio

The genetic code, that is, the genomic DNA sequence and its variations, sets the basis for all physiological processes, including function and regulation of the intrinsic circadian rhythm as well as the capability and propensity to sleep. However, sleep is also highly adaptive to the environment. There is large variability between individuals, both in terms of their basic sleep characteristics, such as sleep timing, length, and quality, and in their sensitivity to various environmental stimuli, such as light, stress, or psychoactive substances. This variability stems from organization of the neuronal networks, orchestrated by the genetic code, but is heavily modulated during the development and life course by genetic and environmental factors (Figure 1.8).

Sleep: Evolution, Regulation, and Function

33

Figure 1.8. Involvement of Genes and Environment in Regulating Sleep Traits.

The large variability between individuals in basic sleep characteristics and in their sensitivity to various environmental stimuli, originates from organization of the neuronal networks, orchestrated by the genetic code, but is heavily modulated during the development and life course by genetic and environmental factors.

Specific genetic factors contributing to variation in sleep traits between individuals are emerging, thanks to combined efforts of basic sleep research, sophisticated study designs and samples enriched for extreme traits, and recent use of large genetic screenings. GENERAL OVERVIEW ON HERITABILIT Y OF SLEEP TRAITS In this context, heritability is the degree of variation in sleep traits between individuals that is due to genetic variation. Development Sleep and brain development are intimately related, and environmental and genetic influences on sleep change with age. This has been demonstrated by twin studies in longitudinal setups at various phases of life. For example, one study, focusing on early development, suggested that genetic factors, which are likely to govern the early brain maturation, are largely responsible for individual differences in sleep consolidation at the age of 6 months but less so at the age of 18 months

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Dreams

(Dionne et al., 2011). Another study on young adults suggested that both stable and newly emerging genetic factors contribute to sleep timing and quality, even during a relatively short follow-up period of five years (Barclay et al., 2016). Sleep Timing, Duration, and Quality Twin and family studies have been useful in the estimation of heritability for sleep characteristics. According to those studies, the heritability estimates for selfreported sleep traits are modest, ranging in most cases from 30 percent to 50 percent. The heritability estimates for chronotype (variation in time of day when subjects are inclined to sleep) have been slightly higher (up to 50%) than for sleep length (approximately 30%–45%). The estimates for sleep quality are even more variable, but they tend to be higher for women (50%–60%) than for men (20%–45%). Sleep EEG In contrast to the findings for sleep timing, duration, or quality, specific aspects of electrophysiological activity of the cortical cells during sleep, measured by electroencephalogram (EEG), are highly influenced by genetic variation. Twin studies have revealed close to 100 percent estimates of heritability for power spectra at 8–16 Hz during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep (De Gennaro et al., 2008), and a study on siblings using information from genomic variations gave an estimation of ~50–75 percent for the SNP-based heritability for spectral sigma power at 11–15 Hz (Purcell et al., 2017). (SNP is the most common genetic variation and represents a difference in a single DNA building block, called a nucleotide.) Substantially lower values were found for the delta band power (SNP-based heritability of 25%–30%) and sleep duration (20%–25%). Thus, while some specific characteristics of sleep EEG could be assigned as “EEG fingerprint of sleep,” there are also EEG measures, such as the slow wave power, which seem to be more modifiable by the environment or the intrinsic adaptivity of sleep to nongenetic influences. MOLECULAR GENETIC STUDIES Given the modest variation due to genetic differences for most sleep traits, it is hardly surprising that the molecular genetic studies on the general population have resulted in inconsistent findings, particularly in samples of limited size. However, analyses on the very large datasets have started to produce more robust findings that show replication to genes or genomic loci suggested by the earlier studies. Sleep Timing (Chronotype) People vary in chronotype, that is, in the propensity to sleep at a particular time during a 24-hour period. Although most people are intermediate types, some peo­ ple are “owls,” that is, evening types who like to go to bed late and sleep late, and

Table 1.2. Genetic Variations Implicated by Genetic Studies on Sleep Category

Trait

Gene

Gene name

Sleep timing

Chronotype in general population

RGS16

Regulator of G protein signaling 16

PER2

35

FBXL13

AK5

Function

Involved in synchronization of the communication between pacemaker neurons in SCN via increasing the GTPase activity of G protein alpha subunits. Period circadian Core component in the regulator 2 circadian clock, expressed in a circadian pattern to ensure stable clock oscillation. F-box and Protein-ubiquitin ligase; leucine-rich another member of the same repeat protein 13 protein family (FBX3) has been found to control CRY2 stability, and similar function has been suggested for FBXL13. Adenylate Regulates energetic and kinase 5 metabolic signaling circuits in the brain by catalyzing the transfer of phosphate groups of adenine nucleotides, leading to a putative role in regulation of sleep homeostasis.

Associated variant(s)

Reference

rs12736689 rs1144566 rs516134

Hu et al., 2016; Lane et al., 2016; Jones et al., 2016

rs55694368 rs35333999 rs75804782

Hu et al., 2016; Lane et al., 2016; Jones et al., 2016 Hu et al., 2016; Lane et al., 2016; Jones et al., 2016

rs3972456 rs372229746 rs372229746

rs10493596 rs76681500 rs11162296

Hu et al., 2016; Lane et al., 2016; Jones et al., 2016

(continued)

Table 1.2. (continued) Category

Trait

36 Familial advanced sleep phase disorder

Sleep length

Total sleep time in general population

Gene

Gene name

Function

Associated variant(s)

Reference

HCRTR2

Hypocretin (orexin) receptor 2

rs35833281 rs76899638

Hu et al., 2016; Jones et al., 2016

APH1A

Aph-1 homolog A, gamma-secretase subunit

rs34714364 rs10157197

Hu et al., 2016; Jones et al., 2016

PER3

Period circadian regulator 3

5-repeat allele in exon 18

Reviewed in Archer et al., 2017

PER2

Period circadian regulator 2

Binds the hypothalamic neuropeptides orexin A and orexin B; involved in regulation of feeding behavior and in promotion of arousal and wakefulness. Encodes a component of the gamma secretase complex that cleaves integral membrane proteins (f.ex. Notch receptors, and the precursor for beta amyloid precursor protein). Core component in the circadian clock; upregulated by CLOCK/ ARNTL heterodimers, but represses this upregulation in a feedback loop using PER/CRY heterodimers. See above.

Toh et al., 2001

CSNK1D

Casein kinase 1 delta (CKIdelta)

S662G in exon 17 (rs121908635) rs104894561 (Thr44Ala)

PAX8

Paired box 8

rs1191685 rs62158211

Gottlieb et al., 2015; Jones et al., 2016

A casein kinase involved in regulation of circadian rhythm in SCN. A transcription factor involved in thyroid follicular cell development and expression of thyroid-specific genes.

Xu et al., 2005

Sleep quality

RLS

Familial short sleepers

BHLHE41

Basic helixloop-helix family member e41 (DEC2)

Trouble falling asleep or waking up in the middle of the night in general population (men)

MEIS1

Meis homeobox 1

WDR27

WD repeat domain 27

MEIS1

Meis homeobox 1

rs121912617 (Pro384Arg) Tyr362His

He et al., 2009; Pelegrino et al., 2014

rs113851554

Lane et al., 2017; Hammerschlag et al., 2017

rs13192566

See above.

rs113851554 rs2300478

A protein containing a BTB/POZ domain; involved in protein-protein interactions.

rs61192259 rs9296249 rs3923809

A protein kinase mediating a signal cascade involved in growth factor–stimulated cell proliferation and muscle cell differentiation. The encoded protein may be involved in alteration of chromatin structure.

rs868036 rs1026732

Lane et al., 2017; Hammerschlag et al., 2017 Schormair et al., 2017; Winkelmann et al., 2007 Schormair et al., 2017; Stefansson et al., 2007; Winkelmann et al., 2007 Schormair et al., 2017; Winkelmann et al., 2007

37

A component of circadian clock; competes for E-box binding sites in the promoter of PER1 and repress its activation via CLOCK/ARNTL. A member of the three amino acid loop extension homeobox gene class; shows a reduction in expression under iron-deficiency conditions. A scaffold protein; putative role in cell-cell signaling.

BTBD9

MAP2K5, SKOR1

Mitogenactivated protein kinase 5

TOX3

TOX highmobility group box family member 3

rs45544231 rs3104767

Schormair et al., 2017; Winkelmann et al., 2007 (continued)

Table 1.2. (continued) Category

Trait

Narco-lepsy

Sleep apnea

38

Apnea hypopnea index during NREM (men)

Caffeine sensitivity

Shift work

Exhaustion

Gene

Gene name

Function

Associated variant(s)

Reference

PTPRD

Protein tyrosine phosphatase, receptor type D

rs1836229 rs4626664

HLA

Human leukocyte antigen region

Schormair et al., 2017; Winkelmann et al., 2007 Tafti et al., 2014

TRA

T-cell receptor alpha

RAI1

Retinoic acid induced 1

ADORA2A

Adenosine A2A receptor

ADA

Adenosine deaminase

MTNR1A

Melatonin receptor 1A

A receptor-type protein tyrosine phosphatase; may be involved in neurite growth and axon guidance. Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II receptors; involved in the presentation of foreign peptides. T-cell receptor binding foreign or self-peptides presented by Class II MHC proteins. Involved in early neural differentiation and transcriptional regulation of circadian clock components. A member of the G protein–coupled receptor superfamily; uses adenosine as the endogenous agonist. An enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of adenosine to inosine. An integral membrane protein receptor for melatonin; responsible for melatonin effects on circadian rhythm (in SCN) and reproductive effects of melatonin (in hypophysial pars tuberalis).

DQB1*0602

rs1154155

Faraco et al., 2013

rs12936587

Chen et al., 2017

rs5751876

Retey et al., 2005, 2007

rs73598374

Mazzotti et al., 2012

rs12506228

Sulkava et al., 2017

Sleep: Evolution, Regulation, and Function

39

others are “larks,” that is, morning types who feel tired earlier in the evening and who wake up early. Three recent genome-wide association (GWA) studies (analysis of common genetic variations across the human genome) on circadian preference, using data from the 23andMe (Hu et al., 2016) and UK Biobank samples ( Jones et al., 2016; Lane et al., 2016), yielded an identification of six genes that associated with chronotype in both samples. These involved genes with a known or suggested role in circadian regulation (PER2, RGS16, FBXL13), the orexin system (HCRTR2), and sleep homeostasis (AK5, APH1A) (Table 1.2). As could be expected from the analysis of heterogenous and large populations, all single variations identified had only a small effect at the individual level. In contrast, studies focused on extreme, rare characteristics have been able to identify mutations that are very rare but have a strong impact on the person. For example, mutations on the circadian rhythm regulators PER2 and CSNK1D genes have been identified in families with advanced sleep phase disorder (Toh et al., 2001; Xu et al., 2005) (Table 1.2). Furthermore, a common repeat variation at the coding region of PER3, another key component of the molecular clock, has been found to associate with morning diurnal preference, earlier sleep onset, and an increase in slow wave activity in NREM sleep and REM sleep and elevated sleep homeostatic pressure during sleep deprivation (Archer et al., 2017). Sleep Duration (Somnotype) As previously noted, sleep length is modifiable by the environment, and, furthermore, its estimation is prone to subjective errors when using questionnaire-based information. Somnotype describes individual sleep need; some people naturally need less sleep than others (i.e., short sleepers), while others need a longer sleep period to feel refreshed. So far, only studies on the variations of the PAX8 gene, encoding for a transcription factor promoting gene transcription, particularly in thyroid tissue, have been replicated (Gottlieb et al., 2015; Jones et al., 2016), which suggests a role for thyroid hormone in sleep-wake regulation. This is in line with symptoms of disturbed sleep found in patients with hypo- or hyperthyroidism with excessive sleepiness and reductions in slow wave sleep or insomnia, respectively. A fruitful approach for finding genetic factors for sleep duration has been to study extreme traits: natural short sleepers, a trait that is related to genetic variation in some families. Two functional, rare mutations of the clock regulator BHLHE41 (DEC2), which reduces the ability of DEC2 to suppress CLOCK to BMAL1 transactivation in the molecular clock, have been identified (He et al., 2009; Pellegrino et al., 2014). Furthermore, carriers of these mutations were shown to have higher delta power during NREM and less REM sleep as compared to noncarriers (Pellegrino et al., 2014). Sleep Quality The GWA studies for poor sleep quality (trouble falling asleep or waking in the middle of the night) in the UK Biobank sample resulted in identification of

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genetic risk at MEIS1, previously implicated in restless legs syndrome (RLS) (see below) (Hammerschlag et al., 2017; Lane et al., 2017). These studies, along with previous analysis on twins, show completely shared additive genetic influences on insomnia and generalized anxiety disorders (Lind et al., 2017). The causality of the slightly smaller genetic correlation between insomnia and depression symptoms (rg = 0.53) is likely to be more complicated. According to twin studies, the shared genetic influences between symptoms for insomnia and depression are somewhat lower than between insomnia and anxiety, and, furthermore, disturbed sleep and depressed mood was found to have only a modest genetic correlation (20%–30%; Paunio et al., 2009). GENETIC BACKGROUND OF SELECTED SLEEP DISORDERS Various sleep disorders typically show a moderate to intermediate degree of genetic influence for various populations. The new era of the very large genomic analysis has also begun to shed light on their genetic etiology. This is well demonstrated by a recent study on restless legs syndrome (RLS) that combined three datasets and a replication analysis, which led to the identification of 13 new loci associated with RLS. The strongest evidence was obtained for MEIS1 gene variant. Pathways related to neurodevelopment and the highlighting of genes linked to axon guidance (SEMA6D), synapse formation (NTNG1), and neuronal specification (HOXB cluster family and MYT1) were identified and are evidence of the developmental origin of RLS (Schormair et al., 2017). The genetic studies on narcolepsy have strengthened the current view on the immunological mechanisms in that disease. The strongest known genetic factor for narcolepsy is the allele DQB1*0602 at the HLA region (Tafti et al., 2014), and other genes implied in immunological mechanisms, such as T-cell receptor alpha variations (Faraco et al., 2013), have been found to associate with the genetic liability for the disorder. While there are no replicated gene-based associations in the GWA studies for sleep apnea, the largest study performed so far, comprising approximately 20,000 participants, found an association to a variant overlapping the RAI1 gene for the apnea hypopnea index (used to indicate the severity of sleep apnea) during NREM sleep in men and encompassing a locus previously implicated in Potocki Lupski and Smith-Magenis syndromes, both characterized by abnormal sleep (Chen et al., 2017). GENE-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION As discussed above, sleep is highly adaptive to the environment, so the propensity of sleep to react to external influences is built within its physiological regulatory mechanisms. However, most of the genetic studies on sleep so far have not included analysis on the gene-environment interactions, most likely due to lack of data or limited power. While this research will likely evolve, there are nevertheless

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a few concrete examples that reveal a modifying effect of a genetic variation for susceptibility to disturbed sleep under a specific environmental influence (GxE). In the following, two such environmental factors are discussed: caffeine and irregular rhythm caused by shift work and the possible underlying molecular mechanisms. Caffeine Caffeine, which binds to adenosine receptors in brain and is the most widely consumed psychoactive substance in the world, has many adverse effects on sleep: it prolongs sleep latency, reduces total sleep time and sleep efficiency, and impairs sleep quality. It reduces slow wave activity and increases stage 1 NREM sleep, wakefulness, and arousals (Clark & Landolt, 2017). The variability in sensitivity to caffeine between individuals is large, even among those of similar age. A study on young adults identified genetic variation in the adenosine A2A receptor gene (ADORA2A) that modulated response to the stimulating and anxiety-causing properties of caffeine (e.g., Retey et al., 2007; replicated in e.g., Byrne et al., 2012). The ADORA2A variation was also found to increase EEG beta (16–20 Hz) activity in individuals carrying the high-sensitivity response allele to caffeine (Retey et al., 2005). Another variation involving adenosine, a functional variation in the adenosine deaminase gene (ADA), has also been found to increase susceptibility to disturbed sleep after caffeine consumption, including enhanced EEG delta activity, shorter sleep latency, higher sleep efficiency and proportion of REM sleep, and fewer minutes awake among those who consumed caffeine on the day prior (Mazzotti et al., 2012). Shift Work The most common health-related effects of shift work in daily life are disturbed sleep-wake cycle and the associated sleep loss, which promote fatigue and can lead to shift work sleep disorder. A small-scale population-based GWA study, using job-related exhaustion as a measure for burnout and persistent work-related fatigue, identified a suggestive signal for a variation downstream of the melatonin receptor 1A gene (MTNR1A). The finding was replicated in population-based and occupational samples and showed significant interaction with the risk environment (Sulkava et al., 2017). Gene expression analysis, performed by using data from public resources, and studies on DNA methylation suggested reduced melatonin signaling in the brains of the carriers of the genetic risk variation under the environmental exposure, shift work. Epigenetic Mechanisms At the level of DNA and chromatin (chromosomal) activity, the environment is considered to exert its effect via epigenetic mechanisms. Epigenetic refers to reversible changes in gene expression that are mediated by modifications to DNA and chromatin structure, including DNA methylation, histone protein modifications,

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and expression of noncoding RNA molecules (Mill & Heijmans, 2013). Data on involvement of such mechanisms in human sleep and circadian regulation is emerging (for review, see, e.g., Powell & LaSalle, 2015). Analyses of genome-wide DNA methylation profile have shown that insomnia symptoms in elderly women were related to advanced epigenetic age estimations (Carroll et al., 2017). Similarly, hyperarousal symptoms in trauma-exposed military veterans were associated with accelerated DNA methylation age (Wolf et al., 2017). Experimental studies on humans have demonstrated changes in human blood leukocyte gene expression after sleep deprivation (e.g., Aho et el., 2013; Möller-Levet et al., 2013) or mistimed sleep (Archer et al., 2014). Of particular interest is the finding of deviating levels of genes related to transcription and regulation of histone modifications, such as that encoding for histone acetyltransferase HAT1, after mistimed sleep (Archer et al., 2014). This provides evidence for involvement of epigenetic mecha­ nisms in disturbed sleep and circadian rhythm. CONCLUSION Understanding the genetic aspects of human sleep will bring important insight into the mechanisms of the basic sleep regulation as well as individual susceptibility to disturbed sleep. Genetic research on individual sleep variability has so far established the role of some of the genes encoding for well-known regulators of sleep and circadian rhythm, such as the components of the molecular clock or those involved in other sleep regulatory systems. It has also brought out new genes that are still awaiting confirmation of their roles in sleep. A combination of the different study strategies and cross talk between experimental, clinical, and population-based work will thus be important in the future. At present, the genetic risk is not known well enough for risk prediction of individuals. Mechanisms involving gene-gene and gene-environment in regulation of sleep and circadian rhythm are thus far largely undiscovered. These are of primary interest to fully understanding the risk for disturbed sleep at the individual level. Understanding these mechanisms will eventually bring important insight into risk prediction and development of novel therapeutic strategies for disturbed sleep.

The Function of Sleep Lukas B. Krone and Vladyslav V. Vyazovskiy

Scientists still disagree whether sleep primarily benefits the brain or the body. Over the past decades, medical evidence has been accumulating that insufficient sleep leads to negative health consequences of various kinds. Suppressed immune function, reduced mood, and increased risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease are only a few of the many detrimental effects resulting from chronic sleep deprivation or mistimed sleep. The most direct evidence for the immediate consequences of

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sleep deprivation derives from psychological experiments. Impairments range from the slowing of responsiveness, reduced attention, and increased variability in task performance to the reduction of higher order brain functions, such as executive functions, emotion recognition, and the ability to control impulsivity. This indicates that the brain is the first target that is impacted by sleep deprivation. Taken together, the scientific evidence for the important role of sleep for both the body and the brain is persuasive and suggests that sleep has essential if not vital function. In contrast to this extensive knowledge of the importance of sleep, much controversy remains about the biological mechanisms that convey the numerous benefits of sleep to the brain and body. While essential biological processes benefit from a separation between an activity phase during wakefulness and a resting phase during sleep, many of these functions may have developed later in evolution, as they do not provide a sufficient explanation for the large-scale shutdown of sensory and cognitive functions during sleep. Any comprehensive theory about the key function of sleep must answer the crucial question of why the brain needs to disconnect from the environment during sleep, leading to a reduced responsiveness to external stimuli. This increased arousal threshold distinguishes sleep from resting wakefulness and entails the seemingly unnecessary risks of predation and the inability to react to adverse events. From an evolutionary perspective, this disadvantage of sleep must have been outweighed by a crucial benefit for enhanced performance during the waking period, overall improving the chance of survival. The phylogeny approach implies that if a biological mechanism is shared throughout evolution and fulfills the same role across species, it is of crucial importance for survival. While there’s no consensus on the enigma of the first and foremost function of sleep, several lines of research demonstrate distinct processes linked to sleep, which offers explanations for its crucial importance. THE PROBLEM OF DEFINING SLEEP At present, none of the approaches used to define sleep applies equally to all animals, and none of the known criteria appears to be both necessary and sufficient to define sleep. Behaviorally, sleep is a condition of physical quiescence that is spent in a species-specific typical posture and at a typical sleeping site and is characterized by an elevated threshold for arousal but rapid “state reversibility,” which allows the immediate return into wakefulness upon strong stimulation. Polysomnography, which includes electroencephalogram (EEG), electrooculogram (EOG), and electromyogram (EMG) recording, distinguishes between wakefulness and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) as well as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which are accompanied by distinct patterns in the electrical signature of the brain (see the “Human Sleep Architecture” section in this chapter). In contrast to the behavioral criteria for sleep, this definition is based on brain rhythms, muscle tone, and eye movement and posits sleep as a specific “brain state.” This mechanistic view of sleep based on quantifiable biological parameters provides the opportunity to precisely distinguish sleep from resting wakefulness, to measure the duration of sleep, and to observe the cyclic transition between NREM and REM episodes.

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Arguably, at present, neither the behavioral nor the electroencephalographic criteria provide an overarching framework to detect sleep across species. Three major challenges, outlined below in more detail, are encountered in the search for a generalizable definition of sleep: first, behavioral sleep without the characteristic electrophysiological equivalent; second, electrophysiological sleep without behavioral equivalent; and, third, the dissociation of electrical patterns of sleep and wakefulness between brain areas after extended wakefulness or during specific wake behaviors (ambiguous behavior and electrophysiology). Challenge 1: Sleep without Characteristic Brain Rhythms— Do Cockroaches, Flies, and Fish Sleep? To understand sleep in its most complex form in the mammalian brain, it is essential to look at the commonalities with animals on the other ends of the evolutionary spectrum. Over the past decades, researchers have systematically investigated the behavior of invertebrates, such as fruit flies, and of simple vertebrates, such as zebrafish, to probe the existence of sleep. Due to the organizational structure of their nervous systems, no complex synchronized oscillatory patterns comparable to the brain rhythms that accompany sleep in mammals and birds have been observed in these animals. However, many behavioral observations, pharmacological tests, and studies with genetic mutations suggest that these animals do sleep. Cockroaches display a state characterized by an enhancement of immobility in response to an episode of forced activity, even against their usual drive for activity at this time of their circadian rhythm (Tobler, 1983). In fruit flies, all behavioral criteria for sleep are fulfilled (Hendricks et al., 2000; Shaw et al., 2000). Similar findings have been made in zebrafish, a simple vertebrate that already shares some of the basic brain anatomy with higher species. This includes some neuronal circuits, implicated in sleep control, that are shared between fish and humans. It is still hotly debated whether the described “sleeplike states” in such evolutionary distant animals should be labeled as sleep. However, the great degree of biological similarity between rest-activity patterns in these animals and sleep-wake patterns in humans regarding behavior, neurochemical regulation, and genetic underpinnings are striking. This suggests that the study of organisms such as cockroaches, fruit flies, and zebrafish can provide a remarkable insight into the fundamental regulation of activity and rest and may help us in revealing the function of sleep despite the absence of characteristic brain rhythms. Challenge 2: Sleep without Rest—Can Animals Sleep While They’re Moving? Animals that continuously move, such as marine mammals and some birds, appear to stand in contradiction of behavioral sleep-defining criteria (see the “Evolutionary Perspectives on Sleep” section in this chapter). The brain activity of cetaceans (i.e., whales, dolphins, and porpoises) exhibits a slow oscillatory pattern,

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which is characteristic of NREM sleep, in only one brain hemisphere at a time (Mukhametov et al., 1977). Yet, it is unclear whether these species express the second important sleep stage, REM, or whether the movement of these animals is impaired (given that they need to surface to breathe). In semiaquatic marine mammals, such as eared seals, unihemispheric sleep mostly occurs when sleeping in water. When on land, fur seals tend to exhibit bihemispheric sleep activity, with NREM-REM cycles, alongside behavioral quiescence analogous to land mammals. Taken together, these findings indicate that an adapted version of “sleep” occurs under ecological constraints. Another prominent example of dissociation between movement and brain state is found in frigatebirds, who fly nonstop for many days and weeks. However, telemetry EEG recordings revealed an occurrence of brief episodes of sleep, often restricted to one hemisphere, even during flight (Rattenborg et al., 2016). Still, the total amount of sleep in frigatebirds was surprisingly low, which raises the possibility that some species may obtain a form of covert sleep that is not easily detectable based on electrophysiological recordings. Challenge 3: Sleep as a Local Phenomenon—Can Individual Brain Systems Vary in Sleep Need and Switch Off during Wakefulness? So far, we have discussed sleep as an on-and-off phenomenon where the whole brain—or under extreme circumstances one-half of the brain—is asleep. However, more fine-scale recordings of brain activity during sleep have challenged this assumption. It has been shown that the depth of sleep, indicated by the amount of slow wave activity in electroencephalographic recordings, can vary between hemispheres and even between smaller brain regions (Krueger & Tononi, 2011). Interestingly, the depth of sleep in an area appears to correlate with the previous use. For example, if a region extensively involved in performing a specific task has undergone extensive use during wakefulness, it would show more slow wave activity during subsequent sleep. Also, the inverse relationship holds true: when one arm was immobilized during the day, the electrodes placed over brain regions for motor control and sensation in this arm picked up a reduced amount of slow wave activity. This indicates that not all of the brain sleeps in the same way at all times. Furthermore, some experiments have provided insights that small regions of the brain can “switch off ” during apparent wakefulness if they have undergone extensive use (Vyazovskiy et al., 2011). While the animal is behaviorally awake and overall brain activity shows a wake-like pattern, local intrusions of slow wave activity can occur on a small scale. Interestingly, these local appearances of sleepcharacteristic brain activity correspond to temporary failures of the underlying system and errors in apparently simple tasks, such as rats missing when reaching for a food pellet or humans responding with vast delay in a reaction-time task. More recently, local slow waves have even been described during active wakefulness in non-sleep-deprived animals. These and other experiments evidencing the existence of “local sleep” during wakefulness imply that neither the behavioral nor the brainactivity-based definitions of sleep appear to apply.

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Overall, the study of various animal species and recordings of fine-scale brain activity have vastly broadened our understanding of sleep and its manifold manifestations. However, this variety in presentations and electrical patterns of sleep makes a unitary definition impossible and leads to the, slightly unsatisfying, realization that sleep may not be one but many processes. However, this separation of sleep presentations may yield a great advantage when approaching sleep function. Instead of focusing the endeavor on defining the single core function of sleep, it is perhaps more feasible to categorize similar sleep processes regarding their presentation and exploring their roles in maintaining body and brain integrity. HOW TO ADDRESS SLEEP F UNCTION? The hypotheses for sleep are many and varied, and most of these hypotheses are based on an implicit assumption that sleep is necessary for survival. If it were not absolutely essential, the evolutionary process would have eliminated it early on or it would have never evolved. Other corollaries of the hypothesis that sleep has an essential function are that sleep deprivation leads to a compensatory response and to various deficits that can only be compensated by sleep. An alternative view posits that sleep is a form of adaptive inactivity or a default state, which merely, or perhaps most fundamentally, reflects a state that is most economical from the energetic point of view while still allowing rapid reversibility and quick responses to environmental demands. Sleep appears to represent an elaborate form of rest, which likely evolved early in response to the periodicity of day and night, that provided a powerful temporal framework for compartmentalizing essential physiological and biochemical processes in relation to varying levels of ultraviolet radiation (which could be damaging for macromolecule biosynthesis and DNA replication), food availability, and temperature fluctuations. Subsequently, sleep assumed a relative independence from the biological clock; for example, the animals could sleep depending on external factors as well as internal homeostatic needs. Before we address the most influential hypotheses for sleep, we will attempt to classify them according to several essential criteria. Level of Organization First, and most generally, the question arises whether sleep benefits the brain or the body. Traditionally, our definitions of sleep are brain-centric, and the effects of acute sleep deprivation are most readily observable at the behavioral level. This suggests that our understanding of sleep cannot be achieved without an understanding of its neural substrates. However, it is important to realize that sleep and wake are accompanied by dramatic changes in circulating hormones, metabolic rates, and immune function. An intrinsic property of living systems is that they are characterized by an architecture where distinct levels of organization are bidirectionally causally linked to other levels—from the global manifestation of behavior to subcellular and molecular processes. Therefore, while it is likely that the function of

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sleep is ultimately to be found at the molecular level, such as membrane repair or replenishment of glycogen stores, the global behavioral shutdown appears necessary for these processes to take place effectively. Importance Although sleep is undoubtedly necessary for survival, it is possible that some sleep functions are more necessary than others. It cannot be excluded that the broad deleterious consequences of insufficient, disrupted, or mistimed sleep may reflect a breakdown at multiple levels and arise from a disruption of numerous sleep functions. But it is also possible that sleep provides a convenient time window for those processes to occur that, in principle, do not require sleep as such. Therefore, sleep may have both vital and auxiliary or secondary functions, which may be difficult to disentangle. This means that some of the most pronounced changes associated with sleep may reflect changes occurring as a function of sleep, rather than changes that concern sleep’s function. An additional difficulty is that the primary function of sleep, which underpinned its emergence hundreds of millions years ago, could have been lost, and thus it may be extremely difficult to track the primary sleep function back to its origin. Measurement There is no agreement on how to assess sleep function or how a hypothesis on sleep function should be tested. Sleep deprivation is one of the most widely used tools, but sleep cannot be eliminated altogether. Even if it appears that sleep was reduced or abolished, rather, it was replaced by another state, such as wakefulness. Therefore, the effects of sleep deprivation, for example, on the stress axis, may be confounded by the occurrence of competing states. Traditionally, the function of sleep has been tested by measuring the dynamics of a certain variable of interest as a function of sleep-wake state as well as after a challenge of sleep deprivation. Conversely, the variables can be artificially varied to investigate the influence of this manipulation on sleep. How Are the Benefits of Sleep Realized? Finally, it is essential to consider how sleep provides a specific function. It is possible that the same function can be fulfilled by different means and, at least in theory, by radically different mechanisms. It has been argued that this explains why sleep can take many different forms across the animal kingdom, and according to this view, sleep could ultimately be defined functionally (sleep is not how it looks but what it does). A related aspect is that the function of sleep, as a behaviorally defined state, may be several levels of organization away from its ultimate target. For example, slow waves and sleep spindles may contribute to synaptic plasticity, and, arguably, sleep is not necessary as long as these types of network oscilla­ tions can occur in any state of vigilance. Another example is sensory disconnection

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during sleep, which may be essential for off-line information processing and reo­ rganization of memories, but it may also be an epiphenomenon of the occurrence of slow waves in the thalamocortical network, which instead provide metabolic recovery. We propose that this kind of argument is useful for making important advances in our understanding of sleep function. INFLUENTIAL THEORIES OF SLEEP F UNCTION Sleep functions have been postulated on very different levels, ranging from the molecular to the cognitive levels. While the different levels have traditionally been investigated separately by biologists and psychologists, modern neuroscience is about to merge the collective evidence into more comprehensive theories. The following overview of sleep-specific processes from the molecular to the cognitive levels will illustrate that no theory can currently provide an overarching explanation for the crucial need for sleep. However, putting the pieces of evidence together, some indispensable values of sleep emerge, which together most likely constitute the core function of sleep. Macromolecule Biosynthesis and Intracellular Repair Neuronal loss in the central nervous system causes irreparable damage because the damaged areas or networks cannot be replaced. Therefore, preventative restorative mechanisms may be more important for the brain than for any other organ. Neurons have high metabolic demands due to their electric excitability and release of neurotransmitters. It has been argued that to match these special needs for recovery, the brain must have implemented mechanisms that allow timely rest for individual neurons. A likely requirement for cellular restoration would be to avoid neuronal activity that interferes with ongoing repair. For this reason, a decoupling of a single neuron, a set of neurons, or the entire brain from incoming stimuli appears to be a suitable mechanism to optimize the recovery process. This could be implemented by variable responsiveness of neurons to electrical input in a simple nervous system, whereas synchronized “down” states of neurons in more complex brains might fulfill the role of coordinating recovery processes across large neuronal populations (Vyazovskiy & Harris, 2013). Although the proposal of precise timing mechanisms of brain recovery during sleep is largely speculative, evidence suggests that the biosynthesis of macromolecules involved in metabolic pathways and structural synaptic plasticity is increased during sleep. For example, gene expression studies have described sleep-specific modulation for two major categories of genes involved in structural elements of biosynthesis pathways and intracellular transport, which suggests that sleep might actively favor molecular recovery processes (Cirelli et al., 2004; Mackiewicz et al., 2007). Gene expression studies looking into the effects of sleep deprivation indicate that the production of chaperones and heat shock proteins is upregulated after extended wakefulness. These elements have been implicated in the coordinated reaction to cellular stress. Fruit flies lacking a specific heat shock protein are highly vulnerable to the demands of extended wakefulness and die much earlier from

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sleep deprivation than normal fruit flies. A similar line of research suggests sleep allows a reduction in the generation of protein fragments (excessively produced during wakefulness) and facilitates their elimination (Varshavsky, 2012). Overall, many studies indicate a protective and restorative function of sleep for the brain. While this hypothesis provides a good explanation for the need to largely disconnect the brain from environmental influences, many sleep phenomena in higher animals, such as the role of REM sleep, are not considered. Brain Detoxification Via Intra- and Extracellular Metabolite Clearance Biochemical clearance of brain metabolites

Neuronal activity comes at the cost of the accumulation of waste products resulting from metabolic processes within the cell and from neurochemical signaling between the cells. Many of these remnants of brain signaling, such as reactive oxygen species or high levels of the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate, are toxic to neurons and need to be recycled or cleared to maintain the functionality and integrity of the brain. A very popular view about the function and regulation of sleep is that metabolites build up during wakefulness and mediate a sleep-promoting effect. Sleep then provides a favorable environment for waste clearance, allowing the brain to reduce the load of toxic substances (Inoué et al., 1995). This view on sleep had already been formulated in the early 20th century in the Ishimori-Piéron hypnotoxin theory. It was triggered by the observation that somnolence could be induced in dogs by replacing an equal volume of their own cerebrospinal fluid with the cerebrospinal fluid of fatigued dogs that had been kept awake for several days. With advances in the understanding of biochemical pathways over the following decades, hypotheses concerning the nature of possible sleep-regulating substances developed. One suggestion is that sleep has an antioxidant function via the reduction of reactive oxygen species (Reimund, 1994). These “free radicals” are produced through mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and cause damage to proteins, lipids, and DNA. As the accumulation of free radicals depends on the metabolic rate, it can be expected that animals with faster metabolisms should require more sleep. This matches general observations in the animal kingdom. In addition, it has been suggested that free radicals are the mediator of neuronal damage resulting from overstimulation (or “excitotoxicity”) by the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate. This mechanism can be counteracted by the antioxidant glutathione. Interestingly, glutathione appears to have sleep-promoting effects, supposedly via a reduction of glutamatergic neurotransmission. The “free radical flux theory” of sleep fits with a number of observations, such as the occurrence of excessive sleep after epileptic seizures or increased intensity of slow waves in the regions of the brain that have been used extensively during wakefulness. However, it does not provide an explanation for why an increased arousal threshold is necessary during sleep. In addition, while correlations between metabolic activity and sleep exist, more experimental evidence is required to probe whether free oxygen species or other waste products mediate the sleep-promoting effect.

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Flushing waste from the brain’s extracellular space

A recent theory proposed that sleep also serves waste clearance in the central nervous system on the macroscopic scale. This hypothesis is based on the description of a transport system for cerebrospinal fluid in the brain’s interstitial space (between nerve cells). It has been shown that during sleep and anesthesia the interstitial space widens by about 60 percent, promoting rapid fluid exchange and solute clearance in the surrounding nerve cells (Xie et al., 2013). This convective mech­ anism can prevent the accumulation of toxic levels of soluble proteins, including amyloid-β and tau, two proteins implicated in the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease. As the brain lacks the conventional lymphatic system, which conveys interstitial fluid back into the bloodstream, this glial-cell–mediated transport network has been named the glymphatic system. The hypothesis that sleep promotes metabolite clearance from the brain adds an exciting new component to our understanding of sleep’s role in health and disease. From a clinical perspective, this mechanism may provide an explanation for the exacerbating effects of sleep disturbances on neurodegenerative disorders. However, many fundamental questions regarding the glymphatic system are still unanswered, such as the next step in the route of waste drainage from the cerebrospinal fluid into the bloodstream. Similarly, the clinical implications are still in a very preliminary stage, as it is a technical challenge to probe the existence and functionality of this system in the human brain. Although the theory of waste clearance via the glymphatic system is appealing, it needs to be questioned whether this is a primary or accessory function of sleep. Phylogenetic considerations suggest that this mechanism developed rather late in evolution, as it seems unlikely that invertebrates, with their less densely packed nervous systems, need such a flow-based waste clearance system. On the functional level, it is unclear why increased convective flow in the brain would require a reduced responsiveness to external stimuli and could not instead be performed during resting wakefulness. Energy Conservation and Replenishment of Energy Stores All organisms strive for efficient use and conservation of energy. An influential view on sleep function is that sleep optimizes energy expenditure in the body and brain. Experimental evidence in support of this theory stems from the close mutual relationship between the regulatory mechanisms of sleep and metabolic processes. A central idea of metabolic sleep theories is that energy supply determines the timing and duration of wakefulness, and sleep can provide an efficient strategy to preserve energy during inactive periods by reduction of body temperature and metabolic rate and allows adaptation to conditions of sparse food supply. Thereby, it is postulated that sleep serves as a flexible tool for energy conservation and utilization. Energy conservation during sleep

The availability of food resources is one of the strongest regulators of sleep (Berger & Phillips, 1995). It has been shown that by restricting feeding to the

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circadian phase in which an animal species usually sleeps, the wake-sleep rhythm can be inverted while the circadian pacemakers continue in alignment with the light-dark cycle. The timing and duration of sleep both depend on the availability of food. The daily duration of sleep increases under fasting conditions, and sleep under starvation is accompanied by a greater decline in body temperature than observed when food is freely available. It has been suggested that sleep represents an evolutionary compromise between energy expense and behavioral responsiveness. On one hand, compared to continuous wakefulness, sleep enables energy conservation during rest and recovery with minimal impairment of critical biological functions. On the other hand, sleep is superior to torpor, a state of low energy demands and considerably reduced body temperature and behavioral responsivity. In summary, reduced temperature and physiological function during sleep help conserve energy while the light sensory disconnection from the outside world limits the dangers of predation and adverse events compared to lower metabolic states such as torpor. Replenishment of brain energy stores during sleep

Nerve cells have disproportionately high metabolic demands. The human brain represents only 2 percent of the body mass, but it accounts for approximately 20 percent of the total energy consumption. Considering this extraordinary metabolic requirement, it has been argued that the waking brain might utilize its energy at an unsustainable rate; therefore, the brain’s energy stores need to be replenished during sleep. It was initially postulated that the accumulation of adenosine, a breakdown product of the universal energy carrier adenosine triphosphate, in the extracellular space represents the biochemical substrate of the increasing sleep need during wakefulness (Benington & Heller, 1995). The relevance of adenosine as a sleep-regulatory substance is increasingly understood. Adenosine levels in some brain areas, most prominently in the BF, increase progressively during wakefulness and sleep deprivation, but they slowly decline during sleep (Porkka-Heiskanen, 1997). Furthermore, it is now understood that adenosine can deepen and prolong sleep by acting on the neuronal adenosine A1 receptor at specific brain regions. While the role of adenosine as a proxy and mediator of sleep need is validated, other sleep regulatory substances are being discovered, some of which are related to other physiological functions, such as inflammation, neuronal plasticity, or anabolic processes. Taken together, sleep and metabolic regulation are clearly interlinked. Nevertheless, a mere view of sleep as an energy-saving mechanism appears insufficient, considering the existence of sleep in cold-blooded species and the timely need for recovery sleep even after short periods of sleep deprivation. The findings on the molecular regulation of sleep need by adenosine and other sleep-regulatory substances demonstrate that metabolic needs in the brain are reflected by a metabolic feedback mechanism to enforce sleep. However, the abundance of molecular sleep regulators besides energetic substrates underscores that several homeostatic processes engage in a cross talk to fine-tune the molecular sleep pressure. The separation of neuronal metabolic processes provides a putative explanation for the

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primary function of sleep, as it explains the immediate need for recovery sleep after sleep deprivation. However, essential questions remain about why the global reduction of sensory function is required during the metabolic recovery phase and why this restorative process does not occur in a temporal sequence of brain regions to reduce the vulnerability of the organism. Memory Consolidation and Brain Plasticity Influential theories on sleep function agree on the view that the primary benefits of sleep occur in the brain rather than in the body. This notion is largely based on two lines of evidence. First, the most prominent difference between sleep and wakefulness is observed in brain activity. Especially slow rhythms are a hallmark of sleep, and their synchronization and amplitude present a characteristic and reliable increase after sleep deprivation and decrease during sleep. Thereby, the best marker for sleep and sleep need is brain activity (Borbély, 1982). Second, during sleep deprivation, the earliest and most profound changes of physiological functions occur in the brain. Specifically, attention and the ability to memorize decline significantly with prolonged wakefulness and can only be replenished by sleep. Sleep even seems to play an active role in the consolidation of memory traces, which cannot be fulfilled by quiet wakefulness. Consolidation and transformation of memory during sleep

An influential hypothesis proposes that memory undergoes an active systems consolidation during sleep, and sleep is crucial for the formation of long-lasting memory traces in the brain (also see the “Memory Consolidation and Dreaming” section in Chapter 3). A beneficial role of sleep in memory consolidation—the critical engraving step after the initial encoding of memories—has been demonstrated in various experiments for more than a century. However, the novel aspect of the active systems consolidation theory is that sleep does not simply potentiate memories, but it has a dual role in promoting consolidation and elimination of memory traces (Feld & Born, 2017). This seemingly contradictory dualism of remembering and forgetting is proposed to be crucial for the selection of important memories and their integration into an existing memory schema. In this view, sleep aids gist extraction rather than unselective strengthening of memories. This theory reconciles the opposing findings on two biological processes during sleep. On one side, neuronal activity patterns corresponding to events during the wake period can be replayed during sleep, a process that enhances the probability for successful memory recall. As this off-line reactivation of memory traces during sleep occurs in a coordinated pattern across various brain areas, it is thought that it solidifies memories by aiding the transformation of short-term memory into long-term memory. On the other side, many biological conditions during sleep favor the elimination rather than the potentiation of memory traces. For example, the number of dendritic spines, the receptive parts of neurons that are relevant for the strength of their connection with other neurons, are diminished during sleep in adolescent rats. Similarly, certain receptors for the excitatory neurotransmitter

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glutamate, which determine the intensity of a signal received by one neuron from another, decrease during sleep. These and other experimental findings on the reduction of relevant cellular structures for communication between neurons have been interpreted as indirect evidence for a general decline of memory traces during sleep. In addition, the neurochemical milieu during sleep is unfavorable for augmentation of neuronal connections. During sleep, there’s a global reduction in neuromodulators that promote the strengthening of synapses. Taken together, the key tenet of the active systems consolidation hypothesis is that sleep facilitates gist extraction and memory integration by an intricate interplay of consolidating mechanisms that protect and transform important memories and of eradicating mechanisms that diminish less relevant traces. While this theory provides a good explanation for the memory-modulating effects of sleep, the underlying biological processes remain largely elusive. Despite preliminary evidence that the enhancement and forgetting of memories depends on the encoded memory load, it is uncertain which neuronal mechanism tips the balance toward one or the other side. Furthermore, replay phenomena have also been observed during wakefulness, and it is unclear on which neurobiological grounds the transformation of memory into a long-term storage is established. While a synchronization of specific brain rhythms during sleep appears to be crucial for memory consolidation, there is only very preliminary knowledge on how these patterns contribute to the solidification of memory in brain structure. Scaling of synaptic neuronal connections during sleep

A cellular theory of sleep function, which directly relates to the modulation of memory traces and brain plasticity, is the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis. Acknowledging the limited energy and space resources of the brain, it states that sleep serves the recalibration of synaptic strength to keep its energy demands stable. According to this theory, a global downscaling process of synaptic connections during sleep normalizes their average strength to a sustainable level after an increase during wakefulness (Tononi & Cirelli, 2003). Over repeated cycles of wakefulness and sleep, the specific potentiation of relevant neuronal synaptic connections during learning in the awake state and the unspecific weakening of synaptic connections during sleep lead to a sharpening of the contrast between important and unimportant connections. Thereby, the brain can establish solid memory traces represented by strong neuronal connectivity between specific subsets of neurons without demanding additional space or energy overall. Rarely used connections gradually recede, and without them irrelevant memories fade (Tononi & Cirelli, 2014). The synaptic homeostasis hypothesis provides an elegant explanation of how the critical combination of plasticity and stability might be realized in brain physiology. Several findings support this theory. First, the levels of many crucial components of synaptic connections increase during wakefulness and decrease during sleep. Second, electrical or transcranial magnetic stimulation combined with EEG recordings show increased excitability and other indirect measures of elevated synaptic strength after extended wakefulness and sleep deprivation while the ability to elicit

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brain plasticity decreases. In line with this finding, brain areas that are used most intensely during wakefulness appear to sleep most deeply. Third, recent measurements of individual synaptic connections using electron microscopy demonstrated that the average size of synapses is significantly reduced after sleep compared to wake, and the strongest synapses appear to be spared from this downscaling process. The synaptic homeostasis hypothesis also explains the characteristic reduction of responsiveness to sensory stimuli during sleep, as a distributed homogenous downscaling may require an isolation from interfering inputs into subsystems. However, despite the growing evidence for plasticity-mediated structural changes in the sleeping brain, many aspects of sleep are not sufficiently accounted for by this hypothesis. For example, the occurrence for sleep in brains deprived of waking experience, such as in utero or in patients in the persistent vegetative state, suggests that plasticity-independent processes also crucially require sleep. Also, the finding of selective growth of dendritic spines during sleep after a learning task contradicts the binary view of synaptic growth during wakefulness and shrinkage during sleep. In addition, the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis does not provide an explanation for various aspects of mammalian sleep, such as the alternation of NREM and REM episodes or the mediating influences of such various sleep-modulating processes as temperature, food, or circadian timing. While synaptic scaling provides a biological rationale for sensory disconnection and homeostatic regulation of sleep, the current knowledge on the underlying mechanisms and the interface with other sleep modulators is scarce. CONCLUSION The evolutionary conservation of sleep makes it likely that sleep is essential and inevitable, but despite demonstration of diverse benefits of sleep for brain and body, the core function of sleep remains an enigma. Sleep appears to provide a window for biosynthesis, repair, and detoxification, especially in the brain. The interconnection between the regulatory mechanisms of body temperature, metabolic expenditure, and sleep indicates the role of sleep in energy management. Furthermore, sleep aids memory consolidation, most likely via a combination of replay of memory traces and rescaling of synaptic connections. Any hypothesized core function for sleep must explain the reduced responsiveness to sensory inputs and the compensatory rebound after extended wakefulness—two central features of sleep observed across organisms.

Chapter 2

THE NEUROSCIENCE OF DREAMING

The aim in Chapter 2 is to explain what happens in the brain when we are dreaming, that is, to describe the possible neurobiological and neurophysiological correlates of dream experiences. First, the electroencephalographic (EEG) correlates of dreaming and dream recall are covered, followed by a section on neuroimaging studies on dreaming that have looked at the brain activation patterns related to dreaming with functional imaging methods, such as positron-emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Although these studies can tell us which brain areas are active or inactive during dreaming, they tell us little about the neurochemistry of dreaming. The section on the neurochemistry of dreaming explores which neurotransmitters and neuromodulators are involved in creating dream experiences, and it discusses how various chemical agents, such as different types of medication, illegal drugs, or botanical agents, affect dreaming. This section also contrasts theories that aim to explain dreaming in the context of neurochemistry to the empirical findings of how altering the levels of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators truly affect dreaming. Finally, the last section discusses how dreaming can be altered, either enhanced or abolished, by damage to specific brain areas.

Electroencephalographic Correlates of Dreaming Alejandro Ezquerro-Nassar and Valdas Noreika

Electroencephalography (EEG) measures electrical potentials of the summated activity of millions of neurons, as recorded from the scalp. Popularly referred to as

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“brain waves,” these potentials are divided into different frequency bands, namely, delta (0.5–3 Hz), theta (4–7 Hz), alpha (8–12 Hz), beta (13–30 Hz), and gamma (> 30 Hz) waves. From a multitude of available signal processing methods, researchers working on sleep EEG usually analyze the spectral power of different frequency bands recorded by individual electrodes placed over the frontal, central, temporal, parietal, and occipital regions of the scalp. Furthermore, a large number of EEG electrodes provides a possibility to study interactions between different brain regions, for example, by measuring phase synchronization or coherence of an EEG frequency of interest. This chapter will examine how some of these frequencies, sites, or their interactions correlate with dreaming. HISTORICAL NOTES EEG research of dreaming started at the end of 1930s, when several important observations were being made by investigators studying sleep EEG. Using qualitative EEG analysis, dreaming was suggested to correlate with low-amplitude waves ( 10% of patients; (++) some drugs with this activity induce this effect in 1%–10% of patients; (+) an idiosyncratic effect for some agents in this group or a withdrawal effect; (–) reported in less than 1% of patients using agents with this effect.

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nightmares come from benzodiazepine clinical trials (Thompson & Pierce, 1999). The selective GABA nonbenzodiazepine hypnotics (e.g., zopiclone) are also associated with the occurrence of nightmares in clinical trials, as are other antidepressant agents affecting GABA reuptake inhibition. The finding that drugs affecting the GABA receptors in both positive and negative ways (agonists, modulators, and reuptake inhibitors) can result in patient complaints of nightmares, and abnormal dreaming suggests that GABA is a primary modulator of neuronal populations involved in dreaming and nightmares. See also Table 7.2 for a summary of drug effects on sleepiness, insomnia, and dreaming. Serotonin Many antidepressants exert effects at serotonin receptors. Most antidepressants also suppress REM sleep. This effect is greatest for the older types of antidepressants, including the monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) and the tricyclic antidepressants (e.g., amitriptyline and imipramine). However, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) (e.g., paroxetine and sertraline) are also potent suppressors of REM sleep. Almost all antidepressants are reported in clinical trials to induce nightmares in some patients. Paroxetine is the one agent that in clinical trial studies produces a statistically significant increase in reported nightmares when compared to placebo. Intense visual dreaming and nightmares are also associated with the acute withdrawal from some antidepressants. Studies of chronic steady-state use and antidepressant withdrawal have shown inconsistent effects: increased dream recall with SSRIs, and with the older tricyclic, no effect and decreased recall (Pace-Schott et al., 2000). Dopamine Dopamine receptor stimulation commonly results in the reported side effect of drug-induced nightmares. Dopamine, bromocriptine, pergolide, pramipexole, and other dopamine agonists can lead to vivid dreaming, nightmares, and night terrors. Abnormal dreaming can be the first sign of the development of drug-induced psychosis. Amphetamine use has been linked to nightmares (16% of nightmare reports from clinical trials). This effect has been postulated to occur secondary to dopamine receptor stimulation (Thompson & Pierce, 1999). Norepinephrine Many of the drugs in general use for treating high blood pressure (hypertension) affect norepinephrine receptors. Both beta and alpha-1 adrenergic antagonists have been shown to affect both REM sleep and reports of dreaming. These agents are used clinically in the treatment of recurrent nightmares in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Yet, beta blockers and alpha-agonists are responsible for 34 percent of clinical trials in which nightmares are reported as an adverse effect (Thompson & Pierce, 1999). The reported effects of these agents on both dreams and nightmares are often opposite to the drug’s known pharmacological

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effects on REM sleep. Decreases in dream recall occur with the use of both alphaagonists (e.g., minoxidil) that are REM suppressants and beta blockers (e.g., propranolol and atenolol) that do not suppress REM sleep. The use of beta blockers depresses REM sleep percentages, yet also results in reports of increased dreaming, nightmares, and sleep-onset hallucinations (Pagel & Helfter, 2003). Histamine Case reports indicate that the commonly used antihistamine chlorpheniramine induces nightmares in some patients. Because of the high frequency of use of overthe-counter preparations containing this medication for sleep induction and the treatment of allergies, this may be the medication most likely to be responsible for drug-induced disordered dreaming and nightmares. As a majority of these agents are used without prescription, little controlled clinical trial data is available as regards these agents. Antipsychotics known to induce nightmares, such as clozapine and olanzapine, exert their actions primarily at histaminic neuroreceptors. Nicotine Nicotine affects muscarinic cholinergic receptors. However, specific nicotine receptors acting as neuromodulators have been demonstrated to be present throughout the CNS with demonstrated regional variance and with a diversity of effects on receptor systems. Clinically, transdermal nicotine patches are reported to induce abnormal dreaming. In some clinical trials, this effect of inducing “bad dreams” has been serious enough to contribute to treatment failure (Ivere et al., 2003). Varenicline, a selective nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonist approved for smoking cessation, induces abnormal dreaming in 13 percent of clinical trial participants. OTHER MEDICATIONS REPORTED TO INDUCE DISORDERED DREAMING Agents Affecting Host Defense Infectious diseases are sometimes associated with the complaint of nightmares. Sleep loss affects host defense and cellular immune function. A diverse group of antibiotics, antivirals, and immunosuppressant drugs can induce the complaint of sedation, insomnia, and nightmares for some patients. An interaction exists between host defense and infectious disease as well as between the cognitive effects on sleep and dreaming for these agents. Anesthetics Agents that alter an individual’s conscious relationship to the external environment are known to alter dream and nightmare occurrence. Many of the agents reported to cause altered dreaming are induction anesthetics utilized in surgery.

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An increased incidence of “pleasant” dreams is reported with propofol use (Marsh et al., 1992). The barbiturate thiopental, the dissociative drug ketamine, and the opiate tramadol have produced disordered dreaming and nightmares. Some of the agents associated with the complaint of nightmares also can induce waking hallucinations and confusion (e.g., fleroxacin, which is an antibiotic; triazolam, which is a sedative; amphetamines, which are CNS stimulants; and ethanol withdrawal). Withdrawal from Addictive Drugs Disordered dreaming and nightmares are commonly reported during the withdrawal from addictive medications and drugs of abuse. This finding has been viewed as secondary to REM sleep rebound during withdrawal from REM sleep– suppressant medication. Nightmares and disordered dreaming are often reported, however, as part of the withdrawal syndrome from addictive drugs, such as cannabis, cocaine, and opiates—drugs not known to affect REM sleep (Bundley et al., 2001). Disturbed dreaming and nightmares are more likely an intrinsic part of the process of withdrawal from addictive agents rather than a symptom of REM sleep rebound. Other Medications Inducing Altered Dreaming—Case Report Data As noted in the introduction, almost all pharmacologic agents have been reported to alter dreaming anecdotally for some individuals. These reports are particularly common for agents that have theoretical justifications for such a possibility (e.g., agents known to affect REM sleep). However, it is exceedingly rare for studies utilizing such case reports to utilize time-honored pharmacological approaches such as dechallenge (assessing whether the complaint goes away with drug discontinuation) and rechallenge (assessing whether the complaint recurs with reinstitution of the drug). Drugs so identified for their effects on nightmares as based on case reports utilizing the techniques of dechallenge and rechallenge include digoxin and verapamil (used to treat heart condition) and Naprosyn (an anti-inflammatory drug)— agents with limited cognitive side effects and no known effects on REM sleep. NEUROMODULATION SYSTEMS WITH MINIMAL EFFECTS ON DREAMING Cholinergic neuronal populations have prominent roles in the control of the REM-NREM sleep cycle (Hobson & Steriade, 1986). A wide variety of pharmaceutical agents known to have anticholinergic activity suppress REM sleep in humans. The reported side effects of these agents include nightmares, disordered dreaming, and hallucinations. Recently, agents that act by increasing acetylcholine in the CNS by blocking anticholinesterase, the primary system utilized in the breakdown of acetylcholine, have come into widespread use for the treatment of the cognitive effects from early Alzheimer’s disease. Despite the known role of acetylcholine with the initiation of REM sleep, medications affecting acetylcholine

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are rarely reported to affect dreaming in controlled studies. Changes in dreaming were reported by only 3 of 747 patients taking the commonly used anticholinesterase drug donepezil (Aricept) in clinical trials, and effects are reported even less often for other agents in this class (Pagel & Helfter, 2003). It is thus quite clear that an anticholinergic or any other drug’s effect on REM sleep does not produce changes in dream content or frequency. Postulating otherwise and suggesting the use of such agents off-label to increase dream “lucidity” seems disingenuous. MEDICATIONS FOR TREATING P TSD-ASSOCIATED NIGHTMARES Medications used to treat PTSD run the gamut of the psychoactive pharmacopoeia. The current medications of choice for the treatment of PTSD are the SSRI antidepressants (Department of Veteran Affairs, 2013). Medications that have shown positive efficacy include antianxiety agents, nonbenzodiazepine hypnotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, anticonvulsants, and antipsychotics (Stein et al., 2006). Some patients with PTSD exhibit abnormalities in noradrenergic function. The antihypertensive agents in general use affecting noradrenergic CNS receptors have been shown to affect both REM sleep and reports of dreaming, with the reported effects of the agents on dreams and nightmares often the opposite to the drug’s known pharmacological effects on REM sleep. Decreases in dream recall occur with use of both alpha-agonists (REM suppressant) and beta blockers (non-REM suppressant). The alpha-agonist prazosin is most commonly used for the treatment of recurrent nightmares in PTSD patients. Significant decreases in disturbing dreams and improvement in both sleep onset and maintenance insomnia have been achieved short-term in PTSD patients. Maximizing treatment outcomes requires psychotherapy in addition to medication use. However, no form of pharmacological or psychotherapy has been shown to positively alter the long-term course of PTSD. CONCLUSION The following conclusions as to the association between drugs and dreaming have significant scientific and experimental support. First, many types of medications affect dreaming. These agents are primarily those known to induce sedation or insomnia or to affect an individual’s cognitive relationship to the environment. Altered dreaming and nightmares are also reported after the use of agents affecting host defense as well as during the withdrawal from addictive drugs. Second, it has never been shown in any high-quality scientific study that an agent’s effect on REM sleep is in any way associated with the agent’s effects on dreaming or nightmares. Third, while psychoactive medications may be a useful adjunct in the shortterm treatment of PTSD, none have been shown to alter the long-term course of the disease. Finally, for many psychoactive medications inducing alterations in dreaming, cognitive impairment can extend based on dose and individual susceptibility from drowsiness to confusion, hallucinations, and waking disassociation.

Chapter 8

DISTURBED DREAMING

Dreams can contain, or stimulate upon awakening, a dramatic range of emotions. The intense, impactful content of some dreams might linger into waking or cause us to act out the dream while still asleep. These are experiences of disturbed dreaming. They might be stimulated by deep, unresolved emotional situations, a traumatic event, or a major change or by loss, anger, sorrow, or fear. They may also be symptomatic of a mental or sleep disorder. What do we know about this phenomenon of disturbed dreaming?

Nightmares and Bad Dreams Nils Sandman

Nightmares are dreams that contain intense negative emotions. They may be such terrifying experiences that the dreamer wakes up sweating and trembling, and it takes a considerable amount of time to calm down enough to try to fall asleep again. The existence of dreaming, a private world generated by our minds during sleep, is already a strange phenomenon. What is even more peculiar is that our minds may show us such horrifying visions that we need to escape them by awakening from sleep. Still, nightmares exist, and they are not uncommon. Everyone has probably experienced a nightmare, and occasional nightmares appear to be quite normal and a harmless part of our dreaming life. However, some people experience nightmares several times a week, or even nightly, and frequent nightmares can be a serious problem. They may cause severe distress, are related to sleep and mental

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health problems, and increase risk for self-harm behaviors (also see Chapter 17 on “Nightmare Therapies”). DEFINING NIGHTMARES AND BAD DREAMS In science, it is important to precisely define the phenomenon under investigation. An uncontroversial definition enables people to refer to the same phenomenon when communicating or doing research. Although most people think they have a good grasp of what nightmares are, it is important to define exactly what is meant by nightmares in a scientific context before discussing them further. Alas, this in no easy task, and there is no consensus on a single definition. The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) defines nightmares in the following way: Nightmares are repeated occurrences of extended, extremely dysphoric and wellremembered dreams that usually involve efforts to avoid threats to survival, security, or physical integrity and that generally occur during the second half of the major sleep episode. On awakening from the dysphoric dreams, the individual rapidly becomes oriented and alert. (American Psychiatric Association, 2013)

The DSM-5 definition is significant because it is widely used by psychiatrists to diagnose mental disorders. According to the DSM-5, criterion for diagnosis of nightmare disorder includes repeated nightmares that also cause “clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important area of functioning,” and the nightmares cannot be attributed to a physiological effect caused by some substance or merely be a secondary symptom of a mental or medical disorder. While the DSM-5 definition of nightmares is currently used by most clinicians, the definition is not accepted by all researchers studying nightmares. Several researchers propose that for a dream to be classified as a nightmare, it should contain intense negative emotions and lead to an awakening (Levin & Nielsen, 2007; Zadra et al., 2000, 2006). Dreams that contain negative emotions but do not wake the dreamer should be called bad dreams, but true nightmares are so intense that they always lead to an awakening. Defining nightmares by the awakening criterion has several advantages: First, waking up from a dream is a clear behavioral sign that can be used to classify a dream as a nightmare. Second, dream diary studies have found that nightmares generally contain more intense negative emotions and have stronger relation to psychopathology than bad dreams. However, the difference between bad dreams and nightmares appears to be that of a degree and not of kind: Nightmares may represent the extreme end of dreams with intense negative emotions, but they are part of the same basic phenomenon as bad dreams. Therefore, it is somewhat arbitrary to define only those dreams that wake the dreamer as nightmares. In the science of dreaming, no single definition for nightmares currently exists that would be universally accepted or used. Some scientific studies of nightmares

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use the awakening criterion and distinguish between nightmares and bad dreams; other studies do not. The DSM-5 definition of nightmares does not include the awakening criterion, but the definition in the third edition of the International Classification of Sleep Disorders (ICSD-3) does. This is an unfortunate state of affairs for the scientific study of nightmares, as different definitions make comparing different sources of information about nightmares problematic. Regardless of these academic disputes, people in different cultures seem to have quite similar folk psychological understanding of what nightmares are. As a result, questionnaire studies that investigate nightmare frequency produce similar results in different parts of the world when they use different definitions of a nightmare or even when the meaning of nightmare is not defined. HOW TO STUDY NIGHTMARES The scientific study of dreaming is challenging because dreams are subjective experiences that cannot be directly measured without relying on retrospective recall and dream reports by the dreamer. In addition to the usual challenges of studying dreaming (reviewed in Chapter 5), the study of nightmares includes a few special issues of which the reader should be aware. The gold standard for studying dream content is a laboratory study where the participant is woken up during the night in controlled conditions, and a dream report is immediately collected. This method does not work well with nightmares because nightmares rarely occur in the laboratory setting. Nightmares are not as common as other dreams in the first place, and even frequent nightmare sufferers appear to have fewer nightmares in the laboratory setting than at home. As laboratory studies are expensive and labor-intensive, the number of participants that can be studied is usually very limited. Therefore, it is unlikely that enough nightmares can be collected in the laboratory setting to conduct rigorous research on nightmare frequency or content. Sleep logs or diaries filled in at home are the best method for collecting data on nightmare frequency and content. While the number of participants in these studies can be larger than in laboratory studies, it is still usually limited to a few hundred. Because frequent nightmares are uncommon, if data on nightmare content is desired, persons that have frequent nightmares are often selected to be the participants in nightmare content studies. This approach produces enough data for content analysis, but it also makes the sample of the study unrepresentative, as only data from frequent nightmare sufferers is included. This means that from the results concerning these selected participants, one cannot make generalizations concerning larger populations, such as all the people in the study country. As nightmares can be a clinical problem, information on nightmares in the general population is important. For data on the general population, large representative datasets, preferably containing thousands, or even tens of thousands, of participants, are required. The only feasible way to collect data from thousands of individuals is to use questionnaires. Although questionnaire studies of nightmares enjoy the highest number of participants, they are typically limited in the ways

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nightmares are measured—usually a few simple questions inquiring about nightmare frequency or themes over a long period of time. These kinds of questions, often presented retrospectively, pose the validity problem; it is unclear how well they actually measure nightmares as dream experiences. In fact, it can be argued that a retrospective questionnaire simply measures the participant’s cognitive judgment of whether he or she feels that he or she is a person who has nightmares, instead of measuring actual nightmare frequency or content (Sandman, 2017). IDIOPATHIC VERSUS POST-TRAUMATIC NIGHTMARES Nightmares can be divided into two main types based on their origin: idiopathic nightmares and post-traumatic nightmares. Idiopathic nightmares are intensive dysphoric dreams about something that has not really happened to the dreamer, for example, being chased by a monster. Though themes of idiopathic nightmares may have some relation to actual waking experiences, it is not immediately clear to the dreamer that the origin of the nightmare lies in specific waking experiences. In contrast, post-traumatic nightmares contain specific elements of an actual traumatic experience or may even accurately replicate the event. Both idiopathic and post-traumatic nightmares may be recurring—the dreamer has nightmares with very similar content several times—but recurrence is more common with posttraumatic nightmares compared to idiopathic nightmares. In questionnaire studies of young adults, the most common themes of idiopathic nightmares are a threat or direct attack against the dreamer’s physical integrity, being chased by something malevolent, falling, and interpersonal conflicts without direct physical aggression, for example, humiliation or infidelity (Robert & Zadra, 2014). While these themes are found to be the most common, that is, the most prevalent themes of nightmares, this simply means that a large portion of the participants who answered the questionnaire had sometimes experienced these themes. It does not mean that these themes are the most frequent themes or that most nightmares include these elements (see also Chapters 6, 17, and 18). There is huge variety in the content of nightmares, ranging from realistic dangerous situations to a sense of dread as a reaction to abstract patterns. The most common emotion in nightmares is fear, but around 50 percent of nightmares have some other dominant negative emotion, such as sadness, anger, or confusion. There is limited research on the age and gender differences in nightmare content. A few studies have observed that women report more nightmares about sexual harassment than men, and men report more dreams about catastrophes and war than women. In the nightmares of children, there are more animals and monsters, while the antagonists in adults’ nightmares are most often hostile male strangers. These themes also change with life changes (see Chapter 18). Post-traumatic nightmares are a normal reaction after a traumatic experience, such as a sudden loss of a loved one, being a subject of or a witness to a violent crime, or being involved in a serious accident. Most survivors of traumatic events have nightmares related to the traumatic event for some time after the trauma, but these generally disappear within a few months after the person has recovered

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from the trauma. However, a minority of trauma survivors develop a long-term problem called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In PTSD, the person relives the traumatic experience via intrusive thoughts and flashbacks while awake and as a recurrent post-traumatic nightmare. Recurrent post-traumatic nightmares that accurately replicate the original trauma are often accompanied by other PTSD symptoms. Persons suffering from this condition also have symptoms of depression, heightened arousal toward trauma-related stimuli, and the tendency to avoid anything that reminds them of the trauma. PTSD can be a serious clinical problem that does not resolve without treatment (see Chapter 17 on “Nightmare Therapies”). PREVALENCE OF NIGHTMARES As opposed to post-traumatic nightmares, which are typical after experiencing a traumatic event, idiopathic nightmares do not have a clear triggering cause. Everyone will probably experience an occasional idiopathic nightmare now and then, and approximately half of adults report that they have at least one nightmare per month. Infrequent idiopathic nightmares thus appear to be a normal feature of dreaming. However, a small part of the population experiences frequent nightmares, which can cause significant distress, affect mental well-being, and may constitute a clinical problem. Among adults, 2–5 percent of the population report frequent nightmares (usually operationalized as one or more nightmares per week). The prevalence appears quite similar in studies conducted in different cultures, but it is affected by gender and age: women generally report more nightmares than men, and nightmare frequency changes with age (Li et al., 2010; Sandman et al., 2013; Schredl, 2010). Children experience more nightmares than adults, but it is hard to give exact figures for the prevalence of nightmares among children, as collecting high-quality data about dreaming from children is challenging (Gauchat et al., 2014). Most scientific evidence points to a pattern that, among adults, nightmares become more common with advancing age and women report more nightmares than men, but the gender difference is not observed among children or the elderly. In a study of Finnish adults, 2 percent of men and 4 percent of women aged 25–30 years reported frequent nightmares. With advancing age, nightmares became more common, and the gender difference diminished. At the age of 66–70 years, around 5 percent of both men and women reported frequent nightmares (Sandman, 2013). However, there are mixed results about the effect of age on nightmare frequency. Few studies have found that nightmares become less common with advancing age, instead of becoming more common. The gender difference, however, is consistently found in all studies. Nightmares are more common, compared to the general population, among populations with a greater chance of having had experienced traumatic events in their lives, and, as a result, many experience post-traumatic nightmares. For example, these kinds of populations include war veterans, refugees, law enforcement, and rescue workers.

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CORRELATES OF FREQUENT NIGHTMARES Frequent nightmares are often accompanied by other problems of well-being. At the moment, there is no clear understanding of the direction of causality between nightmares and the problems that accompany them. For example, we know that feelings of depression correlates with having frequent nightmares, but we cannot tell whether nightmares cause depression or whether depression causes nightmares. The answer is probably that there is complex interplay between the two, but at the moment, science can only reliably identify correlates of nightmares without a clear understanding of what is the cause and what is the effect. Several studies have found that nightmares have a connection with mental disorders. People with frequent nightmares are around five times more likely to suffer from a mental disorder than people who rarely have nightmares (Li et al., 2010). Besides PTSD, the mental disorder with the strongest correlation to nightmares is depression, with around a quarter of severely depressed people also reporting frequent nightmares. Nightmares also often co-occur with insomnia, and around 20 percent of people who frequently have problems falling or staying asleep have frequent nightmares (Sandman et al., 2015). Having frequent nightmares correlates with the use of substances that affect the structure of REM-NREM sleep cycle (also see the “Medication That Affects Dreams and Nightmares” section in Chapter 7). These kinds of substances include certain medications such as beta-blockers (most often used to treat hypertension) and some selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (most often used to treat depression). The most commonly used substance that affects the structure of sleep and increases the risk for nightmares is ethanol. Heavy use of alcohol is related to having more nightmares, and this makes alcohol a poor choice of self-medication for alleviating anxiety related to nightmares (Pagel & Helfter, 2003). Several researchers believe that certain kinds of personalities are more prone to nightmares than others. People who are imaginative, open to new experiences, and sensitive to sensory stimulation may develop nightmares more easily as a response to stress than people who are less open and less sensitive to new sensations and experiences (Hartmann, 1984). Although this idea has support from several experts, systematic research testing associations between personality and nightmares is scarce. Another idea related to personality and nightmares is the separation of nightmare frequency and nightmare distress. Persons who are emotionally highly reactive and vulnerable experience more nightmares as a result of stress from the environment, and they suffer more from their nightmares than those who are less prone to strong emotional reactions. There is some evidence that distress caused by nightmares has stronger correlation with problems of well-being than the actual number of nightmares, pointing toward a possibility that some persons are more vulnerable to nightmares and their ill effects because of their style of emotional reactivity (Levin & Nielsen, 2007). The most serious consequence related to nightmares is suicide risk. Several studies have found that people with frequent nightmares have higher risk for thoughts

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and actions related to self-harm, and even suicide, than those without nightmares (Sandman et al., 2017; Sjöström et al., 2007). However, while these results are statistically significant, the risk for self-harming behavior is very small to begin with, and most frequent nightmare sufferers do not harm themselves. Still, even a slight increase in suicide risk is a serious consequence, and thus the treatment of distressing and frequent nightmares is of importance. TREATMENT OF FREQUENT NIGHTMARES As previously established, frequent nightmares are often related to other problems of well-being, such as depression or post-traumatic stress. In cases like these, treatment of the accompanying problems may alleviate nightmares. However, as with sleep problems, nightmares may be more than a symptom of other underlying problems; they may also be one of the causes of the accompanying problems. Thus, nightmares may also be the primary problem for some people, and therefore effective and specific treatment for nightmares would be very beneficial. Unfortunately, simple and widely available treatments for nightmares are scarce. See Chapter 17 for a more in-depth discussion of nightmare therapies. The most scientifically studied treatments for nightmares are techniques based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) approach. These involve reexposure, which is recording or reimagining a specific nightmare while using relaxation techniques to reduce the anxiety related to the dream. With repeated sessions, this technique reduces the anxiety nightmares cause. The most studied form of cognitive behavioral therapy for nightmares is imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT), and it has been found to be moderately effective to reduce nightmare frequency and intensity among patients with PTSD (Casement & Swanson, 2012). Recently, there have also been studies that have found some evidence that Prazosin, a medication usually used to treat hypertension, reduces nightmares, at least among PTSD patients (Augedal et al., 2013) (see the “PTSD Nightmare Therapies” section in Chapter 17). Therapeutic work based on psychoanalytic tradition uses dreams and nightmares as part of the treatment process, and this may lead to positive results. However, systematic scientific evidence for the effectiveness of psychoanalytic dream work is lacking. There is also some evidence that training in lucid dreaming may benefit frequent nightmare sufferers, as, if successful, it grants the dreamer more control over her dreams (see the “Dream Lucidity and Nightmares” section in Chapter 17). However, there is no easy or reliable way to induce lucid dreams, which makes their usefulness as a treatment for nightmares limited. CONCLUSION Posttraumatic nightmares are a normal reaction after exposure to a traumatizing event, and they are distinguished from idiopathic nightmares that seem to have no specific triggering stimulus. Occasional nightmares are relatively common and harmless, but approximately 2–5 percent of population have frequent nightmares, women more often than men and children more often than adults.

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Frequent nightmares are often accompanied by other problems of well-being, such as depression, or sleep problems, especially insomnia. Yet, distress caused by nightmares is more strongly correlated with problems of well-being than the frequency of nightmares, pointing toward a possibility that personality traits may affect the vulnerability to the adverse effects of nightmares.

Dreaming in Parasomnias Isabelle Arnulf

NREM and REM sleep parasomnias are sleep disorders that involve abnormal movements, behaviors, emotions, perceptions, and dreams. They are usually tolerated until patients have disturbing nightmares, injure themselves or their partners, feel ashamed, or experience daytime symptoms, including fatigue and sleepiness. Despite the medical risks (including hematoma, laceration, fracture, and sometimes even death), these disorders are neglected: most patients are referred to sleep specialists several years after the parasomnia onset. NREM and REM parasomnias constitute an exceptional, direct window into the dreaming process. Because there is often an isomorphism between the observed behaviors and the dream content reported upon awakening, many parasomniac behaviors can be considered materialized indications of what is going on in the dream, thus making dream content visible to external observers. Consequently, this fascinating window can be used to formally test several hypotheses about dreaming, including whether the eyes scan the dream scenario during REM sleep and whether people who do not remember their dreams actually dream but just do not recall the dreams. NREM PARASOMNIAS Sleepwalking and Night Terrors Sleepwalking and night terrors include abnormal mental experiences and complex behaviors emerging from N3 sleep. Because they occur during partial awakenings from slow wave sleep, they are also called arousal disorders. Sleepwalking and night terrors are reported in 17 percent of children and 2–4 percent of adults. Most motor episodes begin with a sudden abnormal arousal: the sleeper raises her head, opens her eyes, and looks about in a confused manner, sometimes with concomitant verbal utterances, a condition referred to as confusional arousal. Following this common pattern of confusional arousal behavior, sleepwalkers may sit up in bed, stand up and walk, or handle and search for things, usually in a quiet but confused manner. In contrast, patients with night terrors scream or display the behavioral and autonomic signs of intense fear, and they may escape the bed or even jump out of a window, as if to avoid an imminent, life-threatening danger.

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Sleepwalking and night terrors show considerable overlap, including apparent arousal, mental confusion when awakened from an episode, complete or partial amnesia for the episode, and dangerous behaviors during the episode. Both disorders arise from slow wave sleep, frequently co-occur in the same patient (or within family), and seem to have a strong genetic background. Contrary to the belief that parasomnia is rare in the sleep laboratory context, video polysomnography of sleepwalkers frequently contains several confusional arousals from N3 sleep, abruptly interrupting the slow waves, but fully developed walking behaviors are rarer than at home. The surface EEG concomitant with the behavior contains diffuse delta rhythms (sometimes rhythmic and of high amplitude), diffuse alpha rhythms superimposed on delta rhythms, frontal delta rhythms contrasting with alpha posterior rhythms, or diffuse alpha rhythms. All these aspects (except the last) are specific markers of a “dissociated arousal”: some brain areas display an aspect of “wake,” whereas others remain “asleep.” A common model of arousal disorders suggests that three components interact to promote these behaviors, including (1) a predisposition to arousal disorders (mostly inherited, which may, for instance, determine higher slow wave activity, stronger sleep pressure, or a personal, abnormal pattern of awakening); (2) priming factors that increase slow wave sleep (e.g., sleep debt, fever), increase emotional load during sleep (e.g., strong daytime emotional experiences), or make arousals more difficult (e.g., sedative drugs, alcohol); and (3) precipitating factors such as sudden noises, physical contacts, and sleep-disordered breathing and periodic leg movements (rare in young adults). However, most abnormal arousals from slow wave sleep appear spontaneous. Recent evidence suggests that the arousal disorder is not restricted to NREM sleep because sleepwalkers also have a higher phasic motor activity during REM sleep than normal subjects (Haridi et al., 2017). Until recently, arousal disorders have frequently been described as amnestic behaviors, with patients displaying complex behaviors but having no recollection of their thoughts or behaviors the next morning. However, contrary to this common belief, the majority of adults who sleepwalk or have night terrors occasionally remember the mental content (which they frequently report as a dream or a nightmare) associated with their abnormal motor behavior (Oudiette et al., 2009). Consequently, many patients seeking medical advice for “nightmares” instead suffer from night terrors. Diagnostically, the belief in the absence of recall in arousal disorders, as opposed to the frequent recall of dream content in REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), is problematic. In fact, almost all (98%) patients with arousal disorders score positive on RBD screening questionnaires in which the recall of dream content is a diagnostic criterion (Haridi et al., 2017). An equal percentage of patients with arousal disorders, as with RBD, report the presence of vivid dreams, action-filled and aggressive dreams, and the concordance between dreams and behaviors. However, injury and fights are more often reported by patients with RBD than by patients with arousal disorders. The clarification that screening tools and questionnaires may confuse patients with arousal disorders with patients who have RBD is important in the context of epidemiology, because the frequency of RBD may have been

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overestimated by asking populations about dream-enactment behaviors (Ohayon et al., 1997). Similarly, the assumption that most benign dream-enactment behaviors (described by many students in questionnaires; see Nielsen et al., 2009) arise from REM sleep may be wrong: many may occur in NREM sleep. Many case reports illustrate the nature of mentation associated with sleepwalking and night terrors. In one case, a young patient rushed into the room where his parents were sitting and threw the butter dish out of the window, believing it to be a bomb. In another case, a sleepwalker threw his wife on the floor, ran to his two children, took them into his arms, and ran outside. He believed that the house was on fire. In a study with 43 adults with sleepwalking and night terrors, 71 percent reported at least one dream associated with a nighttime motor episode, with no major differences in the frequency and nature of dream content in sleepwalking versus night terrors. The dreams were mostly short, visual, and frequently unpleasant. In another set of 73 adults with sleepwalking and night terrors, 53 percent reported nightmarish mental content, where the sensation of threat to survival and the need to escape co-occurred with motor episodes. For example, the threats included a dangerous intruder trespassing in the room; collapsing walls, ceilings, or houses; being buried alive; animals, bugs, and spiders; choking; being chased or the urgent need to flee; a baby falling out of the bed or suffocating; or being in a running car or in a falling elevator without brakes. Two case series addressed the characteristics of dreamlike mentation in arousal disorders using content analysis (Table 8.1). Using the categorization developed by Hall and Van de Castle, 39 percent of patients with sleepwalking and night terrors described the presence of at least one person in the enacted dream, mostly unknown to the dreamer, but 33 percent being relatives of the dreamer. Eleven percent of patients saw animals, which were generally aggressive or frightening, during the episode. Most (80%) mental contents were negative, associated with aggression (26% of the total mentation) and misfortune (54% vs. no case of good fortune), and 84 percent were apprehensive. In the case of aggressive mentation, the patient was not the primary aggressor. In addition, 12 percent of the dream reports contained at least one act of friendliness. In all cases, the patient befriended someone and attempted to protect them (generally a relative) from danger. In another series of 32 patients with sleepwalking and night terrors, dreams were analyzed for threat content. Altogether, 70 percent of the 74 enacted dreams contained threats, which were more often misfortunes (40%) and disasters than aggressions (25%) (Uguccioni et al., 2013). The themes included such threats as the ceiling collapsing, the wall or objects in the room falling on the sleepwalker, a baby falling behind the sleepwalker’s bed, or crushing their own baby in the bed. With night terrors, the contents of mental imagery are often recurrent (e.g., being buried alive, insects and snakes, or facing a life-threatening event) across nights and across individuals, and they are often followed by a flight response. The source of the dream experiences is sometimes obvious to the patients. In the series of 73 adults with sleepwalking and night terrors, four patients replayed a recent event that they had encountered during the day, either in real life or on TV. Psychological trauma has been reported to influence the content of the

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Table 8.1. Main Differences between NREM and REM Sleep Parasomnias in Behaviors and Dream Content Disorder

NREM Parasomnia

REM Sleep Parasomnia

Main

Sleepwalking/night terrors

RBD

Variants

Sleep-related eating disorders Sexsomnia Hallucinatory choking

Status dissociatus

NREM sleep talking

REM sleep talking

Observed Behaviors and Speech Violent behaviors

Screaming, sudden arousal, escaping from the bed (predominant in night terrors)

Kicking, hitting, shouting, swearing (80% of RBD behaviors)

Ambulation

Frequent

Extremely rare

Verbal offense

Swearing

Insults, condemnations

Quiet behaviors

Speaking and mumbling, smiling, walking, searching for something (predominant in quiet sleepwalking)

Speaking and mumbling, smiling, work-related behaviors (20% of RBD behaviors)

Eyes

Open

Mostly closed (except in severe idiopathic RBD cases and in status dissociatus)

Autonomic system

Predominantly adrenergic Blunted (dysautonomia) tone (tachycardia, vasoconstriction)

Dream-Content Analysis Characters

98%

97%

Friendliness

6%

10%

Activities

68%

87%

Failure

37%

20%

Objects

55%

47%

Threat

70%

60%

Nature of the threat

Mostly misfortunes (buried alive, collapsing ceiling, life-threatening danger)

Mostly aggression by humans or animals

Reaction of the dreamer

Flight

Fight

Incorporation of the room in the dream settings

Yes (45%)

No (0%)

Dream-overt behavior isomorphism

Probable

Almost certain

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parasomniac episode, and recent stressful events are strong triggers of abnormal nocturnal episodes and have been replayed during episodes. For example, a sleepwalker’s niece almost drowned, and the following night, he dreamed that she was drowning again. To save her, he jumped out the window on the third floor, which resulted in severe fractures. In addition to anecdotal examples of mind-body isomorphism, few case reports with a video or video polysomnography recording of the parasomniac event, followed by a detailed dream report corresponding to the observed behavior, confirm the mind-body isomorphism between dream content and sleepwalking. For example, a woman dreamed of sailing with the wind astern and a heavy boom coming her way, so she bent and protected her head with her hands. The video shows her bending over the rim of the bed, covering her head with her arms. Another example is a man who dreamed about a truck coming toward him. He tried to escape it, simultaneously darting out of the bed and crying for help. Similar findings have been observed in other sleep disorder units (Bhat et al., 2012). Compared to normal dream reports, reports by sleepwalkers often incorporate the real physical environment in the dream scenario, and the sleepwalker’s bedroom is incorporated in nearly half of the dreams (Table 8.1). This suggests that there is a concomitant activation (and superimposition) of dream images and real images, as seen through the eyes of the sleepwalker. Sleepwalkers have their eyes open during the parasomniac behavior (in contrast with RBD patients, who mostly have eyes closed), and this allows them to mix the real and the imagined images in a single scenario. Most studies in patients with sleepwalking and night terrors show no psychiatric disorders in these patients. In one study, patients with arousal disorders scored slightly higher than healthy controls on depression and anxiety scales (Uguccioni et al., 2013). But in another study (Labelle et al., 2012), sleepwalkers scored similarly to the general adult population. The successful treatment of a comorbid depressive disorder in 100 adults with sleepwalking and night terrors had no effect on the course of parasomnia, suggesting that the concurrent psychopathology does not play an essential role in arousal disorders. However, the presence of psychopathology in sleepwalkers is associated with a higher frequency of nightmares and with potentially injurious behaviors (Labelle et al., 2012), and thus needs to be addressed. Sleep-Related Eating Disorder This NREM parasomnia is characterized by recurrent episodes of involuntary eating and drinking during the main sleep period, resulting in problematic consequences, such as eating inedible food and weight gain. The episodes of eating typically occur during partial arousals from N2 or N3 sleep. Awareness of the episodes and morning recollection are partial or lacking. Patients with a sleep-related eating disorder have several commonalities with sleepwalkers, including a high frequency (66%) of past or current sleepwalking, similar timing of parasomnia episodes (with 70% during the first half of the night), numerous arousals from stage N3, and a

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similar level of daytime sleepiness and anxiety. They are also more likely to have psychopathology than sleepwalkers and controls, including depression, and they are more likely to have or to have had an eating disorder. Notably, the patients do not recall any dream mentation associated with their eating episodes (and especially no dreams about food) (Brion et al., 2012). Sexsomnia Sexsomnia is a male-predominant NREM parasomnia characterized by various sexual behaviors, including sexual vocalizations, orgasm, masturbation, fondling, vaginal or anal penetration, and full sexual intercourse. It occurs in heterosexual and homosexual patients, with a wide age range (17–74 years) at sexsomnia onset. It is sometimes associated with violent behaviors and sexual assaults, leading to forensic consequences. The patients are typically not aware of their condition: all but 3 patients among 17 were totally unaware of their behavior during the episodes, with no recall in the morning (Dubessy et al., 2017). Three patients could, on rare occasions, progressively regain partial or total awareness of ongoing behavior, especially if their bed partner had responded and sexual intercourse was initiated. Most patients did not recall any mentation in the morning; but 3 patients sometimes recalled dreams with erotic content, and 3 had nonerotic, banal, or even stressful sleep mentation (e.g., passing an exam, speaking in a foreign language) at the time they were awakened by their partner during an episode. In these cases, the mindbody isomorphism was absent. Hallucinatory Choking during Sleep Eleven adults have been referred to the sleep center the author works at for recurrent sleep-related episodes of paroxysmal choking, mostly due to the subjective sensation of having swallowed foreign objects (Flamand et al., 2015). The patients had hallucinated swallowing objects that were metallic or cold (e.g., a ring, spoon, coin, pebble, nails, electrical cables), most often hard and solid, and usually of small size (although some hallucinations included swallowing a computer, a scrubbing brush, or a gas container). The objects were clearly identified by most patients, suggesting that they composed a complex sensory hallucination. Most hallucinations were isolated, but in one case (the ideation of swallowing a potion that made the patient mute), the abnormal swallowing was the last fragment of a dream scenario. The hallucinations lasted only few seconds and disappeared after the patients had, for example, pulled their tongue with their fingers, spitted, or swallowed water. Video polysomnography of these patients demonstrated that the episodes occurred during sudden motor arousals from N3 sleep, reminiscent of arousal disorders, with no epileptic activity. In addition, the timing of the abnormal behavior peaked during the first third of the night. All patients had in common a current or former history of arousal disorders (sleepwalking, night terrors, or sleep talking). Altogether, these findings support the idea that sleep-related swallowing and choking syndrome belongs to the spectrum of arousal disorders. Why the

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associated sensory hallucination is specifically an identifiable object stuck in the throat is unknown. This rare variant of NREM parasomnia has to be differentiated from epileptic seizures in mesial frontal cortex or insula. Sleep Talking As many as 66.8 percent of adults report having sometimes talked in their sleep, but only 6.3 percent of adults speak at least once a week. There is concordance between the sleep-associated speech and the subsequently recalled dream content, suggesting that sleep talking is dream talking. The analysis of sleep-associated speech, collected from a large group of adult sleep talkers (mostly, but not exclusively, with NREM and REM parasomnias), indicates that half of sleep talking is not intelligible and consists of mumbling and silent speaking. This suggests that the phonatory system is partially blocked during sleep (Arnulf et al., 2017). However, the other half is intelligible language and grammatically correct. Moreover, some sleep talkers exhibit turn taking, as if having a conversation. This means that the dreamers speak only those words that they experience as their own in the dream. Some sleep talkers are able to have complex conversations with their spouses or roommates, although the content of sleep talking is not always adequate to the situation. Recently, high-density EEG analysis showed that dream experiences containing speech (not overtly expressed) are associated with increased high-frequency activity, found 2–4 seconds before awakening subjects from REM sleep, over a left posterior temporal region corresponding to Wernicke’s area. This suggests that the same areas drive speech during wake and dreams. As to the content of sleep talking, the high frequency of negations, exclamations, questions, and profanities during sleep talking in sleep clinic patients suggests that the conversations frequently include conflicts. Notably, swearing predominates during NREM sleep, and insults and condemnation predominate during REM sleep. Even though these results were obtained from people with disorders characterized by dream-enacting behaviors, they may apply to sleep talking in the general population. REM SLEEP PARASOMNIAS Sleep Paralysis Sleep paralysis is a transient state of involuntary immobility with preserved awareness, typically occurring upon awakening from REM sleep and more rarely at sleep onset. The episodes may last a few seconds or up to several minutes, and they are more frequent in the supine position. Up to 50 percent of healthy individuals may experience an isolated sleep paralysis, but approximately 5 percent have regular episodes. In contrast, half of patients with narcolepsy and a quarter of those with idiopathic hypersomnia suffer from recurrent sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is commonly viewed as the persistence of REM sleep atonia (normal muscular paralysis during REM sleep) in an otherwise normally awake brain,

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Figure 8.1. Experiences Associated with Sleep Paralysis.

These images illustrate the mental experiences associated with sleep paralysis in a 45-year-old man with narcolepsy, drawn from his perspective. The experiences include seeing unidentifiable characters (his “friends”) at the end of the bed (left panel, with the patient’s feet visible under the sheet); the feeling that a small, malicious child is pressing his chest (middle panel); and an out-of-body experience with the feeling of floating on the ceiling of the room (right panel). Reproduced with permission from the artist.

with the atonia preventing voluntary movements. However, the brain may be in a dissociated state between wakefulness and REM sleep during sleep paralysis. In the few cases where recording has been possible, EEG monitoring showed theta waves (typical for REM sleep but not wakefulness) during sleep paralysis. Also, a dissociated state sounds plausible when considering the abnormal experiences that are frequently associated with sleep paralysis, including incomplete recall of concomitant stimuli as well as abnormal sensations and hallucinations. The latter include the feeling of presence (i.e., the vivid sensation that someone is present nearby), sometimes accompanied by visual or auditory hallucinations (hearing or seeing intruders in the room). Intense fear is also typical for sleep paralysis: the person feels that she is about to be attacked but cannot do anything to protect herself, as movement or vocalization is not possible. The sleeper may also feel a pressure on her thoracic cage and have feelings of suffocation (probably linked to the real paralysis of inspiratory thoracic muscles), which may be associated with the hallucination of someone sitting on the chest. Further, sleep paralysis may be associated with vestibular sensations, including the feeling of floating, and more rarely with an out-of-body experience (sometimes combined with autoscopy, seeing oneself from an exterior perspective). For an illustration of the sleep paralysis experience, see Figure 8.1.

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REM Sleep Behavior Disorder Patients with REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) have partially or completely preserved muscle tone during REM sleep and, in the absence of normal muscle atonia, can enact their dreams, with a high risk of injury to themselves or others (Schenck & Mahowald, 2002). This disorder is frequent (60%–100% of patients) with Parkinson’s disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, and multiple system atrophy (all these disorders are caused by the deposit of abnormal alpha-synuclein protein in key brain regions), whereas it is exceptional in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (caused by brain deposits of tau protein). Further, idiopathic RBD is predictive of later neurological problems. Up to 92 percent of middle-aged patients with isolated RBD eventually developed Parkinson’s disease or Lewy body dementia, with a median conversion time of around 10 years from RBD diagnosis. The neuronal loss in the brain stem system responsible for REM sleep atonia was recently identified in humans with MRI brain imaging (Ehrminger et al., 2016). Neuroprotective trials are now beginning in patients with idiopathic RBD, with the idea of using the window between RBD onset and parkinsonism/dementia onset to reduce the risk of conversion. Therefore, it is important that the general community and the psychology and psychiatry communities are aware of the need to refer middle-aged patients with enacted nightmares (who may first consult a psychologist or a psychiatrist for their disturbed dreaming) to a sleep center to make a formal diagnosis, to treat the abnormal behavior (for reducing psychological suffering and the risk of injury), and to include them in neuroprotective trials. Lesions (damage) within the brain stem system that normally produces muscle atonia during REM sleep allow behaviors to manifest during REM sleep in patients with RBD. The observed vocalizations or behaviors during RBD often correlate with simultaneously occurring dream mentation, leading the patients to report that they are “acting out their dreams.” The behaviors usually manifest as attempted enactments of unpleasant, action-filled, and violent dreams or nightmares in which the individual is being confronted, attacked, or chased by unfamiliar people or animals. At the end of an episode, the individual typically awakens quickly, becomes rapidly alert, and reports a dream with a coherent story. The dreamed actions closely correspond to the observed sleep behaviors. The dream reports associated with RBD are usually different from those reported by the patients before RBD onset. The dreams contain more elements of aggression and animals than those of control subjects when dream content recall from the past month is retrospectively assessed (Fantini, 2005). Aggressive dreams are also more frequent in patients with Parkinson’s disease than in controls, and they correlate with the severity of frontal dysfunction (whether the patients have RBD or not). Furthermore, in a study with dream reports collected upon provoked awakenings from REM sleep, no major differences were found in dream content in Parkinson’s disease with RBD compared to Parkinson’s without RBD (Valli et al., 2015). It is therefore possible that disturbed dreaming in RBD may be a consequence of the associated frontal dysfunction rather than a problem in the brain stem that controls muscle atonia.

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Most descriptions of RBD behaviors emphasize forceful and violent behaviors (e.g., punching or kicking), which are usually associated with vivid, unpleasant, and active dreams. There have been many incidental reports of clear dream-action similarity in RBD, and such reports are important for the diagnosis of the disorder. For example, a patient dreamed that he was a police duck flying after a pigeon thief. Meanwhile, his wife observed him squatting on the bed, waving his arms as if flying, and shouting the two-tone sound of a siren while mimicking a duck’s voice. A second patient dreamed that he was in a canoe that was being attacked by caimans, and he was trying to make them go away. In reality, he was sitting on the bed; making paddling movements; and shouting, “Help, caimans!” while getting hold of a heavy bedside table and throwing it across the room. A third patient dreamed that he was a knight fighting with a sword to save his beloved lady who was in danger; in reality, he was lying in his bed, fighting with an invisible sword, and shouting, “Manon, Charlemagne!” (a medieval battle cry). The congruence between the actual actions performed by RBD patients during REM sleep and the dream content recalled upon awakening has been formally assessed in a single study (Valli et al., 2012). Blind judges were tasked to match a dream report, from a set of four possible dream reports obtained with systematic REM awakenings, with motor behavior videotaped during REM sleep in six patients with RBD. The average of correctly identified video-dream pairs was 39.5 percent, significantly above the chance level (25%). One may be surprised that the concordance was not 100 percent. However, this video series mainly contained simple movements, which are difficult to match with any behavior, whereas scenic behaviors were rare (and, correspondingly, much easier to match). In fact, most of the movements in RBD are isolated and minor, whereas full-blown scenic behaviors are rare. Content analysis studies reveal that in patients with Parkinson’s disease with RBD, the most commonly reported theme is fighting in response to danger (91%), while pleasant activity is reported in 20 percent of patients and daily activity in 22 percent of patients. In the dream reports collected during RBD episodes, 60 percent contained a threat, including aggression (57%), fleeing behavior (18%), misfortunes (14%), and accidents (11%) (Uguccioni et al., 2013). Nonviolent elaborate behaviors, however, occur in 18 percent of dream recalls in patients with RBD and Parkinson’s disease as well as in patients with idiopathic RBD and RBD associated with other diseases. These include, for example, eating and smoking (in the absence of real food or cigarettes), picking apples, dancing, teaching, scoring a goal, bicycling, flying, and searching for treasure. Status Dissociatus While arousal disorders and RBD are considered transient state dissociations, status dissociatus corresponds to the asynchronous occurrence of the various components of wake, NREM sleep, and REM sleep. Status dissociatus includes disorders in which such an extreme state dissociation occurs only at nighttime or intermittently (e.g., narcolepsy type 1), and others in which it occurs nearly

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continuously with complete loss of any conventionally defined state. These forms of status dissociatus consist of nearly continuous motor and verbal behavior, with severe visual hallucinations and enacted dreams (resembling continuous RBD, but with open eyes), in the absence of polysomnography defined conventional REM and NREM sleep stages. Such status dissociatus is observed in Parkinson’s disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, Guillain-Barré syndrome, alcohol withdrawal syndrome (delirium tremens), fatal familial insomnia, and Morvan’s chorea. This phenomenon has been named “agrypnia excitata,” referring to severely reduced or absent sleep due to organic disorders. In a consecutive series of 139 patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome (Cochen et al., 2005), the patients frequently reported vivid dreams, illusions, hallucinations, and delusions. Examples include a dream of floating over the streets of New York early in the morning and seeing people taking out their garbage; an intravenous fluid bag hanging from an IV pole mistaken for a banana tree (visual illusion); the feeling that the bed is tilted as if it were vertical, with the nurses walking on the walls (spatial illusions); and animals or deceased relatives (visual hallucinations). One patient believed that he was a prisoner of the Germans during World War II trying to cross a border and was continually asking the nurses for his passport (delusion). PARASOMNIAS AS A WINDOW INTO DREAMING Evidence That Nondreamers Do Dream Parasomnias constitute a unique window to study the dreaming process as behaviors, facial expressions, and verbal utterances are very often in accordance with the dream reports obtained upon awakening. To determine whether people who report that they do not dream do not have dreams to begin with or just do not recall them, subjects with no dream recall but with dreamlike behaviors were studied in a sleep laboratory (Herlin et al., 2015). Of 289 patients with RBD, 2.8 percent had no dream recall, including 1.4 percent who had never recalled dreams and 1.4 percent who had had no dream recall for 10–56 years. In the laboratory, all nondreamers exhibited, nightly or almost nightly, complex, scenic, and dreamlike behaviors and speech, although they did not recall any dreams following awakenings from REM sleep. The dreamlike behaviors in the few nondreamers with RBD (even in the never recall dreamers) provide strong evidence that nondreamers have dreams, but they do not recall them. RBD as a Model to Determine Whether Eye Movements Scan Dream Images during REM Sleep In the 1950s, when REM sleep was identified, it was hypothesized that the rapid eye movements during REM sleep scan the dream environment. However, it has remained unclear whether the eyes scan dream images, despite studies that have retrospectively compared the direction of eye movements to the dream content recalled after an awakening. In the awake state, the eyes and head work in concert to produce gaze. In normal REM sleep, atonia affects neck muscles, and thus the

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head cannot be moved, rendering the parallel between observed eye movements and the subject’s description of gaze (in the dream) uncertain. One way to navigate around these methodological problems is to study subjects with RBD (in whom the neck is not paralyzed) to determine whether the eyes move in the same directions as the head and limbs (Leclair-Visonneau et al., 2010). In 56 patients with RBD and 17 healthy matched controls, the eye movements were monitored by electrooculography in four directions (right, left, up, and down) and synchronized with video and sleep monitoring. When eye movements accompanied goal-oriented motor behavior during RBD (e.g., grabbing a fictive object, shaking hands, climbing a ladder, or sending a kiss with the hand), which happened in 19 sequences, 82 percent were directed toward the action of the patient (same plane and direction). Rapid eye movements were absent in 38–42 percent of behaviors. The directional coherence among limb, head, and eye movements during RBD suggests that, when present, eye movements imitate the scanning of the dream scene. As the eye movements are similar in density and complexity in subjects with and without RBD, this concordance can be extended to normal REM sleep. However, these results do not mean that the dreamer actually watches the dream images. Rather, one common system may simultaneously activate dream images as well as eye and body movements in a coherent fashion. This scenario would support the results from several experiments, including the presence of eye movements in the absence of any kind of vision (e.g., in newborns, in congenitally blind humans, and in cats without the visual cortex or with lesions in the brain stem). CONCLUSION Parasomnias are divided into NREM and REM sleep parasomnias, but both are sleep disorders that involve abnormal movements, behaviors, emotions, perceptions, and dreams during sleep. NREM parasomnias usually originate from deep N3 sleep, and include, for example, sleepwalking and night terrors, sleep-related eating disorder, and sexsomnia. REM sleep parasomnias originate from REM sleep and include, for example, sleep paralysis, REM sleep behavior disorder, and nightmare disorder. Both NREM and REM parasomnias can provide a window to study the ongoing content of consciousness during sleep as behaviors, facial expressions, and verbal utterances in these sleep disorders are very often in accordance with the dream reports obtained upon awakening.

Dreaming in Mental Disorders Joacim F. Skancke

Studies have demonstrated that the content of our dreams is affected by aspects of waking life, such as stress, emotions, personality, and mental well-being. Taking into account the substantial effect mental illness has on waking well-being, and the fact that waking life impacts our dreams, we can expect that dreams are affected

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by the presence of mental illness. Thorough knowledge of the relationship between the waking life and dreams of people with mental disorders can be of value for diagnosis and treatment choices. It can also increase our knowledge of the nature and function of dreaming. Thus, the main aim of this chapter is to describe the available knowledge and research findings on dream content for people diagnosed with one of the most common mental disorders. The focus of attention will be on the ways in which the content of the patients’ dreams differ from dream content in mentally healthy people. Developmental disorders such as ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, and intellectual disability are not included, as there are currently no dream content studies on people with any of these disorders. Nightmare frequency will also be described, and some of the main continuities between waking life and dreams will be pointed out in conjunction with each disorder. METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES A considerable number of studies exist regarding the relationship between the waking life and dreams of people with mental disorders. However, because these studies have resulted in many divergent findings, it is difficult to extract firm conclusions from them. These diverging findings can at least partly be explained by the vast number of methodological issues and challenges facing the field of dream research for psychiatric patients. Awareness of some of these issues is important when attempting to understand the findings from this area of research, especially when faced with the sometimes confusing results. First of all, in many of the studies on dream content for people with mental disorders, the diagnosis is the only waking-life reference used for comparison with dream content. This reduces the likelihood of attaining correct and significant results, and it reduces the validity of comparisons between studies. The reason for this is that even though people have the same diagnosis, their particular symptoms can vary to a large extent. Because of this, patients both within and between studies can be very different from each other, despite their having the same diagnosis. Furthermore, diagnoses change with every update of our diagnostic manuals, making the comparison of studies over time difficult. All of this points to the importance of specifying the waking-life characteristics of the research subjects in greater detail, such as measuring psychiatric symptoms with established psychometric instruments. The procedure of dream collection varies between studies, which can lead to differences in dream reports. Similarly, the method used to score dream content varies. Some use standardized instruments; others do not. And even when standardized rating instruments are being used, differences between the instruments can yield noncomparable findings between the studies. The validity of the instruments can also be an issue (i.e., the instruments may not really measure what they are supposed to measure), even though they provide reliable and replicable results. (For more details on these issues, see Chapter 5 on “How to Study Dream Experiences”). Many studies, especially the older ones, lack control groups, hampering the possibility of identifying unique aspects of the dreams of psychiatric patients. In most

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of the studies, the patients use psychoactive medications, which are intended to diminish the symptoms of interest. This can affect the results of the study, and it has indeed been found that some types of medication can have a direct effect on dreaming (see the “Medication That Affects Dreams and Nightmares” section in Chapter 7). Furthermore, other important aspects of waking life are rarely controlled for, such as being employed or not, living alone or with a spouse or family, residing in a hospital, and the like. Specific measures of waking life obtained through standardized, widely used instruments would also be preferable. Fortunately, the scientific quality of studies conducted in recent years have improved. DREAM CONTENT IN PEOPLE WITH MENTAL DISORDERS Depression Research on the dreams of depressive patients produces a somewhat complex picture. Some studies conclude that people diagnosed with depression have dreams with more depressive content and a more negative emotional tone. However, some studies conclude with the opposite. The first conclusion would be a clear indication of continuity between waking and dreaming (see the “Continuity Hypothesis of Dreaming” section in Chapter 3), whereas the latter conclusion could indicate a compensatory function of dreaming, as suggested by Jung (1960) (see the “Carl Jung and Analytical Psychology” section in Chapter 15). Such conflicting results are also found between and within more recent studies, using more rigorous scientific methodology, such as comparing the level of depressive symptoms with dream content. One of the reasons for the divergent findings may be the differences in defining and obtaining “depressive” aspects of dreams. Research on the effect of antidepressants on dreaming also yields a multifaceted picture. It seems different drugs can have different effects on dreaming, although they are used to treat the same daytime symptoms (see the “Medication That Affects Dreams and Nightmares” section in Chapter 7). Using tricyclic antidepressants seems to reduce dream recall and can induce more positive dream emotions. The use of selective serotonin inhibitors (SSRIs; also a type of antidepressant) seems to intensify dreams either in a positive or negative direction. The exact causes of these divergent effects remain unclear. As to other aspects of dreams for depressed persons, the most consistent findings are that their dreams are shorter and that family members are more frequent in their dreams, compared to healthy controls. Surprisingly, affects such as anxiety and hostility are rarely found in dreams of depressed individuals. Compared to patients with schizophrenia, fewer aggressive and more friendly interactions occur (Kramer, 2010). Depressed people have been found to be more passive in their dreams (Zanasi et al., 2008), but more physical interactions occur (Schredl & Engelhardt, 2001). Passivity in dreams of depressive patients can be seen as a continuation of reduced initiative and activity in waking, typical of depression. Bipolar patients (whose moods fluctuate between depressed and manic) have more death themes in their dreams than unipolar depressed patients, and they dream of death and

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injury prior to the shift to mania (Beauchemin & Hays, 1996). Increased themes of death are also seen in dreams of severely depressed patients and depressed suicidal patients (Kramer, 2010). These findings seem indicative of continuity, as do the findings that themes of loss and abandonment are more frequent in dreams of mildly depressed persons (Mellen et al., 1993): One can imagine depression during waking being characterized by feelings of loss (of function, hope, relations, etc.) and loneliness (abandonment). The level of bizarreness (discontinuity and incongruity in the plot, thoughts, and emotions) in dreams of depressed and bipolars is either equal to or less than those of healthy controls (e.g., Cavalotti et al., 2014; Schredl & Engelhardt, 2001). Depressive patients experience more nightmares than the general population, and they generally have considerably poorer sleep quality (Sandman et al., 2015). Unipolar depressed people experience more severe sleep problems than bipolar (e.g., Lai et al., 2014). Depression accompanied by frequent nightmares is a risk factor for suicidality, compared to depression without frequent nightmares (Sandman et al., 2017). Anxiety Anxiety disorders stands out as the category of mental disorders that has been studied the least in terms of dream content. One single study, by Gentil and Lader (1978), has examined and compared dreams of patients with an anxiety disorder with dreams of healthy controls. The study is quite old, and it included only female participants, with a diagnosis not used today (“chronic anxiety”; a diagnosis comparable to generalized anxiety disorder in the current diagnostic manuals, DSM-5 and ICD-10). However, the study is quite properly executed, and they include assessments of symptoms in addition to the diagnosis. Nonetheless, the results must be taken with caution. The study found that the dreams of the anxiety patients contained fewer friendly interactions and more aggressive interactions than those of healthy controls. These findings could reflect expectations of negative response from other people, often inherent in anxiety. Two categories of aggressive acts were identified: “creatures” or “strangers” attempting to physically harm the dreamer and the dreamer being rejected or abandoned, usually by her husband or another known male person. The dreams of the patients contained less activity and successfully accomplished goals and more failure and sadness. This can be seen as a reflection of negative expectations for the future or perhaps experiences of not coping with their anxiety. For both the patients and controls, the frequency of aggression directed at the dreamer corresponded to the level of daytime anxiety. Many parallels were found between daytime attitudes and dream content, such as more success in the dreams of those who rated themselves as more successful and more apprehension in the dreams of those who rated themselves as more tense in waking life. These parallels seem continuous between waking and dreaming. Nightmare frequency is found to be considerably higher in patients with an anxiety disorder compared to healthy controls (Skancke et al., 2014). As for nonpsychiatric populations, research provides an inconclusive picture. Some studies find

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that anxious personality traits predict more nightmares and bad dreams, whereas other studies do not. A proposed explanation for these divergent findings is that state anxiety (negative emotions triggered by present circumstances) is more closely associated with nightmares than trait anxiety (a stable tendency to feel negative emotions). Furthermore, higher levels of daytime anxiety seem to correlate with more realistic bad dreams (e.g., of frightening humans rather than monsters). Psychosis Much of the research on dreams for psychotic patients has been with schizophrenic patients specifically. For this reason, much of what is presented in this section of the chapter is on dreams of schizophrenics. One of the most consistent findings in dreams of schizophrenics is more hostility, with the hostility usually directed at the patient (Kramer, 2010). This can be a reflection of the common schizophrenic symptom of paranoia (expecting hostility from others). More strangers and fewer friends are also quite consistently found in dreams of schizophrenics (Kramer, 2010). These findings can be seen as expressing the lack of social relations common for schizophrenic patients, often as part of the “negative” schizophrenic symptoms of withdrawal and passivity. The patients are rarely the focus or the main characters of their dreams, and they show less involvement and emotional expression in their dreams (possibly also reflecting negative symptoms during the day) (e.g., Kramer, 2010). More anxiety is sometimes found (Kramer, 2010), but some studies have found the opposite (e.g., Cavalotti et al., 2014). The dream scenes of schizophrenics are located indoors more often than dreams of healthy controls. Regarding dream bizarreness, the research is inconclusive. Older studies have concluded that there is more bizarreness in dreams of schizophrenics, but the more recent studies have found the dreams of schizophrenics and other psychotic patients to be equally or less bizarre than the dreams of healthy controls (e.g., Cavalotti et al., 2014). The waking mental activity of psychotic patients, on the other hand, is generally found to be more bizarre than that of healthy controls (Noreika et al., 2010). These mixed results can stem from different ways of rating bizarreness, differences in dream collection, and differences in the patient samples: having a psychosis diagnosis does not mean you are actively psychotic. The presence or absence of a psychosis can affect the dream content; yet, many studies do not control for this. Schizophrenic patients report considerably higher frequency of nightmares compared with the general population (Skancke et al., 2014). It is also found that the distress the patients experience in relation to the nightmares, rather than the frequency of nightmares, coincides with more severe psychiatric symptoms. Inclusion of nightmares and other sleep problems should therefore be part of routine assessment and treatment of psychosis. Personality Disorders Only three studies (Guralnik et al., 1999; Schredl et al., 2012; Simor et al., 2010) have ever examined dream content in personality disorders (PD), which means

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that the available data is scarce. Furthermore, the available research is mainly on borderline PD. This is potentially a great loss, as the differences between the different PDs are quite substantial. The differences in dream content could therefore also be considerable and should be investigated more fully. People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) experience their dreams as more distressing and with a more negative emotional tone than people without a mental disorder, possibly indicating continuity with more negative emotions during the day. However, external judges do not consistently rate the dream content as more negative. People with BPD have also been found to dream more about health-related topics. Besides these differences, no other aspects of the dreams of people with BPD have been found to differ from the dreams of mentally healthy people. This also includes borderline specific symptoms, such as self-inflicted injury or strong emotional shifts, which, contrary to what one might expect, seem to occur very rarely in dreams of people with BPD. As for dreams of patients with PDs in general, there is only a single study ever conducted, thus the findings should be viewed with caution. Guralnik, Levin, and Schmeidler (1999) found that compared to healthy controls, there were more unfamiliar and ambiguous settings in dreams of patients with PDs, as well as more movement and auditory, verbal, and thinking activities. Furthermore, and perhaps surprisingly, more friendly and fewer aggressive interactions occurred in the patients’ dreams, along with less apprehension and confusion. Both the patients and the controls had far more dreams that ended with misfortune than with a positive outcome, with no significant difference between the groups. Both personality disordered patients in general and those with BPD specifically experience considerably more nightmares than mentally healthy people. One study found that 49 percent of BPD patients suffer from nightmare disorder, compared to only 7 percent in the control group (Semiz et al., 2008). People with BPD and schizotypal PD have also been found to suffer more often from lifelong nightmares (Mellen et al., 1993). It has been suggested that the heightened prevalence of nightmares can be depictions of traumatic childhood experiences, which is common for people with BPD. This fits with the finding that dreams portray our main emotional and interpersonal concerns. Disturbances in a range of aspects of sleep, including frequent and disturbing nightmares, seem to worsen psychiatric symptoms and risk of suicide in BPD. Increasing our knowledge of the sleep and dreams of these patients may therefore be of great importance. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Three studies exist (Cavalotti et al., 2014; Kuelz et al., 2010; Sauteraud et al., 2001) on dream content for patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). These studies found few differences in dream content between patients with OCD and healthy control subjects. No difference was found in the frequency of obsessive-compulsive (OC) themes in the dreams of the patients and controls, and there was no correlation between the severity of OC symptoms during daytime and OC content in dreams. One of the studies, however, found that OCD inpatients had higher levels of OC content in their dreams in the second week of

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hospitalization compared to OCD outpatients and healthy controls. This might reflect the patients’ preoccupation with their illness. Furthermore, during the first days of exposure treatment, the occurrence of OC content in the dreams of the patients reduced. Moreover, OCD patients have been found to dream more often in black and white, and they also possibly have slightly less complex and emotionally intense dreams. Dreams of OCD patients have been found to contain less positive emotions, possibly reflecting reduced emotional well-being in these patients. No difference has been found in terms of negative emotions. Eating Disorders Many distinct and interesting findings have emerged through studies of dreams of eating disordered patients. However, many of the results have only been found in one study, making the findings less generalizable. As can be expected on the basis of their waking symptomatology, eating disordered patients dream of food up to four times as frequently as healthy controls, bulimics possibly even more than anorexics (e.g., Kramer, 2010). This finding clearly corresponds to eating disordered patients’ waking symptoms. It has also been found that anorexics dream more about rejecting food (Schredl & Montasser, 1999), again corresponding with the diagnosis, as anorexia is marked by rejection of food. Moreover, dreams of eating disordered patients seem to be more emotionally intense and contain more negative emotions (e.g., Schredl & Montasser, 1999). The bulimics’ dreams also seem to display less positive emotions, and anorexics seem more anxious in their dreams (Kramer, 2000; Schredl & Montasser, 1999). Conversely, reduced expression of emotion in anorexics’ dreams has also been found. Furthermore, dreams of anorexics have been found to be in color less often, with the dreamer looking younger than in waking life and frequently having a distorted body, such as an enlarged belly. This bodily reference seems to reflect these patients’ distorted body image during waking. In contrast, Schredl and Montasser (1999) did not find increased references to body distortions in the dreams of eating disordered patients. The dreams of eating disordered patients have been found to contain less hostility (Kramer, 2000). In opposition, it has been found that eating disordered patients often dream of being the victim of violence (Mellen et al., 1993). Moreover, it has been found that their dreams have increased frequency of scenarios, themes, and feelings of anger, ineffectiveness, self-hate, and being attacked; a sense of impending doom at the end of the dream; an attitude of inability to succeed; a sense of being controlled by others; a sense of being watched and judged; and an inability to self-nourish (Brink et al., 1995). Lastly, dreams of anorectic patients have been found to lack indicators of context. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder There are few studies investigating general dream content in patients with PTSD. For the most part, studies focus on trauma-related dreams only, and many studies have no control group. Furthermore, some studies do not include assessments of

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diagnosis or trauma symptoms in the participants, but instead include people who have experienced traumatic events. In sum, our knowledge of how dream content differs between those with and without post-traumatic stress disorder is still in need of expansion. To date, what has been found as the most typical change in dreaming in PTSD is increased frequency and intensity of nightmares. This topic is, however, covered in Chapter 17. For this reason, only dream content will be dealt with in the present chapter. In traumatized people, it is found that about half of the dreams related to the trauma are near exact replays of the event, and the trauma-related dreams typically contain fear and threat (for review, see Wittman et al., 2007). People who are struggling to adjust after trauma have been found to have more anxiety, aggression, and hostility in their dreams compared to healthy controls. This seems continuous with the daytime post-traumatic symptoms of heightened arousal and fear response. Their dreams also include more people from their childhoods, more interpersonal conflicts, and a more negative views of other dream characters (Kaminer & Lavie, 1991). Dreams from people with PTSD have also been found to be more vivid and possibly more often concerning the past, though not all studies have found this (Wittman et al., 2007). The type of trauma-related content in the dream has little relation to the severity of PTSD symptoms (Esposito et al., 1999; Phelps et al., 2011). It has been found that traumatized children have fewer accidents, misfortunes, and failures in their dreams, but they also have more death and severe losses (Valli et al., 2005). Dreams of traumatized children seem to be longer, more emotionally negative, and emotionally intense (Helminen & Punamäki, 2008; Valli et al., 2005) Children whose dreams contain more intense, positive emotional images have been found to have fewer post-traumatic symptoms during the day (Helminen & Punamäki, 2008). CONCLUSION To sum up, many intriguing and unique characteristics are found in the dreams of patients with mental disorders. Some of these characteristics seem to reflect aspects of waking life in a quite direct way, whereas other characteristics are not that intuitively understood. Regarding nightmares, it is evident that patients with mental disorders generally experience considerably more nightmares, both in terms of frequency and of severity of distress associated with the nightmares. As nightmares are an independent risk factor for more severe psychopathology and suicide in several mental disorders, this should be a larger focus in treatment of mental illness. Furthermore, there is a need for a better understanding and consensus regarding the ways in which dreams reflect waking life. Reflections are suggested to range from direct replay of the waking event, as is common in PTSD, to more metaphorical expressions of subjective experience, such as tidal waves depicting overwhelming emotional experiences. Identifying and defining the nature of these metaphors in dreams from people with and without mental disorders is a considerable challenge, but it is probably necessary to increase our understanding of dreams. This in turn can aid diagnosis and treatment of mental illness.

Chapter 9

LUCID DREAMING

The American Psychological Association dictionary defines lucid dreaming as follows: “A dream in which the sleeper is aware that he or she is dreaming and may be able to influence the progress of the dream narrative.” Or stated more simply, the person realizes while dreaming that they exist in the dream state. Lucid dreaming can take on more experiences, dimensions, or degrees of lucidity (see lucidity continuum below) than this statement describes, many of which will be discussed in more detail in this chapter. Some variations are listed here: • Sublucid: Realizing you are dreaming or in a dream but not acting on it. • False awakenings: A vivid and convincing dream about awakening from sleep, but the dreamer in reality continues to sleep, dreaming they are awake. • Playing: Realizing you are dreaming and taking charge of your own actions (perhaps flying or acting out other desires). • Influence: Attempting to control the dream or make things happen at your will. The dreamer generally finds they can control their own actions but have a limited influence over the events or the actions of other dream figures. • Interacting with dream figures: Asking dream figures who they are or where they come from becomes an exploration into the nature of dreaming. Dream figures may identify themselves as fragments of your personality or different states of consciousness, but they generally act like, and believe themselves to be, independent personalities and react in unexpected ways (disbelief, defiance, hurt, etc.) if told that you are simply dreaming them. • Practicing and enhancing skills or healing: Lucid dreaming has been found to improve skills upon waking (Stumbrys & Erlacher, 2016), to treat emotional issues such as fears and nightmares (see Chapter 17), and reported anecdotally to effect physical healing.

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• Accessing the “wisdom” behind the dream: Seasoned lucid dreamers have discovered a wisdom of sorts behind the dream that can be accessed by realizing it is there and posing a question or request, such as “show me something I need to know” or “show me X.” Generally, the dream morphs into another scene or plot addressing the question, and this “wisdom” takes on an independent but guiding characteristic, a higher, nonpersonal, or collective wisdom, much like that which Jung described of the collective unconscious (Chapter 15). • Extraordinary or extrasensory experiences: Some lucid dreamers have experienced or initiated states of awareness and “being” that could be categorized as extrasensory, psi, or mind over body. Although such experiences have been reported in nonlucid dreams, lucidity appears to provide a condition conducive to such experiences. • Transpersonal or spiritual experiences (termed below as hyperspace lucidity): These are multidimensional, spiritual in nature, often difficult to put into words, or may be described as a divine presence or sense of oneness with a unitary consciousness.

The incidence of lucid dreaming tends to vary across cultures, age groups, and the sample population, as noted in numerous surveys (Erlacher et al., 2008; Gackenbach, 1984). When researchers surveyed 694 German schoolchildren, ages 6–19 years, they discovered 51.9 percent had already experienced a lucid dream, and 26 percent of the 6-year-olds had already experienced a lucid dream (Voss, 2012). A meta-analysis of 34 surveys discovered a mean of 55 percent of the population reporting at least one lucid dream and 23 percent reporting frequent lucid dreams once a month (Saunders et al., 2016). In a study by Schredl and Erlacher (2011), only 1 percent were found to have very frequent (several times a week) lucid dreams. In the first two sections, this chapter describes some of these experiences in more detail, followed by research into neural and psychological correlates of this interesting dream state, and then a discussion about how to induce lucid dreams.

The Experience of Lucid Dreaming Robert Waggoner

While the personal goals and surface elements of dream figures, settings, and situations differ across lucid dreams, an underlying architecture of principles and structure appears to exist in the lucid dream state. As experienced lucid dreamers compare notes, many observe similarities regarding influencing the lucid dream as well as the objective elements within their lucid dreams. Consider this lucid dream example from a 10-year-old girl: Someone was haunting me. And I was with my girlfriend. The chaser stood before me and wanted to kill me. And then I realized it was only a dream. So I made the person disappear and then suddenly it wasn’t dark anymore.

In this brief narrative, did you notice what happened when she makes “the chaser” disappear? She reports, “suddenly it wasn’t dark anymore.” As a general rule, when

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the “mind” of the lucid dreamer noticeably changes (e.g., she feels relief ), the perceived environment frequently reflects this (e.g., the atmosphere brightens), even without any conscious intent to alter the perceived experience. In this way, observant lucid dreamers begin to learn experientially that a mentally dynamic and reflective function appears to underlie events in the lucid dream state. Investigating the actual experience of the lucid dream largely consists of selfreports and surveys. Surveys by Schädlich and Erlacher (2012) and Stumbrys and Erlacher (2016), for example, indicate many lucid dreamers use lucid dreaming to play, fulfill wishes, enjoy freedom from physical and cultural restraints, deal with aggressive or nightmarish figures, seek creativity and creative solutions to problems, practice to enhance skills (including physical skills), seek physical or mental healing, and meditate. Experienced lucid dreamers frequently reported using lucid dreaming for inner work. In this chapter, the experiences of lucid dreaming are illustrated through 10 of the more common observations of lucid dreamers. As lucid dreamers learn what works, these might be called “lessons in lucidity.” They offer important insights into the complexity, depth, and significance of the lucid dream experience. NOT CHAOTIC, BU T PRINCIPLED One of the first lessons in lucidity appears in the reports of many beginners: too much emotional energy tends to collapse the lucid dream and wake the lucid dreamer. Therefore, to stabilize and lengthen the lucid dream, individuals learn to modulate their emotions. Otherwise, the lucid dream report might read, “I knew I was dreaming and felt very excited. Then suddenly, the lucid dream ended!” Although the degree of emotional intensity reportedly varies across individual lucid dreamers (some report a very high threshold), almost all lucid dreamers report learning various tactics to modulate excess emotion. For example, internally saying, “Calm down,” or, “Relax,” often immediately decreases the emotional charge. Or lucid dreamers may look away from overstimulating scenes (e.g., meeting a movie star) to more neutral ones (e.g., looking at the floor) until the emotional energy dissipates. Similarly, many lucid dreamers report that staring fixedly at an object for about five seconds or more tends to collapse the lucid dream. What could explain this? Early lucid dream researchers Keith Hearne, in England (Hearne, 1978), and Stephen LaBerge, in the United States (LaBerge, 1985), knew that rapid eye movements (REMs) commonly occurred in the dream state. Both hypothesized that a lucid dreamer in a sleep lab could shift his gaze left to right multiple times when aware in a lucid dream, causing the physical eyes to move accordingly and be recorded on the polysomnography readout (also see the “Human Sleep Architecture” section in Chapter 1). Their successful experiments with this process became known as the “eye signal verification technique” and provided convincing scientific evidence for lucid dreaming. But now, imagine becoming lucid and deciding to stare fixedly at an object. Could the abnormal nature of a prolonged fixed gaze during a lucid dream perhaps inhibit the rapid eye movement and serve to trigger awakening? Or could this situation

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create an untenable tension between the fixed gaze on the object and the continued activity of the brain, which may resist fixation? Whatever the cause, lucid dreamers frequently report that staring fixedly tends to collapse the lucid dream. The commonly reported experiences suggest that the lucid dreaming state is not a random or chaotic; it seems to follow certain principles, which tend to reflect the mental activity of the lucid dreamer (see the “Psychological and Lifestyle Correlates of Lucid Dreaming” section at the end of this chapter). LUCID AWARENESS FLUCTUATES This next lesson in lucidity comes as a surprise to many people: lucid awareness can fluctuate considerably. In fact, a person may become lucid and then lose his or her lucid dream awareness a brief time later and slip back into a nonlucid dream. Normally, this happens when the lucid dreamer focuses so strongly on some interesting dream event that he or she literally loses, or forgets, the conscious realization of dreaming. Conversely, a person may become lucid and, through various actions, enhance the level of awareness. Over the course of a long lucid dream, a person may note varying levels of lucid awareness, as it fluctuates throughout the experience. As such, this suggests that the activities experienced in lucid dreaming happen in the moment; it is not a static mental state. However, inexperienced dreamers often believe that achieving lucidity means gaining unalterable access to lucid awareness and all its potential. They fail to realize that they must put in an effort to maintain their awareness to stay lucid. Experienced lucid dreamer Ed Kellogg (1994) created a lucidity continuum to express various levels of lucidity and the phenomenology of awareness characterized by each. In this slightly edited version, the continuum begins with prelucid (e.g., noticing something that seems unusual or bizarre); then sublucid (e.g., having a vague realization of dreaming); to semilucid (e.g., realizing that you dream, but you simply go along with things or make minor adjustments); before getting to lucid (e.g., a complete realization that you dream, and you make consciously directed actions and major choices). For example, a lucid dream report may show the person first notices something as unusual, such as seeing a baby dinosaur, and reaches prelucidity (e.g., dinosaurs no longer exist, right?), and then comes to a full realization of lucidity (e.g., I dreamed this!). Beyond this stage, Kellogg’s lucidity continuum (1994) also includes fully lucid (e.g., feeling a considerable sense of mastery, such as easily recalling experiments conceived in the waking state, etc.) and super lucid (e.g., feeling an extremely high degree of personal energy, memory, creativity, insight, and ability to influence circumstances). PERCEP TUAL SENSES “CONFIRM” EXPECTATIONS The loss of lucid awareness often occurs due to this next lesson in lucidity: the perceived experience normally seems “real.” What does that mean? When a lucid

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dreamer sees a basket of fruit on the kitchen counter, it visually looks and physically feels as one expects. Even though he or she may consider it “just a dream,” the perceived experience normally follows the person’s preexisting mental models or expectations. A beginner in an online lucid dream workshop remarked on this verisimilitude: I realized now that I should be dreaming—and looked around. The surrounding seemed so crystal clear. I thought, this looks exactly like the waking state—so much detail.

Lucid dreamers may feel shocked by the perceived depth of detail, the seeming realness, and the dreamed act of sensing with inner eyes, nose, tongue, ears, fingers, and so on. Visually, the lucid dreamer may examine an orange in the basket and be surprised to see the place where the stem attaches and the slight creases there. Holding it, he or she may feel its weight, coolness, and other tactile sensations when squeezing it slightly. If the lucid dreamer pricks the orange’s skin, the scent of orange may appear (though it may not register as strongly as the waking event). If he or she takes a bite of the dream orange, it may taste exactly like an orange (though, again, perhaps not as strong). When simply accepted in the virtual reality of lucid dreaming, these inner perceptual senses appear to take the path of least resistance and normally confirm the lucid dreamer’s conscious and unconscious mental expectations. As a person has more experience with lucid dreaming, they discover that the mental activity of expectation seems subconsciously integrated into the act of perceiving and experiencing. INFLUENCE AND DIRECTION, NOT COMPLETE CONTROL When discussing the lucid dream experience, poorly conceived semantics can cause significant problems and lead to confusion. This occurs with the frequently used word control, as in the naïve assertion, “A lucid dream is when you control the dream.” This errant assertion’s implications have resulted in much debate, improper assumptions, and incorrect thinking. Reading hundreds of lucid dreams will show the error of “control.” A person becomes lucid and gets so excited that he suddenly wakes. Does that show control? A lucid dreamer tries to fly and flaps her arms like a bird but keeps falling to the ground. Where is the control? A lucid dreamer flies through a wall and now encounters a white horse, a castle with flags fluttering in the wind, and a princess waving from the tower. Did the lucid dreamer control everything on the other side of the wall into existence? If not, how does he or she explain what they found there? With considerable lucid dream experience, dreamers understand that they may direct themselves within the lucid dream by making choices and may influence many objects, figures, and situations. However, when they begin to look at what happens in the lucid dream without any conscious direction or influence from them (like the sudden appearance of the white horse, castle, and princess), they realize that much

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of the lucid dream occurs without their conscious input. Obviously, some degree of subconscious or unconscious input naturally exists in this state, which remains outside their immediate conscious control. Although lucid dreamers normally direct, influence, and relate to the dream with heightened awareness, they fail to control the entirety of the lucid dream. A survey by Stumbrys et al. (2014) showed only 44 percent of lucid dreamers were successful in accomplishing their waking intentions. To some, the issue of control may seem academic, but it matters when trying to comprehend confusing encounters with dream figures, surprising developments, and unexpected events. This point achieves special importance when interacting with dream figures. Consider this lucid dream: I cannot remember what induced to me to do so, but I told Sandra that she was a character in my dream. This is a very unusual thing for me to do—my dream ­characters usually think this is rude. She replied that I’m a character in her dream. To prove her wrong, I did various things, such as fly around the room and change the environment. Sandra did similar tricks. Neither of us could influence the other. After a bit of this, I was very confused, and Sandra commented that she, too, was confused. (Waggoner, 2009)

When a person lucidly tells a dream figure, “Do you know I am dreaming you?” and it responds, “How do you know I am not dreaming you?” then such interactions confirm lucid dreaming does not mean complete control of the experience. Understanding this point helps the lucid dreamer relate, explore, and experiment more thoughtfully in the lucid dream. Instead of feeling upset at a perceived lack of control, the person sees the unexpected and surprising development as an opportunity to investigate more deeply. DREAM FIGURES VARY A fascinating explorative study looked at the ability of dream figures to solve logical puzzles or create metaphors (Stumbrys & Daniels, 2010). The researchers found that dream figures could create metaphors more easily than solve logical puzzles. When asked to create a metaphor in response to “a lighthouse in a desert,” one dream figure offered up, “a condom in the hands of a nun.” Researchers noted that special dream figures seem to offer better metaphors than random dream figures. Another explorative study asked dream figures to solve addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division questions (Stumbrys et al., 2011). While correct only one-third of the time, dream figures did better with multiplication and division questions. When a person begins lucid dreaming, they might assume all dream figures have the same fundamental composition: for example, as symbolic projections or lesser aspects of the lucid dreamer. As lucid dreamers interact with more and more dream figures, they often see wide variations in responsiveness, behavior, apparent knowledge, and more. Some dream figures seem empty and unresponsive, some dream figures respond to questions with seeming gibberish, and others act with energy,

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knowledge, and engagement. All dream figures do not appear equal. Instead, dream figures vary, and this calls into question simple assumptions of equality and unarticulated prejudgments. Consider this example: Suddenly I realize, “This is a dream! This is a lucid dream!” I start running forward, gleeful. I turn back to three or four women sitting near the [library’s] entrance. . . . I ask the women to come fly with me, but they decline. I turn and go flying down the aisles of books. Suddenly, I take a right and fly up to a woman sitting alone. . . . I implore her to come flying with me. She hesitates, but finally agrees. We hold hands and go flying up and through the ceiling. I think how easy it is to fly with her and begin to wonder whose energy and willpower is being used in the flying, mine or hers? We go through the ceiling into an attic. She stops me and directs my focus to the scene below. Interestingly, we can now see through the building to the basement of the library. . . . [Here the lucid dreamer sees a complex geometric figure etched on the floor. Half of the geometric figure seems covered in dust, which the dreamer intuitively understands as meaning that we only grasp half of mankind’s knowledge clearly.] (Waggoner, 2009, pp. 128–129)

Experienced lucid dreamers have come to call this type of figure an “independent agent,” as it appears to act according to its own agenda and agency. It may take control of the lucid dreamer’s movement, direct the lucid dreamer to view something, and seem to act with intent. Sometimes, these dream figures appear to possess knowledge about the dream situation or point out something the lucid dreamer would have missed otherwise. Gestalt psychologist and lucid dreamer Paul Tholey made three interesting observations about dream figures in lucid dreams: (1) occasionally a dream figure may demonstrate lucid awareness before the person becomes lucidly aware, (2) occasionally a lucid dream figure may demonstrate greater awareness than the lucid dreamer, and (3) in rare instances, the figure may share information that the lucid dreamer verifies or realizes as significant upon waking. However, Tholey doubted whether one could ever prove conclusively that some dream figures have a type of conscious awareness (Tholey, 1989). As lucid dreaming allows us to converse and question dream figures, experienced lucid dreamers often learn to adopt a more nuanced view when engaging dream figures. Instead of asking, “Do you know I am dreaming you?” and seeing the characteristic frown or look of disgust, they learn to take a different tack. Asking, “Who are you?” gives the dream figure an opportunity to respond broadly and qualify itself while minimizing implied presumptions or unstated assumptions. CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCES When lucid dreaming, most people focus on what they consciously create or influence. They often fail to consider what they may unconsciously create or influence. In this example, a young lucid dreamer exemplifies the process of unconscious creativity occurring in a lucid dream:

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I have a question. In my [lucid] dreams, when I begin to do things that are inappropriate or wrong, then suddenly my mom appears. She just stares at me and makes me feel really uncomfortable. Even though I know I’m dreaming and try to get rid of her, she won’t leave. Do you know why or have any suggestions?

Imagine a lucid dreaming teenager who discovers he or she can lucidly perform actions that seem “inappropriate or wrong.” As the teenager lucidly performs the actions, a feeling of guilt or shame increases. Suddenly and without conscious intent or control, “mom appears” in the lucid dream and makes the teenager feel “really uncomfortable.” How might one explain mom’s sudden appearance in this lucid dream? In such experiences, there seems evidence for an underlying psychological process whereby sufficient mental/emotional energy in a lucid dream serves to create relatable expressions of that energy (e.g., new dream figures or objects): (a) when the dreamer’s actions or perceptions creates sufficient mental-emotional energy (e.g., guilt), (b) this energy then moves through the dreamer’s consciousness (e.g., mental framework, belief system), resulting in (c) the appearance of an appropriate symbolic representation of that energy (e.g., disapproving mother), (d) which the dreamer can then relate to on some level. This observed process, discussed more thoroughly in Lucid Dreaming Plain and Simple, (Waggoner & McCready, 2015) theoretically suggests one function of the dream state: to ensure sufficient mental-emotional energy results in expressing a representation to which the dreamer can then relate. Here, lucid dreaming allows us to notice how the thoughts or actions of the lucid dreamer connect to the apparent subconscious process of dream figure creation. In some lucid dreams, one can see this process reversed and deconstructed. Consider this example of a lucid dreamer who notices a young black woman behind him: Lucid . . . [I] place her in front of me, asking, “Who are you? Who are you?” She looks at me and surprises me with her unexpected response, “I am a discarded aspect of yourself.” (Waggoner, 2009, p. 17)

Hearing this, the lucid dreamer reasons that a “discarded aspect” must want total acceptance. He begins to completely and wholeheartedly project loving acceptance onto this discarded aspect. Suddenly, she begins shrinking, until she becomes wisps of colored light energy that then enter his torso. This energy causes him to wake. Here, the lucid dreaming process appears to show the deconstruction of a dream figure: (a) lucidly aware, the lucid dreamer learns what the dream figure says it represents; (b) he then projects acceptance onto the dream figure (i.e., what it seemed to lack); and (c) the figure begins to shrink progressively, until finally it changes, (d) becoming an expression of energy (i.e., light), which then returns to or reintegrates with its energetic source (i.e., the lucid dreamer). Essentially, this process suggests that many dream figures and dream objects may consist of a form of projected mental-emotional energy. In turn, this leads

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to helpful insights about using mental energy in the lucid dream. As experienced lucid dreamers have noted, if one meets an angry dream figure and responds to it with love, compassion, and understanding, this will normally cause the dream figure to shrink or transform into something lovable. Through the conscious manipulation of mental-emotional energy, lucid dreamers can create or alter dream figures and dream objects. Paul Tholey never outlined this process of both constructing and deconstructing dream figures. However, he did agree that, in lucid dreams, he could consciously create dream figures (Tholey, 1989) by acting in such a way that he strongly deserved punishment by an authority figure or by focusing on an emotion and blowing it outward as an inspirited process of creating a dream figure. In both instances, he reported a new dream figure would appear (in the former, as an expression to punish him, and in the latter, as an expression of the predetermined emotion). BELIEFS AND EXPECTATIONS INFLUENCE PERCEIVED EXPERIENCE Because lucid dreaming allows for experimentation and thoughtful observation, experienced lucid dreamers tend to converge toward a basic acceptance of fundamental rules and principles. Underlying the lucid dream experience, thoughtful explorers sometimes note the influential significance of the mental factors of belief and expectation in helping to create their perceived experience. Imagine a lucid dreamer who finds himself in Central Park and then decides to “fly” to the top of the Empire State Building. He breaststrokes through the air. After a minute of vigorous breaststrokes, he has made it above the trees. Yet, he still has a long way to go. What belief does he seemingly demonstrate by his lucid dream actions? Using physical action to move through the lucid dream space suggests the lucid dreamer either consciously or unconsciously believes in the need for physical effort to move forward. Does physical effort make sense in a mental or dream space? As it does not, the presence of the behavior points to some underlying conscious or unconscious belief in its necessity or usefulness. Along with this physical act, the behavior may suggest a belief in gravity (since physical effort can temporarily overcome gravity’s effect). Does gravity exist in a lucid dream? No, but as long as the lucid dreamer believes in it consciously or subconsciously, the effect appears to exist. At a recent International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) conference, an attendee mentioned that in a lucid dream, he tried to fly but kept falling, until an invisible voice announced, “Doubt is gravity.” By recognizing that point and understanding gravity has no meaning in this mental space, the lucid dreamer may suddenly discover the freedom to float, fly upside down, or to zoom easily to the top of the Empire State Building. Lucid dreamers also routinely mention the experience of the expectation effect, which means the lucid dreamer experiences what he or she expects to the degree that he or she expects it in that moment. Imagine in a lucid dream seeing a man in a black robe and suddenly “expecting” trouble; the man may, for example, turn

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and have a knife in his hand and look threatening. However, if one sees a man in a black robe and expects a priest, he will likely turn and show his priestly collar and religious jewelry. Expectation becomes a kind of momentary belief—what one expects, one tends to create. Because a change in beliefs and expectations can lead to significant alterations in perceived experience, lucid dream researchers need both the exterior report of the manifest dream and the interior report of the lucid dreamer’s thought process so that the researchers can better comprehend the flow of events. Unfortunately, beginning lucid dreamers (and some researchers) may not understand the primary connection between the perceiver’s thinking and the perceived experience. Without that understanding, lucid dreamers and researchers will fail to see this interplay of belief and expectation in helping to create the perceived experience. DIRECTION FOLLOWS FOCUS AND INTENT Another set of mental principles noticed by experienced lucid dreamers involves consciously directing one’s focus and one’s intent. Consider how focus and intent serve to create part of this lucid dream experience of Steven LaBerge: I found myself driving in my sports car down the dream road, perfectly aware that I was dreaming. I was delighted by the vibrantly beautiful scenery my lucid dream was presenting. After driving a short distance farther, I was confronted with a very attractive, I might say a dream of a hitchhiker, beside me on the road just ahead. I need hardly say that I felt strongly inclined to stop and pick her up. But I said to myself, “I’ve had that dream before. How about something new?” So I passed her by, resolving to seek “the Highest” instead. As soon as I opened myself to guidance, my car took off into the air, flying rapidly upward, until it fell behind me like the first stage of a rocket. I continued to fly higher into the clouds, where I passed a cross on a steeple, a Star of David, and other religious symbols. (LaBerge, 1985, p. 245)

Notice how without any conscious intent or control, a very attractive hitchhiker appears along the road. While he does focus on that for a moment and the implications, he purposefully shifts his focus, thinking, “I’ve had that dream before. How about something new?” Experienced lucid dreamers frequently note the necessity of deciding where to focus, as they “direct” their dream experience. Within any dream environment, various foci exist on multiple levels (e.g., immediate, implied, and potential), and an experienced lucid dreamer learns to consciously select where to focus. When LaBerge shifts his focus away from the immediate and “opened myself to guidance” (i.e., by seeking the Highest), notice what happens. Again, without explicit conscious direction, the car suddenly rockets upward, and the dreamer flies higher and sees a host of religious symbols. Something responds to his “intent” without his direct involvement in the action and minute details. Experienced lucid dreamers learn to see and practice the active use of focus and intent. A lucid dreamer may “intend” that she will find a Maserati when she opens the garage door, and normally she does and feels amazed by the extraordinary

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detail. This could be called “limited intent” inasmuch as the lucid dreamer consciously predetermines or limits the perceived experience. A lucid dreamer can also move toward “unlimited intent,” where the requested experience cannot be specifically predetermined (e.g., seeking the Highest, asking to experience concepts, etc.). By seeking out conceptual experiences or consciously agreeing to “surrender,” lucid dreamers often move beyond mental models, expectations, or beliefs and into the unexpected. A RESPONSIVE INNER AWARENESS? When viewed through the experience of longtime lucid dreamers, the complexity and depth of lucid dreaming becomes more evident. Instead of simple control, one sees the underlying rules and principles, the varying levels of awareness, and the variety of dream figures. Similarly, one sees the architectural importance of a lucid dreamer’s beliefs, expectation, focus, and intent and how these consciously and unconsciously impact the perceived lucid dream experience. Some experienced lucid dreamers report examples of interacting with a nonvisible, responsive, creative, and apparently thoughtful inner awareness (much like LaBerge appears to do when surrendering in the lucid dream). Here, however, lucid dreamers engage this nonvisible awareness by ignoring the dream figures and objects and simply announcing their question or request within the lucid dream. Sometimes they receive a verbal response or suddenly see an entirely new dream scene in response. In some cases, the seeming nonvisible awareness may disagree with the person’s intent or indicate they have not prepared for its expression. In the following examples, one gets an idea of this type of lucid interaction: • Rebecca Turner reports, “In my next lucid dream, I shouted: show me something hilarious! The next thing I saw was a man-sized, multicolored furry ape walking down the street towards me. He had a groovy walk, and his fur ruffled in highdefinition. This bizarre, out-of-the-blue image was hilarious, and I fell into fits of giggles.” (Turner, n.d.) • PasQuale Ourtane recalls making a request as part of a lucid dream experiment. Lucid, she announces: “Show me the beginning and the end of the Universe!” A nonvisible voice responds, “The Universe has no beginning and no end; the ­Universe is an everlasting cycle.” (Waggoner, 2009, p. 146) • Caroline McCready, reports becoming lucid and announcing: “Show me the consciousness that is beyond my projections.” I was instantly sucked up through the universe, and all around me the planets and stars were shown to me as balls of pure light and consciousness. There was no matter, just light, and the light was consciousness itself.” (Waggoner & McCready, 2015, pp. 191–192) • Ed Kellogg sought to have an experience connected with superstring theory in quantum mechanics. He announces: “By the power of Alkahest, let a superstring manifest!” Then he reports: “I hear a voice that tells me, ‘It does not seem a good idea to do an experiment of this type, at this time, as you still seem too unfocused and distracted.’” The nonvisible voice offers suggestions on how to approach this at a later date with “clear mindful intentionality.” (Waggoner, 2009, pp. 146–147)

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Interestingly, Carl Jung considered that an inner awareness might exist in the unconscious psychic system, and he provided a list of attributes that it might possess: “We have no knowledge of how this unconscious functions, but since it is conjectured to be a psychic system it may possibly have everything that consciousness has, including perception, apperception, memory, imagination, will, affectivity, feeling, reflection, judgment, etc., all in subliminal form” ( Jung, 1993, p. 53). In the above lucid dream interactions with this apparent nonvisible awareness, a number of these nine characteristics appear in the response, such as perception, imagination, affectivity, feeling, reflection, judgment, and so on. Jung noted the importance of this possibility: If the unconscious can contain everything that is known to be a function of consciousness, then we are faced with the possibility that it too, like consciousness, possesses a subject, a sort of ego . . . [which] brings out the real point of my argument: the fact, namely, that a second psychic system coexisting with consciousness—no matter what qualities we suspect it of possessing—is of absolutely revolutionary significance in that it could radically alter our view of the world. ( Jung, 1993, p. 61)

While the personal experience of lucid dreaming seems both complex and in need of greater study, a growing body of lucid dream reports appear to provide the nascent anecdotal evidence to consider the possibility of a second psychic system coexisting with consciousness and its instructive, educational, and creative nature. LaBerge’s experience above of surrendering naturally begs the question, who or what responds when one surrenders? The reports of many experienced lucid dreamers suggest that some type of inner awareness responds when one surrenders to the lucid dream. Typically, the response seems to involve a nonvisible “voice” making comments, or the response may come as the insertion of a particular dream symbol or the change of the entire dreamscape into something new. The depth, discrimination, and creativity of the responses suggest this process takes one beyond the knowing of the waking ego to another layer of self. HOW LUCID DREAMS END Normally, experienced lucid dreamers decide to wake, and they wake. However, sometimes they realize the lucid dream seems ready to collapse, and then they wake, only to discover that their bedroom has a different carpet color, wallpaper, and so on; they deduce that they must still be dreaming. Lucid dreamers call such events a false awakening. They recognize something seems wrong and then wake to physical reality realizing that it was a dream. LaBerge suggested that the expectation of the lucid dream’s end resulted in creating the false awakening experience. However, lucid dreams also end in a third way, which lucid dreamers often call “the Void.” The Void experience refers to the complete collapse of the visual experience of objects and figures, which is replaced by the perceiver consciously aware within a sparkling blackness. In the Void, the lucidly aware person often decides

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to wake (and then wakes in bed). However, some have found that if they maintain consciousness in the sparkling black Void state, eventually a new lucid dream springs up around them, initially as isolated objects, until finally a dream setting gets created and established. In effect, they watch the beginning of a dream. For virtually everyone, the Void seems a completely unexpected event. Because of its commonality in lucid dream reports around the world, it seems another consensually objective feature of this state noticed by lucid dreamers. While research may someday address this issue, the Void experience seems to share characteristics with simple non–rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep dreams. Void reports note that the thought process continues, but the absence of visual objects makes eye movement unnecessary. CONCLUSION Lucid dreaming offers a new way to investigate the field of dreaming and consciousness through personal and scientific experimentation. As these observations, or “lessons in lucidity,” suggest, the practice of lucid dreaming contains a widely experienced set of seeming rules or principles, along with the inherent complexities of a mentally reflective and dynamic state. Yet, within this state, amazing creativity arises, pointing to the unseen depth and potential for fascinating future research. In many respects, lucid dreaming serves as an open platform to access a unique realm of inner experience. There, a person may encounter the unexpected and mysterious, but also discover that the perceived experience seems directly related to and often constrained by the beliefs, expectations, focus, and intent of the lucid dreamer. Thus, the journey into lucid dreaming often leads to a journey into one’s self, personal intent, and belief system. With a curious, open, and trusting attitude, lucid dreamers can move beyond surface appearances and into inner explorations of profound depth and wonder.

Hyperspace Lucidity Fariba Bogzaran

Research shows that it is possible to incubate and invoke transcendent experiences (Bogzaran, 1989) or even Kundalini experiences in lucid dreams (Esser, 2013). Some of these lucid dream experiences are beyond familiar dream symbolism, sequences of dream narratives, or references to linear time and space. These dreams might be termed hyperspace lucidity (Bogzaran, 1996). These experiences are complex, multidimensional, and often nonrepresentational. These dreams are intense visually, auditorily, and somatically. Some of the experiences reported include the following: transformation of the dream body; vortex phenomena; nonlinear time; nonduality experience; unity of consciousness; experience of light; experience of the Void, as Waggoner related; and other transcendental

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phenomena. These dreams are unexpected and surprising, as they may not have references to the known. Their impact is long-lasting and difficult to put into words. They can happen within the context of long-term meditation retreats, intensive energetic practices, or incubation practices. In a study of examining modern painters depicting inner world images and lucid dreamers of hyperspace, thematic anal­ ysis of their experiences resulted in a cluster of a poetic synthesis: Appearing and disappearing of images, seeing and being in vast spaces, multidimensional, in motion, millions of white light dots, energy lines, light lines, spheres and spirals, light, brilliant light, transparent

—Fariba Bogzaran

In dream studies, the focus is often on exploring the dream narrative, symbolism, and understanding of these experiences. Within the transpersonal dream experiences, there are different layers of experiences. Scholar and lucid dreamer George Gillespie experienced and experimented with the phenomena of inner light in his dreams for decades. He created 16 categories of visual experiences in lucid dreaming, from ordinary lights to disks of lights, patterns of light, darkness, and the fullness of light (Gillespie, 2009). In the ancient text of the Upanishads, in the Mandukya section, it says, “The life of man is divided between waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep. But transcending these three states is superconscious vision—called ‘The Fourth.’” The Fourth is “beyond the senses, beyond the understanding, beyond all expression. . . . It is pure unitary consciousness, wherein awareness of the world and of multiplicity is completely obliterated. It is ineffable peace. . . . It is One without second.” Within the Vajrayana tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, lucid dreaming is a teaching within dream yoga practice. This practice can lead to transforming dreams into luminosity. For example, to receive advanced teachings, one undergoes the rigorous Ngöndro (preliminary) practices. The practice prepares the mind and the body for possible transpersonal experiences. The intermediate state of dreams is divided into several sections, and instructions are given for each particular section. In the third instruction on luminosity, called “Natural Liberation of Ignorance,” the practitioner has to follow strict dietary and sleep regiments, such as not sleeping for three days, followed by lighting special candles (butter lamps) to burn all night, making offerings, and having a guide who is experienced in this practice. This practice also includes a particular prayer. Within this system, the practice is not only done for the self but for the collective. One of the recitations is this: “For the benefit of all sentient beings, equal to space, please grant your blessings that my ignorance arises as luminosity” (Padmasambhava, n.d.). CONCLUSION One does not need to be a Tibetan Buddhist to explore the complexities of lucid dreaming. Spontaneous experience of hyperspace lucidity of great magnitude can

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occur using waking practices of intentionality, incubation, and preparation of the physical body through energetic practices, such as yoga, Tai Chi, Qigong, or other rigorous practices, which can play a role in invoking these extraordinary experiences in dreams. The practice to reach transcendent and nondual states of consciousness comes with the challenge that inevitably the experience will land in a dual reality. Incubating extraordinary experiences in dreams for transformation is perhaps best conducted in retreats and controlled environments that allow time for integration of these experiences into waking life. Incubating these states of consciousness for the sake of experiencing them may give momentary satisfaction; however, the key is the assimilation of these experiences (Sparrow, 2014).

Neuroscience of Lucid Dreaming Sérgio Mota-Rolim, Benjamin Baird, and Martin Dresler

Lucid dreaming faced considerable skepticism in mainstream sleep research for many years; however, its conceptual status changed in the late 1970s, when the first systematic validation of lucid dreaming as an objectively verifiable phenomenon occurring during otherwise normal rapid eye movement (REM) sleep was achieved. Building on research that showed that rapid eye movements during REM sleep can be related to gaze direction during dreaming (e.g., Dement, 1958), dreamers were asked to move their eyes in a left-right-left-right fashion during dreaming as soon as they became lucid (Hearne, 1978; LaBerge et al., 1981). Through this technique, which has since become the gold standard in lucid dream research, reports of lucid dreams could be objectively verified by eye movement patterns as recorded in the electrooculogram during polysomnography-verified sleep. By providing objective temporal markers of dream content, this technique has opened up a new method for studying the psychophysiology of REM sleep, allowing, for example, investigations into neural correlates of dreamed behaviors and comparisons of the passage of time as experienced during dreaming with objective measurements in the real world. However, the relative infrequency with which lucid dreams spontaneously occur makes studies with large sample sizes challenging, and therefore many results from lucid dreaming studies are best regarded as preliminary. In this chapter, we give an overview of the existing neuroscientific literature on lucid dreaming from electroencephalographic (EEG) studies of both REM and NREM sleep, structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and brain stimulation studies. ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPH Y AND LUCID DREAMING EEG studies on dreaming started to appear with the discovery of REM sleep in 1953. During REM sleep, skeletal muscle atonia prevents subjects from acting out the movements they are dreaming about. Aware of the fact that the eyes can

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still move during REM sleep, Keith Hearne (1978) and Stephen LaBerge and colleagues (1981), independently, asked participants to perform voluntary pre-agreed ocular movements if they achieved lucidity while dreaming. These studies both succeeded in providing objective evidence that lucid dreams occur in physiologically defined sleep. Following the successful proof of concept of these initial studies, eye signaling during REM sleep has become the gold standard technique in lucid dreaming research and has been adopted by laboratories around the world. Although lucid REM sleep dreaming is characterized by all coarse EEG features of REM sleep according to the classical Rechtschaffen and Kales or the new American Academy of Sleep Medicine sleep stage scoring (see the “Human Sleep Architecture” section in Chapter 1), it does show some physiological changes compared to nonlucid REM sleep, such as higher eye movement density and increases in respiration, heart rate, and skin potential (LaBerge et al., 1986). These findings show that lucid dreams are characterized by (or tend to occur during) a physiologically activated stage of REM sleep with high autonomic arousal. As noted above, the question of whether this activation can be linked to specific brain areas or specific frequencies of neural oscillatory activity has been addressed in a number of studies, but there is considerable discrepancy among results. To date, there is no clear convergence of evidence. Occipital Alpha Soon after the first physiological validation of lucid dreaming via the eyesignaling technique, EEG correlates of lucid dreaming were investigated. Both Ogilvie et al. (1982) and Tyson et al. (1984) observed a relationship between lucidity and an increase in alpha band (8–12 Hz) power, which has also been later reported (Mota-Rolim et al., 2008). However, follow-up research has largely not supported the hypothesis that lucid REM is associated with increased alpha activity, with several investigations failing to replicate the original findings or to find any association between lucid dreaming and alpha activity (e.g., LaBerge, 1988; Ogilvie et al., 1983, 1991). EEG alpha activity is a characteristic electrophysiological feature of humans in mentally relaxed wake states with eyes closed. Although the power of this oscillation decreases through visual input when opening the eyes, EEG alpha also increases during imagination of visual scenes and working memory tasks. The increased visual vividness (Green, 1968) and the ability to intentionally perform relatively complex cognitive tasks (Erlacher et al., 2014) during lucid compared to nonlucid dreams are in line with these features of EEG alpha during wakefulness. Interestingly, increased EEG alpha power has also been observed during certain meditative states, and an association between meditation and lucid dreaming has been noted (Mota-Rolim et al., 2013). This association could be due to changes in sleep induced by meditation practice or to an increase in mental control that is associated with both lucid dreaming and meditation. As mentioned in the introduction, Tibetan monks developed dream yoga, which is based on meditation techniques, to induce lucid dreaming and to use the lucid dream state as a platform for

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meditation practice. The relationship between meditation and lucid dreaming is intriguing and deserving of further study. Research studies directly investigating changes in lucid dream frequency associated with meditation experience and the efficacy of dream yoga techniques for inducing lucid dreams would be a welcome addition to the literature. Parietal Beta Besides alpha, increased power within the beta band (13–20 Hz) over the parietal regions during lucid dreaming has been reported (Holzinger et al., 2006). The temporoparietal area integrates visual, tactile, proprioceptive, and vestibular information, contributing to self-consciousness and body imagery. Furthermore, as specific regions of the parietal lobe are known to support semantic understanding, Holzinger et al. speculate that the increased beta power in the parietal region could reflect the explicit semantic knowledge that one is currently dreaming. As discussed below, recent neuroimaging studies have also linked parietal regions to explicit self-reflection, episodic memory, and agency, suggesting several other possible interpretations of the results. Frontal Gamma More recent studies observed that lucid dreaming correlates with prefrontal activity during REM sleep in the 40 Hz gamma band (Mota-Rolim et al., 2008; Voss et al., 2009, 2014). The prefrontal cortex is considerably expanded in humans compared to other primates, and prefrontal brain activity is associated with several higher cognitive processes, such as self-consciousness, working memory, and attention. During nonlucid REM sleep, there is a functional deactivation of the frontal cortex (see the “Neuroimaging Studies of Dreaming” section in Chapter 2) and an uncoupling between the frontal and perceptual regions (Perez-Garci et al., 2001). This brain pattern could underlie the loss of voluntary control, lack of ­judgment, and passive acceptance of bizarreness during dreaming (Hobson et al., 2000). Prefrontal activation during REM sleep has been hypothesized to underlie lucid dreaming (Muzur et al., 2002). A possible confound has to be mentioned here: 40 Hz activity during REM sleep had already been described by Llinas and Ribary in 1993. However, when selectively localized in the frontal region, it may be confounded with artifacts due to microsaccades (Yuval-Greenberg et al., 2008), small, involuntary eye movements that are present with the activity of rapid eye movements during REM sleep. This is particularly relevant given evidence that lucid REM sleep is associated with higher eye movement density than nonlucid REM sleep. Furthermore, a recent study with narcolepsy patients did not observe increased EEG gamma power or increased gamma coherence between electrodes during lucid compared to nonlucid REM sleep (Dodet et al., 2015). The authors suggest that frontal activity in nonnarcoleptic lucid dreamers is not a marker of self-awareness, but of the mental effort to achieve dream lucidity, although this state may be achieved with less mental effort in narcoleptic patients.

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Global Delta Dodet et al. (2015) found EEG power to be globally reduced in the delta band during lucid dreaming. In line with this finding, it has recently been shown that delta power, particularly above the midcingulate cortex, is reduced in REM sleep episodes when there is high cognitive activity (Perogamvros et al., 2017). Interestingly, reduced delta activity, particularly in posterior regions, has further been reported as an EEG correlate of dream experiences in general (Siclari et al., 2017). These studies are in line with the position that lucid dreaming is a particularly rich and thoughtful type of mental activity during sleep. LUCID DREAMING DURING NREM SLEEP Despite being less common, lucid dreaming has also been reported during sleep onset (N1) and light sleep (N2), but not during deep sleep (N3) (Dane, 1984; Stumbrys & Erlacher, 2012). Recently, two case reports of lucid dreaming confirmed by eye signaling during sleep onset and light sleep have been reported; however, no significant spectral changes were observed when compared to other N1 and N2 episodes without lucid dreaming (Mota-Rolim et al., 2015). CONCLUSIONS AND LIMITATIONS OF EEG STUDIES EEG studies show substantial disagreement regarding the brain regions and frequency bands most associated with lucid dreaming: different studies have observed an increase in occipital alpha, parietal beta, and frontal gamma or a decrease in global delta activity. Notwithstanding a general uncertainty regarding the results of each study due to small sample sizes, these discrepant results might be partially conciliated when considering that lucid dreaming is a complex phenomenon that is potentially achieved and executed in different ways, possibly depending on such factors as visual vividness and working memory, the notion of self and body internal imagery, the degree of reflective self-consciousness, attention and insight into one’s state, and the background state of ongoing cortical activity. In addition, different subjective experiences during lucid dreaming may have their own specific neural substrates (Mota-Rolim et al., 2010; Siclari et al., 2017). Furthermore, the changes in brain activity may also be related to the experience of the dreamer, as lucid dreaming of naïve subjects may be more ephemeral and with more limited control over dream content, while, with practice, lucid dreams can become longer and more controlled (as described in the first section of this chapter). It may therefore be hypothesized that frequent lucid dreamers could show a more distinct change in the EEG signal associated with becoming lucid, but also weaker activity related to the effort needed to maintain lucidity during the dream. It should also be noted that the EEG analysis of lucid dreaming data employed in previous studies may not be optimal. For instance, usually the average power over a given spectral band and region is measured. However, it may well be possible that lucid dreaming is rather associated with transient spectral changes that

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can only be detected by a better time-resolved analysis. Indeed, it is plausible that the explicit metacognitive act of realizing that one is in a dream has a distinctive neurophysiological correlate, which may or may not extend over the course of the entire lucid REM sleep period. As another example of the potential benefits of a time-resolved analysis, using the spectrogram technique, a preliminary analysis of several EEG recordings found that bursts of alpha activity occurred during the REM sleep period preceding lucidity onset (Mota-Rolim, 2012). These alpha bursts occur with no muscle tone modification and would thus be considered a micro-arousal (Cantero et al., 2000). This suggests that lucid dreams may in some cases be more likely to occur following brief arousals from REM sleep. At the same time, evidence also clearly shows that lucidity can occur in the midst of a prolonged period of REM sleep without any preceding arousals or micro-arousals. Together, these remarks highlight the fact that lucid dreams can be initiated in different ways, which could plausibly influence the measurement of the neural correlates of the transition to lucidity during REM sleep. NEUROIMAGING STUDIES OF LUCID DREAMING Dreamlike mental activity can be observed during all sleep stages; however, REM sleep dreams are particularly vivid and intense. The specific phenomenal characteristics of dreaming have frequently been associated with neural activation patterns observed during REM sleep with neuroimaging methods, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron-emission tomography (PET). For example, higher visual areas show strong metabolic activity along with the amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate. All these brain areas have been implicated in emotional processing, mirroring the intense emotions experienced in many dreams. In contrast, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and parietal areas, including the supramarginal cortex and precuneus, show low metabolic rates during normal REM sleep, which have been postulated to underlie cognitive deficiencies typical of ordinary dreaming, such as impaired critical thinking, diminished metacognitive ability, and restricted volitional control. In a combined fMRI and EEG case study, activations in a network of neocortical regions, including the dorsolateral and frontopolar prefrontal cortex, were observed during lucid dreaming as compared with nonlucid REM sleep (Dresler et al., 2012). Consistent with these results, a recent anatomical analysis found increased gray matter volume in the frontopolar cortex of individuals with higher scores on a scale assessing the frequency of lucid dreams or dream content hypothesized to be related to lucidity (Filevich et al., 2015). The frontopolar cortex has been related to the processing of internal states, including, for example, the evaluation of our own thoughts and feelings, metacognitive ability, and supervisory modes, all of which are likely to be increased during lucid dreaming. Strong activation increases during lucid dreaming were also observed in parietal regions, including the precuneus, inferior parietal lobule, and supramarginal gyrus (Dresler et al., 2012). Prefrontal-parietal interactions are involved in many higher

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cognitive processes, such as intelligence or working memory, while the precuneus has been implicated in self-referential processing, such as first-person perspective taking, experience of agency, and autobiographical memory. This is in line with the notion that dream lucidity provides increased availability of self-related information, leading to a much higher degree of coherence and stability of the first-person perspective or cognitive self during lucid dreaming (Windt & Metzinger, 2007). Taken together, the frontoparietal activation patterns observed during lucid REM sleep mirror the reinstatement of cognitive capabilities experienced during lucid dreaming. Activation increases during lucid dreaming were also found in some occipital and inferior-medial temporal regions (Dresler et al., 2012). These cortical areas are part of the ventral stream of visual processing, which is involved in several aspects of conscious awareness in visual perception. While these activations seem puzzling at first sight—as nonlucid dreams are also characterized by vivid dream imagery—they are in line with reports of lucid dreamers stating that lucidity can be associated with an increased visual clarity of the dream scenery (Green, 1968). In recent years, network analyses of neuroimaging data have been introduced into sleep research. Particular interest has been given to the default mode network, which during wakefulness shows increased activity in absence of processing related to external tasks. As this activity increase appears to be related to stimulusindependent thought, such as internal awareness and daydreaming during wakefulness, the default mode network has been proposed to be associated with nonlucid dreaming during sleep (see “The Neurocognitive Theory of Dreaming” section in Chapter 3). A second network, frequently referred to as the dorsal attention system, is mainly involved in externally directed perceptual processes. A third network, termed the frontoparietal control network, has been postulated to integrate information coming from both the default mode and the dorsal attention networks by switching between competing internally and externally directed processes. Phenomenologically, this may be interpreted as a monitoring of and control over mind-wandering and perception by metacognitive processes. Due to this role as a kind of meta-network, the frontoparietal control network may be seen as an ideal candidate supporting metacognitive aspects of consciousness that are the hallmark of lucid dreaming. Indeed, the brain regions activated during lucid dreaming in the fMRI case study comprise substantial parts of the frontoparietal control network (Dresler et al., 2012). Future group-level neuroimaging studies of lucid REM sleep will be important to understand precisely how well the neural activation patterns of lucidity map to activity in these established networks, as well as functional neural interactions between and within these networks. Evidence from sufferers of REM sleep behavior disorder (see the “Dreaming in Parasomnias” section in Chapter 8) implies movement of the dream self within a dream experience leads to corresponding neural activity in the sensorimotor cortex and supplementary motor areas in a way that is analogous to waking movements. This was directly tested for the first time by Dresler et al. (2011), who asked habitual lucid dreamers to perform a series of left-right hand movements during their lucid dreams, separated by ocular signaling to identify the beginning and end of the task. The findings showed observable but reduced activity in the sensorimotor cortex when compared to the overt performance of the task while awake, with

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comparable activity in the supplementary motor areas. This area of the brain is responsible for the planning, programming, and monitoring of intended movement, supporting the notion that motor actions occurring within dreams of any kind correspond with activity in this area of the brain. BRAIN STIMULATION AND LUCID DREAMING While both EEG and neuroimaging studies can inform us about the neural correlates of lucid dreaming, brain-stimulation methods have the potential to reveal causal relationships between brain mechanisms and dream lucidity. A first study with this aim used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during REM sleep. Compared to sham stimulation, tDCS resulted in a small numerical increase in self-ratings of the level of awareness of the unreality of aspects of the dream, particularly the unreality of dream objects, as assessed by the Dream Lucidity Questionnaire (Stumbrys et al., 2013). Interestingly, post hoc analyses revealed that this effect was seen only in subjects with a considerable baseline frequency of lucid dreams, but not in individuals with little or no lucid dreaming experience. However, tDCS neither increased judge ratings of dream lucidity nor significantly increased the number of lucid dreams verified by eye signals (Stumbrys et al., 2013). A second study made use of the potential of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) to target brain activity of specific frequencies (Voss et al., 2014). In line with findings of increased gamma activity during lucid dreaming, tACS of 25 Hz and 40 Hz increased self-ratings on the insight and dissociation subscales of the Lucidity and Consciousness in Dreams scale (LuCiD; Voss et al., 2013) compared to sham and stimulation with several other frequencies. Notably, however, even for 25 and 40 Hz stimulation, ratings were considerably below those of lucid dreams as reported in the validation study of the LuCiD scale, and even below the values of nonlucid dreaming for one of the reported samples (Voss et al., 2013). In conclusion, evidence suggests that stimulation of the prefrontal cortex with tDCS or with 25 or 40 Hz tACS may lead to small increases in self-ratings of insight into various aspects of the dream as measured by different scales, but, at least in the manner tested thus far, this does not appear to be effective for inducing fully lucid dreams. Nevertheless, we believe that the induction of lucid dreams through brain stimulation is a particularly fruitful and interesting direction for upcoming work. Future studies should consider stimulating a wider number of brain areas as well as training participants in other complementary strategies for lucid dream induction, that is, intention setting and prospective memory. CONCLUSION Despite its physiological validation for about four decades, the neurobiology of lucid dreaming is still poorly characterized, with most studies relying on small sample sizes. Not surprisingly, the results of such underpowered studies are not consistent; almost every EEG study reports changes in spectral power in a different

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frequency band or brain area. While neuroimaging data is sparse, evidence suggests that frontal and parietal regions are important for dream lucidity. The involvement of these brain regions in metacognitive processes during the waking state is also in line with these findings. Brain-stimulation studies may also be taken to be generally consistent with an involvement of prefrontal regions, but they have so far not resulted in significant increases in the frequency of lucid dreams per se. Currently, it is thus too early to tell how effective direct stimulation of the frontal cortex will be for lucid dream induction. Altogether, additional studies with larger sample sizes— for example, large-scale group-level high-density EEG, magnetoencephalography (MEG) and concurrent EEG/fMRI studies—will be important next steps toward characterizing the neural functional changes associated with self-consciousness during sleep. For now, the neurobiological basis of lucid dreaming remains an open question for ongoing research.

Psychological and Lifestyle Correlates of Lucid Dreaming David T. Saunders

Why do some individuals experience lucid dreams while others do not? For those that do experience lucid dreams, why do some occur spontaneously with little or no intention, while others must adopt various induction techniques for sustained periods of time? Furthermore, not all who attempt the task are successful. Why is it that induction techniques work incredibly well for some individuals and not at all for others? Answers to these questions may be found by determining whether individuals who experience lucid dreams share characteristics that may promote either spontaneous lucid dreams or the efficacy of techniques proposed for cultivating the experience. This section will briefly elucidate the findings of research investigating correlates of lucid dreaming and are presented as four variable groups: oneiric, personality, cognitive, and lifestyle. Note that neurobiological correlates are covered in the prior section on the “Neuroscience of Lucid Dreaming.” This list is not exhaustive; some variables with limited evidence have been omitted for the sake of brevity. ONEIRIC CORRELATES Oneiric correlates refer to those variables related to the dream experience that have been associated with lucid dreaming incidence. Dream-Recall Frequency A range of studies (e.g., Wolpin et al., 1992) have demonstrated that dream recall frequency is one of the most consistent variables positively related to lucid dreaming frequency. This finding is not unsurprising, as an individual’s chances of recalling a lucid dream should be higher for those who are better at recalling their dreams.

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Nightmares A nightmare may act as a trigger for lucid dreaming onset, particularly when recurrent (Wolpin et al., 1992), potentially due to the increased likelihood of the dreamer recognizing familiar elements of a nightmare they have experienced multiple times before. Positive correlations between the two frequencies across several studies (e.g., Stepansky et al., 1998) support this association between nightmares and lucid dreams. However, a significant proportion of the relationship appears mediated by both variables sharing a relationship with dream recall frequency. Thus, individuals who are better at recalling dreams report higher nightmare frequency and higher numbers of lucid dreams. Statistically controlling dream recall frequency reduces the relationship, though it remains significant (Schredl & Erlacher, 2004). This suggests that, in some instances, nightmares may act as a trigger for lucid dreams or that a variable related to both, such as heightened physiological arousal during sleep, mediates this relationship. BIOLOGICAL CORRELATES Age Another factor associated with lucid dreaming frequency is biological age. In a sample of 360 lucid dreamers aged 6–19 years old, Voss et al. (2012) observed that lucid dreaming prevalence is significantly positively related to participant age, but then there is a substantial drop-off after the age of 16. These findings suggest that as children age, lucid dreaming onset and frequency increases, but as they approach adulthood, this frequency rapidly diminishes. Not all studies support this relationship; a study by Hearne (1983) of 314 lucid dreamers found that 38 percent of all reported lucid accounts were by participants between the ages of 20 and 30, substantially higher than for the 10- to 20-year-old participants (16%). Further research by Doll et al. (2009) found no significant correlation between participant age and lucid dream frequency. However, this was in a volunteer sample of 89 lucid dreamers, aged 18–59, by which age the frequency drop off observed by Voss may have already occurred. At present, the relationship between age and lucid dreaming is unclear, and more research is needed. Differences in the type of lucid dream reported by participants (spontaneous or cultivated) are rarely measured in these studies and could provide greater insight into the current findings. Additionally, retrospective reporting is prone to bias; therefore, more longitudinal studies would be beneficial. PSYCHOLOGICAL CORRELATES: PERSONALIT Y VARIABLES The term personality variable refers to those behavioral dispositions, traits, or aspects of character that are considered broadly stable over time. Openness to Experience Openness to experience is one of the personality traits that constitute the Big Five theory of personality. An individual scoring highly on this trait would be

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considered imaginative, open-minded, inquisitive, and keen to try new things. Thus, the relationship between openness to experience and lucid dreams is a plausible one, as those high in this trait may be more likely to attempt to experience a lucid dream when hearing about them. A study by Schredl et al. (2016) conducted in libraries around the United Kingdom on a sample of 1,375 adolescents and adults found a significant positive correlation between lucid dreaming frequency and openness to experience. However, not all studies have shown this relationship consistently. For example, Watson (2001) found a significant correlation between openness to experience and lucid dreaming in his first sample, but no relationship in a second. An explanation for this may be that dream recall frequency plays a mediating role in the observed relationship. Controlling for this variable, Schredl and Erlacher (2004) saw a reduction in the strength of the relationship, with only subfactors of the trait retaining significance. They report significant correlations for both fantasy and ideas alongside the dimensions of thin boundaries consisting of psychological absorption and imagination. Hypnotisability—another factor associated with the openness to experience—was also positively related to lucid dreaming frequency, supporting previous associations between these two variables (Hoyt et al., 1992). Therefore, while the direct relationship between the openness factor and lucid dreaming frequency may not be a substantial one, subfactors of the dimension warrant further investigation. Conscientiousness Another Big Five trait related to lucid dreaming frequency is conscientiousness, which refers to an individual’s tendency to strive for achievement regardless of external expectation and to be hardworking, organized, and self-disciplined. Individuals scoring low in conscientiousness are easygoing and disorganized, and they demonstrate a preference for impulsive behavior. Small but significant negative correlations between lucid dreaming frequency and conscientiousness have been reported by both Watson (2001) and Schredl et al. (2016). These findings imply that high conscientiousness may be prohibitive for the occurrence of lucid dreaming. One explanation for this relationship may be that lucid dream experiences offer considerable freedom for the dreamer, which makes them particularly attractive for individuals who value spontaneity. A rigid structure and organization in waking life may also in some way reduce an individual’s capacity to develop self-reflective awareness during a dream state due to the disorganized and chaotic nature of many dream experiences. Alternatively, differences in conscientiousness may lead to differences in the type of dream experienced or behavior within them, which may either encourage or inhibit lucid dream onset. PSYCHOLOGICAL CORRELATES: COGNITION Cognitive variables refer to the heuristics used by individuals to process information about their environment that exist at every level of information processing.

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The diverse array of cognitive strategies an individual employs has a significant influence on the way that person interacts with, understands, and navigates their environment. The lucid dreaming environment is distinct from any other kind, and the experience of navigating it may require specific types of heuristics. Field Independence People can be characterized as field dependent or independent, distinguishing between the way in which an individual perceives their visual field, either globally or analytically. Field independent individuals are more capable of distinguishing individual items from their context, making them more proficient at identifying simple shapes hidden within more complex designs. Gackenbach et al. (1985) argued that lucid dreamers may rely on internal stimuli more often than nonlucid dreamers and thus may be more field independent, observing that frequent lucid dreamers demonstrated a greater field-independent orientation than individuals who had never experienced a lucid dream. However, Blagrove and Tucker (1994) were not able to replicate this relationship. Patrick and Durndell (2004) argued field independence may lead to lucid dreams due to some being induced by the identification of objects within the dream scene that are incongruent with waking reality. Their findings demonstrated significant differences between frequent, infrequent, and nonlucid dreamers, with field independence increasing alongside lucid dreaming frequency, suggesting frequent lucid dreamers may perceive their waking world more field independently than individuals who do not lucid dream. Saunders et al. (2017) demonstrated that field independence increased in participants after they had experienced a lucid dream, suggesting the dream itself had an appreciable effect on waking field independence. Overall, the association between lucid dreaming frequency and field independence appears likely; yet, its nature is unclear. Locus of Control Locus of control refers to the extent to which an individual believes they have power over the events that occur in their life. It ranges from highly internal (where one believes one has a great deal of influence over events and their outcomes) to highly external (where one attributes control of the events to outside forces). Blagrove and Tucker (1994) hypothesized an association between lucid dreaming and locus of control because lucid dreamers extend control over their dream environment in a comparable way to how internally orientated individuals make efforts to control their environments in waking life. Several experimental studies comparing frequent, infrequent, and non-lucid dreamers have implied a positive relationship with locus of control (e.g., Blagrove & Tucker, 1994), but the findings for this variable are mixed. Further research has suggested a subdimension of locus of control, namely, internality, rather than a belief in powerful others or chance, may be the factor related to lucid dreaming frequency (Blagrove & Hartnell, 2000).

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LIFEST YLE CORRELATES Lifestyle correlates constitute a diffuse range of variables composed of behaviors in which an individual regularly engages. Alarm Clocks Given the reported success of the wake-back-to-bed technique at inducing lucid dreams (see the “Lucid Dream Induction” section in this chapter), Smith and Blagrove (2015) investigated whether the frequency of nighttime awakenings, alarm clock use, or snooze button use was related to self-reported lucid dream frequency. Using an online retrospective questionnaire, they found positive relationships between lucid dreaming frequency and the number of awakenings during the night and the frequency with which people used the snooze function in the morning. A potential explanation is that periods of brief awakening followed by a return to sleep may elicit neurological activity or sleep-onset REM periods that provide conducive conditions for lucid dreaming onset. Meditation The earliest written records of lucid dreaming associate it with Eastern contemplative practices. Moffitt et al. (1988) highlighted the parallels between meditation and lucid dreaming as both existing along a self-reflective continuum. Hunt (1989) argues this relationship may be due to lucid dreams containing elements of detached receptivity and enhanced self-awareness, both characteristics that are exhibited by meditators in their waking lives, suggesting a continuity between their waking and dreaming selves. Supporting this association between the two are findings that show the degree of meditative practice positively correlates with lucid dreaming frequency (e.g., Hunt, 1991). Video Games Another relationship suggesting a continuity between waking and dreaming self is that between hard-core video game players and lucid dreaming. Hard-core gamers are classified as individuals who play video games an average of several times a week, typically for periods of over two hours, and have played video games since or before the age of 10. Gackenbach and Hunt (2014) have proposed this may be due to significant parallels that exist between gameplay, meditation, and lucid dreaming; lucid dreaming and video game play are both grounded in similar spatial skills and require resilience to motion sensitivity and focused attention. These individuals have a strong familiarity with immersion and navigation of electronically generated virtual worlds while awake. This experience may transfer to their biologically generated virtual world of dreams, increasing their likelihood to experience lucid dreams.

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CONCLUSION Research into the correlates of lucid dreaming is contributing to an ever more detailed picture of what constitutes this distinct state of conscious awareness. A greater understanding of what cognitive, personality, or behavioral factors may contribute to lucid dreams can aid in identifying individuals naturally predisposed to lucid dreaming or may aid in matching individuals with particular characteristics to specific lucid dreaming induction strategies for increased efficacy. A major challenge facing researchers in this area is accessing sufficiently experienced participant samples. Thus, any knowledge that aids in increasing the number of experienced lucid dreamers will contribute toward scientific progress in understanding the nature, applications, and benefits of this unique aspect of human experience.

Lucid Dream Induction Tadas Stumbrys, Melanie Schädlich, and Daniel Erlacher

As the surveys noted in the first section of this chapter, although about half of the general population have had at least one lucid dream experience in their life, a much lower percentage were having them frequently and very few more than once per week. As lucid dreaming is a relatively infrequent experience, one of the most pertinent questions is how to facilitate it. This is especially important for two reasons: (1) to be made available for wider audiences, where it might be useful for overcoming nightmares (see the “Dream Lucidity and Nightmares” section in Chapter 17), improving motor skills, and creatively solving problems, and (2) to facilitate lucid dream research, which today suffers from small sample sizes. LUCID DREAM INDUCTION It has been repeatedly demonstrated that lucid dreaming is learnable, and it is possible to increase the frequency of lucid dreams via certain induction methods. While initially referred to as a skill, lucid dreaming is better described as an ability (more innate individual capacity), which can be improved via training but will decrease if training is discontinued. Furthermore, lucid dreaming is an ability that can be not only acquired but also mastered. More frequent lucid dreamers have longer lucid dreams, are more likely to try different things within a lucid dream, have a better recall of their waking intentions for lucid dreams, and are more successful in accomplishing them. Further, they are more able to maintain their dream lucidity and demonstrate more control of their dream body as well as of their dream environment (Stumbrys et al., 2014; Stumbrys & Erlacher, 2017). How to measure the effectiveness of different induction techniques is a more complicated question than it first seems. Think of a fictive lucid dream induction study in which 10 people with no experience with lucid dreaming apply a specific

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technique to induce lucid dreams for one week. After one week, 4 out of the 10 participants have experienced one lucid dream each, 1 has had three lucid dreams in a single night, 1 has had two lucid dreams during two different nights, and 4 did not report a lucid dream. In our fictive example, what would be the effectiveness of this induction method? One could say 60 percent, because 6 out of 10 had at least one lucid dream during the course of the study. However, this figure does not illustrate the increase in lucid dreams, which could be expressed as an absolute number of lucid dreams over a period of time or as a relative number in comparison to a baseline measure or a control group. How to measure lucidity is another essential issue of lucid dream induction research. In sleep laboratory studies, the gold standard—to count a lucid dream as a lucid dream—would be a signal-verified lucid dream (SVLD), where dream lucidity is confirmed both via a subjective verbal report and objective eye movements on the polysomnographic recording during unequivocal REM sleep (LaBerge et al., 1981). However, dream lucidity is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon: there are different degrees—a continuum—of lucidity (as described in the first section), and few efforts have been made to take into account this spectrum of lucidity. Earlier studies tried to devise categorical external rating systems based on perceived self-reflectiveness during dreaming and dream control (Stewart & Koulack, 1989). More recent efforts have focused on self-report questionnaires to measure different aspects of lucidity, including the Dream Lucidity Questionnaire (DLQ) developed by Stumbrys et al. (2013) and the Lucidity and Consciousness in Dreams (LuCiD) scale introduced by Voss et al. (2013). The term lucid dream induction in its broadest sense refers to any means aiming to increase the frequency of lucid dreams. Stumbrys et al. (2012) carried out an extensive systematic review of all published evidence on lucid dream induction, including 37 manuscripts reporting 35 induction studies. For the present chapter, we have updated these findings, including 10 additional studies that were published after the earlier review was conducted (late 2011 to early 2017). All lucid dream induction methods were grouped into three broad categories: (1) cognitive techniques (that encompass all cognitive activities carried out to increase the likelihood of lucid dreaming); (2) external stimulation (includes all types of stimuli presented during REM sleep that can trigger dream lucidity); and (3) miscellaneous techniques (covers all other diverse methods that cannot be included in the two previous categories). In the following, we will focus on the description of the different techniques and give some examples for field or laboratory studies (for a comprehensive overview, see Stumbrys & Erlacher, 2014; Stumbrys et al., 2012). COGNITIVE TECHNIQUES Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD) The mnemonic induction of lucid dreams (MILD) technique was developed by Stephen LaBerge (1980). It is based on the ability to remember and perform future actions (i.e., prospective memory), and the technique is usually applied upon a spontaneous awakening. The person is asked to recall a dream and identify some

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events or objects in the dream that are highly improbable and could thus be used to recognize the experience as a dream (so-called dreamsigns). Then, while lying in bed and returning to sleep, the individual has to visualize the dream and upon encountering a dreamsign imagine oneself becoming lucid and set an intention to remember: “Next time I’m dreaming, I will remember to recognize that I’m dreaming.” MILD is among the empirically most tested and validated techniques for lucid dream induction. When MILD is applied upon awakening in the early morning, lucid dreams are several times more likely than during the earlier part of the night (LaBerge et al., 1994). This approach is also known as wake-back-to-bed (WBTB), and the optimal duration for WBTB awakenings is between 30 and 120 minutes. While the aforementioned studies were conducted as field experiments and used only skilled lucid dreamers as participants, recent sleep laboratory research applying polysomnographic recording and subjects that were not selected by their lucid dream abilities extended these findings (Stumbrys & Erlacher, 2014) and suggested 60 minutes as the optimal time for WBTB awakening to practice MILD. Reflection/Reality Testing The core assumption behind the reflection or reality testing method is the continuity of critical-reflective attitude across waking and dreaming (Tholey, 1983). While awake, the individual builds a habit of regularly asking himself or herself the question, “Am I dreaming or not?” and examining the environment for possible incongruences or performing a “reality check” to test the present state of consciousness and distinguish the dreaming state from wakefulness. Reality checks could, for example, involve testing physical laws (e.g., jumping and examining how quickly one descends, pushing a finger through solid objects) or the constancy of the environment (e.g., reading some text, turning the gaze away and rereading once again). The habit built while awake would then be transferred to the dream state and trigger lucidity. Reflection/reality testing can increase the frequency of lucid dreams, but for some people, a certain period of time (e.g., one or two months) is needed for the habit to be transferred to the dream state. Performing more reality checks while awake also seems to lead to a higher frequency of lucid dreams (Levitan, 1989). Intention In intention technique, before falling asleep, one imagines oneself as intensively as possible as being in a dream and recognizing that one is dreaming (Tholey, 1983). Although similar to MILD, the notable difference is that it does not explicitly involve the mnemonic component and is more based on setting specific intention rather than prospective memory training. Most of the studies that employed the intention technique were specifically targeted at nightmare sufferers, with the aim to reduce nightmare frequency and intensity (Spoormaker & Van den Bout, 2006). Overall, about a half of the participants experienced lucid dreams within one to

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three months’ time. One other study also showed that the intention technique is effective; yet, its success rates were lower as compared to reflection/reality testing and similar to autosuggestion (see below) (Schlag-Gies, 1992). Autosuggestion With autosuggestion, a person in a relaxed state before falling asleep suggests to himself or herself, “Tonight I will have a lucid dream” (Tholey, 1983). Autosuggestion seems to be less effective than reflection/reality testing, but it is effective to a similar extent as the intention technique (Schlag-Gies, 1992), although somewhat more useful for frequent lucid dreamers (Levitan, 1989). Posthypnotic Suggestion The posthypnotic suggestion technique requires a hypnotherapist making a suggestion—in person or via a provided tape recording at home—to a person to have a lucid dream the next night while the person is in a hypnotic trance. The empirical findings on the effectiveness are somewhat ambiguous, but field studies have shown promising results: within a nine-week period, 75 percent of the participants were able to experience lucid dreams (Holzinger et al., 2015). Combined Approaches Several studies have used a combination of different techniques for lucid dream induction. One notable example is Tholey’s (1983) combined technique, which incorporates elements of reflection, intention, and autosuggestion. During the day, one develops a critical-reflective attitude by regularly asking oneself, “Am I dreaming or not?” and performing reality checks (reflection), imagining being in a dream and recognizing this (intention), and suggesting to oneself to become lucid when falling asleep (autosuggestion). Recent studies (e.g., Saunders et al., 2017; Sparrow et al., 2013) showed some success with combined approaches. Wake-Induced Lucid Dreams (WILD)/Dream Reentry In contrast to techniques that essentially aim to initiate lucidity from within the dream, or dream-induced lucid dreaming (DILD) techniques, wake-induced lucid dreaming (WILD) is an approach in which a person aims to retain conscious awareness while falling asleep and to directly (re)enter the dream state after a brief awakening or a period of wakefulness (Tholey, 1983). The dreamer is to keep still and focus his or her mind on a particular activity (such as counting, breathing, hypnagogic imagery, or visualizations) while falling asleep. Consequently, one might directly enter the dream state without losing conscious awareness in-between. This idea has ancient origins in the Tibetan dream yoga tradition. In the only study that investigated the WILD technique (Levitan, 1991), after a spontaneous awakening from a dream, the participants were asked to focus either

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on counting or on their body image while falling asleep. Dream reentry appeared to be fairly successful (23% of attempts resulted in lucid dreams), counting being slightly more effective than the body image method. EXTERNAL STIMULATION The majority of lucid dreams occur during REM sleep; thus, external stimulation techniques primarily focus on REM sleep. They aim either to provide a cue that could be recognized by the dreamer during a nonlucid REM dream and instigate lucidity or to stimulate some physiological concomitants of lucidity (e.g., certain brain region or vestibular system), thus increasing the chances for lucid dreaming. One of the core issues with external stimulation (especially with those that provide a cue) is the adequate threshold of the stimulus—if too weak, it may not get incorporated in the dream; if too strong, it could awaken the dreamer. Visual Stimulation Providing light cues (e.g., flashing red light) during REM sleep has been the most popular approach. A variety of sleep masks have been developed for this purpose, starting from the pioneering efforts by LaBerge and his colleagues (1988) in the late 1980s and early 1990s (DreamLight, DreamLink, NovaDreamer) up to numerous present-day start-ups (e.g., Remee, Aurora, Neuroon, among others). While the early masks (DreamLight, DreamLink, NovaDreamer, REM-Dreamer) used the eye movement sensors for determining REM sleep, the newest devices tend to rely on EEG (Aurora, Neuroon) or only a timer (Remee), which questions their reliability. Studies using sleep masks with eye movement sensors have shown that light cues can instigate lucidity. However, visual stimulation on its own (without cognitive aids) may yield rather small success rates (Paul et al., 2014) compared to cognitive techniques such as MILD, although the combination of the two appears even more effective (LaBerge & Levitan, 1995). Acoustic Stimulation Some sleep masks (NovaDreamer, REM-Dreamer) can provide both visual and acoustic cues upon detection of REM sleep. Acoustic stimuli may include a musical tone or a voice saying, for example, “This is a dream.” While there are some indications that the acoustic stimuli may instigate dream lucidity, the findings are not conclusive, although it may be more effective to gradually increase the volume of the acoustic stimuli rather than having a constant one (Kueny, 1985). Tactile Stimulation Keith Hearne, a lucid dream research pioneer, placed an emphasis on tactile stimulation. Despite no success with the initial trial of splashing water on the face

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or hand of the dreamers (Hearne, 1978), electric stimulation to the wrist area (with a “dream machine”) led to a substantial success rate: out of 12 sleep laboratory participants, 6 achieved lucidity due to electric stimulation, 2 others also became lucid but woke up during signaling, and another became lucid after falsely perceiving stimulation. Further studies that employed vibro-tactile stimulation did not yield such strong effects. For example, in a study by Paul et al. (2014), only 2 out of 14 participants became lucid while vibro-stimulation was applied on the wrist or ankle, but not on the index finger, suggesting that the location of the tactile stimulation may also play a role. Olfactory Stimulation A recent study by Sanatkaran et al. (2016) explored the potential of olfactory stimulation (aromatherapy) with two different essential oils, red rose and lavender, but neither had any effect on lucid dreaming. Vestibular Stimulation Vestibular stimulation was tested in one study by Leslie and Ogilvie (1996), where the participants sleeping in a hammock were rocked during REM sleep at a constant frequency. Although findings are not conclusive, there are some indications that vestibular stimulation may increase dream reflectiveness in early versus late morning REM periods. Transcranial Stimulation Two recent studies employed transcranial brain stimulation to active frontal brain regions to gain lucidity. Stumbrys et al. (2013) used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of 1 mA over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during REM sleep. While tDCS did result in increased dream lucidity as compared to sham stimulation, the effects were not strong and were found only in frequent lucid dreamers. Voss et al. (2014) applied transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) over the frontotemporal sites with various stimulation frequencies (2, 6, 12, 25, 40, 70, and 100 Hz). Stimulations at the lower gamma range, 25 and 40 Hz, led to significantly increased lucidity rates as compared to lower and higher frequencies. Several start-ups have recently been launched (e.g., Lucid Dreamer, LucidCatcher) to provide brain-stimulation devices for home use. While tDCS and tACS interventions are relatively safe for the short-term laboratory use, their longterm effects are largely unknown, and unsupervised extensive home use can thus be a rather dangerous affair. MISCELLANEOUS TECHNIQUES Drugs Cholinergic enhancement, such as acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitor class drugs (which inhibit the AChE enzyme from breaking down acetylcholine and

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thus increase its levels in the brain, slightly increasing REM sleep), seems to be an effective method to induce lucid dreams. In a study by LaBerge (2004), the AChE inhibitor Donepezil (Aricept) was administered in two doses (5 mg and 10 mg) as well as a control placebo condition. Nine out of ten participants receiving Donepezil reported one or more lucid dreams in two nights, while only one in the control group reported a lucid dream on the control placebo night. Donepezil seemed to significantly enhance lucidity rate and frequency of sleep paralysis and increased estimated time awake during the night. The higher dose was associated with stronger effects, but it seemed to provide some adverse effects (i.e., mild insomnia and gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea and vomiting). A more recent study by LaMarca and LaBerge (2016), with a much greater participant sample (n = 121), used another AChE inhibitor, Galantamine, in 4 mg and 8 mg doses, alongside placebo, after 30 minutes of WBTB. During the night, when an 8 mg dose was used, 42 percent of participants reported a lucid dream. A 4 mg dose led to a 27 percent success rate, and placebo resulted in a 14 percent success rate. Galantamine also significantly elevated different subjective ratings, such as sensory vividness or environmental complexity, with the higher dose leading to stronger effects. Another recent study by Kern et al. (2017) used an acetylcholine precursor: L-alpha-glycerylphosphorylcholine (alpha-GPC). Seventeen participants ingested either 1200 mg of alpha-GPC or placebo after 4.5 hours of sleep. No effects on dream lucidity were found. Although both types of drugs aim at increasing the acetylcholine levels in the brain, their psychoactive effects may be somewhat different. OPEN QUESTIONS The overview reveals that several attempts with a wide variety of techniques have been successful in inducing lucid dreams, but the scientific research on lucid dream induction is still in its infancy. Stumbrys et al. (2012) found the methodological quality of the 35 studies included in the above review to be quite poor. Besides the quality problems, which could easily be solved with proper care in conducting the studies and reporting results, there are also several basic assumptions still under debate. For example, the aforementioned gold standard SVLDs pose a number of challenges. First, the person may report a lucid dream but forget or fail to produce the eye movement signal. Second, the signal may be present, but the person may have no recollection of lucid dream upon awakening. Third, both the verbal report and the eye movement signal may be present, but the sleep stage is not unequivocal REM sleep. Fourth, this approach is hardly applicable to the field studies outside the sleep laboratory. Finally, there are different degrees of lucidity—a continuum that can only be rated by such psychometric tools as the DLQ (Stumbrys et al., 2013). While the precise criterion of when a dream can be rendered as lucid (the cutoff point) is hard to specify, one item in the DLQ specifically deals with dream lucidity (“I was aware that I was dreaming”), and thus the scores above 0 on this item could provide the cutoff point. Another questionnaire, the LuCiD scale by Voss et al. (2013), includes some factors (e.g., insight, control) that clearly differentiate

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lucid dreams from nonlucid dreams, but the validity of other factors (e.g., thought, realism, memory, dissociation, emotions) is more equivocal. Different interpretations exemplify challenges of the measurement of dream lucidity. For example, Voss et al. (2014) applied the LuCiD scale in their tACS study and used mean + 2 standard errors on either insight or dissociation scales. Yet, the dissociation scale (involving items “While dreaming, I saw myself from outside,” “While dreaming I was not myself but a completely different person,” and “I watched the dream from the outside, as if on a screen”) is not directly related to dream lucidity (awareness that one is dreaming while dreaming), and the highest mean scores on the insight scale (considered as “lucid”) were just the same as the mean scores from nonlucid dreams in their original study (Voss et al., 2013) and markedly different from the mean scores of lucid dreams. Hence, the findings of Voss et al. (2014) could be correspondingly interpreted not as tACS increasing lucidity at 25 and 40 Hz, but as diminishing lucidity at all other frequencies (2, 6, 12, 70, and 100 Hz). CONCLUSION Despite a variety of methods employed to induce dream lucidity, effective lucid dream induction still remains a challenge, hampering both lucid dream research progress and the availability of lucid dream benefits to the greater audiences. As we have suggested earlier (Stumbrys et al., 2012), perhaps eclectic approaches combining benefits of different methods (e.g., cognitive training, WBTB, cholinergic enhancement, external stimulation) might be the most effective means to facilitate dream lucidity. Reliable methods for the measurement of dream lucidity that acknowledge the continuum of awareness and control within dreams is another challenge for the future.

Chapter 10

EXCEP TIONAL DREAMS

There are times in a dreamer’s life when a dream seems very different from what the dreamer experiences as a “common” or “normal” dream. Perhaps the emotional impact, sudden insight, or visual imprint of a dream stays with the dreamer for days, years, or a lifetime. Exceptional experiences in dreams are often called “extraordinary” (e.g., Krippner, Bogzaran, De Carvalho); “titanic” (e.g., Bulkeley); “impactful” (e.g., Kuiken); and within the indigenous cultures, “Big Dreams” (e.g., Jung). The simplest dream can become an extraordinary experience. Perhaps the common connection among exceptional dreams is that they have a high emotional intensity and impact that caused the dreamer to behave differently or to recall, react to, and reflect on the dream that they perceived as significantly important to their life. Ernest Hartmann conducted several studies on “significant” dreams and concluded that they are characterized by powerful emotionally intense images (contextualizing or central images; CIs) or are measured as having high CI scores (see the “Contemporary Theory of Ernest Hartmann” section in Chapter 12). In the book Extraordinary Dreams (2002), authored by Krippner, Bogzaran, and De Carvalho, they identify 14 major categories of exceptional dreams, some of which they classified “extraordinary” dreams, and gave cross-cultural views, research, and examples. They found that “these dreams call attention to themselves because of their unusual or anomalous quality, but they also seem meaningful in some way.” Categorizing such experiences is difficult because the characteristics overlap or are difficult to isolate, as any one specific experience may not fit into any one category. Nonetheless, among the categories of “exceptional” dreams are the following: creative dreams, lucid dreams, dreams within dreams, and impactful or transcendent and initiation dreams plus a group classified as “extraordinary” of “anomalous” dreams that includes telepathic dreams, clairvoyant dreams, precognitive dreams, out-of-body dreams, spontaneous healing dreams, collective or mutual dreams, past-life dreams, and spiritual and visitation dreams.

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This chapter will discuss those exceptional dreams that appear to operate within what we generally understand of the physical, biological, or psychological norms (thus lesser psi-related, although a few reports may attribute a psi or extrasensory component to some of them). Chapter 11 will discuss those listed above as “extraordinary” or “anomalous” dreams, those that have a more extensive psi or extrasensory component to them.

Somatic and Health-Related Dreams Robert J. Hoss

On occasion, dreams can be populated with content that is stimulated by disease, fever, severe injury, or by bodily functions, such as the need to relieve oneself. Chapter 7 discusses the influence of external stimulus on dream content. Here we will discuss how internal bodily or health conditions may affect the content. But first, let’s define some terms: • Somatic dreams involve physical sensations in our bodies that are represented in our dreams. • Symptomatic dreams are those that occur during the course of an illness after it has been detected and reflect the symptomology. • Prodromal dreams are those that indicate the onset of illness prior to any noticeable symptoms.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Richard Wilkerson (1999) writes that dream healing centers were in full operation all over the Aegean Sea and coast of Asia Minor by around 400 BCE. The general procedure in such centers was to relax for a while and to hopefully have a dream where Asklepios, one of his family, or one of his animal familiars would touch you. The most famous animal familiar was the snake, and it is still known today as the healing symbol of doctors, the caduceus. Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was quoted as stating, “The beginnings of diseases and other distempers which are about to visit the body . . . must be more evident in the sleeping state” (Van de Castle, 1994). Around 300 BCE, Hippocrates taught in the temple of Kos, where he discovered that the health of the dreamer is reflected in their dreams—interpreting the clues to pending illness and cures to current illness therein. Around 200 BCE, Claudius Galenus, or Galen, a prominent Greek physician, surgeon, and philosopher, who wrote one of the first books on psychotherapy, also stressed the ability of dreams to foretell impending illness. In the 13th century, Arnaldof Villanova compared dreams to magnifying glasses that can detect small signs of physical illness. M. Macario, in the middle of the 19th century, created the terms prodromic and symptomatic to classify these dreams. This understanding still continues today. Contemporary authors continue to write about the experiences. For example, Patricia Garfield, in The Healing Power of Dreams (1991), describes dreams that contain

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references to internal physical conditions before they are known to the conscious mind or felt by the senses. LITERAL OR METAPHOR? As the “language” of the dream is rarely literal but rather speaks in metaphor, knowing for sure whether a dream image is picturing a pending illness or some emotional or psychological condition is often quite difficult. One must consider both possibilities. Even truly physical problems are generally pictured metaphorically, as in this example from a dreamer who injured his eye socket, which became red and “inflamed”: “I dreamed of a skull with red flames coming out of a section above the eye” (Hoss, 2005). It is always good sense and highly important to see your doctor if you feel that your dream is revealing a pending medical condition or illness. But if nothing is found, before becoming overly stressed about an apparent message, it is prudent to consider the possible psychological associations or metaphors as the following dream illustrates (Hoss & Hoss, 2015). The woman dreamed: I was in a clinic, and a nurse was checking me over. She felt some lumps on my groin area and exclaimed, “She is riddled with cancer.” I was not afraid to die but asked the nurse if she could do something to keep me from going through all the pain.

In this case, the dreamer prudently went for a checkup and nothing was found. In a subsequent dream workshop, she asked, “Why is my dream telling me I have cancer?” When the practitioner worked with her associations, the word “Cancer” was found to relate to her view of relationships in terms of astrological signs. When her associations with “groin area” were explored, it was revealed that she was in a relationship with a boyfriend who was astrologically a Cancer. She then offered that she was trying to break off the relationship but was puzzled (riddled) as to how to go about it without “going through all the pain.” Garfield (1991) suggests that the troubled area is often pictured or referred to metaphorically—perhaps as a machine that is broken. For example, a broken refrigerator might point to the problem being in the stomach. Vasily Kasatkin (in Van de Castle, 1994), a dream content researcher from Russia, observed that the part of the body in distress might be referred to literally, even if in a metaphoric setting: “A doctor saw a patient in a dream being mugged in the street. The patient’s kidney was lying detached from the body.” It turned out that the doctor himself had a seriously infected kidney. Researcher Ernest Hartmann indicated that paying attention to a powerful central image in the dream (see the “Contemporary Theory of Ernest Hartmann” section in Chapter 12) can sometimes provide a warning that when attended to might prevent a medical condition or save a life. He gives the following account: A friend and colleague of mine, William Dement, used to be a heavy smoker. Many years ago he had a dream with a powerful Central Image in which he saw an X-ray of his lungs, which showed advanced lung cancer. In the dream he realized sadly that

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there was no hope for recovery. He woke up with a terrified, poignant feeling that he would never live to see his young children grow up. He then realized that this was a dream and that he might be able to change things. Indeed, he immediately stopped smoking and has never gone back to the habit in the last forty years. He is still alive at the age of eighty.

Physical problems are often caused by psychological stress or trauma that might appear in a combined symbol representing both symptom and cause. In Dream to Freedom (2015), Robert and Lynne Hoss present a case of a woman who was a self-made successful career woman at the peak of success when she began to get constant migraine headaches to the degree that it destroyed both her career and her relationships. In the process of working a recent dream, a recurring dream surfaced that contained the imposing image of a door: I am about 7 years old, alone in a house where I grew up. It is at night, and there are bad guys outside trying to get me. I am locking the door to the outside. I am seeing the door. I am terrified, and I can feel my panic.

As the session unfolds, they discover that this “door” represents a stress reaction, created by her parents’ extreme overprotective measures when she was about 7 years old—that of locking the door and not letting her go out of the house because “she could not handle what is out there.” She spent her life driving herself to prove them wrong, but now the “door” had manifested physically as migraines that shut her down to keep her safe when she ventured too far. After the session, with a renewed understanding of the cause, the migraines never returned. In any case, it is always prudent to have a checkup if a particular body part recurs in a dream or appears in a particularly disturbing or impactful dream, as the examples in the prodromal dream paragraphs below will attest. SOMATIC DREAMS Somatic dreams in general relate to the normal functions within the body appearing within a dream, and they can be of two types: (1) normal bodily functions that apply pressure or sensations that wake the dreamer, such as the need to go to the bathroom, and (2) hypnopompic sensations brought on by emotional stimulation, perhaps vivid sensations that are metaphorically related to the psychological condition that rushes through our body and wakes us. Hypnopompic Sensations Hypnopompic sensations are potentially emotionally triggered dreams that often end with the physical sensations felt in the dream continuing after awakening. They often occur at the end of a nightmare: I dreamed of a nasty animal that attached its teeth to my arm, and it woke me with a jolt. But I still felt it and madly attempted to brush it off. The feeling gradually faded away.

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Normal Bodily Function Perhaps one of the most frequently recalled conditions is the pressures of a normal bodily function, such as the need to relieve oneself. The dream often begins as a fairly typical dream, but at some point, the internal pressure becomes incorporated into the ongoing storyline, sometimes taking it over in the last stages before waking. This dream luckily woke the dreamer just in time before a bout with diarrhea: It was a lengthy dream. But in the end, I was sliding along a road on something like a sled, and ahead of me was a tunnel filled with wet, brown mud. I tried to stop, but too late. I soiled the bottom of my pants. At that point, I woke and rushed to the bathroom, feeling an onset of diarrhea—luckily I made it before soiling anything in waking life.

Often the dreamer finds themselves looking for a bathroom or attempting to relieve themselves in the dream. In some anecdotal cases, the dream defeats this by making it impossible to find a working bathroom or presents one that is exposed or filthy and unacceptable to use. It is almost as if the dream is saying, “Hold on, not here!” Suddenly in the dream, I had to go to the bathroom, but every time I found one, it was broken or flooded or out in the open or occupied. Then I woke up and realized that I really did have to go.

Van de Castle (1994) discussed dreams related to menstruation, stating that it is often symbolized by images of bloody female anatomy, blood and bleeding, the color red, and sometimes themes of caring for babies or children. An example of both of these motifs is shown in this dream of a woman in her fifties: I saw a horrible-looking creature, shaped like a huge black gelatinous blob, which was threatening my child, oozing out from under a platform on which there was some old inoperative rusting machinery.

This dream occurred after a bout with postmenopausal bleeding. The dreamer heeded the dream and went for a checkup, which luckily showed the cause to be hormone related and not life-threatening (Hoss, 2005). Other Natural Stimulus—Pregnancy for Example In Chapter 18, Alan Siegel discusses pregnancy dreams in detail. A content analysis by Van de Castle and Kinder in 1968 on 100 dreams from 14 pregnant women revealed a greater percentage of houses and other architectural references; references to plant growth; placing the baby in a container; pregnancy-related concerns, such as doctor’s appointments; dietary restrictions; physical clumsiness; and reduced locomotion. SYMP TOMATIC DREAMS The dreaming mind often tends to picture the ailing physical body as physical structures or machines in disrepair: collapsing buildings and broken machinery;

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broken or dirty pipes; bodily fluids as dirty brown or greenish brown; perhaps the pink or red of inflammation; bugs crawling around; and images of a body part or such. During illness, they can often take on a nightmarish quality, disturbing and disjointed, nonsequential, and sometimes with a lot of repetitive attempts at solving a nonsense problem, as in this example: I dreamed of a trash dump containing a giant rusty broken machine of some sort. It was made up of massive rusty iron parts and pipes filled with greenish brown fluids. I tried all night to fix the machine, frequently waking then falling back to sleep to continue nonsensical attempts at fixing it. I awoke that morning suffering from the flu.

At odd times, dreams of illness can take on a cartoon-like characterization: I dreamed of . . . two big fat pink cartoon-like characters, who had been at one time friendly, but had turned on us. Two . . . men were holding down the fat pink guys and cutting their throats.

The dreamer woke with a sore throat and two fat pink swollen tonsils (Hoss, 2005). PRODROMAL DREAMS Prodromal dreams reflect the onset of an illness prior to the appearance of symptoms. Some of the theoretical thinking about prodromal dreams can be found in a passage from Kasatkin (Van de Castle, 1994): “There are nerves coming to the brain from every part of the body—and they relay the signals of impending illness that the subconscious translates into dreams.” As subtle physiological changes are detected by the brain, even on a subconscious level, they may surface as imagery in prodromal dreams. In 1962, Ziegler reported a single case study of a patient who, before having a cardiac episode, dreamed of getting shot in the heart and seeing blood flow out. The study was to illustrate the synchronous relationship between a physical symptom and dream content. Kasatkin (1967) reported the dream of a woman who, prior to having a mild cardiac arrest, dreamed of skeletal hands grabbing her and piercing her heart. Kasatkin tells of a tuberculosis patient who, two months before the symptoms, had dreamed of earth falling on top of her, compressing her chest and suffocating her. Gastrointestinal problems can sometimes appear in dreams as parts of the gastronomical system or as metaphoric images of sewage, feces, waste, spoiled food, worms crawling inside, dirty pipes filled with muddy fluids, and such. Kasatkin (1967) tells of case where a man, who woke with abdominal pain, dreamed he was in an apartment full of feces and dirty water. Mitchell (1923) reports the experience of a man who had recurring dreams in which a rat was gnawing at the lower part of his abdomen. He was soon diagnosed with a duodenal ulcer. Following the operation, the recurring dream ended. In 1971, Warnes and Finkelstein reported about a girl who dreamed of being shot on the left side of her head. She awoke from the dream with a severe migraine headache on the left side of her head.

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Dreams of mental illness may also focus on the head: My father used to have a recurring nightmare where he dreamed he looked into the mirror and had no head. He woke screaming each time. He died from Alzheimer’s while still fairly young. (Hoss, 2005)

Patricia Garfield (1991) writes of a woman who dreamed for months of corpses and characters who were still and immobile. The woman was later found in a deep coma and diagnosed with a myxedema coma, a severe thyroid condition that involves a slowing of function in multiple organs and a high mortality rate. In the treatment of cancer, patients often report having dreamed of the conditions before they became physical symptoms. They also report dreams related to healing as it progresses during the treatment. Robert Van de Castle (1994) discusses many cases of prodromal cancer dreams and noted something interesting about them: many of them are very specific about the type or location of the cancer. He tells of a woman who dreamed of dogs tearing at her stomach a few months before she was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He cites Bernard Siegel, a cancer surgeon at Yale School of Medicine, who describes a patient who was later diagnosed with cancer of the thyroid that dreamed of hot coals tearing at his throat. Siegel also reported about a woman with breast cancer who woke from a dream in which the word “cancer” was written on her shaved head. She later learned that the cancer had metastasized to her brain. Wendy Pannier and Tallulah Lyons have been partners in an IASD Cancer Project for over 16 years, leading dream groups and workshops in cancer centers to help cancer patients and caregivers discover the value of working with or paying attention to dreams in the process. Some of their experiences are described in Dreams That Change Our Lives (International Association for the Study of Dreams, 2017). They have experienced the impact of the dream during this process to be not only one of warning, but after diagnosis and during the entire cancer journey, they have observed dreams to “provide guidance about the choice of doctor, the nature of the treatment; about needs for lifestyle changes, relationship changes; about any aspect of life that is out of balance and in need of repair.” “Dreams during cancer also bring experiences of strength, healing, and hope, and for many dreamers help transform the cancer journey into a life-expanding experience.” Wendy’s own cancer experience reflects the early warning when she had the following dream: “My gynecologist of many years calls me on the phone and says: ‘You need a D&C.’” A year later, following a sonogram, her gynecologist called for the first time ever and said, “You need a D&C.” She was diagnosed with stage IVB cancer (15 months after the dream). One month prior to the diagnosis, Wendy’s dreams had begun to picture the condition as a malfunction of a physical structure: Someone is demolishing a building I own—it’s imploding and crumbling from the inside. I talk to a friend who is a lawyer about what has happened. He says the damages are not just the cost of the building, but the five months it will take to rebuild it as well.

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When her cancer was diagnosed the following month, her body was indeed imploding, and her treatment took about five months. The following spring, after the treatment, the dreams began to reflect and guide her recovery process: I am renovating a building from the basement up. The woman who owns the building wants it renovated—now! I do the renovations, and they are spectacular. It is now an elegant, three-story building with a theater on the top floor and the woman is trying to decide what plays to put on.

Wendy could now begin to look at what she wanted to do with her life—the “plays” referring to the dreamwork with other cancer patients. Larry Burk, in a 2013 PsiberDreaming Conference presentation for the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD), told of a similar experience where the woman’s dream pictured areas that represented the location of cancer. One dream showed “debris” hidden under a ledge, out of sight. She was fortunate to have an open-minded surgeon who listened to her dream and handed her a felt-tip marker and said, “Draw the location on your breast.” She did so, and the surgeon inserted the biopsy needle in that area and felt resistance, an indication of a problem. The surgical biopsy revealed the details of a fast-moving, extremely aggressive breast cancer whose cells were not massing in a fashion that allowed them to be seen on a mammogram. DIAGNOSTIC DREAMS Sometimes dreams of this nature can hint at a remedy to rebalance the system. The following is a simple and somewhat humorous example that occurred to a man who had just gone on a complete vegetarian diet after being a meat eater all his life, and his body seemed to be still adjusting to it (Hoss, 2005): “I dreamed of a fishing boat, and on the side of it was written the words ‘eat more fish.’” Lucid dreams have been shown to provide a valuable state for directing or incubating diagnostic or dietary suggestions in dreams. Ed Kellogg provides such an example in his paper for the IASD PsiberDreaming Conference in 2007: While flying in a dream, a lucid dreamer remembers that he wanted to ask which foods he should eat for optimal health. He says aloud: “Let me now see, healthy food for me!” Below him the dreamscape changes. He now flies over plates of brown-green pasta, then lots—and lots—of bananas. He also sees a few plates of pineapples, and what he can best identify as pinecones (with pine nuts).

Deirdre Barrett offers a number of examples in a later section that show that most dreams that solve medical problems are ones specific to the dreamer. In these, it appears that the dreaming mind can sense conditions relevant to medical science. Oliver Sacks describes a patient who, before her encephalitis lethargica, dreamed of being imprisoned in a remote castle, becoming a statue of stone, and the world standing still. Another patient of Sacks had a nightmare of swaying wildly, dropping

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everything she picked up. The next day, she developed an acute sensory neuropathy with exactly those symptoms. (Sacks, 1996) Medard Boss describes similar dreams of patients apparently sensing an illness not yet manifest. One of his examples is of a young woman who repeatedly dreams of a demon forcing her to sit on a painfully hot pipe (one he points out Freudians would have a simple interpretation of ). After three nights of this, she developed the pain of acute cystitis. Heart-lung transplant survivor Claire Sylvia and Jungian analyst Robbie Bosnak led a dream group for patients with heart transplants. Dreams after surgery not only portrayed psychological issues, but they also predicted organ rejection versus successful incorporation (Bosnak, 1996). RESEARCH ON HEALTH-RELATED DREAMS Illness and Health Kasatkin (Van de Castle, 1994) collected over 10,000 dreams of 1,200 subjects by 1967 and found that illness causes dreams to become distressful and to include nightmarish images that include fire, blood, corpses, tombs, raw meat, garbage, dirty water, and medical references, such as hospitals, doctors, and medicines. Frightening feelings were associated with those images in 91 percent of the dreams, but pain in only 9 percent. Such dreams often appear before the symptoms, are longer than most dreams persisting at times throughout the night and the illness, and in many cases reveal the location of the illness. He estimated that symptoms that follow dream warnings vary from two weeks for a heart attack to a year or more for mental illness. Schredl et al. (2016) investigated the relationship between illness, health-related worries, and health-related dreams in a sample of 178 persons. About 40 percent of the participants reported that they had been ill during the previous four weeks with minor illness: common cold, shoulder/back/knee pain, stomachache or headache, etc. Being ill during those four weeks was positively associated with health-related worries, but none of the dreams were actually related to the illnesses experienced. The findings supported the notion that illness and dreams are related: experiencing an illness increases the percentage of health-related dreams, and experiencing health-related worries even had a stronger effect. David King and Teresa DeCicco (2007) examined the relationship between both physical and mental health and dream content to test these factors within the context of (a) the continuity hypothesis of dreaming (see the “Continuity Hypothesis of Dreaming” section in Chapter 3), which states that dreams reflect waking life, and (b) the compensatory theory of dreaming (see the “Carl Jung and Analytical Psychology” section in Chapter 15), which states that dreams compensate for that which is lacking. Participants were 27 undergraduate students who completed the Medical Outcomes SF-36 Health Survey (SF-36), the Profile of Mood States Scale (POMS-SF), and the Self-Construal Scale (SCS). Four dream reports were collected over a period of six weeks, with each analyzed according to the Hall and

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Van de Castle system of content analysis. The relationships between dream content and the medical and health surveys were as follows: • As physical health declined, misfortunes (injuries/ illnesses) increased in dreams for all physical health subscales (physical functioning, pain, energy). The most significant correlation was observed between lower levels of physical functioning and injuries/illnesses. The results suggest a preoccupation during dreamtime with the physical body and its weakening or deterioration. • Scores on the SF-36 Health Survey were by far the most significantly related to dream content. As physical functioning declined, reports of body parts increased in dreams; however, lower physical health was only related to mentions of the head. Those with lower levels of energy displayed a higher number of physical movements (e.g., walking, running) in their dreams. Finally, those reporting more physical pain had more animals in their dreams.

While the current body of research is still quite limited, it does suggest a strong connection between body and mind. This is especially evident in cases of prodromal dreaming, in which the subconscious appears to be detecting bodily changes quite early. Migraines Heather-Greener et al. (1996) performed an empirical investigation into the significance of the relationship between unpleasant dreams and migraine headaches. Dream content categories were selected corresponding to emotional factors associated with stress that trigger migraine headaches. A total of 37 subjects with frequent migraines recorded 10 dreams each, 5 that preceded migraines and 5 that did not. The study found that the dream contents before a nocturnal migraine contain more anger, misfortune, apprehension, and aggression. Severe Disease Smith (1984) studied about 100 patients with severe medical disease (cardiovascular disease, infections, etc.) at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine to investigate the hypothesis that dreams are reactive to biologic function. He evaluated the dreams for a relationship between the dream and clinical outcome. The clinical outcome for the six months following hospital discharge was scored on a six-point scale as cured, improved, unchanged, worse without rehospitalization, worse with rehospitalization, and death. Dream material was rated for references to death and separation. Death scores had references to graveyards, funerals, wills, and physical body failures. Separation had to do with social disruptions and relationships. For men, it was largely the death score dreams that were associated with a poor clinical outcome, and for women, it was separation dreams. The data in men indicate that severe and uncompensated stress, biological as well as psychological, is associated with dreams of death and dying. The data from both men and women support the hypothesis that dreams are reactive to biologic function. In a later study, Smith (1986) found that cardiac patients who do not dream at all have a worse prognosis compared to those who do dream.

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Cancer Studies Larry Burk (2015) recently surveyed the characteristics of warning dreams preceding the diagnosis of breast cancer. Eighteen women with a known diagnosis of breast cancer completed a survey of 19 yes or no questions about their warning dreams and submitted dream narratives. The five most common characteristics of warning dreams in descending order of frequency reported in the survey were a sense of conviction about the importance (94%); the dreams were more vivid, real, or intense than ordinary (83%); an emotional sense of threat, menace, or dread (72%); the use of the specific words “breast cancer” or “tumor” (44%); and the sense of physical contact with the breast (39%). Warning dreams of breast cancer were often reported to be life-changing experiences that prompted medical attention that led directly to diagnosis. These preliminary results suggest that keeping a dream diary may be a useful adjunct to routine self-examination as part of a breast self-care program, particularly for women in a high-risk category. CONCLUSION While many of the above reports are anecdotal or collected in a patient/caregiver setting, for the most part a relationship between the content or imagery of the dreams and the physical condition was apparent to either the dreamer or those studying the phenomenon. Although some cases can be circumstances or the concerns of the patient about having the condition, many cases were fairly direct. There was either a strong visual association (e.g., dogs tearing at the stomach of a woman who later was diagnosed with stomach cancer) or at time fairly literal one (e.g., the word “cancer” written on the patient’s shaved head). This suggests that the dreaming mind does appear to detect physical body conditions and picture them metaphorically in the dream—not unlike detecting psychological problems and conflicts. Perhaps it is part of a similar dream mechanism functioning to maintain health, whether mental or physical. To that point it is difficult, due to the metaphoric nature of dreams, to always determine if a physical or a psychological problem is being pictured—so both should be considered in any analysis in order to rule one or the other out.

Creative and Problem-Solving Dreams Deirdre Barrett

“Dreaming is nothing other than thinking asleep,” wrote Daniel De Foe in 1726. Modern brain science supports the concept of dreaming as essentially cognition in a different biochemical state. Dreaming is sometimes written of in a glamorous way, as wiser than the waking self. At other times, it is characterized as useless nonsense. However, dreaming is neither consistently wise nor useless. Its power lies in the fact that it is so different a mode of thought that it supplements what we have already done awake The areas in which dreams excel are any that benefit from vivid

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visualization—dreams have more hallucinatory imagery than most people experience awake, and those that involve “thinking outside the box.” Our mind casts a wider net while asleep and censors ideas less harshly if they seem to go against the conventional wisdom. This chapter will describe the most interesting historic and contemporary examples of the contributions of dreams to art, science, and other professional fields. Sections of this chapter are organized by discipline, beginning with those having the closest connection to the imagery of dreams, the visual arts, and moving toward those requiring more complex and abstract problem-solving for which dream help becomes less common but is still a potential resource. Also see Chapter 25 for a discussion on the influence of dreams on art. DREAMS IN PAINTING AND SCULP TURE Dreams are predominately visual, and one static image can be remembered more readily than a long scenario. Not surprisingly, the most examples of the creative productions of dreaming are to be found in the visual arts. Most people see humans, flowers, and landscapes in their dreams, so those of artists do not need to differ to be useful. Painting and sculpture are more likely to be reproduced exactly as seen than other dream products, and they are less often transformed by waking interpretations (see also the “Dream Artists” section in Chapter 25). Sculptor Penelope Jencks won the commission to cast a larger-than-life bronze statue of Eleanor Roosevelt for Riverside Park in Manhattan. The artist was initially frustrated with her attempts to portray the first lady, despite collecting hundreds of photos and having a sitting with her great-granddaughter, Phoebe Roosevelt. Then, Ms. Jencks reported, A strange dream has helped me immensely. I was working away in the studio, in the dream, kneeling and sculpting, when I heard someone say, “Oh, here comes Mrs. Roosevelt!” I instantly thought, what a relief, I will never have to search for a model again. She walked right in that door. She was twenty feet tall. My God, I thought, I will never be able to sculpt this heroic figure, but without saying a word she smiled at me with such a beneficent smile, not a touch of grandiosity, that my fears melted away. Then she disappeared. . . . but I am secure in the knowledge that I have found Eleanor Roosevelt in my dreams.

The 20-foot Eleanor Roosevelt, just as Jencks dreamed her, now stands in the park (Barrett, 2010). Paintings and sketches based closely on dreams include Albrecht Durer’s Vision of a Cloudburst in a Dream, Goya’s The Sleep of Reason Begets Monsters and other sketches in Los Caprichos, William Blake’s Young Night’s Thoughts, Edward BurneJones’s The Rose Bower, and Frida Kahlo’s The Dream. Other works based at least partially on dreams are Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare, Henri Rousseau’s The Dream, Odeon Redon’s The Dream, Salvador Dali’s Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate, and Jasper Johns’s American flag series (Barrett, 2010).

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NOCTURNAL ARCHITECTURE Most of us have had the experience of moving through unfamiliar and exotic buildings in our dreams. Architects have the tools to bring these structures into the waking world. Lucy Davis, the chief architect of Lucy Davis & Associates, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, describes dreaming house designs. In one example (Barrett, 2010), she said, The dream began with a person with outstretched arms, which turned into a ship with a prow pointed at the same angle. Then it became a house I was walking through; there was a section with clerestory windows, the beams crossed and created the shape of the windows.

Davis built the house in the “Y” shape of the person’s arms and boat’s prow and put in the windows exactly as she had seen them in the dream. “The overall plan came from the abstract part of the dream,” she said. “The details were more literally translated. I’ve designed at least a dozen to 15 houses this way.” Davis said: “It typically happens when I’ve worked on a project, but I’m not really getting anywhere. Those tend to be the ones that pop out in the dream process. I remember one house I was kind of stuck on and I had a dream that ‘I went to a party in the finished house’—that sort of solved it! It was an incidental detail to the dream, but crucial to waking life.” Brazilian architect Solange Fabião had decided to enter a competition to design the Museum of Ocean & Surf in Biarritz, France, but had not yet begun her design when she had a dream that she was in a rectangular white building with a swooping blue ceiling. Examining the ceiling, she realized she was underwater, and this was a wave overhead. Waking up, she sketched out this wave-ceiling building, went on to elaborate its details, and won the competition. The dreamed museum opened in June 2011. Many people know that Coleridge dreamed his poem “Kublai Khan” in an opiuminduced sleep, but even Coleridge was not aware that Khan himself dreamed the site and design of the real palace. This fact was not translated into English until long after Coleridge’s dream. DREAMS AND FILMMAKING The latest movement in film criticism interprets movies as society’s dreams. Director Jose Boreau even suggests that films have influenced dreams. We can see events we never would in waking life. Even mundane happenings may be seen from a bird’s eye view or in slow motion. Our dreams incorporate these new visual experiences. However, just as in the other visual arts, some films are also actual nocturnal dreams of an individual filmmaker. In addition to the visual, film allows for the other key element of the dream narrative. Also see the “Dreaming, Creativity, and Imagination” section in Chapter 25.

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“I dream movies,” said director Paul Schrader. Literally I often have dreams of sustained narrative over a period of hours. I know this because I’ll wake up, look at the clock, return to the dream (I also have sleep apnea). These dreams have characters, dialogue, plot development. I am also aware of the dreaming process; that is, I’ll critique the “dream story” as it occurs. I’ll think, “This is not a good scene,” “I should drop this character; I need some action,” or “Back up and ‘redream’ the scene.”

Films dreamed by the writer/director in their entirety include Robert Altman’s Three Women and Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams. Other films in which key scenes were dreamed include Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound, Ingmar Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf, John Sayles’s Brother from Another Planet, Orson Welles’s The Trial, and Bunuel and Dali’s collaboration Un Chien Andalou (Barrett, 2010). DREAMED LITERATURE If a novelist or poet dreams a dramatic visual scene, it must be transformed into written description. This is the basis of many dream-inspired literary works. However, writers are more likely than others to have speech or even writing show up clearly in their dreams. Poems are especially likely to appear verbatim (also see the “Dreams and Poetry” section in Chapter 25). Robert Lewis Stevenson, in Memories and Portraits, wrote about “Brownies” who managed the “internal theater” of his nighttime dreams: “They share plainly in [my] training, they have learned like [me] to build the scene of a considerate story and to arrange emotions in progressive order, only I think they have more talent.” He offered the example of their role in the creation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: I went about racking my brains for a plot of any sort. On the second night, I dreamed the scene at the window, and a scene afterward split in two in which Hyde, pursued for some crime, took the powder and underwent the change in the presence of his pursuers.

In addition to the famous example of composing “Kublai Khan,” many years later Coleridge also dreamed (without opium) an epitaph for himself in quatrain verse. Mary Shelley dreamed of the monster for Frankenstein. Edgar Allan Poe’s macabre fiction and verse was often inspired by his nightmares. Charlotte Brontë would incubate dreams of any experience she wished to write about but had not experienced in waking life. Unlike Coleridge, she attributes her passages about opium to this technique. Stephen King dreamed key scenes in Salem’s Lot and It. William Styron dreamed the title character and elements of the plot of Sophie’s Choice. Isabelle Allende dreamed the epilogue to House of the Spirits. Thackeray simply dreamed the title to Vanity Fair. Anna Lewis Kingsford published an entire book of dream stories and poems. Voltaire dreamed one canto of La Henriade. William Butler Yeats dreamed his play Cathleen ni Houlihan. William Archer dreamed the title character of his 1920s Broadway smash hit The Green Goddess.

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DREAMS AND MUSIC The average person does not hear much music in his or her dreams. Those devoting their lives to composing music do sometimes hear it in their dreams. They also see scenes that they later express in a musical piece or may see completed scores. There is wider variation in how music arrives in dreams than for the other arts discussed thus far (also see the “Music and Dreams” section in Chapter 25). Igor Stravinsky dreamed the pagan sacrificial virgin’s dance of his Rite of Spring. He composed the music to represent what he had seen and originally staged it as a ballet. The choreography could never equal his dream, and he was only moderately pleased with the first performance on which he worked closely with Nijinsky, experienced disappointment with future stagings, and used the phrase “unresisting imbecility” to describe Disney’s visuals for Fantasia. Giuseppe Tartini dreamed the Devil came and sat on his bed. The composer handed him a violin to see if he could play. The Devil played a haunting melody of unearthly beauty. Immediately upon awakening, Tartini grabbed his violin and tried to reproduce it. All he could remember exactly was the distinctive doublestop trill. He composed the piece, the Devil’s Trill around that. Richard Wagner dreamed his opera Tristan and Isolde. Gyorgy Legeti composed his piece Atmospheres based on a childhood dream of the movements of a web filled with struggling insects. Sharish Korde dreamed many of his compositions, simultaneously hearing the music and seeing its score with the color of the notes corresponding to the timbre of the sounds. A song called “Dreamland” came into existence when Lewis Carroll wrote the lyrics after his friend Rev. C. E. Hutchinson dreamed of hearing the piece performed in an otherworldly amphitheater but could recall only the melody upon awakening. Billy Joel said, “I always dream music. I know all the music I’ve composed has come from a dream.” Joseph Shabalala, who recorded 25 albums of his own and two tracks on Paul Simon’s Graceland, also heard all his music originally in dreams. Architect Davis previously composed music. When she was doing that in her waking hours, her dreams often presented musical compositions. “For me it’s always been a problem-solving state,” she said. SPORTS ENHANCEMENT THROUGH DREAMS We fly in our dreams and move through walls. However, novel activities sometimes occur that can be put to good use in the physical world. Athletes are more likely to have these dreams, but they can happen to anyone. In 1964, golfer Jack Nicklaus had a slump, shooting most games in the high 70s. After suddenly regaining top scores, he reported, Wednesday night I had a dream, and it was about my golf swing. I was hitting them pretty good in the dream, and all at once I realized I wasn’t holding the club the way I’ve actually been holding it lately. I’ve been having trouble collapsing my right arm, taking the club head away from the ball, but I was doing it perfectly in my sleep.

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So when I came to the course yesterday morning, I tried it the way I did in my dream, and it worked. I shot a 68 yesterday and a 65 today.

Floyd Patterson, the 1960s world heavyweight boxing champion, dreamed on multiple occasions of new punches that opponents were not expecting and employed them in future fights. Tito Gaona became the first acrobat to perform the “double-double,” a double forward somersault with a simultaneous double full twist. He was able to do it in waking life after first executing it in a dream. In the 1998 study by Barrett and Dar Tavapour, high school swimmers benefited from dreams of practice, especially during their mandatory seasonal time-out from waking swimming. When Oliver Sacks was recovering from a leg injury and needed to advance from using two crutches to one, he was unable to master this task until he dreamed of the required motion and then executed it confidently upon awakening. Pianist Leonid Hambro told Vladimir Horowitz of dreaming a fingering for Prokiofiev’s Sixth. Horowitz replied, “I thought I was the only one who did that. I often dream fingerings.” DREAMS IN SCIENCE AND MEDICINE Science may seem further from the realm of dreams than art, but almost as many scientists as artists have attributed their insights to dreams. Most of these dreams are, again, visual, but they occasionally utilize any mode relevant to science. “My Mom first told me about menstruation when I was 7,” recalled Margie Profet. “I thought it was the weirdest thing I’d ever heard of. . . . Then there was this school film; I said, ‘That doesn’t make sense!’” Indeed, biology occasionally questioned this major loss of blood, tissue, and nutrients, but it was usually rationalized as an inefficient part of the reproductive process. By the spring of 1989, the adult Profet had become a biologist, but she had not considered studying menstruation until she had the following dream: In the dream I saw cartoon images of a woman’s body, like the ones in the school film. The ovaries were pale yellow; the uterus was deep red. There were black triangles in the endometrium. Blood was coming out, taking the triangles with it. . . . I thought: “The black things are pathogens—that’s why!”

The dream evolved, after plenty of thought and research, into a full-blown thesis. Her electron microscope indeed revealed bacteria attached to the heads and tails of wriggling sperm and an abundance of macrophage immune cells in menstrual blood. Profet’s theory and research earned her a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant.” In the most famous of the older examples, the chemist Kekulé realized that the structure of the benzene molecule was hexagonal rather than straight after dreaming of a snake grasping its tail in its mouth. The Nobel Prize–winning experiment demonstrating the chemical transmission of nerve impulses to a frog’s heart was conceived by Otto Loewi in a dream.

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Scholar Herman Hilprecht reported that he dreamed an Assyrian priest came to him and revealed the accurate translation of the stone of Nebuchadnezzar. Zoology professor Louis Agassiz was trying to reconstruct the structure of an ancient fish from an obscure fossil impression. He dreamed of the fish swimming past him, seeing what later proved to be its exact form. Nicolas de Condorcet, an 18th-century mathematician who first applied the calculus of probability to social phenomena, dreamed the solution to a mathematical problem that had baffled him awake. Nevil Story Maskelyne dreamed the solution to a similar mathematical problem that had stalled him in completing his treatise on crystallography. Canadian physician Frederick Banting was knighted for developing a method of isolating the hormone insulin after seeing the technique in a dream. Ann Faraday recounts a surgeon’s development of a technique for tying off a knot with his left hand while his right was crucially occupied after dreaming of the maneuver. DREAMS OF INVENTORS Numerous man-made devices have first functioned in a dream. Most appear at a point when the inventor has worked out much of the necessary design while awake and is stuck on one crucial detail. In 1940, J. B. Parkinson was a young engineer at Bell Labs who had just developed a computer-controlled potentiometer to improve the monitoring of electrical impulses in telephone transmissions when he had the following dream: I found myself in a gun pit with an anti-aircraft crew. Every shot brought down an airplane. After three or four shots, one of the men in the crew smiled at me and beckoned me to come closer to the gun. When I drew near, he pointed to the exposed end of the left trunnion. Mounted there was the control potentiometer of my level recorder. There was no mistaking it; it was the identical item.

Once awake, Parkinson realized that “if the potentiometer could control the highspeed motion of a recording pen with great accuracy, why couldn’t a suitably engineered device do the same thing for an antiaircraft gun?” Parkinson’s device was built by the military and dubbed the M-9. In one month of August 1944, the Germans launched 91 bombers from the Antwerp area, and M-9 guns shot down 89 of them. When Elias Howe was developing the sewing machine but could not figure out how the machine was to hold a needle (they still had their hole at the end opposite the point), he dreamed of natives threatening to kill him with spears if he did not complete the device. Their spears had holes near the points, and Howe awakened realizing this was the placement that was needed in his needles. Mendeleev described dreaming the periodic table of the elements in its complete form. James Watt invented the method of making buckshot by dropping molten iron into water after he dreamed of being showered with a rain of iron pellets. (Previously, buckshot had been laboriously hammered.)

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Dr. Ernst Chladni was working on a glass musical instrument when he saw one in a hypnogogic sleep that proved to have the required design characteristics. He dubbed it the Euphon and began to produce them; they functioned and enjoyed modest success. William Stevens recorded the case of his scientist brother-in-law inventing a chemical process for etching designs into a steel knife blade after seeing this done in a dream. William Blake described being instructed by a dream character in how to paint and told by his dead brother in a dream about a method for engraving his illustrated songs. DREAM INSPIRATION IN NON-WESTERN CULTURES All of the examples above are drawn from Western culture. Many non-Western societies make more extensive use of dreams. For them, problem-solving in dreams is an explicit expectation, not an individual exception. Muhammad received his notice that he was “the greatest of all prophets” in an epic dream of being guided by the angel Gabriel through the seven celestial spheres, conferring with Abraham and Jesus along the way, and returning to earth to write it as his 65-page “Nocturnal Journey.” Later, much of the Koran was also revealed to Muhammad in his dreams. Every morning, Muhammad and his disciples would share and interpret dreams. Adhan, the daily call to prayer from the minarets and a central ritual of Islam to this day, originated when one of Muhammad’s followers dreamed of it. The split of Islam into the conflicting factions of Sunni and Shia was based partly on one of Muhammad’s dreams, which the Sunnis used to justify their rights as his successors. There are other applications of dreams from non-Western cultures. Muslim leaders continue to base important decisions on dreams. The Shah of Iran described declining a loan from Russia on this basis, and Saddam Hussein reported dreaming of sending the Iraqi army into Kuwait shortly before he did so. Native American tribes, especially the Ojibwa, choose their names and professions from dreams and routinely make art, clothing, and housing as depicted in dreams. Shaman in Siberia and many other parts of the world receive their calling in dreams and dream many of their cures. The Vai language of West Africa was entirely oral until one of their young men dreamed a syllabic alphabet that has now been in use for 150 years. Gandhi dreamed of a hartal, or mass strike, which became one of the effective cornerstones of his nonviolent resistance movement. Srinivasa Ramanujan, India’s greatest mathematician, said all his proofs came to him in dreams. RESEARCH ON PROBLEM-SOLVING DREAMS Research involving formal logic problems tells us much about how often and in what manner dreams give us solutions. William Dement (1974) and Morton Schatzman (1983) have each given brainteaser logic problems to subjects to read

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before going to sleep. Of Dement’s 500 college students trying to solve a brainteaser, 87 of them had dreams addressing the problem, 7 reported dreams that solved it, and a few others had dreams that seemed to hint at the solution without the waking subject catching the hint. After working on the problem of what English words both begin and end with the letters “HE,” one of Schatzman’s subjects dreamed of a doctor, a “word specialist,” who prompted him to describe his angina in plain English (as heartache), his headache likewise, all the while laughing at him “hee–hee–hee.” A man trying to solve a brainteaser that asked for the next two letters of the series O,T,T,F,F dreamed that he was walking through an art gallery counting paintings: “One, two, three, four, five.” When he came to the spaces for pictures six and seven, there hung two empty frames. Upon awakening, he realized the answer was “S,S” for the first letters of each number. A woman working on a problem whose solution is that one sentence forms another when the first letter of each word is removed (“Show this bold Prussian that . . .” converts to “How his old Russian hat . . .”) had a dream character tell her, “Too many letters!” An example of Dement’s in which nocturnal advice went unheeded was dreamed in response to the problem: “HIJKLMNO: what one word does this sequence represent?” The subject reported, “I had several dreams, all of which had water somewhere,” and he described the water in each dream. However, his guess at the solution to the problem was “alphabet” rather than “water” (H2O, or H to O). In yet another study, college students incubated dreams on objective problems of their own choosing. These were more important to them, but often easier, and 63 percent had dreams addressing that problem and 38 percent dreamed a solution to it (Barrett, 1993). CONCLUSION There are numerous anecdotes of the usefulness of dreams in art: Dreams have inspired sculptures and paintings, music, literature, and films. Dreams have shown to have value even in architectural design and sports enhancement. Some great scientific and mechanistic insights have been provided in dreams. Yet, when systematically assessed, dreams seem to rarely depict solutions to intellectual or academic conundrums. However, dreams may be more useful in providing assistance with personally relevant problems.

Impactful Dreams Donald L. Kuiken, Kelly-Ann Albrecht, and Megan Cook

When dreams are spontaneously recalled, their imagery invites reflection—and sometimes “interpretation”—as though the dreamer needs to figure out what their dream “means.” Spontaneously recalled dreams invite interpretation according to

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guidelines that range from dream dictionaries to complex therapeutic interventions. Such dreams are regularly reported when people are asked to record their “most recent” dream, and research indicates that reports of “most recent” dreams are “typical” in nature. That is, they resemble dreams gathered after late night laboratory awakenings from REM sleep. However, some spontaneously recalled dreams are anything but typical. Rather than inviting interpretation, the dreamer immediately senses what the dream “means,” and this sense of what the dream means lingers, sometimes for weeks, months, or years. These we might call “impactful” dreams. Such “impactful” dreams (Kuiken & Sikora, 1993) are unusual in several ways. First, identifying the meaning of an impactful dream does not involve tracing its historical origins. Its meaning is not found in the events that caused it (e.g., prior traumatic events, existing interpersonal relationships, lasting personality traits). Second, the meaning of an impactful dream has the same kind of integrity that literary scholars attribute to poetry (e.g., a sonnet). Its meaning (like the meaning of a poem) is intrinsic to the dream; the dream “speaks” to the dreamer like an “involuntary” poem (States, 1997). Third, rather than explanatory “why” questions—the objects, places, characters, and events of impactful dreams— discerning the meaning of an impactful dream invites questions about “how” a dream element “presents itself ” (what “it is” or what “it is like”). T YPES OF IMPACTF UL DREAMS Psychological studies emphasize the immediately sensed significance and lasting effects of impactful dreams. Carl Jung (see the “Carl Jung and Analytical Psychology” section in Chapter 15) referred to “big” dreams, States (1997) described dreams that have “magnitude,” and others have simply emphasized that some dreams are “intense.” But, as Harry Hunt (1989) proposed, there are qualitatively different kinds (or types) of impactful dreams. This chapter will summarize an empirical typology that is comparable to Hunt’s. Nightmare-Centered Dream Categories In recent years, nightmarish threat, fear, and defense have been pivotal in theories of dream formation and function. Hartmann (1998) argued that nightmares following trauma are “prototypic” of “the same process [that] occurs in all dreams.” Revonsuo (see “The Threat Simulation Theory” section in Chapter 3) stressed the centrality of a threat-triggered memory system that regulates “fear or defensive responses.” Domhoff (2003) placed repetitive post-traumatic nightmares at one end of a continuum that “fits with the persistence of negative memories stored in the vigilance/fear system.” And Nielsen and Levin (see Chapter 12) emphasized that while dreaming has a “fear extinction” function, traumatic nightmares reflect how that function can fail. Hartmann’s contemporary theory (see Chapter 12) plausibly overemphasizes traumatic distress and overlooks the role of other emotions in dream formation and dream function. At the very least, it does not

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address in comparable detail the separation distress (e.g., sadness, yearning, regret) that occurs in response to loss, which may be pivotal in a dream that expresses “grief incarnate.” Similar conceptual issues arise in the clinical definition of nightmares in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), especially in the symptom descriptions for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and separation anxiety disorder. Nightmares are defined as “story-like sequences of dream imagery that . . . incite anxiety, fear, or other dysphoric emotions.” This inclusive reference to “other dysphoric emotions” enables “nightmares” thematically related to traumatic distress to be included in the same category as “nightmares” thematically related to separation distress. But, those two types of “nightmares” may actually be qualitatively different dream events. Monothetic Versus Polythetic Typologies Throughout the literature just mentioned, attempts to define nightmares have involved a search for a minimal set of features (e.g., story-like imagery, dysphoric emotion, immediate awakening with recall), each of which is necessary and the combination of which is sufficient to call a dream a “nightmare” (Robert & Zadra, 2014). Such a monothetic approach to defining features for a nightmare sometimes excludes other relevant features (e.g., the frequency of physical aggression). Also, the minimal set of defining features may not be grounded in systematic observation (e.g., in studies that assess fear but do not assess sadness in reported nightmares). A contrasting polythetic approach adds clarity to the definition—an approach that has guided the development of biological taxonomies (the practice of categorizing organisms as species and producing a hierarchical classification). A polythetic approach to grouping dreams into a category (“species”) called “nightmares” would be guided by these principles (Beckner, 1959): 1. Each instance of the category “nightmare” would have a large number of distinctive (or at least differentiating) features; 2. Each feature in that array would be a feature of many instances of the category “nightmare”; and 3. No feature in that array would be a feature of every instance of the category “nightmare.”

This empirical approach to developing a typology requires the assessment of degrees of similarity; the degree of similarity between two or more instances of a category roughly depends on how many features of each instance are “the same”. In this chapter a polythetic approach is used in classificatory studies of impactful dreams. Empirically Establishing Dream Types The polythetic approach to category development has guided the design of a series of classificatory studies of impactful dreams. In an initial study, Kuiken and

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Sikora (1993) asked participants to describe dreams that continued to influence their thoughts and feelings even after awakening. Then, similarly expressed meanings (e.g., verbal references to sudden scene shifts, verbal references to attempts to avoid harm) were identified through close reading and careful comparison of dream reports. The presence or absence of these similarly expressed meanings was used to create numeric matrices (0 = absence of and 1 = presence of an expressed meaning) that were then analyzed using a statistical procedure (cluster analysis) that generates compact polythetic categories. Using these procedures, the dreams in each category shared a substantial number of features. Each feature was present in many dreams within a category, and no feature was invariant across all dreams within a category. This initial study revealed three types of impactful dreams, each distinguished by several features involving emotions, sensory phenomena, movement characteristics, motives and goals, and dream endings: • Nightmares: A category called “nightmares” included dreams with vivid tactilekinesthetic imagery, unusual sounds, physical metamorphoses, energetic activity, harm avoidance, and intense fear. • Existential dreams: A category called “existential dreams” included dreams with vivid tactile-kinesthetic imagery, light/dark contrasts, ineffectual movement, separation and loss, spontaneous feeling shifts, and intense sadness. • Transcendent dreams: A category called “transcendent dreams” included dreams with vivid tactile-kinesthetic imagery, spreading warmth, unusual sources of light, felt vitality, flying and floating, magical accomplishment, perspective shifts, and awe and ecstasy.

Nightmares, existential dreams, and transcendent dreams differed from mundane (or “normal”) dreams and involved intense affect at the moment of awakening. Significantly, nightmares involved dysphoric emotion (fear), and existential dreams also involved dysphoric emotion (sadness), although emotions were only a subset of the features that differentiated these dream types. In 1996, Busink and Kuiken replicated the Kuiken and Sikora study and found the same dream types (nightmares, existential dreams, and transcendent dreams). Later, Kuiken, Lee, Eng, and Singh (2006) identified the same dream types using questionnaire items only (rather than expressed meanings in dream reports). More recently, Lee and Kuiken (2015) used a profile-matching strategy to identify these same dream types in a new sample of dreams. To facilitate comparison between existential dreams and nightmares, consider the following prototypic existential dream (which includes a large number of the defining features of that dream type): [I was in] a hotel in southern Alberta or someplace. I was traveling by myself, I think, and I remember worrying about rapists in the hall and this sort of thing. I remember thinking, “Well, I’ll have to be brave because I’m by myself.” So I took this room in a secluded area of the hotel . . . and anyway it seemed to work out. And then this hotel seemed to be in France. My family was with me, and we were all in a room together. We were packing to leave. I was very organized; I had all of my

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stuff ready to go. . . . My family was very disorganized, and I was having to help them. I didn’t want to. I thought, “Well, they can do it themselves; I’m not responsible for their packing.” But it was almost impossible not to help them because I needed another bag or two and I had things stored in a particular drawer and they had dumped all their stuff in there, too. So in order for me to get this packing done, I had to help them anyway. . . . [Then I think I had gone off on my own for a while], and I came back [to the hotel again]. I got a phone call, an overseas phone call from my Dad. . . . He had gotten a doctor’s report, and the doctor said that he [had an ailment that] would never heal. And I had plans about my whole family moving to France . . . but he just told me how sick he was and that he would never heal. And there was some stupid person on the phone . . . some practical sounding person, who was sticking her nose in there. I kept telling her to shut up, . . . and I was really upset and crying very hard. My Dad said that he wanted to talk to my Mom. So my Mom came to the phone [and she thought that it wasn’t practical to live in France]. She seemed to think that it was better to stay in Canada. I was surprised by her ability to say what was best for me, . . . and I remember trying to talk her into it. I was overwhelmed by the fact that my father would never heal. I couldn’t be with him and also stay in France. I woke up crying. I was just really sad. I felt this sadness just coming out of the bottom of my soul, from way down deep some place.

This dream is qualitatively different from a nightmare. The distinctive features of existential dreams stand out (e.g., ineffectual movement, concern with separation, intense sadness) as this dreamer awakened to deeply sad recall of the death of someone close (her father). THE AF TEREFFECTS OF IMPACTF UL DREAMS Distinguishing between nightmares, existential dreams, and transcendent dreams invites reconsideration of dream function. A comprehensive theory of dream function would move beyond the fear and harm avoidance that makes nightmares “prototypic” dreams. The sadness, separation, and ineffectuality of existential dreams (as well as the ecstasy, shifting perspectives, and magical accomplishments of transcendent dreams) are also representative of impactful dreaming. A comprehensive theory would consider whether these different types of impactful dreams have different effects on subsequent waking thoughts and feelings. To begin, it is useful to consider the aftereffects (also called “carryover” effects) of ordinary dreams. It is well established that awakenings from REM and NREM sleep are followed by a brief period (20–40 minutes) of changes in affect, perception, cognition, and memory. These changes are sometimes thought to reflect continuation of the kind of mental activity that preceded awakening. However, they also can be understood as reflecting the influence of preawakening mental activity (e.g., dreaming) on postawakening mental life. Understood in this way, the effects of typical (REM) dreaming include the following: • Flexible attention and cognition: (1) Increased readiness to shift attention toward unexpected stimuli; (2) greater readiness to link weakly associated words (e.g., “thief ” and “wrong”) than strongly associated words (e.g., “hot” and “cold”); and (3)

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increased readiness to identify different word combinations that have “the same” root term (e.g., cottage cheese, cheesecake, Swiss cheese) • Movement sensitivity: (1) Increased readiness to perceive one dot moving between two positions when two stationary dots are alternately presented (the “beta phenomenon”); (2) increased readiness to perceive movement in a static figure after a period of concentration on a rotating spiral (the “spiral aftereffect”); and (3) enhanced recognition (by touch) of the shapes of three-dimensional blocks

Whether increases in flexible attention and cognition or in movement sensitivity reflect the lingering effects of REM dreaming, rather than the lingering effects of REM sleep, remains unclear. Nonetheless, these findings help to explain the gently drifting, feeling-guided reflection that often occurs after awakening from a typical dream—perhaps even when the content of that dream has been “forgotten.” In recent years, research examining the effects of REM sleep (and perhaps REM dreaming) on memory transformations has increased dramatically (see the “Memory Consolidation and Dreaming” section in Chapter 3). Much of that research has focused on memory consolidation (i.e., strengthening memories so that they are more readily recalled). However, a few studies have begun to address the processes by which impactful dreams may be remembered differently than typical dreams. Of special relevance is research concerning how personal concepts are developed, generalized, and transformed. (“Personal concepts” represent memories of what it is like to be a “close friend,” what it is like to “feel guilt,” what it is like to “watch someone die,” etc.) Theories of dreaming commonly propose that personal concepts are developed and transformed through metaphoric thinking. However, despite the recent expansion of research on the effects of REM sleep on memory, almost no studies have addressed how personal concepts influence metaphor construction (dream formation) and how metaphor construction (dreaming) transforms personal concepts (dream aftereffects). In an important exception, Cai et al. (2009) found evidence that REM sleep reactivation of metaphor-like analogical relations (e.g., “chips” are related to “salty” as “candy” is related to “sweet”) enhanced postawakening performance on the word combination task mentioned above (e.g., sweetheart, sweet sixteen, sweet cookies). Because this word combination task is a common measure of “creative” thinking, this study is frequently understood as evidence that REM dreaming facilitates “creativity.” However, more precisely, it provides evidence that REM dreaming involves reactivation of a form of metaphoric (analogical) thinking that may facilitate postawakening “creativity.” This study of metaphoric (analogical) dreaming helps to build a theoretical bridge from typical dreaming to impactful dreaming. As Hunt (1989) previously argued, transcendent (archetypal) dreams may metaphorically express the features of Jung’s “big” dreams. Similarly, the sensorimotor imagery (e.g., movement ineffectuality) of existential dreams may metaphorically express the features of dreams that have “magnitude” (States, 1997). According to both hypotheses, the metaphoric aspects of impactful dreams facilitate category transformation. And, if metaphoric category transformation functions in the same way during dreaming as it does in

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response to poetry, metaphoric concept transformation may explain the aesthetic aftereffects of impactful dreams (Kuiken et al., 2006). According to one family of theories, metaphors are formed and comprehended by a process of comparison. For example, the five-year-old child in Foulkes’s (1999) studies who said, “I dreamed I was in the bathtub asleep,” may have sensed that her “bed is like a bathtub.” According to another family of theories, metaphors are formed and comprehended by a process of class inclusion. According to these theories, metaphor comprehension occurs when the metaphoric topic (e.g., bed) is understood as a member of the same conceptual category as the metaphoric vehicle (e.g., bathtub). Thus, Foulkes’s five-year-old dreamer may have metaphorically sensed that her “bed is a bathtub,” which enables “seeing” her bathtub as a place for sleeping (even though, like a bed, it is a place that is dry, not wet). In a manner that resembles what occurs during dreaming, Foulkes’s five-year-old may have dreamed a noun-noun compound (a “bathtub-bed”) that is analogous to many conventional (e.g., beach-ball) and creative (e.g., knifing-winds) compound phrases. Significantly, an analysis of literary stylistics provided by Jan Mukarovský in 1976 suggests that similarly metaphoric “crossings” are at the core of the expressiveness of poetry. Thus, this formulation may help to explain the aesthetic effects of both dreaming and poetry. The viability of this proposal was initially bolstered by studies of the effects of nightmares, existential dreams, and transcendent dreams on self-perceptual depth. First, while nightmares consistently evoke postawakening distress (e.g., lingering vigilance and the inability to resume sleep), existential dreams consistently evoke self-perceptual depth (e.g., sensitivity to previously ignored aspects of life). Second, transcendent dreams, unlike either nightmares or existential dreams, consistently evoke another form of self-perceptual depth with spiritual relevance (e.g., affirmation of religious convictions) (Kuiken et al., 2006). The self-perceptual depth evoked by existential dreams and transcendent dreams may be a component of an aesthetic response that is more distinctive than mere pleasure, interest, or appreciation. Specifically, existential dreams may evoke a form of sublime feeling that combines self-perceptual depth with disquietude (sadness, ineffectuality); transcendent dreams may evoke a form of sublime feeling that combines self-perceptual depth with enthrallment (ecstasy, magical power). From this perspective, sublime feeling is an aftereffect of dreaming that involves (1) the recognition of limited understanding of an elusive, incongruous, or overwhelming image; (2) simultaneous recognition of partial understanding of that image; and (3) awareness of the selfperceptual shift through which an understanding of that image has become further (but still only partially) disclosed (revealed). Kuiken, Campbell, and Sopčák (2012) devised empirical indices of (1) sublime enthrallment (the interactive combination of questionnaire items that assess wonder, reverence, inexpressible realizations, and self-perceptual depth) and (2) sublime disquietude (the interactive combination of questionnaire items that assess disquietude, finitude, inexpressible realizations, and self-perceptual depth). In two empirical studies of literary reading among young adults, sublime enthrallment was predictably greater following, for example, close readings of Shelley’s “Mont

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Blanc,” while sublime disquietude was predictably greater following, for example, close readings of Celan’s “Death Fugue.” Consistent with the proposed parallel between literary reading and dreaming, two recent studies (Kuiken, 2015) indicate that existential dreams are followed by reports of sublime disquietude, transcendent dreams are followed by sublime enthrallment, and nightmares are followed by neither form of sublime feeling. Thus, the effects of transcendent dreams and existential dreams, but not nightmares, involve a “touch” of sublime feeling. Despite their deeply felt sadness, the self-perceptual shifts and aesthetic effects of existential dreams may contribute to their perceived value. Despite acute sadness, the sublime disquietude that follows existential dreams is not despair; in fact, because of the self-perceptual depth that follows, these dreams are experienced as somehow restorative. Whether this also means that they support “emotion regulation” (see the “Mood Regulation and Emotional Problem-Solving” section in Chapter 12) is an important question; the relations between the aesthetic and selfdevelopmental effects of dreaming and literary reading is currently a lively research topic. Regardless of the outcome of that research, it is crucial to differentiate existential dreams from nightmares within interventions that are designed to reduce “nightmare” distress (see Chapter 17, “Nightmare Therapies”). Dreamers may be reluctant to let go of diagnosed “nightmares” that are actually existential dreams. They may be justified in their unwillingness to be “treated for” the dysphoric sadness of existential dreams (or even the dysphoric fear often present in transcendent dreams) that not only awaken them but also bring them to the limits of what they vaguely understand, but cannot verbally express, about how they understand their own and others’ way of life. CONCLUSION Impactful dreams can be divided into nightmares, existential dreams, and transcendent dreams, and they differ from “normal” dreams in their intense affect at the moment of awakening. In nightmares, the prevailing emotion is fear, and they consistently evoke postawakening distress. Existential dreams are characterized by intense sadness, but the aftereffects evoke self-perceptual depth (such as sensitivity to previously ignored aspects of life) and sublime disquietude. These two forms of impactful dreams with intense negative emotions should not be confused, given the possible positive aftereffects of existential dreams. In contrast to nightmares and existential dreams, transcendent dreams are positive, involving feelings of vitality, awe, and ecstasy, and they may evoke a form of sublime feeling that combines selfperceptual depth with enthrallment.

Chapter 11

EXTRAORDINARY DREAMS

“Extraordinary” or “anomalous” dreams appear to operate outside what we generally consider to be the norms of our physical, biological, or psychological reality. These categories, which are considered to have a psi or extrasensory component to them, are discussed in this chapter: telepathic dreams, clairvoyant dreams, precognitive dreams, mutual or collective dreams, out-of-body dreams, spontaneous healing dreams, spiritual dreams, visitation dreams, and past-life dreams.

History of Anomalous Dream Research Stanley Krippner

Reports of strange, extraordinary, and unexplained experiences related to dreams have been a topic of fascination to people throughout the millennia. In ancient eras, they were often attributed to divine forces and found their way into the sacred writings of various faiths. As far back as 2000 BCE, ancient Egyptians considered certain dreams to be sent to earth by spirits of the dead (De Becker, 1964). For many Native American tribes, there was no distinction between nighttime dreams and daytime visions; either could portend the future or describe distant events (Krippner & Thompson, 1996). While Greek and Roman popular opinion held that dreams were of supernatural origin, the Roman orator Cicero warned against taking that approach too seriously, attributing them to chance and selective attention. Rather than relying on “observations,” Cicero asked whether these dreams can “be experimented on” and warned that people would fall prey to “diviners,” “superstition,” and “endless imbecilities.” In other words, he foresaw the necessity

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of introducing methods that could lead to the falsification or verification of soothsayers’ claims. Contemporary perspectives on dreams were taken by Plato, Hippocrates, and Herodotus as well. Plato held the dreams were generated internally rather than by external supernatural powers. Hippocrates’s medical treatises dealt with dreams as physiological events, and in the fifth century CE, Herodotus posited that dreams reflected the waking concerns of the dreamer (Wheatland, 1983). Nonetheless, Cyprian, an early bishop of Carthage, asserted that the councils of the church were guided by God through dreams and visions, and St. Augustine described dreams as “gifts” from God. However, when St. Jerome prepared a translation of the Bible, he consistently mistranslated the Hebrew term “seeking guidance through dreams” as “witchcraft.” The popularity of St. Jerome’s translation, with its mistranslation, effectively blocked mainstream Christianity’s interest in dreams for over 1,000 years. In modern times, reports of unexplained dream experiences persist and have become controversial because they seem to transcend conventional notions of time and space, at least to highly educated members of Western society. The emergence of the “grass roots dreamwork movement” or postmodernism in dream interpretation, however, has provided many people the opportunity to discuss dreams that they would hesitate to share with friends, family members, or even their psychotherapists. These dreams bear such labels as “telepathic dreams,” “clairvoyant dreams,” “precognitive dreams,” “past-life dreams” and “visitation dreams.” As a group, they are often called “extraordinary dreams” (Krippner et al., 2002) or the somewhat less value-laden term “anomalous” dreams. The English word “anomalous” derives from the Greek anomalos, meaning “irregular, departing from the common.” It contrasts with homalos, meaning “common” or “ordinary.” Hence, an “anomalous experience” is one that is uncommon or rare (such as a detailed and accurate dream about an historical event) or one that may be reported by many people but deviates from ordinary experiences or from a society’s explanations of reality. Anomalous experiences might be accompanied by the subjective feeling that they reflect an aspect of reality, but under close scrutiny that feeling often proves to be illusory. Therefore, it is important to differentiate an “experience” from an “event,” the latter term referring to something that occurs in consensual reality, in a definable time and place. “Anomalous dreams” are rarely “abnormal experiences,” the latter term denoting psychopathology. Indeed, there is considerable evidence that most anomalous experiences do not serve as indicators of mental illness (Cardena et al., 2014). The disciplined examination of anomalous dreams can be attributed to two 19th-century scholars, Alfred Maury and the Marquis d’Hervey de Saint-Denys. They devised self-awakening practices and utilized assistants as well. Maury made detailed records of his sleep awakenings and their content, conducting experiments to determine whether external stimuli could be incorporated into his dreams, a hunch later verified by several 20th-century investigators. Saint-Denys filled 22 volumes with his dream reports, self-observations, and hypotheses. Both scholars broke with church traditions by taking dreams seriously, studying their n ­ aturalistic origins, and noting dreams’ creative and problem-solving capacities (Krippner et al., 2002).

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In 1899, Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams reinstated the importance of dreams for Western culture. Freud, who wrote several articles on purported telepathic dreams, was a member of the Society for Psychical Research, founded in London in 1882. This society was the first major organization to assess anomalous experiences scientifically, by collecting case studies, conducting surveys, and applying probability theory to the outcome of “guessing” experiments. The topics investigated by the society included hypnosis, multiple personalities, near-death experiences, reincarnation, lucid dreaming, out-of-body experiences, and “psychic phenomena,” or “psi,” that appeared to transcend the constraints of space, time, and energy. Most of these topics, including lucid dreaming, have passed into the scientific mainstream, even though their explanatory mechanisms are still a matter of conjecture (Krippner, 2005). Freud’s former colleague, Carl Jung, used anomalous dreams in his psychotherapeutic sessions, especially those denoting “synchronicity,” an internal event (such as a dream) that matched a later external event (such as an unexpected occurrence of good or bad fortune). Psi phenomena remained outside of mainstream science and became the focus of investigations at a “parapsychology laboratory” at Duke University in North Carolina, bearing that appellation to indicate that these studies were “alongside” (i.e., “para”) conventional science rather than opposing it. Some members of the British society proposed neutral terms to differentiate psi phenomena, for example, “psi beta” (better known as clairvoyance, telepathy, and precognition, or “extrasensory perception”); “psi kappa” (better known as psychokinesis, or “distant influence”); and “psi theta” (better known as life-after-death studies, including purported “past lives”). Most anomalous dreams fell into the psi beta category, although some included purported episodes from the dreamer’s earlier lives during a previous “incarnation.” More recently, such terms as “nonlocal perception” and “nonlocal perturbation” have been introduced to encompass possible connections of psi phenomena and quantum mechanics. EARLY STUDIES The first attempt to study telepathic dreams experimentally was reported by G. B. Ermacora (1895) in a publication of the Society for Psychical Research. Ermacora worked with an Italian claimant medium who tried to influence the dreams of a child at a distance, an attempt that was deemed successful. Although amateurish by contemporary standards (the evaluation procedures lacked rigor, and the child was the medium’s cousin), the attempt was of historical importance because Ermacora had placed an anomalous phenomenon into a controlled s­ etting, attempting to falsify (refute) or verify (confirm) the claimant medium’s claims. (The term “claimant” indicates the medium’s “claim” to be able to communicate with deceased individuals.) It was not until the middle of the 20th century that telepathic dream studies were again investigated in a disciplined manner, this time using newly developed polysomnographic technology (PSG) to monitor the rapid eye movements and brain waves found to correspond with most periods of nighttime dreaming. This work was spurred by a collection of some 7,000 self-reported anecdotal telepathic

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experiences that had been collected by Louisa Rhine (1961); nearly two-thirds of them reputedly had occurred in dreams. Rhine also collected presumptive precognitive dream reports, which allegedly forecast events that have not yet occurred, and clairvoyant dreams in which distant events are depicted. For example, at the end of World War II, a woman in Florida claimed that she awakened one night crying out between sobs that she had seen her soldier son die in the crash of a burning airplane. The next day, a cheerful letter arrived from her son, and the woman regained her composure. Five nights later, however, the same nightmare occurred, and she was sent to the psychiatric ward of a hospital for treatment. The next day, a telegram arrived relaying the news that her son had been killed in an airplane crash on the night of her initial dream (Rhine, 1953, p. 105). CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH In his work as a psychoanalyst, Montague Ullman often had patients reporting dreams that coincided with events in his personal life. Realizing that the correspondences could have been coincidental, or due to sensory clues or faulty memory, Ullman arranged for a “target picture,” sealed in an envelope, to be randomly selected once the research participant had retired for the night. His first research participant was the claimant medium Eileen Garrett, who had agreed to have electrodes glued to her head and connected to an electrode box that was linked to an electroencephalograph (EEG), placed in another room. A clairvoyant task had been arranged, and one of the pictures was a color photo of the chariot race from the film Ben-Hur, currently in release. Garrett reported a dream concerning horses going uphill and associated the image with Ben-Hur, which she had seen two weeks previously (Ullman & Krippner, 1970). In 1966, Ullman moved his operation into Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York, where Stanley Krippner joined him as director of the new laboratory. A protocol was devised in which a “telepathic transmitter” would interact with the research participant, and then they were separated for the night. The transmitter threw dice to select one of a stack of double-sealed envelopes, which he or she took to a distant room. Upon opening the two envelopes and discovering the identity of the target picture, the transmitter spent much of the night attempting to relate to the picture contents through associations, enactments, and emotionality. The participant, although virtually immobile in a sound-attenuated room, attempted to “reach out” and incorporate the picture’s images into his or her dreams (Ullman & Krippner, with Vaughan, 2002). An experimenter awakened the participant when the EEG tracings (and similar tracings that tracked eye movements and muscle tension) indicated that REM sleep was occurring, asking, “What has been going through your mind?” The dream report was tape-recorded for subsequent transcription. In the morning, the research participant was asked to provide associations for each dream report and then was shown copies of each picture in the target pool, arranging them in order of correspondence to the dream reports. These selections provided statistical data that would verify or falsify the telepathy hypothesis on that particular night and, eventually, for

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the experimental series as a whole. In the precognition dream studies, the target was randomly selected following the participant’s night in the laboratory, typically while he or she was showering and dressing. The judging proceeded in the same way, with the research participant arranging the potential targets in order of closeness to his or her recalled dreams. Over the years that the Maimonides laboratory was in operation, five professional magicians visited the premises to determine whether sleight of hand or fraudulent transmitter/participant collaboration could have accounted for the results. The magicians filed negative reports, stating that the only opportunities for fraud would have been on the part of the staff members, who could have altered transcripts before mailing them to the statisticians, or by the statisticians who analyzed the data. As a result of this suggestion, statistical analysis was carried out by outside experts who were never present during experimental sessions (Krippner, 1991). Data given to the statisticians included participants’ scores as well as scores given by three outside evaluators, none of whom had been present during the experimental sessions. In most cases, there were between 8 and 12 target pictures (most of them art prints) in the target pool; evaluators matched every picture against the total transcript containing dream reports and the participants’ associations to those reports. Before the laboratory closed in 1978, Ullman and Krippner had conducted 13 formal experimental studies (11 focusing on telepathy, 2 on precognition) and three groups of pilot studies in which telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance were investigated. A meta-analysis of 450 nighttime dream sessions was conducted by Dean Radin (1997), who concluded that the overall confirmatory rate of 63 percent produced odds of 75 million to 1 against achieving such a result by chance. However, the studies cannot be considered strictly scientifically conclusive because of the lack of replication, the loss of some early data, and the variation in evaluation procedures over the years. On the other hand, there have been a number of misinterpretations of the Maimonides experiments in the psychological literature, a list of those having been compiled by Child (1985) and Krippner (1991). Some two dozen attempts have been made by other laboratories to replicate the Maimonides work. It is difficult to make comparisons between the Maimonides studies and the attempted replications because many of them used different outcome measures, and most relied on home dreams instead of dream reports collected in the laboratory. Nevertheless, Sherwood and Roe (2003) made a valiant attempt, concluding that in both sets of studies, “raters could correctly identify target materials more often than would be expected by chance using dream mentation.” Sherwood and Roe stated, “We can be 95% confident that the true effect size is positive and therefore better than chance expectations for both sets of studies” (pp. 104, 106). Another meta-analysis was conducted by Storm and his colleagues (Storm et al., 2017) that covered all reported studies between 1966 and 2016. The Maimonides experiments yielded a larger effect size than the non-Maimonides experiments, but the difference was not statistically significant. The overall results suggested that “dream content can be used to identify target material correctly and more often than expected by chance” (p. 120).

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Persinger and Krippner (1989) explored the geomagnetic ambience during the first night each research participant engaged in an experimental session at Maimonides. A significant difference was observed between “high” and “low” scoring nights; high scoring being linked to the absence of electrical storms and sunspots. Krippner and Persinger (1996) repeated this analysis with the participant who had spent more nights at Maimonides than any other participant, again attaining significant results. These data may indicate that the telepathic and clairvoyant capacities of the human brain may be sensitive to geomagnetic activity and interference. Persinger proposed that (a) receptivity to such phenomena as telepathy remains constant, waiting to be accessed by emotions, crises, or by optimal laboratory conditions, and (b) such anomalies as telepathy are effected by geomagnetic fields; thus, solar disturbances and electrical storms may disrupt this connection, especially the neural pathways that facilitate the consolidation and conscious access to this information. When there is a sudden decrease in geomagnetic activity, there could be an enhancement of processes that facilitate telepathy and related phenomena. THE ROLE OF ANOMALOUS DREAMS IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT Laboratory studies focus on verifying or refuting hypotheses, on determining whether reports are subjective experiences or objective events, on examining the conditions under which those events can be observed, and on determining the variables that are helpful in explaining the mechanisms that trigger and sustain those events. Despite the data that has been collected regarding such anomalies as telepathic, clairvoyant, and precognitive dreams, mainstream science does not place them in the “events” category due to their ephemeral nature, their resistance to appearing on demand, and their lack of satisfactory explanatory mechanisms. As a result, they remain in the “reports” category, while advocates struggle with the replication and explanation issues that prevent their acceptance as “events.” Even so, anomalous dream reports can be extremely useful to science; the identification of such variables as gender, age, and cross-cultural differences can help investigators to understand the roles that dreams play in human development. Faith and Krippner (2001) looked for “exotic dreams” (i.e., anomalies) in a collection of 1,666 dream reports (910 from women and 756 from men) from six different countries (Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States) collected by Krippner in seminars between 1990 and 1998. Participants were simply asked to volunteer a recent dream, one per participant. Non-English submissions were translated by a native speaker of that language. Two raters scored each of the 1,666 dreams based on clear guidelines with minimal overlap (inter-rater reliability was 0.95). The categories used were those described in Extraordinary Dreams (Krippner et al., 2002). There were no statistically significant differences between genders: 8.5 percent female versus 7.7 percent of male dream reports rated as anomalous. The country with the highest number of anomalous dreams was Russia (12.7%), followed by Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Ukraine, and the United States (5.7%). The only categories

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that surpassed 1 percent of all dream reports were lucid dreams (1.7%), out-ofbody dreams (1.4%), visitation dreams (1.1%), and precognitive dreams (1.1%). To be scored as a visitation dream, a deceased person or an entity from another reality provided counsel or direction that the dreamer felt of comfort or value. For example, a Ukrainian woman reported the following: In this dream, I am afraid of dying because my neighbors start to die, one by one. I think of what a short period of time it took for so many of them to die, both men and women. I would like to live a more spiritual life, but the conditions around me do not permit it, so I must work very hard each day. Then one of my dead neighbors comes to see me and tells me that I can lead a spiritual life through my work.

Of course, the existence of the deceased neighbor could not be verified, but the dream assisted the dreamer in resolving an existential dilemma in her life. Fariba Bogzaran related a dream by one of her clients, an illustrator named “Louise” (in Krippner et al., 2002): I am racing about in a distant city, trying desperately to reach a friend. The nature of the urgency is unclear; I only know that I must find her. I awake feeling frantic and distraught. I then return to dreaming. I hear a woman’s voice repeating, “It was the worst pain—terrifying. I thought I was dying.” There is no accompanying imagery. I awake confused with the bizarre thought that I am having someone else’s dream.

That morning, Louise woke up puzzling over this dream and decided to give her friend a call. The friend told Louise that the night before, at the time of Louise’s dream, the friend had been rushed to the hospital in excruciating pain. Her friend repeated the exact words Louise had heard in her dream. She had thought she was dying, but the doctors had denied Louise’s friend any pain reliever until the nature of her condition had been determined. Louise told Bogzaran that she had been looking for her friend at the time. This dream not only connected Louise more closely to her friend, but also prepared her for the worst—the possibility of her friend’s death. Again, the anomalous elements in this dream may have been coincidental; however, in retrospect the dream served a useful purpose. Not all anomalous dreams are intentional in nature. Some serve no apparent purpose but, at best, are mere curiosities; others can have unforeseen maladaptive consequences. In 1980, Steve Linscott was awakened by a dream in which a man had approached a young woman with a blunt object in his hand. In a second dream, this man “was beating her on the head. . . . She was on her hands and knees . . . and didn’t resist. . . . Blood [was] flying everywhere.” Linscott went back to sleep, but later that day he noticed police cars two doors away from his house. A young woman had been brutally beaten and murdered in a nearby apartment building. He told the dream to his wife and two colleagues at the Christian halfway house in the Chicago suburb where he worked. They all persuaded Linscott to tell his dream to the police, and he complied with their suggestions. A few weeks later, Linscott was charged with the murder of the young woman. The dreams, according to the police, included too many accurate details to be

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coincidental. Linscott was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison. The prosecution finally dropped the case after several appeals by defense attorneys. Apparently, the police department did not consider the possibility that the dreams might have represented anomalies, nor did they realize that coincidental “matches” frequently occur in dreams (Krippner, 1995). A NEUROLOGICAL VIEW Those writers who dismiss anomalous dreams often do so on the assumption that the universe operates on a linear cause-and-effect manner that precludes consideration of such phenomena. But what if the universe is nonlinear, at least in part, and interactions between people do not always follow linear causality? With those parts of the brain involved in linear rational thought being less active during the night, other nonlinear brain centers have the opportunity to organize dream content, resulting in dream stories with bizarre imagery and actions that would seem illogical in daily life. At the same time, dreams provide “networks of meaning,” as Christine Hardy (1998) would call it, which can reflect conflicts between two or more opposing perceptions (also see Chapter 14) or “chaotic attractors,” for example, between activity and passivity or between authenticity and superficiality. This clash may provide the opportunity for anomalous dream content to emerge and to find its niche in the resulting synthesis. Combs and Krippner propose two other hypothetical qualities of the sleeping brain that make it sensitive to subtle influences. The first is what chaos theorists call the “butterfly effect”; a small shift in the brain’s neurochemistry can introduce a new image into an ongoing dream narrative. The second is the sleeping brain’s capacity to respond to signals so tiny that the brain would not otherwise be affected by them. Known in chaos theory as “stochastic resonance,” this effect has been noted in electronic circuits as well as in nerve cells. This resonance keeps a system in motion; the signal follows the path of least resistance, rather than disappearing or getting trapped. This theory suggests that chaotic attractors, the butterfly effect, and stochastic resonance are qualities of the sleeping brain that may make it susceptible to anomalous interactions, especially if geomagnetic and other environmental conditions provide a suitable milieu. Emotion in dreams may provide a network that assists self-organization of diverse images, memories, and even some events distant in space and time that are attracted to the dream’s formulating emotional vortex.

Telepathic and Precognitive Dreams Fariba Bogzaran

TELEPATHIC DREAMS The root of the word “telepathy” comes from the Greek words tele (distance) and pathos (perception, feeling, experience). The founder of the Society for Psychical

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Research in Great Britain, poet Frederic W. H. Myers, coined the term telepathy in 1882. This organization was the first to attempt and explore psi phenomena scientifically. The magnitude of their research is significant, as they collected close to 17,000 responses to psi phenomena known as the Report on the Census of Hallucinations. This pioneering research categorized clusters of experiences, such as dreams, ordinary sense perceptions, sensory hallucination, and vivid mental images not generated from external experiences or memory (currently referred to as eidetic imagery). Myers’s keen observation of nature and sensitivity to his inner life made him see beyond the visible perceptual reality into the interconnectedness of the invisible world (1882). Besides the ability of the mind and the function of the brain, nature may also play a role in telepathic communication. Our ancestors were deeply in touch with the rhythm of nature and experienced more of this subtle connection than people do now in our fast-moving modern society. Shamanic traditions and indigenous cultures that have kept their connection to nature have observed for thousands of years that there is another way of knowing. That way is through dreams, plant medicine, and rituals, which connect us to the invisible realities. Myers and his colleagues focused their research on dreams and telepathy. They wrote, “Millions of people are dreaming every night; and in dreams, if anywhere, the range of possibilities seems infinite. . . . Are any valid means at hand for distinguishing between a transferred impression and a lucky coincidence?” (Gurney, 1886). In the previous section, Stanley Krippner provides a number of examples of the telepathic dream experience, both from research and personal accounts, where he discussed how the classic research at the Maimonides Medical Center tried to answer many of the critics’ questions. In more recent research by Carlyle Smith, of Trent University in Ontario, Canada, a group of college students were asked to observe a photo of an individual unknown to them and to incubate a dream about them. Using a well-controlled research method, Smith found that “young healthy adults are capable of dreaming details about the personal problems of an unknown individual simply by examining a picture of the target and then planning to dream about that individual’s problems” (Smith, 2013). PRECOGNITIVE DREAMS Premonition in dreams has been reported throughout history. Even though these dreams are put in the category of the extraordinary, they are common occurrences. These dreams can foretell the future, which can manifest shortly after the dream or within a lapse of time. Precognitive dreams can be literal, with exact settings, emotions, and characters, or can be metaphorical. Could déjà vu (a sense of seeing or reliving a situation) be forgotten precognitive dreams that, when experienced in waking, give us a “felt sense” of having been in the situation before? In the old cultures, such as Persian, Greek, Asian, or indigenous ones, predicting the future in dreams, either through the methods of divination, interpretation, or literal translation, was common. However, such dreams were reserved for kings, prophets, shamans, or higher rank religious leaders. Yet, in the 20th and into the 21st centuries, as the field of dream studies slowly expanded and has now become

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mainstream, we realize that precognitive dreams are experienced by people from a variety of cultural, social, and religious backgrounds. One of the first recorded dreams was in Mesopotamia in the late third millennium BCE of Sumer, Persia, and Egypt. The most well-known dream is the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh. Extraordinary dreams were often interpreted for their precognitive quality of an upcoming disaster, physical healing, and crop production. One theory is that one individual in a high position held the interest of the society; therefore, a collective projection onto that person was natural (Hoffman, 2004). How to know whether a dream was precognitive was a challenge in ancient times and still is today. How could we distinguish whether precognitive dreams are literal or come in the language of metaphor? Though it depends on the dreamer, precognitive dreams have a particular intuitive knowing and a sensation that the dreamer has experienced before and can recognize. There are many examples of precognitive dreams in sacred texts. One of the lesser known 19th-century texts is Dawn-Breakers, an epic historical account of the birth of the Bábi religion and Baha’i faith in Persia. Eighteen mystics and theologians divined the coming of a new prophet named “the Báb,” in Shiraz, Iran, through their visions and precognitive dreams. One of the precognitive dreams was by a leader whose complex dream predicted the twin manifestation of the two related religions: Babi and Baha’i. He reported the account of two dreams. This is his recollection of the second: I found myself in a place where I beheld around me a number of coffers, each of which, it was stated, belonged to Bah’a’ullah [prophet of Baha’i Faith]. As I opened them, I found them to be filled with books. Every word and letter recorded in these books was set with the most exquisite jewels. Their radiance dazzled me. I was so overpowered by their brilliance that I awoke suddenly from my dream. (Zarandi, 1932)

Bah’a’ullah had not declared his prophecy at the time of this dream. Yet, the dream revealed a reality later manifested by Baha’u’llah. While he was imprisoned for following the Báb’s teachings, Baha’u’llah had a dream revelation of himself being the prophet. He also wrote volumes of teachings considered by his followers as precious jewels while in prison. Cognitive science is new to the exploration of anomalous phenomena. Perhaps evolution has created an internal system to prepare us for upcoming events to ensure our survival. Some precognitive dreams are preventable, and others are not. Louisa Rhine, one of the founders of the modern parapsychology, attempted to use precognitive dreams to prevent unpleasant experiences. In her study, in 131 out of 191 cases, people were able to prevent undesirable events (Rhine, 1955). Rhine collected 10,066 cases that she put into four categories to find percentages of elements present in these experiences (Rhine, 1967). The categories were intuitive (30%), hallucinatory (13%), unrealistic dreams (18%), and realistic dreams (39%). She found “that three out of four reports of precognition occurred in dreams even though one would think that an experience about a future event could occur at any time of the day or night. She conjectured that the dreaming unconscious might run ahead in the future more often than during waking awareness” (Krippner, 2002).

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We might ask, what are the benefits of precognitive dreams? A personal example of a precognitive dream may shed some light on one of its purposes. A few years ago, before my father died, I had a vivid precognitive dream about his death. It was both literal and metaphorical. It was difficult to prevent it, as it was unexpected and happened within a month of his death. When my father had a heart attack in the hospital, every event of the dream manifested. While other family members were shocked by the sudden heart attack and tried emotionally to cope with it, I, on the other, had already experienced the shock in my dream. I was therefore able to be fully present on his deathbed when he made the difficult decision to stop the life support machines. The dream had prepared me emotionally to handle the enormity of this devastating situation. A simple but also purposeful example was shared by Janice Baylis in Dreams That Change Our Lives (IASD, 2017) about a dream that her carpool passenger Mabel had. One morning, Mabel phoned and told her to meet around the next corner instead of their usual place. When they met at that alternative corner, a small airplane crashed where they would have been. As they drove by the wreck, Janice asked, “Mabel, how did you know?” She answered, “I dreamed it. I didn’t tell you it was a dream. You might have thought I was silly to react to a dream.” Acting on the dream appeared to have saved Janice and her three sons as well as the dreamer from being under a crashing private airplane. History is filled with precognitive dreams from President Abraham Lincoln, who dreamed of himself dead in a coffin, assassinated, and a week after his dream, he was assassinated! And President Franklin Roosevelt dreamed of the Japanese bombing New York, and a few months later, Pearl Harbor was attacked.

Mutual Dreaming Luke Dietrich-Egensteiner, Brian Teed, and Patrick McNamara

A fascinating phenomenon within the realm of dreaming is when two or more dreamers share or claim to have shared similar aspects of a dream, whether those aspects are the setting, dream characters, plot of the dream, or another detail. Such an event is referred to as “mutual” or “shared” dreaming. THE MU TUAL DREAMING EXPERIENCE An example of a mutual dream was posted on a Psychology Today blog by “Cherise” (2014): My twin and I had the same dream yesterday night. We both had a dream that I was cheating on my boyfriend. In the dream it was a very random guy. Very freaky. It’s happened before also where we would be going through the same thing, and we would have very vivid scary dreams. We had a dream of being in a dark forest, where someone came and hit our heads with an axe, then we both went to work the next day acting like nothing happened.

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Another mutual dream was shared by an anonymous individual on a Web site forum (Anonymous, 2010): Last week I had a dream in which my entire condo building was assembled in my unit, [and] I was trying figure out why. We are not the type of building that does things like that; everyone just says hi and keeps to themselves. That was pretty much my whole dream: everyone in my apartment, me trying to figure out why. . . . About two days later I get stopped by one of my neighbors. She tells me that she had a dream about my family and that our building was all assembled in my unit and trying to figure out an escape. I couldn’t believe it, so of course I told her about mine. . . . This person is not someone that I hang out with at all; we stop, say hi how’s your day, and move along.

Thus, we see that mutual dreams may occur between individuals who are in a relationship or between strangers. We do not know whether mutual dreams occur more frequently between those already in a relationship or strangers, but reports of mutual dreams usually involve individuals who already share some sort of relationship. Yet, this evidence by no means signifies that mutual dreams most frequently occur between individuals in a relationship. It may be that those already in a close relationship merely have more opportunities to discuss a mutual dream due to the frequency of which they see and interact with one another. THE RESEARCH Few studies have examined mutual dreams. One by Davis and Frank (1994) studied 153 dreams experienced by a heterosexual couple over 10 weeks, 13 of which were mutual/shared and mostly occurred during the menstrual cycle of the female. Twelve analysts individually and blindly scored the dreams using the Hall and Van de Castle method of dream-content analysis, revealing significantly higher dream content overlap of the mutual dreams (39% on average) than nonmutual dreams (5% on average). The scoring showed that such overlap cannot be a result of chance due to the low frequency at which such items occurred. Thus, Davis and Frank advocate that a benefit of mutual dreaming is to help strengthen emotional ties between people that desire to develop a relationship. Pascoe (2010) also investigated mutual dreams and discovered reports from 18 individuals, who stated that their personal relationships were strengthened with the person they shared the dream with. Mutual dreams have not yet received sufficient interest as to be the subject of rigorous inquiry, perhaps due to lack of interest or, more plausibly, due to the colloquial understanding of mutual dreams as coincidental occurrences. To treat mutual dreams as purely coincidences implies that the “law of truly large numbers” could explain their frequency (Diaconis & Mosteller, 1989). With over 7 billion people dreaming each night, it is reasonable to expect that some people would share dreams and perhaps at a far greater rate than is reported. Nevertheless, this does not yet explain the coincidental landscape of mutual dreaming. For example, these dreams tend to be shared among people who know each other. Also, if a waking fantasy (which may be no less interesting than dreams) were shared among two or

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more people, it ought to have the same significance; however, no reports of shared waking fantasies are published with the same persuasive content as shared dreams. Furthermore, if the law of large numbers were to fully explain the mutual dream phenomenon, why is it that some people report shared dreams and some people do not? Are some people especially attuned to dreams that are shared? Do these dreams occur at a lower rate than suggested by the law of large numbers? Magallon (1997) shows that mutual dreams are not rare with her collection. Several hypotheses exist as to why mutual dreams occur, such as happenstance, mutual dreams as realities/objects external to the minds of the dreamers, gateways into various other dimensions, and so on. At present, however, there is no clearly established hypothesis with significant evidence that explains the occurrence of mutual dreams. ATTACHMENT H YPOTHESIS AND MU TUAL DREAMS Nevertheless, mutual dreams may serve some sort of purpose. Mutual dreams can rearrange or enhance one’s already established emotional relationship with the person they share the dream with or help develop or create a relationship between strangers or mere acquaintances. This hypothesis is called the attachment hypothesis (see the “Dreams and Attachment” section in Chapter 3), which suggests that mutual dreams contain relationship themes and will usually be shared between individuals who share a close relationship. The previously mentioned findings of Davis and Frank (1994) and Pascoe (2010) provide support for the attachment hypothesis of mutual dreams. Other studies led by McNamara have established that an individual’s particular attachment orientation influences the design of their REM sleep, their rates of dream recall, and the actual content of their dreams. Thus, mutual dreams may serve a socioemotional purpose. A recent study by McNamara and colleagues (2017) looked at mutual dreams and their possible connection to the attachment hypothesis. As there is currently no public database for mutual dreams, 102 mutual dreams were gathered from such publicly accessible sites dreamviews.com on Reddit. These dreams were then scored for such information as gender of the dreamers, the relationship between the dreamers, the setting and theme of the shared dream, and the level of intimacy that the dreamers shared. Most of the mutual dreams (92%) occurred between two people, and 95 percent of the mutual dreams occurred between friends, relatives, or significant others. In regard to setting, theme, characters, events, and objects in the dream, the mutual dreams scored a mean degree of similarity of four or above on a five-point scale for each of these variables. Thus, the mutual dreams were almost, if not exactly, the same. Such results show promise for the authenticity of mutual dreams. On a six-point scale, the mean level of intimacy that the dreamers experienced was 3.16, and the most common themes dealt with relationships between family and friends, although with little or no verbal dialogue. The data from this study supports the attachment hypothesis and suggests that certain individuals who are experiencing low intimacy interactions in a relationship will tend to experience mutual dreams of significantly similar content. Mutual dreams provide an avenue for strengthening the bonds and intimacy between two

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people, usually of those who are already in a relationship of some kind (friends, relatives, and significant others). Much has yet to be discovered about mutual dreams, but there is evidence that mutual dreams function to strengthen the socioemotional bonds between the dreamers.

Spontaneous Healing Dreams Robert J. Hoss

There have been anecdotal reports of cures actually being pictured or occurring within a dream. As discussed in Chapter 14, a natural self-healing problem-resolution process has been observed in dreams, but mostly in relation to psychological problems. It is unknown how the dreaming process might resolve a physical problem, perhaps through a natural mind-body interaction or perhaps picturing a natural physical healing taking place during the night. Nonetheless, there exists a wealth of anecdotal reports that suggest this possibility. In one such experience, reported in Dreams That Change Our Lives (IASD, 2017), the dreamer had experienced the debilitating pain and nausea of migraine headaches since she was 12 years old. She was exhausted and drained by the anticipation of what was coming and turned to her dreams for possible answers. One night, in exasperation, she said aloud, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” That night she had the following dream: I am in the room of my oncologist. He says the team he assembled in response to my problem is ready for me. I am briefly aware of some kind of painless surgery on my head. Back in the waiting room, after the surgery, the surgery team . . . shows me what they removed . . . a small, blood-covered beadlike piece of tissue. I take it in my hands . . . and feel small “hairy” tentacles all over the surface. I am grateful, and I thank the physician and my team.

She reports that she awoke feeling cautious but extremely relieved in the absolute absence of pain; six years later, she has had no migraines since that night. Lucid dreaming is a unique dream state where the mind-body interaction can be directed within the dream and where physical healing has been reported to take place. Waggoner and McCready (2015) provide a number of such anecdotal accounts. In an Omni magazine survey conducted in 1987, Stephen LaBerge and Jayne Gackenbach specifically asked for detailed descriptions of “healing” lucid dreams. They discovered that of the 587 respondents, 8 of the lucid dream reports “were clear cases of healing the body while lucid” (Gackenbach, 1989). Lucid dreamer and researcher Ed Kellogg considers it to be a mind-body-spirit integration effect that is particularly accessible in lucid dreams, dreams that heal a condition directly, partially, or completely—although he states that in most cases a curative healing dream only begins a process that will take time to complete. He gives the following example (Kellogg, 2007):

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A woman could hardly walk because of the pain from 6 plantar warts, 3 on each foot, each about one centimeter across. One night she had a lucid dream, and remembered that she wanted to try doing a dream healing. She creates a ball of white light to heal her feet. In the morning, to her surprise, she felt absolutely no pain when walking. She looked at the warts—they had all uniformly turned black. All of them fell off within ten days.

Out-of-Body Dreams Robert J. Hoss

One form of paranormal dream, which is strikingly different than any other, is the out-of-body experience (OBE or OOBE). Here is an example: I suddenly found myself above my body looking down at myself. Upon this realization I felt myself fall into my body and could feel a thud as I woke.

And here is another: I felt myself floating up above the bed. Then I drifted down toward the floor next to the bed and looked upward at an angle and across the top of the storage chest, in order to see the sky through the window. There was a crescent moon and a few stars. When I woke up, I tested this and found that I could only see the sky and new crescent moon from that part of the room by kneeling on the floor and looking over the storage chest.

Here, the dreamers find themselves consciously present outside their body, perhaps in another location, sometimes as a whole person or as just a ball of consciousness. The term out-of-body experience was introduced in 1943 by George Tyrrell in his book Apparitions. The experience has often been labeled “astral projection” or “soul travel”; however, researchers of the phenomenon, such as Celia Green and Robert Monroe, have adopted the term, or OBE or OOBE, as an alternative to belief-centric labels. In general, OBEs may be introduced during anesthesia in surgery; during or at the onset of near-death experiences (NDE); during brain traumas; during sensory deprivation; and during the use of dissociative and psychedelic drugs, among others. An OBE-like experience has been induced by electrical stimulation of certain brain areas (particularly the brain region called the angular gyrus), suggesting that OBEs may have specific neural correlates. In relation to dreams, OBEs are more common in lucid dreams. One theory, however, is that it is a form of sleep paralysis, or a partial awakening, where we feel dissociated from our bodies, resulting in the sensation of being out-of-body (see the “Dreaming in Parasomnias” section in Chapter 8). However, these conditions or theories do not fully explain cases where the OBE occurs at sleep onset or when a person observes

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things that she could not have seen from the position or condition of her body, which were later confirmed when observed from the location the person was at in the OBE state (Monroe, 1971). Little is known about the mechanism or whether it is a true separation of the spirit or etheric body from the physical body, another form of the clairvoyant experience, or simply a perceptual dissociation phenomenon. In Krippner’s crosscultural study on 1,666 dreams, of the anomalous dreams, out-of-body dreams were the second highest in frequency at 1.4 percent. La Berge reports that out-ofbody dreams occur at sleep onset (when the sensory input is shutting down) and during certain lucid dreams. (He reports a study in which 9% of the lucid dream reports included out-of-body experiences.) Green (1968) indicates that most OBE experiences occur when a person is ill, perhaps in surgery, or is resting in bed. She cites a number of experiences during surgery when the patients found themselves out-of-body watching the surgery take place —after which the surgical actions and equipment use was confirmed. The following dream illustrates what a dreamer may experience in an apparent OBE that takes place at the end of a dream. It came to an individual who, at the time, was becoming progressively ungrounded in his pursuit of spiritual interests. The dream appears to be a combination of a lucid dream and OBE, with some of the same life-changing effects that a near-death experience often brings: I had a lucid dream in which I found myself flying over the ground at a fast rate, while beautiful music played all around me. Suddenly up ahead was a tunnel, with a light at the other end. I knew that if I flew through it, I would pass on to the other side, which was appealing to me due to intense interest in the nature of spirit. I had to make a decision, and as I entered the tunnel, I was going to go through it. But then I thought of my family and suddenly cried, “Life.” At that point, I was in total darkness and cried out, “I said Life!” I then found myself floating above my body on my back and then fell into my body with a thump.

The lasting affect was that of becoming instantly grounded. Although he did not abandon his spiritual interests, the dream acted as a striking warning and definitive decision point, from which he began to focus more intently on the matters of family and his daily life.

Spiritual Dreams Robert J. Hoss

For a more in-depth discussion on characteristics of religious and spiritual dreams, refer to Chapter 24, which describes the characteristics of spiritual dreams and the cultural and historical aspects. In this section, the concept is introduced along with a subcategory that might be termed “visionary” dreams.

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DEFINING “SPIRITUAL” DREAMS The definition of spiritual dreams is diverse. In one sense, it might (a) contain figures or events that relate to historically or culturally religious events or beliefs or, in a broader sense, (b) refer to dream experiences that relate to the human spirit or soul, or nonphysical realm, as opposed to the material or physical. Such dreams are often of an impactful transcendent type (as discussed in Chapter 10) and often a psychospiritual transformative one (as described in Chapter 24). Scott Sparrow, in Dreams That Change Our Lives (IASD, 2017), writes: “While a dream may be considered religious because it contains familiar religious imagery and themes, it may nonetheless be wholly deficient in the qualities that we usually associate with a genuine spiritual life”—and that it is not so easy to determine if any experience “relates to the human spirit” without exploring the life context in which the dream occurs and assessing its impact on the dreamer. He proposes a third more evidencebased definition, attributed to Jesus, “by the fruits ye shall know them,” where a dream may be classified as spiritual by the positive changes produced or activated in our lives. VISIONARY DREAMS A vision is generally defined as a supernatural appearance that conveys a revelation, perceived as a divine truth or enlightening or astonishing disclosure, or as a direct mystical awareness of the supernatural, usually in visible form. Therefore, a visionary dream is not so different from the example given above, but, in general, they provide information of a more collective nature. Chapter 24 presents a comparative history of visionary dreams. Perhaps one of the most well-known visions is that of the dream of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:4–9) in the Christian Bible, in which he stated (shortened): Then I looked, and behold, a whirlwind was coming out of the north, a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself; and brightness was all around it . . . from within it came the likeness of four living creatures. . . . When the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. Wherever the spirit wanted to go, they went, because there the spirit went; and the wheels were lifted together with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

It does not take a biblical personality to have a visionary-like dream. Consider the dream of Ruth Hoss, described in Dream Language (Hoss, 2005). Ruth was in her fifties and on a spiritual search for the meaning of life and death: I saw a wheel of fire—a strange wheel endlessly turning. Fire—yet not fire—not material fire; electrical forces like the fire seen through closed eyes. The wheel was the Wheel of time, and hovering above it were souls of all things created; animals, vegetables and man. Each one descended onto the earth only when an opening appeared in the wheel. The vibrations at the opening were attuned to the vibrations of that

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particular soul. The return from earth happened in a similar manner. Only when the proper opening appeared and the vibrations were right could the soul return from whence it came. There were some who wandered or floated beneath the wheel, unable to return through fire until the proper opening appeared. And I saw the wheel from above, without wonder, as something I had seen before and recognized.

VISITATION DREAMS A visitation dream is one of an impactful nature, whereby we appear to touch the spiritual realm by being visited by a spirit, typically by a loved one (parent, grandparent, spouse, good friend). The loved one is often reassuring us in some way— saying goodbye, assuring us that they are okay and are still there, leaving us with some advice, telling us something we did not know but may need to know, showing forgiveness or assuring us that we did okay, and such. In Stanley Krippner’s crosscultural study of 1,666 dreams, he found (aside from lucid dreams) that the secondhighest frequency of anomalous dreams (1.1%) were visitation dreams. The difficulty in determining whether a visitation dream is a true visitation is that friends and family who have passed away often appear in our dreams as symbolic representations. They may appear to represent a related memory or a personality factor. They often appear shortly after passing as part of the natural grieving process to accommodate or release emotion and to place their life, their impact on us and their passing, into perspective. There is no certainty, but perhaps the only often reported discriminating factors of a possible true visitation might be (a) the impactful, vivid, and lucid nature (a feeling that “it was real”) of the apparent visitation; (b) emotions that are intense, “electric,” unlike those sensed in waking life, perhaps at a moment of embrace; (c) receipt of information in opposition to the dreamer’s beliefs or more certainly information that could not have otherwise been known by the dreamer. Such appears to be the case with the following dream. Waggoner and McCready (2015) report a lucid dream in which the dreamer calls out, “Show me something important for me to see.” At that point, she meets her great-grandmother, who had died almost 15 years before. They talk, and at the end, the great-grandmother twice tells her, “Tell your mother to remember the back room in my home.” When she woke and called her mother, her mother burst into tears. Her mother told her that the happiest moments in her childhood occurred in the back room of her grandmother’s home, where all the grandchildren gathered once a week and dressed up as kings and queens.

Past-Life Dreams Robert J. Hoss

A past-life dream is one whereby the dream appears to detail past events that are reasonably clear and accurate that the dreamer could not have known about unless he or she had been there at the time. Assuming that one is open to the beliefs

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regarding past lives, there are still issues involved in determining whether a dream is a past-life memory: (a) the creativity of dreams can produce convincing settings identical with a time or place in the past, assembled from the dreamer’s own subliminal knowledge of that time period; (b) that, if worked as a normal dream, this creation may be a metaphor for the current situation (although some argue that such dreams may be a metaphor for a karmic carryover from the past); and (c) the theory that such past experiences may be transmitted through cellular or genetic ancestral memory, similar in some ways to Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious. Nonetheless, the dream can be quite convincing when it reveals verifiable facts from the past that the dreamer had no way of knowing about. Some common elements listed by Krippner and Bogzaran (2002) are (a) unusual vividness and emotional intensity, and the dream does not fade as quickly as a typical dream; (b) the dreamer seems aware that the contents are from a former life; (c) the experience is often concerned with the person’s death in a former life; and (d) there is verifiable information the person would not have known. While the following experience does not have enough verifiable facts to be considered proof, it illustrates the nature of such dream reports (Hoss, 2005): I dreamed that I was in a Roman-style amphitheater. My name was Pasha. The dream switched, and I was looking at a tomb with the name Pasha.

The dreamer reported that four years later she took a trip to Pompeii. While there, she walked into some unmarked ruins. She told her husband, “I have been here before. This used to be a covered amphitheater, and I used to sit right here.” Upon speaking to the guide, he confirmed that this was the newly uncovered ruin of what was once a covered amphitheater. Krippner and Bogzaran (2002) discuss the associated phenomenon of announcing dreams that may come at the time of pregnancy, whereby a deceased relative or ancestor might announce that they are returning. The anticipation of childbirth is a compounding factor; however, one anecdotal report in Dreams That Change Our Lives (IASD, 2017) did not involve the circumstances of the dreamer’s pregnancy but appeared to be synchronous with a waking event: My father, who died when I was a little girl, calls me and says, “I’m coming back.” “From Spain?” I ask. “No,” he says, “I’m coming back from death.” I visit him in a place that looks like an orphanage. He is in a dorm where I can see many beds with light blue sheets. . . . When we meet, he embraces me very tenderly and whispers in my ear, “You don’t know how difficult it is to become a mother.” I woke up feeling very happy, and that evening my brother called me to say that on that day they had received a call from the adoption center and had met his three-month-old son.

CONCLUSION Studies in the area of “extraordinary” or “anomalous” dreams (those that appear to operate outside the generally established norms of our physical, biological, or psychological reality) are difficult to accept by the scientific community as strictly

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scientifically conclusive. This is regardless of the statistical results collected in various studies, such as those at Maimonides Medical Center, and is due to a number of factors that do not necessarily negate the validity of the phenomenon or the research. One problem is that psi by its very nature is difficult to replicate—it doesn’t always act the same way on demand and appears affected by subjective factors such as emotion and attachment. Another problem is that the experiments conducted in different groups have not been performed with consistency and are thus difficult to compare. Third, many reports (including many of the examples presented in this chapter), although striking and difficult to ignore, are anecdotal (both the report and subsequent validation) and subject to the biases of the person reporting it. Perhaps the greatest problem is the lack of a scientifically agreed upon mechanism for psi. Although in some scientific circles the nature of quantum physics appears to be a strong candidate, it is neither universally accepted nor proven. As a result, the heavy scepticism, some of which is certainly healthy, has unfortunately also become a belief barrier that can deter further research. Therefore, aside from the research data herein, much of what has been provided in this chapter has been largely to illustrate the nature of the experience of such dreams and how those experiences have been categorized.

Dreams

DREAMS

Understanding Biology, Psychology, and Culture Volume 2

Robert J. Hoss and Robert P. Gongloff, Editors

Copyright © 2019 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Valli, Katja., editor. | Hoss, Robert J., editor. | Gongloff, Robert P., 1940editor. Title: Dreams : understanding biology, psychology, and culture / edited by Katja Valli, Robert J. Hoss, and Robert P. Gongloff. Description: Santa Barbara, California : Greenwood, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2018025799 (print) | LCCN 2018037756 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440856174 (eBook) | ISBN 9781440856167 (set : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440856181 (vol. 1) | ISBN 9781440856198 (vol. 2) Subjects: LCSH: Dreams—Physiological aspects. | Dreams—Psychological aspects. | Dream interpretation. Classification: LCC QP426 (ebook) | LCC QP426 .D74 2019 (print) | DDC 612.8/21—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018025799 ISBN:

978-1-4408-5616-7 (set) 978-1-4408-5618-1 (vol. 1) 978-1-4408-5619-8 (vol. 2) 978-1-4408-5617-4 (ebook)

23 22 21 20 19  1 2 3 4 5 This book is also available as an eBook. Greenwood An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 147 Castilian Drive Santa Barbara, California 93117 www.abc-clio.com This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

CONTENTS



Preface xiii Introduction: Sleeping Brains, Conscious Minds xv Jennifer M. Windt

PART I:  THE BIOLOGY OF SLEEP AND DREAMING Chapter 1

1

Sleep: Evolution, Regulation, and Function 3 Evolutionary Perspectives on Sleep3 John Lesku, Anne Aulsebrook, and Erika Zaid

Regulation of Sleep

Henna-Kaisa Wigren and Tarja Porkka-Heiskanen

16

Human Sleep Architecture24 Mary A. Carskadon and Scott Coussens

Genetic Basis of Human Sleep32 Tiina Paunio



Chapter 2

The Function of Sleep42 Lukas B. Krone and Vladyslav V. Vyazovskiy

The Neuroscience of Dreaming55 Electroencephalographic Correlates of Dreaming55 Alejandro Ezquerro-Nassar and Valdas Noreika

Neuroimaging Studies of Dreaming63 Dylan Smith, Umberto Moretto, and Thien Thanh Dang-Vu

Neurochemistry of Dreaming71 Brenda L. Bressler and Edward F. Pace-Schott

vi

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Contents

Effects of Brain Lesions on Dreaming78 Mark Solms

The Function of Dreaming: Biological and Evolutionary Theories87 Continuity Hypothesis of Dreaming88 Michael Schredl

The Neurocognitive Theory of Dreaming95 G. William Domhoff

Memory Consolidation and Dreaming99 Carlyle Smith

Emotion Regulation in Dreaming105 Caroline L. Horton and Josie E. Malinowski

Dreams and Attachment112 Patrick McNamara, Luke Dietrich-Egensteiner, and Brian Teed

Dreams as Self-Simulation and World Simulation117 Jennifer M. Windt and Katja Valli

Predictive Coding and Protoconsciousness122 Jarno Tuominen and Katja Valli

The Threat Simulation Theory125 Antti Revonsuo and Katja Valli

The Social Simulation Theory132 Jarno Tuominen, Antti Revonsuo, and Katja Valli

Dreaming and Play137 Kelly Bulkeley

Do Animals Dream?141

Carlyle Smith

PART II:  DREAM CONTENT AND EXPERIENCES Chapter 5

151

How to Study Dream Experiences153



Pilleriin Sikka

Chapter 6

Dream Recall and Content167 Dream Recall and Individual Differences167



Michael Schredl

The Content of Dreams173 Robert J. Hoss and Katja Valli

Typical Dream Themes180 Michael Schredl

Dream Recall and Content in Different Sleep Stages188 Michelle Carr and Elizaveta Solomonova

Contents

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

vii

The Dream-Lag Effect195 Elaine van Rijn, Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub, Josie Henley, and Mark Blagrove

Ontogenetic Development of Dreaming201 Monique Lortie-Lussier, Allyson Dale, and Joseph De Koninck

Dreams of People with Disabilities208 Kelly Bulkeley and Robert J. Hoss

External Influences on Dream Content213 Incorporation of External Stimuli into Dream Content213 Elizaveta Solomonova and Michelle Carr

The Effects of Media on Dreaming219 Jayne Gackenbach and Johnathan Bown

Medication That Affects Dreams and Nightmares224 James F. Pagel

Disturbed Dreaming231 Nightmares and Bad Dreams231 Nils Sandman

Dreaming in Parasomnias238 Isabelle Arnulf

Dreaming in Mental Disorders249 Joacim F. Skancke

Lucid Dreaming257 The Experience of Lucid Dreaming258 Robert Waggoner

Hyperspace Lucidity269 Fariba Bogzaran

Neuroscience of Lucid Dreaming271 Sérgio Mota-Rolim, Benjamin Baird, and Martin Dresler

Psychological and Lifestyle Correlates of Lucid Dreaming278 David T. Saunders

Lucid Dream Induction283 Tadas Stumbrys, Melanie Schädlich, and Daniel Erlacher

Chapter 10 Exceptional Dreams291 Somatic and Health-Related Dreams292

Robert J. Hoss



Deirdre Barrett



Creative and Problem-Solving Dreams301 Impactful Dreams309 Donald L. Kuiken, Kelly-Ann Albrecht, and Megan Cook

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Contents

Chapter 11 Extraordinary Dreams317 History of Anomalous Dream Research317

Stanley Krippner



Fariba Bogzaran



Telepathic and Precognitive Dreams324 Mutual Dreaming327 Luke Dietrich-Egensteiner, Brian Teed, and Patrick McNamara

Spontaneous Healing Dreams330 Robert J. Hoss

Out-of-Body Dreams331 Robert J. Hoss

Spiritual Dreams332 Robert J. Hoss

Past-Life Dreams334 Robert J. Hoss

PART III:  THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAMING

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Chapter 12 The Function of Dreaming: Psychological Theories339 Psychological Processes in Dreaming340

Robert J. Hoss



Milton Kramer



Mood Regulation and Emotional Problem-Solving349 Social Influence: Theory of Mind and Self-Reflection355 David Kahn

Contemporary Theory of Ernest Hartmann358 Robert J. Hoss

Chapter 13 Learning Theories365 Counterfactual Operations366

Patrick McNamara



Robert J. Hoss



Memory Operations367 Declarative and Procedural Learning376 Carlyle Smith

Advanced Learning Functions378 Robert J. Hoss

Chapter 14 Theories of Meaning391 Imagery Formation394

Robert J. Hoss and David Kahn

Contents

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Self-Organization Hypothesis395 David Kahn

Meaningful Association397 Robert J. Hoss

Latent Content in Dream Imagery401 Robert J. Hoss

Typical or Universal Dream Themes413 Robert J. Hoss

Chapter 15 Influential Contributions to Dream Psychology415 Historical Perspective415

Robert J. Hoss



Suzanne Saldarini



Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalytic Psychology426 Carl Jung and Analytical Psychology434 Robert J. Hoss

Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy449 Kenneth Meyer

Montague Ullman and Group “Dream Appreciation”455 Jacquie Lewis

Chapter 16 Clinical Application of Dreamwork461 Benefits of Dreamwork in Psychotherapy461

Clara E. Hill



Michael Schredl



Application of Dreamwork in Psychotherapy466 Evidence of Insight from Dreamwork469 Josie E. Malinowski and Chris Edwards

Chapter 17 Nightmare Therapies479 Chronic Nightmares480

Antonio Zadra



Antonio Zadra



Dream Lucidity and Nightmares486 PTSD Nightmare Therapies490 Antonio Zadra and Alan Siegel

Chapter 18 A Lifetime of Dreaming497

Alan Siegel

PART IV:  DREAMWORK AND CULTURAL PRACTICES

517

Chapter 19 Dreamwork Principles519 Dreamwork Evolution519

Robert P. Gongloff

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Contents

The Personal Dreamwork Experience522 Robert P. Gongloff

Dreamwork Ethics and Safety527 Carol D. Warner

Chapter 20 Group Dreamwork531 A Brief History of Group Interest in Dreaming531

Jeremy Taylor



Robert P. Gongloff



How to Start a Dream Group533 Montague Ullman’s “Dream Appreciation” Group Dreamwork535 Robert P. Gongloff

Haden Institute’s Dream Group Protocol536 Robert J. Hoss (Courtesy of Bob Haden)

Projective and Group Projective Dreamwork Principles538 Jeremy Taylor

Culture Dreaming (or Deep Dreaming)543 Richard Russo

Chapter 21 Associative Dreamwork549 Dream Interview Method549

Gayle Delaney



Teresa L. DeCicco



The Storytelling Method (TSM)554 Theme Work558 Robert P. Gongloff

Dream Translation562 Milton Kramer

Body Dreamwork: Using Focusing566 Leslie Ellis

Hartmann’s Contemporary Approach569 Robert J. Hoss

Chapter 22 Integrative Dreamwork571 The Cognitive-Experiential Dream Model (CEDM)571

Clara E. Hill



Jacques Montangero



Cognitive Behavioral Dreamwork575 Transformative Dreamwork581 Robert J. Hoss

The Fivestar Method590 G. Scott Sparrow

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Embodied Imagination (EI)594 Robert Bosnak

Integral Dreaming599 Fariba Bogzaran and Daniel Deslauriers

Chapter 23 Dreamwork Enhancement Practices605 Sandplay Therapy606

Barbara A. Turner



Sven Doehner

Sound Imagination612

Chapter 24 Religious and Spiritual Treatment617 Comparative History617

Kelly Bulkeley



Melinda Powell



Metaphoric Presence in Spiritual Dreams628 Psychospiritual Transformation: Light, Color, and Symmetry634 Nigel Hamilton

Chapter 25 Dreams and the Arts641 Dreaming, Creativity, and Imagination641

Bernard Welt



Sheila McNellis Asato



Dream Artists644 Photography and Dreams648 Richard Russo

Music and Dreams650 Craig Webb

Dreams and Literary Narrative656 Bernard Welt

Graphic Novels and Dreams660 Jeremy Taylor

Dreams and Poetry664 Betsy Davids

Dreams and Cinema666 Bernard Welt

Chapter 26 Dream Education671 The Diverse Nature of Dream Education672

Philip King, Bernard Welt, and Kelly Bulkeley



Philip King, Bernard Welt, and Kelly Bulkeley



The Future of Dream Education677 Resources: Dream Databases680 Philip King, Bernard Welt, and Kelly Bulkeley

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Chapter 27 Dreams in Ancient and Non-Western Cultures683 Prehistoric, Tribal, and Ancient Middle Eastern683

Curtiss Hoffman



Susan Benson



Western, Islamic, and Eastern691 Shamanism and Dreams706 Stanley Krippner

Chapter 28 Technological Influences711 The Influence of Media Understood through Video Game Play712

Johnathan Bown and Jayne Gackenbach



Ryan Hurd

The Internet and Social Media715 References721 About the Editors and Contributors791

Index805

Part III

T H E P S YC H O L O G Y O F DREAMING

Chapter 12

THE F UNCTION OF DREAMING: PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES

The American Psychological Association (APA) defines psychology as the study of the mind and behavior. It is the science that deals with emotional and mental processes within a person or their personality characteristics, including how they think, feel, or behave. The psychology of dreaming is therefore a study of the emotional and mental processes in dreams that might influence each of those properties. Dreams have long been understood to be a valuable tool in psychotherapy for gaining insights or therapeutic benefit by working with the dream in some manner. Does the dream itself, however, serve an important internal restorative or therapeutic function, and, if so, does it do this whether the dream is recalled or not? In 1900, Sigmund Freud stated that the function of dreams was to disguise disturbing and harmful unconscious urges and impulses to preserve sleep and perhaps prevent the dreamer from waking up and being shocked by the true content of one’s desires. While dreaming may perform an emotional regulation function (see the “Mood Regulation and Emotional Problem-Solving” section below) that may play a role in preserving sleep, much richer and broader roles for dreaming have been suggested. Chapter 3 described how dream sleep has recently been linked to various biological functions, such as memory enhancement and consolidation, emotional regulation, and evolutionary functions that preserve the organism, such as threat and social simulation. This chapter discusses how those functions may support psychological functions that influence a person’s feelings, perceptions, thinking, and behavior. Chapter 13 then expands on the cognitive theories as related to a learning function, and Chapter 14 focuses on how we attach meaning to dreams.

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Psychological Processes in Dreaming Robert J. Hoss

With the discovery of the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep in 1952 by Eugene Aserinsky, Nathaniel Kleitman, and William C. Dement (published in 1953) and the accompanying dream activity, and later the confirmation of dreaming in all non-REM (NREM) stages of sleep, a multitude of psychological functions have been suggested for dreaming. NEUROBIOLOGICAL INFLUENCES Theory Evolution When REM sleep was first studied, 70–95 percent of dream reports appeared to come from REM awakenings, so dreaming was considered to primarily be a REM sleep phenomenon. Its origins were considered to be a region at the top of the brain stem called the pontine tegmentum, which was found to produce relatively chaotic signals that in turn activate the forebrain, which made the best sense that it could (a “synthesis”) out of the noisy input it was receiving—forming the dream. This contributed, in part, to an activation syntheses theory of dreaming (Hobson & McCarley, 1977). This noisy input was thought to be a key reason why dreams are allegedly bizarre and disjointed (see the “Neurochemistry of Dreaming” section in Chapter 2 for a more in-depth discussion). A body of evidence gradually began to accumulate, however, which led researchers to recognize that perhaps REM sleep was not the physiological equivalent of dreaming. Although the pontine tegmentum decreases in activation in non-REM (NREM) sleep stages, reports of complex mentation could be elicited in as many as 50 percent of awakenings from NREM sleep (Foulkes, 1962) and 50–70 percent of awakenings during the sleep-onset phase. More recently, researchers have found even greater activity from every stage of sleep (see the “Dream Recall and Content in Different Sleep Stages” section in Chapter 6). The evidence suggested a “continuous dreaming” process characterized by a variability within and between sleep stages. Solms (1999) suggested that dreaming is generated by a different mechanism than the one that generates REM sleep, one that is not dependent on the REM oscillator in the pons. The frontal areas and underlying dopaminergic pathways he suggested to be involved in dreaming are those that are also involved in motivational behavior. He noted that damage to these brain areas and pathways causes cessation of dreaming in conjunction with a massive reduction in motivated behavior. He found these frontal pathways, as well as the occipito-temporo-parietal junction (where abstract thoughts and memories are converted into concrete perceptions), to be essential for dreaming. Solms concluded, as suggested by various neuroimaging studies as well, that dreaming involves the frontal and limbic parts of the brain concerned with arousal, emotion,

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memory, and motivation, in interplay with parts at the back of the brain concerned with abstract thinking and visual perception, creating concrete images in the ­perceptual systems. See the “Effects of Brain Lesions on Dreaming” section in Chapter 2 for a more detailed discussion of the topic. Solms’s view that dreaming is initiated by an arousal stimulus sufficiently intense or persistent to activate motivational mechanisms of the brain has an impact on the understanding of dreaming in relation to behavior. But as the ability to act on this motivation is blocked during REM sleep in particular, the dreamer does not actually engage in motivated activity, but rather imagines himself or herself to be doing so, and due to inactivation of the frontal reflective systems, the imagined scene is uncritically accepted. This process may support what Revonsuo (see ­Chapter 3) refers to as “simulation”—the ability for a dream to “simulate” a situation and the dreamer to be motivated to act on it as if it were a real event. Biological Support for a Psychological Function Over the last two decades, brain imaging studies by such research teams as led by Pierre Maquet, Allen. R. Braun, and Eric A. Nofzinger have revealed a unique mix of activity and inactivity in brain centers during REM and NREM sleep (reviewed in Hobson et al., 2003, and in the “Neuroimaging Studies of Dreaming” section in Chapter 2). Figure 12.1 provides a rough approximation of location, based on these studies, of the active (white) and inactive (gray) centers, both interior and cortical regions, imposed on a lateral sagittal view (see Chapter 2 for more detail). During REM sleep, many areas become less active as compared to wakefulness, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), posterior cingulate gyrus (PCG), precuneus, inferior parietal cortex (PAR) (except the right inferior), and the primary visual cortex (V1). Activity is seen in the associative cortex in parieto-occipital (P-O) and temporo-occipital regions, associated with visual processing, perception, and association as well as spatial processing and sensory integration, as might be expected of visual dream activity often reported in REM sleep and even NREM sleep dreaming. In addition, limbic and paralimbic centers involved in emotional processing were found to be highly active in REM sleep: the limbic regions including the amygdala (AM), hippocampus (HC), and right anterior insular cortex (IC). It was also found that many of the centers understood to be involved in problem detection, emotional regulation, analogic decision making, memory consolidation, and learning are also active during REM sleep: the anterior cingulate (ACC), basal ganglia (BG), medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), the ventromedial and caudal orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and the basal forebrain (BF). In NREM sleep, active areas (some known to be involved in waking-state motor and task learning) that become active include the ventral prefrontal cortex, motor cortex, cerebellum, posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and precuneus, and frontal and parahippocampal gyri. A good source of further reading on the activity of the frontal or cognitive centers is Sleep and Dreaming (Hobson et al., 2003) and The New Science of Dreaming (Pace-Schott, et al., 2007). Refer to Chapter 13 for a discussion of the hypothetical involvement of these centers in learning.

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Figure 12.1. Brain State in REM Sleep.

Active (white) and inactive/less-active (gray) centers during REM sleep. The hypothetical functional activity that is generally attributed to those regions is noted.

A high-definition EEG-based study in 2017 by Siclari et al. (see the “Electroencephalographic Correlates of Dreaming” section in Chapter 2) has been able to better define cortical activity during dreaming by collecting near real-time dream information while measuring cortical activation. Using a 256-channel high-density EEG, they awakened 39 subjects throughout the night (1,048 awakenings in all) and had them report mental activity and dream recall with or without content. The study found that when subjects reported experiencing a dream, either in NREM or REM sleep, a posterior cortical parieto-occipital “hot zone” became more active. In both REM and NREM, the hot zone covered the bilateral parieto-occipital regions encompassing the medial and lateral occipital lobe (visual processing), as one might expect. The zone extended to the precuneus (episodic memory retrieval and self-consciousness), particularly when dream content was recalled, and remained inactive when mentation but no content was recalled. They also found the sleeping brain to function to some degree as the waking brain does—dynamically activating (or partially activating) different centers related to the actual content of the dream. When there was movement in the dream, there was an increase in high-frequency activity in the right superior temporal sulcus (motion perception). Frontal or anterior cortical regions activated when there was more thinking activity in the dream and in the parietal, occipital, and temporal areas when perceiving. Faces in dreams resulted in activity in the temporo-occipital

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or right fusiform face area. Spatial setting dreams were associated with activity in the right posterior parietal cortex (spatial perception). Dreams containing speech were associated with activity in the left Wernicke’s area. Unfortunately, at the present state of research and technology, most of our understanding of brain center function is based on waking-state studies, which may or may not fully correlate with their function during sleep. However, sleep-state EEG, lesion, and imaging studies so far, when waking-state function is compared with dream content, suggest that some degree of consistency in function is preserved. Chapter 13 will discuss what is understood about each of these centers in more detail and suggest how they might hypothetically network together to provide the capability for emotional and creative problem-solving and learning in the dream state—whether we recall the associated dream or not. EMOTIONAL PROCESSES Dreams appear to reflect waking-life emotional concerns, and, in turn, dream emotion tends to affect waking-life emotion or mood (see the “Mood Regulation and Emotional Problem-Solving” section below and the “Emotion Regulation in Dreaming’ section in Chapter 3 for an in-depth discussion. Emotion and associated factors, such as motivation and social interactions, differ for REM and NREM dreams; however, perhaps reflecting the differences in brain state, the limbic areas are more active in REM stages and somewhat diminished in NREM stages. McNamara et al. (2005) found that (a) REM reports were more likely to involve social interactions than NREM reports; (b) aggressive interactions were twice as likely to occur in a REM dream as a NREM dream (and three times as likely than in a waking reports); and (c) REM dreams involved significantly more selfinitiated aggression than friendliness, and NREM dreams involved significantly more self-initiated friendliness than aggression (the dreamer was never reported to be an aggressor in NREM sleep). A study by Smith et al. (2004) found that motivation in REM dreams was significantly greater than motivation in NREM dreams, total emotion was more intense in REM than in NREM, and negative emotions were significantly more intense in REM than NREM. Influence on Dream Plot Various studies (summarized in Hobson et al., 2003) also suggest an emotional influence on dream activity as related to neurological function (such as activation of limbic circuits primarily in REM sleep). Seligman and Yellen considered dream emotion to be the primary shaper of the dream plot rather than a reaction to that plot, the primary driver being anxiety, and Foulkes found dream emotion to be typically consistent with dream narrative. Domhoff found a predominance of anxiety over other emotions. Devinsky noted that the anterior cingulate activation contributes continual emotional features, such as the assessment of motivational salience and integration of dream emotion with action. And Nofzinger considered a basic function of REM sleep to be the integration of neocortical function with

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frontal motivational and reward mechanisms. In 1998, Maquet proposed that the function of the apparent orchestration of cortical activity by the amygdala during REM sleep may be the selective processing of emotionally relevant memories, which might influence the dominance of threat-related emotions in REM dreams (in Dang Vu et al., 2007). Influence on Memory Emotion may influence what we store in memory. The amygdala is known to influence memory storage in the hippocampus, and as such, Ernest Hartmann contended that emotions act to influence what we store in memory, adding a salience to a memory, thus prioritizing its subsequent consolidation. According to Erin Wamsley, memories are “reactivated” during sleep, and dreams incorporate these reactivated memories to enhance our memory systems. And it is not just any memory: several studies have found that sleep preferentially promotes lasting memory changes for emotional memories (Wamsley, 2016). Also, these memories are not simply integrated in their original form, “meaning” is extracted from those memories, or, as Jessica Payne puts it, dreams preferentially extract and retain the general theme, or “gist,” which is what actually “changes” your memory (Payne, 2009). See the “Memory Consolidation and Dreaming” section in Chapter 3 for a more detailed review. Malinowski and Horton (2015) recently studied how memories are strengthened and assimilated into existing memory schemas during sleep, resulting in memory transformations such as creativity, insight, and “gist” extraction. They concluded (a) that emotion acts as a marker for information to be selectively processed during sleep, including consolidation into long-term memory structures and integration into preexisting memory networks; (b) that dreaming reflects these processes of emotion assimilation; and (c) that the associations between memory fragments activated during sleep give rise to dream metaphor, time variations, and the bizarreness we perceive as the dream. Dreams reactivate memory fragments. They reorganize, interleave, and reintegrate fragments of the recent event with past experiences and other content to prepare for the future (Wamsley, 2016). As Stickgold puts it, “When you wake, you understand how the world works better than you did when you went to bed” (Stickgold, 2016). Stress Reduction and Mood Control Freud suggested that bad dreams let the brain learn to gain control over emotions resulting from distressing experiences. Donald Stewart and David Koulack state that a function of dreaming is the adaption to stress over time. This emotional regulation may result from two important events that take place in REM sleep, as described by Els Van der Helm (2011): (1) emotional memories are reactivated in the amygdala to hippocampal network during REM sleep and (2) reactivity of the amygdala is downregulated due to a massive reduction in the stress-producing

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neurotransmitters norepinephrine in forebrain centers and the amygdala. This may be why we often experience going to sleep pondering a problem that has us emotionally disturbed, only to wake in the morning less concerned. Levin and Nielsen (2007) propose an emotional-processing model of disturbed dreaming that involves a memory-fragment activation (a breaking down of fearful memories) and recombination function, thus dispersing the fear. However, when certain fearful memories are not able to be broken down and recombined, a cycle of disturbed processing begins, in which emotionally laden waking memories disturb dreaming, and dreaming reactivates those memories further. In the next section, “Mood Regulation and Emotional Problem-Solving,” Milton Kramer describes a similar theory, whereby sleep and dreaming may either achieve or fail to accommodate what he calls the emotional surge across the REM period. He found, as have others, that the emotionally intense experiences of the day are what appear in dreams, and the activities during sleep appear to be “corrective,” like a thermostat operating to move the mood level toward a central and lower point. The concept of emotional regulation is pictured in the following dream example. The dreamer had an argument with his boss and coworkers that day that left him feeling horribly wronged. Getting angrier and angrier, he planned to “tell them off ” the next day. Luckily, the dream’s ability to downregulate the emotion, and even picture it in a manner obvious to the waking ego, prevented what could have been a career-limiting decision. I dreamed I was in front of a crowd, about to give a speech, when I was introduced to a man named “Willy Pisstoff.” I was trying to control myself to keep from laughing. I woke laughing and lost all desire to carry out my angry verbal attack.

Fear Extinction Nightmares typically imply nocturnal awakening, whereas bad dreams are usually defined as negatively toned dreams that do not awaken the dreamer. Nielsen and Levin (2007) suggest that nightmares and bad dreams (see also Chapter 8, “Disturbed Dreaming”) involve similar processes and, as noted above, merely differ in how effective (or ineffective) they are in regulating shifting surges of current affect levels, a process we refer to as regulating affect load. They propose that normal dreaming serves a fear-extinction function and that nightmares reflect failures in emotion regulation. They suggest that nightmares occur as a result of two processes that they term affect load, a consequence of daily variations in emotional pressures, and affect distress, a disposition to experience events with high levels of negative emotional reactivity, much as Kramer found. There is a neurological basis for a fear-extinction function in REM sleep. PET imaging by Nofzinger in 1996 revealed that both the infralimbic and prelimbic medial PFC are active in REM sleep—both understood to be involved with the amygdala in the production of fear responses. The infralimbic regions, in particular, are understood to be a site of plasticity/learning for inhibition of fear responses and extinction.

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Emotional Problem Resolution and the Waking Continuum Horton and Malinowski (see also the “Emotion Regulation in Dreaming” section in Chapter 3) stress the relationship between waking emotional events influencing the emotional content in dreams as well as dream emotion affecting subsequent waking-life mood. In the next section, Milton Kramer discusses two patterns of thematic dream development: (1) a progressive-sequential type, in which an emotional problem is stated figuratively, worked on, and resolved, and (2) a repetitive-traumatic type, in which the emotional problem is simply restated in different images or metaphors and no progress toward resolution occurs. He suggests a mechanism of “emotional problem-solving” or failure to “problem solve”— perhaps due to the success or failure to contain the emotional surge. People show both patterns, which accounts for variability in how a person feels in the morning. If the dream is unsuccessful, the dreamer may recall a disturbing dream or nightmare, which opens the opportunity for extending the need for further assimilation into waking life. Ernest Hartmann (see below) and Robert Stickgold (2009) support the role of the dream-to-waking continuum in the process of adaption—the act of remembering dreams in the morning and trying to understand the associated emotional conflicts. Stickgold considers sleep as a time when the brain can search for and identify useful associations between recently formed emotional memories and older ones, helping to place them in a more useful context from which their resolution may become more readily apparent. PERCEP TION: A SENSE OF SELF, REALIT Y, AND OTHERS Although shrouded in the metaphoric, associative, and pictorial nature of dream language, the content of our dreams tends to present our inner perception of reality, who we see ourselves to be in our social relationship with others and our environment (or worldview)—or as Carl Jung (see Chapter 15) stated, “a spontaneous self-portrayal, in symbolic form, of the actual situation in the unconscious.” Domhoff (see Chapter 14) also considered dream content to be a mental profile of the dreamer. The reason is that dreams do not simply reflect our external waking life, but rather construct an internal view that reflects elements of recent experience by creatively and imaginatively weaving those experiences into a memory matrix that makes up our inner model of self and reality. How this internal model of our reality is pictured in the dream is the subject of Chapter 14, which describes the personal meaning that these dream images and stories reveal. Constructive versus Reproductive Perceptual Processes The continuity hypothesis discussed in Chapter 3 states that dreams are continuous with waking life, that the world of dreaming and the world of waking are one, whether it be our waking thoughts, feelings, conflicts, fantasies, or actions. The implication is that our dreams are simply reproductions of waking-life episodes (albeit metaphoric or thematic representations). There is an opposing discontinuity

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view, however, that the dream is a constructive cognitive process rather than simply a reproductive perceptual one. Many researchers and perhaps most psychologists adhere to this view or some combination of both. Hobson’s describes it in his protoconsciousness hypothesis (2009), which states that primary consciousness (dreaming state) is a building block on which secondary consciousness (waking state) is constructed (see also the “Predictive Coding and Protoconsciousness” section in Chapter 3). Dream sleep may constitute a protoconscious state, providing a virtual reality model of the world in which content is synthetic and not merely reproductive, and in which dreaming is a predictor and developer as well as a reflector of waking consciousness. Hobson notes that dreaming is not entirely derived from waking experience; it may tap into the genetically encoded experience of our ancestors for such universal and formal features of dreams, such as seeing, moving, and feeling, which have little to do with the replay of waking experience. Citing the findings that persons disabled from birth regularly use those sensory or ambulatory modes in their dreams (see the “Dreams of People with Disabilities” section in Chapter 6), he suggests that some features, such as body image or verbal interaction, may have some basis in the hardwiring of the brain. He also considered dreaming to be a creative process that develops an infinitely varied set of possible scenarios to resolving a particular situation at the same time that it processes the scenarios that have actually occurred. This concept is consistent with Jung’s creative prospective view of dreaming as well, including his theories of the psyche (see Chapter 15), in which the dream process is highly influenced, if not driven, but what Jung called the “collective unconscious” consisting of nonpersonal, human species–wide, inherited, and instinctive material and possessing an aim toward maintaining a balanced and whole perception of self. COGNITION: CREATIVIT Y, LEARNING, AND BEHAVIOR As discussed above, there are a number of regions in the brain that are active in REM sleep, which might support a robust creative and analytical problem-solving capability, as well as the ability to simulate, test, and store novel new solutions in memory, which suggests an influence of dreaming on waking viewpoint and behavior. Note that the ability for dreams to creatively solve problems is not without controversy (see “The Neurocognitive Theory of Dreaming” section in Chapter 3); however, there is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that supports the observation (see Chapter 10). Creative Cognition Researcher David Foulkes considers dreaming as a form of “active imagining,” creatively combining memories and knowledge. Anecdotal evidence of a creative problem-solving capability is described in the “Creative and Problem-Solving Dreams” section in Chapter 10. In Committee of Sleep, Deirdre Barrett describes her research into the many medical, scientific, and artistic creations arising from dreams. She describes dreaming as “thinking in [a] different biochemical state.”

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Her research finds that anything may get solved during dreaming, particularly if the problem involves visualization or “thinking outside the box.” Carl Jung, Montague Ullman, Ramon Greenberg, and Chester Pearlman observed that dreams focus on resolving problems related to important unfinished business of the day. As discussed earlier, most of these unresolved problems (even those leading to creative invention) appear to involve emotional issues and conflicts. Kramer concluded that dreaming engages an emotional problem-resolution capability. Researcher Robert Stickgold (2009), who considers dreams to be the enablers of “the most sophisticated human cognitive functions,” contends that dreams seem to be more about what the brain calculates as most important, even an unexpected but very emotional event that occurred shortly before you went to sleep. The ability for the dreaming brain to make new connections is critical to insight and creative problem resolution, as well as to learning, which will be discussed in the next chapter. Ernest Hartmann (see the “Contemporary Theory of Ernest Hartmann” section below) considered dreams to be a hyperconnected process (creating new connections more broadly than in waking life) that allows us to arrive at new insights. As did Hartmann, Robert Stickgold (2009) believes that dreams help us find new patterns and create combinations that break through well-worn ruts: dreams are “where we bring things together in fresh, often startling ways, drawing on stores of knowledge from the past, the present, the possible future, in order to find new associations.” The theory of self-organization (see Chapter 14) considers the process to be somewhat random; however, other theories (such as Hartmann’s Contemporary Theory, see below) consider the process to be influenced, perhaps by emotion. This ability to creatively connect previously diverse perceptions, perhaps driven by emotional anxiety and conflict, is illustrated in the following dream. The woman had come to believe that her husband was the source of all their marital problems, a belief that was reflected in a recurring dream. The dreams continued, until one night the dream creatively “pictured” a connection that revealed the actual source of the conflict from her past: I have a recurrent dream of being terribly angry with my husband, who I am always running away from. These dreams continued until one night I turned around and faced my husband and looked at his face. . . . It was my father’s face!

Here a new connection is made between husband and father, a picture metaphor of a projection of unresolved issues with her father onto her husband. This led to a new insight that compensated for the previous misconception that it was all husband issues. The dream connected the present situation to unresolved issues with her father, an understanding that can open the opportunity for eventual resolution. Learning and Behavior This creative and predictive problem-solving capability, with its ability to make new connections and create new insight, suggests the ability to create a

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learning simulation or adaptive learning experience within the dream. Certainly, in the example above, the woman learned something from the insight, but can learning occur within the dream itself ? For decades, studies of task learning and postsleep performance have shown sleep to improve declarative and procedural memory and task performance. But might this learning extend to more advanced non-task-related activity, such as restoring our sense of self, adapting to life situations, and evolution of our personality? The research and theoretical work to date suggests that it does—the details of which will be discussed in Chapter 13.

Mood Regulation and Emotional Problem-Solving Milton Kramer

Mood Regulation Theory (Kramer, 2011) arises from observations of the intensity of dreaming having a developmental course across the REM period, suggesting that during REM sleep, there is a surge of emotion. The intensity increase in emotionality across the REM period is essentially linear, between 2.5 and 30 minutes, with a plateau between 20 and 30 minutes, which fits the eye movement periodicity of the REM period. Although efforts to connect dream content with the variability in autonomic function have been minimally successful, the autonomic functions during REM sleep fluctuate consistently with an emotional surge occurring. If the ability of the dreamer to integrate the surge is adequate, the emotional intensity of the dream experience is contained and muted, and the dream then does not enter awareness. The result is that sleep is not disturbed, suggesting that dreaming functions as a part of an assimilative process to contain or to attempt to contain that emotional surge. DREAM F UNCTION: CONTAINMENT OF THE EMOTIONAL SURGE A number of studies were performed to determine what the attempt to control the emotional surge is related to: • Dream recall: Individuals who reported having two nightmares a week were compared with a group of vivid dreamers. Vivid dreamers had a higher recall rate (89%) than the nightmare subjects (54%), suggesting that that dream recall is not a function of containing the emotional surge. • Poor sleepers: When poor sleepers were compared to good sleepers, the poor sleepers reported a greater interest in dreams and (in a study of their diaries) had more awakenings during the night and about one-third more dreams. Multiple awakenings during the night with increased dream recall may reflect a failure to contain the emotional surge during dreaming. Poor sleep may reflect an emotionally troubled state that has decreased the integrative capacity of the dreamer.

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• Emotional state: This state was determined to be a factor in the capacity to contain the emotional surge. The nightmare subjects in the study above had higher scores on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) scales and on emotionally based scales of the Cornell Medical Index and more psychiatric hospitalizations, and they reported that their nightmares were related to current troubling feelings, for example, anger, sensitivity, and general emotion. • Emotional responsivity: The failure to integrate the emotions, as reflected in an increased responsivity in nightmare sufferers, was confirmed in a study of Vietnam War veterans with chronic delayed post-traumatic stress disorder (CDPTSD) who had frequent nightmares. When given an above-threshold stimulus during sleep, they responded in 93 percent of trials, while the control group responded only 52 percent of the time.

MOOD BEFORE AND AF TER SLEEP These observations draw attention to the relationship of dreaming in particular, and sleep in general, to the affective (emotional) state of the individual. Sleep is linked to both prior and subsequent wakefulness in both its physiological and psychological aspects. From a psychological perspective, the more intense emotional experiences of the day and the thoughts a person has before going to sleep are likely to appear in the dreams of the subsequent night. The physiological and psychological aspects of sleep are also related to the waking activity of the next day. There is a thematic continuity between the dreams of a night and spontaneous verbal behavior the following morning. Feeling states are predictive of performance and better predictors of performance during the day than hours of prior sleep. As mood appears to vary from day to day and across the day, it may have a relationship to both dreams and sleep physiology. The mood measurement device used in the studies was the Clyde Mood Scale, a 48-item checklist that scores 6 subscales: friendly, aggressive, clear thinking, sleepy, unhappy, and dizzy (anxious). • Mood across the night: The intensity and variability of mood subscale scores decreased from night (presleep) to morning (postsleep). This was true in the laboratory, at home, and across a wide age range (20–70), and it was identical for men and women. • Mood predictability across the night: A series of systematic relationships between pre- and postsleep mood both between and within subjects was found in a study of 52 people for 17 to 21 days. The results indicated a mood relationship between five of the six mood subscales at the trait level (personality or other trait differences between subjects). The highest correlation was with the unhappy mood subscale, and the lowest or insignificant ones were sleepy and anxious. At the state level (or within-subject correlations), the variability was so high that there was no systematic night-to-morning relationship found. • Mood and sleep deprivation: Pre- and postsleep mood is sensitive to even one night of sleep loss, increasing sleepy and anxious mood scores and decreasing clear thinking. Two studies were done to test whether the change in mood across the night was related to the intervening period of sleep. They first studied one night of sleep

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deprivation with a group, and the result was an increase in the sleepy, aggressive, and friendly mood scores, compared to the baseline. The scores reverted after one night of recovery sleep. The second study was two consecutive nights of deprivation in a sleep lab, resulting in increased scores on the sleepy and anxious mood subscales and a decreased score on the clear-thinking mood subscale. Changes in the friendly and aggressive scores may be more related to the social aspects of the experimental situation than to sleep loss. • Mood changes across the day: The cheerful, energetic, and general-activation subscales of the Pearson and Byars fatigue scale were maximal at noon and minimal at bedtime. The reverse was true for the inert-fatigue and deactivation subscales. These changes in mood support the findings that the night-to-morning mood changes are different from those across the day, although they are related.

VARIATION IN MENTAL CONTENT BEFORE, AF TER, AND DURING SLEEP The mood state of the individual may be found to relate to dream content differences, so the question was raised as to whether dream content varies similarly to mood. • Dream content differs between groups: As Chapter 6 indicates, dream content reflects age, gender, various demographic, and psychological differences at the group level in both healthy and psychopathological groups. • Dream content differs between and within individuals: In a study that included mentally healthy persons and schizophrenics, it was found that the dreams of individuals are distinguishable one from the other, whether the person is mentally healthy or psychiatrically ill. The dreams of an individual were also found to differ from night to night, although they were found to be linked. In one study across 20 nights, the correlation of content increased from nights 1 to 2 (0.05) to nights 19 to 20 (0.80). • Dream content changes across the night: Given one night’s dreams from one subject, judges were unable to place them in their order of occurrence. However, in a collection of dreams from different subjects, the number of words were found to differ between REM reports. When word length was held constant, 8 of 22 dreamcontent categories showed a change across the night. This supports some sort of systematic dream-content or processing change occurring across the night (also see Chapter 6). • Relation of dream content and waking thought: The results of two studies suggest that there is a thematic connection across the wake-sleep continuum; but waking thought is more coherently organized than dreaming thought, and dreams appear to be more reactive to presleep thought than proactive in influencing postsleep thought. The content of Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) stories was compared to the content of the subject’s REM dreams, and it was found that the intensity of the dream and waking fantasy productions was significantly correlated (r = 0.72). The narratives immediately before and after sleep were found to relate to the content of the intervening REM dreams (9 of the 18 content scores showed a significant correlation). Waking (pre- and postsleep) verbalizations of subjects were

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Dreams also found to be thematically connected in 95 percent of the individuals. Presleep thought was thematically connected to the subsequent night’s dreams in 85 percent of individuals; postsleep thought was connected to the prior night’s dreams in only 70 percent of people.

THE DREAM RESPONDS TO THE EMOTIONAL STATE OF THE DREAMER A series of seven studies were performed that demonstrated that the principal emotional concern of the dreamer is reflected in the theme of the night’s dreams. The studies concluded that (1) the emotionally intense experiences of the day are what appear in dreams; (2) specific emotionally capturing experiences, such as beginning and ending an activity, can be distinguished from each other in dream reports; (3) the preempting nature of the sleep-laboratory experience continues to be represented in dreams across time; (4) the interpersonal situation between dreamer and dream collector influences what is selected for reporting; (5) the emotional concern about who will observe and evaluate you can and does affect your dreams; (6) the sex of the experimenter in relation to the sex of the study participant, same or opposite, influences the content of the dream report; and (7) emotionally meaningful names presented during REM sleep are more likely to be incorporated into the dream experience than meaningless names. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOOD AND DREAM CONTENT The discussions above illustrate that mood and sleep are related and that dreams are related to and respond to the dreamer’s waking emotional state. If dreams contain or alter emotional state, then dream content and mood change should be related. To demonstrate this, the content of REM dreams and pre- and postsleep mood scores were collected in a study of two men in the sleep laboratory for 20 consecutive nights. Significant content and mood relationships were found, the largest correlations being a decrease in the unhappy subscale score with an increase in characters in the dream. The study was repeated with 12 male subjects, and again it was found that mood change was significantly related to dream content, in particular three content scales, that is, characters, descriptive elements, and activities. The distribution of significant correlations across the mood subscales was not random, and, again the unhappy subscale had significantly more correlations than the others—the greatest being between the character scales and the change in the unhappy mood subscale. How happy you feel on awakening in the morning seems to depend mostly on whom you spent the night with in your dreams. Emotion is not directly and simply processed across the night. When the relationship between pre- and postsleep mood and dream content was explored, 10 significant correlations were discovered; 2 were with presleep mood, and 8 were with postsleep mood. The 2 presleep correlations were between the anxious aspect of mood and dream content related to confusion and sexual social interactions.

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The postsleep friendly mood score correlated with dream content of apprehension, anger, and aggressive social interactions. The postsleep unhappy mood score had 3 correlations with sadness, confusion, and aggressive social interactions in the dream. The studies indicate that pre- and postsleep mood is as connected to dream emotion as well as other dream contents. Of the 10 significant correlations, 5 were between pre- and postsleep mood and emotion in the dream. The connections were more proactive (8 of them) than reactive (2). How you feel in the morning is related to how you feel in your dreams and what happens in them. Inge Strauch and Barbara Meier have raised a question about the central role of emotion in dreaming, as only 50.2 percent of their dream reports contain a specific emotion and an additional 23.4 percent a general mood. A study that looked at the change in dream emotion in psychoanalytic treatment found that only 58.3 percent contained emotion in the manifest content; however, 96 percent contained emotion if personal associations to the dream were included. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOOD AND THE PH YSIOLOGY OF SLEEP Do mood changes occur in relationship to the physiology of sleep, that is, the sleep stages and total sleep time? • Mood change and sleep physiology: In the first of two studies, the changes across the night in the six mood subscales were correlated with five sleep variables. In a second replication, pre- and postsleep moods were assessed, and seven sleep variables were scored. The studies found that dream content and sleep physiology are related to different aspects of mood change across the night. Mood to dream content related mostly to the unhappy, friendly, and aggressive aspects of mood change (54 significant correlations). Sleep variables to mood change was primarily related to the sleepy, anxious, and clear-thinking aspects of mood (26 significant correlations). • The mood regulatory function of sleep: It appears that the physiology of sleep and the psychology of sleep are differentially related to various aspects of mood change across the night. The change in the sleepy aspect of mood relates to how much NREM sleep one has had, while the change in the unhappy aspect of mood is a function of what one dreams about. The mood-regulatory function of sleep is suggested by the fact that presleep mood is different than postsleep mood. The mean level and variability of mood decreases across the night—as if a “funneling action” occurs. The physiological and psychological activities during sleep appear to be “corrective,” like a thermostat operating to move the mood level toward a central and lower point. The dream seems particularly involved with one aspect of mood, that is, unhappy, and may be seen as a selective affective (mood) regulator, an “emotional thermostat,” so to speak.

THE DREAM MECHANISM FOR MOOD CHANGE: EMOTIONAL PROBLEM-SOLVING In the mood-regulatory theory of dreaming, it is mood change that is the function of dreams, but the question remains as to how the dream actually changes

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the emotional state from presleep to postsleep. Two patterns of thematic dream development across the night are discernible: • Progressive-sequential type, in which an emotional problem is stated figuratively, worked on, and resolved • Repetitive-traumatic type, in which the emotional problem is simply restated in different images or metaphors and no progress toward resolution occurs

The effectiveness of a night’s dreaming in reducing the intensity and variability of mood occurs in about 60 percent of nights. The variation in the effectiveness of a night’s dreaming may be the result of the pattern of dreaming across the night. If one has experienced a progressive-sequential dream pattern, there may be a positive change in the emotional state of the dreamer. If the emotional problem is simply restated and not solved, a repetitive-traumatic dream pattern is experienced, and a less successful night’s dreaming has occurred. This suggests that it is through the mechanism of “emotional problem-solving” or failure to “problem solve” that mood change takes place or fails to occur. This change may be accompanied by a change in the intensity of unhappiness across the night and the appearance of the appropriate number and types of characters, descriptive elements, and activities in the dream. Dreamers show both patterns in approximately the same frequency, 60–40 percent, which underscores that there is not universal success in dreams altering the residual emotional problems of the day. This could account for some of the variability in how a person feels on awakening in the morning. These patterns are elaborations or specifications of the general thesis that dreams may serve a problem-solving function. It may be that through this effort at emotional problem-solving that the success or failure to contain the emotional surge occurs. If successful, the arousal at the end of the REM sleep period is for seconds, and the dreamer returns to sleep with no memory of the arousal. If the emotional problem is not resolved, an awakening is more likely to occur and perhaps a nightmare. Given that sleep is generally a successful process, one would expect to find that the progressive-sequential pattern would be more common than the repetitive-traumatic one. In the two subjects that were studied in the sleep laboratory, 50 percent of their nights had the sequential pattern, 31 percent had the repetitive pattern, with the remainder having a mixed pattern. It was on 63 percent of nights that the average mood intensity across the night decreased. This suggests that the current emotional and cognitive concerns of an individual are processed by a problem-solving mechanism across the wake-sleep-wake continuum, and the resultant state is a determinant of performance the next morning. CONCLUSION In conclusion, the selective mood regulatory theory of dreaming is an example of an assimilative theory of dream function. In this theory, the dream functions to contain an emotional affective surge that may occur during sleep and that occurs

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regularly during REM sleep. If successful, one has no memory of dreaming, and sleep proceeds essentially undisturbed. If unsuccessful or partially so, a dream recall occurs that, if conditions are right, becomes a disturbing dream or nightmare with a troubled awakening. The experience of the recalled dream, which depends to a degree on a troubled state in the dreamer, opens the possibility for an extension of the assimilative, reductive view to encompass some degree of transformation and of accommodation as well. States of disturbance increase the likelihood of change. Dreaming that enters awareness can become the object of attention for the dreamer and lead to change in the dreamer, to an enhancement of self-knowledge.

Social Influence: Theory of Mind and Self-Reflection David Kahn

Theory of mind (ToM), often called mentalizing, is defined as the ability to represent the mental states of others (Frith & Frith, 2003). We exhibit a theory of mind when we are able to decipher or predict what a person is trying to communicate based on our observations about the person’s facial expression, body language, and other behavioral cues. Having a theory of mind when awake is important because it helps us safely navigate socially by allowing us to recognize the intentions of others. ToM helps us answer this question: “Should we befriend or be wary?” Research shows that we still exhibit a ToM while dreaming. Thus, having an awareness of the intentions of others is maintained even when asleep and dreaming, despite the changed chemistry and changed activation patterns of the brain’s neuronal connections that occur in the sleep state. These dream experiences may serve the function of helping prepare us for social encounters by serving as a rehearsal or simulation of how to recognize the intentions of others in our wake life. Knowing about the intentions of others is important enough to have it occur in both dreaming and waking. THEORY OF MIND WHILE DREAMING In a study demonstrating ToM while dreaming, participants were asked to write down their dreams upon waking and to report whether they wondered what their dream characters were thinking during the dream. Specifically, the participants were asked, “In the dream, did you notice whether you were wondering, thinking, or being concerned about a dream character’s thoughts or intentions?” The participants provided comments to accompany their answers. The study consisted of 24 participants, 15 women and 9 men, ages 18–22, who submitted a total of 151 dream reports over a two-week period. The participants’ 151 dream reports contained 543 dream events in which thinking occurred (Kahn & Hobson, 2005a).

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The results showed that participants reported they were aware of a dream character’s thoughts and intentions twice as often as they reported not being aware of a dream character’s thoughts and intentions. Some thoughts were positive: “As he holds me I feel a mix of love and desire for him, and I know he feels the same.” Others were negative: “Then I am in the office and looking up at the man I do not trust and then I know that he intends to kill me.” Other examples where participants reported thinking about intentions of people in their dreams include, “I thought the neighbors would be very mad at me.” Another participant reported, “I was concerned as to what my best friend would think about the state I was in.” In another dream, this participant reported, “I believe the cook’s intentions were to upset and annoy me.” AWARENESS OF FEELINGS WHILE DREAMING Another study demonstrated that the dream self is not only aware of thoughts and intentions of characters in the dream but is also aware of their feelings in the dream. In this study, the participants were asked to pay particular attention to the feelings, if any, the dream self had for others in the dream and feelings others had for the dream self. Each participant in the study provided a dream report along with a listing of feelings the dream self had and feelings other dream characters had (Kahn et al., 2002). The participants reported that characters in almost every dream evoked feelings in them (the dream self ) and that the dream self evoked feelings in the dream characters. In fact, participants reported feelings were absent in only 19 out of 320 dream reports (6%); by contrast, in 301 out of 320 dream reports (94%), the dreamer reported that feelings were evoked by the presence or the actions of a dream character. The feelings reported included affection, joy, anger, anxiety, fear, sadness, shame, disgust and erotic interest—the most frequent ones being affection, joy, anger, and anxiety. Taken together with the previous study on intentions, the studies demonstrate the ability to be aware of one’s own thoughts and feelings (self-reflection) and the ability to be aware of the thoughts and feelings of other people even in one’s dreams. SELF-REFLECTION WHEN AWAKE AND DREAMING Self-reflection and reflection on the intentions of others occur both when awake and when dreaming. How are they the same, and how are they different? To help answer these questions, several studies comparing cognition in waking and dreaming were conducted by Kahan and Leberge in 2011, Kahan and Sullivan in 2012, and Kahan and Claudatos in 2016. These studies examined the similarities and differences when dreaming as compared to when awake (a) in making choices and in having focused attention and ( b) in such features as familiar, unfamiliar, bizarre, realistic, illogical, and logical. Together, they tested which features are likely to demonstrate continuities across dreaming and waking.

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The tests (Kahan, 2012) used the experience-sampling protocol and a questionnaire called the metacognition, affect, and cognitive experiences (MACE). The dreamers reported that they often did choose between alternative actions after considering options, thus providing a measure of the incidence of choice. Another item inquired whether the dreamer internally commented on an event or wondered about it, which they reported to have done often, providing a measure of the incidence of internal commentary. When asked whether the dreamer focused on accomplishing an objective, they reported to have done this often, thus providing a measure of the incidence of focused attention. When asked whether the dreamer was concerned about the impression they made and how they looked or appeared to others, they reported that they were concerned about how they appeared to others. This provided a measure of the incidence of public self-consciousness. Additional questions inquired whether the dreamer thought about their own thoughts, feelings, attitudes, motivations, or behavior, and they said they did, which, thus, provided a measure of the incidence of emotion and self-reflection. In general, the studies demonstrated that some aspects of high-order cognition, including self-reflection, are common in dreams and waking. The studies, however, also showed that there is greater variation in logical organization, event transitions, familiarity of location, and kinds of actions in dreams compared to waking. Thus, although the same cognitive system is operating in both dreaming and waking, certain thought processes, for example, logical organization and logical event transitions, occur more often in waking than in dreaming. THINKING WITHIN AND ABOU T THE DREAM The above studies showed that self-reflection is common in dreams and in waking, but with notable differences. Another study therefore examined the different kinds of self-reflection that occur in thinking when awake compared to when dreaming. In this study, participants were asked to pay attention to the kind of thinking, if any, that occurred in their dreams. The intention was to learn if the thinking that occurs within a dream is different than the thinking, if any, about the contents of the dream (Kahn & Hobson, 2005b). The study found that thinking within the dream is generally preserved no matter how implausible the contents of the dream. The study, however, also found that the ability to think rationally about the contents of the dream is severely compromised, even if the contents are illogical, so that implausibility is rarely caught. One reason for this is the inability while asleep to access knowledge about how the world works and thus be able to distinguish fact from fantasy. Another reason is that memory recall is compromised and often distorted or fragmented by the altered brain chemistry and changed neural connectivity of the dreaming brain. Thus, the study concluded that there are two distinct cognitive components during dreaming. One component, thinking within the context of the dream, where the dream self thinks about dream characters and about what’s going on in the dream, is generally similar to thinking when awake. The other component, thinking about what is happening in the dream, is different from wake thinking. The person

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having the dream is not able to reflect on the implausibility of the dream because they are unaware that they are dreaming and because of the changed chemistry and changed neural activity of the dreaming brain. Thus, while self-reflection exists for the dream self within the context of the dream, self-reflection by the person having the dream about the dream is absent. This changes if the dreamer becomes lucid. When lucid, the dreamer knows he is dreaming and is thus able to reflect on surroundings and recognize implausibility. In fact, the recognition of something implausible in the dream can lead to becoming lucid. LUCID DREAMING Lucid dreams (also see Chapter 9) are relatively rare, though some people have more than others. Are the brains of people who have more lucid dreams different than those who do not, and if so, how? This question was addressed by studying the brains of high frequency and low frequency lucid dreamers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The study found that frontal regions of the brain (specifically, the frontopolar regions) were larger and more active in people who have more lucid dreams than in those who have fewer lucid dreams. The researchers also found that people with more lucid dreams have greater neural activity in the frontal parts of their brain when awake and engaged in self-reflection (Filevich et al., 2015). The authors conclude that there are shared neural systems between lucid dreaming and self-reflection. People that are more self-reflective in their wake lives are more likely to have lucid dreams. Becoming lucid while dreaming may allow one to experience the intentions of others not only as a rehearsal but as they might when awake. In a way, it is the best of both the wake and dream worlds. When not lucid, the dream may serve as a rehearsal of the intentions of others to be used when awake. Lucidity allows the added benefit of dealing with the intentions of others as the wake self might, though still dreaming.

Contemporary Theory of Ernest Hartmann Robert J. Hoss

The waking mind is on a hunt, the dreaming mind is on an exploration. —Ernest Hartmann

Many of the functional theories of dreaming discussed independently above come together in what Ernest Hartmann termed Contemporary Theory. Ernest Hartmann was a professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and directed the Sleep Disorders Center at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. He was a past president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) and

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was the first editor in chief of the journal Dreaming. He was one of the world’s foremost researchers on dreaming, nightmares, sleep, and personality, and he authored of 9 books and over 350 articles on these subjects. CONTEMPORARY THEORY Hartmann’s Contemporary Theory of Dreaming is outlined in his book The Nature and Functions of Dreaming (Hartmann, 2011). Hartmann describes how dreaming is not simply a bizarre and unique sleep state, but rather a form of mental functioning that is part of a consciousness continuum that extends into the waking state. It is an adaptive, emotion-guided, hyperconnective mental function that is part of how the brain learns by creating new connections and weaving new material into established memory. The primary principles of dreaming are as follows, each explained in the sections below: • Dreaming is at one end of a continuum of mental functioning, from focused waking thought, through fantasy, daydreaming, reverie, to dreaming. • Dreaming is hyperconnective, with connections made more broadly and loosely than in waking. • The connections are not made randomly but are guided by the emotions of the dreamer. • The form or “language” of dreams is mainly picture metaphor, picturing whatever emotions or emotional concerns are present. • Dreaming has an adaptive function, “weaving in” new material into existing memory systems. • The entire dream-to-waking continuum has a psychologically adaptive function.

Dreaming as Part of a Continuum of Mental Functioning Dreaming is a form of mental functioning that forms one end of a continuum of mental functioning that runs from focused waking thought at one end, through fantasy and daydreaming, to dreaming at the other. Although dreams are far from focused waking thought, Hartmann contended that there is no sudden break or discontinuity between fantasies/daydreams and dreams—considering even daydreams to be perceptual, involving more picturing and feeling than thinking. Although dreams are often considered totally different because they seem so “bizarre,” he pointed out that the great majority of dreams are very ordinary; we only occasionally have a truly bizarre or weird dream. At the focused waking end of the continuum, we are usually doing two things at once. We are thinking, calculating, plotting, and the like, and at the same time, we are producing an image of the world around us whereby we monitor what is going on around us. When we move along the continuum toward fantasy and daydreaming—especially if we close our eyes—we sometimes re-create (imagine) a world, which is usually a rough simulation of our sensory perceptions. When we

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go further along the continuum to dreaming, we become immersed in the dream’s actions and are totally unaware that we are lying in bed. We may do some thinking in dreams, but it is intimately related to our dream actions. Dreaming Is Hyperconnective At the dreaming end of the continuum, Hartmann considered connections to be made more easily, broadly, and loosely than in waking—involving condensations and metaphor. The connections, according to Hartmann, are not random, but guided by the dreamer’s emotions. In addition, he (as well as others, such as Carl Jung and Fritz Perls) observed that the connections are often a “cross connection” of two or more very distant items, usually separated by some sort of wall or boundary. The example of the woman dreaming of her husband with her father’s face is an example of cross connecting. They were crossing a boundary usually present in waking thought that separated “thoughts about her husband” in one area from “thoughts about her father” in another. Freud used the term condensation to describe this connectivity, combining several images into one, but also considered it purposeful—reducing of the length of the material, that is, combining two or more complicated thoughts into a single image or scene. As with the husband/father dream, these connections can often produce something new, or at least show us something new, if we are willing to pay attention. Hartmann suggests that dreaming may function in our minds somewhat the way psychotherapy does; during both we are “making connections in a safe place” (Hartmann, 1995). Hartmann contradicted the view that dreaming primarily involves a replay of material experienced in waking (“day-residue”) and simply functions to consolidate that material in memory, indicating that although the dream incorporates dayresidue, it changes it and “weaves” it into an ongoing memory development guided by emotion. Biologically, Hartmann visualized the cortex as a network altered by experience, but in waking, there is a tendency for linear development, usually guided by a specific task or goal. In dreaming, the progression is less specific and less focused. The pattern representing “house” may be lit up, but then rather than only moving to a specific house, the activation process also spreads “laterally” to patterns representing other houses and other similar structures, such as hotels, hospitals, and the like. Connections Are Guided by the Emotions The idea that the imagery of the dream is influenced and guided by the underlying emotion, and that the dream image pictures and measures the emotion, is one of the central points of Contemporary Theory. Hartmann illustrates this with a tidal wave dream, the simplest case, when there is a single overwhelming emotion: I am walking along the beach. I think someone is with me, maybe my friend K. Suddenly a huge wave thirty feet tall comes and sweeps us away. I am underwater struggling to get to the surface when I wake up.

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The dreamer quoted above was a man who had recently escaped from a burning house in which a member of his family had died. The dream is picturing his emotion: terrified, overwhelmed, and vulnerable. The dream, and especially the central or contextualizing image (CI) of the dream, pictures or contextualizes the dreamer’s emotions or emotional concerns (Hartmann et al., 2001). The more powerful the underlying emotion, the more powerful (intense) the CI of the dream. Only in the case where there is a single strong emotion that eclipses everything else does something like the tidal wave dream emerge. In a more average dream, there may be several emotions or emotional concerns present, with no one of them totally dominant. Hartmann developed a standardized way of measuring emotion, a CI scoring that can be used on any dream report. The scorer (knowing nothing of the circumstances) determines whether there is a CI and scores the intensity of the image on a seven-point scale based on how powerful, vivid, bizarre, and detailed the image seems. Then the scorer judges what emotion might be pictured by this image (from a list of 18 emotions). Hartmann found that the dreams of groups that had gone through situations involving strong and mainly negative emotions (times of trauma and stress or abuse) had a mean CI score that was higher than the mean CI score of the control groups. Hartmann also performed a study on the effects of the attacks of September 11, 2001, comparing 880 dreams recorded before and after the event for 44 persons around the United States who had recorded their dreams for many years. They sent the last 10 before and the first 10 after 9/11. The results were that not a single dream actually pictured planes hitting tall towers or anything close to that, but they did show a highly significant increase in CI intensity and a shift toward more fear/ terror and helplessness/vulnerability. The “Language” of Dreams as Picture Metaphor Hartmann did not consider metaphor as just a figure of speech, but a whole way of thinking, learning, and picturing. It is using similarity to picture or simplify a complicated idea or something abstract or difficult to describe, making it easier to understand in concrete terms by putting it into pictorial form. Thus, something complex, such as “life” or “a relationship,” is often pictured as a trip by car, or a journey, but the emotion determines what sort of journey is pictured. He considered metaphor an essential way our minds make connections—a language that directly connects seemingly unrelated subjects, describing a first entity as being or being equal to or resembling a second entity in some way. The emotion chooses the image or sometimes blends several to make a new one. Hartmann states that this use of metaphoric similarity is generally how children learn—not by “rules” but by similarities. Our brain functioning seems to work first or most easily by similarity or metaphor, and only later, for scholarly purposes, do we learn to apply rules. Dreaming metaphorically recombines, or plays with, the material in our memory. The dream image is vital to the process of integrating our memory systems.

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Severe trauma interferes with this emotional-guided metaphoric process. When we are traumatized, our dreams become “stuck” and repetitive (as in PTSD), devoid of metaphor. We fail to integrate our memories, and we do not develop new playful metaphors or connections and loops of complexity in the cortex. The Adaptive Function of  Dreaming Hartmann suggests that the emotion-guided making of new connections has an adaptive function of weaving in or combining new material with what is already present in memory stores (chiefly in the cortex). Emotion guides not only the dream imagery, but also the organization of memory based on what is important to us. He did not consider this consolidation, but rather integration of new material with old material. Weaving in, or interweaving, gives a memory more associations and richer connections. At times, a deep emotional concern may be present and may show up in dreams at a time when the person is not (or not yet) consciously aware of it. This is a form of what Jung called “compensation” (see Chapter 15), in which parts of the personality that are suppressed during waking emerge during dreams—compensating for what is lacking during waking. In this case, making connections and bringing material together in dreams can be thought of as compensating for waking thought in which material is kept separate. It is adaptive for our memory stores to be organized, guided by emotion, according to what is truly important for us. This can be adaptive in making subsequent new events less stressful. This integration helps establish our emotional being by building memory systems based on meaningful similarity (metaphor). Such a memory system is basic to what makes us meaningful, unique individuals—our basic sense of self. The Entire Continuum Has an Adaptive Function Hartmann considered the most basic function of dreaming to be connecting new material with old material in memory systems, reorganizing the memory systems, guided by emotion. The connections are made or broadened, and the next time a similar situation arises, new associations and patterns (a new inner model of reality) will be available to help us adapt. He considered this process to always take place in dreaming whether or not we remember the dreams or pay attention to them. However, when we do remember dreams and examine them, we may learn something about ourselves or about a problem we have been struggling with in a more direct manner. This can be considered a secondary function of dreaming. Although he obviously considered it important for us to be able to think directly and clearly to plan or accomplish a task, focused waking thought is not what we need all the time. When our thinking is stuck, the broad imaginative leaps, looking at the problem from another perspective, that dreaming insight brings is sometimes required.

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NIGHTMARES I believe that the nightmare, far from being a failed or aberrant dream, is one of the most important kinds of dream, and the one in which we can most easily observe a process which probably occurs in all dreams. . . . In this sense the nightmare is the most useful of dreams. —Ernest Hartmann

Hartmann authored The Nightmare: The Psychology and Biology of Terrifying Dreams (1984). He spoke of nightmares, as with other dreams, as always making new connections not yet made by the waking mind. They are not just replays of waking experiences. Hartmann (1984) studied approximately 100 persons who suffered from lifelong frequent nightmares; most were not repetitive, but they were recurrent and repeated the same themes. The dreams had usually begun in childhood, and the themes had involved being chased by a monster or a strange animal. As the dreamers grew up, the chaser was more likely to be a large unidentified man, frightening people, or a gang. Interviews with these nightmare sufferers suggested that most of them did not have a single trauma in their childhood, but they appeared to be repeatedly picturing fears and vulnerabilities they had experienced in childhood. They had “thin boundaries” (see below) and were unusually sensitive in a number of ways. Hartmann also collected many trauma-related dreams. The first dreams after the trauma often directly portray the actual event or bits of the actual events, though not always. Then the emotion (especially fear or vulnerability) is often pictured in a powerful dream (such as his tidal wave dream), and then a whole series of combinations occur in which dreams appear to be connecting memories of the actual trauma, metaphoric pictures of the emotion, and pictures of similar past traumas or other related events that have some emotional relationship to the new one. After a few months, the dreams usually gradually return to the pattern they had before the traumatic event. Hartmann considered the nightmare to be “connecting” or “weaving in” the new material in the mind, which suggests a possible function: in the immediate sense, making these connections diminishes the emotional disturbance or arousal. In the longer term, the traumatic material is connected with other parts of the memory systems so that it is no longer so unique or extreme—the idea being that the next time something similar or vaguely similar occurs, the connections will already be present, and the event will not be quite so traumatic. He saw recurrent dreams, which are often frightening, to be about a recurrent theme and almost never precisely repetitive dreams. The general theme may be the same, but they usually reflect changes in the dreamer’s life and emotional state. In his research and clinical work with veterans, he determined that even in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) dreams, these repetitive dreams, on examination, turn out to be creations, not simple replays of waking events or “just the way it was.” There is generally at least one important change as the mind attempts to gain mastery over the situation. He cites the dream of a Vietnam veteran with PTSD, a

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corpsman who suffered from unaltered repetitive dreams of finding his friend in a body bag. At one point, he unzipped the bag and saw himself in the body bag, and he woke screaming. Something new had been added. BOUNDARY THEORY One dimension of personality that Hartmann called “boundaries” is intimately related to dreaming. He developed the boundary questionnaire, which is a 138item questionnaire divided into 12 categories (Hartmann & Bevis, 2005–2006) described in his book Boundaries in the Mind: A New Psychology of Personality. Thick boundaries imply a sharp sense of focus; the ability to concentrate and focus; being able to keep thoughts and feelings separate; a clear sense of the separation of past, present, and future; a sense of my/your space; a clear sense of sexual and group identity; and a tendency to see the world in terms of black versus white, us versus them, and good versus evil. Thin boundaries imply or correlate to openness to experience; accepting a lot of sensory material at once and having difficulty focusing on one part; being aware of thoughts and feelings together; becoming deeply immersed in daydreaming and at times blurring the boundary between reality and fantasy; less of a sense of personal space; blending/comparing past with present circumstances; being more accepting of mixtures in sexual identity; feeling more like an individual taking part in many groups; and a tendency to think in terms of shades of gray, rather than black and white. Thin boundary characteristics are closer to the fantasy or dreaming end of the continuum: making broad and loose connections. We all have thicker boundaries when we are engaged in a focused task and thinner boundaries when we are fantasizing or dreaming. Studies have shown (Hartmann, 2011; Schredl et al., 2008) that people with “thin” boundaries remember more dreams; have more complex, emotional, and longer dreams; and spend more time on the daydreaming and dreaming end of the continuum. They tend to have more lucid dreams, mystical dreams, and adolescent nightmares. They also have more interaction between characters, amount of negative and positive emotion (higher CI intensity), vividness, and bizarreness.

Chapter 13

LEARNING THEORIES

Learning is defined as the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience. A few theories in the previous chapter suggested that dreams may be a part of our learning process in that they have an ability to weave new experiences into existing memory systems, which can bring about new insights and decisions. Furthermore, dreams have been theorized to have a predictive (Chapter 3) and creative problemsolving capability (Chapter 10), which implies the ability to create a learning simulation within the dream itself. Studies of task learning and postsleep performance have shown sleep to improve declarative and procedural memory. But might dream sleep restore our sense of self, help us learn to adapt to life situations, and play a role in the development of our personalities? This chapter discusses the following learning theories as they relate to dreaming: • Declarative learning. Acquiring information that can be verbalized or made conscious, memorization of semantic or episodic facts. • Procedural learning. A class of nondeclarative learning involving learning or developing skills, such as motor tasks and “how-to” solutions. • Emotional learning. A class of nondeclarative learning involving skills to recognize and manage our emotions as well as recognizing emotions in others. • Restorative learning. Restoring psychological balance and maintaining a sense of self in response to adverse experiences. • Adaptive learning. Learning to adapt to adverse life situations, physical and emotional threats, and social situations. • Transformative learning. A learning function involved in personality evolution or individuation, a primarily Jungian concept involving a transcendent function that enables transition from one psychic condition to another, resulting in a new attitude toward oneself and life.

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The chapter begins with a discussion of counterfactuals, that is, the introduction of “what-if ” scenarios: a creative precursor for learning that introduces and projects possible resolution scenarios into a dream simulation from which the dreamer can learn.

Counterfactual Operations Patrick McNamara

It is suggested that dream consciousness, as distinct from waking consciousness, utilizes various processing procedures of waking life to compute distinct and unique outputs relative to the products of the cognitive systems in waking life. One such cognitive procedure in dreaming, aimed at reinstating normality in memory, involves counterfactual simulations (McNamara, 2000). A counterfactual is a mental simulation of what might have been. They usually occur in waking life in response to some unfortunate event (a norm violation recorded in episodic and autobiographical memory). In waking life, if I get wet during a rainstorm, I might think, “If only I had brought an umbrella . . .,” or if I just missed the train, I might think, “If only I had left two minutes earlier . . ..” And then I visualize myself leaving the house a few minutes earlier and not missing the train. When I think about the unfortunate event in my mind’s eye and mentally simulate an alternative to the outcome of my getting wet or missing the train, I engage in counterfactual processing of the unfortunate event. I visualize that I pick up the umbrella lying next to the door and then open it up when the rain starts to fall. Or I visualize that I leave the house earlier, and so on. We run these counterfactual simulations in our minds so that we can learn from our mistakes. If dreaming involves counterfactual processing, then we dream, at least in part, to learn from our mistakes. But do dreams actually involve counterfactuals? On the face of it, they should, as dreaming and counterfactuals both focus on the self, involve negative affect, use narrative form (they tell a little story), and promote problem-solving and learning. Counterfactuals and dreams both involve running mental simulations or variations on a given problem theme, employing memory fragments to do so, and plausibly relying on neural networks associated with the so-called default mode network brain system. These striking similarities in form and processing parameters strongly suggest some overlap between dreams and counterfactuals, but that alone does not mean that dreams actually “run” counterfactuals. If dream content is examined, a counterfactual can often be spotted, but with most dreams, the relationship to negative events in the dreamer’s may might not be obvious. The systematic research is not simple. To confidently identify nonobvious counterfactual simulations in a dream, we would need to have at least a day’s worth of an individual’s “unfortunate events” that would normally trigger counterfactuals during waking life. Then, we would take that inventory of a day’s unfortunate events and compare it against the dreams the individual experiences the day after the events. If we obtain dream scenarios that undo the negative event to make the outcome less negative (upward counterfactual) or more negative (downward

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counterfactual), then the dreams are running counterfactual simulations. For example, if I drove a bit too fast during the day and then dreamed that I was in a car going too fast and the car spiraled out of control, the dream is likely running a downward counterfactual. I can just as easily learn from downward or upward counterfactuals. Although this sort of systematic study—a comparison of daytime misfortunes with nighttime dream content—has not yet been done, there are several studies of dreams experienced after trauma or distress of some kind. Two types of dreams typically occur after trauma: dreams that reenact the trauma and dreams that produce counterfactual scenarios to the trauma. In two pilot studies (McNamara et al., 2000), the counterfactual content in 50 dream reports, 50 pain memory reports, and 50 pleasant memory reports (equated for word length) were compared. Because of limitations and the relatively small number of dream reports in the study, the results were only considered as preliminary support for the hypothesis, pending further research. The first study was with 52 pain patients who had participated in another study of neuropsychological functions in patients with chronic pain. Scoring procedures defined a counterfactual as any mention of an alternative to the actual state of affairs—referring to something that did not happen, but could have happened. Norm violations along with counterfactual-like attempts to correct the violations were found to occur in 97 percent of reports. In 47 percent of these cases (roughly half of all reports), attempts to undo the violation obeyed at least one constraint on mutability typically observed in laboratory studies of counterfactual processing. In the second study, 34 dream reports obtained from elderly individuals engaged in an ongoing study of neuropsychological, health, and religiosity variables were analyzed. Counterfactuals were defined in this study as an attempt to mentally “undo” a violation of normal or expected events. Norm violations and attempts to undo them in dreams were scored. Virtually all dream reports (97.1%) contained at least one norm violation, and 44.1 percent evidenced associated attempts to “undo the norm violation.” All of these attempts to undo the violation were scored as “simulations.” The most frequently cited emotions that appeared to be related to the norm violation were anxiety and surprise. Virtually all the norm violations that triggered an attempt to undo the violation (i.e., counterfactuals) were, from the point of view of waking cognition, highly unusual. The study concluded that dreaming may involve a process of learning from novel outcomes (particularly negative outcomes) by simulating alternative ways of handling these outcomes through counterfactual cognitive processes.

Memory Operations Robert J. Hoss

Learning involves memory operations—the ability to store the experiences as they occur as well as the personal aspects and the emotional impact as well as the memories and associations that are triggered by it.

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MEMORY PROCESSES DURING SLEEP Recent discoveries suggest that there is a reactivation of memory networks during sleep (see Chapter 3). For example, J. Allan Hobson, among others, suggests that sleep rehearses memory patterns to either create new memory connections or to strengthen older fading connections. Memory Consolidation In Chapter 3’s “Memory Consolidation and Dreaming” section, Carlyle Smith discusses the concept of memory consolidation as it relates to sleep and dreaming. Consolidation is a process that involves gradually converting information from short-term memory into long-term memory, and it serves to maintain, strengthen, and modify memories that are already stored in the long-term memory. In the contributed “Declarative and Procedural Learning” section below, sleep is shown to benefit learning (postsleep memory performance) across a wide variety of memory domains, including verbal, emotional, motor learning, perceptual, and spatial learning. Because it has long been recognized that daily experiences influence dreaming, the dream itself may be a reflection of this memory processing during sleep. Some have argued that dreams do not reflect the consolidation of a waking experience into long-term memory because they do not faithfully replicate the waking experience. Episodic memories are rarely, if ever, replayed in dreams exactly as they occurred. Instead, dreams often only incorporate isolated fragments of a waking episode interleaved with other memory material. In one study of 299 dream reports, 65 percent were judged to reflect aspects of recent waking-life experiences, but the episodic replay of waking events was found in no more than 1–2 percent of the dream reports (Fosse et al., 2003). However, a replay of the waking episode may not be what the memory and learning process in dreams relies on. Dream-to-Waking Learning Continuum Erin Wamsley (2014) provides an interesting summary and perspective on the studies done in relation to how waking learning events influence and continue into dreaming. Much of the cited research began with studies, such as those by Harry Fiss et al. in 1977 and by Joseph-Marie De Koninck in 1990, whereby researchers were able to influence dream content through engagement in novel learning experiences. More recent investigations using the interactive Tetris video game, downhill skiing games, and virtual navigation tasks have demonstrated the robust incorporation of a presleep learning task into the content of dreams. In one study, in 2000, by Robert Stickgold et al. using Tetris patterns, 64 percent of participants reported unambiguous Tetris images in sleep-onset NREM dream awakenings. Although most of these studies observed sleep-onset dreams, the effect has been seen to extend into later night dreaming during both stage 2 and REM sleep. A number of other studies have established that participants frequently identify recent memories as a source of dream content. For example, a 2003 study by Fosse, Hobson, and

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Stickgold, with 299 home-collected dream reports, demonstrated that 51 percent of the reports were judged by subjects to contain fragments of a recent experience and at least one feature with strong similarity to a recent waking event. Selective Reactivation and Reintegration If a learning process is taking place, it may begin with a selective reactivation of memories from the day as well as associated memories from the distant past, perhaps related to an unresolved emotionally salient situation or problem-resolution task. Robert Stickgold and Matthew P Walker (2013) propose that a function they term “memory triage” is involved in sleep- and dream-related processing of memory. The brain does not retain all the information it encodes in a day; much is forgotten. They suggest that a memory triage lies at the heart of a sleep-dependent memory-processing system that helps determine which to remember and which to forget—selecting new information, in a discriminatory manner, and assimilating it into the brain’s vast collection of evolving knowledge. For information that is retained, sleep can integrate it into existing memory networks, look for common patterns, and distill overarching rules, or it can simply stabilize and strengthen the memory exactly as it was learned. Wamsley (2014) suggests that if dreaming reflects memory reactivation, we might expect that dreams should “index” the consolidation process, tracking the extent to which a particular memory is processed during sleep—citing evidence dating back to the 1970s that suggests that dreaming of a learning experience is associated with enhanced memory for that information. Wamsley contends that these observations lead to the hypothesis that reactivation of memory traces during sleep causes memory-related content to be incorporated into dreams and that, as an index of memory reactivation, learning-related dreaming predicts subsequent memory performance. Lewis and Durrant (2011) postulate that repeated reactivation of related information and memories leads to the extraction of generalized knowledge— simultaneously reactivating recent and remote memory fragments and slowly associating new content into cortical semantic networks. We see this in dreams, over a night, as each dream segment will often contain memory fragments from a prior dream segment and frequently be bizarrely intermingled with other recent experience fragments with related material. We also see this in the memory-reactivation studies on mice where the memory’s “replay” of experiencing a maze is not an exact replay but fragments of the maze experience, typically in the right order but compressed in time with evidence that multiple related experiences are simultaneously reactivated, particularly during REM sleep, as if a connection or relationship is being formed. The Schredl study (2005) also cites two studies that show dreams of the second part of the night comprise more elements of the distant past, while dreams of the first part of the night mostly incorporate recent daytime experiences. As Smith notes in Chapter 3, Rosalind Cartwright, in a 1977 study, collected dreams from

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participants and patients throughout the night. She noted, “First dreams appear to be related rather directly to present anxieties, the following dreams to emotionally associated experiences and the final ones to contemplated solutions.” This may suggest a progressive learning process whereby salient material from the day before is eventually compared to like past experiences to link them—perhaps in an adaptive strategy. Increasingly, we are learning that the effect of sleep on memory is not merely to cement experience in its original form. Instead, as Erin Wamsley states, “Sleep transforms memory traces over time, allowing us to extract generalizations, integrate information, and arrive at creative insights.” Interleaving and Reorganizing Memory The process may continue with a restructuring of memory based on newly experienced information. James McClelland and Randall O’Reilly (1995) propose a “complementary learning systems” model of memory consolidation that stresses the integration of new information into established networks, proposing that recently encoded information is “interleaved” into related memory networks. Ernest Hartmann (2011) similarly suggests that the most basic function of dreaming consists of connecting new material with old material in memory systems, “guided by emotion.” He does not consider this a “consolidation” of memories from the day, but rather a creative weaving in of new information, reorganizing existing memory systems based on what is emotionally important to us. The emotional aspect is supported to a degree by a Schredl (2005) study that indicates that emotional involvement affects the incorporation rate, citing three studies that have shown that focused thinking activity (e.g., reading, working with a computer) occurs less frequently than activities such as talking with friends, and the like. Predictive Modeling Changing the internal model to the degree where it manifests as a changed viewpoint or behavior could possibly require the introduction of a creative alternative to the old model based on the new information. McNamara described this above as the introduction of a counterfactual. Jung (Chapter 15) observed it as a “compensating” scenario introduced by the unconscious as a balance or correction for the exiting views of the conscious ego. J. Allan Hobson suggests that it is more than just the introduction of any alternative scenario, but that the scenario is based on a predictive modeling. Hobson suggests that there is an inborn capacity of the brain to model the world (inner model of self and reality) by creating a virtual reality simulation and predictive model of it—a capability that underlies perception in both waking and dreaming (see the “Predictive Coding and Protoconsciousness” section in Chapter 3). During waking, the model is continually updated by sensory information and prediction errors. During dreaming, the world model is free to generate fictive predictions unhampered by external constraints. In waking, the difference between prior

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beliefs (how things are expected to be) and posterior beliefs (were the expectations fulfilled), that is, model fit, is tested against observed sensory outcomes. During sleep, this direct model fit process is not possible; however, discrepancies between the hierarchical levels of the generative model can be compared. The model optimization during sleep is an iterative learning process that trims the predictive model for subsequent waking experiences. The dreaming brain “tells waking what to expect and waking verifies or refutes those expectations” (Hobson et al., 2014). Emotional Reinforcement Emotional reinforcement of any new learning (by a therapist or as a result of a rewarding learning experience) is likely a necessary element in a successful or permanent change. Hartmann describes emotion as necessary to organizing what is important to us in memory. Perogamvros and Schwartz (2012) found emotional reward circuits to be activated during sleep; they prioritize information with high emotional or motivational relevance for memory processing and generate the motivational content of dreams. If a dream can be considered to simulate a learning scenario, that reinforcement activity may become symbolically or metaphorically pictured when either a resolution scenario is successful or when the dream ego is motivated to pursue an anticipated solution. Jung (Chapter 15) observed that a resolution, reversal, or change (transcendence) is often accompanied by imagery of emotional reward, light, release, or renewal, or what he termed a “rebirth” motif. Negative emotional reinforcement may also be present in dreams or nightmares when the scenario the dream Self is following is not anticipated to be successful or rewarding. In these cases, a negative ending may be (as Jung suggested) a “warning of the dangers of our present course.” Observations of both positive and negative emotional reinforcement in dreams will be illustrated in examples provided later in this section. Memory Reconsolidation As the discussion above suggests, adapting to the ever-changing threats, conflicts, and social dynamics of our waking world depend on weaving new information into and altering the model of reality and self stored in our memory systems based on learned expectation. This is a creative process of relearning that is perhaps more accurately phrased as a “reconsolidation” of memory. Studies by Nader, Schafe, and LeDoux in 2000 concluded that even strongly consolidated memories (old learning) can be made unstable and readily open to change when we recall them. The synapses involved become temporarily labile (unlocked or deconsolidated) for about four to five hours before relocking (reconsolidating). If a critical new learning experience takes place during that reconsolidation window, the old learning can be permanently altered or replaced by the new learning. In a review of animal and human waking-state studies from 2004 to 2009, Bruce Ecker (2012) observed four common process elements that brought about

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permanent change, which he termed the “transformation sequence”: (1) reactivate (recall or deconsolidate) a memory related to the original learning; (2) create a mismatch schema, an experience contradictory to that original learning; and (3) juxtapose the two in a new learning experience during the reconsolidation window such that (4) the memory reconsolidates with the new learning. There are similarities between this transformation sequence and some of the memory and learning functions previously discussed: (1) the selective reactivation of information of emotional importance; (2) the creative introduction of a counterfactual, or predictive scenario; and (3) the subsequent interleaving and memory reorganization that (4) creates new insights. The elements of the transformation sequence are also like those of Carl Jung’s transcendent function (described in Chapter 15 and below), which enables transition from one attitude to another—manifesting as a new attitude toward oneself and life. It also consists of four basic stages: (1) a “going within” or illumination of the unconscious aspect of a conscious situation; (2) introduction of a compensating scenario (compensating for conscious misconceptions); (3) juxtaposing the conscious and unconscious views in an interactive tension; and (4) out of the tension, a third element is formed, an integration of the two, or “rebirth,” which manifests as a new attitude. CAN THIS PROCESS BE OBSERVED IN DREAMS? Although the reconsolidation process and the transformational sequence were identified from waking-state studies, is it possible that such a process is taking place in sleep and is reflected in dreams? While firm confirmation remains the subject of future research, at this point, we can at best observe the content and activity in dreams that correspond to these hypothetical functions. One dream example that appears to illustrate these functions is that of a man whose company was in the process of restructuring. The restructuring meant outsourcing some of the department where he was the vice president. As devastating as it was, he had no desire (nor did it even cross his mind) to walk out the door, because in his midfifties, he feared starting over and losing his retirement package. So, he was looking for other equivalent positions in the company—but none were satisfying. He was so stuck in this frame of mind that when a search firm came after him with an outside opportunity, he turned it down. He then had the following dream that changed all that: I am a passenger in a boat adrift in a dark black ice cave, trying all night to find a “position” in the windows that would “show me a way out.” [This reactivates the emotional memory as a picture metaphor.] At one point, a booming authoritative voice behind me says, “You can walk out that door.” I look around and see no one. Again the voice booms, “You can walk out that door.” [This introduces a counterfactual, or alternative viewpoint of “walking out,” as opposed to staying as the only option.] I argue with the voice that I do not understand because I see no open door. The more I argue, the more the voice insists, when suddenly an open door appears at the front of the boat. [The opposing scenarios are juxtaposed in a learning experience—with an apparent

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monitoring and mediation aimed at influencing the projected outcome.] I still do not understand, but reluctantly I walk out the door. [The dream self-reverses its view and tests the scenario.] When I do, the boat emerges from the dark ice cave onto a calm stream in a beautiful sunlit setting of colorful flowers and green trees. The air is filled with beautiful music, and when the boat lands at a rock on the shore, it rings like a bell resonating deep into my soul. [The dream provides an emotional reinforcement and pictures the projected success of the desired action.]

The dreamer claimed that although he did not understand or work on the dream until much later, he woke with a completely different attitude. Luckily, the search firm called him back (that morning actually), and this time, after completing some existing obligations, he took the position and “walked out the door.” It is suggested that some degree of new learning and change in viewpoint took place within the dream without the dreamer fully comprehending the dream. A NEUROLOGICAL VIEW—IS THE SLEEPING BRAIN CAPABLE OF THESE F UNCTIONS? From the discussions above, it appears that dreams may have the capacity for problem resolution and learning, but is there any neurological evidence that the mix of active and inactive brain centers, in sleep states known to support dreaming, really has this capability? If the sleeping and dreaming brain is capable of such problem resolution and higher order learning functions, it would require at least partial activation of cognitive centers that have the capability of (1) detecting that a problem or conflict exists and selectively recalling that problem; (2) generating, predicting, and simulating potential resolution scenarios; (3) testing the scenario and monitoring and perhaps influencing the simulation to achieve a desired resolution; (4) monitoring and providing positive or negative reinforcement, depending on the outcome; and then (5) reconsolidating the memory systems with the new learning. Chapter 2 describes many of the centers that are active during REM and NREM sleep, including the limbic regions (amygdala, hippocampus, and insula); the anterior cingulate; basal ganglia; medial prefrontal cortex; and the ventral-medial and caudal orbitofrontal. Chapter 12 summarizes that information along with some of the waking-state functions that those centers have been found to be involved in. Below is a hypothetical review (Hoss, 2013) of the some of those waking-state functions related to problem detection, analogic decision making, memory consolidation, and learning that—if some degree of that functionality is retained in sleep—may be responsible for the cognitive functionality some claim to observe in dreams. Problem Detection and Recall Activity in the limbic and paralimbic structures as well as the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal regions may support an emotional problem recall and problem detection capability – presenting it as a picture-metaphor (as in the example: floating aimlessly through the dark tunnel looking for a way out).

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Structures such as the amygdala and hippocampus play a role in providing access to emotional memories. The posterior cingulate gyrus, which is found to activate during dreaming (Siclari et al., 2017), is also understood to mediate interactions between emotion and memory, particularly in relation to autobiographical memory retrieval. In detecting a problem, the anterior cingulate is known to act as part of a general performance-monitoring system, monitoring conflict (Botvinick, 2004), anomalies (Posner et al. 1998), and conditions under which errors in reasoning have occurred or might occur and activating when there is a violation in expectancy. The caudal orbitofrontal cortex is involved in inspecting events that deviate from expectations (Petrides, 2007). The basal ganglia also alert us that something is not right, such as an anomaly or novel and unexpected adverse situation (Falkenstein et al., 2001), and they initiate action (Packard & Knowlton, 2002). Plan Generation Activity in any of a number of centers (anterior cingulate, medial prefrontal cortex, basal ganglia, and orbitofrontal regions) may support a plan generation capability based on choosing between conflicting perceptions and reward-based goals. This may be observed as the introduction of the counterfactual or alternative scenarios (such as the voice saying, “You can walk out the door,” in the above example). The anterior cingulate is understood to be involved in either imagining or observing an activity, selecting a resolution scenario, and then mediating action and providing cues to other areas of the brain to choose between conflicting perceptions (Allman et al., 2001). The medial prefrontal cortex is also thought to be involved in plan generation (Partiot et al.,1995), goal-directed behavior, and reward processing (Gusnard, 2001). The caudal and ventromedial orbitofrontal cortex is found to be involved in expectation (Kringelbach & Rolls, 2005) and regulating planning behavior (Bechara, 1994) based on reward and punishment. The basal ganglia are thought to be the brain locus for reward-based adaptive action planning and learning (Yamada et al., 2007). Along with the caudal orbitofrontal area, they are involved in novelty-related decision making. St. Clair et al. (2009) suggest that the basal ganglia, as a behavioral sequencing engine, also provide the source for praxiological (self-contradictory) behavioral metaphors— metaphors that are based on using one form of behavior as a source for the creation of a varied behavior or a metaphorically blended new behavior. Scenario Testing, Monitoring, and Influencing Action Simulation or scenario testing and monitoring could possibly be supported by activity in the anterior cingulate insular cortex and medial prefrontal cortex— monitoring progress against expectation and changing the simulation to further influence the outcome (such as the surprising appearance of the door that was not previously there in the above example). The anterior cingulate is thought to be involved in generating performance expectations of self-related events, monitoring the consequences of an action by

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imagining or observing an outcome (Apps et al., 2012; Hayden, 2009), and selecting an appropriate response based on anticipating and valuing rewards (Bush et al., 2002). The medial prefrontal cortex is thought to be involved in introspective selfreferential behavioral stimulation and rehearsal (Gusnard, 2001). More specifically, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is thought to be involved in decision-making processes by helping to create associations with past experiences on a preconscious basis, thus improving the speed and accuracy of decision making. The guiding or influencing action may be based on anticipation of reward. As noted above, the mediating action of the anterior cingulate cortex is based on placing a reward value on anticipated outcomes. The insula is understood to be involved in subjective feelings or emotionally linked functions related to perception, cognition, sense of self, interpersonal experience, and sudden insight as well as emotional decision-making scenarios that guide or bias behavior (Craig, 2009). The basal ganglia learn through exposure to select actions that maximize reward, but they motivate us to seek eventual rather than immediate reward (Packard & Knowlton, 2002) as well as select which response to make or inhibit (Lieberman, 2000). The medial prefrontal cortex plays a role in self-monitoring and learning and is thought to provide a “sense of knowing” and retrospective confidence judgment (Marley, 2009). Reinforcement If the fictive simulation of the dream is organized around a projected or anticipated reward, it follows that the dream would either emotionally reinforce action that moves in that direction or that has achieved that fictive goal (such as in the example where once the dream self walks out the door, the scene changes from an ice cave to one of intense sensory reward). As noted above, Perogamvros and Schwartz found emotional reward circuits to be activated during sleep that prioritize information with high emotional or motivational relevance for memory processing and generating motivational content in the dream, such as the projected rewarding outcome when the desired action is followed by the dream self. Some of the centers involved may include the anterior cingulate, which is known to adapt behavior if the outcome is not as expected. The dorsal part, in particular, appears to play a key role in reward-based decision making and learning, emotional self-control, and focused problem-solving and adaptive response to changing conditions. The medial prefrontal cortex is also involved in goal-directed behaviors and reward processing (Kringlebach & Rolls, 2005; Phan et al., 2002). The regulation of planning behavior by the caudal and ventral medial orbitofrontal cortex is also based on expectation, reward, and punishment (Kringelbach & Rolls, 2005; Bechara, 1994). The caudal orbitofrontal and infralimbic areas are also thought to be central to extinction learning (Quirk et al., 2010), which involves emotional control, dampening, and relearning of emotional response in conjunction with the amygdala. These networks are understood to serve the adaptive function of fear memory

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extinction in nightmares (Nielsen & Levin, 2007). This may serve the function of controlling the emotional surge or mood control, as proposed by Milton Kramer in Chapter 12. Consolidating the Result in Memory and Learning As discussed previously (and in Chapter 3), the hippocampus is understood to be involved in memory consolidation during sleep. The emotional reinforcement described above may in turn lead to emotional organization of what is woven into memory, as Hartmann contends. This is a hypothetical possibility if the dream appears to result in a change in viewpoint or behavior, but one that is difficult to isolate as to whether it occurred in the dream or as part of the dream-to-waking continuum. Learning can be observed when behavioral change follows the dream or when one observes a dream series within a single night, change or successive evolution toward a goal can sometimes be observed from dream to dream in the series (see the example in the “Adaptive Learning” section below).

Declarative and Procedural Learning Carlyle Smith

There have been over 40 years of animal studies, mostly in rats and mice, suggesting that sleep states are important for the efficient consolidation of recently learned material into stable long-term memory (Smith, 2011). There are now also many studies that show that postsleep states in humans are changed as a result of successful learning or task acquisition during sleep (Smith, 2010). In human virtual maze experiments employing fMRI brain imaging, overnight improvement was found to correlate with hippocampal activity during posttraining sleep (Peigneux et al., 2004). Declarative Declarative learning basically involves the conscious memorization of facts. Evidence of learning is demonstrated by reproducing or identifying the learned material at a later date. An example would be knowing the name of the capital city of England (London). Nondeclarative The other basic type of learning is classed as nondeclarative. There are several subcategories of this type, but one of the most common is procedural learning. This involves the unconscious learning of how to do something, and the best way to assess whether procedural learning has occurred is to actually observe task

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performance. Such a task would be learning to ride a bike or how to skate. Cognitive procedural tasks that involve more complex nonmotor problems (also) require “how-to” solutions. Emotional Emotional memory is a type of nondeclarative memory that appears to enhance learning for emotionally salient material as opposed to emotionally neutral material. In various studies where sleep was allowed between training and retest, memory was better, and lasted years longer, for emotional material as opposed to neutral material (see the “Memory Consolidation and Dreaming” section in Chapter 3). Emotional learning extends to managing our emotions and emotional response, to recognizing the emotions of others (see discussion below). SLEEP STUDIES In a recent study by Matthew Wilson and his team at MIT (Wilson et al., 2012), using microprobes to monitor individual neurons of the brains in rats, it has been shown that the unique firing patterns of individual neural “place” cells in the hippocampus of a rat as it learns a food maze appear again or are then replayed during subsequent sleep episodes (see Chapter 4, “Do Animals Dream?,” for details). Likewise, the firing patterns in the visual cortex of the rat were also replayed, perhaps suggestive of visual dream activity during the process. These results suggest that the rat was rehearsing the learning of the maze in the sleep state, and thus some kind of mental learning activity is reoccurring in the sleeping animal (Louie & Wilson, 2001). In a presentation at an International Association for the Study of Dreams in 2013, Wilson commented that in the NREM state, there appeared to be a rehearsal of the maze that the rat had just experienced, but in later REM states, they noticed what looked like sequences from earlier maze experiences mixed in. This suggests that, in REM, the new learning may be woven into earlier like experiences to create a more general procedure for approaching mazes. From the literature on sleep and memory studies involving human subjects, there are a number of basic findings: • The memorization of facts (declarative learning) is followed by increases in deep NREM sleep stages 3 and 4 (Gais & Born, 2004). • The successful learning of a motor or cognitive procedural task is followed by either increases in stage N2 NREM sleep or in REM sleep. For example, in animal studies, REM sleep increases preceded the actual observed change in behavior by 24 hours and postlearning sleep as well (see Chapter 4, “Do Animals Dream?”). These results hint that REM sleep was somehow involved in solving the problem as well as with consolidation, as it appeared before the animal showed any behavioral signs of having learned the task. If the participant is already somewhat familiar with the task and only needs to refine his or her skills, the postlearning sleep changes will appear as increased amounts or intensity of stage N2.

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• If the task is completely new and novel to the participant and requires a brandnew cognitive strategy, the postlearning sleep changes will manifest as increased amounts or intensity of REM sleep (Smith et al., 2004). • Several studies have implicated dream content that accompanies these postlearning REM periods as being related to the task (Smith, 2010). In one virtual reality maze study (Walmsley et al., 2010), those who dreamed about the task improved their memory 10 times more than those who did not dream specifically about the maze!

In these studies, both NREM and REM sleep states appear to be involved, although differences in dream content are still being debated. From a learning task point of view, the conscious, intentional effort to memorize factual material results in postlearning sleep increases in deep NREM sleep. Further, the refining of motor tasks that are somewhat familiar result in postlearning increases in stage N2 (lighter NREM) sleep. On the other hand, the procedural tasks, especially the complex cognitive ones, result in postlearning REM sleep increases. While these are interesting findings, dreams from these sleep states may not reflect the larger problems in the dreamer’s personal life. Rather, they would reflect the material being learned.

Advanced Learning Functions Robert J. Hoss

Aside from the primarily task-learning research described in the prior section, there is some evidence that dreams have the capability to affect learning, which affects a person’s emotional state, attitude, and personality. EMOTIONAL LEARNING As noted in Chapters 3 and 12, dreams appear to reflect and selectively process waking-life emotional concerns, and, in turn, dream emotion tends to affect wakinglife emotion or mood. Smith (above) discussed emotional memory in light of learning being enhanced for emotionally salient versus emotionally neutral material. But is there a learning capability or process taking place by which we learn emotional control as well as to perceive the emotions of others, perhaps to better adapt socially or behaviorally to our environment? There may be a predictive and adaptive learning process involved. According to Erin Wamsley, memories are “reactivated” during sleep, and dreams incorporate them to enhance our memory systems, preferentially promoting lasting memory changes for emotional memories, as they reorganize, interleave, and reintegrate fragments of the recent events with past experiences and other content to prepare for the future (Wamsley, 2016). The processing appears to extend beyond updating our inner model to that of learning to control or regulate our emotional response (see the “Emotion Regulation in Dreaming” section in Chapter 3) and mood

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control (see the “Mood Regulation and Emotional Problem Solving” section in Chapter 12) during and after the dream. The “Social Influence: Theory of Mind and Self-Reflection” discussion in Chapter 12 also highlights the involvement of dreaming in our learning to perceive the emotions in others. Regarding the involvement of dreaming in learning to appropriately adapt our emotional response, there is a possible downregulation or extinction process taking place. As discussed in Chapter 12, in 2011, Els Van der Helm and colleagues discovered that the reaction of the amygdala is downregulated due to a massive reduction in the stress-producing neurotransmitters norepinephrine in forebrain centers and the amygdala. Levin and Nielsen propose that normal dreaming serves a fear-extinction function in a process of breaking down fearful memories and a recombination function that disperses the fear. Finally, Milton Kramer describes a process whereby sleep and dreaming attempt to accommodate what he calls the emotional surge across the REM period, a mechanism of  “emotional problem solving” that appears to be “corrective,” that is, moves the mood level toward a central and lower point. With activity in the infralimbic regions and prelimbic medial prefrontal cortex, understood to be a site of plasticity/learning for inhibition of fear responses and extinction, there is, theoretically, a neurological basis for a fearextinction function in REM sleep. RESTORATIVE LEARNING Carl Jung (see Chapter 15) stated that dreams have a purposeful structure and an underlying intention, the general function being to restore our psychological balance by producing dream material that reestablishes “the psychic equilibrium” ( Jung, 1964). He saw this as the compensatory role of dreams. Jung considered the totality of the human mind, the psyche, to be a self-regulating system, not unlike the body, one that self-heals or seeks to maintain a balance. To compensate for imbalances, dreams bring forth unconscious content that consciousness has either ignored, depreciated, or actively repressed—balance being achieved once accepted. Bringing Our Awareness Back to Reality Jung stated that dreams act to restore balance by recognizing our ego misconceptions and compensating for deficiencies in our personalities to bring our awareness back to reality—warning of the dangers of our present course. This is the negative reinforcement discussed earlier. An example is the dream of a young girl with a fundamentalist upbringing. She had adopted an unhealthy practice of fragmenting herself by going through a prayer ritual to repress what she considered “evil” thoughts every time she had one. One night she dreamed the following: She was trying to exorcise an evil entity by going through her ritual. But instead of the entity disappearing the sky became surprisingly darker and stormier the more she tried [introduction of a compensating view]. Finally, when she would not stop, a loud voice jolted her awake as it boomed from above, “Stop—you are only making it worse.”

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Emotional Dampening or Release Ernest Hartmann, as well as Milton Kramer, observed that dreams play a role in restoration, as evidenced in cases of nightmares related to trauma. “The process seems to consist of cross-connecting or interweaving—making connections with whatever related material is available in memory and imagination, guided by the dominant emotions of the dreamer, which gradually become less intense and change their character as the trauma is resolved or integrated” (Hartmann, 1996). This process is illustrated in a series of nightmares that became more intense until they forced a healthy release of emotion, at which point the dreams changed their character dramatically. The dreamer had gone through the emotional trauma of her father’s death, and because her family was unable to cope with the tragedy, she found herself managing all of the funeral arrangements and matters associated with the estate. As a result, she had not given herself a chance to grieve his death. Then she began to have a series of dreams about his death that became nightmares: In my first dream, I saw my father at a distance walking off into the mist. But then the dreams became nightmarish. In my next two dreams, my father began to turn more and more into a skeleton and was beckoning to me from afar. In the fourth dream, my father, now a skeleton, appeared at a birthday party for a little girl. He pulled at her and screamed at me, trying to take both of us. At that point I woke and cried for days. In the next dream that followed, my father was no longer a skeleton but was as he was in life, very pleasant. (Hoss, 2005)

Maintenance of the Self Jung spoke of dreams as maintaining a sense of self—a sense of who we truly are, not only as an ego personality but the totality of who we are and who we can become. The organizing principle within the unconscious he called the “archetype of the Self.” It embodies a “sense of completeness and mental stability which is achieved through a union of the consciousness and unconscious contents of the mind” ( Jung, 1964). In regard to a conflict, for example, the conscious forces (ego conceptions) and the unconscious forces (underlying emotions, suppressed and repressed material, but also balancing forces) become integrated and work together as one (see the “Historical Perspective” section in Chapter 15). Jung was not alone. Michel Jouvet (1998) indicated that dreams maintain a sense of self by “reprogramming cortical networks to maintain psychological individuality despite adverse waking experiences.” Ernest Hartmann (2011) stated that emotions guide the integration of new material into established memory to establish our “emotional being—our basic sense of self.” Such maintenance of the self or restoral imagery was illustrated in the dream of a teen who had been sent to a boarding school and felt banished, imprisoned, and depressed. In that situation, he dreamed the following: I see an immensely huge sun, which rises over the horizon. It is morning. The sun covers my whole sight from the left to the right, and I can see how the fires and protuberances give it great power. But in spite [of ] its overwhelming size and strength, I am not frightened at all but very reassured. I feel safe and secure.

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Afterward he woke up in an uplifted mood that remained for about two weeks, and his depression was gone; he was amazed that such an incredible source of strength and meaning could be found within himself (Hoss & Gongloff, 2017). Jung would likely have identified the image of the great spherical sun as an archetypal image of what he termed the Self (capital S), an inner model of our “whole” and ideal self, the organizing center of our personality. Another example of maintenance of the Self is shown in the following dream. This dreamer, in her sixties, began to see herself as old and unable to recover the abilities and talents that she had once had; she considered herself as no longer the person she once was. The dream appears to reintegrate the fragmented parts and reestablish a greater sense of the whole Self: I entered a stone castle. As I went down the stairs, I saw on my left a large stone archway and a room beyond. On the left side of this room was a young woman. As the sunlight streamed in she came forward, and I saw that she was me. She walked toward me, and we blended into one person.

There may be a neurological basis for establishing this sense of Self. In part, the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex are understood to be involved in the generation of subjective feeling states, and their combined action provides a neural basis of self-awareness, related to “awareness of the moment” and “awareness of self ” (Craig, 2009). The lateral and caudal orbitofrontal cortex and medial prefrontal cortex also provide a self-referential focus, the latter found to be involved in introspective self-referential behavioral stimulation and rehearsal. ADAP TIVE LEARNING Fred Levin (2009) sees dreams as adaptive learning engines that help us identify unconscious threats and deal with them by developing action plans, and that REM sleep consolidates memory for the learning that is expressed in dreams. Antti Revonsuo proposes that dreams have an adaptive learning function that may have an evolutionary basis. He proposes a “simulation” model whereby dreams are simulations of threatening events or social situations that provide an illusory feeling of reality; this affords the ability to rehearse threat perception and avoidance and social perception and interaction in an entirely harmless situation and without any detrimental consequences (see the “The Threat Simulation Theory” and “The Social Simulation Theory” sections in Chapter 3 for an in-depth discussion). Adaption of this nature requires both a predictive problem-solving simulation capability and a relearning process—a replacing of old beliefs, behaviors, and emotional responses with new beliefs, behaviors, and responses that better adapt to the situation. This suggests a process with elements of reconsolidation, as discussed above: (1) the selective recall and illumination (deconsolidation) of emotional memories associated with a dysfunctional belief, fear, or traumatic memory; (2) the creative and predictive introduction of a novel alternative approach, response, or viewpoint (counterfactual) or one that has worked in the past; (3) the simulation of a rewarding learning scenario in which new learning is accepted in whole or in

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part; and (4) the integration of the new learning into the existing memory systems (reconsolidation), resulting in an adaptive viewpoint or behavior change. Selective Recall (Deconsolidation) Ernest Hartmann (2011) observed that dreams “illuminate the patterns in the dreamer’s memory related to the emotional concern” and contextualize or depict the event and its connections in a form that can be fully understood and assessed. Carl Jung characterized it as revealing “the unconscious aspect of the conscious event,” presenting the situation as an “emotionally charged picture language.” Erin Wamsley and Jessica Payne suggest emotional memories, in particular, are “reactivated” during sleep; “meaning” is extracted from those memories, and dreams then reorganize, interleave, and reintegrate as fragments of the present event with past experiences and other content to prepare for the future (Wamsley, 2016). Introducing Alternative Schemas Montague Ullman (1959) stated that dreams have a “remarkable capacity to integrate past experiential data with current life situations in a manner that discloses more significant information pertaining to current conflicts than is available to the individual at any given moment in the waking state.” Stewart and Koulack reported on research (1993) that supports the hypothesis that dreams help us adapt to stressful waking events by activating habitual defense mechanisms (the old learning), matching the two and by integrating the stress situation with earlier solutions to a similar problem. McNamara discussed a more creative process than simply matching memories, that of introducing counterfactuals or “what-if ” scenarios. The following example illustrates a dream simulation that introduces an alternative to the dreamer’s severely damaged self-image by projecting an adaptive view and outcome, one that also preserves the greater Self. The young woman had just been fired from a job that was important to her career, for the second time in a row. This drove her to feel “I have no future; it is all over for good.” At that point she dreamed the following: A building falls on me, and I am crushed under the rubble. All goes dark, and I stop breathing. I know I am dead, and it is all over; there is no future. Then I become another person in the dream who is strong and determined, and [who] digs my body out of the rubble. Suddenly, I come back to life and realize that I can go on. (Hoss & Gongloff, 2017)

Although she did not fully understand the dream until many months afterward, when we worked on it, she set out to start her own company. Today, she runs two. Simulating a Learning Scenario Richard Coutts (2008) proposed that dreams improve our ability to meet waking need by testing dream scenarios in a cognitive decision-making process, adapting or

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rejecting them depending on their outcome; those that appear adaptive are retained, while those that appear maladaptive are discarded. Levin (2009) further asserts that dreaming generates strategies for actively checking on and thus responding to potential dangers, including those emanating from internal psychological conflicts, and that it is not until certain actions are taken and new information discovered (confirmed or disconfirmed) that the final phase of learning occurs in the form of adaptive adjustments in the self. Alfred Adler suggested that dreams use an “inner logic” driven by dream emotion that either reinforces or inhibits a contemplated action—a theoretical role described earlier of the basal ganglia, which reinforces or inhibits action based on reward-based adaptive planning. This selective evolutionary learning process of testing, accepting, or rejecting scenarios can be observed in an example of a dream series during a single night’s sleep. Each dream appears to reactivate a memory associated with her crisis of identity, illuminates it, places it in context, tests it as to acceptability (accepting or rejecting it), and then builds on that learning in the next dream sequence. A projected view is eventually reinforced, but as it is further tested, a new association enters and defeats it in the final dream prior to waking. The dreamer’s waking-life situation was a need to become more assertive to adapt to recent waking-life demands. This set up a conflict because it required her to embrace a suppressed inferior aspect of her personality (that assertive side that Jung would call her inner “masculine”). In life, this dreamer had a negative view of the masculine, having gone through multiple traumatic experiences involving men. Her mother taught her that assertive females are considered “sinister,” and the primary male figures in her life (her father and her alcoholic ex-husband) provided poor masculine role models and would “squash” her whenever she attempted to assert herself. The underlying theme of the resultant five sequential dreams appears to be repeated attempts of what Jung would call an attempt to integrate what she saw as masculine qualities (assertiveness in her case) with what she considered a proper feminine attribute: (1) Two sinister-looking men pulled another man out of a car that had been blocking traffic and killed him. ( 2) One man “squashed” a beautiful dragon fly on the back of another man. (3) I am in a hotel room bed. I rolled over, and a man was in my bed. I am upset that the hotel had booked the man in same room with me. (4) I went to the office to change rooms, but [I] had to crawl through a dark hole. A man and a woman pulled me “up from the darkness” into a lit room. (5) I went back to the hotel room, and finding a drunken couple lying on the bed, I was disgusted and left. (Hoss & Hoss, 2013)

Sequences 1 and 2 recall and picture memories of the masculine as sinister, thus killing or squashing any attempt at adopting that mannerism. Sequence 3 simulates and tests a resolution scenario, masculine/feminine integration, which is underdeveloped at this point and rejected by the dream self. In sequence 4, an element of guidance or influence (counterfactual) is introduced, projecting and picturing masculine and feminine integration (working in unison) as the solution—the unified

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male and female pair work together to metaphorically “pull her out of the hole she is in.” With this new insight and learning, the dream makes another attempt at integration in sequence 5 (male and female together on the hotel bed again), but in this case, the association with memories of alcoholism (father and ex-husband) enters the picture and defeats it. Whereas in this single dream sequence, adaptation was not fully achieved, the process that the dream goes through in simulating the scenario and testing, adopting, and rejecting solutions is illustrated. Integrating the New Learning into the Existing Memory Systems David Feinstein (1990) observed how dreams mediate outward ego perceptions with our inner model of reality in order to adapt. He and Stanley Krippner developed a psychology based on our personal mythology—how we live our lives based on a mythic structure or inner model of our reality and role within it (our existing memory system). He indicated that when faced with a novel situation, or one that is incompatible with our inner belief system (the “old myth”), the dream (1) finds a way to accommodate the material within that existing belief system or “old myth”; (2) strengthens a growing and opposing “counter myth”; or (3) creatively develops a new inner model (a “new myth”) that better accommodates internal and external reality. In any event, the dream helps us to adapt by accommodating the novel material in some way. As noted previously, it is not possible to identify for certain whether reconsolidation occurred within the dream itself, or whether it was a part of the dream to waking continuum, or both. The example above of the sequential dream segments suggests that some degree of learning occurred within the dream between segments, as one segment appeared to build on the results of or insights from the prior one. The following is an example involving adaptive emotional learning. The young man had developed a defensive emotional response of lashing out at those who teased him, which only invited more teasing: I dreamed about a mean dog which was being beat on by three men. Suddenly the dog rolled over and played dead. The men now thought it was cute and left it alone. A street lamp lit overhead at that moment. (Hoss, 2005)

The dream detects and metaphorically pictures his situation as well as his dysfunctional “fight” response—becoming a “mean dog” and thus being beaten up in return. The dream then introduces a novel opposing scenario or counterfactual: “What if you played along?” The dream then projected a positive outcome and tested and reinforced this scenario: when the dog rolled over and played dead, the bullies considered the dog to be cute and left it alone. As a side note, the street lamp or illumination of the scene is an interesting image that seems to occur at times in dreams when a new connection is made. Perhaps the fictive light is an indication of neural connection, something integrated into memory? It’s an interesting speculation.

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The Adaptive Dream-to-Waking Continuum It is hopefully obvious from this discussion that (although there has been a focus on learning within the dream) learning is not something that occurs just during sleep or just during waking but is a continuous process involving presleep events and learning and reactivation of the memories in further learning simulations during sleep and dreaming, which carry over as insight and perhaps emotional motivation to act and further learn during subsequent waking. Hartmann (2011) stated that “the entire dream to waking continuum is adaptive,” implying that the emotional impact and waking reflection on the dream continues the process of change—which is of course the basis of dreamwork (Chapters 20–23) as well as the incorporation of dreams into clinical therapy. Chapter 16, “Clinical Application of Dreamwork,” discusses the efficacy of dreamwork and the degree of helpful insight that dreams can bring to such postdream learning. The following example shows how dreams may provide insight that, upon reflection, stimulates the dreamer to act, bringing about new learning. The dreamer had accepted a position in his company that was a good career move, but at a time when the dreamer felt he was in the wrong career. That night he dreamed the following: I see a woman kneeling next to a long/rectangular grave. She is very, very sad, not crying, but obviously deeply moved. She is putting many dead babies into a grave, one-by-one, little blue, cold, dead babies. (Hoss & Gongloff, 2017)

The dreamer woke up feeling very sad and instantly understood what it was about: by staying in that career, he was burying many other talents within himself. He heeded the new insight and eventually changed careers. TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING The process of learning in dreams appears to extend beyond adaption to an immediate waking-life situation and a role in personal development and growth. Impactful dreams (see Chapter 10) and big dreams have been observed or reported to bring about lasting change in an individual (Hoss & Gongloff, 2017). These transformations are likely part of a lifetime cycle of personality development that Carl Jung called “individuation”—the lifelong process of becoming one’s most complete, realized self ( Jung, 2012). According to Jung (Chapter 15), this is brought about by a function observed in dreams that he termed the “transcendent function.” The Transcendent Function Jung indicated that dreams contain a transcendent function, a natural selfregulation aspect of the psyche, which enables transition from one state to another, manifesting as a new attitude toward oneself and life ( Jung, 1971). It comes into play when there is an imbalance that brings about a confrontation between conflicting conscious and unconscious mental forces, which might be triggered by actions that fragment or suppress part of the personality, a dysfunctional ego

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misconception of reality, or a conscious self-image in conflict with the unconscious inner model of Self. Once the conflict between conscious and unconscious forces are revealed in the dream, the transcendent process begins with the introduction of a “compensating” action—generally opposing the viewpoint of the ego (dream self )—in an attempt to balance, or correct, for those misconceptions. Compensating action and balancing or corrective forces appear as archetypal imagery (as they do in most all dreams according to Jung, Chapter 15): motifs of balanced or focusing geometric patterns, imagery depicting an integration of opposing forces, and guiding characters or events. As the conscious and unconscious views are held in interactive juxtaposition (a learning scenario), an eventual third element or attitude (new myth) evolves that is an integration of the two. This transcendent event is often pictured in the dream with rewarding emergence, renewal, or “rebirth” imagery, often accompanied with light. Fritz Perls (Chapter 15), who developed Gestalt therapy, also proposed that dreams help integrate our fragmented personality, considering dreams to be “the royal road to integration”—re-owning fragmented parts of our personality. The action in the dream is an attempt to integrate the personality, re-own these parts, and find closure to create a “gestalt,” or organized whole that becomes more than the sum of its parts. It is difficult to entirely differentiate transcendent dreams from those of restoration or adaptation dreams. The transcended dream contains the same basic elements as the others: the detection and metaphoric presentation of a problem or conflict (deconsolidation); introduction and juxtaposition of compensating schemas, alternatives, or counterfactuals; the interactive tension that is conceptually equivalent to the learning sequence; and the transcendence itself, which is in concept a reconsolidation. Transcendence is indeed adaptive, but perhaps the main differentiation is a dramatic change that takes place deep within the personality, effecting a person’s broader viewpoint or behavior from that point, as opposed to an adaption to a singular situation in the dreamer’s life. Transcendence is what is integral to the individuation process that follows. Individuation Jung indicated that the transcendent function was integral to a process he called “individuation,” whereby the unconscious and the conscious move together, bringing about new attitude and awareness, and gradually the emergence of a wider and more mature personality, the achievement of self-actualization. He considered individuation to be a spiraling process around the primordial image of Self, a journey whereby “a person becomes whole, calm, fertile, and happy when the conscious and the unconscious have learned to live at peace and to complement one another” ( Jung, 1964). This is not unlike the observations of Ernest Hartmann that “dreaming creates a meandering pattern in which individual strands or tendencies become visible then vanish then return again . . . but with an observable regulating or directing tendency at work creating a slow imperceptible process of psychic growth—in which gradually a wider and more mature personality emerges.”

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This slow but purposeful process is exemplified in a long series of dreams that took place over an 18-month period, from a woman whom I will call Gail (Hoss & Gongloff, 2017). She had come to a major impasse as she attempted to passionately pursue a new direction in her life. She was totally stuck, facing what appeared to be six major conflicts, both within herself as well as practical limitations, as she contemplated abandoning her career and, indeed, who she had become to pursue this passion. Her journey begins with what Jung called an “initiation” dream, in this case with Jung doing the honors himself: I find myself descending a rickety wooden staircase. It is a long, long way down. The walls are like field stone . . . lit by torches . . . and the passage is very narrow. It gets darker and darker as I descend . . . to an opening at the bottom. To the right Carl Jung is sitting in a huge mahogany throne . . . with elaborate snake carvings. He points behind me . . . to a beautiful ship with elaborate representations of serpents. I get on board. Suddenly it takes off, sailing wildly through an underground river. Finally, the ship stops at a beach . . . with a round grass hut. Carl Jung is there. He says: “Go in. Stay until you are done.” It is barren inside except for a fire pit in the middle. I look for the door, but it is gone. . . . There is no way out. Finally, I realize that I have no choice except to surrender to being there. I sit by the fire [and] then begin to have visions. First, a beautiful woman is flying around in a circle high in the hut on a green firebreathing dragon. . . . The scene forms a mandala with the opening of the sky in the middle. . . . She tosses me a large red ball. I catch it. Then there are bears going around behind her, and then rabbits. Finally, I get drowsy, lie down by the fire, and start to fall asleep. (Hoss & Gongloff, 2017)

The process begins with what Jung called a “death of the ego” motif, when the ego (or dream self ) has given up and is willing to go within and accept the unconscious—in this case, to stay there “until it is done,” until the integration has completed. Note the archetypal imagery of “wholeness,” the mandala and circular movement, and the surrender of consciousness (falling asleep). The introduction, simulation, and testing of various resolution scenarios then begins, conflict by conflict, dream by dream, connecting old memories and associations as the relearning and self-discovery process takes place. While there is not enough space here to discuss all of the dreams, I will present just a few that illustrate key parts of the process. This dream occurred at a point where she begins to discover her own inner value and strength: I am in my back yard . . . garden. A man (the leader of a group that is circling around me) ascends a hidden staircase. I think: “How can this be? I have walked this way many times and never ran into this invisible staircase?” A voice says: “That’s because you didn’t believe it was there.” I feel like a whole new world that I didn’t even know was there has opened to me! I take a confident stance and proceed slowly but steadily toward the staircase. When I reach where I believe the stairs are, I step out with my right foot and to my amazement: “I am on the first step!”

The dream then presents the first of a series of tree motifs—an image that Jung considered an archetypal image of individuation—a “powerful involuntary growth

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fulfilling a definite pattern, the roots deriving nourishment from deep within the unconscious to become new growth within the conscious personality” ( Jung, 1964): A man comes from the local nursery and delivers a small lemon tree—perfectly shaped, healthy, green, and young. When I turn around I am thrilled to see the new tree has gotten bigger and much more beautiful.

Another series of dreams dealt with the negative masculine role models in her life: I am living in an insane asylum where there are two tall towers. My task is to get “these things” which are in a pool at our feet from one side to the other. They look like little pink pig-fish. A commanding voice says: “This is your brain. Get up and write this down.”

When exploring her associations, she stated that pigs are “nurturing, cuddly and loving” (which she related to feminine attributes) and fish are “slimy” (which she related to masculine), the way she felt when she tried to assert herself and speak up. In a subsequent dream, her poor masculine associations (specifically from her ex-husband) are replaced with more positive ones: I am in a medieval castle. My ex-husband, who is behaving badly, walks away. I catch the eye of a handsome young man who walks over and engages me. I realize he is courting me. I am surprised and coy at first, but in the end, we take each other’s hands and walk off together.

The tree motif returns as she begins to accept the masculine. The frightening memories of a dysfunctional alcoholic male in her childhood becomes less threatening as she begins to see it from a new perspective: I am in front of my parent’s house. I look over to the neighbor’s house (a terribly abusive alcoholic male). I tell my mother: “I can’t believe how tall their tree has grown.”

In the next dream segment, an egg motif begins to appear among the trees, a symbol of what Jung considered rebirth imagery: I arrive at a beautiful place filled with trees and sunlight . . . a canyon containing beautiful, iridescent blue rocks with gold specks, about the size of eggs. An old man, . . . who seems to know me, appears above and calls down: “I put those there for you—they are yours.”

The tree and egg motif again appear (along with the circular motif ) as Gail now confronts issues with her mother, who (she perceives) considers her personal goals to be “nonsense”: I am on a circular path. The girl with me reaches up to touch a beautiful hatching baby bird in the tree. I say: “No, leave it alone; the mother may reject it.” Suddenly the mother bird appears and attacks me.

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The tree motif appears as she tackles another conflict, the guilt of feeling like a “dirty rat” in wanting to pursue her own growth instead of nurturing by continuing to let her two grown sons live at home with her: I see two trees sprout up in the middle of the living room. An evil energy manifests as two dirty rat heads. Something tells me I have to look at them, even though I do not want to. I go nose to nose with one of the rat heads, stare it right in the eyes, and command it out. Suddenly they both turn into tiny little mice that scurry away into the heat register. I am not afraid of them anymore. At that point, my mother and I plant the two trees in the yard where they can thrive.

At one point she reverses her lack of self-assurance and the need for approval or validation from authority figures. In this case, the authority figure is a friend we will call Gail T, who is degreed and certified in the dreamer’s area of interest: I am in a school. . . . They are handing out our diplomas. I look at the name on my diploma—Gail T (the name of my friend). I say (three times loudly as I wake), “No, no, no! I’m not Gail T; I am Gail G” (me!). I woke hearing these words.

As she releases two more insecurities standing in the way of pursuing her goal, she dreams the following: A small airplane flies overhead. The door opens, and a woman jumps out with three parachutes. She breaks away from the others and lands with only one chute. I clap. Everyone cheers!

She begins to understand that there were practical opportunities for pursuing her new goals without abandoning her existing career that not only provides her financial security but also a sense of self-worth (she only needs that one parachute). In the concluding dream of this individuation cycle, the tree motif again appears, picturing new growth from dealing with six inner conflicts, as well as her acceptance of who she is (the old tree filled with light) and who she was now becoming (the flowering tree of rebirth): I am walking on a path. There is a row of six newly planted young trees to the left. I see an old tree in the distance with the sun glowing behind it. To the right I notice another beautiful tree in the distance covered with flowers. I go to explore it.

The resultant change in her personality was notable. She went on to assert herself in pursuit of her passion, but in a practical manner that she had not previously considered—pursuing it in parallel with keeping her job, even being promoted, and resolving some of the fears and issues with her sons and mother that were standing in the way. Individuation is a cyclic process, and as her next cycle began, she again dreamed of descending the staircase, but this time Jung was not there. She wandered in a maze of dark underground tunnels looking for guidance. But soon, on her own, she emerged into the light, and she was better prepared this time.

Chapter 14

THEORIES OF MEANING

A dream that is not understood remains a mere occurrence; understood, it becomes a living experience. —C. G. Jung

“What does my dream mean?” is probably the most asked question when dreams are discussed in a social setting. This is perhaps because the dream experience appears in one sense to follow a somewhat coherent story line, but the plot, imagery, and activity rarely reflect events that are happening in our waking life. Why would our minds be creating such a nighttime adventure that has little rationale to it? We have been told by psychologists since the time of Freud and Jung that the imagery in these dreams does relate in some way to our personal lives but that the imagery is “symbolic,” and thus the relationship is not immediately obvious. If so, why would the personal meaning be hidden in such a way, and how are we to understand it? There has been much controversy among researchers as to whether dreams have a meaning or a function. It is likely that they have both in some manner, but to understand either one, we need to separate the discussion a bit. Function relates to the biological, psychological, and perhaps evolutionary role that the dream itself plays, perhaps in preserving the organism as discussed in Chapters 3 and 12. Meaning, on the other hand, relates, according to Webster’s dictionary, to the idea that is represented or intended to be conveyed, the implication of the hidden or special significance. In this introduction, we look at how dream content may be meaningfully significant in five ways. DO DREAMS REFLECT MENTAL F UNCTION? If the sleep state where dreaming takes place does appear to have a function, then perhaps the dream image or action is a meaningful pictorial representation of that

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function. Examples illustrating a hypothetical learning function were discussed in Chapter 13. If we observe the content of the dream plot reflecting a problem being solved, then perhaps it can be argued that the dream plot and imagery is a somewhat meaningful reflection of a sleep stage–related problem-resolution process. The following dream illustrates the concept. The dreamer had been offered a teaching position in an area in which he had at one time been a well-known expert. He had been away from for many years, however, and feared his talents were too “rusty” and too difficult to resurrect, therefore lacking the “drive” to do so he decided to turn down the offer the next day. That night, he had the following dream: I was wandering through a desert setting and saw an old rusty car. Upon looking inside, I found the driver was not moving. [This is a picture metaphor related to his conflict—e.g., rusty car, rusty talents, no drive.] I was going to give him up for dead, but my companion urged me to wake the man—he may be just asleep. [The dream introduces a “what-if ” scenario, or alternative viewpoint.] I argued that it was useless, but after much urging, I reluctantly gave in and shook the man. [The dream self tests the scenario.] When I did, both the driver and the car came to life, and the car began to transform into a new car. [This is an emotional reinforcement of a predictive outcome.] (Hoss, 2005)

Although the dreamer did not immediately connect the bizarre dream about a dead man in a rusty car to the offer, he reversed his decision the next day and accepted the assignment. It was only upon later reflection that he fully recognized the role the dream may have played in this change, suggesting that emotional problemsolving and learning seems to have occurred within the dream. DOES DREAM CONTENT REFLECT WAKING LIFE? The continuity hypothesis of dreaming states that dreams reflect waking-life experiences (see the “Continuity Hypothesis of Dreaming” section in Chapter 3). Studies have found that dreams contain fragments that do directly relate to events in our personal waking life—in part supporting this hypothesis—even though those events rarely appear as complete episodes in the dream. Studies (Fosse et al., 2003; Nielsen & Stenstrom, 2005) confirm that dreams rarely portray complete “episodic memories,” such memories appearing in only about 1.4 percent of reports. Isolated fragments or features of waking events are more common; they are present in 26–65 percent of dreams. Nonetheless, even the fragments can be meaningful in relating the dream to waking life. In 1996, researcher G. William Domhoff introduced a series of research findings that led to the development of his neurocognitive theory of dreams (see the “Neurocognitive Theory of Dreaming” section in Chapter 3). Using content analysis, he was able to demonstrate that dream content in general is continuous with waking conceptions and emotional preoccupations. He concluded that dreaming is a “developmental cognitive achievement” involving a network of forebrain structures that are active in the sleep state. Dreaming reflects the output of this network, which is guided by both a continuity principle (a link to current

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personal concerns) and a repetition principle (associated with past emotional preoccupations). Put simply, the dream has meaning in terms of its associations with our past and present emotional concerns. There have been methodological difficulties, however, in determining clear connections between actual waking events and the content appearing in a dream (Schredl et al., 2003). This is due to difficulties in accurately reporting, recording, or journaling the detailed dream content as well as difficulty in capturing the emotional and episodic elements of the waking-life experience that might be represented (see Chapter 5, “How to Study Dream Experiences”). Aside from these difficulties, if dreams have a meaningful connection to our waking life, then why do they so rarely replay the waking-life episode? It appears that we do dream about our waking life, but predominantly the emotional aspect of the waking event. This might be due to increased activity in the limbic and hippocampal regions (emotional memory processing) during REM sleep accompanied by decreased activity in the prefrontal regions and other areas necessary for episodic memory (recall of the waking episode). As noted in Chapter 12 (in the “Emotional Processes” section), Erin Wamsley concluded that sleep preferentially processes emotional memories, which in turn are not simply integrated in their original form; as Jessica Payne puts it, they extract and retain the general theme, or “gist,” which is what is processed. Note that this is the case in the rusty car dream example above. The phone call and offer of a teaching opportunity did not appear anywhere in the dream; however, elements, or the gist, of the emotional conflict was pictured metaphorically: the concern about “rusty” talents pictured as the rusty car, and “dead driver inside” perhaps a picture of the dreamer’s inner drive as emotionally “dead.” DOES DREAM CONTENT REFLECT PERSONALIT Y? As discussed in Chapter 6, G. William Domhoff considers dream content meaningful because it can be correlated with other variables, such as age, gender, culture, and personal preoccupations. He considers dream content as a “file of the person’s mind that is almost as individualized and accurate as her or his fingerprints,” stating that “75 to 100 dreams from a person give us a very good psychological portrait of that individual. . . . They are very ‘revealing’ of what is on our minds.” DOES THE DREAM CONTAIN PERSONALLY MEANINGF UL CONNECTIONS? In the experience of many psychotherapists and dreamworkers, when comparing the dream plot, actions, and emotions to a person’s waking-life situation, a meaningful connection is typically found. The dreamer or therapist generally derives something personally meaningful from discussing or working on the dream, insight that may be useful to the dreamer or to further the therapy (see Chapter 16). As the example above illustrates, the connection with the dreamer’s conflict and inner emotions was fairly obvious in the picture metaphors. With some simple

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associative techniques, it is not too difficult to further explore a dreamer’s personal associations with almost every element of the dream content. A multitude of techniques are described in Chapters 20–23. EXISTENTIAL-PHENOMENOLOGICAL VIEWS In the existential or phenomenological view (see Chapter 15), the approach to meaning is primarily the dreamers’ encounter with and discovery of the meaning emerging from their dreams in relation to their lives, as opposed to a reliance on the expertise of another to translate the dream. Caperton (2012) summarizes a number of such approaches and viewpoints. For example, Richard Kradin advocates a perspective that dream images potentially convey inexhaustible meaning and may reveal multiple levels of depth and interpretive material over time and that some of the best indicators of “correctness” are (1) that the dream has an impact on the dreamer, that it “clicks” (an “aha” reaction usually with an element of surprise or compensation); (2) that the dream does not continue to recur; and (3) that the “events” anticipated by the interpretation come to pass in the dreamer’s life. All of these indicators become apparent in the “rusty car” dream as the dream self tests the solution and the car comes to life—apparently carrying over as a new viewpoint the next day. Others, such as Gaston Bachelard, suggest that dream images, as they are ever changing and hard to pin down, are things “of beauty and self-fulfillment, not usefulness. . . . They release the imagination from the confines of personal and interpersonal life.” An existential analyst may focus on the establishment, maintenance, and reflection on the clients’ own presence (client’s bodily sensations and emotions, experiencing the here-and-now process of working with the dream) to develop an inner insight of one’s own being.

Imagery Formation Robert J. Hoss and David Kahn

To better understand whether dream imagery has a meaningful relation to the dreamer, a discussion of theories on dream formation is in order. Without some organizing process, there would be no dream; the thoughts and images in the sleeping individual would remain as unconnected mental fragments. Although there is no certainty as to exactly how a dream image forms, there are a number of respected theories that may fall within two basic constructs: “self-organization” and what might be called “meaningful association.” Self-organization provides connections and meaning between memory fragments. These fragments may be randomly generated or, more likely, be generated because of their emotional significance for the dreamer. Meaningful association implies a more structured process whereby connections are formed within and under the influence of a natural associative brain function. Here, connections

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might self-organize to a degree, but they would be highly influenced by associated memories, emotions, or the regulatory or analogical processing action of the various cognitive regions of the brain that are active in sleep. In the hyperconnected process, the weaving of new material into existing memory structures, as Hartmann (2011) puts it, a bit of both processes—associative and self-organizational—may be at work. Self-organization can account for the diversity and the many ways that memory fragments turn into the narrative of the dream.

Self-Organization Hypothesis David Kahn

Self-organization is a fundamental process of nature by which collective behavior arises out of local interactions to produce something new and more complex than, and not reducible to, its components (Nicolis & Prigogine, 1989). The selforganization theory of dreaming is based on a view that the dreaming brain is a self-organizing system highly sensitive to internally generated influences (Kahn et al., 2000). It states that dreams are new, different, and more complex than the individual thoughts, images, and fragments of memories that went into its creation (Kahn, 2013; Kahn & Hobson, 1993). When these thoughts, images, and fragments collectively self-organize, a dream is created. There are competing theories of dream generation, as discussed in Chapter 12. Self-organization is one explanation as to how dreams might form, even within the activation synthesis theory of Hobson and McCarley in which random firing of brain stem neurons bombard the forebrain, which then churn out the thoughts and images of the dream. In the original activation synthesis theory, the dream forms when the brain does the best job it can to make a story out of the randomly produced images. In self-organization theory, nothing is said about whether thoughts and images are random, as they most likely are not. Self-organization is hypothesized to account for how thoughts and images are connected into a narrative structure of the dream. Why not just have imaginings and memory fragments without having them connected into a narrative structure? The reason is that unconnected thoughts do not remain unconnected for very long, as the mind is always looking to find patterns of association between fragments and to find meaning and connections between disparate elements, both when awake and asleep. When awake, connections are made by creating meaning, finding patterns, and making up stories using all the rational resources available to the wake person. If the wake person sees and hears fire engine sirens, the person can make connections between what is known about fire engine sirens and function and conclude that the fire engine is going to the scene of a fire. When asleep, the mind is still programmed to find connections and meaning for events, even if the events defy logic; for example, the fire engines start to fly above crowds in the street. The dream self might say, “It’s so smart to fly to avoid traffic

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and get to the fire quickly.” Because the dreamer is asleep and does not reflect on the implausibility of events, the unfolding story is accepted, even if a rationale is sought, such as finding a reason for flying fire engines. In short, the mind’s need to connect and make sense of dream events leads to their self-organization into a coherent story. UNPREDICTABILIT Y AND UNIQUENESS OF DREAMS This theory suggests that the uniqueness and unpredictability of dreams comes from the many ways in which these dream components can self-organize. Despite the occurrence of recurring themes in dreams, such as being unprepared or missing travel connections, the exact dream is almost never repeated, the exception being if the dreamer suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in which case actual wake life trauma may be relived in the dream. The theory also suggests that self-organization will not occur from elements that are completely independent of each other. Some degree of coherence or semi-independence must exist within a population for relationships to be established. Selforganization can occur with semi-independent elements, as they have the capacity to develop coherence with each other. The thoughts and images coming from activation of the forebrain have connections with each other because the forebrain is a storehouse of history and biographical information. POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF SELF-ORGANIZATION A beneficial characteristic of a self-organizing dream is novelty. Novelty is created because connections that are made will be less reliant on our learned and overlearned associations and patterns of thinking and acting. We pretty much accept the improbable without question. Thus, through self-organization, we may encounter unexpected associations that reveal creative ways to think and act. Another benefit may simply be the ability to simulate and test all kinds of experiences while safely lying in bed—experiences the wake self may not have dared to have. While imagination can also produce unusual situations, it is more limited than dreaming because the wake mind knows it is imagining. The dream self does not know it is dreaming (unless lucidity kicks in) and is sure it is a part of the ongoing action, no matter how unlikely the action would appear if awake. BRAIN BASIS FOR SELF-ORGANIZATION The brain is a prime candidate for a self-organizing system because it consists of many semi-independently acting neurons that can begin to act collectively, and hence for neuronal self-organization to emerge (Singer, 2009). Neuronal self-organization can lead to collective cognitive behavior and complexity. In the case of the sleeping individual, the neuronal brain activity leads to cognitive activity that selforganizes into a dream. The alteration in brain chemistry during REM sleep, such as the vanishing of serotonin and norepinephrine, and the alteration in regional

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neural activity, such as increased activation of emotional areas and decreased activation of executive areas, provides a brain basis for the observed quality of dreams, such as appearance of discontinuities and acceptance of implausible events. SELF-ORGANIZATION IN NATURE Whether the self-organization is the dominant neural process, it is a ubiquitous process in nature by which semi-independently acting elements begin to act collectively to create a new structure or a new behavior. Examples in biological systems include the self-organization of individually flying birds into an efficient V-shaped flight formation, self-organization of individual fish into schools, and self-organization of individual insect behavior into collective behavior. While there is no outside agency directing the process, there is always some external condition or environmental change that makes the original system unstable to the environmental change. In insect behavior, for example, termites lay scent trails first acting individually and randomly depositing a scent-producing pheromone. When the concentration of pheromone in any one place reaches a critical value, the initially random deposition is replaced by a collective termite behavior to build a nest that is crucial for the survival and reproduction of the colony. At a cellular level, an example is the self-organization of single-celled amoeba into a multicelled animal (Marée & Hogeweg, 2001). These amoebae live independently as immobile single cells until their food supply is exhausted. They then secrete an enzyme that accumulates until it reaches a level at which amoebae clump together by chemical attraction into a multicellular complex organism that is capable of efficient locomotion in search of a food source. In the dream, the environmental change is the appearance of semi-independent thoughts, images, and fragments that are yet to be connected in a meaningful way. Conceivably, it might also be the appearance of an external condition, perhaps an unresolved emotional memory from the day that has enough salience to trigger the process.

Meaningful Association Robert J. Hoss

Other theories of imagery or dream formation might be characterized by the general term meaningful association. Here, connections may still form within a somewhat random hyperconnective distribution within the neural matrix, but they are influenced to a greater degree or guided by a natural associative structure or function in perceptual and memory systems, by emotion, or by other influences, such the analogical reasoning or regulating forces in the active frontal regions during sleep.

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ASSOCIATIVE CORTEX As discussed in Chapter 12, areas of the brain that are active in both REM and NREM sleep, as well as when awake, are the associative cortices. Associative cortices function to make meaningful associations (identifications) between sensory information and imagery and the internal models of reality within our memory stores to form perception (cognition). Based on a survey of PET imaging studies, J. Allan Hobson attributed much of the visual dream experience to activity in the visual association cortex during REM sleep (Hobson, 2003), which is consistent with the highly visual nature of most dreams. The 2017 EEG study by Siclari et al. discussed in Chapter 12, based on 1,048 awakenings, also identified the visual associative areas (perceptual areas of the bilateral parieto-occipital regions and extended into parts of the temporal lobe) as a “dreaming hot zone” that activates when dreaming actually occurs during both REM and NREM sleep. The implication here is that the imagery we see in our dreams, and perhaps other sensory experiences as well, are meaningful pictorial or spatial representations of cross-modal connections and associations. They are meaningful “symbols,” as Freud and Jung called them—, even though they do not hold the same meaning or identity as the name we might give them in the waking state. The centers that organize our identification and naming of things in the waking state are relatively inactive in REM sleep, whereas the occipitotemporal associative areas that represent things pictorially in terms of our personal and emotional associations are actively creating the experience in our dreams—thus the bizarre but potentially meaningful nature of dreams. ASSOCIATION GUIDED BY EMOTION Ernest Hartmann (2011; and see Chapter 12) stated that during dreaming, there is an increase in connectivity of broad and loose associations, which he termed hyperconnectivity. He claimed that dreaming is creation, not replay, and always involves new connections as opposed to tightly structured, overlearned material. When dreams create connections and associations, they operate by what he called a “spread of activation” model. In waking thought, the progression is more linear and focused on recalling a specific memory or object. In dreaming, progression is less specific and less focused, spreading “laterally” to patterns representing other more generic themes, memories, and associations. He stated that these connections “can often produce something new or at least show us something new, if we’re willing to pay attention.” While this process appears similar in nature to self-organization, Hartmann stated that the connections are not random, but guided by the dreamer’s emotions. Hartmann is not alone in this. A review by researchers Josie Malinowski and Caroline Horton (2015) that integrated the wealth of dream and sleep research data on emotional processing concluded that “dreaming reflects the processes of emotion assimilation during sleep.” That is, the mechanisms by which waking-life memories are selected for processing during sleep, and the mechanisms by which

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those memories are subsequently transformed during sleep, are reflected in our dreams. They found that associations between memory fragments that are activated during sleep produce measurable elements of picture metaphors that we see as the imagery in our dreams. An example from Chapter 12 illustrates the concept of dreams making connections guided by emotion—in this case, a connection between two disparate emotionally charged viewpoints—a conscious view that her husband was the source of their marital conflicts versus an unconscious sense that it is an unresolved issue with her father: I have a recurrent dream of being terribly angry with my husband, who I am always running away from. These dreams continued until one night I turned around and faced my husband and looked at his face. . . . It was my father’s face!

Here a new connection is made and pictured as a combination of husband and father, not a random connection, but a meaningful one driven by the unresolved emotional situation with the father. It illustrates Hartmann’s theory that it is emotion (pressure of the unresolved conflict) that drives the dream, chooses the image, and connects and blends several (father and husband in this case) to make a new one. CONDENSATION: LINKED ASSOCIATIONS The combining of associated material into the spatial structure of a single image or dream scene is what Freud referred to as condensation. Freud meant condensation in two senses: combining several people or places into one or combining two or more complicated thoughts into a single image or scene. The resultant imagery appears to be the brain’s attempt at a visual representation (picture metaphor) of the relationship between complex concepts or thoughts. This dream illustrates condensation with two symbolic word images in a meaningful structure to picture a word pair that the dreaming mind could not verbalize. The dreamer was an engineer who had just gone through the trauma of a layoff. He was totally frustrated that all the years he had spent getting an engineering degree had led nowhere. That night he dreamed of his frustration—the dominant image in the dream being a “slide rule with a thermometer on it.” His associations were a slide rule (engineering) and a thermometer (degree)—the combination picturing the words “engineering degree.” The brains choice of a thermometer image may contain an even deeper representation of the dreamer’s emotional state: the emotional “temperature” of this situation. Image and word associations have a lot in common. A recent study (Riesenhuber, 2015) shows that “when we look at a known word, our brain sees it like a picture, not a group of letters needing to be processed,” thus the brain responds to a complete word, not parts of it. So it is not a stretch to at least conceptually look at a dream narrative as combining visual “symbols” in a meaningful relationship, or “dream sentence,” just as a written sentence combines word “symbols.”

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Here is another even more irrational combination, but one that aptly pictures a common speech metaphor that describes the way the dreamer was treating his friend: In my dream, I am with a friend of mine but am only concerned with what I want to do, ignoring his desires and requests. He appears in the dream as an old shoe with his face on it. When I awake and reflect on the dream, I realize that in waking life I have been treating him badly—like an “old shoe.”

DREAM NARRATIVE AS A “SENTENCE” OF ASSOCIATIONS Spoken or written sentences are made up of a meaningful string of word symbols, and so it might be with dreams. As the slide rule example above illustrates, the dream narrative is a sentence, but not necessarily one of word symbols. Rather, it uses pictorially symbolized associations or picture metaphors. If the personal associations represented by each dream element can be determined, and then substituted in place of the word naming in the dream story, the “dream sentence” might emerge as something meaningful to the waking life of the dreamer. Let’s take this dream for example: I was in a clinic, and a nurse was checking me over. She felt some lumps in my groin area and exclaimed: “She is riddled with cancer.” I asked the nurse if she could do something to keep me from going through all the pain.

The dreamer first took it as a literal warning and wisely had a medical exam, which revealed no sign of cancer. When the dreamer came into the workshop and reported the dream, she was confused as to why her dream was telling her she had cancer! In looking beyond the literal “message” and working with her associations, it became obvious. Working with the word “cancer,” the dreamer eventually revealed that she was an advocate of astrology and saw her relationships in terms of astrological signs. Her associations with “groin area” led to the discovery that she was having trouble with a boyfriend who was astrologically a Cancer. She revealed that she wanted to break up with him, but she was puzzled (the “riddle”) as to how to go about it without a lot of emotional distress. Once the word symbols in her dream narrative are replaced with these symbolic associations, the narrative reads quite differently—she was puzzled (riddled) with how to go about getting rid of her boyfriend (the “Cancer”) without going through all the pain! ASSOCIATION AS “F UNCTION” Our associations can go very deep, but we can reveal the most immediate layer by taking advantage of the differences in the way our left and right hemispheres identify an object. From PET scans, it has been observed that in REM sleep more of the right hemisphere associative centers become active, while activity is reduced in areas of the left hemisphere involved in naming (part of the Broca’s area and left

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parietal Brodmann area 40). In the waking state, when these areas are damaged, a condition called aphasia can occur: subjects are not able to give a name to an object, but they can describe what you can do with it, that is, its function (NolenHoeksema, 2014). So, as we read a dream narrative, if we ignore the literal left brain naming that the words imply and instead name the images by their function or purpose—more of a right brain process—the symbolic meaning or associations become more apparent. Let’s take the example of a door as a dream image. If you were to show a picture of a door to a room full of people and ask them, “What is this?” most all will say “a door”—the appropriate “left brain” naming of the image. Then ask them to individually name its function or purpose. Some will say a “new opening” or “way forward”; others may say “a way to keep someone out” or “a way to control what or who gets in”; and so forth. The image of the door was identical, but as they vocalize the function, each will apply their own associations to it. When asked if their response reflects on something going on in their life at this moment, many will usually answer in the affirmative, relating their answer to some emotionally charged event. Defining the function or purpose of a dream image or object is a key part in the initial phase of the transformative dreamwork protocol (see Chapter 22) as well as the dream interview method developed by Delaney and Flowers, described in Chapter 21. Let’s illustrate this concept on the rusty car dream above: “I am wandering in a desert and come upon a rusty car with a driver inside who appeared to be dead.” The dreamer defined each element as follows: wandering = “progressing aimlessly”; desert = “a place that does not sustain life”; rusty = “long abandoned and degraded beyond the ability to be restored”; car = “means of moving forward”; driver = “the person inside who makes it go”; and dead = “no longer alive.” When these are substituted for the imagery in the dream narrative, it reads as follows: “I am ‘progressing aimlessly’ ‘in a place that does not sustain life’ and come upon a ‘means of moving forward’ that ‘has been long abandoned and degraded beyond the ability to be restored’ with the ‘drive inside that makes me go’ ‘no longer alive.’” The new narrative becomes an apt description of the dreamer’s waking-life emotional conflict and attitude that is driving him to turn down the opportunity.

Latent Content in Dream Imagery Robert J. Hoss

Latent content means the symbolic (sometimes called “hidden”) content in the imagery and story line of the dream: the interrelated associations, memories, conceptualizations, and emotional forces that combine to form the imagery as well as the actions we experience. This is different from manifest content, which is the literal identification of what we see and experience in the dream. The linking of latent content from multiple sources within a dream image (whether self-organized or

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associated in memory) can yield very bizarre dream elements. For example, consider the bizarre dream image of thousands of threatening, buzzing, five-foot-long, red mosquitoes—where did the mosquitos come from, what do they relate to, why were they emotionally threatening and bigger than normal, and why not green or brown instead of red? The net results of these imagery creations and combinations are dreams that defy rational logic or meaning, unless, through various dreamworking techniques, we can reveal the latent mental and emotional content behind each of the connected imagery fragments. METAPHOR When we think of the notion of metaphor, we generally think of the hundreds of common conceptual and culturally originated metaphors that we use in our everyday speech and writing. It seems we can’t help discussing a relationship in terms of a tactile experience, “she gave me the cold shoulder,” or as a mechanism in motion, “everything is running smoothly.” When we make an error we may “drop the ball” or “let someone down.” Ernest Hartmann (2011) indicates that metaphor is an essential way that our minds make connections, a language or figure of speech that directly connects seemingly unrelated subjects by describing a first entity as being equal to or resembling a second entity in some way. G. William Domhoff (2003) contends that it occurs so frequently because metaphors provide a cross-modal mapping of wellunderstood basic experiences (such as warmth) to more difficult concepts (such as friendship). For example, “we had a warm relationship” is a simpler way for us humans to understand the nature of the friendship than a complex explanation of the specifics. They also map physiological processes (e.g., sweetness) to more complex emotional experiences (e.g., pleasure) to create such speech metaphors as “what a sweet deal that was!” He states that each person learns a system of conceptual metaphors as a result of repeated experiences in the course of childhood development. Metaphors can form and be comprehended at an early age by a process of comparison or inclusion—comparing one object as like another or as included in the same conceptual category. Hartmann agrees that the use of metaphoric similarity is generally how children learn—not by “rules” but by similarities. Hartmann describes the form or “language” of a dream as principally picture metaphor. In 1969, Montague Ullman published a paper, Dreams as Metaphor in Motion, demonstrating that dreams appear to be metaphorically picturing an important problem or concern of the dreamer. A dream image can describe a complex concept in terms of a picture that captures the essence of the concept (much like a speech metaphor), but which is easier to picture than the complexities of the concept itself. This was illustrated above in the dream that condensed the face of the dreamer’s father on the image of her husband—two images each representing a lifetime of complex memories and emotions that combined as one to represent the similarities and how the memories from one carried into the other. That simple picture contains all of the neurological tendrils of associations and memories that represented her situation.

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Hartmann considers picture metaphors to be based on emotional similarity (feelings about father and husband in this case), where we each develop our own personal picture metaphors based on our individual emotionally biased memories. Hartmann (2011) states, “Metaphor is the way we think, and I believe it is the way we build our memory systems using emotionally based similarity.” The example above appears to reveal a new learning experience, new connections being made in memory that were not apparent before. It is not clear how the picture metaphor to speech metaphor conversion process works, but it appears that they are associated in some way. When we verbally describe the dream imagery upon awakening, the speech metaphors become obvious. For example, a dream image that is simply pictured as “standing at the intersection of two roads” might be verbalized as “I am at a crossroad”—a common speech metaphor for decision point. Both were clearly linked from the onset, but only as a picture in the dream that was verbalized as a speech metaphor upon waking. V. S. Ramachandran (2006), at the University of California, San Diego, may have shed some light on this. He found that the inferior parietal lobe (the right side that is active during REM sleep and involved in imagery formation) is a cross-modal processing area involved in processing speech metaphors and relating speech to shape and other sensory modes. EMOTIONAL CONTENT Carl Jung asserted that dreams reveal the central emotional concerns of the dreamer or the unconscious emotional aspect of a conscious event (see Chapter 15). Jungian analyst Margaret Wilkinson (2006) explains that, in dreams, material moves from unconscious implicit memory toward the explicit realm of knowledge and memory, where it may be thought about. Dream imagery is ­therefore connected with underlying implicit emotions. We know from Chapter 12 that emotional processing is a likely function of REM sleep, the limbic system (especially the amygdala) being highly activated while the executive areas of the brain are deactivated. Ernest Hartmann (2011) considers the dream image to be a “picture” of the emotional state of the dreamer. The picture metaphor simplifies by putting the “feeling state” of the dreamer or idea directly into an image. An example is the dream from Chapter 12 of the man who had gone to bed extremely angry about a work situation and had planned the next morning to vent his anger to those he felt had wronged him. In his dream, he is in front of a group at work and about to give a lecture when he is introduced to a man named “Willy Pistoff.” The dream had produced a somewhat humorous image that clearly pictured his feeling state, and it dissipated his anger by causing him to actually laugh in the dream. The net result was that when he awoke, he was no longer as angry about the situation, and the anger completely dissipated when he recognized that part of himself as the dream character. Hartmann (see Chapter 14) further stated that dreams contain what he termed the “central image” or “contextualizing” image (CI). That is, the dream image

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“contextualizes” the dreamer’s feelings in relation to the dreamer’s inner and outer life. The CI can be a striking, arresting, or compelling image that stands out by virtue of being especially powerful, vivid, bizarre, or detailed. An example that Hartmann often uses is the frequent vivid dream of being overwhelmed by a tidal wave by someone who has recently experienced a traumatic event. Hartmann contends that the intensity of the central image is a measure of the strength of the emotion. The more powerful the emotion, the more intense the central imagery. The meaning that the dream holds for the dreamer may therefore lay in the meaningful emotional associations that each image represents, the tendrils into all the underlying emotional memories, so to speak. Fritz Perls saw dream images as “alienated” fragments of the dreamer’s personality by virtue of their containing painful or difficult emotional memories or conflicts (impasses) that the dreamer does not wish to deal with. In his Gestalt approach (detailed in Chapter 15), he asks the clients to role-play, or “become,” the images in their dreams, urging them to fully experience that “thing” in the dream and express the emotions it contains. A simple example of this concept is the dream of a man with a large male ego who was having problems working for his new female boss. He tried hard to impress her, but the more he tried, the more he would “mess up”—he wanted her approval, which was too painful for him to admit to her or himself. So he was stuck in a conflict that was endangering his career. His simple dream pictured his emotional conflict in one seemingly minor dream image—a sweet potato. He dreamed, “I am standing in a sweet potato patch across a barbed wire fence from my boss who was on the other side.” Perls indicated that often the more “alienated” the emotion or emotional conflict, the less human the image; the practitioner therefore asked about the small, inanimate sweet potato. He asked the dreamer (as Fritz put it) to “become” the sweet potato and describe what it is like to be a sweet potato. The dreamer paused as he imagined himself as a sweet potato. Then he spoke, “I am a sweet potato—butter me up and I’ll be good.” The expression of his conflicted feelings (what he wanted to say to his boss but could not admit to) emerged in this one small image of a sweet potato. UNCONSCIOUS CONTENT (CARL JUNG) Carl Jung (Chapter 15) stated that dreams reveal “the unconscious aspect of a conscious event,” whereby the unconscious meaning—the complexes, shadow material, and internal emotional impact of the event—is expressed as emotionally charged picture language.” While dreams extract the emotional meaning or, the gist, of an event, Jung proposed that the images in dreams are influenced by additional forces operating within our unconscious mind. The Unconscious Aspect of a Conscious Event Jung termed the vast extent of the human mind the “psyche,” and as did Freud, and considered it to consist of a conscious personality and ego as well as an unconscious mind. To Jung, however, the unconscious mind consisted of a “personal

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unconscious” and a “collective unconscious.” The personal unconscious is considered a repository for our memories and experiences not presently brought into consciousness, as well as (among other structures) a “shadow” side that we have rejected, disowned, or have yet to fully embrace. In contrast, the collective unconscious is common to and a product of human and mental evolution. It contributes imagery to dreams that represent organizing, resolution, and balancing forces— imagery that he called “archetypes.” On the basis of this structure, Jung called the dream images “symbols,” as they stand for a partially unknown psychological and emotional reality. This concept is illustrated in the following example. The dreamer was enjoying a spiritual retreat and embracing new spiritual concepts that he was excited about openly discussing with his friends. However, these new concepts conflicted with the long-established beliefs of his Latin American Catholic upbringing. That night, he dreamed the following (Hoss, 2005): I was in an airplane which landed in a spiral motion on the rim of a large circle in a Latin American village. In the center of the circle was a priest dressed in black, with a gun, protecting the village. The priest threatened to shoot me if I returned back to the plane.

Here we see a picture metaphor of his situation, the intrusion of a new belief embraced by the conscious personality (the airplane) into an established inner model constructed around the old belief (the Latin American village). This appears to trigger a conflict, an inner resistance or anxious attempt to protect the existing belief system and oppose the new, which is pictured as a Catholic priest protecting that village with a gun, “threatening to shoot me if I returned back to the plane.” Although the conscious event and the embracing of it was not literally present in the dream, the unconscious aspect was clearly pictured as the subject in the center of the circle to be dealt with—the resistance of and threat to the existing inner model, the religious dogma of his Latin American upbringing. Archetypal Imagery Although much of our dream experience is a representation of personal associations, Jung observed dream elements that arise from the collective unconscious that are not individual and cannot be derived from the dreamer’s personal experiences but represent instinctive, organizing, and transforming forces within the human mind. Jung found the resulting images, or “archetypes,” to be present across time and cultures, in the dreams and myths of all humankind (see Chapter 15). Jung stated that the general function of dreams is to try to restore our psychological balance by producing dream material that reestablishes the equilibrium. This process often involves juxtaposing conscious ego material with unconscious material (such as the shadow) and introducing a balancing or guiding force in an attempt to integrate the two opposing views and create a new state where conscious and unconscious work together. The balancing of opposing forces often appear as opposites (such as male/female, dark/light) or their union (such as pairing,

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marriage, sex). The unifying forces also appear as numbers and geometries reflecting centering, focus, wholeness, and completion (circle, spiral, square, 4, and such). You might recognize these archetypal forces or motifs in the dream of the rusty car. The dream introduced an invisible but guiding companion that suggests an alternative or compensating scenario to that of the dream self or ego, and then rewards the dream self when it follows the guidance. The opposing forces, or conscious/unconscious belief systems (man in airplane vs. priest with gun), were also seen in the Latin priest dream, along with the centering force of the priest in the center of the circle and airplane spiraling in. Condensation of Personal and Archetypal Imagery In terms of meaning, condensation extends to combining personal and collective unconscious (archetypal) content within the same image or scene. This observation can help to better understand the full context of that image or scene. Archetypal content may be found within the descriptors, such as the shape or color of an object; its direction of movement; or how it combines with archetypal motifs, as described in the last section. In the Latin priest dream, the single image of the priest with a gun is a combination of personal and archetypal imagery: the priest with the gun (a representation of the resistance of the dreamer’s personal religious upbringing) combined with the archetypal black (the unconscious shadow opposing the aims of the ego). We also see the personal unconscious memories of his childhood upbringing (the Latin American village) merged with the archetypal center-oriented circular patterns and spiral motifs (a wholeness pattern focusing the ego on the conflict at the center of the situation). SIGNIFICANCE OF COLOR One of the surprising facts about dreaming is that most dreams appear to contain color, even though we rarely recall the color upon awakening. In a laboratory setting, when subjects are awakened during a REM stage of sleep and immediately asked about the color of the images in their dreams, roughly 80–97 percent of the subjects (depending on the study) recall some color (Schredl, 2008; Schredl et al., 2008). It should be noted that the amount of color found in research studies before and after 1953, when REM was discovered, varied widely (with less color reported before that time), largely due to a change in research methodology. With proper awakening and questioning during or after the REM period, most dreams are found to contain some color content. Unfortunately, the early results, many of which were based on surveys rather than reports collected in a laboratory, and some misconceptions about dreaming led to early speculations and myths among the general population and even psychologists that dreams are inherently in black and white. Color recall, just as with any dream content, seems to be a function of memory and our attention to color as we report the dream (Schredl, 2008). Most recent

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surveys indicate that the number of persons who state that they dream completely in black and white is rather small (more often in the 0%–6.6% range), although some report it in the 20 percent range, depending on how the question is asked (Schredl et al., 2008). In spontaneous dream reports (those remembered upon waking and written down some time thereafter), the color recall drops from that of the lab reports to only about 29 percent in an early Calvin Hall study (Van de Castle, 1994) and with a range of 11–29 percent in various studies reported by Michael Schredl (2008). But if the person is awakened during REM sleep, color is mentioned in as many as 46 percent of dream reports, and if the subject is asked explicitly for colors in their reports, the percentage of dreams with colors increased to about 80 percent in most studies and to as much as 97.3 percent (Schredl, 2008; Schredl et al., 2008). Color reporting appears to be memory related. In 2008, Schredl et al. compared the results of testing for waking memory for color and dreaming memory for color, with 49 subjects, and found waking and dreaming color recall to be similar. The study also found that dream color recall was a function of how soon after the dream the subjects were asked about color. When asked retrospectively, about 10 percent of the elements were recalled as black and white. When the colors were to be reported immediately after dream recall, the black-and-white elements dropped to 2.7 percent. The study also demonstrated that previously reported numbers of 20 percent of black-and-white dream elements was likely overstated because the subjects were not specifically asked whether they remembered the colors of the elements. A 444-person study (Schredl et al., 2008) compared color memory for film and dreams in relation to personality, creativity, and visual color memory factors. He found the same percentage of recall at about 20 percent, as in other studies of spontaneous dream reports. Persons with good recall of details and visual memory reported colors in the film and their dreams more often. The result was that the attitude measures were related to colors in dreams but not the actual preoccupation with creative activities. Color and Emotion Color reporting was shown to diminish with memory and time, but it may be as much a result of attention to color when journaling the dream, unless the color stands out or seems important. Robert Van de Castle (1994) theorized that we tend to recall color images that captured our attention due to the higher emotional intensity they represent. Ernest Hartmann suggested that the more powerful the emotion, the more intense the image (see Chapter 12). Eva Murzyn (2008) found that color dreams were likely to be recalled more than colorless ones, emotional intensity being a possible factor. The limbic system and amygdala, involved in stimulating arousal and attention, are active in REM sleep. Because they play a role in associating sensory information with emotion—essentially placing an emotional “tag” on visual imagery—it follows that colors (as images) may also be tagged with an emotional association.

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Indeed, waking-state research in the field of color psychology supports the relationship of color to emotion (Hoss, 2010). In some studies, researchers found that the human brain and autonomic nervous system respond subliminally (unconsciously, or below our threshold of awareness) to color. In these studies, color appeared to evoke neural and emotional responses that were different for different colors—some of which we are consciously familiar with. Blue, for example, was found to calm the parasympathetic branch of the autonomous nervous system, and red to excite the sympathetic branch; each color causes decreases and increases, respectively, in heartbeat, respiration, and other autonomic functions (Lüscher, 1971). The brain responds emotionally to color as well. The responses to red are alerting and arousal, an outward focus, inciting activity, aggression, and emotionally determined action or desire. The responses to greens and blues are withdrawal and retreat inward, meditation, and relaxation (Brown, 1974; Goldstein, 1942). Might the color that combines with a dream image add an emotional bias to the personal meaning of that image? A woman who had for years been suppressing her desire to (in her words) “go out and live life” to stay home and take care of her troubled daughter dreamed that “there were two women going into town wearing red hats, and [they] suddenly sank into the ground.” Picturing suppression as something sinking into the ground may seem an obvious metaphor, but what of the red hats? They could have easily been any color. Red was an appropriate expression of her suppressed “emotionally determined action or desire”—to go out and live life. Once she understood the dream, she sent her daughter out and “went to town,” where she enjoyed male companionship for the first time in years. Likewise, on the first night of a vacation, a man who was exhausted by overwork on his job to the point of total exhaustion and wanting to quit dreamed of a solution that appeared as “a blue sphere which landed on my finger as if it were a magic ring.” Could the calming action of blue relate to a need for relaxation? After the vacation, his work anxiety disappeared. This early color research had an influence on product packaging, advertising, and the interior decorating industry, where subliminal emotional motivation is important to sales. Research on the subliminal influence of color also led to the development of the Lüscher color test in 1947 by Dr. Max Lüscher. The test related patterns of color preference to the subject’s emotional state. Although not considered as accurate specifically for personality testing as other more recently developed tools, such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), it is the only one that related color to emotional state and that enjoyed broad application early on in clinical settings as well as in industry for psychological screening. Robert Hoss explored the hypothesis that this same color-to-emotion association observed in the waking state might continue into the dream state. He reasoned that the same systems responsible for color-to-emotion association (in particular the limbic systems and ventral areas of the visual association cortex), which are active during REM sleep, might preserve the same associations in the dream state as in waking. A number of pilot studies were performed to test the idea (Hoss, 2010), which led to development of the Color Questionnaire (Table 22.1).

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The first indication that dream color may relate to emotion came when the emotional responses evoked when using Gestalt role-play with a colored dream image compared favorably to the emotional associations found in the Lüscher Color Test tool (Hoss, 2005). Although open to subjective interpretation, the results seemed promising and led to another study of 7,811 dream reports from three long-term journaling dreamers who provided color counts from their dream journals (Hoss & Hoffman, 2005). Using the Lüscher tool, emotional profiles containing 12 emotional personality profile characteristics were created based on the color-frequency patterns for each subject’s dreams. Self-grading of the profiles by the subjects resulted in subjects’ self-rating the accuracy between 75 percent and 91 percent. Although it was only a small number of subjects, the results again suggested a relationship between dream color and emotion. A single-subject study was then done to test the continuity hypothesis for emotional events and to explore whether an emotionally traumatic situation might be reflected by a corresponding change in color profile in one’s dreams (Hoss & Hoffmann, 2005; Hoss, 2010). A database of the color content of 4,791 dreams collected over an 11-year period was provided by the subject, who skeptically challenged the researcher to find the 1 year in that 11-year period when he had gone through a traumatic emotional situation. Emotional profiles were established for each of the 11 years based on the same procedure as above. The result was that the researcher was able to pick the exact period when the situation occurred and described the emotional state (which the subject scored as 81 percent accurate). Although no firm conclusions can be made from this series of small pilots, they suggest a relationship between dream color and emotion worthy of further study. These studies were followed by a large content-analysis study (Hoss, 2010) performed on a total of 38,063 dream reports from both the University of California, Santa Cruz, DreamBank.net database (reports that spanned the early 1900s to 2010) and from eight long-term dream journals. The study found that the most common frequency pattern of dream colors (relatively consistent across both databases and across the century) was a pattern consisting of a dominance of six colors: black and white (as a balanced pair) were present about twice as frequently as the next and relatively balanced grouping of red, yellow, blue, and green. In some data sets, red appeared slightly more frequently than the other three hues. It is uncertain why red would appear in higher frequency, although this may again suggest emotion as a factor. The most common emotion in dreams was found to be anxiety by Hall and Van de Castle (1966), and in waking-state studies, red has been demonstrated to increase anxiety (Lynch, 2007). Red was also found to attract attention faster than other colors, so the increased recall of red in spontaneous reports might be expected. Waking Influence on Color Aside from emotional influence, there are a number of theories on color in dreams, a dominant one being that the appearance of color in dreams (as does other imagery) follows the continuity hypothesis (Schredl, 2003) and reflects waking-life

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experience. If dream imagery represents waking-life emotion, then color in dreams may indeed reflect our waking-life emotional experience. But does dream color directly reflect our actual waking sensory experience? Although the color in most dream reports is observed to reflect the norms of waking perception (e.g., grass is typically green, and the sky is usually blue), it is where the color of an image can be anything (color of a hat or car or the dominant color recalled) that raises the question. An investigation by Roffwarg et al. (1978), using colored goggles worn during the day, resulted in the goggle color being present in the subject’s dreams; however, the report indicated that the effect dominated only the early sleep stages and “all but disappeared after the third REM stage.” Commenting on the study, Van de Castle (1994) stated that external stimuli has “only fleeting effects on dreams unless those stimuli have a strong affective (emotional) charge.” As mentioned above, the colors most often appearing in dreams were a dominant pairing of black and white and then a grouping of red, yellow, blue, and green (Hoss, 2010). This was followed by gray and brown (also see Schredl et al., 2008, where a similar pattern was found in a 444-person study). These do not compare favorably with the common color patterns we experience in waking. In our waking experience, blue and green, plus brown to tan tones with variations of gray, dominate. As one study on colors in our natural environment concluded, “We are used to backdrops composed of blues, yellows, and grays because we see them every day” (Wroblewski, 2003). It therefore appears that other factors besides our waking environment are involved in the creation of the dominant colors that are recalled in dreams. Although the percent of color in actual dream reports remained fairly constant across the century (Hoss, 2010; Schwitzgebel, 2006), the public perception of dreams being in color or black and white has varied. A perception had evolved early in the 20th century (at least in the United States), both in the general public as well as with psychologists, that dreams were inherently in black and white. This appeared to be based on a number of possible factors, including research methodology resulting in low color reporting, attitudes about dreams and color, and the stigma of dream color being higher in patients with mental disease. Early in the century, in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Freud regularly mentions color in dreams. But there appeared to be a drop in the reporting of color in dreams between the 1920s and 1950s. Research methodology at the time was mixed, with much of it based largely on survey questionnaires, which are subject to how the question was asked as well as to a person’s memory for estimating their dream experiences and their attitude about dreaming, rather than actual dream reports. This all changed with the discovery of REM sleep and changing research methodology after the 1950s timeframe. As early as 1962, a study found 83 percent of the dreams contained color when subjects were awakened during REM sleep and questioned about color (Kahn, 1962). In the 1960s, the scientific opinion therefore changed. Today, color in dreams is reported roughly 80 percent to almost 100 percent of the time, if recorded immediately upon awakening and being properly questioned about color.

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Spontaneous reports (recorded shortly after waking with or without standard reporting guidelines) result in less color reporting than well-structured questionnaires or utilization of laboratory methods, nonetheless they appear to provide consistent results over time in terms of color recall. In 1951, working with 10,000 spontaneous reports, Calvin S. Hall reported that 29 percent of dreams are either entirely in color or contain some color content. Results from the Hoss study (2010) indicate that spontaneous reports from large groups in the 1940s compared to those from large groups in the 1980s resulted in similar and consistent color-recall rates: 29.2 percent to 26.9 percent, respectively. Other individual studies have shown variations in spontaneous reports from around 10 percent to over 40 percent, depending on methodology. Aside from methodology changes, Schwitzgebel (2002) noted this apparent dip in dream color reporting between the 1920s and 1950s corresponded to the rise and fall of the opinion that we dream in black and white, which also coincided with the rise and fall of black-and-white film media. He felt it unlikely that dreams actually changed color and cited no apparent change in color terms in the mid to late century in dream reports (as also found in Hoss, 2010), but he speculated it might have to do with exposure to (emotional imprinting by) black-and-white versus color media during that period or that our opinions about the coloration of our dreams are “hostage to cultural influences.” In 2008, Eva Murzyn tested this hypothesis in a 60-subject study, with half over age 55 and half under 30, using both questionnaires and dream journal reports. The study resulted in the older group reporting about 25 percent more “black-andwhite” or grayscale dreams. A later study (Murzyn, 2012), where age and childhood experience with black-and-white media were investigated, concluded that media was not found to be a significant factor. In a later cross cultural (Chinese) survey study, Switzgebel (2006) concluded that whether a person thinks they dream in color or black and white may be more about that person’s cultural attitude or views about dreaming than their individual exposure to media. A content analysis (Hoss, 2010) of four large groups, two before and two after the period of media change, also indicated no significant change in the ratio of black-and-white to color patterns within the dreams over that time period (1,181 dreams collected by Calvin Hall in the 1940s and 2,458 dreams from subjects born before 1940 were compared to 1,584 dreams from subjects born after 1960 and 3,900 dreams from a post-1980 study). Although some controversy over early media influence continues, it appears unlikely, particularly since the results are confounded by cultural influence, memory factors, and research methods. Personal Preference Might it be that the majority of the colors we recall from our dreams are those that we hold a personal preference for? The Hoss (2010) study investigated personal preference and found little correlation with surveys on personal preference where favorite colors dominating the surveys were found to be blue followed by green, purple, red, and black (Cheskin, 2004), for example.

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Archetypal Color Patterns There was an interesting alignment in the patterns found in the content study above with an archetypal pattern that Jung attributed to integration and completion. The dominance of the black and white as a balanced pair was similar to the pattern Jung considered representative of a balance or integration of conscious and unconscious material within the personality. The relatively balanced quaternary of four colors—blue, red, green, and yellow—is also a pattern Jung considered representative of completion or a balancing the four functions of the personality: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition (see Chapter 15). Although the relation of the four colors to each of these personality functions is not obvious, the black-andwhite pattern and four-color grouping is often observed in dreams when there is an apparent conflict resolution that the dream is dealing with. The archetypal representation of color, as representing a unification process of opposing conditions in the personality, is addressed by Nigel Hamilton in Chapter 24. Hamilton discusses Jung’s description of the four alchemical stages of nigredo (black), albedo (whiteness), citrinitas (yellowness), and rubedo (redness) and the relation of these stages to the psychological process of individuation, or in Hamilton’s words, “the ascent of consciousness towards a clear or pure sense of self.” Neurobiology of Color Perception This common color pattern (black and white, red, yellow, blue, and green) also aligns with the operation of neurological systems understood to be involved in the perception of color. The opponent-process theory of color perception (Schiffman, 1976) contends that the eye-brain system processes the trichromatic information from the eye at a more complex level based on hue cancellation between three opponent channels: red versus green, blue versus yellow, and black versus white. While specific colors in specific dreams have been shown to reflect specific emotional states, when averaged across a large group of dreams, dream color could be in part reflecting a function of our visual processing system. “Meaning” of Dream Color In terms of the meaning of color in dreams, there is no systematically proven answer. While the pilot studies described above highly suggest that dream color relates to emotional response, emotional intensity, and continuity with emotional experiences from waking life, archetypal and neurological relationships cannot be ruled out. Certainly, as with any dream image, color can also trigger a memory (e.g., the color of your first car). At times, color may even be incorporated as a cultural speech metaphor (e.g., “green with envy”). However, it is helpful when working with a dream to assume that color in dreams, as in waking life, has a predominantly emotional association. When working with color in a dream, the dreamer or practitioner may ask what feelings the color in the dream evokes when the dreamer envisions himself or herself illuminated with that color and then explore those

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feelings in relation to the situation the dream appears to be dealing with. Also, the above-mentioned color psychology studies resulted in the development of the Color Questionnaire (see Hoss, 2005, and Table 22.1 in Chapter 22) that can be a helpful aid in dreamwork exploration of personal associations with color. EXCEP TION TO SYMBOLIC CONTENT: EPISODIC REPLAY The exception to considering all dream imagery to be largely symbolic or representative of some latent content might be trauma-related dreams, in particular posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cases, where much or all of a nightmare seems to be a replay of the traumatic event. Stanley Krippner states that these severe, lifelike replays are not characterized by metaphor or symbol and therefore should not be treated by interpretation of the narrative or imagery: “The time is better used in modifying the nightmare and resolving the issues it presents” (Krippner, 2011). Ernest Hartmann (2011), on the other hand, citing his research work and clinical work with veterans, determined that, upon examination, even these repetitive post-traumatic dreams turn out to be creations, not simple replays of waking events. He states that by examining the dream in detail, the dream is not “just the way it [the original event] was.” There is generally at least one important change as the dreaming mind attempts to gain mastery over the situation (see also Chapter 17, “Nightmare Therapies”). Veterans often have tragic or terrifying stories to tell, but the following nightmare that began in childhood may serve as a simple example of how many years a traumatic event can replay itself in a nightmare, along with associated peripheral imagery: I had a recurrent nightmare all my life from the time I was a child. I always see the same airplane diving down and shooting at me. It comes so close I can see the face of the pilot looking at me. I was reluctant to tell my mother, who I felt did not put much importance in dreams, but finally did so later in my adult life. When I told her, she said, “Oh you can remember that? It actually happened when you were 18 months old.” We had been living in Europe during WWII, and while trying to run for shelter, we were attacked by an airplane.”

Once her mother revealed the story, her mind could now unconsciously place this memory in a nonthreatening context, and nightmarish replay never returned.

Typical or Universal Dream Themes Robert J. Hoss

“What does it mean to dream of your teeth falling out?” This along with being naked in public, chased, lost, forgetting or being late for something, flying or falling, and such have fallen into the category of “universal” or “typical” dreams in our

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popular culture. The term “typical dreams” was first coined by Freud, who thought they were dreamed by and had the same meaning for most everyone. The reality is that something like “teeth falling out,” which anywhere from 18 percent to almost 50 percent of subjects surveyed claim to remember dreaming at least once, appears less than 1 percent of the time in actual dream reports. Even the most commonly recalled (80%–90%) theme of being chased or pursued appears in only about 5 percent of dreams. Chapter 6 includes a thorough discussion of the topic, along with an explanation of why these themes might be so frequently recalled when the actual frequency of occurrence in dreams is very low. In a nutshell, we recall having these dreams because they are memorable or impactful in some way, metaphorically descriptive of an emotionally significant experience in our lives, or analogous to the emotions felt during that experience. Chapter 18 also describes how these themes might metaphorically describe emotionally significant events during life transitions.

Chapter 15

INFLUENTIAL CONTRIBU TIONS TO DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

Ever since the time of Sigmund Freud, many theories on dreams have been proposed and then tested through empirical research. All have led to a better understanding of sleep, dreaming, and how to understand and work with our dreams. This understanding that has evolved over time is still evolving. For the purpose of simply putting the development in perspective, a few representative contributors and contributions will be described that have in some way made a unique contribution to the science and psychology of dreaming and the practice of dreamwork. Following the historical summary, four of the pioneers are highlighted whose basic concepts have been adopted and adapted in various degrees to the vast multitude of approaches in today’s dreamwork: Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Fritz Perls, and Montague Ullman. There are many more individuals and contributions that could have been described in this section, and many others are referenced in, or authors of, other sections in this book.

Historical Perspective Robert J. Hoss

Sigmund Feud and Carl Gustav Jung were perhaps the earliest pioneers in dreamwork. At the beginning of the last century, they not only established major psycho­ logical theories of the human psyche and dreaming, but they considered dreams to carry significant weight in their approach to treating psychological problems. Since that time, a number of theoreticians and practitioners have refined, refuted, combined, synthesized, questioned, and established their own approaches to

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dreamwork. There are many ways to categorize the ever-varying approaches, but a general evolution herein follows both the timing of a few of the influential pioneering contributions as the field grew as well as the contributions within various movements along with science and research. PIONEERS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL DREAM THEORY Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. Perhaps among his most impactful contributions was the practice of dream analysis and developing a concept of the unconscious and bringing an awareness to the nature and importance of dreams—as the “royal road” to the unconscious. A simple view of Freud’s model of the human psyche is shown (beside that of Jung) in his famous “iceberg” diagram (see Figure 15.1). He defined the conscious mind as that mainly above the surface and the ego as spanning the conscious and preconscious, being involved in decision making and mediating between the unconscious ID and the external world. He considered the preconscious to be just below the threshold of awareness or surface of consciousness, containing contents that were once conscious, such as memories and emotions that have not been repressed and that can potentially be recalled. Freud defined a deeper level of the unconscious that contains repressed material as the id (a primitive part of the psyche containing our motivations and instincts that operates on the pleasure principle and wish fulfillment). He also defined a superego that contains learned values and morals of society, our “conscience,” and a model of the ideal self. He considered the id as involved in primary process thinking (which uses symbols and metaphor and is focused on immediate gratification of instinctual demands and drives) and preconscious as secondary process thinking (controlled by the ego and influenced by environmental demands). He suggested that a primary function of dreams was satisfaction of primitive and infantile wishes, but to protect the ego, those wishes need to be concealed in the symbolic imagery so as to preserve sleep (primary process thinking). His approach to understanding the unconscious through dreams was to use free association and other means to discover the latent or censored meaning that is concealed under the manifest dream content. Carl Jung (1875–1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. He was a colleague of Freud’s and similarly considered dreams to be “the most readily accessible expression of the unconscious processes.” Unlike Freud, however, he contended that dreams do not disguise but rather express, in symbolic form, the actual situation in the unconscious and that the symbolism is simply the language of the unconscious mind. Jungian therapy (unlike Freudian) is less concerned with the past and repressed childhood experiences; it emphasizes the present and the future. His view of the psyche also consisted of the conscious and the unconscious, but the nature of those components differed from Freud’s (see Figure 15.1). Jung defined the unconscious as consisting of a personal unconscious (a storehouse of memories not presently conscious as well as suppressed or disowned parts of our personality) and a collective unconscious (nonpersonal, human

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Figure 15.1. Differing “Iceberg” Models of the Psyche—Freud and Jung.

species–wide, inherited, and instinctive material). Within the collective is the Self, a central organizing principle for the personality and an inner model of the entire psyche—conscious and unconscious—from which the whole structural development of the conscious individual (“individuation”) stems. He worked with a dream as if it were a message in an unknown language to be translated using amplification (a “subjective” approach to explore personal associations) and an “objective” archetypal interpretation, along with active imagination. Alfred Adler (1870–1937) was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. He was also an early associate of Freud’s, but he minimized the role of the unconscious, proposing that we are primarily motivated by innate social drives that could be modified by cultural and family experiences. Adler’s view was “the more the individual’s goals agreed with reality, the less a person dreams.” He advanced some important theories, however: that dreams originate in unfinished and unresolved social problems and are oriented toward the future; that dreams are the product of a particular lifestyle and in turn build up and enforce this style; and that (as opposed to finding solutions within the dream) the pictures produced in dreams arouse emotions that we need for our purpose, “solving problems confronting us at the time” (Van de Castle, 1994). He did not use dreams extensively in his practice and did not encourage associations with uncovering individual imagery but rather more global associations that might illuminate the dreamer’s general lifestyle. William Stekel (1868–1940) was an Austrian physician and psychologist and one of Freud’s earliest followers. In 1943, he published The Interpretation of Dreams: New Developments and Technique. He made significant contributions to Freud’s understanding of symbolism in dreams (as Freud acknowledged). He emphasized the importance of the first dream that a patient reported in therapy as revealing their life’s conflicts, among other factors. He saw dreams as revealing a struggle between good and evil, or “analogic trends” (idealism, morality, ethics, social

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concerns) versus “katagogic trends” (dominated by impulses and instincts). His interpretive approach was to simply extract the main themes of the dream and then look for these two trends. He also noted that dreams of a client may be produced in the dialect or form that “pleases the analyst.” He supported the existence of telepathic dreams in his book Der Telepathische Traum. Samuel Lowy was a Czech psychiatrist who authored the Psychological and Biological Foundations of Dream Interpretation in 1942. He advanced a psychophysiological theory of dreams and the understanding of how affect (emotion) plays a role in dreams—there being both a conceptual element and an “affect-energy” or somatic factor. He introduced the idea that physical changes such as digestion, illness, and the like produce stimuli that cause dreams as well as such changes as anxiety, anger, and sexual impulses. Dreaming is thus part of a broader regulatory mechanism. He proposed that it is biologically necessary that we experience dream images during sleep, as they are a part of affect regulation, but it is not very important whether we remember them. Fritz Perls (1893–1970) was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist. In the 1940s and 1950s, Perls, with his wife, Laura Perls, developed Gestalt therapy. It falls within the class of humanistic psychotherapies or existentialphenomenological approaches. At the core of the Gestalt therapy process is enhanced awareness of sensation, perception, bodily feelings, emotion, and behavior in the present moment. Relationship is emphasized, along with contact between the self, its environment, and the other. Gestalt means “whole,” or the totality of the inner and outer self in its environment, and much like Jung, Perls considered the aim to be closure or becoming “whole” and re-owning the fragmented or “alienated” parts of the personality. One of his valuable contributions to dreamwork was Gestalt role-play, or “becoming that thing in the dream,” experiencing it, and allowing the unconscious emotional expression (or conflicted “impasses”) that it contains to come forth. His theories and methods are featured later in this chapter. Thomas French published The Integrative Process in Dreams in 1954 and later coauthored Dream Interpretation with Erica Fromm. He contended that dreams have a sense and meaning similar to and continuous with the thoughts of waking life dominated by the need to find a solution to a problem. He advanced a “focal conflict” theory, whereby a dream might focus on a recent problem growing out of a difficulty in interpersonal relations, which in turn are related to earlier problems from the dreamer’s life, all of which network in the dream to produce the manifest dream content. Considering the dream as an attempt to discover solutions, the dream will review successful solutions to past problems. Erik Erikson (1902–1994) was a German-born American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychosocial development and for coining the phrase “identity crisis.” He was also one of the originators of ego psychology, which stressed the role of the ego as being more than a servant of the id. His contribution to dreamwork was an extensive systematic approach that focused on verbal, sensory, spatial, temporal, somatic interpersonal, and affective elements of the manifest content, including concepts of socialization and ego identity.

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Calvin S. Hall (1909–1985) was an American psychologist who made major contributions, early in his career to the study of temperament and behavior genetics, and in the 1940s, he began systematic research on dreams. In 1953, he published two articles in the Journal of General Psychology on his cognitive and metaphoric theories of dreaming: “A Cognitive Theory of Dreams” and “A Cognitive Theory of Dream Symbols.” He theorized dream images are visual representations of personal unconscious conceptions of self; others; the world; impulses, prohibitions, and penalties; and problems and conflicts. Whereas an approach for studying the content of dreams was first published in 1893 by Mary Whiton Calkins (the first female president of the American Psychological Association), Hall developed with Robert Van de Castle a quantitative coding system, publishing it as The Content Analysis of Dreams in 1966 (see Chapter 6). G. William Domhoff is a research professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who developed the neurocognitive theory of dreams and published The Scientific Study of Dreams in 2003 (see Chapter 3). He has advanced the work with content analysis, including the establishment of the DreamBank.net database, which contains over 30,000 dream reports for content studies. He sees dream content as a mental profile of the dreamer and contends that dreams have meaning, as content can be correlated with other variables, such as age, gender, culture, and personal preoccupations. Harry Hunt is a Canadian psychologist, and in his 1989 book, A Multiplicity of Dreams, he observed that there are many types of dreams and classified them systematically: personal-mnemonic, medical-somatic, prophetic, archetypal-spiritual, nightmares, and lucid dreams. He argued that there are so many different types of dreams that there would be no single common physiological denominator that would account for them all and that they are so multifaceted in nature that they can have many levels of meaning. Ernest Hartmann (1934–2013) was a professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine. He directed the Sleep Disorders Center at Newton-Wellesley Hospital and was the first editor in chief of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) journal Dreaming. Some of his major contributions include the development of the boundary theory, described in Boundaries: New Way to Look at the World ( 2011); the concept of the central image (CI) as representing the emotional state of the dreamer; and his contemporary theory, both featured in The Nature and Functions of Dreaming in 2011 (see Chapters 3 and 12). He considered dreaming as relating to current-life emotional concerns and a mode of thinking that is on a continuum with waking consciousness, rather than a completely “other” or “unconscious” phenomenon. F URTHER CONTRIBU TIONS TO THE EVOLU TION OF DREAMWORK Each of the pioneers of psychological theory described above generally developed, prescribed, and practiced an approach to working with dreams that fit within their theoretical construct. Most of those mentioned used dreams as part of the

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psychotherapeutic process. Others, such as Emil A. Gutheil (who in 1951 published The Handbook of Dream Analysis) and Schultz-Hencke (who in Germany in the 1970s developed neopsychoanalysis), also emphasized working with dreams in therapeutic settings. There were a number of other early innovators who focused on developing effective approaches for working with dreams in clinical and nonclinical settings, a few of whom are listed below. Dreamwork began to move from a hierarchical approach, where the analyst was the interpreter of the meaning of the dream, to approaches where the analyst and the client together discovered the meaning or that guided the dreamer to discover the meaning of the dream. Hypnotherapy Erika Fromm (1909–2003) was a German American psychologist and cofounder of hypnoanalysis. In 1964, she coauthored, with Thomas French, Dream Interpretation—A New Approach. They depart from Freud in that they contend that conflicts represented in dreams are attempts to resolve current situations, as opposed to expressions of unresolved childhood conflicts. She considered hypnosis, like the dream, to be a road to the unconscious and considered it to be an effective and faster way to help people work through issues than psychoanalysis. Body-Focused Dreamwork Eugene Gendlin (1926–2017). In Chapter 21, Leslie Ellis describes body-focused dreamwork, which was first developed by Eugene Gendlin, an American philosopher. Together with Carl Rogers in the 1950s and 1960s, they demonstrated that lasting positive change in psychotherapy depended on the client’s innate ability to access a nonverbal bodily feel of the issues that brought them into therapy, which he called the intuitive “felt sense.” Extending this to dreamwork, he authored Let Your Body Interpret Your Dreams in 1986, where he formulated a series of questions to ask of the dream to be answered as the dreamer senses a response, waiting beyond the initial response to discover how the body responds with a uniquely different answer than the initial cognitive response, which allows something to break through “directly from the unconscious.” He taught that looking to a dream to make the right decision can be severely misleading. Dreams do not react to decisions; they react to the previous day and a change in the person. One dream may favor one approach, while the next dream favors another. Existential-Phenomenological Approaches In the 1950s, a movement began that distanced dreamwork from the underlying psychological assumption that dreams emanate from the “unconscious.” In this approach, dreams should be seen from the here-and-now experience of the dream. Rather than a reliance on the expertise of the analytic translator, the dreamer’s own encounter and discovery of the meaning emerging from their dream as connected to their waking life became primary. Note that (as above) the Gestalt

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therapy process of Fritz and Laura Perls was considered a part of this movement along with the approaches of Ludwig Binswanger, Medard Boss, James Hillman, and Montague Ullman (summarized below). In varying degrees, these approaches treat the dream as an authentic human experience, not to be reduced to a message, a symptom, or a function. This implies that the benefit of psychological insight is not to interpret the dream or resolve it as a problem, but to acknowledge and fully experience it as with other activities in our life. In addition to these thinkers (discussed below), others have recently contributed unique existential thinking to dreamwork (in Caperton, 2012). In 2006, Craig and Walsh introduced the idea that dreams presents us with three sorts of existential possibilities: “those possibilities of our lives that we openly acknowledge on a daily basis while fully awake; those possibilities that we acknowledge in our waking life but which . . . we choose to ignore; (and those) possibilities that help constitute our waking experience but that . . . we do not recognize at all.” In 2006, Darren Langdridge suggested that persons make sense of their own identity through developing a story about their life; he therefore attends to the stories of selfhood that the client presents within the context of the “play space” of the dream. Ludwig Binswanger (1881–1966) was a Swiss psychiatrist and pioneer in the field of existential psychology, and he was considered influential in making the concepts of existential psychology known in Europe and the United States. His book Dream and Existence (1954) introduced the existential approach of “steeping oneself in the manifest content of the dream.” Walter Bonime (1909–2001) published The Clinical Use of Dreams in 1962. Though Bonime embraced a neo-Freudian orientation, he de-emphasized the role of instinct and emphasized the role of social influences, learning, and collaboration in the discovery of meaning and the importance of recognizing feeling representations in dreams. Medard Boss (1903–1990) was a Swiss psychoanalytic psychiatrist who developed a form of psychotherapy known as Daseinsanalysis, which united psychoanalysis with the existential-phenomenological philosophy of his friend and mentor Martin Heidegger (whose philosophical concept of “being in the world” replaced such terms as subject, object, consciousness, and world). His approach to dreams, described in 1959 in The Analysis of Dreams, emphasized that dreams are “not something we have, they are an aspect of our being—we are our dreaming state,” and, forgoing all hypothesis, he advocated studying the dream itself as a phenomenon to see what could be learned directly. He looked at the dream as if it were a mirror and was not concerned with deeper layers of meaning. He saw the dream as a candid portrait of what the dreamer was experiencing at that point in time as well as how the dreamer was facing the as yet unlived possibilities of “being” (Van de Castle, 1994). Boss emphasized the importance of not transforming the images to meanings outside of their actuality, but lifting out what is already in the image, ontonically and ontologically. The ontonic layer refers to the immediately understood, everyday meaning of a particular image. The ontologic layer refers to the reflected upon formal structure, the things that define a set of beings as beings (e.g., if upon dreaming of a tree the dreamer should consider not just this particular tree, but tree-ness

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as well). Once Boss felt he understood the dream “picture,” he presented the view to the dreamer and asked the dreamer to recall any situations portrayed by the themes. As the dreamer brought forth memories, he echoed it in a manner that put it into a lifetime perspective. James Hillman (1926–2011) was an American psychologist and the director of studies at the Jung Institute in Zürich for 10 years. He authored Re-visioning Psychology in 1975 and The Dream and the Underworld in 1979. He founded a movement called archetypal psychology, which focused on the psyche as purposeful. Rather than the psyche containing a centrally organizing Self, he stressed a polycentric and mutating nature to our being. In contrast to Jung’s compensation theory, Hillman stated that dreams are an “initiation” that tell us where we are, not what to do. He also rejected the Jungian notion of wholeness, progress, and individuation, stating that dreams are not intended to complete ego consciousness but to temper it, qualify it, and perhaps to “erase” it. Hillman’s approach to dreamwork is less analytic or interpretive and more phenomenological. His approach sticks with the images, describing the dream in its fullness and “keeping the dream alive” with the idea that encountering these images deepens our capacity to hear and explore psychological experience and extends consciousness or our sense of personal identity to contain their potentials. He considered known figures in dreams as representing their archetypal essence as opposed to their actual biological one. He rejected the notion that an interpretation is verified by the dreamer’s surprise or resonance, stating that it simply shows the interpretation agrees with the values of the ego. W. A. Shelburn disagreed (as published in the Journal of Analytical Psychology in 1984), contending the ego does have a special role to play within the psyche that, through evolution, has enabled us to live successfully in the actual world and that a successful interpretation does not simply reinforce the ego point of view but challenges and brings something new into ego consciousness. Montague Ullman (1916–2008) was a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and parapsychologist who founded the Dream Laboratory at the Maimonides Medical Center in New York, where, among other activities, he researched extrasensory dreams with Stanley Krippner (see Chapter 11 for details). He was in the forefront of the movement to stimulate public interest in dreams (which some refer to as the “grassroots movement”) and to encourage the development of dream-sharing groups by using an approach he detailed in his 1979 book Working with Dreams and termed “dream appreciation.” His approach is perhaps best known from the phrase “If this were my dream . . .,” where during the process, members of the dream group take the dream on and project their own meaning on it as if it were their dream; these suggestions then trigger the dreamer’s own associations with their waking-life situation. A more detailed discussion of his work is featured later in this chapter. Contemporary Dreamworking Approaches Within the last few decades, a proliferation of dreamworking approaches and techniques have been evolving though creative innovation and, in part, derivation from one or more of the concepts put forth by those discussed above.

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A representative selection of these are introduced in Chapters 20–23. Many have been developed as clinical protocols or integrated with clinical or therapeutic techniques, with measured results, as discussed in Chapter 16. It is not entirely accurate to group and categorize these approaches, but for practical reasons, some grouping by general methodology is done here. Group and Projective Dreamwork Approaches

Perhaps growing out of the existential-phenomenological movement (see above) and humanistic movement (looking at human behavior through the eyes of the person doing the behaving) and Montague Ullman’s work in the 1970s, a new approach to dreamwork emerged—one aimed at taking the interpretation of the dream out of the realm of the therapist and placing the ultimate understanding with the dreamer. This gave rise to the group style of dreamwork as well as an Ullman style of “projection,” whereby the group, or even the practitioner, projected on the dream as if it were their own. The idea was that the projection would trigger the dreamer’s personal associations or recognition of analogies between the group insights and the dreamer’s own life situation. The discussion of group work and group projective dreamwork by Jeremy Taylor and others who advanced these approaches can be found in Chapter 20. Individual Dreamwork Associative Approaches

These are approaches focus on working with the individual dreamer as opposed to group sharing, although the individual work can be done in a group setting. Chapter 21 groups some representative approaches under the classification (for convenience) of “associative,” as they are based to a degree on the recognition that the manifest dream contains elements or images that represent in some way the personal associations of the dreamer. The idea is to reveal, understand, and work with those associations in relation to the situation in the dreamer’s waking life. Included in Chapter 21 are (a) the dream interview method (DIM) of Gayle Delayne, which uses a progression of queries to unfold the dream metaphors and how they shed light on waking situations; (b) Teresa DeCicco’s Storytelling Method (TSM), which is a systematic approach for recording the dreamer’s associations and retelling the narrative using those associations; (c) the theme-focused approach of Robert P. Gongloff that relates dream themes to life themes; (d) Milton Kramer’s dream translation method, which explores each element in the manifest dream, relating each in somewhat of a Freudian manner to the story of the dreamer’s life; and (e) Ernest Hartmann’s contemporary approach, which begins with a focus on the central image (CI). Integrative Approaches

Chapter 22 introduces a representative sample of approaches that integrate derivations of various classical approaches with their own innovations, and in some cases with therapeutic methods, to bring about some degree of closure. The design of these methods extends beyond understanding or gaining insight to include techniques for dealing with the life issues that the dream appears to be addressing.

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Representative approaches in this chapter include (a) the cognitive-experiential model of Clara Hill, which combines psychoanalytic, existential-phenomenological, Gestalt, and behavioral approaches in three stages related to exploration, insight, and action (this approach has been the subject of extensive efficacy research; also see Chapter 16); (b) cognitive behavioral approaches described by Jacques Montangero, which aim to make clients aware of distorted thinking and modify aspects of their behavior accordingly; (c) the Transformative Dreamwork protocol of Robert Hoss, which combines Jungian and a scripted Gestalt role-play approach with a closure technique based on adaptive learning theory; (d) the co-creative paradigm of G. Scott Sparrow, which views the dream and the client’s progress as part of an interactive process; (e) Robbie Bosnak’s embodied imagination, which reenters and works on a dream from within its own perspective; and (f ) Integral Dreaming by Fariba Bogzaran and Daniel Deslauriers, which stresses a holistic, multidisciplinary approach. Another of note is (g) Steven Aisenstat’s Dream Tending, whereby the dream presents living reality that you can engage with, reimagine, and learn from in your daily life. Finally, there is (h) Michael Schredl’s Listening to the Dreamer method, which is described in more detail in Chapter 16, along with the results of efficacy studies. It is a six-stage method that asks open-ended questions to encourage the dreamer to make connections between the dream and their waking life, which can lead to insights, as well as a final stage that asks the dreamer whether they would like to act differently now from what they did within the dream and whether some of the insights into the dream situation can be used for changing waking behavior. THE CONTRIBU TION OF RESEARCH Although this chapter has a focus on psychological theory and practice, much of what we understand of the psychological nature of dreaming and effective dreamwork practices comes from the substantiation and findings from research. Many of the people mentioned above were researchers, but there have been hundreds of others, including the authors in this book, whose studies have developed our understanding of dreaming. A brief history is provided here. Perhaps what may be considered modern sleep and dream research began with Nathaniel Kleitman, when in 1953 he and one of his students, Eugene Aserinsky, made the landmark discovery of rapid eye movement (REM) during sleep. Another of Kleitman’s students, William Dement, in 1957 and 1958, established the relationship between REM sleep and dreaming. Michel Jouvet then identified REM sleep as an independent state of alertness resembling wakefulness, which he called “paradoxical sleep.” The importance of REM sleep was investigated. In 1960, Dement (followed by others, such as Rosalind Cartwright) also studied the psychological effects of REM deprivation by waking subjects just as the REM sleep phase began; he observed increased tension, anxiety, and irritability and hallucinatory tendencies in the subjects, suggesting that REM sleep and perhaps dreaming has profound importance and that REM sleep, and possibly dream, deprivation can have serious consequences.

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In 1966, Calvin S. Hall and Robert Van de Castle developed a systematic content analysis method of studying dreams (Chapter 6). Research in the 1960s and 1970s helped us better understand how dreams form (Chapter 12). Dreams were first thought to be primarily a REM sleep phenomenon, generated by chaotic firing signals from the pons, with the brain attempting to make sense of the random images generated by these firings. This contributed to the Hobson and McCarley’s activation syntheses theory of dreaming. In the early 1960s, however, researchers such as David Foulkes, George Vogel, Rosalind Cartwright, Donald R. Goodenough, and others also discovered that reports of complex mentation could be elicited from other stages of sleep (in 1962, Foulkes reported as many as 50% of awakenings from non-REM sleep) (see the “Dream Recall and Content in Different Sleep Stages” section in Chapter 6). In 1999, Mark Solms proposed and provided evidence that dreaming is generated by a different mechanism that is not dependent on the REM oscillator in the pons. In the mid-1990s, PET-based imaging studies began with research teams led by Pierre Maquet, Allen R. Braun, and Eric Nofzinger, among others. Neuroimaging research, which augmented EEG and lesions studies (see Chapter 2), helped to formulate hypotheses relating brain state to the nature of dreaming, the occurrence and recall of dreaming, and possible psychological functions and cognitive processes as hypothesized by Edward Pace-Schott, Martin Desseilles, Thien Thanh Dang-Vu, Sophie Schwartz, and others. Finding that the limbic system was highly activated in REM sleep gave rise to an interest in the role of emotion in dreaming (see Chapters 3, 6, and 12). Maquet, in 1998, proposed that the apparent orchestration of cortical activity by the amygdala during REM sleep may be a selective processing of emotionally relevant memories. Research, such as that by Patrick McNamara, found emotional content to be present in NREM dreams as well, although differing in some ways to that in REM. Research by Eric Nofzinger, David Foulkes, Thien Thanh Dang-Vu, Sophie Schwartz, Lampros Perogamvros, and others increased our understanding of the role that the limbic system and emotional reward circuits might play, providing biological support to the mood-regulation and stress-adaption theories of Milton Kramer, Els Van der Helm, Donald Stewart, and David Koulack (see Chapter 12). The emotional processes in dream sleep has also been related to our emotional life by researchers such as Rosalind Cartwright, Ernest Hartmann, Jessica Payne, Erin Wamsley, Josie Malinowski, and Caroline Horton (see Chapters 3 and 12). Researchers that include Antonio Zadra, Ernest Hartmann, Tore Nielsen, Ross Levin, Michael Schredl, Stanley Krippner, Deirdre Barrett, and others have increased our understanding of nightmares in relation to our waking-life stress and traumas (Chapters 8 and 17). Research dating back to 1977 with Harry Fiss and continuing today with research on memory processes by Robert Stickgold, Matthew Walker, Erin Wamsley, and others supports a possible learning function to dreaming (per Chapter 13). Studies such as those by Philippe Peigneux and Carlyle Smith have demonstrated improvements in postsleep task learning. Matthew Wilson and his team at MIT have demonstrated task learning by directly monitoring the neural activity in mice. Patrick McNamara found counterfactual operations present in dreaming that

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suggest the testing of “what-if ” scenarios. Adaptive learning (the ability to reactivate emotional memories, identify threats, and deal with them by simulating and testing action plans) has been suggested in studies by Fred Levin, Antti Revonsuo, Donald Stewart and David Koulack, Robert Stickgold, Richard Coutts, Ernest Hartmann, and others (Chapters 3 and 13). Recent research by Allan Hobson, Edward Pace-Schott, Robert Stickgold, and others has characterized a cognitive capability in the dream state (see Chapters 3, 12, and 13). Deirdre Barrett, Bernard Welt, and many others (Chapters 10 and 25) report a creative capability to dreaming that can influence creations in the arts and sciences, or “thinking in [a] different biochemical state,” as Barrett puts it. Research has also led to a better understanding of the meaning of dreams (Chapter 14). The concept of dreaming in metaphors was described by such researchers as Montague Ullman, Ernest Hartmann, and G. William Domhoff. Recent research by Erin Wamsley and Jessica Payne found that sleep preferentially processes emotional memories and extracts and processes the general theme, or “gist.” Josie Malinowski and Caroline Horton found that memory fragments that are activated during sleep produce measurable elements of picture metaphors that we see as the imagery in our dreams. Researchers such as Michael Schredl have discovered that most dreams, 80 percent to almost 100 percent, are in color if the question of color is asked of the subject upon waking. A strong relation between dream color and emotion has also been suggested by the studies of Robert Hoss (Chapter 14). In 1975, Keith Hearne (and Steven LaBerge independently in 1978) discovered that the phenomenon of lucid dreaming was an actual state of consciousness while in a sleep state (Chapter 9), which has application to nightmare therapy (Chapter 17) and other transformational psychological benefits (Chapter 24).

Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalytic Psychology Suzanne Saldarini

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist who founded psychoanalysis. Born in 1856, he was 43 when he published his two-volume text The Interpretation of Dreams. The book details a replicable method for understanding dreams, an explanation of conscious and unconscious mental activity, and it sets out concepts fundamental to psychoanalysis. Freud used his own dreams as data for observation and analysis. He also took samples from those reported by his patients and by friends and family; dreams became his guide leading him through the changing, slippery landscape of human psychology. THE BEGINNINGS Freud described his scientific development in an autobiography published in 1927. Ernst Brucke, the director of the Physiology Laboratory at the University of

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Vienna, became Freud’s first scientific mentor. Freud later accepted a position as house physician in Vienna’s General Hospital, where he studied nervous diseases with psychiatrist Theodor Meynert. After being awarded a grant, he continued postdoctoral study, this time in Paris with innovative psychiatrist Jean Charcot. Back in Vienna, he opened a private practice specializing in nervous disorders, married Martha Bernays, and raised six children. Nineteenth-century psychiatry offered little treatment for mental illnesses. When physicians found no medical explanation for such symptoms as atypical paralyses, pain, seizures, speech disorders, and other puzzling complaints, they diagnosed hysteria. Determined to observe and treat hysteria’s mysterious and disabling symptoms, Freud followed Jean Charcot’s example, as he had seen hysterical conditions treated successfully with hypnosis. Josef Breuer, Freud’s friend and colleague, improved results with one hysterical patient when he combined hypnosis with questioning. Breuer asked his patient to recall inhibited or “forgotten” thoughts and feelings connected to the start of her illness and to express these freely. With this procedure, the woman’s symptoms disappeared. Unexpectedly, a side effect appeared; the patient developed an intense sexualized attachment to her doctor. Alarmed, Breuer abandoned psychoanalytic work. Freud continued and learned that transference is an important part of psychotherapy. Freud’s work with hysteria began his explorations into the world of the unconscious mind. His emphasis on the role of unexpressed sexual feeling also brought him into conflict with much of the medical community. His unconventional ideas and his confidence in the importance of sexuality cost him his friendship with Dr. Breuer and perhaps a university appointment as well. However, Freud’s careful observation of Breuer’s method led him to the theory and method articulated in The Interpretation of Dreams; finally, it also led him to a place in scientific history. THEORY The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind. –Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams

The Interpretation of Dreams was published in 1900. Although recognized today as one of the great works of Western literature, it received a cool, even hostile, reception. Freud’s assertions that unacknowledged sexual impulses can cause illness, that children have sexual feelings for their parents, and that dreams—even terrifying ones—express hidden wishes, were ridiculed. Still, he persisted. His work attracted other researchers, and psychoanalytic thinking gained credibility. In 1909, American psychologist Stanley Hall invited Freud to lecture at Clark University; the invitation excited American interest and gave fresh academic recognition to psychoanalysis. By this time, Freud had attracted a growing circle of supporters. Carl Jung, whose work receives separate coverage in the next section, was among these. Initially, Freud and Jung enjoyed both friendship and professional collaboration, but the men eventually separated over differences in both areas. However,

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Freud always gave special recognition to Jung’s work with symbolism, an area of continuing significance to dreamworkers from many theoretical orientations. At the time of his death, in 1939, Freud’s work filled 24 volumes. His thinking had evolved over the years, but the ideas first expressed in The Interpretation of Dreams remained unchanged. In 1931, Freud commented, “It contains, even according to my present-day judgement, the most valuable of all the discoveries it has been my good fortune to make. Insight such as this falls to one’s lot but once in a lifetime.” Freud’s psychology rests on drive theory. It is based on the premise that human behavior is determined by biological drives, and that these drives operate outside of consciousness. Freud found that the greater part of psychological life is unconscious. Sexual and aggressive strivings, he concluded, are central motives throughout life. He also pointed out that because these motives are subject to the most severe of all social controls, they often result in repression; excessive repression leads to illness. Unlike ordinary suppression, or the conscious effort to avoid certain thoughts or impulses, repression is an unconscious mechanism that prevents unacceptable thoughts, feelings, and wishes from reaching consciousness. Repressed material comes to awareness only in disguise—perhaps as a symptom or, as we will see, in a dream. Freud recognized that sexuality, including the Oedipus complex (i.e., a child’s romantic attachment to the parent of the opposite sex along with both rivalry and admiration for the parent of the same sex), plays a major role in development; psychoanalysis asserts that childhood sexual fantasies and experiences have a determining effect on adult character and personality. The Interpretation of Dreams details the analysis of symptoms as well as the “dissection” of dreams; it also shows how Freud’s close observation of dreams and symptoms allowed him to reach beyond his patients’ pathology and reveal the human mind at work. Any summary of Freud’s theory of dream interpretation is necessarily incomplete; the following six points provide an introduction. 1. Dreams are meaningful, but their meaning is hidden; and, as a corollary, a dream is the disguised expression of a suppressed wish. Freud acknowledged two exceptions: children’s dreams are often undisguised, as are those of adults enduring deprivation—these dreams express wishes directly. Recurring dreams that repeat trauma are also exceptions. Psychoanalysts understand these as the mind’s effort to master injury through repetition or as a fixation caused by overstimulation. The qualities in dreams complicate interpretation: they can be complex or bizarre narratives, vague or vivid images, a fleeting impression or thought, or any combination of these. Although they are sometimes filled with intense emotion, dreams can also be flat and devoid of feeling. Dreams are often experienced as alien, as though sent from outside the self. Still another characteristic complicates the search meaning: dreams are easily forgotten and sometimes only recalled with a lingering sense of doubt.

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2. Dreams are the product of meaningful unconscious mental activity. Freud observed that patients’ symptoms, phobias, paralyses, obsessions, and the like were as alien to their conscious selves as dreams are to waking thought. He identified free association, that is, a patient’s unedited report of incidents, thoughts, worries, fantasies, and dreams connected to the onset of their illness, as an effective technique for recovering unconscious material. 3. Close study of dreams reveals their raw materials. “Raw materials” include fantasy, day residue, wishes, memories, sensation, and stimulation as illustrated in Figure 15.2. 4. Discovery of the psychological mechanisms that determine their production and final form. Explaining these discoveries consumes many pages in The Interpretation of Dreams; they foreshadow terms and concepts central to psychoanalytic thinking. Fundamental concepts and their descriptions follow: a. Displacement: Our dreaming tendency is to shift emphasis from one thing to another. Displacement is a familiar defense mechanism. Shakespeare’s Othello bursts into rage over a lost handkerchief, a soldier fights fiercely for a flag, a lonely bachelor becomes a passionate collector—Freud cites all of these as waking examples of displacement. b. Symbolization: Dreams represent repudiated ideas in disguised form. Repudiated ideas are often sexual or aggressive; Freud’s identified many symbols that have become familiar, even stereotyped. The Interpretation of Dreams cites pages of examples. For example, dream images of authority figures, such as, policemen, teachers, government officials, and the like, often represent parents. Long objects, ranging from trees to umbrellas to rockets, represent the penis, and hollow objects, such as boxes, chests, rooms, and containers of all kinds, represent female genitals. Freud includes an important but often overlooked caveat in his discussion here:  the dreamer’s associations to dream images trump traditional symbolic meanings. That is, translating symbols is a useful auxiliary approach, but decisive interpretive significance depends on comments collected as the dream is recalled. Freud would argue that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar! c. Transference: Our minds have the ability to transfer feelings stemming from one source to something else; parents are usually the original source, but any important early relationship may be used. This concept also became an accepted part of psychological thinking. d. Condensation: A dream may compress many associated thoughts into a single image or brief episode. The fact that a dream’s analysis consumes more words than its description demonstrates condensation. e. Secondary elaboration: This describes our mental effort to make a “sensible” story from a dream’s disparate elements. Although unconscious, it is similar to f.

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f. Rationalization: The mind makes a conscious effort to explain feelings and impressions. g. Censorship: This is an unconscious activity, much like conscience, that keeps “forbidden” ideas and images out of conscious awareness unless disguised. h. Dreamwork: All of these processes work together as the dreamwork, a kind of dream-manufacturing process. Figure 15.2, “How Dreams Are Made,” illustrates this process; it also points out yet another key to dream interpretation. i. Day-residue: This refers to an instigating event taken from the previous day. Events stimulate memories, wishes, and feelings, and many are pushed away in the course of a busy day. Instigating events are often dismissed as trivial in waking hours, but with their multiple associations, they are rich sources for dream construction.

5. What is the function of dreams? Dreams permit us to sleep through disturbing thoughts and sensations; a dream can convert a blast of cold air to a pretty snow scene or an overheated room to a day at the beach. Still, if stimulation is intense or the imagery too disturbing, the dream fails, and we are awakened—perhaps with a jolt of anxiety. Anxiety dreams seem to contradict Freud’s wish-fulfillment theory; our sixth introductory concept provides an explanation. 6. There is a distinction between manifest and latent content. Psychoanalysis distinguishes between the manifest dream, that is, the part we remember upon waking, from its latent content. Latent dream content refers to rejected impulses and wishes that have been allowed expression by censorship only because they are disguised by the dreamwork. Anxiety results from a thin disguise or stimulation that is too intense to permit sleep to continue. Freud taught by demonstration. He reported and analyzed many of his own dreams and conducted a self-analysis in this way. Freud’s example of making a close study of his own unconscious wishes became a model for psychoanalytic training; therapists earn the title of “psychoanalyst” only after completing a personal analysis, including work with dreams. METHOD The adoption of an attitude of uncritical self-observation is by no means difficult. . . . I myself can do so very completely, by the help of writing down my ideas as they occur to me. –Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams

The Dream The first-person dream report below demonstrates Freud’s method. The dreamer is a mature woman, an educator, with an established interest in dreams and psychoanalysis. She wrote the dream, collected associations, noted day-residue, and

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allowed latent content (disguised wishes) to emerge. The dream is titled “Tigers and Llamas”: I am in the New England home where I grew up, looking out a large picture window. The view is a familiar one. I am looking down a long hill and spreading out below I see lush green pastures. Tigers lounge lazily in the grass while a group of llamas graze peacefully near-by. Suddenly, the tigers leap up and attack the llamas! There is a great noise of snarling and growling; the llamas are being torn limb from limb. My heart pounds, and I wake up with a rush of anxiety. . . . My sleeping husband is snoring contentedly beside me.

Associations 1. New England home: At the time of the dream I was decades away from that home, and both parents were long gone. Yet the view from that window still beckoned. 2. The view: Prized by my parents, our home’s site was chosen because of it. 3. Green pastures: My childhood playground. . . . Later I recognized reference to the twenty-third psalm (my clergyman father often cited Bible references). 4. Tigers lounging lazily in the grass: Absurd for New England! Day-residue explained: Before the dream a friend showed me a large painting she had commissioned for her new home; the artist showed tigers “lounging lazily in the grass” while a glamorous and seductive woman reclined beside them. Struck by the boldness of commissioning a painting, I suppressed uncomfortable feelings of envy. Later I recalled a contrasting picture, one from an illustrated book of Bible verses I was given as a child. My favorite depicted a little girl with her arms around a lion and a lamb: The text read, “The lion and the lamb will lie down together and a little child shall lead them.” 5. Llamas: Little came to mind, unlikely companions for tigers. . . . Eventually I recalled a scenic drive passing a llama farm “at the bottom of a long hill.” 6. Snarling and growling: Snores reinvented.

Freud observes: “Tigers and Llamas mixed childhood memories, incidents from daily life, a ‘forgotten’ scenic drive and noisy snoring to produce a colorful little drama, but, I wondered, does any real meaning exist beyond the confused reverie? I searched for more associations.” 7. Animals in green pastures: Given the idealized picture of conflicting creatures, lions and lambs lying down together, a second “view” emerges. At the time of the dream my role at work put me in the midst of collegial “lion and lamb” conflict. My parents had worked skillfully with diverse groups of people, and I often wondered how they would “view” the challenges I faced.

Another of Freud’s observations about dream construction helps the dreamer at this point: dreams are egoistic. That is, each part expresses some aspect of the dreamer. Identifications, or patterning oneself after another affects dream imagery as do symbols. Animals are often chosen, Freud writes, “to represent impulses of which the dreamer is afraid, whether they are his own or those of other people.”

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Our dreamer’s report continues. “Thoughtfully, I assured myself I had nothing in common with sleek, lazy tigers prone to aggressive outbursts. But llamas?” 8. Llamas: Shaggy grayish animals with tiny, dainty feet. . . . They are patient and carry heavy burdens up steep mountains. Since I trudged on in spite of burdensome responsibilities, an egoistic identification with these hard-working creatures seemed fitting, even appealing.

A Wish Fulfilled Associations to dream elements often begin easily. Conscious forgetting, however, may slow the process, and unconscious resistance, a powerful force that censors unwanted thoughts and feelings, can completely block associations from awareness. Unwanted impulses are at the heart of a dream’s elaborate disguise; they are uncovered only when the manifest content is peeled away to reveal latent dream thoughts. For example, this dreamer speculated as follows: Was an “unwanted” impulse hidden in my battling tigers and llamas? Is it possible that I wished for an aggressive outburst that would tear into—even destroy—hardworking, compliant aspects of myself ? Could the conflict and anxiety produced by such a wish convert harmless snores into ferocious growls?

Freud would answer yes and point to yet another concept in his dream theory. When a dream fills wishes that are forbidden, it takes one more wish-filling step: the dreamer, the guilty owner of the outlawed impulses, is justly punished with painful feelings of anxiety. Anxiety dreams explain how unpleasant and even terrifying dreams fill wishes. The “Tigers and Llamas” example shows forbidden aggressive wishes in disguise; it also invites the dreamer to explore lesser-known aspects of her own psychology. PSYCHOANALY TIC DREAM THEORY TODAY Ego Psychology At least three distinct psychologies emerged from Freud’s drive theory, and all continue to affect practice today. Each approaches dreams from their own perspective. Freud’s daughter Anna’s work focused on how individuals adapt to conflicting demands imposed by internal biological drives and by the limits of everyday reality. She delineated the well-known defense mechanisms that explain many of our responses to daily life; her thinking is known as ego psychology. An ego psychologist would explore how our specimen dream reconciles tiger-like impulses with environmental—llama-like—expectations. Object Relations Object relations theorists followed ego psychologists; they emphasized the impact of early relationships. One’s first caregivers, or one’s earliest efforts to find

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drive satisfaction were identified by these theorists as shaping experience throughout life. Donald Winnecott, a British pediatrician with great sensitivity to motherbaby interactions, was a major contributor to object relations. If presented with our “Tigers and Llamas” dream, an object relations analyst might ask whether the dreamer experienced caregivers as dangerous and explosive or compliant. Self Psychology In the 1960s and early 1970s, clinicians’ observations prompted a third theo­ retical approach, self psychology. These analysts found that their patients managed Figure 15.2. The “Dream Work” As Freud Envisioned It.

Source: Diagram design by Lou Simeone.

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drive issues adequately, reported nurturing early objects, and had ego functions supporting competent adult adjustments, but they suffered from poor self-esteem; they sought reassurance and felt alienated and empty. How could both “good” and “bad” aspects of themselves and others combine in authentic ways? Self psychologists learned to examine and empathize with their patients’ life experiences; this helped patients build a stable self and connectedness with others. A self psycholo­ gist presented with “Tigers and Llamas” might explore why the dreamer created representations of herself that split experience in such an extreme way. Psychoanalysts from all perspectives recognize dreams as meaningful communications. Most use Freud’s method: that is, they collect associations, identify dayresidue, and consider disguised or symbolic expression. Freud’s most controversial ideas, that is, the necessity of separating latent dream thoughts from manifest content, the role of wishes, and the determining nature of sexual and aggressive drives, all still stir lively debate.

Carl Jung and Analytical Psychology Robert J. Hoss

Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung studied medicine at the University of Basel and later worked at the Burghölzli psychiatric hospital in Zürich. He was an early supporter of and collaborator with Freud, having an earlier joint vision of human psychology as well as a shared interest in the unconscious. When the International Psychoanalytical Association formed in 1910, Jung became president at the request of Freud. DEVELOPMENT OF ANALY TICAL PSYCHOLOGY In 1912, in a Fordham University lecture series (later published as The Theory of Psychoanalysis), Jung publicly criticized Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex and its exclusive emphasis on infantile sexuality. The following year, this led to an irrevocable split between them, and Jung went on to develop his own version of psychoanalytic theory. Many of the principles in Jung’s analytical psychology reflect his theoretical differences with Freud. For example, while Jung agreed with Freud that a person’s past and childhood experiences influenced future behavior, he also believed that we are shaped by our future aspirations as well. He also differed with Freud in emphasis on sexuality in the influence of personal development. Like Freud, Jung emphasized the importance of the unconscious in relation to personality; however, Jung proposed a personal and a collective unconscious (nonpersonal inher­ ited unconscious) as opposed to Freud’s preconscious and id and repression-based unconscious. Jungian therapy is less concerned with the id and past and repressed

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childhood experiences—emphasizing the present and the future as the key to both the analysis of neurosis and its treatment. Jung’s approach to dreams differed as well. He rejected Freud’s claim that dreams intentionally disguise their meanings, believing that the nature of dreams is to present “a spontaneous self-portrayal, in symbolic form, of the actual situation in the unconscious” ( Jung, Collected Works, Vol. 8, 1968). Jung claimed that the manifest disguise is just our lack of understanding of symbolic language. He rejected Freud’s free association as moving away from the dream and instead used an approach called amplification to “translate” the dream, which queries the dreamer’s own associations, as well as exploring archetypal imagery to better understand the dream. Some of the notable publications from Jung include: • Psychology of the Unconscious (1912) and later Symbols of Transformation (1922) (which in part led to the break with Freud) • Analytical Psychology: Its Theory & Practice (1968), published by Vantage (a series of five lectures in 1935 at the Institute of Medical Psychology in London) • The Collected Works of C. G. Jung (CW) is a series of books published by Princeton University Press in the United States and Routledge & Kegan Paul in the United Kingdom (Those listed below are also collected in Dreams (1974), published by Princeton University Press.): o General Aspects of Dream Psychology, Vol. 8 o On the Nature of Dreams, Vol. 8 o Mandala Symbolism, Vol. 9 o Individual Dream Symbolism in Relation to Alchemy, Vol. 12 o The Practical Use of Dream Analysis, Vol. 16 • Man and His Symbols (1964), published by Aldas Books, London or Dell, New York • Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961), published by Vantage Books, New York • Liber Novus or the Red Book (2009), published by the Foundation for the Works of C. G. Jung

JUNG’S THEORY OF THE PSYCHE Jung regarded the psyche as made up of a number of separate but interacting systems; the three main divisions being ego, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. Jung’s Model A visual comparison of the differences in Freud’s and Jung’s models of the psyche is illustrated in Figure 15.1. Their role for consciousness and the ego was roughly similar; however, Freud considered the ego to span the conscious and preconscious (which contained memories and emotions that have not been repressed and therefore can be recalled). Freud also defined a deeper area of the unconscious that

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contains unrecallable repressed material and the id, which is a primitive part of the psyche containing our motivations and instincts that operates on the pleasure principle. Like Freud, Jung considered the unconscious to contain all that is not conscious; however, he redefined the unconscious to contain a personal unconscious (which contains both memories and suppressed material) and a collective unconscious (nonpersonal, species-wide, inherited, instinctive). The collective is similar to the id in containing instinctive motivations, but unlike the id, it operates on a unifying and future-oriented personality-organizing principle (individuation). Jung, like Freud, also saw the symbols and metaphors as coming from the unconscious in dreams, but not as disguises that censor the urges for immediate gratification; rather, they are “archetypes,” or primordial patterns influencing personality growth. The personal unconscious holds all the forgotten material of the individual’s past. The collective unconscious contains fantasy material and patterns of behavior and inherited behavior traces, constituting the structure of the mind. He considered the unconscious to be an “independent productive activity, constantly supplying us with contents which if consciously recognized would extend the range of consciousness—it is a field of experience of unlimited extent” ( Jung, 1971). The Conscious Mind The conscious mind is the part of the psyche where our conscious awareness resides, which senses, perceives, and momentarily adapts to the external world through processing sensory information. It consists of the thoughts, memories, and emotions that a person is aware of and by virtue of the ego maintains a sense of identity and continuity. How a person relates to the external world is, according to Jung, determined by how their personality has developed—their level of extroversion or introversion and how they make use of what Jung considered the four functions of thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. The conscious mind exercises an inhibition on all incompatible or irrational material, resulting in that material sinking into the unconscious. Some of the elements Jung associated with the conscious mind are described below: • Ego: To Jung, the ego was the center of the field of consciousness, our sense of identity and existence. It is the conscious self, the “I,” or individual part of the personality, the central experiencing and discriminating complex of consciousness grounded in body sensation and memory. It organizes our thoughts, feelings, sensory perceptions, and intuition and regulates access to memory. It links our inner and outer worlds, forming a model that determines how we relate to the external world. The ego evolves out of the central organizing principle of the psyche, the Self (described below), where it forms over the course of early development as the brain attempts to add meaning and value to its various experiences. The conscious mind is selective, and thus the ego is a powerful part of the psyche in that it selects what it considers most relevant from the environment and establishes a direction to take based on it; the remaining information sinks into the unconscious. In a dream, the ego is most often represented by the dreamer or a character the dreamer identifies with.

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• Persona: The persona is a socially acceptable mask for the “collective psyche” that we wear to adapt to the outer world—your public mask. In a dream, it may appear as a character you identify with or a way you are acting. • Personality: o Type: Jung thought that each of us developed certain functions of the personality as primary, which he saw as dominant or superior functions, while others were less well developed, which he called auxiliary and inferior functions. He identified four different functions—thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition—that he saw as an individual’s different ways of engaging with the world. Jung understood that in the process of individuation, a person will need to develop their inferior functions for the particular individual so that they do not simply project those functions onto others; for example, a thinking type might look down on a feeling type or a person who principally operates out of intuition. o Introversion and extroversion: Jung also identified two different attitudes to the world. Those individuals who reacted more overtly to the world and who were more excited by and engaged with it, he called extroverts. Those who do not outwardly show their reactions but keep them inside and develop more of an interest in their inner world, he called introverts.

Personal Unconscious Personal unconscious is the subjective layer of the unconscious that contains personal life experiences and memories. It also contains suppressed and repressed material and parts of the personality that the ego does not identify with, as well as clusters, or complexes, of emotionally charged associations that gather around a theme or archetype and unconsciously influence behavior. Two of the elements Jung associated with the personal unconscious include: • Shadow: Jung called those elements of the Self that have not been integrated into the conscious personality and that the ego does not identify with the “shadow.” These elements can be denied, disowned, or repressed because the person feels they are negative and unacceptable or positive but considered unattainable. A person might consider them destructive qualities, such as aggression or envy, or perhaps vulnerable, sensitive, or loving qualities that are denied due to a hurtful experience or peer and family pressures and culture. In dreams, the shadow generally appears as a “shadowy” or unknown character of the same sex as the dreamer, and it acts in opposition or as a balance to the ego personality—which is often healthy in terms of determining a direction toward integration and growth as a whole individual. • Complexes: In 1933, Jung outlined an important feature of the personal unconscious called “complexes” (a term borrowed from German psychologist Zeihen). A complex is a cluster of emotionally charged associations, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and memories (contents of the personal unconscious) gathered around a theme or archetypal center. The more elements attached to the complex, the greater its influence on the individual.

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Collective Unconscious The collective unconscious is the impersonal, transpersonal, or objective layer of the unconscious. It is composed of nonpersonal, human species–wide, inherited biological, instinctive and evolutionary material as well as the permanently unconscious complexes that he called “archetypes.” It includes remnants of previous evolutionary stages of the human mind and thus a system of adapted functioning. Jung stated that “on the collective level we are no longer separate individuals, we are one” ( Jung, 1968a). He considered it to contain a central organizing principle that he called the “Self ” (with a capital S). The collective unconscious makes itself known through the expression of the archetypes as (a) universal images within human mythology, art, religion, and architecture as well as dreams and (b) instinctive behavior patterns that underlie all human thought. • Archetypes: The term archetype means original pattern or “primordial” image and relates to patterns of emotional and mental behavior and reaction ( Jung, 1964). Archetypes are inherited and universal patterns and potentials that manifest as both powerful images (characters, nature images, and geometries) in dreams, art, religion, and myth as well as dynamic behavioral patterns. Jung identified four major archetypes, which are described herein: the Self; the persona, the shadow, and a pair he called the anima and animus. He also categorized dozens of other archetypal figures including 12 motivational archetypes (such as the hero, caregiver, ruler, rebel, etc.) and variations related to the four major ones. They result from the recurrent human reactions to situations and events of the same general order, repeated over thousands of years—thus becoming the habitual, instinctive, and impulsive drivers of human functioning. They organize our perceptions and regulate, motivate, and develop conscious perceptions and behavior, thus influencing our course in advance. They gather mental material and represent it as images, thus making it possible for the ego to associate with its instinctive and collective roots. • Self: The Self (with a capital S) represents the entire psyche—conscious and unconscious—and is the center organizing principle of the personality from which the structural development of consciousness and individuation stems. Jung considered it the blueprint for the ego, a structural counterpart of the original center. The Self is not only the center but also the whole circumference that embraces conscious and unconscious, which both complement one another to form this totality. It contains all the archetypes.

F UNCTIONS OF THE PSYCHE Jung considered the aim of the psyche to be that of individuation or selfrealization. He considered the unconscious to have a goal beyond that of the human ego, a natural driving force or urge toward self-realization or coming to terms with the Self, one’s inner center ( Jung, 1971). He termed this self-regulating function of the psyche that makes individuation possible the “transcendent function.” To achieve this, the unconscious brings about a balance or opposing tension by compensating for the one-sidedness of consciousness.

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• Compensation: Compensation is a self-regulatory tendency of the unconscious that introduces contents aimed at reestablishing balance in the personality. Jung felt that every perception, attitude, or image in consciousness was opposed or compensated for by balancing forces in the unconscious. • Individuation: Individuation means becoming an individual by embracing our innermost and incomparable uniqueness—becoming one’s own unique self or selfrealization—the “complete actualization of the whole human being.” He described it as a spiraling process around the Self, a journey of transformation whereby a person becomes whole, calm, fertile, and happy when the conscious and the unconscious have learned to live at peace and to complement one another ( Jung, 1964). A sense of completeness and mental stability is achieved through a union of the consciousness with the unconscious contents of the mind ( Jung, 1964), whereby the unconscious and the conscious are integrally connected and move together. What Jung meant by “whole” is a bit elusive, however. He states at one point, “My principle is: for heaven’s sake do not be perfect, but by all means try to be complete—whatever that means,” commenting that it is a self-discovery process ( Jung, 1968a). • Transcendent function: Transcendent function is an aspect of the self-regulation of the psyche that makes individuation possible and enables transition from one attitude to another—manifesting as a new attitude toward oneself and life. ( Jung, 1971). It is a process of the conscious ego that must come to terms with the unconscious. If the opposing material from the conscious and unconscious were held in swaying tension, with both the unconscious material having been acquired and the conscious ego fully engaged, the transcendent function now culminates in a dialogue between the two. The ego takes the lead, but the unconscious must be allowed to have its say. Out of this tension, Jung suggested that a new third “thing” would appear that was not a mixture of the two but qualitatively different, transforming consciousness. Jung looked for the transforming experience of the “third” to lead to the wholeness symbolized by “four,” a state of oneness of existence. Symbols of transcendence that appear in dreams include the mandala (which represents the achievement of the goal) and geometric patterns that express wholeness: the quaternity, three becoming four, the circle, rotation about a center, the cross, and the tree (purposeful growth). • Synchronicity: Synchronicity is not so much a function of the psyche alone but the establishment of an acausal meaningful relationship between inner psyche and the physical outside world. Jung introduced the concept of synchronicity, which holds that inner and outer events, often separated by time and space, are “meaningful coincidences” if they occur with no causal relationship yet seem to be meaningfully related. In 1952,  Jung introduced the concept in a paper, “Synchronicity–An Acausal Connecting Principle.” Jung’s belief was that just as events may be connected by causality, they may also be connected by meaning. Events connected by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of physical causality. Jung used the concept to explain events that arise from personal events or dreams that might be considered paranormal. An example of this involved an occasion where the tension between Freud and Jung resulted in an argument about paranormal phenomena that came at a meaningful moment, which symbolized the inevitable divergence between the two. During the argument, a seemingly unaccountable detonation went off in Freud’s bookcase. When Freud dismissed Jung’s parapsychological interpretation of this event, Jung predicted that the same thing would happen again, and so, to Freud’s consternation, it did ( Jung, 1963, p. 152).

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THE NATURE AND F UNCTION OF DREAMS Jung considered dreams to be “the most readily accessible expression of the unconscious processes,” a pure product of the unconscious, and “self-representations of the psychic life-process” ( Jung, 1971). “Dreams are impartial, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche, outside the control of the will. They reiterate personal motives and the conscious standpoint, minus the conscious criticism which they completely ignore” ( Jung, 1971). “They are pure nature; they show us the unvarnished, natural truth, and are therefore fitted, as nothing else is, to give us back an attitude that accords with our basic human nature when our consciousness has strayed too far from its foundations and run into an impasse”  ( Jung, 1981/1934). Jung stated that dreams are generally about a particular problem of the indiv­ idual about which he has a wrong conscious judgment. They are the reaction to our conscious attitude in the same way that the body reacts when we ill-treat it in some way. “Dreams are the natural reaction of the self-regulating psychic system” ( Jung, 1968a). Jung considered dreams to have a purposeful structure and an underlying intention ( Jung, 1964), the general function being to restore our psychological balance by producing dream material that reestablishes the psychic equilibrium. He considered dreams to function to promote the most important developmental process of human life, namely, the uniting of the conscious and the unconscious in a healthy, harmonious state of wholeness, the process of individuation. The source of dreams are often repressed instincts that have a natural tendency to influence the conscious mind ( Jung, 1971). Dreams achieve this by functioning in both a compensatory role, correcting for misconceptions of the ego, and a prospec­ tive role that is diagnostic or anticipatory. The dream recognizes personal motives and compensates for the deficiencies of our personalities, “the aim being to bring the conscious mind back to reality and warn of the dangers of our present course” ( Jung, 1964). To compensate for imbalances in the dreamer’s psyche, dreams bring forth unconscious contents that consciousness has either ignored, depreciated, or actively repressed—balance achieved once accepted ( Jung, 1964). They also provide alternative and prospective images of the future. DREAM IMAGERY Jung considered dreams to be the direct, natural expression of the current condition of the dreamer’s mental world. He stated that the unconscious aspect of any event is revealed to us in dreams, where it appears not as a rational thought but as a symbolic image, an “emotionally charged pictorial language” where a conscious experience can express its unconscious meaning ( Jung, 1964). The images produced in dreams are more picturesque and vivid than the concepts and experiences that are their waking counterparts. This is because in a dream such concepts have a fuller meaning in that they express their “psychic” or unconscious meaning with all of the emotional associations and memories that accompany it. In conscious thought, we have stripped them of most of their psychic associations ( Jung, 1964).

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He claimed, however, that dreams speak in a language that is the unconscious mind’s natural means of expression—a distinctive language of symbols. A symbol is an image that stands for a partially unknown psychological reality. Symbols assimilate, or transform psychological energy and instinctual forces into a representation with which the conscious ego can assimilate. They unify opposites: conscious (experience, memory, perceptions) and unconscious (archetypal and nonpersonal forces). Jung distinguished between a symbol and a sign. In dealing with unconscious material (e.g., dreams), images can sometimes be interpreted as signs pointing to known or knowable facts or symbolically, as expressing something essentially unknown. A dream image can be a combination (condensation) and expression of both personal content as well as collective or archetypal content with multiple levels of meaning, combining to provide the full symbolic meaning of the image: • Objective level of meaning: Portraying the dreamer’s relation with the personal consciousness, memories, suppressed material, and events in the external world (people, events, and activities in the dreamer’s life). • Archetypal level of meaning: Dream images that picture or dream figures that personify organizing patterns at work within the dreamer’s psyche as they relate to the situation the dream is dealing with or the dreamer’s individuation.

Archetypes are inherited and universal patterns within the collective unconscious that manifest as powerful images in dreams, art, religion, and myth and as instinctive drivers of our behavioral patterns. Jung studied and catalogued a multitude of such patterns from the mythology, folklore, and religions of humans, cross-culturally. Although the number of archetypal appearances is limitless, some include (a) events: separation or union, death and birth, initiation, the union of opposites, such as marriage or black and white patterns; (b) archetypal figures: great mother or father, the child, divinity, the wise old man or woman, the trickster, the hero; and (c) motifs: the end of the world or creation, renewal and emergence. Archetypal Figures A few of the archetypal figures that frequently appear in dreams are described below: • Shadow: The shadow is a repressed or unconscious aspect of the personality, both positive and negative, that the ego does not identify with. It generally acts in opposition to the ego personality and is symbolized in dreams as an opposing/balancing, shadowlike/dark character of same sex. • Anima and animus: The anima is the feminine component in the man’s psyche, often representing his expectation of women, but also (as an inner counterpart to his persona) a balancing of potential feminine aspects. It often appears as an unknown female character in a man’s dreams, sometimes a mother image or mate of the shadow. The animus is the counterpart in a woman, the masculine component of the unconscious female psyche. It often appears as an unknown male character in a woman’s dreams.

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• Wise Old Man or Woman: The Wise Old Man or Woman represents a guiding aspect of the Self: the helper, teacher, doctor, or other authority figure serving to offer guidance and words of wisdom—a personification of spirit or the divine. The Wise Old Man is a powerful aspect of eternal masculinity that might appear as the initiator, guardian, guru, ruler, father, or such. He represents knowledge, reflection, insight, wisdom, cleverness, and intuition, as well as moral qualities, such as goodwill and readiness to help. The Wise Old Woman is the female counterpart, usually personified as a superior female figure: a priestess, sorceress, earth mother, or goddess of nature or love. She is part of the creation myth as the “primordial mother,” wisdom of the eternal feminine nature. These images may appear as a representation of a same-sex parent or to signify liberation from father or mother and thus an evolution of one’s own unique individuality. • The Hero or heroine: This is a main character who combats adversity through impressive feats of bravery, strength, or ingenuity. It vanquishes evil in the form of a dragon, monsters, demons, and the like, often sacrificing its own personal concerns to liberate others for the greater good. The motif follows the basic stages of life’s journey of individuation—from an initial unconsciousness stage before the ego has awakened, through various stages of a heroic struggle through life, to a final state of “wholeness” or integration, reaching full potential and reestablishing the relationship between the human and divine. This hero is often the role that the dream self plays in the dream or series of dreams. • Trickster: This character exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and conventional behavior. It may serve a compensating function and thus appear as a disruptive character or a joke to keep you from taking yourself too seriously. Or, more often, it may be a surprise, unexpected change, or reversal in the dream plot—perhaps when you have misjudged a situation.

Symbols of the Self Jung considered the archetypal Self not only the organizing principle of the psyche but the organizer and source of dream images ( Jung, 1964). Symbols of the Self appear in dreams to represent that organizing principle. The Self may first appear in dreams as a tiny, insignificant image, because the Self is so unfamiliar and undeveloped in most people. The archetypal symbols discussed above, particularly the Wise Old Man or Woman, and images of divinity can represent guiding aspects of the Self. Below are additional images that represent the unifying principles of the Self archetype that are mentioned in Man and His Symbols, as well as in a number of Jung’s collected works, including Mandala Imagery and those in the Portable Jung ( Jung, 1964, 1971, 1973). • Wholeness: Representations of wholeness, totality, and unity within the psyche may include the image of the circle or sphere, or perhaps a round stone. The mandala is a symbol of wholeness, psychological totality, balance, and centering—life has found meaning and order. It can appear as an attempt to restore order or as a creative force to give form to something that does not yet exist. It has a periphery and a center and is often structured around the quaternity archetype or squaring

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of the circle (see below), appearing as circles integrated with squares or crosses or divided into multiples of the number four or eight, but it sometimes deviates into three and five to represent a disturbance. Wholeness can appear as a static circular or center-oriented pattern, or the process aimed at becoming “whole” might be seen as movement around the pattern, such as a circle dance, clockwise or counterclockwise movement or spiral movement outward or inward—relating to material arising from or entering the unconscious ( Jung, 1973). Often, the element at the center of a circle is the focus for the ego on the matter to be dealt with. • Integration and conflict: The integration union of conscious and unconscious mate­ rial is represented by a union of opposites. This might appear as a duality or pair of opposites: a union of male and female, perhaps sex or marriage; a royal couple; dark and light or black and white patterns; yin and yang images; or a crystal as a unity of extreme opposites of matter and spirit. Separation or conflict often appears as two identical figures or elements (which repel as magnetic poles might), two equivalent concepts each vying for ego acceptance. Conflict might appear as a pairing of samesex shadow figures, a pair of like objects or images that metaphorically represent the conflict, parallel lines or paths, and such. • Quaternity or the four: This is a symbol of the squaring of the circle, and thus completion. Jung saw roundness as representing natural wholeness, whereas the quaternity represents realization within the conscious. He also related it to the four orienting functions of consciousness—thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition— which he also related to the appearance of the “psychological primaries” of blue, red, green, and yellow. ( Jung, 1973). This principle might appear as four-sided images, such as squares or cubes; numbers, such as 4 or 1∕4 or a reference to quarters, as in 25 cents; or a cross. It often appears as a grouping of four characters, which are balanced when there is an equal number of opposites, two males and two females, for example. Imbalance in one of the four functions may appear as rectangular or an overextension of one side of a square or cross. Jung often discussed the appearance of 3 or 3∕4 as a transcendent process of three (the incomplete) becoming four (the complete). When the process is incomplete, the quaternary often appears as the four (grouping, shapes, or colors) with one side or element or color missing. As with the circle, the quite common act of walking in a clockwise or counterclockwise motion around a square (in a pattern, around corners of a building or street, etc.) can represent an attempt at or process of completion within a dream. • Nature: This involves imposing images of our natural origins, such as the elements earth, fire, air, and water (see “Alchemical Symbols” below); plants as germination and growth; the great tree as a pattern of individuation; crystal as an integration of spirit and matter; the stone as a symbol of the Self; powerful or primitive animal forms representing our instinctive nature; the snake as a creative or instinctive force; the cosmos; fire as transforming; or the depths of water as the depths of the unconscious and the emotions that arise from within. Our primitive roots and the collective evolutionary and instinctive nature of the unconscious often appear as primitive animals or even primitive human forms.

Symbols of Transformation and Individuation Jung recognized that our dream life creates a meandering pattern in which individual strands or tendencies become visible and then vanish and then return again.

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He observed a hidden regulating or directing tendency at work, creating a slow, imperceptible process of psychic growth—the process of individuation. Gradually, a wider and more mature personality emerges. Examples of symbols of transformation or transcendence are apparent in the example given in Chapter 14. These may include the following ( Jung, 1964, 1971, 1973): • The Hero’s Journey or Cycle of death and rebirth: The path to individuation might be symbolically represented by a journey—through the passage of life to actualize the full potential of the Self. Jung discussed our path to individuation as being like the hero’s journey which contains 12 activities grouped in three phases: departure, initiation, and return. The initiation phase contains, a symbolic “death of the ego,” a point where conscious efforts no longer work and the person has given in. This is followed by a journey of initiation, confrontation of one’s own shadow and suppressed or repressed material, and search for new self. The journey is guided by an interjection of the unconscious forces of compensation and integration. Eventually there is a return, a reversal, transcendence, and rebirth. Images of going within the earth or entering darkness or nighttime, descending under the earth into a cave or stone castle, death imagery or fear of death, fall and winter, or being frozen might appear at the beginning of the journey. At the end, during the return, imagery of rebirth, release, or renewal may appear, such as morning and springtime, an egg, or a child. • The Great Tree: Jung pointed out that the involuntary and natural process of individuation often appears as a tree, or “great tree,” whose powerful involuntary growth fulfills a definite pattern ( Jung, 1964). • Triad: Jung also considered the appearance of the three, triad, or triangle as an image of transcendence that has often had spiritual significance. The three and four he related to the incomplete becoming complete ( Jung, 1973), or the three waiting for the fourth function to be accepted to become four—or a force for completion ( Jung, 1971). • Others: Inevitably, the symbols of the Self (above) and the alchemical symbols (below) relate in some way to the transcendent function and the process of transformation. Fire, for example, is a transformative element in alchemy and often appears in dreams at a point of change—sometimes explosively as a volcano— destroying the old to make way for the new. The dragon is discussed below as one of the most ancient symbols of alchemy, often representing the terrible side of the great mother. It is at the core of the myth of the vulnerable heroine, guarded by and captive of a menacing monster, released by and eventually integrated with (marries) the hero—symbolic of the inner core of the personality and its surrounding defenses. The dragon fight and liberation of the captive is the archetypal pattern and can represent the transitional passage in our personal development, where a rebirth and integration of conscious and unconscious results.

Alchemical Symbols Jung wrote that the experiences of the alchemists coincided, in a sense, with the experiences he had as the principles of analytical psychology were taking shape. As he studied ancient alchemical texts, he felt he had stumbled upon the

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historical counterpart of his psychology of the unconscious ( Jung, 1968b/1944). He considers the symbolism of alchemy as being analogous to the psychoanalytical process—the process of reintegration, individuation, and the transcendent nature of the psyche. Jung asserted that the medieval alchemists were unaware of the natural process of psychological transformation that went on within the psyche and thus projected this process into their experiments. The work of alchemy (magnum opus) is a process of working with the first matter or ubiquitous starting material (prima materia) to create the philosopher’s stone (lapis)—an alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold—which represents something eternal that can never be lost or dissolved (comparable to the divine). The processes originally had four stages: nigredo, a blackening; albedo, a whitening; citrinitas, a yellowing or xanthosis; and rubedo, a reddening. It can be seen as a symbolic account of the fundamental process the human psyche undergoes as it reorients its value system and creates meaning out of chaos. The blackening is akin to depression, loss of value, or going within to descend back into the primal starting material (the unconscious) and proceeding through a process of purification that must unite seemingly irreconcilable opposites (conscious and unconscious) to achieve new transformed levels of consciousness. Jung observed that symbols used by the alchemists occur in dreams as part of the reservoir of mythological images drawn upon by an individual. The alchemists, over the course of centuries, had generated a wide range of symbolic images that directly corresponded to the anatomy of the unconscious, which Jung mapped through his work with thousands of patients. The dragon or Ouroboros (circular image of a snake eating its own tail) is probably one of the oldest pictorial symbols in alchemy, and of transformation, that has also been observed in dreams. Other alchemically related imagery is not unlike that described herein as archetypal symbols or symbols of transcendence. These all in some way have alchemical origins or relationships as analogies of the alchemical process: symbols related to the “primary nature” of elements, earth, fire, air and water, for example; those that relate to complementary pairs: sun/moon, gold/silver, king/queen, male/female, husband/bride, Christ/ man; gold, as related to the completed and perfected form; silver, as related to the base material at the inception of the work; and imagery related to the evolution and transformation of substance. Jung elaborated most of his alchemical analysis of the psyche in three major volumes of his Collected Works: Alchemical Studies, Psychology and Alchemy, and his final volume Mysterium Coniunctionis. BIG DREAMS The term “big dreams” was used by Carl Jung to distinguish dreams with intense archetypal contents. They usually occur around key developmental periods or when there is a disturbance in the unconscious, often brought about by the ego’s failure to deal satisfactorily with the outside world. He made the distinction after visiting an East African tribe in Kenya, the Elgoni, in 1925 (Hurd, n.d.). They explained

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to Jung that there are little dreams and big dreams, where big dreams were seen as collective dreams—dreaming for the community, for the landscape, and perhaps for all of the world. This style of dreaming fit well with Jung’s own experience, and it gave him further insight into his theories of the collective unconscious—symbols that do not belong to the individual but that all humans share due to our common biological heritage ( Jung, 1968a). DREAMWORK Structure of the Dream Jung stated that dreams very often have a definite, evidently purposeful structure, indicating and underlying idea, or intention, although not immediately comprehensible ( Jung, 1964). He observed the stages of the dream as the following: 1. Exposition: This is the opening scene, which introduces the place, characters, and situation that the dreamer will face—the issue or problem as expressed through metaphor. 2. Development: This is the emergence of the plot. 3. Culmination: Something significant occurs, and the main character responds. 4. Lysis: This is the result or solution of the dream’s action. The lysis signifies how the dreamer might deal with the problem or issue that was expressed during the exposition stage. In effect, the work of the dream has produced a solution or result for the dreamer and showed where the energy of the dream wanted to go.

Jung considered dreams to have two levels of interpretation: the objective (analytical), in which the symbols stand for external realities, and the subjective, in which they stand for aspects of the dreamer’s psyche—that is, the dream reveals, in a symbolic way, some features of the dreamer’s psychological life or individuation process taking place. However, his approach was not entirely subjective, but it enabled him to also explore archetypal structures of the unconscious that are recognized by their universal appearance cross-culturally. Jung considered archetypal symbols to be “fixed,” requiring an understanding of studies in mythology, folklore, comparative religion, archeology, language, and anthropology. Jungian Dreamwork Jung gave a group of lectures in 1935 at the Institute of Medical Psychology in London, which were published as Analytical Psychology: Its Theory & Practice ( Jung, 1968a). There he discusses in some detail his approach to dream analysis as well as an active imagination, which he developed to investigate content originating in the unconscious psychic process. Dream Analysis Jung’s dream analysis method differed from Freud’s in that it abandoned free association, which he claimed moved away from the dream and simply

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identified complexes, whereas Jung wanted to understand what the dream had to say about the complexes, not simply what they are. He treated the dream as a text in which he does not understand the language. He developed two approaches for this: • Amplification: The objective approach where he explored the dreamer’s own associations • Archetypal: The subjective approach of exploring the parallels with collective unconscious imagery to decode the language

Active Imagination Active imagination was an approach Jung used with a dream scene, a waking picture, or an impression from waking life ( Jung, 1968a). He did not consider it fantasy, but an active purposeful creation where the images have a life of their own and events develop according to their own logic. It begins by concentrating on a starting point (e.g., dream scene or picture from waking life). You concentrate on the mental picture, it begins to stir, and the image becomes enriched by details, moving and developing into a complete story—the approach is to depend on things to just fall into consciousness, being careful not to interrupt the flow with our conscious will. As this happens in a conscious state, he felt the material was easier to understand than dreams with their language barrier, plus the imaginations contained feeling values. Jung approached dream analysis by emphasizing that it is not safe to interpret a dream without going into careful detail as to the context. “Never apply any theory but always ask the dreamer how they feel about the dream images.” His approach considered dreams to be about a particular problem of the individual about which the dreamer has a wrong conscious judgment. Whereas Freud’s dream approach was retrospective, referring mainly to past events, perhaps in the dreamer’s childhood (trauma, sexual fixations and desires, and such), Jung’s dream approach is prospective. Jung treats the dream like a map of the dreamer’s future psychological evolution toward a more balanced relationship between his ego consciousness and the unconscious. Jung did not like to analyze one dream alone because it might be interpreted speculatively and arbitrarily. He stated that if you compare a series of dreams, you can see interesting things—the process that is going on in the unconscious from dream to dream. Before he went into a dream, he tried to establish a sequence, because the dream has a history before and will have a history afterward. Jung considered the psyche and the psychological process taking place as continuous. He stated that he presumed we are dreaming all the time, although we are not aware of it by day because of the clarity of the conscious state. An individual dream was considered to be just one flash or observation in a psychic continuity that became visible for a moment—a continuity that is connected with the previous dreams Jung rejected Freud’s method of free association, considering it to further lead to any amount and kind of associations that would, in turn, lead to a multitude of complexes. He stated, “I don’t want to know the complexes, I want to

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know what the dream has to say about the complexes, not what they are” ( Jung, 1968a). He was concerned with what the person’s unconscious is doing with their complexes. In opposition to Freud, Jung’s approach is that dream does not conceal; we simply do not understand its language. He stated, “The dream is the whole thing, and if you think there is something behind it, or that the dream has concealed something, there is no question but that you simply do not understand it” ( Jung, 1968a). He thus treats the dream as if it were a text that he simply did not understand properly—where the words are unknown or the text is fragmentary. He stated that he merely applies the ordinary and logical method any philologist would apply in reading such a difficult text—a method of amplification. Jung considered amplification a logical procedure for finding the context, a process of seeking parallels in the dreamer’s associations, like one would explore parallels in similar text passages. Jung would ask the dreamer, “How does that thing appear to you,” or, in other words, “What is your context?” or “What are your associations to the words used to describe the dream image (for example, ‘simple peasant’s house’)?” ( Jung, 1968). He was looking for the mental issue in which the term in the dream narrative is imbedded. Whatever information the dreamer brought forth, he put in the context of the dream. Jung did not like speculation in dealing with a dream, stating, “I can assure you that the results are more interesting when you apply things that are human than when you apply a most dreadful monotonous interpretation” ( Jung, 1968a). In dealing with personal and collective imagery, he applied a certain principle, stating, “When you are dealing with the personal unconscious you are not allowed to think too much and to add anything to the associations of the dreamer. Can you add something to the personality of someone else?” ( Jung, 1968a). However, when dealing with an archetype, he took a different approach that requires thought and knowledge of the collective. He stated that an archetype is not the dreamer’s personality but a collective and thus has the same basic structure of mind as he does, so the therapist who understands cultural and archetypal motifs can associate for the dreamer and provide the necessary context. He might explore archetypal parallels, for example, the sex of the characters in the dreams in terms of anima or animus. He might relate them to inferior functions within the collective unconscious that might manifest as projections on those the dreamer is dealing with in waking life. To “translate” the dream, he would often insert these personal and collective associations back into the text, or he “translated” the text and reread it for a revealing context. He considered a scene change as a point at which the representation of an unconscious thought has come to a climax, and it becomes impossible to continue that motif. Jung would also observe and pointed out where a particular archetypal motif and its various representations appeared through a series of the person’s dreams. He often explored archetypal imagery in relation to issues with organs of the body. He also pointed out where the dream had guidance or, in particular, a warning.

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Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy Kenneth Meyer

It was Frederick “Fritz” Perls; his wife, Laura; and Paul Goodman who developed the foundations of Gestalt psychotherapy as outlined in Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality (1951). However, it was clearly Fritz who popularized Gestalt therapy through his training workshops at Esalen, starting in 1961. A major aspect of his work there was the development of a more psychodramatic style, particularly in working with dreams. Many of these lectures and demonstrations are transcribed in Gestalt Therapy Verbatim (1992). Fritz views the dream as a metaphorical playing out of the dreamer’s unresolved life situations—“unfinished business”—whether immediately problematic situations or ongoing existential dilemmas. He thus shares concepts with other humanistic approaches, including viewing the dream as an expression of the person’s current being-in-the-world, emphasizing metaphor and felt-sense rather than verbal description, and replacing “expert” interpretation with the conviction that dreamers are their own best interpreters. But what is unique about the Gestalt approach is the value he places on “enacting” the dream, ideally all parts of the dream. This enactment provides more than interpretation; the method allows the client to come away with an embodied sense of the meaning of the dream, a recapturing of energies that have been inhibited, and a re-owning of aspects of themselves that they have squelched. Here, from his introduction to Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, are Michael Vincent Miller’s first impressions: I remember my surprise as I watched a vastly overweight mental health worker burst into sobs of deep grief within moments after Perls asked her to imagine that she were the beached whale [that] had appeared in a dream. . . . She seemed to melt before our eyes into the neglected child alone in her room, bitterly lamenting the emptiness of her existence. . . . When Perls told her, after her tears dried, to become the sea in her dream, her huge shape seemed for a moment not just the visible burden of her self-hatred but an indication that she could be teeming with life.

Fritz’s language is peppered with theatrical terms: “play this part,” “take the other role,” “set the stage,” and so on. While he acknowledges that he derived his approach from Moreno’s psychodrama, in fact directing a drama suited him quite naturally, having trained as a theater director under Max Reinhardt in Germany and as a close friend of the Living Theater troupe when he immigrated to New York City. Unlike psychodrama, however, he emphasizes that the dreamer play each part, rather than having these portrayed by other participants who inevitably put their own spin on the role.

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THE GESTALT THEORY OF DREAMS There has been an underlying assumption in dream interpretation, going back to Freud, that the meaning of a dream is disguised because it plays out unacceptable wishes of the dreamer. There is now evidence that dreams take place in regions of the brain that are more associative, spatial, and pictorial (Chapter 12). Thus, dreams are not disguised thoughts; they are simply the way that these regions, largely associated with the right cortical hemisphere of the brain, “think” ( Joseph, 1988). Dreams do not contain symbols that can be logically interpreted, but metaphors that require being reexperienced to be understood. Consider the metaphorical nature of Hal’s dream described by Breger and Lane in A Study of Stress on Dreams (1971). The “stress” condition had been that each day a participant was to take a turn being interviewed by the group. Hal had offered to be the first, but when his time came, he said he had changed his mind and now did not want to go first. No one else came forward to volunteer in his place. As he left his first group session, he commented, with an air of resentment, on the lack of support from the group that he had experienced. Here is the dream he reported the next morning: I was in a swimming pool . . . all the water dripped out. . . . I was swimming along and then there was nothing left. . . . I was alone in the pool . . . no lifeguard . . . no nothing. Everything just dropped out right underneath me. We were having a great time and then the water and people just disappeared. I was just wallowing at the bottom . . . crying out. It scared me. . . . I could feel myself falling. Not hurt physically. . . . I just felt damaged or bruised.

What an apt, creative metaphor for his feeling of being “let down” by the group and “bruised” by the experience! There are several aspects of Hal’s dream that would catch the attention of a Gestalt therapist. First, the dream is not only metaphorical but viscerally so. It is not overly speculative to imagine that Hal actually experienced a “sinking” feeling when no one else volunteered. Bodily metaphors are a particularly rich treasury from which we draw emotional expressions. We speak of “fuming” in anger, of “jumping”  in joy, of being “burdened” or “uplifted.” We use these metaphors, both awake and asleep, because they are actual kinesthetic experiences that accompany the events being described. This is one reason why physically portraying the dream is considered crucial. Second, Hal’s dream replays an event of the day that clearly does not sit well with him, a discomfort that he did not allow himself to address. The term “unfinished business” comes from early Gestalt experiments in which it was shown that tasks that are interrupted persist in memory long after the tasks that subjects complete. The existential choice to express himself or not was conscious for a moment, suppressed, and then reappears while dreaming. The third aspect of this dream that demonstrates Gestalt dream theory is that the environment of the dream reflects his take on his situation. The entire feeling tone of the dream is determined not only by the unexpected draining of support, but by the nonsupportive environment in which he is left isolated. This is considered a

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projection because, by not clearly confronting the situation and obediently going ahead, he did not make real contact with the other members of his group. They became just that, an undifferentiated “group” with a single demeanor. The Gestalt therapy view is that when we freeze up, or withdraw our senses, or avoid eye contact—or any of the myriad things we do when contact is uncomfortable— we create our own projection screens because our experience of the world never has gaps in it. When we do not make contact, the mind fills in with our expectations, fears, or past experiences, that is, projections. We can now see the significance of dreaming and why coming to understand dreams with our full, waking mind is valuable: not because they contain clues as to what our unreachable unconscious is up to, but because dreaming is how we process those quite conscious but quickly forgotten decisions we make to divert ourselves from whatever is uncomfortable. FACILITATING DREAMWORK As one reads the transcripts of Fritz Perls working with dreams, it seems as if simple “stage directions” are enough to facilitate dreamwork. While just saying, “Play the whale!” may be enough in a workshop, where participants are encouraged by the participation of others, those of us limited to our private offices must patiently facilitate the process. Capturing the Feeling Tone The first step in facilitating dreamwork is capturing the overall feeling tone of the dream. In workshops, Fritz does this by asking the dreamer to relate the dream slowly and in the present tense, to facilitate the dreamer reexperiencing the dream as vividly as possible. In individual counseling, the therapist may have to keep reminding the dreamer to tell it slowly, in the first person, and as if it is happening now, until they become accustomed to speaking from within the dream. Participants who are too self-conscious to act out their dream when recounting it can then simply stand in a posture that conveys something about their first-person experience in the dream. Then, as they become less self-conscious, the therapist might help a client focus on particular portions that can be captured by gesture, movement, or voice. In this way, participants are gradually introduced to the value of enacting the dream, and initial self-consciousness falls away. Enacting Projections The next step in Gestalt dreamwork is usually to guide the dreamer to act out parts other than themselves: the characters, forces, and even inanimate objects that populate the dream. It may be hard to accept that every part of the dream is actually oneself, but no one other than the dreamer creates the dream. Everything in the dream is taken from the dreamer’s view of the world. Dreams, after all, take place when we are most alone with ourselves, filling a projection screen writ large. This is

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the major reason they can be so honestly revealing: everything in the dream is put there by the dreamer, privately. Continuing Michael Vincent Miller’s account: [S]he was followed by a psychiatrist whose disdainful manner made it clear that he already knew everything he wanted to know about himself. He presented Perls with a dream in which he was driving down a long stretch of highway through desolate farmland. . . . Perls removed him from the driver’s seat, told him to switch chairs and speak as the highway. The psychiatrist’s arrogance collapsed, and in the angry whine of a small boy, he said “everyone rides over me.” . . . There were no detours by way of the unconscious. The childhood experience was suddenly and simply available and the person absorbed in it.

However, many of Fritz’s pithy slogans during his workshops have become clichés: that everything in the dream is “part of the dreamer,” that these are “disowned parts of oneself,” and that they “should be re-owned.” A more nuanced understanding is that each actor and object in the dream has a perspective within the whole dream, and examining the dream from these various perspectives offers meaningful and often surprising results. There is no question that we identify more readily with some figures in our dreams and are reluctant to identify with others. But to say that these are “disowned” or “alienated” aspects of our personality carries with it the implication that they are negative, repressed impulses, harking back to the idea of a potentially disruptive unconscious. It is more helpful to think of these as less familiar perspectives, or less comfortable self-images, or energies that we are reluctant to bring to bear. Working with this orientation, we often find that such background figures contain newer, emerging organizations of the dreamer’s energies and capacities as often as they represent suppressed desires. Newness can be quite uncomfortable, no matter how much sought by the client, and therefore it is often manifested in peripheral or background aspects of the dream, rather taking center stage. Clients also find that forces that seem repulsive, ugly, or dangerous from the outside have quite different qualities when experienced from the inside. Marilyn Rosanes-Berrett recounts (personal communication) how Fritz would often assign overly intellectualized participants to spend an entire day playing the “village idiot.” Much to their surprise, people who played this role, one they had initially viewed as repulsive, found a tremendous relief in not having to have all the answers all of the time. Much the same happens in Gestalt dreamwork when one takes the role of an off-putting dream figure. So the client is helped to “become” the person or object in their dream because it is the inner living—the motivations, concerns, and aspirations of these figures—as these can be quite different than the client’s ordinary negative reaction. When major dream figures are actual people from the client’s waking life, there is a natural tendency to portray them as the dreamer knows them, rather than how they manifest in the dream. It is important to play out these people as they appear in the dream because dream figures provide only a certain aspect—an emotion, motivation, or stance—of that person.

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As we have seen, even landscapes can have a powerful influence on both the tone and possibilities offered. The dreamscape summarizes one’s life space at the moment, where the lines of force, obstacles, and paths are laid out metaphorically. The full meaning often does not become clear until the full topology is played out. Rosa, a social work therapist, reports a dream in which she is in New Orleans with her car in a nearby parking lot. When a friend suggests she move her car to the street, closer to where they will be, she feels reluctant but does it. The street is lively, like Mardi Gras, which she would like to join, but is now worried about her car. Speaking as her car, she feels safe surrounded by the high fence and darkness of the lot; moved to the street she enjoys the festive activity but feels uneasy. The meaning of the dream, however, becomes clear to her when she completes the scene by speaking as the parking lot: “I have a high fence and keep the cars safe. But I charge!” Rosa suddenly realizes what the dream is laying out before her: “I know what this dream is about: my clinic is going bankrupt! My mentor has said maybe I could leave and start a private practice. That feels freer and more fun, like the activity in my dream. But I would have no income for a while. What would I do? I would be—oh my gosh— out on the street!”

Dialoguing Another of Perls’s theater-like instructions is “write a script.” He means for the participant to develop a dialogue between objects or persons in the dream, an interaction that goes beyond what actually occurs in the dream. But if the dreamer has not fully “become” the dream object and spoken from within that framework, dialoguing becomes simply another form of intellectualizing about the dream. Dialoguing is most valuable when the relationship between parts of the dream are not clear. Betty, for example, dreamed of spiders, which she thought gross, but in “being” them she found them to be wonderful artists spinning beautiful webs. But she was still puzzled by their relationship to her dream self, so it seemed useful to ask her to begin a dialogue with them: Betty begins the dialogue by shooing away the spiders, but in a weak voice and with vague motions. Switching to playing the spiders, she spoke quite disdainfully: “When I wanna get somewhere I crawl up and lower myself down. It doesn’t matter you’re in my way. If I wanna get somewhere I’ll just crawl right over you!” The therapist asks her to return to being herself, and she again shoos the spiders away: “I do love your webs, but stay off of me!” This time her voice and forcefulness are more like she had had as the spiders.

Although this interaction did not take place in the dream, developing this dialogue helps her contact underused aggressiveness and abdicated entitlement. The energy, confidence, and persistence she summoned as the spider enables her to speak and gesture more firmly. Sometimes it even makes sense to dialogue with the dream itself, particularly forgotten or missing dreams. Here are bits of dialogue from another of Fritz’s dream seminars, as participants are encouraged to speak in the role of their missing dream:

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Neville: I fool you, don’t I? Because I am full of important facts about you and I will not let you remember me. . . . I play hide-and-seek with you, and I kind of enjoy your discomfort with it. Glen: I don’t come on very clear, very often, because you do not understand me very well. I would put on many spectacles, if you paid more attention; but as it is, you pay little attention to me, and I do a shoddy job for you. Raymond: I’m sneaky. You know I am here, but I will not let you know what is going on. Jane: I’m merry, exciting, interesting. I’m going to turn you on, and then when we get to the end, I am going to turn you off. And you are not going to see the end. And then you will go around pouting all day because you didn’t get to see the end.

Notice how uniquely individual these forgotten dreams are—sadistic, vengeful, sneaky, and teasing—providing plenty to work with, even from missing dreams! Integration Contrasting himself with Freud, Perls considers Gestalt dreamwork to be the “royal road to integration.” Integration cannot be produced, however. It is a process that begins in the dreamwork session and may take place at any point, often while enacting the dream, sometimes through dialogue between parts, and most often outside the therapy, over time. Dreamwork does not necessarily uncover something totally new. It often sharpens the existential dilemmas we find ourselves in by stripping away the details and circumstances that mute the felt sense of our situations. Rosa no doubt would have talked about her impending decision regarding her work, but this would have been a totally intellectual process. Instead, she now has several reference points for the feeling tones of her situation. She has experienced the aspects of her dilemma in a condensed, memorable way: “paying a price” for her comfort and protection, feeling freer and “festive” out of the clinic, but fearing being left “out on the street.” Nothing in the dream resolves her decision, but the embodied emotional aspects are now more accessible to her. One might notice that in Fritz’s transcripts there is no attempt to satisfy an audience as in psychodrama, no demand for a “good” resolution to a conflict or rapprochement between dueling players in the dream. What Gestalt therapists call “integration” does not necessarily mean a resolution or even dissolving of ambivalence; it often means developing an ability to recognize and contain both feelings at the same time. CONCLUSION Gestalt dreamwork—enacting, miming, dancing, or singing our dreams— enables the metaphors they present to become alive and present for us. We become all the things we momentarily ignore or habitually disown. We show, rather than talk about, facets of ourselves that have been disallowed or are unfamiliar or are still emerging.

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Many of the discoveries that clients made in the examples above could very possibly have emerged in a purely verbal therapy. The advantage of the Gestalt method is not the interpretations themselves, but the fact that they are developed by the clients and are carried away by them in an embodied, memorable, and, yes, dramatic form.

Montague Ullman and Group “Dream Appreciation” Jacquie Lewis

Montague Ullman (affectionately called Monte by those in his dream workshops) was a psychoanalyst who was trained to use a hierarchical approach when helping clients. In the hierarchical view, the therapist is considered the expert, and the patient or client looks to the professional for answers. But as Ullman worked with patients’ dreams, he began to realize that locked inside each dreamer is the key to the dream’s meaning. Over a number of years, he developed his own method, which was firmly based on protecting the dreamer from invasive questioning, gave the dreamer full authority over the dream’s meaning, and honored the beauty of the dream. Ullman developed a method of dreamwork that can be facilitated by anyone with proper training on the method. Therapists and counselors have found the method valuable in their work; however, given proper training on the associated safety and ethics procedures, it does not require a person to have a formal degree (Ullman, 2006). The Ullman method of dreamwork is quite different from traditional psychological approaches that rely on the authority of the therapist to suggest the meaning and interpret the dream. Ullman preferred a nonhierarchical foundation for working with dreams and believed that only the dreamer can know what the dream means; thus, the dreamer is the ultimate authority. His method most closely aligns with the field of humanistic psychology, which focuses on the therapeutic relationship as central to healing, rather than a particular psychological technique. For this reason, Ullman rejected the term “dream interpretation,” which is used in hierarchical approaches, and believed that the term “dream appreciation” is closer to what dreamwork is about. He also felt that anyone with adequate knowledge of the method and respect for the safety precautions could lead a peer group. Ullman also recognized that the more the dreamer receives input from several people, the better the individual will understand his dream. For this reason, the Ullman method is most often used in small groups. The optimum group size is eight people, but there have been groups that are slightly smaller or larger. This size allows enough input to the dreamer as to not be overwhelming, but it also offers multiple views on the dream’s meaning. A dream group session is typically one and a half to two hours. However, in some cases, if time allows, only an hour; shortened versions of the process can be utilized.

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There are three basic assumptions or “rules” when participating in the Ullman method. Rule one is to recognize that dreams are personal and private, often addressing waking conflicts in an individual’s life. For this reason, the issue of confidentiality is utmost. To paraphrase a familiar adage regarding Las Vegas, “What happens in dream group stays in dream group.” Rule two is that the dreamer must also feel a sense of security when engaging in the process. Ullman called this the “safety factor.” This factor involves three aspects. The first is deciding whether to present a dream to the group. No one is ever pressured to present a dream. The second is that the dreamer is not pressured to reveal anything that causes emotional discomfort about waking life. The third is that the dreamer can stop the process at any time. This means the dreamer is always in control. Rule three, which is critically important to the safety factor, the personal nature of the dream, and the avoidance of interpretation, is that the members of the group and the dreamer all recognize that each group member is working the dream from their own perspective, projecting on the dream as if it is their dream about their life, and in no way is interpreting the dream for the dreamer. The group members must avoid the temptation to interpret the dream for the dreamer or to impose their own projections onto the dreamer. When these three aspects are in place, it allows another factor to emerge for the dreamer, termed the discovery factor. This means that the dreamer realizes that he would like help in understanding his dream and values the input of the group. Because the group works together on the dream, discoveries about the dream’s meaning will emerge. THE ULLMAN METHOD OF DREAMWORK There are four stages to the Ullman method, with steps in all but the fourth stage, which occurs at a subsequent session. Each step will be discussed in detail, and examples are provided for clarification (Lewis, n.d.). A general overview of the stages and steps are below: Stage one:

• The dreamer presents the dream. • The group asks questions of the dreamer to jog the memory for any additional details about the dream.

Stage two:

• The dreamer observes the group as members work with the dream from their perspective, as if it were their dream about their own life, first working with the feelings and then exploring both feelings and metaphors in the dream.

Stage three:

• The dreamer responds to what has been shared by the group, making associations between the dream and waking life. The dreamer also includes any personal ideas about the dream’s meaning that they feel comfortable in including.

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• The group asks the dreamer open-ended questions about the dream and waking life. • The dream is read back to the dreamer, and questions continue to the dreamer to explore images in the dream that have not been discussed previously. • The group offers additional connections between the dream and waking life to further help the dreamer.

Stage four:

• At the next session, the dreamer shares any additional insights, new behaviors, or additional dreams that relate to the previously presented dream. • Group members can also share their insights.

Stage One 1. The Ullman dream group has a facilitator to guide individuals through the process and to serve as a timekeeper. The dream group facilitator discusses the three rules and explains that confidentiality is utmost and group members are not to discuss the dreamer and the dream outside of dream group. The facilitator then asks the group whether anyone has a dream to share. If more than one person volunteers to present a dream, the individuals decide between themselves who will present. The facilitator does not intervene. 2. The dreamer presents the dream. The dream is either in written form, with copies supplied to each group member, or is told slowly by the dreamer to allow group members enough time to write down the dream. The responsibilities are as follows: Facilitator: The facilitator makes sure that the dreamer is not interrupted by group members while presenting the dream. Dreamer: The dreamer informs the group when the dream took place. The dreamer reports the dream in as much detail as possible and in the present tense to mentally reenter the dream. For example, the dreamer should say, “I am at the store,” rather than, “I was at the store.” Group: Members listen to the dreamer and take notes, without interrupting the dreamer, unless a member does not hear or understand something the dreamer said. 3. Once the dream is spoken or read, the facilitator encourages questions from the group. Questions are to pertain to the dream and only to help the dreamer remember more details about the dream. Questions can include colors, shapes, feelings, clothing, and the like. Any other associations to waking life are not discussed at this time. Focusing only on the dream keeps members from developing any preconceived notions of the dream’s meaning when they work with the dream as their own during the next step. The responsibilities include the following: Facilitator: The facilitator ensures that the group members understand that they cannot ask questions about the dreamer’s waking life at this time. Questions about waking life will come later in the process. Dreamer: The dreamer does not offer any information about waking life, focusing only on answering questions about the dream. Group: Members are mindful to only ask questions about the dream, with one exception. Members can ask whether dream characters are real-life individuals from waking life. For example, “Was the friend in your dream your friend in waking?”

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Stage Two Group members work with the dream as if they had dreamed it about a situation in their own life. They communicate among themselves and do not engage the dreamer. At this point in the process, the dreamer is merely an observer. 1. Group members first explore the feelings that are awakened in them as they imag­ ine themselves having the dream. Group members make the dream as their own by referring to it in the first person. For example, a member would say, “I feel panicked and want to hide when the robber comes in the store,” as opposed to saying, “You must feel afraid when the robber enters.” Members can also preface their comments by stating, “If this were my dream . . . .” 2. Once feelings have been explored somewhat, the facilitator widens the discussion to examining both feelings and metaphors. The reason feelings are worked with first is because Ullman found that group members are naturally drawn to working with metaphors because they can be quite fun to investigate. Sometimes this is to the detriment of working with the feelings in the dream, which can often offer the key to a dream’s meaning. Responsibilities are as follows: Facilitator: The facilitator makes sure that group members understand the process and what is expected of them. Group members are also instructed to not look at the dreamer. This is because members may unconsciously receive facial cues from the dreamer, which could affect how they make the dream their own. It is also because it gives emotional space to the dreamer to process what is being said. It is also the job of the facilitator to correct members who refer to the dream in the second person or who look at the dreamer. Dreamer: The dreamer listens to the group’s suggestions and does not interrupt, unless something is not heard or understood or something about the dream needs to be clarified to the group. The dreamer listens for what resonates with experiences or concerns from waking life and takes notes on the associations that the group shares. Group: Members genuinely make the dream their own and do not try to guess what the dream means for the dreamer, keeping in mind that the wildest projections by a group member may resonate with the dreamer.

Stage Three In this stage, the dream is returned to the dreamer, and the dreamer responds to what has resonated when the group made the dream its own. The dreamer is trying to map dream feelings and images onto concerns and experiences in waking life. Next, open-ended questions are asked of the dreamer regarding the dream and waking life. Then the dream is read back to the dreamer as questioning continues. Finally, the group members offer their ideas on the dream’s meaning by piecing together the dream with the waking life of the dreamer. Group members never go beyond what has been shared by the dreamer or discuss any other waking concerns or experiences that were not brought up by the dreamer. 1. The dreamer responds, taking as much time as needed. The dreamer offers both personal ideas about the dream’s meaning, which may have been thought prior

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to the meeting, and what reverberates with the dreamer when listening to group members’ projections of the dream. Responsibilities are as follows: Facilitator: The facilitator makes sure the dreamer understands nothing has to be shared about one’s personal life. Group members are informed that the dreamer has the floor and questions to the dreamer are inappropriate at this time, unless something is unheard or not understood. Dreamer: The dreamer has the right to set boundaries when sharing information about waking life and can stop the process at any time. However, the more open the dreamer is about waking matters, the better the group can help the individual in subsequent steps. Group: The group understands that the dreamer is not to be interrupted. Members can take notes of what is shared by the dreamer. 2. The group engages in dialogue by asking open-ended questions to the dreamer about the dream and waking life. This is the most difficult step for most group members, and violations by members using close-ended questions often occur. Open-ended questions allow the dreamer to make connections from dream to waking without being prodded in a certain direction. Close-ended questions reflect a foregone agenda of the group member as to the meaning of the dream. As only the dreamer can know the dream’s meaning, every effort is avoided to direct the dreamer toward a certain viewpoint. Open-ended questions also allow the dreamer to dig deep into the dream and waking to explore all aspects of the question. Fuller answers are the result. Whereas close-ended questions pursue a certain point and can be invasive to the dreamer. Group members do not ask any questions about people or situations in waking life that have not been brought up by the dreamer. The process never goes beyond what the dreamer has shared. The first reason for this is that it invades the privacy of the dreamer. The second is the dialogue may spin out beyond what the dream is presenting. For example, if the dreamer mentions a friend, it is appropriate to say, “Can you say more about your friend?” It is inappropriate to say, “Is your friend domineering or overbearing?” In the former question, the dreamer may share what the friend said, any history with the friend, specific interactions with the friend, how the dreamer feels toward the friend, how the friend interacts with the dreamer and others, or any other comments about the friend. In the latter, the answer might be a simple yes or no. Even if the answer is enlarged beyond yes or no, the group will not receive the depth of interaction with the friend when allowing the dreamer to freely make associations. Responsibilities are as follows: Facilitator: To preserve the privacy of the dreamer, the facilitator instructs members to use open-ended questions. During this step, the facilitator makes sure that all group members adhere to the rules of the process. Should there be a violation, the facilitator stops the process and explains once again the importance of open-ended questions. Dreamer: The dreamer only shares what feels comfortable and can stop the process at any time. Group: Group members make sure they ask open-ended questions to the dreamer. They also do not ask any questions about waking that has not been shared by the dreamer. If the dreamer does not mention a certain relative or coworker, the group member would be in error to ask the dreamer to talk about the person. For example, suppose two sisters attend dream group, and one of the sisters presents a dream where conflict is shown between her and another dream character. As the dreamer talks

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about her dream, making associations to waking life, she feels that the dream relates to her teacher at school, who she does not like. But the other sister also knows that the dreamer is having problems with her boyfriend. It is a serious intrusion for the sister to say, “Can you say something about your boyfriend.” It may be that the dreamer believes the dream is about her teacher and does see any association to the boyfriend. Or, it may be that the dreamer did not feel comfortable sharing her relationship with her boyfriend with the group. Either way, the privacy of the dreamer and integrity of the process must be upheld. 3. The dream is read back to the dreamer, with much emotion, scene by scene. This allows the dreamer to step back from the dream and observe it objectively. Openended questioning by the group continues, exploring any dream images that have not been fully developed previously. Facilitator: The facilitator asks for a volunteer to read the dream, explaining that the dream should be read with as much feeling as possible, as if reading a literary work. Dreamer: The dreamer tries to make additional associations to waking life, expanding on the understanding of the dream. Group: The reader asks the dreamer after each scene whether anything else arises in the dreamer regarding waking life. Group members can also continue to ask openended questions of the dreamer that have not been fully discovered previously. 4. The group makes one final attempt to help the dreamer by tying together the feelings and images in the dream to waking life. It is important to remember that group members do not discuss any aspect of the dreamer’s life that has not been shared by the dreamer. Although Ullman referred to his method as dream appreciation, rather than interpretation (he was referring to therapists who interpret dreams for the dreamer), this step involves some interpretation on the part of the group. Group members take what they know about the dreamer, regarding the dream and waking life, and attempt to help the dreamer make even more connections between the two. They are no longer working with the dream as if their own. Facilitator: The facilitator explains this step to the group, making sure that boundaries for the dreamer are still intact, and the desire is to help the dreamer. The facilitator also thanks the dreamer for presenting the dream once this step is complete. Dreamer: The dreamer can respond to anything that is said, either in the moment, at the point when something is shared, or once all group projections are offered. Group: Members try to connect the dots between the dream and waking life, according to what has been shared by the dreamer. They do not bring these views with an air of authority but as offerings to the dreamer, hoping to help and with an approach of inquiry. The tone is one of, “Does this make sense to you, dreamer?” It is implied that it is up to the dreamer to decide what makes sense.

Stage Four This stage is conducted at the next session. The facilitator asks the dreamer whether there is anything to add about the presented dream. This may include additional insights on the part of the dreamer, results from assuming a new behavior, or a brief report on a subsequent dream that seemed to make the presented dream clearer. Group members can also share any new insights they have to offer. This segment takes place at the beginning of the dream group meeting, before a new dream is presented, and should not last more than 10–15 minutes.

Chapter 16

CLINICAL APPLICATION OF DREAMWORK

There are many dreamworking approaches that have been or can be used in combination with psychotherapy; some are described in Chapters 21 and 22. This chapter describes the benefits seen to be derived from dreamwork, the frequency of which dreamwork is used by therapists, and its effectiveness based on surveying therapists, and it measures and compares three representative approaches. The chapter begins with a discussion of how dreamwork, when combined with a psychotherapeutic approach, may provide a benefit to the client as well as to the therapist. One of the approaches from Chapter 22 (the cognitive-experiential dream model (CEDM)) is discussed as a representative example, as it integrates several other approaches (behavioral, client-centered, Gestalt, Jungian, phenomenological, and psychoanalytic) into a semistructured sequence designed for use in single 90-minute psychotherapeutic sessions. It also incorporates a therapeutic goal or action stage. A comparison of the effectiveness of CEDM with two other models is addressed in the final section of this chapter.

Benefits of Dreamwork in Psychotherapy Clara E. Hill*

CEDM is an approach that integrates dreamwork and psychotherapy in a threestage or component protocol: (1) exploration, helping the dreamer explore several * Adapted from Hill and Knox (2010).

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individual images; (2) insight, gaining insight into the whole dream; and (3) action, deciding about making changes in waking life based on the exploration and insight. The therapist guides the process, but it is the dreamer who arrives at the interpretation of the dream and makes the decisions about action, with the support, encouragement, and collaboration of the therapist. For an overview of CEDM, see Chapter 22 and Hill (2004). EFFECTIVENESS OF DREAMWORK IN PSYCHOTHERAP Y As detailed below, efficacy studies based on CEDM have demonstrated consistently high levels of session quality, working alliance, and satisfaction (in postsession ratings by clients and therapists) in the use of dreamwork in psychotherapy. In 12 studies, clients’ ratings of the quality of CEDM sessions was significantly higher than data published for regular therapy sessions (Hill & Goates, in Hill, 2004). As a result of engaging in these sessions, clients were found to gain insight into their dreams, had better action ideas related to the dreams, and made improvements in terms of the target problem reflected in the dream (Hill & Knox, 2010). In addition, their attitudes toward dreams were found to improve (Tien, 2006). In terms of outcomes typically assessed in regular therapy, researchers have found decreases in general symptoms and depression as well as increases in existential well-being and self-esteem. Mixed results have been reported for interpersonal functioning. A study of dreamwork in ongoing psychodynamic psychotherapy by Hill et al. in 2013 found that about half of the clients presented at least one dream in psychotherapy. Those clients who discussed dreams did not differ in terms of session process or outcome from clients who did not discuss dreams. In post-therapy interviews, 73 percent of those who worked with dreams found it to be helpful. In sum, positive outcomes have been reported that are particularly strong for variables specifically targeted in the CEDM model (e.g., insight, action ideas, target problems, attitudes toward dreams). EFFECTIVENESS OF THE COMPONENTS Studies found evidence that not only the entire approach but each stage or component in working with the dream is effective. • Exploration stage: A study by Hill et al. in 1998 found slightly more benefit in terms of outcome for associations, but it also found that both description and association were helpful components in the exploration stage. • Insight stage: Studies by Hill in 2001 and Davis and Hill in 2005 found that in terms of the insight stage, waking-life and parts-of-self interpretations were equally effective, whereas spiritual interpretations led to more spiritual insight than did waking-life interpretations, although the two types were about the same in terms on nonspiritual outcomes. • Action stage: Studies by Wonnell and Hill in 2000 and 2005 determined that in terms of the action stage, better outcomes (i.e., action ideas and problem-solving)

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were found for clients who engaged in the action stage (in addition to the other stages) than for clients who did not engaged in the action stage. In addition, the client’s perception of how much the therapist used action skills, the level of client involvement, and the level of difficulty of the action plan predicted client intent to carry out action plans; level of difficulty of the action plan and the intent to act also predicted implementation of action ideas.

In qualitative investigations by Hill and Tien, of what participants who engaged in CEDM found helpful, clients mentioned gaining insight, making links to waking life, hearing a new or “objective” perspective, experiencing feelings/catharsis, and hearing ideas for changes. Furthermore, in a study of ongoing psychodynamic psychotherapy, greater use of exploration activities during dreamwork was associated with higher levels of client and therapist ratings of session process and outcome. CLIENT AND THERAPIST VARIABLES INFLUENCING OU TCOMES In four studies by Diemer, Hill, Kline, and Hill and Wonnell and Hill, it was found that client involvement was important in the outcome, that is, active engagement in the session, actively exploring, coming up with insights, and generating action ideas (although one study by Falk and Hill in 1995 did not find that client involvement was related to outcome in group dream work). There is value in working with a therapist in dreamwork. The therapist’s input (i.e., having a new perspective) was mentioned in three studies by Hill as a helpful component of CEDM, as was liking the therapist. Studies by Heaton and by Hill demonstrated that when comparing working with a therapist and a self-help approach, both using CEDM, clients gained more from working with a therapist than from the self-help format. Therapist adherence to the model and competence using the model were also found to be related to session outcome (Hill, 2006). These two studies, one by Hill et al., in 2003 and another by Hill and Tien in 2007, suggest that it may be the therapist’s empathy more than specific interventions that is beneficial for most clients. The studies did not find evidence for the effects of therapist input when empathy alone and empathy plus therapist input were compared. In the study for clients of East Asian descent, although clients who were more anxiously attached and lower on Asian values had better outcomes in the empathy-only condition, clients who were less anxiously attached and higher on Asian values had better outcomes in the empathy and input condition. Client and therapist characteristics as related to insight were also studied in a series of three case studies by Hill and by Knox. The two clients who gained a lot of insight were very motivated and involved in the sessions and were nonresistant, trusting of others, and affectively present, but not overwhelmed by affect. In addition, their therapists were able to skillfully use probes for insight and manage countertransference reactions toward them. In contrast, the client who did not gain much insight was resistant, untrusting, and emotionally overwhelmed in the

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session. The therapist was not skillful in conducting the session and was not able to manage her negative countertransference. In another examination about insight, Baumann and Hill, in 2008, found that therapists’ interpretations, self-disclosures, and probes for insight were associated with high levels of client insight in the next speaking turn in the insight stage of dream sessions, suggesting that these are helpful interventions for facilitating insight. Across these three studies, therapist probes for insight appeared to be particularly helpful. PREDICTING WHO BENEFITS Some characteristics related to the clients were good predictors of outcome. First, clients who had positive attitudes toward dreams seem to have more positive outcomes than those who do not have positive attitudes. Taken together with the finding by Hill in 1997 that the people who volunteered for dreams sessions had more positive attitudes toward dreams than those who did not volunteer, valuing dreams may be an important precondition for dreamwork. Second, self-efficacy for working with dreams seems important (Hill, 2006). Clients needed to feel that working with dreams would help them accomplish their goals and that they were capable to doing dreamwork. In addition, clients who profited most from dream sessions had poor initial functioning on the problem reflected in the dream, low initial insight into the dream, and poor initial action ideas related to the dream. Hence, clients who had more to gain in terms of their functioning related to the specific dream gained the most from the sessions. Another important set of client variables related to outcome involved the characteristics of the dreams presented. Studies by Gupta and Hill demonstrated that the salience of dreams seemed to be important, in that clients who profited most presented dreams that seemed potent or powerful to them. In contrast, whether the dream was the earliest remembered dream or the most recent dream did not seem to matter. Valence (i.e., positivity) of dreams has garnered less consistent results. Hill et al., 2007, suggested that rather than just categorizing dreams by valence, dreams should be categorized into several types (positive interpersonal, negative interpersonal, interpersonal agency, interpersonal nightmares, noninterpersonal dreams, and all others). More positive process and outcome was found for clients with positive, agency, and noninterpersonal dreams than for clients with negative dreams and nightmares. Other client characteristics (e.g., sex/gender, race/ethnicity, psychological mindedness) seemed to have minimal impact on the outcomes of CEDM sessions. Likewise, other dream-related characteristics (e.g., recency, vividness, arousal, distortion) had minimal impact. EXAMINATION OF CULTURE Rochlen (in Hill, 2004) modified CEDM for men. He included strategies to overcome men’s resistance, such as providing more explanations about why each of the stages of dreamwork is necessary, encouraging men to move beyond concrete

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thinking in their work with dreams, providing models for men who are emotionally constricted, and recognizing when clients are too focused on action. In a test of this revised model, Rochlen and Hill, in 2005, found that outcome was not different for men with high and low gender role conflict. These results suggest that once men agree to dreamwork, they find it helpful regardless of their level of gender role conflict. Tien et al. (2006) investigated CEDM in Taiwan. They found similar results as Hill and colleagues did in the United States, suggesting the portability of the model. In a test by Hill in 2007, of CEDM with clients of East Asian origin in the United States, no overall outcome differences were found between a nondirective approach (i.e., therapists provided empathic responses, such as probes and reflections) and a directive approach (i.e., therapists provided empathy plus empathic responses, such as probes, reflections, interpretations, and suggestions for action). Clients who were more anxiously attached and lower on Asian values did better in the nondirective condition, whereas clients who were less anxiously attached and higher on Asian values had better outcomes in the directive condition. Sim et al. did an additional analysis in 2010 of the data of the East Asian women in the Hill et al. sample who were first- and second-generation students. They found that interpersonal issues and academic/postgraduation/career issues were typical for both subgroups, but that first-generation Asian women more often disclosed issues related to immigration or cultural adjustment and physical health than did second-generation women. In terms of action ideas, both subgroups typically talked about making interpersonal behavioral changes, but first-generation Asian women talked more about changing thoughts and feelings than did secondgeneration Asian women. Hence, race/ethnicity as well as immigration status may play a role in what clients talk about in dream sessions. Another study by Davis and Hill in 2005 examined CEDM for clients who were spiritually oriented. Clients gained more spiritual insight and had greater increases in existential well-being when therapists provided spiritual interpretations of their dreams in the insight stage than when therapists offered waking-life interpretations. Thus, there may be some value in therapists addressing spiritual and existential concerns with clients who are spiritually oriented. CONCLUSION The overall approach of combining dreamwork and therapy, as in the CEDM model, as well as the independent elements of such an approach (exploration, insight, and action), appears to be helpful. Furthermore, it is helpful for clients to gain insight, make links to waking life, hear a new or “objective” perspective, experience feelings/catharsis, and hear ideas for changes. It also appears that client involvement and motivation along with therapist presence, empathy, and use of probes for insight are key components of dreamwork. Finally, if clients are to gain insight, they need to not be overwhelmed by affect in the session and be open to and trusting of the therapist. Furthermore, although more work needs to be done, it appears that an approach such as CEDM can be adapted to meet the

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needs of different cultural groups (e.g., men, East Asians, those who are spiritually oriented). Clients who seem to benefit most have positive attitudes toward dreams, high self-efficacy or confidence in their ability to work with their dreams, salient dreams that are puzzling, dreams that reflect underlying concerns, low insight and action ideas related to the dreams, and a willingness to discuss dreams in therapy. Given the potential effectiveness of dreamwork, it seems appropriate for therapists to incorporate such content into psychotherapy, especially after being adequately trained in how to work with dreams. In terms of research, we need more empirical investigations of the efficacy and effectiveness of different dream models, including direct comparisons of various dream models. Furthermore, more work is needed to determine the effectiveness of various components of the different models. More work is needed, as well, on the best methods for including dreamwork in therapy and for training therapists.

Application of Dreamwork in Psychotherapy Michael Schredl

For Sigmund Freud, working with dreams was an integral part of the psychoanalytic therapy. Psychodynamic authors such as Jung and Adler (discussed in the prior chapter) and others, such as Gutheil (1951) and Schultz-Hencke (1972), also emphasized working with dreams in a therapeutic session. In addition, authors of other therapeutic schools, such as Gestalt, client-centered therapy, psychodrama, and cognitive behavioral therapy, have published articles about using dreams as a therapeutic tool (Pesant & Zadra, 2004). Several clinicians (Loden, 2003; Waldhorn, 1967), however, thought that, in general, the emphasis in psychodynamic therapy has shifted toward the analytic relationship and transference at the expense of in-depth dream interpretation. Lempen and Midgeley (2006) analyzed the number of dream-related papers in the journal The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child and found a significant decrease of clinically oriented dream papers from 1945–1953 to 1992–1998. Furthermore, therapeutic trainings in some schools, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, do not include the topic of working with dreams at all, at least in Germany (Schredl, 2012), and this renders it unlikely that these therapists work with dreams in their clinical practice. In view of these considerations, a question arises about how often dreamwork (whether interpretation or other techniques) is actually applied in modern psychotherapy practice and what factors affect the frequency and efficacy of dreamwork in the clinical outpatient setting. SURVE YS Despite the considerably large amount of literature on dreamwork techniques (Delaney, 1993; Glucksman, 1987; Pesant & Zadra, 2004), only five surveys

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Table 16.1. Frequency of Dreamwork in Private Practice Author(s)

Sample

Frequency of Dreamwork

Keller et al. (1995)

N = 228

Never (17%), occasionally (53%), moderately (17%), frequently (9%), almost always (4%)

Schredl et al. (2000)

N = 79

28.1% ± 27.6% of session, distribution: 0% (0%), 1%–25% (65%), 26%–50% (15%), 51%–100% (20%), 49.3% ± 34.6% of the clients

Fox (2001)

N = 265

0% (17%), 1%–25% (52%), 26%–50% (14%), 51%– 75% (6%), 76%–99% (9%), 100% (2%)

Crook & Hill (2003)

N = 129

5% of total therapy time, 15% of the clients

Lempen & Midgley (2006)

N = 17

None of the cases (17%), some of the cases (65%), all of the cases (17%)

Hill et al. (2008)

N = 47

24% of total therapy time, 53% of the clients

regarding the frequency of dreamwork in private practice have been carried out (see Table 16.1). The figures indicate that most therapists do use dreamwork at least occasionally, but therapists that apply dreams as a primary tool in their therapeutic work are relatively rare. This is similar in child psychotherapy (Lempen & Midgeley, 2006). From a methodological viewpoint, it has to be mentioned that the response rates of the surveys varied between 42 percent (Fox, 2001), 58 percent (Crook & Hill, 2003), and 60 percent (Schredl et al., 2000). As not working with dreams might be a reason for not participating (in addition to overall high workload or resentments toward scientific surveys), the figures of Table 16.1 may be biased in a sense that they are slightly overestimating the prevalence of dreamwork in private practice. Crook and Hill (2003) and Hill et al. (2008) used the same questionnaire in two different samples yielding different results (see Table 16.1). The Crook and Hill 2003 sample consisted mostly of cognitive behavioral therapists, whereas the Hill et al. 2008 sample consisted of psychoanalytic therapists participating in a workshop titled “Dreams in Psychotherapy: An Integrative Approach.” The second sample showed higher scores for interest in dreams, dream recall frequency, frequency of dream sharing, and keeping a dream journal than the 2003 sample of Crook and Hill (2003), and, thus, the higher usage of dreamwork is easily explained. Similarly, Schredl et al. (2000) found that psychodynamic-oriented psychotherapists use dreamwork more often than CBT-oriented psychotherapists (percentage of sessions with dreamwork: 44.1 ± 30.2% vs. 15.1 ± 16.5%, t = 4.5, p < 0.001). This difference of using dreamwork regarding the therapeutic orientation is also reflected in the amount of dream-related training (courses, supervision, working with own dreams), which is higher in psychodynamic therapy compared to cognitive behavioral therapy (Crook & Hill, 2003; Fox, 2001). Even within the two groups (psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral) the therapists’ frequency of working with their own dreams correlated with the frequency of working with clients’ dreams in clinical practice (Schredl et al., 2000).

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An interesting finding is that several studies (Keller et al., 1995; Schredl et al., 2000) showed that dreamwork is initiated by the client within the course of the therapy, whereby the client reports a dream and may expect an interpretation or specific help from the therapist (e.g., with a disturbing nightmare). This might be a problem if the psychotherapist is not trained in working with dreams. In the study by Fox (2001), 51 percent of the therapists stated that they are not particularly or somewhat competent regarding dreamwork. Thus, Keller et al. (1995) suggested that dreamwork should be part of the clinical PhD training. It can be added that nightmare treatment strategies such as imagery rehearsal therapy (Krakow & Zadra, 2006) should also be an integral part of every psychotherapy training, as about 30 percent of patients with mental disorders suffer from nightmares (Swart et al., 2013). As working with dreams is rated as very beneficial in a research setting (see the “Benefits of Dreamwork in Psychotherapy” section in this chapter), the question is how efficacious dreamwork is in clinical practice. Schredl et al. (2000) elicited the therapists’ estimation by asking, “Has working on dreams contributed to therapy success?” The responses were as follows: little (10.4%), moderate (28.6%), much (39.0%), and very much (22.1%). A comparable question was included by Fox (2001): “How efficacious do you consider dream interpretation to be when used in psychotherapy?” About 23 percent of therapists responded “very,” 29 percent “moderately,” 38 percent “slightly,” and 10 percent “not efficacious.” These figures are encouraging, but they represent the therapists’ perspectives. So, the question arises how clients evaluate dreamwork in the clinical setting. Unfortunately, only one study (Crook & Hill, 2004) has been carried out so far. They contacted a number of therapists and asked them to hand the questionnaire package to their next available adult client in individual psychotherapy who was not psychotic and had been in therapy for at least two sessions and was likely to participate. About 42 percent of the therapists handed out a package, and 52 percent of the clients returned the completed questionnaires—an overall response rate of 22 percent. The total sample size was 95 clients; 68 percent had at least talked once about a dream. Overall, in 11 percent of their sessions, dreams had been a topic, with a median duration of 10 minutes. Overall, the helpfulness ratings of the clients regarding dreamwork were high. The most often cited interventions were insight oriented: “Therapist helped you to come to your own interpretation of the dream” (74%) and “Therapist interpreted the dream as being related to your current waking life problems” (71%). Overall, the findings might overestimate the effect of dreamwork in clinical work, as the sample is biased, “the good and compliant client,” but they indicate that dreamwork—if used in the clinical setting—is perceived as beneficial by the client. CONCLUSION Despite changing focus in psychodynamic therapy (Loden, 2003) and lack of training in cognitive behavioral therapists (Schredl, 2012), working with dreams plays an important role in psychotherapeutic practice, one reason being that the

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clients themselves introduced dreams into the therapeutic sessions. As dreamwork in this context is rated as being beneficial by therapists and clients, several authors (Keller et al., 1995; Schredl, 2012) have suggested that working with dreams should be an integral part of all psychotherapy training (including cognitive behavioral therapy). Future research should focus on the client perspective; for example, it would be very interesting to study whether simply keeping a dream journal during the course of the therapy (without explicitly discussing dreams in the session) can improve outcome. As there are many methods of working with dreams, the question is which technique is best for which client. In this regard, research has just begun.

Evidence of Insight from Dreamwork Josie E. Malinowski and Chris Edwards

The aims of dreamwork include helping dreamers or dream group members to feel connected to a dream experience, considering possible connections between a dream experience and waking-life experiences, solving personal problems, gaining insight through discussion of dream experiences, and facilitating adaptive changes to a dreamer’s life or the lives of dream group members. Although one may not necessarily need to discuss a dream to gain insight (many researchers believe that the brain synthesizes information to generate novel understandings and even artistic and scientific creations during the dream states of sleep), many theorists and researchers believe that one can gain more insight through contemplating dreams and making associations to dream content than simply by having a dream. Research has found that the content of dreams relate to waking-life experiences; therefore, contemplation and discussion of one’s dreams may be considered as important for waking life as experiences had while awake. As suggested from the varying approaches described in Chapters 20–22, insights within dream discussions may develop from the successful exploration of metaphors relating dream content to waking life, or personal venting, or from the projections of the thoughts of other people in a dream group taking part in dream discussions. Dreamwork can be conducted alone, on a one-to-one basis with another person, or in a dream group. It can have clinical and nonclinical applications. For instance, Clara Hill’s CEDM model (above) is designed to help individuals make adaptive changes to their lives, whereas Montague Ullman believed that his “dream appreciation” model is not clinically orientated and its purpose is to allow individuals to consider connections between waking experience and dream (see Chapter 15). Therefore, one can expect contrasting outcomes with the use of each model; for example, one would expect more insights relating to future intentions while conducting dreamwork using Hill’s model than Ullman’s model. One important issue that investigators of dreamwork must address is the establishment of appropriate comparison conditions to allow assessment of whether

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dreams are particularly worthy of discussion and are more likely to facilitate insight, well-being, or quality-of-life benefits in comparison to discussing other experiences. Most investigations of the efficacy of dreamwork have examined dreamwork on a one-to-one basis in a therapeutic context, but recently, a number of studies have investigated the efficacy of nonclinical dream group work in terms of insight generation and decisions about future actions. EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF DREAMWORK The research at this point conducted into the efficacy of nonclinical dreamwork addresses three dreamwork approaches, as well as sleep research, regarding insight: the “dream appreciation” dreamwork method of Montague Ullman (see Chapter 15); the “Listening to the Dreamer” dreamwork method of Michael Schredl; the benefits of dreamwork in psychotherapy of Clara Hill (see Chapter 22); and experimental findings that have found that sleep facilitates creative insight (see Chapter 10). Observing that sudden realizations and moments of insight can occur directly following sleep, especially REM sleep (where our more vivid dreams occur), leads to the hypothesis that dreams are a special source of creative insight that enable us to make new discoveries and realizations about ourselves and our worlds. Personal insight gained through dreamwork is defined in four elements (Pesant & Zadra, 2004; Elliot et al., 1994): 1. Metaphorical vision: To see oneself in a new light. 2. Connection: To uncover some patterns in one’s existence or some links between different aspects of one’s experience. 3. Suddenness: An affective reaction of surprise, as if things fell down into place in one’s mind. 4. Newness: The sense of having discovered something that was not previously know. Some forms of dreamwork, then, may facilitate discovery of such insight through discussing dreams.

The three-stage cognitive-experiential dream model (CEDM) devised by Clara Hill is designed for use in one-on-one therapy, although there is also a group work adaptation—the purpose being to use dreams to facilitate adaptive change to one’s life. This model has been used in most of the empirical studies of insight generation within dream discussions; a description of the model and the efficacy research is discussed in detail in the first section of this chapter. A common measure of the efficacy of Hill’s model is the Gains from Dream Interpretation (GDI) questionnaire, which is divided into three subscales. It is a self-report measure, and the intention is that the individual who experiences a dream responds to the questions on it following a dreamwork session. They rate on a scale of 1–9 the extent to which they agree with each item on the questionnaire. The “exploration-insight gains” subscale examines how effective dream discussions are in terms of generation of insight and how effectively dreams are

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explored within dream discussions. The “experiential gains” subscale measures how engaged a dreamer felt in the dream discussion. The “action gains” subscale examines the degree to which the dreamer feels that the dream discussion has inspired changes to be made in their life. Investigators have also used qualitative measures of insight generation during dreamwork; for example, Hill and colleagues (2006) used the following questions in their study: “What do you now think that the dream means? How would you interpret it?” Therapists trained in the use of the model rated participant responses in terms of how much insight is present. Empirical investigations have found that participants believe that discussion of personal dreams following Hill’s procedure with a therapist is more effective at producing insight than other types of dreamwork, such as self-dream work, dreamwork with a computer program rather than a therapist, or discussions about loss. Until recently, experimental research outside of this psychotherapeutic context had not been attempted. The first attempt to provide such evidence was made by Blagrove and colleagues (Blagrove et al., 2010), in which the three researchers acted as regular members of a dream group, and in each session, a different participant brought one or two dreams to discuss. The discussions followed the Ullman method, or dream appreciation approach, which is designed for group settings. The intention of this model is to allow the dreamer to consider metaphorical connections projected by the group, with one’s recent experiences while awake, and gain insight from this. A session involves a group of three to eight people with a dream discussion that should not last longer than two hours. A detailed description can be found in Chapter 15. In summary, it involves a group member sharing a dream; the group members then taking the dream on as if it were their own and projecting on the metaphors they perceive from their own perspective “as if it were my dream”; the dreamer listens and can choose to respond or not; and a final phase of “orchestration,” where group members and the dreamer can discuss possible connections between the dream and a recent experience of the dreamer. Evidence of the efficacy of Ullman’s dream appreciation model is provided in Monty Ullman’s books, such as The Variety of the Dream Experience and Appreciating Dreams, but it has recently been the subject of empirical testing. Following the sessions in a Blagrove et al. (2010) study, participants rated, on a scale of 0–100, (a) how much new understanding of the dream they had gained and (b) how much new understanding or insight into themselves or their life they had gained. The scores for understanding the dream were a mean of 67.8 (SD =18.2), and for insight into themselves and their life a mean of 57.0 (SD = 15.5). These results indicated that new understandings both of the dream and of the dreamers’ lives had been gained following the session. The method for this study was replicated and extended in the same lab a few years later (Edwards et al., 2013). An aim of this study was to pilot measures that could assess how efficacious nonclinical dreamwork sessions are, moving beyond the two visual analogue scale questions of Blagrove et al. (2010). A measure used was Clara Hill’s GDI questionnaire described above. Dreamwork sessions were held with 11 participants who discussed recent dreams they had had with two researchers, again following the Ullman method of dream appreciation. Following

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the dreamwork sessions, scores for exploration-insight were very high, a mean of 8.17 (SD = 0.54). Experiential gains were a little lower but still high, a mean of 7.28 (SD = 1.94), and action gains were the lowest, with a mean of 5.78 (SD = 1.04). This might be understandable, as the Ullman method does not necessarily have a definitive action step. It was found that the scores obtained in Edwards et al. in 2013 were highly comparable to the scores obtained by Clara Hill in her work with clients in a psychotherapeutic context: for all three subscales, there was no significant difference between the scores in Edwards et al. and the weighted subscale means of the Hill studies combined. Following each dream discussion, participants were also asked whether they had experienced a “moment of insight” during the discussion that they had just had. Of the 11 participants, 10 were able to verbally describe insight moments that were experienced during the discussions. A thematic analysis revealed that participants had gained insight about connections between their waking life and dream experiences and gained insight into the self and about the causes of their dreams. Some evidence was found in this study for aspects of the dreams metaphorically relating to waking life. In one example, a participant dreamed of protecting her mother, which was connected to her own thoughts about having a baby. Participants indicated that they had experienced insight in the explorationinsight questions and could also verbally describe experiences of insight. Thus, it evidenced the efficacy of undertaking dreamwork for obtaining personal insight. Although it could be argued that belief and attitude influence these results, the participants were students who had participated for course credit, rather than because of their particular interest in dreams or particular belief that dreams are a source of insight, so the participants did not self-select due to an interest in dreams. Although the results of the study support the argument that dream group dreamwork is effective in generating insight for the individual who experienced and then discussed one of their dreams, it must be noted that there were only 11 participants in this study, and each participant only discussed one of their dreams. The authors of the study also acknowledged that it was limited in its scope in that it did not include a control condition, which several of Hill’s studies had done, and also that other methods of exploring dreams may lead to different levels of insight. Thus, Edwards et al. (2015) replicated the study, but this time participants took part in both a dream discussion and a discussion of a recent personally significant waking-life event, the latter of which acted as a control condition. Additionally, two different methods of dreamwork were tested: the Ullman method and Michael Schredl’s Listening to the Dreamer method. Discussing a waking-life event has been used as a control condition in previous research, with mixed results: in Hill et al. (1993), the dream discussion led to more insight than the event, but in Diemer et al. (1996), no difference was found. Although other control conditions are available, discussion of a waking-life event was chosen with the work of Pennebaker (1997) in mind, in which it was found that writing about personally significant experiences leads to physical and mental health benefits. Participants were informed about the potential health and

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well-being benefits of discussing significant events prior to the session to try to reduce any bias they may have had about dreamwork. Furthermore, participants were again students participating for course credit rather than individuals especially interested in dreams. It was hypothesized that (a) dream discussion would lead to greater explorationinsight than event discussion; (b) scores on a newly developed personal insight subscale (utilizing five items that had face validity for personal insight specifically) would be higher for the dream discussion; and (c) in replication of Edwards et al. (2013), there would be no difference between the subscale means in this study and the weighted means of the Hill studies. Two sets of data were collected: one set of dreamwork sessions again using the Ullman method (N = 11) and another set of dreamwork sessions using Listening to the Dreamer (N = 9). The latter was adopted as an alternative method because it was developed to avoid interpretations from dream group members, which is advantageous in reducing researcher bias when researchers act as group members. It asks open-ended questions to encourage the dreamer to make connections between the dream and their waking life, which can lead to insights. There are six stages to the method (Schredl, 2011): 1. Clarifying the dream to help the dreamer to reexperience the dream 2. Asking the dreamer what kind of waking-life memories are associated with the dream 3. Asking the dreamer about the basic action pattern and the basic emotion pattern in the dream 4. Asking the dreamer whether they see any parallels between the basic dream patterns and their current waking life 5. Asking the dreamer whether they would like to act differently now from what they did within the dream 6. Asking the dreamer whether some of the insights into the dream situation can be used for changing waking behavior

The Schredl method dreamwork sessions were conducted by a researcher who had learned the method by attending dream group sessions hosted by the developer, Michael Schredl. She had used the method in informal dream groups held with students at her university and adapted it for use as an interview schedule in empirical work researching the continuity hypothesis of dreaming (Malinowski et al., 2014). Both hypotheses were supported for the Ullman method: exploration-insight scores were significantly higher for the dream discussion, with a mean of 7.82 (SD = 0.84), than the event discussion, with a mean of 7.21 (SD = 1.13), and personal insight scores were significantly higher for dream, with a mean of 6.60 (SD = 1.43), than event, with a mean of 6.20 (SD = 1.58). Scores on the action and experiential subscales did not differ. In addition, replicating Edwards et al. (2013), the subscales did not differ from the weighted means of the Hill studies.

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For the Schredl method, the means for exploration-insight were higher for dreams at 7.83 (SD = 1.09) than the event mean of 7.44 (SD = 0.56), and the mean for personal insight of 6.69 (SD = 1.63) was higher than for the event at 6.36 (SD = 1.86), but not significantly so. However, the subscales means from the Schredl method dream discussions were not significantly different than the weighted means for the Hill studies, and they were very similar to the scores of the Ullman method dream discussions. The lack of significant difference between dream and event for the Schredl method, then, appears to be a result of obtaining higher scores for the event discussion than the Ullman method, as opposed to having lower scores for dream discussions. For both methods, the level of insights gained from dream discussions were very high. It is possible that participants may forget about certain insights that occur during dream discussions and are therefore unable to report them in the aftermath of dream discussion sessions. Additionally, it is plausible that expression about dreams is sufficient to provoke insight. As Pennebaker (2007) theorized, expression about experiences leads to insight, and Hill (1996) argued that when one shares one’s thoughts in a discussion, one perceives these thoughts in a novel way. If the development of some participant insights can be traced within dream discussion transcripts and linked to particular aspects of a dreamwork procedure, then support for the argument that dreamwork, rather than simply expression, provokes insight can be supported. The researchers involved with the 2015 study used process analysis within their investigation. Indications of participant insights were sought within dream appreciation session transcripts, and possible precursors to moments of insight, such as questions from dream group members, were evaluated. Three investigators agreed on the presence of five insight processes in the dream discussions: insights relating to sudden realization, symbolism, change, concern, and feelings. It was concluded that a number of participant insights developed within dream discussions and thus could be linked to aspects of the Ullman procedure itself. This finding provides further support for the argument that the process of dreamwork provokes insight and that insight experiences from consideration and discussion of personal dreams can be diverse. An alternative control condition was utilized in a third experiment with daydreams (Blagrove et al., 2017). Daydreams are similar to dreams in many ways: they are both very audiovisual, emotional, and fantastical; they relate to waking concerns and incorporate waking-life memories; and they often simulate social interactions (Fox et al., 2013) and may be more similar to dreams than event experiences while one is awake. However, dreams are perhaps more “intense” version of daydreams. Thus, it was hypothesized that discussing dreams would elicit higher explorationinsight scores than discussing daydreams. Another aim of this experiment was to differentiate between insight gained from discussing dreams from REM sleep and dreams from N2 sleep (see Chapter 1). A larger sample was obtained for the third experiment than for the previous two: 31 participants, with a balance of males and females, were recruited to take part in the experiment. Prior to spending a night in the sleep lab, they were asked to keep a 10-day diary in which they logged their daily activities. A daydream was collected

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from each participant before they went to sleep, and during their night in the lab, they were awoken from their sleep with the aim of collecting one REM dream and one N2 dream report. Between two and six days later, the participant returned to discuss their daydream and dream reports using the Ullman method. Each discussion was carefully timed to last 40 minutes, and the two researchers in the dream group were blind to which report was the daydream, which one was the REM dream, and which one was the N2 dream. After each discussion, participants completed the GDI questionnaire and wrote a response to the following questions: “Did you experience a moment, or moments, of realization during the discussion you have just had?” “If you did, can you describe the context and experience?” In support of the 2013 study, it was found that after 58 of the 86 dream or daydream discussions, participants described realizations that occurred within the discussions. Three judges agreed that 10 independent themes were present within the participant-realization descriptions. Example themes included “personal feelings,” “value” (which reflected novel understanding about personal values or desires), and “inhibition” (which reflected novel understanding about constraints upon the self ). One realization description that reflects the “value” theme was the following: Learned about how much I need human contact to be settled but now I must strive to have alone time. Can’t quite seem to get the balance. Had this realization when talking about meditating. I enjoy to experience the lack of control I have over nature, but feel threatened if I can’t control myself and my own senses. Realized this when I drank too much on an empty stomach.

Here is another realization description that reflects the “personal feelings” theme: That I had been missing home more than I thought and that I’m still concerned what the older guy I’m seeing will think of me but not consciously. I hadn’t realized until we discussed it. The realization came when we were making links between what I had said about the dream and my daily life.

It is interesting that more themes were identified in realization descriptions in this study than in the 2013 study. This could be due to the greater number of dream discussions, but it may also have occurred because participants were asked to write their realization descriptions rather than articulate them. The number of realizations that participants had during the session did not differ between the three groups. Similarly, the nature of realizations were very similar across the groups. However, using the exploration-insight subscale of the GDI, both REM dreams, with a mean of 7.49 (SD = 1.01), and N2 dreams, with a mean of 7.76 (SD = 0.85), resulted in higher scores than daydreams at a mean of 7.13 (SD = 0.99). There was no difference between REM and N2 dreams. There were also no differences for the experiential and action subscales. In attempting to explain the difference found, the content of the dreams and daydreams was analyzed. While daydreams and dreams both referred to recent personal events and major concerns, daydreams were more tied to very recent concerns than dreams.

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Perhaps, then, dreams refer to more important personal issues, rather than merely the most recent ones. In a fourth experiment by Malinowski and Pinto (2017), the Schredl method was reinvestigated with the same methodology as in Edwards et al. (2015), but with a larger sample size (N = 29) and with the sample split between experienced (N = 14) and inexperienced (N = 15) participants. Experienced participants were individuals who had previously worked dreams as part of their therapy training, individually for their own interest, or in dream groups. Inexperienced participants were mostly undergraduate students who participated to learn more about their own dreams, but they had not undertaken dreamwork before. It was hypothesized that insight would be greater following dream discussions than event discussions and that experienced participants would gain more insight than inexperienced participants. The first of these two hypotheses were supported. Using the GDI scale and the equivalent Gains from Event Interpretation scale developed in Edwards et al. (2015), it was found that exploration-insight scores were higher for the dream discussion than the event discussion, and there were no significant differences for the experiential and actions subscales. However, the second hypothesis was not supported: experienced and inexperienced participants’ exploration-insight scores did not differ. This was unexpected for a number of reasons: it was anticipated that having practiced dreamwork in the past would enable participants to come up with more insights in the present study; the experienced group was significantly older than the inexperienced group; and it was felt by the researchers, who acted as the members of the dream group, that the sessions were more fluid and flowed more easily with experienced participants. This unexpected result is encouraging because it indicates that dreamwork can be efficacious for all, irrespective of experience or age, and despite the subjective perception of the group members or facilitator. CONCLUSION AND F U TURE DIRECTION There is both anecdotal and empirical evidence to support the assertion that dreamwork models such as those devised by Clara Hill, Montague Ullman, and Michael Schredl are effective in producing diverse insight experiences; that dreamers feel that these models are effective tools for dream exploration; and that dreamwork can be helpful in deciding upon future actions. Most of the empirical examinations of nonclinical dreamwork have been conducted on student populations, and this should be addressed through the study of different population samples. In Erikson’s model, one goes through developmental stages, leading to an altering of the conceptualization of the self and world in phases. It is possible that individuals consider dreams differently across the life span; therefore, the study of dreamwork with individuals at various stages of life could reveal different benefits of dreamwork. Although many therapists, theorists, and researchers have described the developing insights that occur with dreamwork over time, most of the empirical

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investigations of dreamwork have examined single sessions. Ullman believed that dream groups should meet on a regular basis for a number of weeks so that dreamers can share insights that occur to them in the aftermath of discussions; therefore, study of longer-term dreamwork may reveal a higher number of insights, and it may also be found that insights develop across sessions. Additionally, individuals may reevaluate aspects of dream discussions and come to believe that “insights” experienced in some discussions may have been false. Investigation of longerterm dreamwork would provide opportunity for investigators to assess whether momentary insights that occur within dreamwork sessions become integrated into self-understanding. The experiments discussed in this chapter focused on insight and realization as outcomes measurements to assess dreamwork efficacy, using the Gains from Dream Interpretation questionnaire. However, insight is only one way to measure dreamwork efficacy, and other measurements are also appropriate for assessing the benefits of dreamwork. One might come up with many insights from working with a dream, but those insights may not necessarily lead to changes in behavior or to any increase in well-being or have any other psychological benefit. Some researchers have used improvements in well-being and spiritual awareness to assess dreamwork efficacy (Billington, 2014; Davis & Hill, 2005), and other measures, such as stress or dysphoric mood reduction, connectedness with others, or simply enjoyment, are also feasible measures of dreamwork benefits. Goelitz (2001) described how dreamwork has provided comfort and greater self-understanding to individuals suffering from cancer, and Wright et al. (2015) found that individuals in hospice care who discussed their dreams following Clara Hill’s model obtained greater understanding of their feelings about death and what they wished to do prior to dying. It is plausible that dreamwork can provide individuals with a greater quality of life during times of physical illness, and therefore longer-term dreamwork with individuals suffering from diseases such as cancer is an important topic of study. Researchers could also use other measures, such as Antonevsky’s (1988) sense of coherence scale, to assess whether dreamwork facilitates a more general sense of understanding of oneself and the world or to investigate whether dreamwork highlights and develops a sense of purpose in individuals. Frankl (1984/1946) believed that a sense of purpose fosters resilience and survival; therefore, investigators could also assess the health and well-being effects of dreamwork. Investigations could focus on individuals facing life-changing situations and examine whether dreamwork helps to establish novel personal goals or to clarify people’s perceptions about sense of purpose.

Chapter 17

NIGHTMARE THERAPIES

Approximately 5–8 percent of the general population report problems with nightmares, and a sizeable proportion of individuals exposed to a traumatic event will experience frequent nightmares. Despite their high prevalence and often significant levels of related distress, nightmares were long conceptualized as a secondary symptom related to a central underlying cause and thus not something that could be directly treated. The idea was that, to alleviate nightmares, one first needed to uncover the psychological issues at the root of the nightmare. Then, only after the “underlying cause” had been successfully dealt with, the nightmares themselves would disappear. For this reason, most clinicians did not consider nightmares as a primary or independent disorder that could or should be treated directly. In addition, the widely held belief that some nightmares arise from either strange or largely untreatable sources (e.g., demonic spirits, gastric disturbances, consumption of specific foods) added to the view that nightmares were a phenomenon against which people were largely helpless to act upon. In this context, it is not surprising that until the latter half of the 20th century, relatively little was known about effective treatments for nightmares. In his classic 1931 work On the Nightmare, Ernest Jones opens his first chapter with the following statement: “No malady that causes mortal distress to the sufferer, not even seasickness, is viewed by medical science with such complacent indifference as the one which is the subject of this book” (p. 13). Unfortunately, many clinicians today remain unaware of the suffering and distress generated by nightmares and the existence of relatively short-duration yet effective treatments. It is now well established that nightmares can accompany a broad range of clinical conditions and that they may also occur in otherwise well-functioning individuals. Moreover, studies have shown that targeting nightmares directly can be a practical and valuable way of approaching the problem, with clinical improvements

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being maintained over time. The following sections examine current lines of evidence regarding the best options for treating chronic nightmares, the therapeutic uses of lucid dreaming in dealing with various kinds of nightmares, and how to work with nightmares related to trauma.

Chronic Nightmares Antonio Zadra

According to the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), nightmares are defined as extremely dysphoric dreams that typically involve threats to an individual’s survival or someone’s emotional or physical sense of safety. Upon awakening, the individual quickly becomes alert and conscious of their surroundings. To be considered a “disorder,” nightmares also need to cause significant daytime suffering and distress. Independently of the formal diagnostic criteria for nightmare disorder, the term chronic nightmares is typically used when nightmares persist for at least six months with a frequency of one or more nightmares per week. That said, people whose nightmares do not meet the criteria for nightmare disorder or do not occur with a high enough frequency to be considered chronic can and do seek out clinical help for their disturbing dreams. Over the past two decades, considerable progress has been made in the conceptualization and treatment of nightmares, yet many clinicians remain unaware of the suffering caused by these disturbing dreams and of their negative impact on the individual’s sleep quality and general mental health. Moreover, this lack of awareness extends to the existence of therapeutic interventions that effectively and quickly reduce or eliminate the problem in a majority of cases. To make things worse, many specialized sleep centers do not offer nightmare screening and treatment, often due to this same lack of awareness. The idea that there is nothing much one can do about nightmares is also widespread in the general population. For many people, including nightmare sufferers, nightmares are something that simply happen to them, and thus an experience they are helpless to stop. Other than avoiding sleep itself, many feel there is nothing they can do about their bad dreams and mistakenly believe that professionals are equally powerless to help them, or, worse, that their problem with nightmares will not be taken seriously. Indeed, one recent study (Nardoff et al., 2015) found that only a minority of people with clinically significant nightmare symptoms had discussed their nightmares with a health care professional and that less than onethird believed that nightmares were treatable. This state of affairs is all the more worrisome given that a growing body of research shows that nightmares are strong predictors of poor psychosocial adjustment and strongly associated with a range of clinically significant disorders, including insomnia, anxiety, and depression as well as suicidal ideations and behaviors.

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Luckily, significant progress has been made in the development and assessment of treatments for chronic nightmares in various clinical populations (Aurora et al., 2010; Augedal et al., 2013; Hansen, 2013). The majority of contemporary nightmare treatments are based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), an approach that aims to identify and correct dysfunctional thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Of the available approaches, current best practice guides for the treatment of nightmares (including by the Standards of Practice Committee of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine) consistently recommend imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT) as the treatment of choice. IRT is a cognitive imagery intervention that teaches patients to change their remembered nightmares and to rehearse new scenarios. This approach has been successfully used in varied populations, including children, veterans, the elderly, trauma victims, people living through significant stressors or life crises, and hospitalized patients suffering from serious mental illness. The treatment is relatively straightforward, and adverse effects are rarely encountered. The first controlled studies on the effectiveness of imagery rehearsal therapy in reducing nightmare distress and nightmare frequency were conducted in the early 1990s (e.g., Kellner et al., 1992; Krakow et al., 1995). What these and subsequent studies showed was that IRT was highly effective in reducing nightmare frequency in people suffering from idiopathic (i.e., of unknown origins), recurrent, and trauma-related forms of nightmares, including maintenance of changes at long-term follow-up (Aurora et al., 2010; Krakow, 2001). Moreover, the several studies revealed that IRT also had positive effects on overall sleep quality, including insomnia, sleep duration, and fear of sleep. In addition to its positive clinical impact on nightmare frequency and overall sleep quality, IRT has also been shown to improve nightmare-related distress. The concept of nightmare-related distress (the degree of daytime suffering or distress one experiences because of one’s nightmares) is important, as studies have shown that nightmare frequency is only moderately related to the waking suffering or distress associated with nightmares in adults and largely unrelated in adolescents. People may thus have few nightmares (e.g., 1/month) and yet report high levels of associated distress, and vice versa. Furthermore, it is nightmare distress, not necessarily nightmare frequency, that is significantly related to psychopathology, especially to measures of anxiety and depression. For these reasons, knowing that a treatment not only impacts nightmare frequency but also nightmare distress is a clinically meaningful consideration. IRT comes in different forms, with key variations generally touching on the degree of exposure used during treatment sessions or the specific application of technique during the sessions. At its core, IRT has clients first “rescript” their nightmares in whatever way feels right to them and then rehearse the new dream using visual imagery. As clients are told to “change the dream anyway you wish,” their focus can range from changing the very beginning of the nightmare, to its overarching theme, to a detail like the setting or color of a wall. Thus, IRT does not incite clients to necessarily focus on the nightmare’s ending or to transform the dream into something triumphant. The key instructions typically include following steps: (1) select a disturbing dream, preferably one of lesser intensity and

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not a reenactment of a trauma; (2) change this nightmare anyway you wish; (3) rehearse this new dream a few minutes each day (twice can suffice) at a time of your choosing; and (4) continue these instructions every day and consider working with another nightmare to change it into a new dream every three to seven days, such that you only rehearse one or two new dreams each week. It is also vital to remind clients that they are only to rehearse the new dream and not the nightmare. In essence, IRT teaches people how to implement a specific set of imagery steps to decrease their nightmares. In addition to the key rescripting component highlighted above (i.e., changing the story line of a nightmare into an alternative and often less distressing story and then rehearsing in their imagination), IRT often includes an educational element. This component serves many purposes, including dispelling myths or misconceptions about sleep, dreams, and nightmares; familiarizing participants with basic principles of guided imagery and imagery rehearsal; having people practice positive imagery; and clarifying that nightmares can be conceptualized as a problem in and of themselves (as opposed to a secondary process) and thus treated directly. The educational component can also help clients become aware of factors that can link nightmares to poor sleep. These factors include fear or anxiety about going to sleep, awakenings and disrupted sleep, fear or anxiety about returning to sleep, unpleasant and disturbing emotions during sleep, fitful and restless sleep, disturbing images and emotions relived while awake in bed, and use of medications, alcohol, or other drugs to quell nightmares. As such, successful treatment of nightmares can improve sleep quality by decreasing fears about going to sleep, decreasing nighttime awakenings, decreasing restless sleep, increasing sleep consolidation (i.e., long periods of sound and uninterrupted sleep), and improving the way one feels in the morning. This educational component is certainly important for nightmare sufferers to understand, as the alleviation of nightmares is a significant predictor of sleep improvement. In fact, studies have shown that successfully treated nightmare patients often report improvements in sleep quality, feeling more rested upon awakening, and having more daytime energy. It is not unusual for people seeking treatment for their nightmares to report experiencing a range of disturbing dreams. In this case, which nightmare is selected for IRT can become an important consideration. Generally, it is preferable for people to begin by focusing on nightmares that are less visually disturbing or of lesser emotional intensity. As having people reexposed to traumatic situations they may have experienced is not a goal of IRT, it is preferable for these types of clients to begin with a bad dream that is not a replay of past trauma. By selecting a less threatening nightmare, clients usually find it easier to imagine and rehearse a changed version. Although a rare occurrence, some nightmare sufferers experience unpleasant images that force them to open their eyes and terminate their imagery rehearsal. In these cases, clients should be encouraged to acknowledge the unpleasant image and to choose to move on to a new, and preferably more pleasant, image. If needed, various strategies can be used to manage unpleasant images. These include breathing

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in deeply and exhaling the image away; writing down the images; opening one’s eyes and keeping one’s feet firmly on the floor while focusing on the environment; and clapping one’s hands while saying, “Stop!” IRT is a flexible intervention that can be delivered individually or in a group setting, and it is time effective, as it typically only requires one to six treatment sessions (e.g., Krakow & Zadra, 2010). The protocol has also been adapted for use with children (e.g., replacing imagery rehearsal with drawing exercises), where it has also been found to be clinically useful (Simard & Nielsen, 2009). Although IRT is the most empirically supported treatment for nightmares, other direct psychological approaches to nightmares have received some support. One of the first controlled studies for nightmares, which took place in the mid1970s, focused on systematic desensitization, a treatment based on the principle of classical conditioning and in which the person engages in relaxation exercises while being gradually exposed to anxiety-producing thoughts, situations, or experiences. This study found that systematic desensitization was significantly more effective in reducing the number of nightmares reported by frequent nightmare sufferers than a discussion placebo group, which in turn reported fewer nightmares than a control group. A follow-up study compared the effectiveness of desensitization combined with relaxation (e.g., tensing and releasing one’s muscles, one body part at a time, to bring about a feeling of relaxation) and the effects of relaxation alone. The results indicated that both treatment conditions were equally effective in reducing nightmare frequency, suggesting that no added benefits occurred from the addition of desensitization in the treatment procedure. Exposure, relaxation, and rescripting therapy, developed by Davis and Wright (2006), includes most of the elements of IRT while making use of progressive muscle relaxation training. Exposure, relaxation, and rescripting therapy, which can be used in either a one-to-one or group setting, also requires clients to identify specific themes in their disturbing dreams (and potential relations to waking-life events), as nightmare rescripting is largely based on these identified themes. When compared to traditional IRT, the educational component found in the exposure, relaxation, and rescripting approach tends to place a greater focus on good sleep hygiene (i.e., practices and habits known to improve sleep quality and daytime alertness) as well as on having clients revisit any nightmare-related traumatic events. Another variant of IRT is exposure therapy, an approach in which clients are encouraged to reexperience the negative contents—including distressing emotions—of their nightmares through imaginal confrontation with their nightmare content. The exposure can either be conducted solely by the client (e.g., selfexposure) or guided by a clinician. In both cases, the aim is to use exposure to nightmare content to habituate the clients to these dysphoric experiences. This contrasts with IRT, which is not viewed as an exposure-based approach because the changed dream that is rehearsed can be very (or even entirely) different from the original nightmare. Although exposure therapy has yielded some positive results, some nightmare sufferers are refractive to the idea of revisiting psychologically painful images and experiences along with their emotional baggage and would be better served by less threatening approaches, such as IRT.

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Two other treatments for chronic nightmares with limited evidence for efficacy include eye movement desensitization/reprocessing and hypnosis. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing was originally developed to help treat symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but the technique has since been applied to other disorders involving distressing memories, including those for nightmares. During eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, the client is brought to attend to his or her emotionally disturbing nightmare while focusing on an external stimulus, most frequently their own eye movements. There has been considerable debate as to the therapeutic value of the bilateral eye movements clients are instructed to focus on, regardless of the conditions being addressed, and the evidence for the treatment’s efficacy regarding nightmares remains very limited. Similarly, hypnosis has been reported as being effective in some cases of recurrent nightmares, but procedures used to implement hypnosis protocols are often poorly detailed and can vary considerably from one therapist to another. Finally, while psychotherapy directed at issues or conflicts believed to underlie nightmares can be of great benefit in improving one’s level of well-being (e.g., anxiety, depression, capacity for stress management), there is little evidence that such clinical improvements carry over to nightmare frequency, intensity, or nightmarerelated distress. For this reason, clinicians working with clients suffering from choric nightmares should complement sessions of individual psychotherapy with a treatment approach (such as IRT) that directly targets the nightmares themselves. Thus, the use of IRT as an adjunctive tool specifically geared toward clients’ nightmares is strongly recommended, even if these people are engaged in therapy for reasons other than their nightmares. In fact, one recent study showed that even in the case of hospitalized patients suffering from major mental illnesses (and thus undergoing a range of pharmacological and nonpharmacological interventions for their conditions), treatments such as IRT can help reduce nightmare frequency and intensity while also improving overall sleep quality (Rufino et al., 2017). While it is clear from numerous studies that IRT (and its variants) is a highly effective treatment for chronic nightmares, its therapeutic ingredients remain poorly understood. One reason is that IRT is composed of several potentially active ingredients. For example, it remains unclear to what extent clinical improvements in nightmare frequency and related distress is due to the educational component of IRT versus the imagery rehearsal itself, and as nightmare reduction appears to have a positive impact on general sleep quality, it is likely that both components interact in clinically meaningful ways. Several other variables could also contribute to overall treatment efficacy. Merely being introduced to the idea that nightmare sufferers can do something concrete about their disturbing dreams can be a real eye-opener and change clients’ perception and sense of helplessness in regard to their nightmares. Similarly, writing down a modified version of a nightmare may help transform a private (unobservable to others) and subjective experience that is the nightmare into something exterior to the person. When administered in group settings, direct psychological therapies for nightmares may benefit from the group experience itself (e.g., being in the presence of and sharing information with other nightmare suffers). There is also some

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evidence to indicate that simply recording one’s nightmares can lead to a decrease in nightmare frequency. In sum, the relative importance of such factors and their mode of action in decreasing the frequency of nightmares remains unknown. Despite the aforementioned uncertainties, most clinicians and researchers in the field believe that the sense of mastery that comes with rescripting one’s nightmares plays a key role in treatment efficacy. As a concrete example, one study (Germain et al., 2004) of female sexual assault survivors with chronic nightmares found that an increase in mastery characterized these women’s rescripted dreams. The mastery can take many forms, including behavioral mastery (e.g., the dreamer performs an action to alter the course of the dream to the advantage of the dreamer, such as fighting back or winning over the threat or the aggressor, or makes behavioral attempts to obtain assistance); social mastery (e.g., the dreamer changes personality aspects of other dream characters or is assisted by another character on the dreamer’s request); environmental mastery (e.g., the dreamer changes the physical environment to a nonthreatening setting or makes the initial dream environment impermeable to threat); emotional mastery (e.g., the dreamer changes the overall dream affect or her emotional reactions to specific dream characters, events, or settings); and mythical mastery (e.g., the occurrence of a supernatural figure or event that intervenes in favor of the dreamer and releases her from the threat, terminates the threat, or reassures her without changing the course of the dream). Even though IRT encourages nightmare sufferers to change their nightmares in any way that feels right to them, most clients appear to make use of one these mastery elements. In addition to providing clients with a therapeutically positive and proactive experience, imagining mastery of distressing dream content may also help them engage in more demanding psychological therapies and empower them to develop a greater sense of mastery in other areas of their lives. There remains a lack of information on pretreatment to posttreatment changes in the content of nightmares and related dreams. Beyond measuring the actual frequency of nightmares, examining posttreatment changes in dream content could help us better understand how the rehearsed dreams impact future dreams and nightmares, including how the observed increases in mastery might be incorporated into subsequent dream scenarios beyond simple decreases in bad dream frequency. In addition, some descriptive studies have reported that successfully treated clients reported dreams with content similar to that of their old nightmares, but they were no longer calling such dreams “nightmares.” It is possible that in some clients, treatments such as IRT alter their conscious attitudes toward their nightmares more than the nightmare content per se. Finally, a discussion of therapies for nightmares would not be complete without the acknowledgment that nightmares and highly bizarre dreams can be induced by various classes of licit and illicit drugs. These include catecholaminergic agents, some antidepressants, barbiturates, alcohol, beta blockers, and cessation of chronic or heavy use of marijuana. Although the neuropharmacological basis of drug-induced or withdrawal-associated disturbed dreaming remains unclear, the possibility of drug-related nightmares should be kept in mind when dealing with a sudden onset of nightmares, especially in the absence of key changes in

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one’s psychological status, general life circumstances, or exposure to stressors. In these cases, a change in medication or awareness of such drug effects may be more important than implementing psychological treatments for nightmares. In sum, although treatments like IRT are highly effective in treating chronic nightmares, dismantling protocols are required to better discern the active ingredients in this and other direct psychological therapies for nightmares. Future research on the treatment of nightmares would also benefit from more detailed treatment manuals. Finally, more work remains to be done to make people aware of potential suffering caused by disturbed dreaming and of the existence of well-validated, easy to administer, and extremely cost-effective therapeutic interventions for the treatment of nightmares.

Dream Lucidity and Nightmares Antonio Zadra*

A person may realize that he or she is dreaming while still in the dream state. Paul Tholey, a German psychologist who pioneered many studies on conscious dreaming, called the phenomena klartraum, a German word meaning “clear dream.” However, these dream experiences are more commonly known as “lucid dreams” (refer to Chapter 9). LUCIDIT Y AND NIGHTMARE TREATMENT The idea that lucid dreaming may be clinically useful, particularly in the treatment of nightmares, is not new. For instance, the issue was explored by Hervey de Saint-Denys in his classic 1867 book Les Rêves et les moyens de les diriger (Dreams and How to Guide Them). Similarly, Arnold-Forster (1921), in her book Studies in Dreams, recounted how she had used lucid dreaming to rid herself of bad dreams and argued that children’s nightmares could be treated in a similar fashion. Beginning in mid to late 1980s, several papers were written concerning the clinical utility of lucid dreaming in a variety of populations. Part of this interest was tied to a broader explosion in the public’s general fascination with different aspects of lucid dreaming. Unfortunately, well-designed controlled studies on the therapeutic merits of lucid dreaming are lacking, and the available data remain largely descriptive in nature (e.g., personal accounts and case reports). This body of work, however, does provide low-level but promising evidence that lucid dreaming may be effective in treating nightmares. One of the first investigators of the clinical use of lucid dreaming was Tholey (1988), who went on to describe a “self-healing program” based on lucidity training. The program contained various elements, including techniques for inducing * Adapted by permission from Zadra and Pihl (1997).

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and ending lucid dreams, methods for incubating and manipulating the contents of lucid dreams, and principles for interaction with other dream characters. By using this program within the context of psychotherapy, Tholey reported having successfully treated clients with recurrent nightmares as well as improving the conditions of clients with other symptoms, including anxiety, shyness, and social adjustment difficulties. Several other subsequent reports (e.g., Zadra & Pihl, 1997) also document successful use of lucid dreaming in the treatment of chronic or recurrent nightmares, with some also describing ways in which dream lucidity gave rise to positive psychological elements that carried over into waking life. How lucid dreaming is implemented in the treatment of nightmares can vary considerably. For instance, some clinicians combine lucid dreaming with exercises in relaxation and guided imagery, others with educational components touching upon sleep and dreams, while still others opt to include it as an add-on to a broader therapeutic context (e.g., relationship issues) or clinical model (e.g., Gestalt therapy; Holzinger et al., 2015). Generally, however, the clinician will inquire about various dream elements (e.g., emotions, settings, characters) or bring particular details to the client’s attention. Once the dream has been described, the client may be asked to select a part of the nightmare that is especially salient and instructed to imagine himself or herself carrying out a particular task at this point in the dream while saying that he or she is dreaming (i.e., that the dream is now a lucid dream). When performed during the actual dream, the action serves as a prerehearsed cue to remind the person that the experience is a dream. Typically, this task is as simple as looking at one’s hands or calling out a word. Clients are typically instructed to practice this exercise at home, especially before going to sleep. Although many nightmare sufferers will have some experience with lucid dreaming, others will not. In both cases, additional training in lucid dream induction techniques can be beneficial. There exist many options for augmenting the frequency with which one experiences lucid dreams, ranging from meditation-based exercises, to cognitive behavioral approaches, to various drugs and herbs. Although sound research remains lacking for some suggested methods, studies have shown that lucid dreaming is a learnable skill (see the “Lucid Dream Induction” section in Chapter 9). Another question that merits exploration and discussion is this: What should the person do if or when they become lucid during their nightmare? Several approaches have been suggested, including to “confront and conquer” the feared scene, to alter some small aspect of the dream, and to have the dreamer engage in conciliatory dialogue with hostile dream figures. Other options include the various mastery elements presented in the preceding chapter on imagery rehearsal therapy. Although some nightmare sufferers may be tempted to use lucid dreaming to fly away from threatening agents, many clinicians feel this option should be discouraged or only used as a last resort. Compared to other methods of dealing with aversive dream content when lucid, running or flying away from a negative dream environment is not very constructive. Moreover, such an approach may backfire, result in a sudden awakening, or deprive the dreamer of a unique opportunity to gain new insights into the possible significance of the dream.

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Although the mechanisms through which lucid dreaming may operate to achieve positive therapeutic outcomes remain unclear, several possibilities have been put forth. For example, LaBerge and Rheingold (1990) have suggested that what a person anticipates will happen next in a dream can play an important role in dream construction or the manner in which the dream will unfold. It is possible that some people become trapped in a maladaptive way of responding to their negative dream imagery, including in what they expect to happen next in the dream, thereby leading to repetitive nightmares. Lucid dreaming may provide such individuals with new responses and expectations concerning the dream’s progression, especially in the case of recurrent nightmares. In his review of psychological therapies of nightmares, Halliday (1987) suggested four distress-producing factors for nightmares: their believed importance, their dreadful and anxiety-producing story lines, their perceived realism, and their uncontrollability. By becoming lucid in one’s nightmare, an individual may directly affect three of these four factors. Specifically, achieving lucidity within a nightmare can allow a client to alter the anxiety-producing story line by consciously modifying the content of the nightmare, to realize that the experience is a dream and not a real event taking place in the physical world, and to choose the manner in which to respond to and interact with the dream imagery, thus reducing the nightmare’s uncontrollability. Becoming aware during a nightmare that the experience “is only a dream” may also reduce its perceived importance. Though the ability to become lucid in one’s dreams can certainly be of therapeutic value, it remains unclear whether the principal factor responsible for the alleviation of nightmares is lucidity itself, or the ability to exert some control over the dream. For example, some clients report never becoming lucid in their nightmares, but they nevertheless remember to carry out rehearsed actions with positive results. Conversely, there are cases in which lucidity without the element of control actually worsened the nightmare. The dreamer’s ability to alter some detail in the nightmare, either through new responses or altered expectations during the dream, may therefore represent a key factor in the elimination of recurrent dreams. CLINICAL VIGNETTE G. V. was a 52-year-old Italian homemaker who came to Canada with her husband in 1957. G. V. reported experiencing the same nightmare for over 20 years with a frequency ranging from once a week to once every several months. As a young child, during World War II, she had witnessed several bombings. The nightmare consisted of being in her home in Canada when loud sirens were heard. The subject would begin to panic and to look for her two children who, in the dream, were much younger than in waking life. Finding herself in the kitchen, she would look through the window and see a bomber that appeared to be headed straight for her home. She would then hide beside the window while calling frantically for her children. The plane would stop by the kitchen window, and the pilot would peer into the home looking for her and her children, presumably to kill them.

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At this point in her dream, G. V. would wake up, sometimes in a cold sweat and frequently with heart palpitations. During the guided imagery, a target point in the dream was selected for when G. V. was to look at her hands. This was to occur at the moment in which the pilot looks into the window, as this was the most emotionally salient part of her dream. A discussion was then undertaken to determine what she would like to do in her dream if she became lucid. G. V. decided that she wanted to confront the pilot and command the scenery to disappear. Because of the strength of G. V.’s religious convictions, she suggested that she use the phrase, “In the name of God, I command you to go away.” This subject was already familiar with lucid dreaming and reported having had such dreams in the past. She explained that she would at times become aware that she was dreaming, either when she flew in her dreams or when she found herself talking to a dream character whom she knew to be deceased. Four weeks after the treatment, the subject twice experienced her recurrent nightmare. On the first occasion, the nightmare was experienced as usual. On the second occasion, G. V. successfully remembered to look at her hands and became lucid. When she said, “In the name of God, I command you to go away,” the dream scenery shifted, and she found herself in a church that she had attended in Italy. She reported that a powerful feeling of both joy and peace accompanied the change in dream content. She began to examine various details in the “dream church” and woke up shortly thereafter. The client’s progress was followed at six-month intervals over a two-year period. During this time, she did not have a recurrence of her nightmare, though three unrelated anxiety dreams were reported. In addition, she reported an increase in the frequency of her lucid dreams, which she described as being very enjoyable. One of her anxiety dreams is noteworthy in that a particular element of the treatment (i.e., looking at her hands) reoccurred, albeit in a different manner. In this dream, her brother’s feet had somehow become stuck on a railway track. A train was quickly approaching, and both the subject and the dream character became extremely agitated. When the train was no more than 100 meters away, the subject raised her hands and yelled, “Stop!” At that moment, the train came to a halt and thus was prevented from hitting her brother. At no point in this dream did she realize that she was dreaming. G. V. explained that she noticed her hands while trying to rescue her brother; something made her realize that her hands contained some sort of magic or power. This clinical vignette highlights some of the challenges and rewards of working with lucid dreaming in the treatment of nightmares. It also illustrates the point that mastery, or being able to alter something in the dream, may be more important than lucidity itself. Furthermore, an examination of this client’s posttreatment dreams shows that while she did not necessarily become lucid, elements from the training in lucid dreaming were clearly incorporated into the nightmare with positive results. In sum, lucid dreaming is a unique and highly intriguing state with a long and rich history. The clinical applications of consciousness awareness during dreaming, including for the treatment of nightmares, are only beginning to be explored by modern clinical science, but the fascinating results obtained thus far suggest a promising future.

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PTSD Nightmare Therapies Antonio Zadra and Alan Siegel

Although most people are familiar with everyday nightmares, trauma-related nightmares hold particular interest, given their etiology, compelling and often horribly distressing narrative, and wide-ranging clinical significance. Up to 70 percent of trauma-exposed individuals who develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) report nightmares bearing varying degrees of resemblance to the actual traumatic event. In fact, along with symptoms of insomnia and poor sleep quality, nightmares are now recognized as a core feature of PTSD. Increased awareness and research into PTSD over the last few decades have revealed that the devastating and life-altering impact of trauma is not limited to war veterans. Experiences of trauma that may provoke or accentuate nightmares may stem from natural disasters, all forms of accidents, child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, terrorism, political persecution, loss, or exposure to other significant stressors (e.g., Duval & Zadra, 2010). Moreover, far from being infrequent or isolated occurrences, recurrent nightmares about a traumatic event can persist for years and even decades after the trauma. This section addresses treatment approaches to trauma-related nightmares while highlighting their clinical importance in recovery. WHAT ARE TRAUMA-RELATED NIGHTMARES LIKE, AND WH Y DO THE Y MATTER? The concept and ultimately the psychiatric diagnosis of PTSD evolved during the great wars of the 20th century, inspired by the devastating psychological impact of combat. After the Vietnam War, the painful process of the veterans’ recovery brought the plight of the trauma survivor to the awareness of the public and spurred the interest of researchers and clinicians. Pioneering dream researchers and clinicians, including Ernest Hartmann, Harry Wilmer, Milton Kramer, and others, helped to identify the unique characteristics of a special category of dreams, called posttraumatic nightmares. These dreams, which can be highly frequent and repetitive in nature, almost always end in an unresolved impasse and often portray a combination of issues stemming from the immediate trauma mixed with various issues, memories, or concerns from the dreamer’s childhood or other, more recent, life experiences. Regardless of their nature, posttraumatic nightmares are often experienced subjectively as emotionally toxic, and their occurrence can accentuate various psychological symptoms, including feelings of anxiety, helplessness, and heightened distress. Sudden traumatic experiences that afflict individuals whose lives are going relatively well provide an accessible way to understand posttraumatic nightmares. These include the survivors of accidents, such as a car crash, or natural disasters: earthquakes, wildfires, or tsunamis. Traumas that are repeated or chronic, such as

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child abuse, domestic violence, political persecution, war, or refugee status, may follow some similar patterns, but they are usually complicated by multiple psychological, medical, economic, or other devastating consequences that may be longlasting or chronic. Contrary to popular belief, however, not all trauma-related nightmares replicate the traumatic event as it originally occurred (e.g., Hartmann, 1998). In fact, episodic memories are very rarely depicted in dreams in general, and research has found that the nightmares of trauma victims can show considerable variability, particularly with the passage of time. While it is true that nightmares experienced during the initial post-trauma phase will typically include some element of repetition of the trauma, subsequent phases are often characterized by more symbolic representations of the trauma and greater integration of the individual’s everyday life in recalled dream content. Thus, trauma-related nightmares may best be viewed on a continuum. At one extreme are the nightmares that replicate key features of the trauma, including the setting, presence of others, and central events or actions. Next, nightmares may present encapsulated or distilled memories of the trauma or, more commonly, contain distorted themes, elements, or emotions related to the trauma. Finally, nightmares can represent the traumatic event in a disguised fashion, primarily through the use of symbolic or metaphorical imagery. In this case, the nightmare narrative will show little to no objective resemblance to the actual traumatic event as it was experienced. As an example of these variations, one study of over 300 Vietnam War veterans reporting combat-related nightmares showed that while over half of the veterans reported realistic combat dreams, 21 percent reported plausible war sequences that had not actually been experienced, and 26 percent reported dreams that alluded to the war but also included fantastical and everyday elements (Wilmer, 1996). This variability was also observed in a study of patients hospitalized following an accident or assault, as only 46 percent of reported dreams were found to replicate the traumatic event and the rest were either dissimilar to the traumatic event while containing high levels of distress or showed little similarity to the trauma or distress (Mellman et al., 2001). In sum, although the acute phase associated with severe trauma can be accompanied by high levels of post-traumatic dreams replicating the traumatic event, the frequency of such dreams tends to diminish over time, replaced by dreams depicting modified versions of the event or metaphorical representations that evolve over time. TREATMENT OF P TSD-RELATED NIGHTMARES There currently exist two highly effective and empirically proven treatments for PTSD nightmares (Phelps & Forbes, 2012; Seda et al., 2015). The first is imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT), a cognitive behavioral technique described in detail in a preceding section on chronic nightmares. In essence, IRT (and its variants) involves three core elements: selecting a target nightmare, intentionally changing the content of the nightmare (through rewriting or in the mind’s eye) in whatever way

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feels right to them, and regular imaginal rehearsal. The second treatment option, pharmacological in nature, is prazosin, an alpha blocker originally approved for the treatment of hypertension. The use of both approaches in treating PTSD nightmares is discussed below. Although IRT may have potential efficacy for all types of nightmares, its use in treating trauma-related nightmares can require specific measures. Clinical observations indicate that people with acute PTSD usually suffer from a range of the significant symptoms, including dissociation, overwhelming anxiety, and cognitive deficits in attention, concentration, and memory. These symptoms may make it more difficult for them to assimilate the principles behind IRT, including the basic instructions. For this reason, trauma victims should be discouraged from selecting an overwhelming replay-type nightmare for their first attempt at IRT and instead first learn and test the technique on less disturbing or intense nightmares. Selecting a relatively less threatening and nonreplicative nightmare not only helps minimize the person’s reexposure to their trauma, but it also sets up more favorable conditions to successfully imagine a changed version of the dream’s content. In addition, while the incorporation of negatively toned dream elements in rescripted narratives was found to be both common and potentially therapeutic in female sexual assault survivors (Germain et al., 2004), results from one study (Harb, Thompson, Ross, & Cook, 2012) of IRT in combat-related PTSD nightmares suggests that IRT may be most effective when the rescripted dream includes a resolution of the nightmare’s main thematic content (e.g., fear of death, being under attack, lack of control, self-blame) and excludes overly violent elements. These findings illustrate the need for additional work on the mechanisms of action underlying IRT and the importance of tailoring protocols and instructions to different types of PTSD populations. Prazosin is a α1-adrenergic receptor antagonist originally intended for the treatment of hypertension. A large body of research has shown prazosin (which crosses the blood-brain barrier) to be a highly efficacious treatment for PTSD-related nightmares in military veterans as well as civilian populations (Augedeal et al., 2013). Although therapeutic doses vary greatly between individuals, treatment is typically initiated at 1 mg before bedtime and, if required, gradually increased to maintenance levels of 2–6 mg at night. In addition to being well tolerated by a majority of patients, prazosin is associated with minimal (≤ 10%) side effects, which may include dizziness, headaches, drowsiness, lack of energy, and palpitations. Prazosin’s exact mechanisms of action remain unknown, but it is believed that by blocking the effects of norepinephrine (a stress hormone that affects sleep and the brain), the drug helps normalize REM sleep architecture. Additionally, prazosin may affect fear-memory structures implicated in the production of nightmares (e.g., Levin & Nielsen, 2007), thereby reducing the frequency and intensity of highly distressing dreams. Both IRT and prazosin can be used on their own to resolve post-traumatic nightmares or be integrated into more comprehensive approaches targeting a broader range of trauma-related symptoms. As previously discussed, trauma as well as nontrauma-related nightmares are closely related to other sleep disturbances, including

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increased sleep latency, decreased total sleep time, increased nocturnal awakenings, and generally restless or poor-quality sleep. Moreover, nightmares can give rise to sleep avoidance and fear of darkness, thereby worsening insomnia-like symptoms. Several studies have shown that beyond their significant effects on nightmares, treatments based on IRT or prazosin can lead to improvements in general sleep quality in adults suffering from PTSD, although adding cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia to IRT can yield even greater improvements in sleep quality as well as daytime PTSD-related symptoms (Seda et al., 2015). In addition, there is evidence to suggest that nightmare reduction is itself associated with marked improvements in daytime PTSD-related symptoms, including depression, anxiety, and overall functioning (e.g., Casement & Swanson, 2012). It should be noted, however, that some patients taking prazosin will experience a recurrence of insomnia and nightmares upon discontinuation of the medication, whereas IRT appears to have continued positive effects long after actual treatment sessions have been terminated. CAN POST-TRAUMA DREAMS BE ADAP TIVE? Many contemporary dream theorists suggest that dreaming is functionally significant and may subserve a biologically important function, especially in emotional adaptation. There is considerable evidence indicating that REM sleep (the sleep stage where vivid and emotionally salient dreams are most likely to occur) benefits emotional processing and emotional memory consolidation. In regard to trauma-related dreams and nightmares, REM sleep dreaming may serve a function of emotional processing and integration of trauma-related memories. However, to what extent these functions are realized or impeded following trauma may depend on the type of dreams experienced (e.g., everyday bad dreams, nonreplay nightmares, low-distress replicative nightmares, high-distress trauma-replay nightmares), including their specific content, emotional tone, static or changing nature over time, and impact on daytime functioning. For instance, while idiopathic and nonreplicative bad dreams may allow for emotional adaptation and memory integration, highly charged trauma-related nightmares that persist over time and continue to generate distress may reflect a failure of these sleep-based processes. In sum, PTSD-related nightmares experienced by trauma victims warrant clinical attention, and their effective and direct treatment via IRT or prazosin may pave the way not only for improved sleep and daytime functioning but also adaptive REM dream-based emotional processing. CLINICAL VIGNETTE Although this section has focused on direct psychological therapies for PTSD nightmares, working with trauma-related nightmares in non-PTSD patients within a psychotherapeutic context can also aid recovery (e.g., Siegel, 2010). The following vignette is offered as a brief example. Catherine and Ron were celebrating their honeymoon on a small cruise boat that traversed the Galapagos Islands. During the night, they were thrown out of

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their bunk beds by a tremendous crash. The crew had been drinking and fell asleep, and a jagged rock had broken through the hull and into their cabin. Water began pouring in. Naked, they groped for the door and were slammed against the walls of the boat as it repeatedly smashed into the rocks. They barely made it to the upper deck. The boat continued to heave violently. Just as it capsized, Catherine and Ron jumped into the pitch-black waters, preparing to die. Catherine was caught by a rope and drawn under the boat, emerging only after a desperate struggle. Ron and Catherine found each other in the darkness and struggled up sharp rocky slopes. None of the 18 on board died. However, Catherine was severely bruised, had two broken toes, and was covered by the painful spines of the sea urchins that lived on the rocks that had sunk their boat. When the dawn broke, they could see the pieces of their vessel and debris of their belongings drifting in and out with the tide. Many hours later, in shock and scorched by the heat of the equatorial sun, they were rescued. In contrast to individuals with prolonged trauma, such as victims of abuse, war, famine, or being refugees, Catherine’s life was stable before the accident. She recovered within a few weeks from her medical injuries, and she and her husband had plenty of sympathy and support from friends and family, good jobs, and economic stability. Nevertheless, for weeks, Catherine could not sleep through the night. She would wake up gasping for breath and terrified by horrific nightmares that always featured drowning waters rushing over her and little else. Within a few weeks, her dreams suddenly became more detailed, and she had the following nightmare: I am sitting on a beach, and suddenly I see a tidal wave forming in the distance. It is rushing toward me at breakneck speed. I can see a series of walls that were built to hold back the tide. At first it seems like they will be able to hold the water back. But each time the water reaches a wall, I can see it surge relentlessly onward, getting closer and closer, until it is just about to crash over me. I wake up panicked.

One of the key issues for Catherine in recovering from the trauma was her sense that there was no warning and the shocking accident occurred in the middle of what should have been a time of joy. In her nightmare, the power of the tidal wave was terrifying. However, unlike the shipwreck, in the dream, she could see could see the tidal wave coming. The tidal wave dream provided a metaphoric reliving of the trauma. The lack of a warning led to ongoing anxiety about her safety after the shipwreck. Seeing the tidal wave rising in the distance and racing toward her was terrifying. However, the visual image of the walls slowing the relentless wave helped her feel she was beginning to develop some inner protection against the terror of drowning. In the metaphor of the dream, this gave her time to prepare, unlike the real night of the shipwreck. This helped Catherine identify a major source of her lingering anxiety linked to the accident. Talking about the dream and connecting it to her fear of the unexpected shock gave her a ray of hope that she could overcome the terror she had experienced and to feel more prepared for future challenges, rather than feeling worried all the time that something terrible was about to happen.

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For psychotherapists, some of the benefits of working with nightmares is that they can get a better sense of painful issues that their clients may be unaware of or may find hard to face or communicate. Working with nightmares may help the therapist to grasp the emotional magnitude of the client’s unresolved experiences and help the dreamer make meaningful connections between current stressors or trauma and past issues that may be plaguing them. After the shipwreck, Catherine’s tidal wave nightmares helped her begin to cope with the sense of being unprepared for danger and lingering fears of vulnerability and self-doubt. In conclusion, clinicians have access to effective therapies for nightmares, whether they are trauma related or not, and much to offer as well as to gain from working with people’s nightmares. Moreover, changes in dream content can parallel improvements in the post-trauma reaction and thus may serve as indicators of clinical progress in trauma victims’ response to trauma treatments by improving nightmare frequency, general sleep quality, and overall daytime functioning.

Chapter 18

A LIFETIME OF DREAMING Alan Siegel

While the “Ontogenetic Development of Dreaming” section in Chapter 6 covered the aging factors in general associated with dream content, this chapter focuses on unique patterns of dream themes that cluster at life’s key turning points. During life transitions and crises, dreams and nightmares become more vivid, compelling, and frequently remembered. Examining patterns of dreaming not only illuminates the nature of dreaming during key points of stress and adaptation, it also sheds light on human development. For the growing child, the expectant parent, the newlywed, grieving adults experiencing losses, and others experiencing crises and changes, dreams open a window to view the conscious and unconscious reactions and preparations for periods of change that are important both to the survival of the individual and the survival of the species. TURNING POINT DREAMS Several memorable or recurrent dream themes have been observed to be recurrent and prominent during expected life passages, such as pregnancy, forming relationships and getting married, reaching midlife and aging, grieving the loss of loved ones, and confronting illness and the approach of death. There are also patterns in dreams and nightmares following trauma, crises, and unexpected and disruptive events. Post-traumatic dreams and nightmares are addressed in other chapters of this volume. Turning point dreams include the vivid and compelling dreams that often cluster before, during, and after expectable life transitions as well as dreams and nightmares that occur after crises and traumatic events. Table 18.1 lists a number of these. This chapter will focus on the common themes, patterns, and dreams before, during, and after expected life transitions (Siegel, 2003).

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Table 18.1. Developmental Themes in Turning Point Dreams Turning Points

Developmental Task or Challenge

Common Dream Patterns and Themes

Early childhood (Ages 2–8)

Vulnerability, passivity, lack of control and mastery, insecurity and fear of the unknown.

Animal dreams common. Victimization by hostile forces, such as being chased or threatened by animals/creatures and large figures representing parents or unknown and frightening forces. Efforts to respond or fight back may be minimal. Dreamer as the protagonist is not common. Low levels of verbal activity and verbal engagement of characters. Passivity and a lack of coping resources in the face of threats are common themes.

Later childhood (Ages 9–18)

Increasing selfawareness along with social relationships with peers and growing sense of efficacy and empowerment in the face of challenges or threats.

Dreamer and human characters appear in dreams more often, animals less often; more verbalization and interaction in dreams. More social interaction in girls’ dreams. In teens, the dreamer and other characters take more active roles and are less often victims or helpless. More evidence of fighting back or attempting to cope, even if not successful.

Marriage and relationships

Fear of commitment, loss of identity.

Bride of Frankenstein. The intended spouse or partner has an unappealing appearance or behavior that triggers shame, revulsion, or questioning of the choice of partner. Exaggerates doubts and fears of commitment. Sexual adventure. Dreams of affairs with former lovers or other known or random partners that may trigger excitement, guilt, or other reactions during and after dreams. Ceremonial disaster dreams. Horrendous mishaps at the wedding. Torn or missing dresses, revolting food served at the wedding, fights with parents or fiancé(e). Culture clash dreams. Hopes and fears about the culture, religion, race of partner. May portray fears or threat or positive expectations about combining families and cultures.

Excitement or fear about sexual commitment or possible rejection. (may be more acute when the individual has experienced divorce, rejection, or betrayal)

Performance anxiety linked to planning and the ceremony and getting married in general.

Apprehension about mixed marriage, cultural, religious, or ethnic differences.

(continued)

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Table 18.1. (continued) Turning Points

Developmental Task or Challenge

Common Dream Patterns and Themes

Pregnancy

Development of nurturing behaviors linked to parenting and the survival of the species.

Animal birth. Often furry mammals. Fetal identification dreams. Dream character is in womb-like settings. Metaphors of birthing, emerging from small spaces. Forgetting the baby. Irresponsible parent inadvertently loses track of baby and pursues other activities, panicking when he or she realizes the baby is nowhere to be seen. Losing valuables dreams. Loss of purse or wallet. Deformed and endangered baby. Injured, odd, or malformed babies. Wunderkind. Child has special powers and often special abilities, such as infants reading or showing great athletic prowess. Name and gender dreams. Gender dreams do not predict the gender, but they can reveal concerns related to gender issues in the parent and anticipation of the relationship. Celebration dreams by the expectant father. “Birth”day parties with ample food and rejoicing over positive events, winning a race or award, etc. Fertility dreams by the expectant mother. Flowers blooming from breasts. Lush growth. Left out dreams. Rejection by spouse or separation from family and sexual rejection dreams.

Exaggerated fears about the long-term responsibilities of parenting and being an adequate parent. Fears about the health of the baby. Hopes, fantasies, expectations, and excitement about the baby and relationship with the child. Joy and excitement about parenting. Expectant father’s struggle to feel included.

Midlife

Confronting mortality, vulnerability, and loss of youth. Finding new meaning, new identity, and renewed hope.

Mortal threat dreams. Death, destruction, injury, illness, buildings crumbling. Botanical regeneration dreams. New floral growth sprouting, fields turning green, rebirth themes.

Approaching death

The limits of time, the imminence of death, and reviewing life issues and relationships.

Dreams of clocks or awareness of limited time. Visions of an afterlife. Crossing thresholds and going through doors or portals. Darkness and fear of being alone. Light, liberation, and spiritual experiences and beings, religious symbols. (continued)

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Table 18.1. (continued) Turning Points

Developmental Task or Challenge

Common Dream Patterns and Themes

Grief

The stages of coping with loss: denial, anger, struggles to work through, ambivalence and acceptance, and incorporating important aspects of the relationship.

Reunion with the dead dreams. Visitation and encounter with deceased that may initially be extremely upsetting. Reassurance dreams. More resolved dreams as grief progresses, with words of comfort from the dreamer or the dream encounter. Desperately searching dreams. Especially common with unresolved relationships, miscarriage, child death, or death of parent, spouse, or friend with unfulfilled or unresolved issues. Spiritual beings dreams. Angels or other mystical beings may symbolize conceptions of the afterlife and may be linked to resolution or even denial.

Source: Siegel, 2003, 2005; Siegel & Bulkeley, 1998; Garfield, 1988.

CHILDHOOD DREAMS REM sleep is closely linked to episodic bursts of nocturnal dreaming, and it is present from birth until death. There is even evidence of REM activity in the womb. During the first weeks and months of life, with brain development progressing at a rapid pace, newborns spend about 50 percent of their sleeping hours in REM. In contrast, older children spend about 25 percent of their sleep in REM. Adults are in REM about 20 percent of their sleep time, and aging adults have more disrupted sleep and a reduction in both hours of sleep and REM (Hartmann, 1998). Many researchers believe that REM sleep plays a heightened role during the first year of life and is connected to the programming of the neural pathways during the dramatic maturation of the brain in the first few months of life. During and beyond infancy, dreams play a role in the consolidation of new learning and memory. When humans face new adaptive challenges and crises, dreams become more vivid, and nightmares are more prevalent. The first REM period of the night typically begins about 90 minutes after falling asleep. During crises, such as divorce, REM begins sooner, suggesting the possibility that there is an increased biological or psychological need to dream, and nightmares are more frequent when facing a crisis or turning points (Cartwright, 1991). Overall, the frequency of REM sleep from womb to tomb, the pressure to dream during crises, and the emotionally compelling nature of dreams underlines the vital role of dreaming in evolution and human development and adaptation.

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First Dreams After the emergence of speech, children begin to describe fragments of dreams and nightmares. Because their verbal and cognitive development is still emerging, young children’s dreams are often very brief and have little plot development. Based on extensive sleep laboratory research, David Foulkes asserts that preschoolers’ dream reports are rudimentary at best. He conducted laboratory studies of children’s dreams, as young as three and four years old, and reported that children at that age typically give brief dream reports that are “a sentence or two long” and “lacking in dynamic thematic quality.” He ultimately concluded that children’s reports of dreaming are “basically absent at ages 3 and 4, due to the lack of an ability “to encode episodic memory” (Foulkes, 2017). Thus, Foulkes believes that the recall and reporting of dreams may require a level of cognitive and linguistic maturity that is not possible for most children younger than five years old. Despite the assertions of Foulkes, parents, psychotherapists, and adults remembering childhood dreams have provided narratives that are surprisingly elaborate and detailed even for preschool children. These reports from multiple sources contradict Foulkes’s conclusion. Critics of Foulkes questioned whether sleeping in the unfamiliar environment of a sleep laboratory caused anxiety and constrained the children’s capacity to recall dreams. Foulkes tried a variety of measures to minimize the potentially anxiety-inducing and dream-constricting impact of the laboratory setting. Among other approaches, he had parents stay with their child, sleeping in the laboratory for a few nights prior to the REM dream collection. He determined that lab-collected and home-collected dreams were essentially similar, and laboratory studies of dreams should be considered the gold standard for research (Foulkes, 2017). Further research is still needed to clarify the capacity for dream reporting under the age of five. Dreams of Young Children Studies of dream content have found that younger children’s dreams are shorter, and the main characters are often passive, victimized, or subject to forces beyond their control. The dreamer is often an observer or does not have a role in the dream and often does not take an active role in confronting conflicts or adversaries. These patterns parallel the insecurities, fear of the unknown, and still emerging cognitive understanding and communication skills of young children (Siegel, 2005). As children’s cognitive powers and social skills mature, and as the capacity for symbolic representation increases after the age of five, children’s ability to communicate their dream reports also evolves. By the age of eight, children begin to develop the capacity to fully differentiate dreams from fantasies or other ideas or stories. In metaphoric form, “Children show in dreams how they can represent and organize what happens in their lives. They can tell us how they think about themselves, others and the external world” (Bleadonu, 2006). Older children begin to have dreams where they take a more active or leading role in the dream narrative, rather than being observers or victims. Characters

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begin to speak more and engage in reciprocal exchanges in the dreams. Even when the dreams are upsetting and end in unresolved conflicts, there is more evidence of attempts to fight back and master the challenges that arise in their dreams and nightmares. Gender differences emerge more clearly around puberty. Girls’ dreams reveal more developed social and character interactions at an earlier age— reflecting their earlier development of waking social skills. Although Freud placed a strong emphasis on sexual and aggressive themes in dreams, many studies of the content of children’s dreams find a virtual absence of sexual dreams. Perhaps dream sexuality is not as ubiquitous as Freud theorized. Children may not be having sexual thoughts and fantasies, or perhaps children are more inhibited or do not have the awareness or vocabulary to describe erotic dreams. The same is not true for aggression. In their dreams, younger boys have more aggression than girls and are more often the victim. Younger girls’ dreams have less aggression, but their aggressive themes increase as they age. Foulkes found that animal characters predominated in the dreams of young children as opposed to human characters or family members. The dream animals are often threatening and symbolize a wide variety of early childhood fears, including aspects of human and family relationships. With the proliferation of electronic games and mobile apps, more imaginary creatures appear in children’s dreams and may represent human interactions, emotions, and especially fears triggered by distressing scenarios in their games or movies. For example, Ariel, a bright five-year-old, was very excited about starting kindergarten. Despite the excitement of Ariel and her parents, she began having distressing nightmares and difficulty sleeping in the weeks before she started at her new school. In one dream, she was chased by a threatening unicorn. She was barely able to escape by climbing a tree. She woke up terrified (Siegel, 2003). As Ariel’s parents pondered her dream, they noted that she had felt quite secure at her preschool, which was called the Unicorn School. In her dream, the image of school, represented by the unicorn, had turned ominous and embodied Ariel’s anxieties about growing up and going to a new school. Unicorns were no longer benign. Ariel’s parents helped to soothe her anxiety by having her draw the dream and imagining and drawing several ways that wild unicorns could be tamed. Just as important, the nightmare helped Ariel’s parents understand that the unexpected emergence of acute anxiety was a normal part of anticipating and adjusting to both a new school and a new phase of life. In some cases, anxiety or confusion linked to childhood nightmares may linger on into adulthood. The novelist Stephen King had many joyful childhood dreams of flying. However, he also had terrifying dreams, including a ghoulish nightmare that haunted him well into adulthood. When he was six years old, he woke up “screaming, covered with goosebumps” and slept with the light on for weeks afterward. In the dream, he had a horrific vision of a man hanged on the gallows with birds flying all around him. Over 20 years later, his gruesome nightmare of a strangled hangman with predatory birds circling above was still so vivid that it became the starting point for his best-selling second novel, Salem’s Lot, which was later

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made into a movie. In part, it contributed to the popularity of the genre of vampire books and movies in the following decades (Epel, 1993). Although children may have 20,000 or more dreams before they leave home, few remember their childhood dreams, and those recalled are often nightmares. This is not because most of the dreams are nightmares, but rather nightmares often awaken the dreamer; the distress is more likely to linger in memory. Nevertheless, the few dreams remembered from childhood may have great emotional significance, and understanding them can lead to insights and the possibility of helping to resolve childhood conflicts and trauma. In a graduate-level course on the psychology of dreams, during a discussion of the students’ earliest remembered dreams, Mara, a bright and enthusiastic doctoral student, was the first to speak up about her repetitive childhood nightmare. Around the age of nine, she frequently dreamed that she was paralyzed: There were always two giant fingers, strange and much larger than life. There was a child trapped between the huge fingers; it might’ve been me. I was frightened and always woke up crying.

Mara was clearly upset, but she couldn’t relate the dream to anything in her life, past or present. When asked at what age she had the dream and what was going on in her life, she “lit up.” She recalled having it when she was nine years old, during the period leading up to her parents’ divorce and the acrimonious custody battle that continued for a year or more. Although she remembered the distressing image in the dream, she had repressed the painful emotions connected to it. By connecting the two, Mara was better able to comprehend how dreams symbolize unresolved trauma. She called her mother, who confirmed that she had had the painful nightmares repetitively during the divorce and its aftermath. Mara came to understand the fingers as representing images of being trapped between her battling parents. It is likely that the memory was too painful to understand or resolve as a child. However, as a young adult and with enough emotional distance from her parents’ divorce, she could understand and let go of some of the lingering emotional hangover. By listening to their children’s dreams, parents can learn more about what is troubling their children, who may not be able to identify or articulate what is bothering them (Siegel, 2003). Parents that encourage family dream sharing and praise the originality and unique stories often find that their children recall dreams more frequently and are excited to share and explore their dreams and nightmares as well as dreams that may be memorable, inspirational, or even have a magical or mystical quality. Such sharing can lead to meaningful emotional interactions and a rewarding alternative for both children and parents, who are often overscheduled with activities or lost in the screens of their electronic devices, social media, and apps while at home. For parents, another beneficial strategy is to keep and preserve a journal of their child’s dreams and their responses, pictures, and dream-related art projects. It can be an enlightening way to understand the child’s inner life and can be a vivid record that the family and the child will appreciate later in life.

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Unresolved nightmares may morph into presleep or other anxieties, so taking the dream and the child’s reaction seriously and providing reassurance can be beneficial, as nightmares may persist until the stresses, conflicts, or traumas that triggered the bad dreams are resolved. Parents or psychotherapists should not expect to analyze and interpret children’s dreams in the traditional sense of verbally exploring symbols and images and connecting them with feelings, stresses, and relationships. For children, creative modes of exploring dreams, especially through artwork and creative exploration, are more appropriate. A variety of forms of rescripting (Halliday, 1995) or rewriting the dream narrative to create alternative and more resolved endings can be beneficial for children and adults. This approach parallels aspects of imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT), which is a technique that was developed to treat frequent nightmare sufferers, including those who have been traumatized (as discussed in Chapter 17). Waking fantasies are encouraged to create alternate and usually more resolved endings for dreams. This has been shown to be an effective treatment that can reduce emotional distress linked to recurring nightmares and is relatively easy and inexpensive to utilize. Creative dream exploration techniques may not cure a child suffering from the emotional trauma of a high-conflict divorce or a severe illness or injury. However, untreated nightmares can accentuate anxiety symptoms. For Ariel, imagining that a magic wand or special lasso could tame the unicorn and creating stories and drawings to reduce the threat of the evil unicorn helped to reduce the anxious hangover of the dream. For Mara, decoding the meaning of the paralyzing giant fingers triggered valuable insights and helped ease the lingering impact of the childhood trauma of divorce when she connected with her mother about previously unspoken topics that were painfully frozen in her psyche. She speculated that her choice of a career in psychology may have been partly related to a desire to work out the impact of her parents’ divorce (Siegel, 2003). PREMARITAL AND RELATIONSHIPS DREAMS Establishing a committed love relationship and getting married is the fulfillment of a deep desire to have a life partner and often to start a family. Joyful announcements to family and friends, planning a wedding or commitment ceremony, the honeymoon getaway, and starting a new chapter in life are eagerly anticipated. Nevertheless, with a divorce rate nearing 50 percent, having doubts is both common and reasonable and can lead to a focus on important feelings and issues that may have been obscured by all the details of wedding planning and joyful expectations. Anxieties and anxiety dreams are closely linked to concrete stresses of preparation as well as psychological conflicts. These often include losing one’s identity; imagined fiascos connected to the wedding ceremony; sexuality issues, including infidelity or intimacy; changing relationships with the dreamer’s family of origin and friends; and forming new ties to the expanding family. Forty percent of prewedding dreams have direct or disguised references to commitment, marriage, the wedding ceremony, or changes in identity (Westbrook, 1998).

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In many cultures and for many people, dreams are taken literally as a prediction, as opposed to a metaphor, for the psychological conflicts and challenges the dreamer is facing. Dreams are often misinterpreted as a bad omen or a predictor of a poor outcome to the marriage. These concerns can be more pronounced when the dreamer has been a child of divorce or has experienced painful rejections, loss, or abandonment. Upsetting dreams, anxiety, doubt, and confusion are not only normal and expectable but may be a sign that the dreamer is coping effectively. Exploring premarital dreams can help to identify what issues are creating doubts and stumbling blocks and can lead to a reduction of anxiety and an opportunity for self-understanding that may help the couple’s sense of fulfillment. Bride of Frankenstein Dreams Dreams frequently exaggerate fears. Many brides and grooms have dreams that include some ghastly, shocking, or risqué behaviors in their intended spouse. These “Bride/Groom of Frankenstein” dreams, if taken literally, suggest that the dreamer is making a big mistake. But they are more often exaggerations of anxieties about commitment (Siegel, 2003). Patricia Garfield reported the pre-wedding dream of a woman who dreamed that her fiancé announced he was not going to marry her because she was ugly. He then turned into a terrifying monster. In the dream, she thought she would need to cancel the wedding, but she was horrified by that idea. In fact, the woman was attractive, the man was not abusive, and they became happily married. Discussing the dream helped her consider other issues in her life linked to fears of closeness and commitment (Garfield, 1988). Commitment Fears and Loss of Identity Dreams Another woman dreamed before the wedding that she was flying in a convertible when her fiancé appeared. He was dressed “in a horrible blue suede patchwork jacket and announced he was feeling trapped.” He said that if he married me, he could “no longer be wild.” The dreamer had some anxieties about losing her wild side in the marriage, despite her ardent desire to marry and have a family; yet, the dream portrays the groom as having commitment fears (Westbrook, 1993). Over a century ago, Freud pointed out that reversal is a frequent mechanism in dreams. Many psychotherapists who work with dreams understand that characters and symbols in a dream may represent different aspects of the dreamer’s personality. In this instance, the dreamer was not aware of her ambivalence linked to a fear of losing the freedom of her single lifestyle. Remembering and discussing the dream helped her grasp the complexity and mixed feelings of making a life commitment. Culture Clash Dreams Mixed marriages have become commonplace. Couples with different religious, ethnic, or socioeconomic backgrounds often underestimate both the conflicts in

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the encounter and the extra time needed to communicate their expectations and to work on compromises to incorporate all aspects of both their backgrounds. Dreams can help couples identify and understand religious and cultural differences, which can allow them to forge a blend of cultures, rituals, and wisdom from both sides of the family. Roger, a Presbyterian, was preparing to marry a Jewish woman named Sandy. They both downplayed their cultural and religious differences and emphasized that “neither of us is very religious.” A month before the wedding, Roger had a distressing dream: A group of dark-looking people from a country in the Middle East came to stay at my house. They say they are moving in and are going to take over my house and live there. I try to talk to my fiancée, but she doesn’t seem to be able to help them out. They may have even captured her in some way, so she is loyal to them.

The dream helped Roger understand that he did have some mixed feelings about being married by a rabbi and had recently been irritable when wedding plans came up. He had some fears he had not realized about how their beliefs and families would blend together. This led to a series of productive discussions between Roger and Sandy regarding their ideas and values about religion, child-rearing, and other subjects (Siegel, 2003). Bob, an American of European origin, was planning to marry Yolanda, whose family was from Nicaragua. He had been the child of alcoholics, with an abusive father and a depressed mother. He had become very attached to Yolanda’s family, and a pre-wedding dream helped him understand his positive feelings about becoming part of Yolanda’s warm and loving family. He dreamed that he and Yolanda were on the Hopi Indian reservation, and the Hopi’s were “helpful and warm” and very accepting. In the dream, he described feeling excited because they treated “us as if we are part of their tribe” (Siegel, 2003). DREAMS OF EXPECTANT MOTHERS AND FATHERS Planning to have a child, trying to conceive, and during every stage of pregnancy, both women and men are flooded with thoughts, fantasies, and dreams about many aspects of the pregnancy and the emotional bond that is forming with their child. Many prenatal dreams are joyful or even ecstatic, with wild celebrations, flowers blooming from women’s breasts, and feelings of love and protectiveness. In contrast, other dreams express anxiety about the health of the baby, fears about being an inadequate parent, confusion about changes in identity and body image, and worries about shifts in close relationships. It is crucial for expectant parents to be aware that anxious dreams and nightmares are a normal part of pregnancy and of any life transition, even when the transition is expected and desired. Dreams of Furry Mammals and Prenatal Bonding Pregnancy dreams have similar themes across cultures and time, and dreams about giving birth to animals are common throughout pregnancy, especially for

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women. Although almost 100 years apart, the following two dreams have two common elements: the presence of water and the sudden arrival of furry mammals. The first is taken from Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1899, and was likely the dream of a Viennese woman toward the end of the 19th century: A subterranean channel led directly into the water from a place in the floor of her room. She raised a trapdoor in the floor and a creature dressed in brown fur, very much resembling a seal, presently appeared.

Freud’s explanation noted that the “creature turned out to be her younger brother to whom she had always been like a mother.” He stated that the subterranean channel and the water represented the birth canal and the amniotic fluid. The second one, dreamed a century later and half a world away, is that of Jennifer, a San Francisco nurse in her eighth month of pregnancy: I’m in labor, and I am lying on a beach. The tide is coming in, and big waves are washing up onto shore. I keep calling for my husband. I know he’s there, but I can’t see him. The waves are getting bigger and more dangerous. Just when the waves seem like they are going to drown me, I see a little sea otter next to me. I know it was supposed to be my baby, but I am confused that it looks like an otter. I touch its skin, and it is incredibly smooth. (Siegel, 2003)

Like many women who dream of giving birth to animals, Jennifer worried that her dream might be a premonition of some malformation. But as she told her dream at a training workshop for nurses, midwives, and childbirth educators, other women in the class quickly volunteered that they, too, had frightening dreams during their pregnancies. As Jennifer listened to the details of the other women’s dreams, she was reassured and no longer saw the dream as representing danger. But she could connect it to her expectation of holding her baby and touching its wonderful soft skin. Jennifer’s dream contains several themes common to women in their last trimester of pregnancy. The imminence of labor is often represented by waves, earth tremors, other powerful movements, and a feeling of losing control. During the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, many women also have heightened fears about the well-being of their spouse. In Jennifer’s dream, her husband’s presence is sensed, but he is unable to arrive soon enough to protect her from the dangerous waves of labor. Dreams also focus on anxieties that haunt both men and women, even during a healthy pregnancy. These include themes that exaggerate the dangers of labor and delivery and fears about birth defects. Forgetting the Baby One of the most common pregnancy dream themes centers on the fear of not being a responsible or capable parent. This is a normal and expectable worry. Nevertheless, dreams of neglecting or even forgetting the baby are common and create anxiety and self-doubt because many women interpret it as a prediction that they will be inadequate parents.

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During the ninth month of pregnancy, Anna began having nightmares about carelessly leaving her baby on the dock while sailing off on a lovely vacation cruise. She was tearful for days after having these dreams: I am walking along the waterfront, pushing a stroller with my baby in it. I think it is a girl. A brightly lit yacht pulls up nearby, and a woman in a professional suit offers me a ride on the boat and luxury trip to Hawaii. I accept. . . . Suddenly [I’m] on board, sailing in the open sea. All [of a] . . . sudden, I realized that I left my baby alone on the dock. I panic and start shouting, trying desperately to get the boat to turn around, but no one will listen. I wake up crying and feeling incredibly guilty. (Siegel, 2003)

The dream illustrates a common dimension of dreams during periods of stress or transition, an exaggeration of the fears of the dreamer. This is part of the psyche’s attempt to unconsciously deal with stress and with important developmental tasks, such as preparing to altruistically set aside a parent’s personal needs and take on the profound responsibility of parenting. Confronting the issue in the dream can lead to anxiety if the expectant parent does not realize that her nightmares are part of a crucial internal reorganization that can help her to prepare to accept the burdens as well as the joys of parenting. The Secret Life of the Expectant Father There is a common misconception that because the father does not carry the baby or go through the physical transformation of pregnancy and childbirth, his psychological adjustment is less intense and less crucial, and that paying attention to the father’s emotional needs detracts from the crucial focus on the expectant mother. Studies of the dream patterns in expectant fathers reveal that men have many dreams about pregnancy and parenting, including some shared with the mother, where they give birth, protect the baby from threats, or simulate the experience of the fetus during pregnancy and childbirth. These reveal a secret life of the expectant father and are closely linked to a profound and rarely acknowledged transformation of men’s experiences during pregnancy. Helping men connect their “pregnant dreams” to important psychological tasks they must face during pregnancy can lead to a reduced tendency to feel isolated, a better connection with their partners, and stronger bonds with their child. Some can even bring out inner conflicts in a humorous way. One expectant father laughed as he told about the recurring dream of being approached by a voluptuous woman, only to be startled by an alarm going off in his wedding ring. He linked this to some ambivalence about the commitment of having a child and to the reduced frequency of sex during pregnancy (Siegel, 2003). Left Out Dreams Because of the lack of recognition of men’s emotional needs and challenges as legitimate, they often dream of being left out, rejected sexually, or alone. Working

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out the sense of not being crucial and feeling left out is an important developmental task for expectant fathers. Joel had increased his hours at work to try to make more money to pay for the expenses of his child. When his wife was five months pregnant, he had a troubling dream that took place during a baseball game: In the middle of the game, I get up to get some beer. When I return, I can’t find my seat. I look around for a new one, but many of the women in the stands are pregnant, and they are taking up two seats. I have to go to the back of the stadium and stand. I am very annoyed.

Joel was not an avid sports fan, but he tried to avoid drinking alcohol because his father struggled with alcoholism. His first reaction to the dream was the lingering feeling of being left out. He said that “there is no room for me with all these huge pregnant women.” As he talked about his reactions and associations to the dream, he began to smile at the absurdity of a stadium full of pregnant women crowding him out. Even in the generally male domain of beer and baseball, he felt like an outcast, rejected and forced to the back of the stadium. Despite Joel’s positive conscious reaction to becoming a father, he was feeling excluded by his wife. This is a normal but often painful phase of pregnancy that many men suffer through. The message of the dream was not about baseball or beer. It was about Joel’s fear of being left out and not having a significant role and his need to find more ways to be involved in the pregnancy and planning for the baby. This led to better communication with his wife and an awareness that his feelings and his role in the pregnancy were crucial. Joel subsequently decided to cut back his overtime hours so he could spend more time with his wife in preparing for their child’s arrival (Siegel, 2003). Pregnancy Identification and Fetal Identification Dreams As the birth approaches, men’s dreams often reflect a sense of excitement, and a common dream theme involves “birth” day parties and other celebrations that symbolize the sense of celebration and specialness of being on the verge of becoming a parent. But many men do not have a way to connect their dreams to their excitement about fatherhood, particularly dreams that metaphorically simulate the experience of the fetus during pregnancy or childbirth. On the day his wife was due, William reported a confusing dream. In the dream, he was at the dentist’s office and waiting to have a tooth extracted. The dentist made an incision, removed the tooth, and then waited a few minutes before carefully extracting a spongy material from inside his gums. He could only associate the dream to the fact that he had recently gone to the dentist. Given the imminence of his child’s birth, I asked him whether he thought the dream was linked to the pregnancy. He had not considered that, despite the timing of the dream, but he was very excited when I suggested the possible connection. Metaphorically, this may be a thinly veiled simulation of birthing. A doctor opens him up, reaches in, and pulls out an object and then waits for the placenta to emerge and be removed.

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In non-Western and traditional cultures, couvade rituals are common and have been described by anthropologists as a way to give the father a clear role in the pregnancy (Fishbein, 1981). Men perform painful simulations of labor to ward off evil spirits from their wives during labor and perform other magical rituals. In many postindustrial societies where men are not clear about how they fit into the pregnancy, couvade syndrome (Couvade Syndrome, n.d.) is characterized by men experiencing many of the common or stereotypical symptoms of pregnancy, including nausea, food cravings, weight gain, and getting teeth extracted (as in William’s dreams)—all unconscious expressions of the powerful impact of pregnancy on men’s identity and psychological adjustment. Hank, another expectant father, had a dream that involved an identification with the experience of the fetus during the birthing process. He dreamed that he was in the gym he belonged to, and he was swimming downhill in a race while being coached by the labor coach they had hired to help during the birth. At the end of the dream, he won the race and came out in the locker room wrapped in a towel. His only association with the dream was wondering whether he should go to the gym and swim more often, as he had been too busy to exercise enough during the pregnancy. The presence of the midwife (labor coach) and the image of swimming downhill and being wrapped in a towel suggests a thinly veiled metaphor for the experience of the newborn traveling down the birth canal and being wrapped in a towel. Recalling, writing, and discussing the possible meaning of the dream helped Hank to realize how deeply involved he was in the preparation for fatherhood. MIDLIFE AND AGING: TRANSITION FROM OLD TO NEW IDENTITIES The concept of a “midlife crisis” was popularized by writers such as Gail Sheehy, in her book Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life. Midlife crises may occur around the age of 40, or much earlier or later. Some face acute psychological crises, but many others gradually change as their circumstances and health and relationships evolve during the aging process. Many do confront one or more crises in their thirties, forties, or fifties, triggered by career or economic changes or challenges, children leaving home, parents dying, illness or injury, political or economic upheaval, or other causes (Sheehy, 1976). The key developmental tasks that often emerge during midlife or other existential crises of middle adulthood are confronting the finiteness of life, reexamining relationships and career choices, and shedding the skins of young adult identities and discovering greater meaning and new identities for the second half of life. Elena, a 40-year-old Mexican American woman, lived the first half of her life in Mexico. She came to the United States at 19 to attend college and had risen rapidly in her career, until she became executive director of a large social service agency in San Francisco. She and her husband were financially successful, but the materialism and pressured lifestyle felt increasingly empty. During a period of soul-searching about the meaning and direction of her life, she had the following dream:

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I am in a large office building, like the one where I used to be the director. Just as I am walking in, there is a tremendous earthquake. I know this is the big one. I begin to rush for the exit. As I’m about to run through the doorway, I suddenly realize that the building is just a façade and that inside the modern building is an encampment or little pueblo of adobe houses, like the ones my grandparents and cousins live in. I see lots of children in the huts. I know that I must save them or they will be crushed. I rush into the little village, and using all my strength, I grab as many of the little children as I can carry. Holding all the children, I rush for the door and just make it outside into the sunlight as the brick building collapses behind me.

This dream had a profound impact on Elena. Within months after this dream, she and her husband had sold their home and moved to a rural area of northern California. Her husband bought a small restaurant, and Elena was student teaching at a rural public school attended by the children of migrant Mexican farmworkers and volunteering at a health clinic that serves indigent pregnant women. At a prenatal discussion group at the clinic, Elena recounted her “Saving the Children” dream, as if revealing a precious work of art or a cherished family secret. The monumental earthquake in her dream did not seem related to a memory, but rather to the inner shake-up she was experiencing. The office building in the dream reminded Elena of the place where she used to work. Reflecting upon the discovery in the dream that the building was only a façade helped her understand why she felt her career success had felt superficial: it did not express the values of her native culture and her childhood. A house or a building in a dream can represent an image of the self or the body. For Elena, the little Mexican village inside the modern-looking American building was a perfect metaphor for her identity. The dream helped her understand her need to balance her driven professional side (symbolized by the building) with the earthy, family-oriented part of herself (symbolized by the adobe village and the needy children). Her dream motivated her to escape before being crushed by the façade of her pressured lifestyle. The theme of saving the children was especially important for Elena. Although unable to bear children herself, she had hoped to center her career around administering social programs that served children. However, as her success increased, her duties had centered entirely on fund-raising and advocacy. The dream helped her realize that she wanted to work directly with children. Although the meaning is unique for each person, saving children often symbolizes the need to heal or to attend to some emotional or physical wound. This dream gave Elena a lasting sense of confidence in pursuing a new career and lifestyle (Siegel, 2003). DREAMS REVEAL STAGES OF GRIEVING After the death of someone close, a grief process begins that may last for months or years. If grieving does not progress, the bereaved person can become vulnerable to depression, social isolation, substance abuse, or other psychological challenges. Some of the most crucial developmental tasks of grieving are to overcome denial

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and to gradually acknowledge the loss and mourn more openly. Other stages of grieving include expressing and working through unfinished issues, such as guilt, anger, or ambivalence; honoring the special attachment and integrating positive aspects of the relationship to acknowledge the spiritual dimension of grief; and confronting one’s own mortality. Appearance of the Deceased Dreams are often haunting during the grieving process and leave an emotional hangover during the day. Early in the grief process, the appearance of the deceased person in a dream can be disturbing. Upon awakening, the contrast between the dream and the fact of their death is jarring. The deceased seems so real in the dreams—more alive than ever. Many cultures embrace the notion that through dreams, we have our greatest opportunity to achieve real contact with the spirit of the dead person. In some cultures, dreaming is considered a crucial part of the process of grieving a death. Bereaved members of the Negrito tribe of the Philippines cannot hold the funeral feast until the dead person appears in several dreams of their close relatives (O’Nell, 1983). In contemporary urban Thailand, after a death, family members, even the children, discuss their dreams together to hold on to their connection with their deceased relative. This informal ritual of dream sharing promotes emotional sharing and facilitates the resolution of grief. For people who believe in an afterlife and the possibility of true contact with the spirit of the dead, these dream encounters afford a chance to work out your karma or unresolved issues with the dead person before their spirit fades. When they dream of a dead relative, they must pay homage to the clergy to ensure the journey of the dead relative to safe sanctuary (S. Kliks, personal communication, June 1990). Whether working with a psychotherapist, joining a grief support group, observing religious or cultural rituals, or sharing with friends and family, dreams can help the individual to overcome denial; to mourn the loss more openly; and to express and resolve troubling feelings stemming from the death, such as rage, abandonment, guilt, or even relief. Grief dreams can also help individuals confront their own mortality. When the stages of grieving gradually lead to diminished distress, grief dreams may bring reassurance and help the bereaved dreamer cherish and preserve their memories of the relationship. Dream researcher Rosalind Cartwright experienced a long grieving process and a series of dreams that depicted the stages of her grief following her adult daughter’s tragic accidental death. In a series of dreams, Cartwright struggled to accomplish what she could not do for her daughter in waking life—to rescue and protect her. Over months and years, there was a progression of images of her daughter at various stages of childhood. When she finally began to reach a place of greater acceptance, she ultimately dreamed of her daughter as an adult. She experienced shock and surprise when her grown daughter was alive and well and offered reassurance to her mother in the dream: I was at a big convention, waiting for an elevator, with a crowd of people. Now as an adult, Christine joined me there. “Christine!” I said. “I am so glad to see you. I thought

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you were dead.” “I am,” she said. “I only came to be with you until you are used to the idea.” (Cartwright, 1992)

Stages of Grief The stages of grief are clearly seen in the dreams of the bereaved. At first, there is an increase in the number of recalled dreams and nightmares. Common themes in the initial period may include discovering or questioning evidence that the person is really gone—related to the struggle to overcome denial and accept the reality of the loss. Receiving reassurance from the diseased relative or friend is common and often associated with increasing resolution of the upsetting feelings after a period of mourning. Dream references to either the dreamer or the dead person undergoing separation, aloneness, or suffering are also common in the early stage of adjustment. For example, shortly after her mother’s death, Padma, a physician who was raised in India, had repetitive dreams that she saw her mother dressed in black and appearing forlorn. She was worried about her mother, who had never liked to be alone while she was alive. She tried to express her concerns, but her mother was unable to hear her. Common dream themes in the middle stages of mourning include struggling to communicate with the dead person and expressing unresolved feelings of grief, anger, or guilt. Memories of past losses, such as earlier deaths of important people, may surface. Evidence of loneliness, depression, and self-destructiveness may also appear. Dreams About the Death of a Parent The death of a parent or other close relative is usually the first major death that many experience. Grieving is influenced by the nature of your relationship, whether the loss was expected, your emotional support network, and the way you have coped with other losses in the past. Reactions to a death extend beyond the actual loss of contact; they are also symbolic losses that are crucial to face to transform a period of darkness into one of growth. With a parent’s death, there is a loss of the sense of security that your parent will always be there to protect you, to fulfill unresolved desire for love or recognition, or to be an emotional or financial safety net. During the final days and the grieving, many confront their mortality—the next generation to face death. Illusions of immortality are shattered, and you are thrust into the role as an elder in your family. Facing those unresolved issues may provide a crucial opportunity for psychological growth, to mourn the lost love and find constructive ways to meet those needs in the present. In the extended period of grieving, it is important to cherish the memory of what your parents gave you as well as to heal the wounds from occasions when they disappointed or failed you by not providing the right kind of empathy and love. Many adults get caught in a quest to win the approval and love from their parents that they feel they were denied in childhood.

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Six years after her mother’s death, Padma had a dream that helped her see that she had finally worked out her grief about the death. It was the first dream in which she experienced a clear resolution: I can see my mother from a distance. It looks like the place where we used to spend our summer vacation. She seems younger and sprightlier, like a time before she became ill. I have a sense that all her karma had been paid for, and she was going to be reborn into a new life.

When a resolution is reached in the process of letting go of our attachment to a loved one, dreams can help us to confirm a sense of resolution and often include some of the following themes: peaceful images of the dead person from an earlier era, usually prior to illness or aging; appearances of the dead person as an angel, benevolent ghost, or spiritual being from a realm apart from the living; and words of comfort or reassurance from the dead person or a sense of reassurance from the circumstances that the dead person appears in that focus on some positive quality of the dreamer’s relationship with the dead person. Adam’s father and uncle were successful dentists who practiced together and were very close. Both, however, became addicted to drugs that were available through their practice. Adam had idealized his father and uncle and could not understand their addictive needs or why they would throw away success and happiness. Although he knew intellectually that he was not responsible, he could not shake the feeling that he should rescue his father. When his father ultimately died of an accidental overdose, Adam was devastated and felt he had failed. In the weeks following the death, Adam had a deeply upsetting recurring dream: My father is being sucked into a manhole. I am desperately trying to pull him out, but the dark, seething, sewage water is sucking him down lower and lower. I strain with all my might. But I’m losing my grip, and he is sinking. Though I keep struggling for what seems like an eternity, he is finally drawn down into the darkness and swept away.

Adam knew that his feelings for his father were unresolved and that the dream was telling him something about his inability to recover from the death. As the months went by, he began to understand that he needed to get over the guilt that was haunting him about failing to rescue his father. He came to release the denial and accept that his idealization of his father had been crushed. As Adam continued to resolve his guilt and, ultimately, his anger at his father for disappointing him, his dreams began to change. Within about three years, Adam’s manhole dreams had ceased, and the dreams took on a more spiritual quality. One dream was a signal to Adam that he had reached a new level of acceptance and resolution: I am seeing my father and his brother walking down the street together arm in arm. They’re young again—two beautiful young men. It seems like they are floating along like angels, their feet not touching the ground.

Adam’s “Angels Walking” dream has elements that are often present in the dreams of people who have resolved their grief over a parent or other deceased relative. It may take months or years before this kind of dream appears (Siegel, 2003).

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CONCLUSION Examining turning point dreams not only illuminates the nature of dreaming during key points of stress and adaptation, it also sheds light on human development. When young children dream of threatening wolves or other beasts of the night, when expectant mothers dream of giving birth to furry mammals, or when grieving adults are visited by dead relatives, these dreams certainly reflect heightened conscious preoccupations and struggles to cope effectively. Dreams and nightmares become more vivid and memorable when individuals cope with unexpected changes, crises, and trauma. Although the dream narrative may not transparently reveal the underlying meaning, during turning points, dreams metaphorically highlight the developmental challenges the individual is facing. As discussed in Chapter 13, dreams may also have an adaptive function, wherein attempts to metaphorically rehearse and resolve pressing life changes occur unconsciously during dreaming. Increased awareness of the themes of these dreams presents an opportunity for individuals to become more conscious of their reactions during times of change and to identify inner conflicts and impasses that stand in the way of their ability to cope effectively.

Part IV

D R E A M WO R K A N D C U LT U R A L P R AC T I C ES

Chapter 19

DREAMWORK PRINCIPLES

Dreamwork, as it is generally practiced or understood today, is an effort to explore levels of personal meaning and significance in a dream experience recalled from sleep and to work with the insights gained toward therapeutic aims, mental wellbeing, self-understanding, and personal growth. Dreamworkers include anyone who works with people, professionally or nonprofessionally, to help them with this process. Dreamwork can be a valuable and effective aid to psychotherapy (as described in Chapter 16). As opposed to its origins and earlier practice, however, it is no longer solely a practice of a professional therapist, or “interpreter,” but has expanded to a multitude of approaches involving nonprofessional practitioners, groups, and the dreamers themselves—many of which can be effective with a proper understanding of dreaming and if adequate safety and ethical practices are followed. To fully understand the concept of dreamwork, one needs to examine its evolution, especially in Western society. Details of the contributors to this evolution can be found in Chapter 15; a summary is provided here along with some basic principles and ethical guidelines that accompany modern-day dreamwork. It is particularly notable that the progression of dreamwork has been toward returning authority for the personal meaning of the dream to its owner—the dreamer.

Dreamwork Evolution Robert P. Gongloff

THE EVOLU TION Modern-day dreamwork is considered by many as beginning with the publication of Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams at the beginning of the 20th

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century. In the Freudian approach, determining the meaning of a dream was not practiced by the dreamers themselves, but by the psychotherapist. Although the approach to dreamwork has changed dramatically since then, Freud’s work is especially significant because he was the first to connect dreaming with the unconscious (although his belief was that the primary purpose of dreams was an attempt to fulfill unconscious desires and disguise those desires through symbolism). The approach to dreamwork changed with Swiss psychologist Carl G. Jung, a Freud contemporary. Jung saw dreams not as a disguise but as portraying the actual conditions within the psyche (see the “Carl Jung” section in Chapter 15). In his view, dreams were helping individuals find balance in their lives—seeking what he called “individuation.” Although still remaining within the hierarchical practice of the therapist, Jung saw the aim of dreamwork in psychotherapy as helping the patient benefit from examination of their dreams. He considered symbolism to be the natural picture language of the unconscious and likened understanding the dream to deciphering hieroglyphics, suggesting analysts not make hasty or forced theoretical assumptions about the dream, but proceed with a waiting and questioning approach. Jung also saw dreams as having a transcendental function, in that they could resolve issues unconsciously, even without formal analysis. Building on this thought, dreams could be considered to benefit the individual, even if not recalled. Supporting and advancing Jung’s concepts was Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler, who saw dreams as helpful in identifying waking life problems as well as issues not consciously recognized. He felt that one could achieve wholeness or selfactualization by working with dreams. He emphasized the importance of examining the emotional content of dreams. Adler has been called the forefather of cognitive theory. Enthusiasm for dreams grew dramatically by the 1960s, beginning with the humanistic movement and what some called the dreamwork grassroots movement. This period not only saw the introduction of many new theories in psychotherapy, such as Fritz Perls’ Gestalt method, but an influx of new methods in nonclinical settings. Transpersonal psychology, which opened people’s minds to spiritual and transcendent states of consciousness, was becoming popular, leading dreamworkers to begin experimenting with telepathy and other forms of psi. Lucid dreaming— the ability to be aware one is dreaming while still asleep—became popular. The 1960s saw the introduction of dream groups, which were held in community settings, including places of worship and people’s homes. Dreamwork was no longer confined to psychotherapy. How-to dream books and dream dictionaries were in plentiful supply. Wannabe dream “experts” began offering, for a price, the “meaning” of one’s dreams. Professional psychologists and analysts, such as Walter Bonime and Montague Ullman, trained dreamworkers in methods that supported the view that dreams have multiple meanings and can be explored by many approaches. In 1983, the dreamwork movement was advanced significantly by the creation of what is now called the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD). Its purpose is to promote an awareness and appreciation of dreams in both professional and public arenas. IASD established a set of ethical standards for dreamwork, which will be discussed later in this chapter.

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DREAMWORK DEFINED The term dream work, or dreamwork or traumwerk (German), was introduced by Sigmund Freud to describe the process, not as a therapeutic one but a neurological one. He defined it as a process by which the unconscious mind alters the conscious content of dreams (the manifest content) to conceal the real meaning (the latent content) from the dreamer through displacement, distortion, condensation, and symbolism (see Chapter 15). Carl Jung, a colleague of Freud, had a different view. He understood the manifest content to not be a disguise but rather a direct expression of the unconscious latent content; the symbolization was simply the language of the unconscious mind that was to be translated. From a psychoanalytic perspective, the knowledge of the process of transferring the dreamer’s unconscious thoughts into consciousness is used to analyze dreams. Therefore, while the medical definition of dreamwork may persist as “the process of concealing the latent content of dreams from the conscious mind,” the term dreamwork has evolved to a process of exploring the manifest content to understand the underlying latent (unconscious) content. In a traditional therapy setting, the therapist may have actively provided his or her interpretation of the dream to the patient or client. The therapist was typically seen as the expert on the meaning of the symbols portrayed in the dream and was the sole authority on how those symbols and the dream activity related to the issues being explored in the overall context of the therapy. Although Jung also took such an objective approach when dealing with the archetypal imagery, his subjective approach of amplification and active imagination was aimed at exploring the dreamer’s personal associations and meanings. Today, dreamwork has further evolved beyond the realm of the psychoanalyst or the practice of “interpretation” to encompass various means of personal exploration and content, which may lead to both cognitive and experiential levels of personal meanings, self-awareness, and insight that can be applied to the dreamer’s life. In contrast, modern dreamwork differs from interpretation or analysis, in that the dream becomes the focus of intention and the therapist and client work together to explore the dream. Recognizing that dreams are unique to each individual, the therapist may ask questions to help the dreamer understand the dream and its relation to his or her waking life issues (see the “Existential-Phenomenological Approaches” section in Chapter 15). For instance, as an analyst, Walter Bonime saw his role as one who provides what he calls “interpretive hypotheses.” In this sense, the therapist does not interpret the dream, but he or she offers suggestions that the dreamer can accept or reject. In dreamwork, whether Jungian, Gestalt or Existential, the therapist works in partnership with the individual rather than as a final authority, as was the case with “interpretation.” Together, the therapist and client seek ways that the dreams may help with treatment goals. Dreamwork, as the term is used today, goes beyond the psychoanalytic defini­ tion of simply transforming the latent content of a dream into a manifest content, to include the exploration of dreams using many approaches, with the intention of working with the information gathered for the well-being of the dreamer—a

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process where the dreamer is recognized as the ultimate authority in understanding the personal meaning of the information provided.

The Personal Dreamwork Experience Robert P. Gongloff

RECALL, RECORDING, REFLECTION People interested in pursuing their dreams work with three basic processes that might be called recall, recording, and reflection. These aspects will be described as separate processes here, but they need to be seen as interrelated—all working together to create one’s personal dreamwork experience. Recall and recording may logically seem to take place just after having a dream, but additional information from the dream may occur in the recording process and during the day as dreamrelated associations arise in waking life. Reflection on the dream is also an ongoing process that is not totally separate from the recall and recording processes; it encompasses insight and applying the insight gained. All three processes are considered to be “the dreamwork.” Recall Dream recall is difficult and varies considerably from person to person, with age, with personality, and with many other factors (see Chapter 6). Those who do not have a recollection that dreams are occurring may claim that they do not dream at all. It is likely more common that people at least have knowledge that they have dreamed, but if they are not interested in pursuing dreams, they find difficulty in recollecting details. One’s intent and desire to self-reflect is a key factor in determining the degree to which dreams are recalled. One activity that has been proven to be successful is making an affirmation prior to going to bed, such as “I shall remember my dreams.” Arrangements should be made to wake naturally without an alarm, if possible. Deterrents to recall include lack of sleep, excessive alcohol consumption, drugs (including sleeping pills and depressants), and overeating. If there is just awareness that a dream has occurred, but no images or activity come to mind, the dreamer can get back into the position he or she was in at the time of awakening and lie quietly to see whether any details of the dream emerge. If some activity is recalled, the dreamer can concentrate on that and seek to see what happened just before that activity or just after it. There will often be a significant period of intensity in the dream, where a particular image or activity has occurred that is unusual or filled with energy. Here again, the dreamer can concentrate on that event and seek to learn of other events that took place during and around that one.

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It is important to note that it is not necessary to recall an entire dream. Some may only recall a small fragment. A case in point is the dream reported by Jeremy Taylor, where all that was recalled by the dreamer was a color. Working just with that, the dreamer found the dream to be a life-changing experience—a “big” dream. Recording Experts agree that one of the best methods that help with dream recall is writing. Writing is recommended before going to sleep and upon waking, whether a dream has been recalled or not during that sleep period. In that sense, the writing does not necessarily have to be related to what occurred during sleep. But there are specific recommendations for content as preparation for later reflection on a dream. Some of the basics are outlined here, but also see the “A First Step: Dream Orientation” section in Chapter 26 and Chapter 5, “How to Study Dream Experiences,” for additional details and approaches. Dreamers are encouraged to maintain a dream diary or journal. In addition to recording dreams in this log, dreamers can record any additional comments concerning events and reflections before and after the dreams. Before going to sleep, and definitely after journaling the dream, it is recommended that one recount the events of the day. This will help the dreamer see links between waking life activity and dream content when working with the dream. It is especially important to record events that stirred emotion or had a special impact. Of special significance when recording daily events are behavior patterns or issues that one believes to be facing frequently. Many people have decisions that need to be made and crises they are dealing with. Dreamers may opt to use a technique called dream incubation to invite a dream that will offer guidance with these issues. As the incubation process involves all three of the dreamwork processes, it will be dealt with in a separate section in this chapter. Dreamers who wake during the night find it helpful to have a pencil and paper by the bedside so that they can begin the recording process immediately after the dream. Recording brief notes or keywords from the dream may be enough to help with recall of the entire dream in the morning. Some dreamworkers have found it helpful to have a vocal recording device handy to record the dream. As it is not an easy method of future retrieval, they would likely record the dream in another format or write down what they said later. Soon after waking, it is recommended the dreamer record any dreams in as much detail as possible. Of significant importance is identifying one’s feelings and emotions, within the dream and in general. Emotions may highlight or flag a significant issue the dream is attempting to bring to consciousness (see Chapters 3 and 14). Occasionally, there will be dramatic events in the dream that would normally spark strong emotion but do not. For instance, someone being attacked by a lion may view the event casually, as if there were no danger. Such activity with no apparent emotion may be significant and should also be recorded. Many approaches to dreamwork recommend giving the dream a title. Working on the title is actually an early step in reflection because it involves seeking out the

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most significant activity or dramatic event and key objects or symbols within a dream. A good title should be like the headline of a newspaper article, explaining in a few words the entire context of the dream. In this way, one can look at the titles later and be able to recall the dreams. Maintaining journals for a long period of time helps to see recurring symbols and patterns. Many dreamworkers record their dreams on the computer. This makes it easy to do word searches to locate dreams they wish to review and to see whether certain symbols or actions have recurred over time. A side benefit of long-term dream journaling is that is it the best way to see whether one has been dreaming of future events. The subconscious processes current events and over time can propose future possibilities. Having the journal documentation helps verify to oneself and others that they did actually dream about an event before it occurred (see Chapter 11). Many had dreams of twin towers and destruction prior to the 9/11 event, but they did not recall having related dreams until they went back and reviewed their journals after the crisis. Reflection For the purpose of research, there is concern that the verbal or written accounts produced by dreamers may not truly reflect the experiences of their dreams (see Chapter 5). One reason is that the dreamer may embellish the dream based on feelings and thoughts that occur outside of the dream experience itself. It is conceivable that the longer the time between when the dream occurred and when it was recorded, the more likely the account of the dream could have been modified by subsequent waking life events and personal interpretations. However, even if a dream is not recorded exactly as experienced—even if parts of it are fabricated— the dreamer can still benefit from the dream on reflection, as all the information in the account provided came from the dreamer. Once a dream has been recorded, there are many methods or approaches available to the dreamer for reflection or exploring the dream and its relation to the dreamer’s life. Just as there is no one meaning to a dream, there is no one way to explore or reflect on dreams. Reflection in this sense is more than simply finding a personal meaning, insight, or relationship with the dreamer’s life, but it can extend to action or therapeutic measures based on those insights. Chapters 20–22 of this book are descriptions of the approaches or protocols that have been most widely adopted and accepted. They include methods that one can experience alone, in groups, and in professional therapy sessions. Although most come from Western literature, examples of dreamwork from other cultures are reviewed in Chapter 27. Even though there are many approaches to exploring dreams, there are some common aspects of dreamwork that can be found in most of the approaches. These will be examined here. Dreamers are encouraged to present their dreams in the present tense, both when recording the dream and when telling it to another. Any portion of a dream that is presented as if it were a past event can be examined to see if it relates to an issue the dreamer is not willing to face in waking life.

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All of the approaches presented seek to help dreamers benefit in some way in their waking lives. A common practice is to have the dreamer look at patterns of behavior in the dream and ask the question, “Where in my waking life am I experiencing this?” They might then seek guidance from information provided within the dream. Jung talked of seeking synchronicities or meaningful coexistence between dream life and waking life. The unconscious is at work in waking life experience as well. Going through the day, the dreamer may have experiences that relate to what happened in their dreams and can work with this additional information in seeking guidance. It is also possible to look at daily events as if they were dreams. Dreams often raise questions for the dreamer or are simply an encounter with your inner self. Some protocols invite the dreamer to go into a meditative state or (as with Gestalt therapy) a role-play and interact with a character or symbol that appeared within the dream in order to fully understand it. In reflection, a dreamer may not be happy with the events of the dream or how it concludes. Some approaches ( Jung’s active imagination as well as imagery rehearsal therapy) invite the dreamer to revise a dream or the ending to a disturbing dream. Most approaches encourage sharing the dream with others, certainly the therapist in clinical settings, but in nonclinical settings, perhaps a family member, friend, coworker, or dream group. Such shared involvement helps the dreamer recall details from the dream that he or she may have forgotten. Of course, the primary benefit to the dreamer in sharing is receiving suggestions of different ideas about the dream. Caution must be exercised to ensure that the projections or interpretations of others remain suggestions and are not forcefully imposed on the dream or dreamer so that the dreamer retains ownership of the personal understanding or meaning of the dream. Dreams are personal. There is no one meaning to a dream. More information on such ethical concerns will be discussed in a later section of this chapter. Finally, when someone actively deals with the issues raised in their dreams, dreamworkers call this “honoring” the dreams. Working with dream events in waking life is a way of acknowledging to the subconscious that the dreamer respects the dream. Some suggest it is as simple as paying some tribute to a symbol, such as buying a stone or pin representing an animal. Of most benefit would be taking action on waking life behaviors that have been addressed in the dream. DREAM INCUBATION Dream incubation is a method used by many to request guidance, insight, or direction from a dream. Dreams typically deal with the most emotionally salient unfinished business of the day. Incubation therefore essentially poses a question as unfinished business, raising it to a level of emotional importance, where it triggers the unconscious mind to address it in a dream that night. It can simply be the practice of asking, perhaps repetitively, an insightful open-ended question as one goes to sleep and visualizing that you will recall a dream that addresses the question. On the other hand, it can involve more systematic or even ritualistic approaches

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that clarify the question and enhance emotional stimulation. It can even involve a multitude of approaches for inducing lucid dreams (Chapter 9). Systematic Approach to Incubation A systematic approach to incubation involves all of the three procedures mentioned in the previous section: recall, recording, and reflection. The procedure begins with reflection and recording, which are best done in a quiet meditative state. The first step is to clearly define the issue. It may be an undesirable behavior that one wishes to correct, a conflict with a spouse or coworker, a decision that needs to be made, or the act of attempting to clearly define an issue or problem in waking life. After defining the issue, the next step is to write about what steps have been taken to resolve the issue so far. Questions one might ask include what possible solutions have been considered and what is the benefit or advantage of resolving— or not resolving—the issue. For dream induction, it is best to identify everything one can think of about the subject, including any emotions that are related to it. In a process by Rita Dwyer, the attendees are asked these questions: “As a gift, if it were unwrapped, how would I use it?” “Is the gift too good for me?” Finally, the dreamer is to write a question and take it to bed. Some sources suggest asking for a symbol that can be a bridge to the unconscious. This dream letter can be placed in an envelope and addressed to one’s unconscious, or guide, or “dream maker,” as the dreamer prefers. After the sleep session, the dreamer reflects on the dream as if it were in direct response to the question or issue. If the dream responds, it will likely not be literal; the metaphoric language will require the same careful discipline in relating the content to waking life as with any other dream. At first, the dream may not appear to deal with the issue, but upon reflection, the general theme or pattern may help provide guidance. One might look for guidance from subsequent dreams and waking life synchronicities in the days to follow. It is likely that the dream will not give a specific answer but simply help define the question or clarify the issue. If the unconscious has other more pressing issues, it may not address the question, but rather suggest other issues that need to be dealt with first. It may provide information that is needed for making a decision. For instance, one example of a dream that provided such clarity is from a woman who was planning to take on a new career. She asked for a dream to help her with the decision and was given what would be considered a nightmare. She dreamed that she was in her new position, but everything that could go wrong went wrong. On reflection, she decided that the dream was not telling her to avoid the new job, but it was giving her information about what she could expect so that she could make an intelligent decision. As it turned out, she took the job and found it was a good decision. When considering the value of subsequent dreams in relation to an issue, one should be aware of a phenomenon discovered by researchers called the “dream-lag effect” (Chapter 6). Dreams on subsequent nights do not necessarily relate to the

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same waking life issue, but approximately five to seven days after waking life events, the relationships to those events tend to reappear in dreams. Ritualistic Approach to Incubation Ritualistic dream-inducting methods date back centuries and were practiced by oracles and priests, such as Amphiaraus at Oropus and the better-known “godman” Asclepius at Epidaurus. Induction was carried out through intense sacred rituals, often lasting days. Rita Dwyer reenacted a related ritual during weekend fall retreats in the Washington, D.C., area for a number of years. Attendees were asked to prepare themselves for bed and then enter silently into a hall. Two attendants would cleanse their hands. When all were assembled, the door was locked, and the dreamers were led through visualization without discussion. The visualization took them back to Epidaurus and the process of dream induction practiced at the time. After that experience, they were asked to come to the present and focus on an issue and then write a question, place it in an envelope, seal the envelope, and address it to their “Dream Helper” or “Gift Bearer.” The attendees then left in silence and placed the envelope under their pillows. Discussion of the induced dreams was held during the remainder of the retreat. A primary emphasis of the Asklepian dream incubation rituals was physical healing. A modern-day example of this was practiced by Robert Van de Castle and Henry Reed in a ritual they called the Dream Helper Circle. It was conducted with a group, often in a retreat or conference experience. An individual was identified (sometimes the person who had requested the circle) who had a particular physical problem that was not revealed to the rest of the group. The other group members were asked to focus on this individual and ask for a dream that would help this person or provide guidance. The next morning, the members of the group would tell their dreams, in no particular order, with no attempt at interpretation, and with no interaction with the target subject. The results were often startling. The dream stories often followed a natural sequence, as if they were part of one long story. Not only did the target subject benefit from the dream experience, but the other dreamers learned the value of dreamwork and the importance of focusing on the concerns of others—what Reed calls “shared empathy.”

Dreamwork Ethics and Safety Carol D. Warner

The modern dreamwork movement took dreams out of the sole province of professionals and into a colorful array of methods. In this young field of dreams, there were no ethical dreamwork guidelines nor was there any comprehensive program for dreamwork training. In 1983, the International Association for the Study of

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Dreams (IASD) was formed as an interdisciplinary organization that includes many members who are not in the psychology field and who do not have a professional code of ethics. Because of this diversity in perspectives and training, IASD had some unique challenges in its early years. Dreamwork groups and self-named “dream experts” submitted proposals to lead groups and teach their methods at conferences. Neither professionals nor laypersons had the benefit of dreamwork ethical guidelines that would help maintain safety at the conferences. In those early conferences, presenters sometimes used their presentation time to market their books and methods and to try to solicit clients. IASD’s first ethics statement, the Statement of Ethical Concerns, attempted to deal with some of these issues. The abbreviated version states, “The Association considers it unethical, at its own conferences and programs, for members to use direct solicitation or persuasion for economic or self-aggrandizement. Presenters are expected to be honest and accurate in the communication of their own credentials and competencies.” This policy helped establish a more professional conference atmosphere and kept the focus on the quality of the material being presented. An unfortunate complication that arose out of the workshops was that sometimes people had breakdowns either during or after them. Unfortunately, sometimes workshop presenters were trying to do depth work in an isolated workshop, causing a few to have very serious psychological complications. Some of the worst episodes came when dream group leaders told dreamers what their dreams meant— all of which created a need for a safer pathway for dreamwork. As the online phenomena grew, it became clear the Internet would play an increasing role not only in dream education but also in online dream groups and dreamwork in the growing global dreamwork community. This, in addition to the need for safety guidelines at conferences, created the need for a Dreamwork Ethics Statement (DES) that would pertain to dreamwork both online and off-line; this statement would provide guidelines for safe and nonintrusive dreamwork. In addition, the DES addressed one-on-one dreamwork, both in-person with laypersons and professionals and online in an ethical, client-centered manner, with an emphasis that authoritative interpretations are not okay. Carol D. Warner, the chair of IASD’s Ethics Committee, was lead writer for the DES. Some of the ethical principles were developed around the safety factors established by Montague Ullman (see Chapter 15), whose aim it was to develop a safe, effective method for group dreamwork. Ullman’s dreamwork approach is client-centered in that the dreamer is considered the sole authority on their own dream. Ullman’s method proceeds in stages. In the first stage, group members proj­ ect their meanings onto the dreamer’s dream by imagining it as their own dream with the associations they would have to this dream if it were theirs, using the words “If it were my dream.” After the group members offer their projections, the dreamer then identifies which projections seem to fit. When the dreamer discusses their own associations, safety is maintained in that group members are not allowed to comment. It is a given that dreamwork may bring up difficult material, and because of that, the dreamer can stop the process at any time. Additionally, cross talk was in all cases disallowed. Cross talk is when a member ventures off from

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sharing their projections and into commenting on or “interpreting” the dreamer’s dream and associations, or other sharing. This can be very disruptive to the group process and can be very hurtful to the dreamer. The key principles from Ullman’s dreamwork method, including the dreamer as being sole authority over his dream and the ability to stop the process at any time were incorporated into the Dreamwork Ethics Statement (DES) provided below, which can be found at http://www.asdreams.org/ethics-and-confidentiality. Within IASD, all presenters and dream group leaders are required to agree to abide by its principles. Since then, the DES has been adopted by many other group and individual practitioners and organizations as the highest standard for safe and careful dreamwork ethics worldwide. To this author’s knowledge, there is nothing like it to guide dreamworkers and psychotherapists. The DES begins as follows: IASD celebrates the many benefits of dreamwork, yet recognizes that there are potential risks. IASD supports an approach to dreamwork and dream sharing that respects the dreamer’s dignity and integrity, and which recognizes the dreamer as the decisionmaker regarding the significance of the dream. Systems of dreamwork that assign authority or knowledge of the dream’s meanings to someone other than the dreamer can be misleading, incorrect, and harmful.

The next statement emphasizes the dreamwork process, whether in a group or in one-on-one dreamwork, by which open-ended questions can be asked of the dreamer in an attempt to help them explore their own material, and in which the dreamer is free to accept or reject “if it were my dream” projections. Ethical dreamwork helps the dreamer work with his/her own dream images, feelings, and associations, and guides the dreamer to more fully experience, appreciate, and understand the dream.

The next statement affirms there are many valid dreamwork traditions that can be used to tap into the layers of meaning in a dream. These may include psychotherapeutic techniques, art, music, dance, body mapping, meditation, drumming, and much more. Every dream may have multiple meanings, and different techniques may be reasonably employed to touch these multiple layers of significance.

No matter how carefully dreamwork is done, it may stir up uncomfortable feelings, memories, and reactions. The dreamer may stop the dreamwork at any time and should not be questioned or prodded to go further. A dream group environment, especially with strangers in a workshop setting, may not be able to provide elements of safety for doing deeper work. It is at this point that the “dreamer knows best.” IASD does not allow conference workshop/dream group presenters to do “deep” work with their group members because a conference setting does not offer the safe containment that an ongoing therapeutic setting can provide.

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A dreamer’s decision to share or discontinue sharing a dream should always be respected and honored. The dreamer should be forewarned that unexpected issues or emotions may arise in the course of the dreamwork. Information and mutual agreement about the degree of privacy and confidentiality are essential ingredients in creating a safe atmosphere for dream sharing.

Sometimes dreamers may be led into unrealistic expectations of what can be accomplished in a nonclinical dreamwork experience. Nonclinical dreamwork is not intended to be a “fix” and especially not for people with abuse, trauma, or other issues. For this reason, the next statement is included: Dreamwork outside a clinical setting is not a substitute for psychotherapy, or other professional treatment, and should not be used as such.

As IASD is an inclusive, multidisciplinary, and multicultural organization, it recognizes the vast array of dreamwork traditions and techniques, modern and ancient, from many cultures and religions. Some cultures may not view a dream as being personal. The DES therefore includes a statement that affirms a commitment to honoring different cultural, spiritual, and transpersonal methods of dreamwork: IASD recognizes and respects that there are many valid and time-honored dreamwork traditions. We invite and welcome the participation of dreamers from all cultures. There are social, cultural, and transpersonal aspects to dream experience. In this statement we do not mean to imply that the only valid approach to dreamwork focuses on the dreamer’s personal life.

Finally, the DES ends with the following broad-based statement of intent: Our purpose is to honor and respect the person of the dreamer as well as the dream itself, regardless of how the relationship between the two may be understood.

The application of dreamwork ethical principles is an ongoing learning process. Even those who have been doing dreamwork for many years might benefit from a refresher on aspects of dreamwork ethics and manners.

Chapter 20

GROUP DREAMWORK

The term group dreamwork, as described herein, can be distinguished from other forms of dreamwork as an approach that evolved out of the humanistic or existential dreamwork movement, often called the “grassroots” movement, and involves the discussion of or working on a dream within a group of individuals or peers who may or may not be trained professionals. Such contributors as Monte Ullman and Jeremy Taylor helped transition from a hierarchical dreamwork approach, dependent on an analyst, to an experiential group approach, whereby the dreamer derives meaningful associations with their waking life by listening to what resonates with them as the group projects on the metaphors in the dream (also see Chapter 15). Although the principles and methods can be used in a professional therapeutic setting, this form of group dreamwork is adaptable to nonprofessionals with proper orientation to the basic safety and ethical principles and protocols involved. The group itself can vary from a group of friends, to a loosely or tightly organized institutional or church group, to a more formalized group within an educational institution or conference environment, or it could be a group that formed within a professional therapy setting.

A Brief History of Group Interest in Dreaming Jeremy Taylor

Almost two decades into the 21st century, it is clear that organized group process work, exploring dreams remembered from sleep and looking for their deeper meanings and implications, has become an established practice, and not only among a wide variety of professional dreamworkers, spiritual counselors, psychologists,

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coaches, therapists, psychiatrists, and social workers; it is also becoming an increasingly popular activity among laypersons in almost all parts of the world. A REVIVAL OF TRADITIONS Part of this dramatic and relatively recent development is a reawakening of sanctioned public interest in dreams in many diverse cultures in many different parts of the world, particularly in societies where there has always been a history of paying serious, regular attention to dreams. In many of these cultures (Korea, Japan, and Tibet, as well as aboriginal traditions in Australia; Africa; North, Central, and South America; and the Pacific Islands—to name a few), there is a clear, unbroken tradition of structured, culturally embedded dream interpretation. Many of these diverse traditions have developed out of shamanic, spiritualist dreamwork stretching unbroken all the way back into prehistoric times. In addition to the revival of ancient folk traditions, a distinctly postmodern element in this general social trend toward paying more attention to dreams has been a recognition of the central, seminal place that dreams and dreaming have held in the development and rise to prominence of the field of scientific/medical psychology and psychiatry as professional disciplines in the contemporary, postcolonial, Eurocentric industrial age. In this context, Jeremy Taylor contends that talking to one another about the inherent meanings and implications of our dreams, below the surface of obvious literal appearance, has serious claim to being “the oldest continuous religious/ spiritual conversation in which we human beings have ever engaged.” All of our contemporary dreams and conversations about dreams still carry these same inherent layers of significance and symbolic reflection of our deepest concerns about the ultimate meaning, purpose, and value of our lives, individually and collectively, whether or not the individuals engaged in these conversations have any conscious awareness of these levels. THE FORMALIZATION OF DREAM STUDIES ORGANIZATIONS An event of particular note in this contemporary renewal of worldwide public interest in dreams and dreaming, and a significant example of this growing, international, postmodern movement, is the founding of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, (IASD), in San Francisco in 1983. In just a couple of decades, the IASD has become a global presence, promoting and organizing serious academic, scientific, peer-reviewed, and group participatory conferences, grants, and studies on dreams and dreaming. Such activities promote a wide variety of creative, playfully expressive ways of exploring the ever-swirling blend of conscious and unconscious energies that shape the dreams that all human beings experience every time we sleep, whether we remember these experiences or not. In addition, the IASD professional journal, Dreaming, has become a primary journal of record for dream-related studies undertaken from a variety of academic and scientific fields and perspectives.

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Although notable for its unique professional and multidisciplinary approach, IASD is not the only organization that supports dream studies in some manner. There is now a growing number of institutes and organizations or individual sites that can be found with a quick search of the Internet that have some manner of interest in dreaming and dream studies. There also now exists an online research journal, the International Journal of Dream Research, independent of the journal Dreaming.

How to Start a Dream Group Robert P. Gongloff

There are many sources that provide suggestions on starting and running an experiential dream group. Justina Lasley’s Honoring the Dream handbook is one that goes into a great deal of depth on the approaches and experiences in running such a group. Below are just a few starting tips for those considering starting a group. DECIDING ON THE STRUCTURE First some decisions need to be made. The first is should the group remain open to anyone who wishes to join after the group is established or be closed to just a specific membership? Many groups are closed so that the group can establish close relationships. The downside of a closed group, if not managed properly, can be that as members begin to know so much about other members, they tend to make their own projections on someone’s dream based on knowledge of that person’s waking life issues—as opposed to exploring the person’s own personal associations. What is to be the size of the group? Three would be an absolute minimum to ensure adequate sharing. Care must be taken not to have too many members, although if the group believes there are too many, they can split up into smaller groups for discussion of individual dreams. This may be especially significant for open groups where the size of the group may change from meeting to meeting. How often will it meet—weekly, biweekly, monthly? This decision may need to be determined by the life schedules of the members. A related issue is determining the planned length of time the group will meet. Some decide at the beginning that the group will meet for so many months or sessions. This decision sometimes impacts an individual’s decision on whether to commit to joining the group. Lasley recommends that, to be effective, groups should meet for no less than two hours at a time. Where will the group meet? Ideally, it needs to be in a quiet place where few interruptions can be expected, such as a community center, library, or church. Is the group to have a related social function? For instance, will food and beverages be served at each meeting? Many groups prefer to just keep the purpose of the meeting focused on the dreams and to schedule social gatherings at separate times, if desired by the group.

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Will the leader be the same for all sessions or will leadership rotate for each session? Rotating leadership helps all to learn how to be effective leaders. It also helps focus on process and discipline, as opposed to one leader’s preferred approach. Normally, members serving the leadership role may share dreams as well. In the group method established by Monte Ullman (see below and Chapter 15), someone was often designated to record the dreamwork (assuming the dreamer wanted that done) so that the dreamer would not have to concentrate on taking notes and would have a full record of the work after it was done. Is this something the group members would be willing to undertake? Will there be a specific focus or approach for dreamwork (such as Ullman’s method or one of the many others noted in Chapters 21 and 22) or will this vary from session to session or dream to dream? For instance, might the group be interested in examining the dreams using various approaches every few sessions, or having visiting leaders who present a new approach, or perhaps working through expressions of art? Will the group set a length of time to work on a dream or will this decision be left up to the dreamer? Finally, group leaders who have been with a group for longer periods of time advise that there is a time to disband or reform a group that is no longer working or becoming unhealthy for the members. BASIC SAFET Y MEASURES FOR GROUP DREAMWORK In Chapter 19, safety measures that apply to ethical dreamwork were discussed. A couple of points that apply to group dreamwork in particular are restated here. In a group setting, it is important that no one be pressured to present a dream nor reveal anything about their waking life that they do not wish to and that they can stop the process at any time. This means the dreamer is always in control. The group members must avoid the temptation to “interpret” the dream for the dreamer or impose their own projections onto the dreamer. Group work, particularly those techniques that follow in this chapter, often involves an approach called “projection,” first introduced by Monte Ullman, but with a number of strict safety measures imposed so that it does not devolve into group members imposing their interpretations on the dream of another. The idea is that the group shares their own projections on the dream being discussed as if it were one that they had dreamed (using an “if it were my dream” statement or appropriate variation). Such sharing, if done properly, can provide valuable insights to the dreamer, particularly as it relates to recognizing possible metaphors, as speech metaphors that appear in dream narratives can be common within a particular culture or group. The other advantage is that when group members share their own inner feelings and waking life associations that they have with the dream, it can provide new insights or give the dreamer a comfort level that they are not alone. When group members project on a dream, it must, however, remain honestly and totally as their own projections relating to their own lives, as if it were their dream that is being discussed. All individuals must avoid projecting onto the dreamer or implying to the dreamer that they somehow

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understand what the dream must mean to the dreamer—that is, avoid “interpreting” the dream for the dreamer. Only the dreamer can truly understand how the dream relates to them and their personal life.

Montague Ullman’s “Dream Appreciation” Group Dreamwork Robert P. Gongloff

A major dreamwork component that came out of the grassroots dreamwork movement was the experiential dream group. In the 1960s, dream groups sprang up outside of the clinical settings as a means by which everyday dreamers could explore and benefit from their dreams. The pioneer in this work was Montague Ullman. His work provides a fitting introduction to this chapter on group dreamwork, because his work is seen as setting the standard for group approaches that followed (for details on his approach, the detailed “Method” see “The Ullman Method of Dreamwork” section in Chapter 15). Basically, what has become known as the “Ullman method” is highly structured to ensure Ullman’s basic concern: the safety of the dreamer. Ullman believed that the dreamer must feel safe enough with the group to disclose what may be quite intimate material and, as discussed in the last section, had rules that he called the “safety factor”: (a) the group members must avoid the temptation to interpret the dream for the dreamer or impose their own projections onto the dreamer, and (b) no one is ever pressured to present a dream nor reveal anything that causes emotional discomfort about waking life and can stop the process at any time—the dreamer is to remain in control. In this method, the therapist is replaced by a leader, who may or may not be the same person in each meeting of the group or with examination of each dream. In that respect, the group is technically leaderless. The leader’s sole task is to guide the dreamer and group safely through the steps in the formal process, not to control what happens in any way. The leader must preserve the integrity of the process. The group acknowledges that full authority over the dream and the entire process lies with the dreamer. It is the dreamer alone who chooses whether to share a dream. He or she can alter or stop the process at any time, if things get too personal or too intense. Another basic Ullman principle had to do with discovery. The group is tasked with helping the dreamer deal as completely with the dream as is feasible, to discover as many insights the dream offers as possible. Discovery includes looking at the waking life emotions and concerns at the particular time the dream occurred. The group members can make free associations to symbols and activity within the dream, but they should be presented to the dreamer in the form of open-ended questions so that they are viewed as interpretive hypotheses that the dreamer can accept or reject as significant or meaningful, never as absolute “meaning” or “interpretation.” Ullman believed that dreams may have evolved to serve a social function. The mere sharing of the dream brings the others in the group closer together. The

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experiential dream group can be seen as helping to develop community. Members of the group often develop long-lasting bonds.

Haden Institute’s Dream Group Protocol Robert J. Hoss (Courtesy of Bob Haden)

There are many adaptions of the Ullman method of group dreamwork in practice today, as groups augment it to work in their particular environments. One adaption, used by the Haden Institute, is of particular note. It retains much of the authentic Ullman method, with the same strong emphasis on safety measures in relation to both personal projection as well as nonintrusive measures. The difference is that it is directed more at the group experience, or each group member getting something out of working on a dream, than necessarily returning in the final step to focus the effort on the dreamer’s understanding of the dream, as does the Ullman method (see “The Ullman Method of Dreamwork” section in Chapter 15). The group activity begins with a focusing activity to help prepare the group and the dreamer for the work to be done. Below is a step-by-step description of the protocol—with some editorial comment in brackets. 1. All participants should have had some previous exposure to dreams, whether it is extensive reading, experience recording their own dreams, an introductory course, conference attendance, or individual meetings with someone about dreams. [Having this exposure avoids the pitfalls of requiring the group to focus on an intellectual training activity and helps to prepare the dreamer to be discerning regarding what they experience in the group.] 2. No one should be coerced to come to the group. Everyone should feel good, comfortable, and safe being there. If one’s psyche is saying now is not the time, they should be advised to wait. If they are seeing a therapist, they should first consult with the therapist about being in the group. 3. It is best to have someone leading the group who is versed in dreamwork, ethics, and the group process. If not, the rotating leader needs to ensure that the group sticks to its rules for its own safety. [It is absolutely necessary that the leader explain the safety measures related to personal projection; what the group discusses about the dream is only their own projections of their personal issues on the dream—as if it were their dream—and that any given projections are never to be imposed on the dreamer as an authoritative “interpretation” of the dream.] 4. Every gathering of the group should begin with a group centering activity: silence, the ringing of a bell, lighting of a candle, and the like. [Although the protocol can be adapted to any group focusing activity, the Haden phrasing is aimed at dreamworkers who seek or are most comfortable in a spiritual environment in which to do the work.] Likewise, it should end similarly, in a circle holding hands and sharing a moment of silence or, if a spiritually oriented gathering, a prayer or [as the basic Haden closing states] “something that will gather all they have done together in that session and remind people of God’s grace and that they are accepted regardless of where they are on their journey.”

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5. The group can then spend 20 minutes or so checking in with each other, sharing something of their lives and any relevant information or feelings. This will help with trust and connecting their waking lives and their dreams. 6. Then the leader—or someone previously appointed—gives a short presentation on the wisdom of the dream or related material. This can come from ancient or modern sources, Jungian psychology, mythology or scripture, or a book or tape. This can be followed by a short period of reaction or discussion. This, along with the opening, calls forth the Self, brings in wisdom, and promotes health, healing, and safety within the group. 7. Everyone who wishes may share a dream or dream title, with no discussion or interpretation. 8. The leader now asks for a volunteer to share his or her dream for group work. Preference should be given to anyone who has not presented a dream. The procedure, at this point, should be strictly as follows: a. The person shares the dream with any pertinent information (not their interpretation). b. The group asks questions of clarification (not interpretation). [Note: Ullman did this to check whether the dreamer may have left some significant detail out of the first telling.] c. The leader now asks the dream presenter to give the dream to the group. d. The group is now given the opportunity to talk with each other about the dream. They are not to look at the dreamer so that the dreamer will not have to respond to anything. Some find it helpful for the dreamer to sit outside the circle. The dreamer listens. The group now projects onto the dream using the words “if it were my dream” or “in my dream.” It is important to the process that the group adheres to these two rules. [It is critical that the members of the group understand that they are imagining this as their dream about something in their lives and not be tempted to interpret the dream for the dreamer. This personal projection on the dream is adequate to verbalize possible metaphors and trigger the dreamer’s own associations.] e. After sufficient discussion, the dream is given back to the dreamer for comments. The dreamer is thanked for sharing and told that it is important to track their dreams in the next few days because future dreams will repeat what the dreamer did not catch. [This reminds the group that they don’t have to milk every “aha” out of every dream. Dreamwork is a continuing process.] f. In the end, the group members are reminded that they were projecting onto the dream. So, they should be asked to recall what they said and whether they can make any connections between the dream and their own waking lives. Even if no one speaks up, the question is in their heads, and they will be making connections during the day. 9. The leader will bring the meeting to conclusion with a closing prayer circle or other spiritual ritual.

Author’s note: In step (e), when the dream is given back to the dreamer, the dreamer may be invited to relate their dream-to-life associations or a particular “aha” moment, if they wish to share it. The dreamer may also express a desire to

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go further or may request help or group support with something that triggered them emotionally or otherwise. Although this is not part of the standard Haden protocol, it is practiced in some of the workshops where the leader is trained in personal dreamwork approaches. At this point, the leader explains that the work is now transitioning from group-focused work to dreamer-focused work. It continues more along the lines of the Ullman method, with its own set of safety issues, including the observations of group members posed as nonleading questions, not interpretations, and using material that primarily comes from what the dreamer states in response to those questions or as a reflection on the dream versus the group imposing further projections. Sometimes other well-established techniques (associative, role-play, color work, etc.—e.g., see the “Transformative Dreamwork” section in Chapter 22) are used by someone trained in those techniques to further explore associations that the dreamer feels are important. The objective in these groups is not to “fix” or practice therapy, but rather help the dreamer with group support in further understanding their dream or with upsetting emotions that arose in the group work that need further support in closing.

Projective and Group Projective Dreamwork Principles Jeremy Taylor

Editor’s note: One of the unique features of the Ullman method is the use of projection, whereby the members of a group take on the dream as if it were their own (“if it were my dream”) and project their own meaning or associations on the dream as if they had dreamed it. Jeremy Taylor fashioned that basic methodology into general principles and practices for applying projection to both group and one-on-one dreamwork in private or clinical settings. Some of the fundamental assumptions and principles that underpin the Taylor contemporary group projective dreamwork approach include the following: • We all dream, all human beings, whether or not we remember those experiences upon awakening. • All dreams (even the worst gut-wrenching nightmares) come ultimately in the service of health and wholeness and speak a universal language of metaphor and symbol. • Additional assumptions and principles that underpin and inform the practice of contemporary group projective dreamwork are listed in the “Basic Projective Dreamwork Tool Kit” at the end of this section.

THE UBIQUITOUS UNCONSCIOUS PHENOMENA OF PROJECTION—AWAKE AND ASLEEP Any time any person shares the memory of a dream (or, indeed, of any waking life experience), those who listen to such an account (or read it, or experience

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it drawn and painted, or acted out, or transmitted in some other way) have no choice but to imagine our own versions of the original experience. Imagining a secondary version of someone else’s primary experience (whether from sleep or from waking life) is a concrete, practical definition of the ubiquitous, unconscious process known technically as “projection”—the universal interior process whereby we unconsciously attribute less-than-conscious aspects of our interior lives to the experience, behavior, and imagined motivations of others. In this broad sense, all examinations of other people’s dreams (or their accounts of waking life) are, technically speaking, projective, whether or not those engaged in that work recognize and acknowledge this consciously. In current practice, the use of the word projective in the context of working with and exploring dreams, either one-to-one or in groups, points particularly to all those ways of work in which the inevitability of projection is consciously acknowledged as an unavoidable, fundamental, and foundational part of the process, rather than some kind of “flaw” or “error” to be avoided. At the ever-present Gestalt level, all dreams are themselves constructs of projection. At this level, everything in the dream (no matter what other levels of implication and relevance it may also carry) is a symbolic reflection (which is to say, a projection) of particular aspects of our own psyches. These parts of ourselves are not fully conscious, but they are conscious enough to be projected and therefore mistakenly perceived as external objects, persons, and events not directly connected to us. We constantly unconsciously project onto others, and particularly onto other people’s dream accounts. We see aspects of our own being, which we are aware enough to recognize in symbolic form in those narratives, but as yet we are not sufficiently aware to recognize them consciously as mirror images of aspects of our own interior being. A PROJECTIVE APPROACH TO WORKING WITH PARASOMNIAS Parasomnias are those sleep states characterized by physical acting out of what certainly appear to be dream experiences (see Chapter 8). In parasomniac episodes, the sleeper remains deeply asleep but may not be exhibiting REM. These states include, but are not limited to, sleepwalking, sleep talking, enuresis, and night terrors. The vast majority of parasomniacs do not even remember their, often quite bizarre, behaviors when they awaken—a circumstance that has also acted as a deterrent to focused, structured research. Some of the research into parasomniac behavior (Chapter 8), including the work of Harry Wilmer (2015), has concluded that the parasomnias are examples of “involuntary theater.” This research demonstrates that these behaviors appear most frequently in young children, whose nighttime activities have become a source of anxiety and confusion for their parents or other caregivers who are awake to observe them. Unlike remembered dreams, whose basic message might be “wake up, pay attention, there is a potentially positive, transformative, effective, useful role for the dreamer’s

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waking mind to play in the further unfolding of all the layers of meaning and implication that converge to create the dream,” parasomniacs tend not to remember the actual dreams that appear to be the source of the parasomniac behavior. A fairly common example of such parasomniac behavior is sleepwalking. A frequent behavior that many sleepwalkers exhibit begins by getting up and wandering through the dwelling, still totally asleep (but managing to wake up others in the process), and eventually ending up in the kitchen, where the sleepwalkers open the refrigerator and then stand for long periods of time, apparently looking for something to eat and not finding it. A parasomniac behavior pattern (like all the details of remembered dreams) might be understood symbolically. The refrigerator is a place where family nourishment is stored, and the symbolic implication of staring into the open refrigerator for a long time but not removing anything to eat suggests that there is nothing that the parasomniac dreamer believes will nourish him or her in the family refrigerator. This symbolic message is delivered theatrically, for those who are awake to see and recall this mysterious nocturnal behavior. Over and over again, work with this particular version of sleepwalking points to an unconsciously perceived lack of other kinds of nourishment on the part of the sleepwalker, for example, emotional nourishment, intellectual nourishment, or, ultimately, spiritual nourishment. It is Taylor’s contention that the same health-and-wholeness–promoting energies that fuel the dreams we are able to remember also drive the dreams that we can’t remember, particularly the dreams that give rise to dramatic, theatrical forms expressing serious issues in our lives that we cannot articulate in the waking world, but whose existence we cannot escape, particularly in our dreaming sleep. This is mentioned here in the context of projective group dream exploration because it is quite likely that people—often parents, grandparents, siblings, or “good sleep-over friends” of parasomniacs—will engage in group dreamwork and experience the same dramatic energies. They may consider the possibility that these dramatic energies are dream-based phenomena, about which they themselves are increasingly emotionally anxious and increasingly desperate to explore, even if the original dreamers are not present and do not even remember any of it themselves. Taylor recommends that when such a person appears in a dream group, raising concerns about the parasomniac behaviors, even of other people not present in the group, their accounts, questions, and concerns should be embraced and imagined as vividly as possible, in the same way and for the same reasons that group members imagine and identify with dream reports that come directly from a dreamer present in the group. Everyone in the group is then invited to name the ways in which these bizarre reported behaviors might be understood symbolically and to join in with suggestions of ways in which the people who are awake to observe them might be able to help the original dreamers and those around them to arrive at resolutions to their unconsciously perceived, “not-yet-speech-ripe” issues and concerns, giving “theatrical” shape to the parasomniac behavior itself. Taylor suggests that parasomniac phenomena ultimately come in the service of health and wholeness in almost exactly the same way that remembered dreams do—only the self-perceived sense of impotence and powerlessness on the part of

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the dreamers turn the forgotten, acted-out, symbolic dream behaviors into a kind of involuntary theater to help awaken the attention and empathetic responses of the generally older and more mature people who are often woken up to witness it. A PROJECTIVE APPROACH TO WORKING WITH ARCHET YPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS Any serious protracted work with one’s own dreams and other people’s dream reports will eventually reveal reliably repeating patterns of symbolic implication appearing across multiple imagine dream narratives offered by the widest variety of dreamers. Whether or not one likes and uses Jungian terms, such as archetypal, to describe and characterize these repeating patterns (see the “Carl Jung and Analytical Psychology” section in Chapter 15), the work itself, particularly the work done in group settings, will require the adoption of some sort of language to describe and call attention to these universally recurring patterns. Archetypal Patterns As examples, two of the more frequent and relatively constant forms of universal symbols is the appearance of patterns of light and dark and the death and rebirth cycle (see “The Graphic Art of Jeremy Taylor” section in Chapter 25 for a graphic illustration). Light and Dark

One of the clearest examples of a pattern of this kind can be seen in the symbolic implications of the qualities of light in a remembered dream. The brighter the light, the easier it is to see in a dream, which might suggest it is more likely that the dream is addressing issues and situations in the dreamer’s life about which he or she has already become relatively conscious and self-aware. The darker the dream scenes appear to be, the more difficult it is to see and remember clearly exactly what is going on, which suggests that the dream is addressing circumstances and implications in the dreamer’s waking life about which he or she is still relatively unaware of, primarily because the light of consciousness has not yet been shed adequately on these issues and situations. This symbolic association appears so frequently in such widely diverse dream narratives that it is reasonable to call it “the light of consciousness.” Death and Rebirth

A more dramatic and equally frequent and reliable example of such a relatively constant and universal symbol is the appearance of “death” in dreams. When death appears in a dream, there is a very strong likelihood that the dream is commenting in symbolic fashion, at a relatively deep level, on the natural processes of growth, change, and development in the dreamer’s life—development that is so profound that only the metaphor of total removal of life energy from whom the dreamer believes himself or herself to be (that is to say, death) is an adequate symbol for the

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depth and profundity of the process of interior transformation that the dreamer is experiencing. In the dream world, every death is a necessary precursor for subsequent rebirth in a new, more healthy and whole form (see the “Carl Jung and Analytical Psychology” section in Chapter 15). Extensive work with schizophrenics and other people with medical diagnoses of serious mental and emotional disturbance reveals that death in the dreams of such persons does not always result in the subsequent rebirth of healthier and more whole dream figures. However, even in these circumstances, patient and persistent exploration of the reported dreams of such people in supportive settings tends to eventually, over time, reveal the appearance of new figures in their dream worlds that do exhibit noticeably more symbolically healthy and whole images and situations. When such a shift takes place, even diagnoses of “chronic and incurable” may be revealed as premature. Projective Work with Archetypes The appearance of any of these recurrent archetypal patterns of unconscious symbolic expression in dreams, such as light and dark and death (and subsequent rebirth) (only two of the myriad recurring patterns of archetypal symbolic implication that appear in the dreams of the most diverse and heterogeneous dreamers), can almost always be used to begin to unpack our imagined versions of each other’s dreams, particularly if it is clearly understood that, practically speaking, only the original dreamer can say with any certainty whether any of these connections or associations are at all accurate and meaningful in the dreamer’s own interior experience. It is also the case that everyone engaged in the work is also always unconsciously engaged in exploring his or her interior life in the course of “working” what appears to be “someone else’s dream.” For this reason, it is often the case in group dreamwork that the most valuable insights and understandings come to group members in the course of projecting on other people’s dreams. This is one of the advantages of working with dreams projectively in groups. The insights, the release and expression of creative energies, the greater understanding of previously confusing emotions, and the growing sense of acceptance and community are not limited to just the person whose dream is being worked on. Everyone involved, (with any luck at all) will gain immense benefits from participating in the work, even if they never speak. BASIC PROJECTIVE DREAMWORK TOOL KIT The following tool kit, or six basic hints, represents the principles of an approach to projective dreamwork for both group and one-to-one work. It was developed by Jeremy Taylor, who invites unlimited reproduction with proper attribution. 1. All dreams speak a universal language of symbol and metaphor and come in the service of health and wholeness. There is no such thing as a “bad dream”—only

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dreams that sometimes take a dramatically negative, nightmarish form to grab and hold our attention. 2. Only the original dreamer can say with any certainty what messages or implications his or her dream(s) may hold. This certainty usually comes in the form of a wordless “aha!” of recognition and insight. This “aha” is a function of previously unconscious memory. (In other words, only the original dreamer can remember what it means.) This “aha” experience is the only consistently reliable touchstone of any form of dreamwork. 3. There is no such thing as a dream with only one meaning. All dreams and dream images are “overdetermined” (or “polysemic” or “multivocal”) and have multiple simultaneous meanings and layers of significance. (This is one of the reasons why group projective dreamwork is so valuable; the process itself reflects the basic multivocal structure of dreaming.) 4. No dream ever comes just to tell you what you consciously know already. All dreams break new ground and invite the dreamer to new understandings and insights. 5. When talking to others about their dreams, it is both wise and polite to preface all your remarks with words to the effect of “in my imagined version of this dream . . .” and always keep any subsequent commentary in the projective/confessional first person. This means that even relatively challenging and confrontational comments can be made in such a way that the dreamer (and others) may actually be able to hear and internalize them. The practice can also become a profound psychospiritual discipline—walking a mile in your neighbor’s moccasins. (This point is essential. It should even be applied to asking questions. Rather than asking the dreamer, “How did you feel when . . .?” it is really much better to ask, “As the dreamer of this dream, how did I feel when . . .?”). 6. All group participants should agree at the outset to maintain anonymity in all subsequent discussions of dreamwork. In the absence of any specific request for confidentiality, group members should be free to discuss their experiences openly outside the group, provided that no other dreamers are identifiable in any of the details of their remarks. Whenever any group member requests confidentiality, all members should agree to be automatically bound by such a request.

Culture Dreaming (or Deep Dreaming) Richard Russo

Culture dreaming is a very different approach to group dream sharing than the Ullman or projective approach in that it moves away from verbally projecting associations on one dream to a group experience with multiple dreams shared by the group. It was developed by Richard Russo and Meredith Sabini at the Dream Institute of Northern California to explore the cultural dimension of dreaming. In 2014, the name of the process was changed to deep dreaming in recognition of a new dual emphasis on not only the cultural aspects of dreaming but also the experience of dreaming together.

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BACKGROUND The work of Gordon Lawrence at the Tavistock Institute in London provided the inspiration for culture dreaming. Lawrence sought to bring dreams into his practice as an organizational consultant. His method, which he called “social dreaming,” moved away from focus on the individual dreamer and used a new form of group dreamwork to illuminate and explore what was happening in the group, beneath the surface. During a typical social dreaming matrix, participants would share dreams, stories, memories, associations, and possible interpretations, with the goal of stimulating new perspectives and creative thought. After meeting Lawrence and studying his method, Russo and Sabini took social dreaming in a new direction, which they called “culture dreaming.” Whereas social dreaming matrices are generally held for businesses and organizations to address issues facing the group, culture dreaming casts the dream net wider: ordinary peo­ ple from all walks of life come together to share dreams and listen for what they might be saying about the culture of which they are all a part. If social dreaming seeks to uncover currents of thought in the unconscious life of the group, culture dreaming seeks to uncover the unconscious life of the culture itself. Bogzaran and Deslauriers (2012), in their discussion of culture dreaming, wrote, If each person holds a piece of the hologram, could it be that bringing our dreams together leads to some form of social-perceptual depth? To that effect, Meredith Sabini and Richard Russo have adapted a social dreaming process devised by Lawrence (2005) to inquire about group response to social and ecological themes. . . . Dreams are viewed as a shared social resource.

CULTURE DREAMING: THE PROCESS Culture dreaming sessions initially consisted of two parts. In Part 1, the dreaming, participants tell dreams following a simple set of ground rules. In Part 2, there is a joint exploration and discussion of what the group has witnessed and experienced. A Part 3 was later added for closure. Part 1: The Dream Sharing Session Dream sharing uses a special seating configuration developed by Lawrence, but it otherwise departs from his social dreaming method in significant ways. One crucial difference is that no associations, amplifications, or other comments are allowed, only dreams. The aim of Lawrence’s social dreaming matrix was to stimulate creative thinking; his method used a mixture of dreams, thoughts, and associations to facilitate the development of working hypotheses concerning the issues facing the group. Culture dreaming has also been used in consulting work with groups and organizations, by Sabini and Russo, as well as others (e.g., Trevino, 2008), but the main goal of the process is to explore the dreaming of the culture. It was found that the intrusion of thoughts and associations during the dreaming pulled participants out of the dream state. Staying only with dreams allows the group to settle into a

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deeper relaxed but alert meditative state, in which one dream calls forth the next. Instead of participants making conscious associations to each dream, the dreams make associations to each other, leading to chains of meaning that could not have been foreseen. The result is a new, long dream whose many scenes are composed of the individual dreams of the participants, as if each individual dreamer had a piece of a puzzle whose totality could not be seen until the group came together and the dreaming was allowed to unfold. The resulting “big” dream may be startling in its thematic complexity and often quite beautiful in its intricate structure. A typical dreaming (Part 1) lasts 20–30 minutes, during which 10–15 individual dreams are heard. The process is intense. Most people are used to listening to one dream at a time; staying in dream space for 20 or 30 minutes requires great concentration. Occasionally, a participant may nod off during the process—often to “return” with a fresh dream! Part 2: The Dream Discussion In Part 2, after a brief break, the chairs are moved into a circle, and the group reconvenes to discuss the dreams that were heard in Part 1. In a significant and crucial departure from Lawrence and almost all other approaches to group dream sharing, the dreams that emerge during the dream-sharing process are viewed as one big dream, consisting of many scenes. The opening and closing scenes are given special attention, and the overall arc of the dreaming is examined. No discussion of the personal meaning of any particular dream or image for an individual dreamer is allowed. Instead, associations and amplifications are made, themes and connections among the individual dream scenes are explored, and relevance to collective issues is considered. Themes that have emerged in culture dreaming/deep dreaming sessions include environmental catastrophes, homelessness, the suffering of animals, gender conflict, racism, global warming, violence, alienation, and war. Part 3: Dream Reentry After using the method for several years, Sabini and Russo discerned a need for greater closure to the process and added a third part: dream reentry. In Part 3, each participant chooses an image or scene that is particularly meaningful to them from that day’s dreaming. The group goes back into a light trance, and each person reenters the dream scene they have chosen, allowing it to unfold further. Afterward, they report back to the group what they have experienced or discovered. This allows each dreamer to make a personal connection to the group’s dreaming, while providing the group with further insight into the meaning of the big dream they have cocreated. DEEP DREAMING The addition of the dream reentry component to the process marked the beginning of a shift away from emphasis on the cultural content of the dreaming, though

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that is still present and always discussed, to a focus on the experience of dreaming together. During more than a decade of exploring and refining the method, participants repeatedly reported that simply the experience of coming together to dream and the resultant feeling of interconnectedness were as important and rewarding as the content of the dreams in any particular session. Typical comments are that it is comforting to know that other people are having dreams similar to their own; that the dreams all seem to be “coming from the same place,” and thus they feel close and connected to the other dreamers; and that the burden of disturbing dreams seems lessened through understanding that the dreams are not only about personal issues. In recognition of the importance of these insights, Sabini and Russo changed the name of the process to “deep dreaming,” and they now lead advanced groups in which dreamers commit to a series of sessions. After each session, participants receive a narrative summary of the dreams that were heard and are asked to make or find a small object that represents some image or theme from the dreaming to be placed on an altar at the start of the next session. In this way, continuity between sessions is emphasized; each session picks up where the previous one left off, allowing participants to go more deeply into the dreaming. Relation to Shamanism Although inspired by shamanic dream cultures, deep dreaming differs from shamanic models of dream sharing in significant ways. Most shamanic dream cultures distinguish between personal dreams that are for the dreamer and “big” dreams that are for the whole community. A dreamer who has had a big dream brings it to the shaman, or to a council of elders, for interpretation. Information and insights gleaned from the dream are then used in making decisions affecting the life of the community. Deep dreaming also recognizes that some dreams have significant meaning for the community, but it differs from shamanic models in several important ways. Rather than focusing on big dreams, deep dreaming works with ordinary night dreams. The theory behind this is that many, if not most, dreams have a cultural dimension that often goes unnoticed, but it can be illuminated when viewed in the context of other similar dreams. There are practical reasons for working with ordinary dreams as well. A big dream told by one person may be so powerful that it overwhelms the other participants and prevents the group dreaming from unfolding. Furthermore, a deep dreaming session can be held at any time, without having to wait for someone to have a big dream. In effect, the process invites the emergence of a new big dream, built in unexpected and unforeseeable ways from the individual night dreams of the participants. In that sense, culture dreaming/deep dreaming can be viewed as a new form of group shamanic practice. Deep dreaming replaces hierarchal models with an egalitarian one. The dreaming is open to everyone. Rather than consulting a dream “expert,” whether shaman, psychotherapist, or dreamworker, ordinary people come together to create a big dream, and they work together to understand what it is saying.

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Relation to Jungian Thought The idea of the “cultural complex” has been introduced in Jungian literature by Thomas Singer and Samuel Kimbles (2004). In this view, not all “complexes” are personal (in the classic Freudian/Jungian sense); some are cultural. In other words, individuals within a given culture or subculture may carry complexes that do not originate in their personal experience but are held in common by members of the culture and may be passed on. For example, an individual’s attitude toward homeless people, the poor, or immigrants may stem from attitudes embedded in the culture, rather than any direct, personal experience, which may be absent. To the extent that these cultural complexes remain unconscious and therefore unexamined, they unknowingly affect behavior the same way that personal complexes do. Deep dreaming can be a way to work with these complexes, by bringing them to light within the safe container of the group session and examining the ways in which they might be shaping our behavior. With the addition of the dream reentry component, which often brings creative resolution to issues raised during the dreaming, deep dreaming is a new form of healing work that addresses the cultural, rather than the personal, level of a problem.

Chapter 21

ASSOCIATIVE DREAMWORK

This chapter describes some predominantly individual (non-group-focused) dreamworking methods that might be used for personal dreamwork or by a professional in a therapeutic setting. These approaches often are integrated with others as part of a broader technique, but they are categorized for convenience herein as “associative.” As presented, the predominant focus is on revealing insight and associations between the dream and the dreamer’s waking life situation, motivations, emotional conflicts, or felt sense of being and such. In contrast to the “integrated” classification in the next section, they do not incorporate further action (resolution or closure) techniques into the written protocol, but often the insight alone (either cognitive or felt) may be adequate for the process to be effective.

Dream Interview Method Gayle Delaney

Dreams, understood as metaphors that provide reflections upon the dreamer’s daily life concerns, conflicts, problem-solving efforts, self-image, and relationships, offer timely and invaluable insight and options for change. Dreams do this by illustrating in intense visual and emotional story metaphors that draw from the dreamer’s daily life experience and highlight an alternative and enlightening point of view—one that is less defensive, more blunt, and more cognizant of patterns in the dreamer’s life than the dreamer has yet grasped while waking. Leaving aside discussions of symbolism, mythology, and traditional interpretations (which can obscure, mislead, and distract), metaphors are direct and convincingly transparent tools that allow the dreamer to grasp a new, fuller, and more sophisticated point of view on immediate as well as long-suffered life situations and relationships.

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The dream interview method (DIM) is rooted in the existential psychological preference to minimize abstractions, metapsychological theoretical structures, and predetermined interpretations based on traditional or “psychological” wisdom. DIM is designed to discourage the interpreter, whether that is a therapist, friend, or the dreamer herself (when acting as interviewer with their own dream), from directing or distracting the dreamer from following their own unfolding of the dream metaphors and how they shed light on waking situations. To achieve this, the interviewer asks the dreamer to pretend the interviewer comes from another planet, has just arrived, and is curious about the dreamer’s descriptions of life on Earth. This device is the most important part of the method. DIM also aims at asking follow-up questions that drill down into the specificity of the main images as portrayed in the dream and experienced in the dreamer’s life, all of which leads to the revelation of patterns of thought, belief, and behaviors that trip the dreamer up in career, relationships, and problem-solving. DIM is designed as efficient, transparent, and theoretically secular. Interviewers learn to ask questions and elicit metaphoric bridges using as few words as possible. They ask questions that keep the dreamer’s descriptions and commentary as close to the dream and life experience as possible. It may take 10–20 minutes to understand a dream rather than 1–2 hours, helping to maintain the dreamer’s interest and motivation to keep working with dreams. A detailed outline of the method can be found at http://smartdreams.net/programs/how-to-conduct-a-dream-interview. FIVE STEPS OF THE DREAM INTERVIEW 1. Description: The interviewer asks the dreamer for a brief description of the main settings, people, animals, objects, feelings, and actions/plots/themes in the dream, one at a time. Asking for 3–4 adjectives that would describe the image to an alien can speed the dreamer’s response and encourage conciseness. After asking for a generic description, ask for a specific description that covers how the image appears in the dream and what action it may be involved in before moving on to the next image. 2. Recapitulation: The interviewer restates as accurately and as concisely as possible the dreamer’s description and asks whether the recapitulation is accurate or needs any modification. 3. Bridge: The interviewer asks (or in self-interviews writes out), “Is there anything, anyone, or any part of yourself that is like X (the dream element) who or that is (repeat the description/recapitulation)?” The dreamer is free to choose the subjective or objective nature of the image. This is the first step in the dreamer’s effort to unwrap the metaphor and interpret the dream image. As the interview progresses, the dreamer will be able to link the bridges of the different elements and understand them in the all-important context and dynamic thrust of the theme and action. 4. Test the bridge: Sometimes the metaphorical fit is very good, and sometimes it is terrible. Ask the dreamer to describe how the dream image and its description reminds her of the person, part of herself, or thing she identified. If the bridge looks weak, ask the dreamer how many of the descriptive traits fit the waking life situation of the person; this may help the dreamer provide a richer

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description that may produce a stronger or a different bridge. The bridge should justify a strong emotive and descriptive match. 5. Linking and summary: The interviewer (or the dreamer working alone) links the bridges made so far or at the end of the interview. As every dream is carefully crafted within a dramatic plot, it is vital to understand the dramatic thrust of the plot and see whether all the images and bridges make sense in the context of the dream story.

Either the interviewer or the dreamer can summarize the dream, retelling the story, including the bridges made, and noting what remains unclear (never force a bridge; let time and reflection work over the next week). THE CUE CARD Below is a list of questions designed to execute the steps of the dream interview and formulated to apply to six general elements found in dreams: settings, people, animals, objects, feelings, and actions/plots. A flexible use of these questions and well-phrased follow-up questions come to mind more easily as one gains experience. Settings 1. Describe the opening (or the next) setting of the dream as if I come from another planet and need to know its nature, function, and how you feel about the place. (description) 2. What is this place like in your dream? (description) 3. Is it different from such a place in waking life? How? (description) 4. How does it feel to be in this setting? (description) 5. So this setting is (recapitulate the description)? 6. Does the setting that you describe as (recapitulate the description) remind you of any situation or any area in your life? (bridge) 7. How so? (test the bridge)

People 1. Who is X? Pretend I (come from another planet and) have never heard of her before. 2. What is X like in waking life? Describe X with 3–4 adjectives. (description) 3. What is X like in your dream, and what is she doing? (description) 4. Do you like X or not? Elaborate. (description)

5. So X is (recapitulate the description), right? 6. Is there anything, any part of yourself, or anyone who is like X, who is (recapitulate the description)? (bridge) 7. How so? (test the bridge)

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Animals 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

What is a Z like? (generic description first) How would you describe the personality of a Z? (specific description second) What is the Z like in your dream, and what is it doing? (description) So this Z is (recapitulate the description). Have I got that right? Does this Z that is (recapitulate the description) remind you of anything, anyone, or of any part of yourself ? (bridge) 6. How so? (test the bridge)

Objects 1. What is a Y like? (generic description) Pretend 2. Why do humans have or use Ys, and how do they work? (description of function) 3. How do you feel about Ys in general? (a rich description always includes feeling or judgment) 4. What is the Y in your dream like? (specific description) 5. How do you feel about the Y in your dream? Do you like or dislike it? (description can shift from generic) 6. So, the Y in your dream is (recapitulate the description), right? 7. Is there anything, anyone, or any part of yourself that is like the Y, which is (recapitulate the description)? (bridge) 8. How so? (test the bridge)

Feelings 1. What were you feeling at that moment in the dream? (description) 2. Yes, it can be difficult to find words for subtle feelings. Take your time. (If the dreamer is stuck, guess in very general terms.) Were you pleased, displeased? Anxious, relieved, frustrated, perplexed, certain? (Always give opposites so you do not seem to express an opinion. If the dreamer accepts your word for a feeling, ask for elaboration.) (description) 3. In what way were you (pleased, anxious, frustrated)? (description) 4. Let me see if I have this right; you were feeling (recapitulate the description). Is that close? 5. Does this feeling of (recapitulate the description) remind you of anything or any time in your life? (bridge) 6. How so? (test the bridge)

Actions/Plots 1. Describe the action in this part of the dream. Pretend I come from another planet and tell me if humans usually do this (play tennis with a baseball bat, swim in a mountain lake, drive cars that fly, etc.) and why? (description) 2. How do you feel about this action? (like or dislike, approve or disapprove) (description)

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3. So the action here is (recapitulate the description), right? 4. Is there any situation in your life that is like (recapitulate the description). (bridge) 5. How so? (test the bridge) 6. Describe the major theme or plot of your dream? (description) 7. Is this normal on Earth? Tell me why or why not. (description) 8. How does it feel for a human to be in such a situation? (description) 9. So in your dream, you (or someone) (recapitulate the theme or plot), right? 10. Is there any situation in your life that is analogous to this theme of (recapitulate the description)?

Linking and Summary When you have bridged to a few or all the major images in the dream, link the bridges together and narrate the dream story, including the images as dreamed connected to their bridges. Throughout, and especially at the end, the interviewer is reminded to resist every temptation to project his or her ideas, interpretations, and knowledge into the interview. SAMPLE DREAM INTERVIEWS In the following examples, the interviewer uses the cue card questions to execute the five steps of the interview. The interviews are nearly verbatim examples. The Dream Interview Francesca dreamed: I saw a black cat on my windowsill. He jumped into my room and raised a ruckus. Then he left! Interviewer: What are cats like? Pretend that I come from another planet and have never heard of cats before. (generic description) Francesca: Well, cats are gorgeous to look at, agile, distant, aloof. They love you when they want to, and leave you when they want to. I: What was the cat in your dream like? (specific description) F: This one was black, gorgeous, sleek . . . agile. I: The cat came into which room? F: My bedroom. I: What did the cat do? (description of action) F: The cat jumped into the room and ran all about, all over, and raised a ruckus. Lots of action and excitement. (dreamer’s action description includes a feeling description) I: How did you feel when the cat left? (description of feeling)

F: I was in tears! I: Is there anything, anyone, or any part of yourself that is like a gorgeous, agile, sleek, black cat that is distant, aloof, that loves you when it wants to, and leaves you when it wants to? That jumps into your bedroom, raises a ruckus, causes lots of excitement and action, then leaves you in tears? (formulating a bridge question)

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F: You bet! That fits my boyfriend exactly. He is all those things. And he is black, and he loves and leaves me when he wants to. I am so often in tears! (This is a strong metaphoric bridge between the dream image and waking life given that all the descriptors fit both the cat and the boyfriend and that the dreamer was enthusiastic about the match.) I: If you note any patterns here, Francesca, let me know. F: (five minutes later) You know what? All my boyfriends have been cats! What I need is a boyfriend who is a dog! One who is faithful, loves being together, cuddly, protective, who likes to hang out with me, who wags his tail with joy when he sees me, . . . who is a one (wo)man dog! I: So if you have chosen this type of guy several times, there is a pattern. Do you remember the first time you were in relationship with a sleek, gorgeous, but distant, aloof person who would raise a ruckus and then leave? F: OMG! My father is just like that! Lots of excitement and lots of leaving and lots of tears. So I am just repeating the pattern trying to get doglike love from a catlike man like my dad!

That dream interview took all of about 10 minutes. The hard work begins after the thrilling insight: learning how to recognize that one has stepped into an unfortunate family pattern and then forcing oneself to change habits and develop new tastes for (in this case) cuddly doglike men who previously the dreamer had considered boring or dull. The trick is to find exciting men who are also doglike, and not catlike, as the dreamer understands these terms. (Traditional interpretations of cats as feminine or as representing the “female principle” would have distracting projections in this case.)

The Storytelling Method (TSM) Teresa L. DeCicco

Attempts to understand the connection between the enigmatic sleep mentation process and waking life circumstances for dreamers has held a long-standing fascination with human culture. From the recording of dreams on stone tablets to shamanistic dream journeys and the countless ways to record dreams, modernday understandings of the connection between sleep mentation and the link to one’s waking day events continues to unfold. As such, numerous dream interpretation techniques have been proposed for both research purposes and therapeutic practice, and, more recently, these techniques have helped unravel the meaning in dreams as they have been studied with rigorous scientific methodology. Early writers such as Freud introduced the notion of “association” to link concepts closely related in one’s memory (Chapter 15). For example, a person phobic of dogs might associate the word dog with the word terror. On the other hand, a dog lover may associate the word dog with the word friend. Using this system, one can link words describing one’s own dream imagery to related words stored in memory.

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As an extension of this conception, the Storytelling Method of Dream Interpretation (TSM) was designed (DeCicco, 2007) and then scientifically tested through a series of studies to test its efficacy, reliability and validity (see Chapter 16). The method was designed in line with current therapeutic techniques utilizing worksheets to aid participants with a user-friendly and consistent method of application. This method also provides an exact protocol for therapists wishing to use the method in practice. Once designed, the completed method was tested with a control group, and each step analyzed and scrutinized for validity, accuracy, and consistency. The method was repeatedly found to be consistent and reliable while leading to discovery at least 80 percent of the time across sample populations. Most importantly, the meaning of the dream derived from the method was found to be meaningful to the dreamer’s specific life circumstances. For example, cancer patients were able to make meaning in their illness and treatment from their dreams, and soldiers returning from war were able to find meaning in combat, negative emotions, and nightmares relating to their experiences. The method has since been applied in practice to those suffering from depression and anxiety, pain patients, women with breast cancer, soldiers, university students, adolescents, and recovering addicts, to name a few. Research results reliably reveal participants reporting meaningful and relevant discovery to their waking lives with TSM, and it is widely available for use (DeCicco, 2008). THE STORY TELLING METHOD TSM consists of a worksheet with five steps guiding participants from their recorded dream to a meaningful link in waking life. The method is self-guided dream interpretation conducted by following the instructions outlined in each of the five steps in sequential order. The method is also used as a therapist-guided technique, where participants can be led through the process to eventually work through dreams independently. Using the premise of association, participants are directed through major dream images with word associations to make a meaningful link to waking day circumstances. Most importantly, it is the dreamer who decides how the link from the dream imagery to waking life is relevant through their associations. Step 1 The first step is where the dreamer records the dream upon waking. Instructions are given to record the imagery and the emotions in the dream with as much detail as possible. TSM treats each scene in the dream as a separate process for interpretation, and therefore, for long dreams, worksheets are completed for each dream scene. Once the dream is recorded in Step 1, Step 2 can then be completed. Step 2 The dreamer chooses the most salient word or phrase in each sentence of the dream passage and underlines these words. For example, if the dream passage

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contains the word “dog” and this is salient for the dreamer, that word is underlined. At least one word or phrase is underlined for each sentence, and it is imperative that sentences are not excluded. Step 3 Step 3(a) of the worksheet consists of a table with two columns labeled “Column A” and “Column B.” The underlined words and phrases from the dream are written in Column A in the exact order they appear in the dream. It is very important in this step that all underlined words are included in the column and that they remain in sequential order. If “dog” is the first underlined word in the dream, then that is the first word in Column A of this step. The instructions for Step 3(b) indicate to participants to write in Column B the first word that comes to mind for each word in Column A. It is imperative that this word association occurs with little deliberation and that each associated word is recorded in Column B beside the dream words. If “dog” is the first word in Column A and “terror” is the associated word, then “terror” is the first word in Column B. Word associations are conducted and recorded for all words and phrases in Column A. Again, it’s imperative that the words remain in the order they appear in the column and that no words are missed for associations. Step 4 The associated words from Column B are then used to create a meaningful story. Instructions indicate each word in the associated column is strung together in sentences so a brief story that is meaningful to the participant is created. If “terror” and “bully” are the first two words in the column, an example of a meaningful sentence may be “I have a great terror of the bully I see on the street each day.” All associated words are to be used in the order they appear to make the short story. It is very important that words not be omitted, that only words from Column B are used, and that the words appear in sequential order from the column. It is the associated words connecting dream imagery to words and concepts from memory that can lead the dreamer to a meaningful connection. Step 5 The participants are guided with five questions (a–e) in an attempt to explore the story that has been created. This is where further links from the dream to waking day circumstances can be made. Step 5(a) asks the question, “Does this story have meaning for you? Explain.” The dreamer has an opportunity to think about the associations made and how they relate to waking life. Research has found this step to link directly to waking day circumstances, even though the dream imagery itself may have not been directly pointing to a specific issue. For example, the dream image of a poisonous bat clinging to one’s breast may be associated with the presence of breast cancer,

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with the dream’s meaning emerging that a decision needs to be made for cancer treatment options. Step 5(b) explores the story further by asking, “Does this story relate to your waking life in some way? Explain.” This step asks the dreamer to probe deeper into waking life circumstances. For example, if the dreamer has breast cancer and is delaying making a decision on a path of treatment, Step 5(b) may bring this issue to light. Step 5(c) asks, “Does this story relate to any specific events in your waking life?” This question attempts to narrow down the issue at hand to something in the dreamer’s memory or awareness. It is often the case that dreams are not connected to waking day circumstances due to blind spots in one’s own consciousness. The link to waking life is not made because the dreamer is blocking the meaning from emerging. By asking more specific questions in Step 5, the method is attempting to remove the blind spots. Step 5(d) is another attempt to guide the dreamer to waking day issues by asking, “Did this analysis give you any clear insight?” This provides the dreamer with yet another opportunity for connecting their associations in the story to their own personal, private waking day conditions. Step 5(e) asks for an elaboration of 5(d), which again provides the opportunity to explore the story, its meaning, and connections to waking day. EFFICACY STUDIES AND APPLICATION Research has found each step in the protocol to be significantly more meaningful than a control group using TSM with a neutral passage or someone else’s dream. The method has been found to yield discovery across a wide variety of sample populations. It is useful for those who wish to begin a dream interpretation practice, as it produces results very quickly and relatively easily. It can be used as an introductory method and springboard toward a more progressive interpretation program, where deeper emotions and more complicated connections can be explored when the dreamer is ready to delve into dreams in a more complex manner. Moreover, TSM can be used in conjunction with other forms of therapy to aid in self-discovery and problem-solving. TSM has been used with a wide variety of sample populations as a tool for understanding one’s own dreams, for coping with negative dreams and nightmares, and for assisting with waking day concerns. Adults in long-term therapy, for example, used TSM to help them find meaning related to their specific life challenges and to help them cope with ongoing stressors and find solutions to waking day difficulties. The members of another group were recovering alcohol and drug addicts who used TSM as part of their postdetox early treatment program. It was found that those who reported specific thoughts and feelings from TSM could potentially be at risk for relapse. It is this kind of information that helps recovering addicts gain control of their treatment, in addition to identifying those who are at risk for relapse. More recently, the method has been translated into languages other than English for use in research and private therapeutic practice. The method has been found

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to be useful in several languages, and an online version in English has made the protocol available to a much wider audience. In an attempt to understand how and why TSM yields a high rate of discovery for participants across a wide range of sample populations, computer models have been designed and tested to further examine the TSM process in attempts to explain its effectiveness (Barcaro, DeCicco, & Salvetti, 2012). In summary, the method is simple, efficient, and suitable for both research and private practice. Outside of therapist-assisted protocols, TSM has shown to be valuable as self-directed dream interpretation and valuable to those who prefer a step-by-step method for assistance. It can also be used as a first step in developing a dreamwork practice until more complicated methods can be undertaken and deeper meanings can be accepted by the dreamer.

Theme Work Robert P. Gongloff

Dreamworkers introduced to themes have traditionally been presented with a collection of “typical” or “universal” dream themes, such as falling, flying, being naked in public, missing the boat, failing the test, and so on. Freud called these “typical dreams,” thinking such themes were frequent in dreams (see Chapter 6); however, content analysis of dream reports across large populations show them to be very infrequent in occurrence when compared to more common daily activities and imagery that appears in dreams (see Chapter 14). They likely stand out because they are more unusual and emotionally memorable. This points out the importance of noting the theme within a dream—it usually has an emotional connection with themes in the dreamer’s life. In Chapter 18, Alan Siegel discusses recurrent themes as people go through life’s changes. Theme work, as presented in this chapter, involves going deeper than relying on a list of popularized themes to discover the personal themes in one’s dream. It involves examining the basic issues those dreams are attempting to address and how to use that information to deal with those issues in waking life. For instance, a dreamer may reveal how they were dressed in public to relate to their self-identity and self-acceptance; they may reveal poor or good test performance to relate to issues concerning their ability to use innate analytical skills and meet challenges. This approach would seem to be in concord with Ann Faraday, who saw themes as “picture metaphors for a common kind of feeling or experience.” In general, the process involves working with a matrix of 12 common patterns of personality characteristics that, when viewed as a hierarchy of levels of consciousness, can help the dreamer determine suggested waking life activities to deal with and seek resolution of those issues. There have been few references that specifically say what themes are and none on how to determine them. One significant reference is from Louis Savary, Patricia

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Berne, and Strephon Kaplan Williams, who include themes as part of a simple easy-to-use dreamwork technique they offer called TTAQ. This technique involves identifying the title of the dream, the theme, the affect (the feelings and emotional states experienced), and the question (being asked by the dream). They see dreams as putting us in touch with waking life patterns and issues needing our attention and the themes as being the major issues being addressed by the dreams. For the theme work process, a theme is defined as the basic message, idea, or perception that a dream—or waking life event—is attempting to bring to one’s waking consciousness. It can be said that the theme gets to the heart of the dream. Dreams with entirely different activity and symbolism may present the same message or issue. For instance, consider these three dreams: (1) “I am driving my car and realize the steering wheel is gone”; (2) “My pet rabbits have broken out of their cages and are running about”; and (3) “I find a big leak in a water pipe in the basement and frantically look for a way to shut it off.” These are three entirely different dreams, with entirely different symbols and activity, but all three express the same pattern or theme—the dreamer is facing chaotic situations over which he or she has little control. To determine the theme of a dream, one must restate the activity of the dream characters in terms of basic behavioral patterns. The easiest way to do this is to state what is really going on without using the words in the dream. Here are some examples: “I am hungry, and all the restaurants are closed” (my nutritional needs are not being met); “I can’t find a telephone that works” (I am not able to communicate my thoughts); “I am ready to take on a new task and find my arms are paralyzed” (I face new limitations); and “Back at my high school, I realize I have missed the final exam and will probably flunk out” (I experience the anxiety of failure). As shown in the examples, when stating these themes, it is best to personalize the issue and take ownership of it (“I . . .”) and to state it in the present tense (“I am . . .”), recognizing that the message or issue is something the dreamer is willing to face right now. In individual or group work with themes, just the identification of the underlying issue or message has often been sufficient motivation or information for dreamers. However, once an issue has been identified, the dreamer may logically ask what can be done to help deal with it in waking life. Dreamers can choose to ignore the message, or they can take action. When they actively deal with the issues raised in their dreams, dreamworkers call this “honoring” the dreams. Taking action in waking life based on a dream suggestion or message tells the subconscious mind that the dreamer accepts the fact that dreams have credibility—that the dreamer believes in the power of dreams. By doing this, they are saying they welcome more information and help with the issue. Determining ways to honor the dream through theme work is done by relating the behavioral patterns discovered in the dreams to behavioral patterns realized universally. These patterns can be seen as core themes that are common to all of humanity. Many of these patterns are hidden from waking consciousness, either because we do not recognize them or because we prefer to suppress them. The truth comes out in dreams.

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The theme work process offers 12 such universal patterns or themes covering four basic aspects of one’s personality and journey through life: Self-identity: (1) personal self-image; (2) personal security and self-reliance; (3) synthesizing and communicating personal thought Self-expression: (4) expressing feelings and compassion; (5) expressing creativity, exploring, discovering; (6) expressing analytical skills, meeting challenges Interaction: (7) achieving balance through a partner; (8) sharing resources while fulfilling personal desires; (9) adapting, broadening perspective Integration: (10) applying experience to benefit self and society; (11) knowing what is truly essential and of value for self and society; (12) freeing self from boundaries and achieving wholeness

Einstein said we cannot resolve any issue at the same level of consciousness at which we created it. The theme work method involves considering these universal behavioral patterns as levels of consciousness, and it suggests that by exploring the themes at higher levels, one can arrive at suggestions for determining concrete actions to take in waking life to resolve issues identified in our dreams (see Table 21.1). This theme work method proposes that dreams are helping dreamers stretch themselves to seek higher levels of characteristic behavior—or levels of consciousness—by taking affirmative action based on the issues their dreams are attempting to bring to their waking consciousness. The ultimate goal is self-actualization. The hierarchy can also be viewed as steps in the journeys we go through in life. This is perhaps best expressed by noting the archetypal journey of the “hero” described by Carol Pearson. She claims that we live out 12 archetypal patterns, starting with the Innocent, who learns optimism and trust; the Orphan, who learns self-reliance and interdependence; and on to the 12th archetype, the Fool, who learns joy and spontaneity. Each of Pearson’s archetypes can be related to each of the 12 patterns in the theme work hierarchy. As with the theme work method, at each step of the journey, we are being challenged to develop basic life principles. It is important to note that these hierarchical themes or patterns are not categories. For instance, if a dream seems to relate to one of the core themes, it cannot be considered a “type 1” dream or that the dream “means” the dreamer has the particular characteristics suggested in the theme description. One should avoid categorizing dreams, as dreams have many meanings, and there may even be many patterns needing exploration within a single dream. For instance, the traditional “theme” of being naked in public could relate to core theme 1, if one feels vulnerable or insecure in the dream; it could relate to core theme 2, if the emotion within the dream is one of feeling insecure due to the lack of basic wearing apparel; and it could conceivably relate to theme 12, if the emotion within the dream is one of being free from the bonds of clothing. The ultimate judge of any concept of meaning or association rests with the dreamer, based on the emotional impact the core theme or honoring suggestion has on him or her. One of the benefits of working with themes in dreams is that it gives one the ability to identify and work with recurring dreams. As dreams are attempting to bring waking life issues to consciousness, information regarding those issues may

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Table 21.1. Honoring Dreams Based on the 12 Themes If the dream relates to . . .

the dreamer may honor it by . . .

one’s personal self-image (theme 1),

asserting one’s will and seeking ways of fulfilling his or her needs and personal security (theme 2).

what personal resources one has and needs for security and self-reliance (theme 2),

stretching thought and functioning capabilities, and by finding ways to communicate with others involved in the issue (theme 3).

how one synthesizes and communicates personal thought (theme 3),

expressing feeling, compassion, and caregiving to themselves and others (theme 4).

how one expresses feelings and compassion and develops a sense of “home” (theme 4),

expressing one’s will, seeking ways to express personal creativity and develop passion for new discoveries (theme 5).

how one exerts his or her will so that he or she may express creativity, explore, and discover (theme 5),

improving analytical skills and service work and seeking challenges (theme 6).

how one uses analytical skills to develop confidence to meet challenges (theme 6),

uniting in partnership with a person, cause, place, or work (theme 7).

how one achieves balance and learns to love through a partner (theme 7),

sharing resources, desires, will, and expressing himself or herself through others (theme 8).

how one lets go of ego by sharing resources, still fulfilling personal desires (theme 8),

thinking from another’s perspective and the future of the relationship (theme 9).

how one adapts or broadens perspective through conceptualized thought (theme 9),

using his or her accomplishments to help others heal and transform (theme 10).

how one applies what he or she has learned from the past to benefit self and society (theme 10),

committing to humanity, community, and universal truths (theme 11).

what one knows to be truly essential and of value for himself or herself and society (theme 11),

realizing and expressing freedom to seek wholeness, joy, and spontaneity (theme 12).

what one believes about being free from boundaries and achieving wholeness (theme 12),

differentiating his or her new selfimage, self-identity, and outlook on life (theme 1). The journey is a cycle. When we achieve our goal, we continue the journey at the beginning but at a higher level of consciousness and understanding.

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come at different times, depending on the degree to which the dreamer is willing to work with the issues and grow. One way to identify these is to maintain a log of dreams, including not just the date and title of the dream, but a brief statement of the theme. By doing this, the dreamer can see that an issue such as “difficulty making decisions” is coming up periodically in dreams. Another major benefit to determining themes is that it gives one a focus for working with symbols. There is a tendency, particularly in group dreamwork, to begin the exploration by dwelling on a particular symbol and attempting to describe every possible thing that it could mean, hoping to trigger a positive response from the dreamer. Much time and effort can be saved by first identifying the theme and then working with the symbol within the context of that theme. The theme gives focus to the exploration. This approach to dreamwork has been shown to have other benefits as well, including its applicability to both individual and group dreamwork and its potential for use in clinical settings.

Dream Translation Milton Kramer*

The Dream Translation method considers the language of a dream report to be metaphorical. The elements of the report are determined, as is their order, which is causally related (e.g., post hoc ergo prompter hoc), and their content is reflective of or reactive to experiences that stimulated the dream experience. In the search for the meaning, one applies the associations of the translator to each part of the report, always starting from the beginning, interpreting only what is there, but recognizing paradigms, for example, both poles of a dichotomy. The translator may use an interpersonal, intrapsychic, narcissistic, or futuristic view of the report to reach the goal of establishing the meaning of the dream. Recognizing that waking and sleeping have a continuous relationship and that the age and sex of the dreamer influence dream content helps in establishing the meaning of the dream. AN EXAMPLE OF A DREAM TRANSLATION This example was presented in a teaching conference for psychiatric residents at a Veterans Administration Hospital. The therapist stated only the age and sex of the patient and read the dream, a phrase at time. The conference leader and participants then attempted a dream translation and formulation. The patient’s therapist then read the history and his dynamic formulation that he had written up in advance. Then he commented on the translation. * Adapted by permission from Kramer (2017).

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The Dream Report and Discussion I dreamed I was back in Vietnam, and I had thrown a grenade into one of the Vietnamese huts. I went inside, and there was one of the babies blown up all over the inside of the hut. I woke up and was terrified, nauseated, and crying.

The patient begins his dream report by placing himself in a foreign environment of danger, that is, a war zone, and indicates he has been there before. The patient then throws a grenade into one of the Vietnamese huts. The patient, without apparent duress, engages in an aggressive act, throwing, which is potentially destructive. The grenade has the capability of, and is primarily intended as, a destructive weapon or instrument. As the patient had been in the military, the act of the aggression and potential destructiveness is a sanctioned act, as opposed to an outburst of hostility, but a controlled and legitimate undertaking. The controlled or channeled nature of the destructive act may be of importance. It could avoid feelings of loss of control, and it could serve to deal with issues of guilt or fears of retaliation. The plea or rationale might then be, “It was my duty to engage in such potentially unacceptable acts for which I cannot be held personally culpable.” It is the difference between a madman with a butcher knife and a surgeon with a scalpel. The vehicle used for the expression of feeling is likely to tell us something about the person and the feeling because they are determined, not random, choices. It is not from direct contact but from something thrown that the damage will come. It is safer than hand-to-hand combat. Must he, for some reason, be distant from his destructiveness? What then is the object of the destructive impulse? One of the Vietnamese huts. It is not his own but that of the other. Our patient is an American soldier, and the assault is on the non-American object, the foreign, the different, the strange. It is a foreign object that is attacked. It remains unclear what the foreign refers to at this point. A reasonable inference is that the patient is concerned about a possible occupant of the hut. Nevertheless, the object of assault is a relatively impersonal, inanimate, fragile thing. Is this impersonal assault reflective of some discomfort about or disguise of aggressive impulses directed at some person? It is people and not things that matter, so the speculation must be given some credence. Does the impersonal nature of the hut indicate that it makes no difference, or does it, perhaps, make too much difference? The notion of the hut, as a building, being a person is well explicated by Freud. This speculation would then allow one to recast the dream into a sanctioned assault on a foreign, strange, distant, exotic, and fragile person. If the possibility is raised of a man throwing something into a woman that explodes, an ejaculation or a sexual assault is suggested. It would be a destructive view of sexuality that is being represented. Our attacker from a distance then enters the scene of his destructive or potentially destructive act. He enters the place of his aggressive action (a regressive return to the womb?). The scene is one of infanticide. “One of the babies [is] blown up all over the inside of the hut.” To everyone, this is a horrible sight; it is not the noble work

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of a warrior hero. No affect is expressed at this point, which is not unusual for a dream according to Freud. Affects are generally muted in the manifest dream when compared to the latent dream text. The baby in the hut is confirmation of the symbolic speculation that the hut may be representative of a person, and particularly a woman. The assumption that we may be dealing with a woman and perhaps a uterus is simply that the only place, from a biological point of view, that contains a baby is a uterus and that the only possessors of uteri are women. One should note that it is “one of the babies,” perhaps implying others were present. “One of the babies is blown up all over the inside of the hut” suggests not destruction but swollenness and the image of a pregnant woman. The child is splattered over the inside of the hut. If the hut is a woman, then a splattered child inside is a dead child in a mother. Our patient has committed a sanctioned, aggressive (destructive) act, at a distance, against a fragile, possibly pregnant woman and caused her (perhaps unborn) child to die or her to abort. The last line of the dream report indicates that the dream ended in the dreamer awakening, feeling terrified, nauseated, and crying. The affect did appear and would be seen as appropriate to the content of the dream. The least disturbed aspect of the dream, Freud says, is the affect. To have been terrified, sick to one’s stomach, nauseated, and tearful if one has splattered a baby with a grenade would be considered by all of us the appropriate affective response. What of the awakening? Freud considered the function of the dream to be a protector of sleep and not a disturber, provided it can meet the demands of the censorship and discharge the unconscious affect. In this case, the dream failed its sleep-protective function, and an awakening from an anxiety dream occurred (see “Mood Regulation and Emotional ProblemSolving: Kramer,” in Chapter 12). Constructing the Dreamer What kind of man is our patient based on the dream translation? He is one concerned about his hostile impulses in relationship to mothers and particularly to their children. He is most likely not the youngest sibling. He may well have experienced displacement by younger siblings with relative hostility, at least at the fantasy level, directed at his mother or his siblings. The anxiety dream and the impersonal, sanctioned, distant mode of the hostility both suggest that he finds the hostility intolerable. What of his current life? My first impression as to what the dream is dealing with or reactive to is that he is experiencing unacceptable hostility toward his wife, either for being pregnant or for having a child. Why he has this feeling would go beyond the dream. He may have caused her or the child some injury. This would be an appropriate stopping point to adequately capture and convey the dream translation approach. Therapist’s History, Formulation, and Comment Of interest is that the descriptive historical material (below) provided by his therapist is provocative and superficially congruent with the dream translation.

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The therapist stated that he was in almost total agreement with our thoughts on the dream. The patient had been brought to the admitting area of the VA Hospital late at night in 1974 in an ambulance by his girlfriend, stating that he was afraid that he was going to hurt himself or others. That evening he had been with his girlfriend at the VFW lodge and was talking about the war, whereupon he found himself getting more and more anxious, and finally went home. He began drinking, became more and more fearful, and tried to go to bed and sleep, but he had vivid dreams about the war and killing. His girlfriend became afraid and called the rescue squad. Brief History of the Illness The patient was in the army as a rifleman in Vietnam in the latter part of 1970, where in the last 12 months he was in a heavy combat zone. He was hurt several times, and several of his friends were killed. He received several medals, but now when he looks at them, he gets very anxious. It is of interest that, just prior to enlistment, he and his first wife were not getting along well. About six months before enlistment, he accidentally caused his wife to lose their baby. He was told the miscarriage was the result of his breaking her membranes during intercourse. He married his second and present wife four months after coming back from the service. Their marriage went well for the first 18 months, but they began having arguments. Although they had two children, he moved away, periodically visiting and providing some child support. In late 1972, while bowling with his wife, the people at the bowling alley began talking about the war. He started to get anxious and wanted to leave. His wife did not. He got more and more anxious, and the evening culminated in his hitting her in the back of the head with his fist, causing a large cut. He stated that he went out of his mind with anxiety and fear while on the way to the hospital with his wife. Past History He is the oldest of nine children, and his father was an alcoholic. His father was out of the home much of the time, but he would come back for brief periods, often getting his mother pregnant. During those times, the patient would often find himself in a position of protecting his mother and would actually hit his father and run out of fear his father would kill him if he caught him. When he was 10, he had to help his mother give birth because the doctor could not come. His mother had also lost several children through miscarriage. Hospital Course During his admission, the patient talked at length about his army service, of his many friends that he saw killed and mutilated, and of the people that he was told to torture—shamefully noting that many times he actually got pleasure out of the killings and mutilations that he was ordered to do.

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The example is neither exhaustive nor ideal. Nevertheless, it provides sufficient illustrative material for the reader to begin to evaluate the method of dream translation.

Body Dreamwork: Using Focusing Leslie Ellis

There are many valid ways to approach a dream, but how do you know any given interpretation of the mystery that is your dream is the right one? Most often, you know it is right because you feel it to be true. The idea creates an “aha” moment, and from this, all the odd and assorted pieces of the dream suddenly fit together in a way that makes sense. This moment of recognition is what Eugene Gendlin, who developed “focusing” (1978/1981) and then applied it to dreamwork (1986), would call a “felt shift.” This felt shift, he says, is the single reliable indicator that a dream interpretation is on track. Many other ideas about the dream could be interesting and plausible, but only when the body responds with a tangible “yes” can these ideas be reliably linked to the dream’s inherent purpose or meaning. A BRIEF HISTORY OF FOCUSING Focusing was the inadvertent result of a study Gendlin conducted at the University of Chicago with Carl Rogers, founder of the person-centered approach to psychotherapy. The study was aimed at discovering what made therapy effective, and the answer was surprising: it was not the skill of the therapist or the method of therapy itself but the client’s inherent ability to listen inside themselves that made the difference. Successful therapy clients could be identified in the very first session by their manner of speaking. Their language indicated they were having an experiential rather than intellectual sense of themselves in relation to whatever issue was being examined. THE FELT SENSE The phrase “felt sense” is now used in many other contexts, but Gendlin coined it to mean something quite specific: a tangible, physical sense that comes in response to something, a sense that is complex, subtle, and cannot be fully articulated but opens up more as you attend to it. It is very much like a dream in this way. A simple example of a felt sense is the feeling of having forgotten something. Imagine you are rushing to the airport, and something in you says, wait, there is something I’m missing. You mentally go through the list—passport, toothbrush, computer—intuitively testing the object against the felt sense, which will not budge. Then you hit on it: your sunglasses that you left on the table by the front door. And then your whole body shifts, and there is a tangible sense of release. This

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familiar vignette has all the elements of the steps of focusing: the felt sense is that initial feeling of knowing without knowing what you know; next is the patient, open-minded attending to the felt sense; and then the “aha” moment, or felt shift, which brings an easing or feeling of release in the body when a new understanding is felt. We can get a felt sense about virtually anything, and Gendlin felt this way about dreams as well—that we get the most from them when we attend to them in this particular way. Focusing is a natural process for working with dreams because dreams often bring with them a fully formed felt sense. Gendlin would say dreams always bring “life-forward” energy, which can simply be called life force. Gendlin felt that the most important part of working with dreams was to locate this life force, or “help” from the dream, and that all the other kinds of dream exploration are secondary to embodying this life force. A CLINICAL EXAMPLE FOR FINDING “HELP” IN A DREAM The clinical example below will help explain how one might work with a dream using focusing. It is followed by an outline of the basic steps. In this vignette, the client (referred to as John) found a felt sense in a dream that has since become a significant and lasting force for change in his life. This example was chosen because it exemplifies how finding “help” in a dream can be so affirming. John was happy to share his dream but not his identity, so some details have been altered, but not the essence of his story. John is a highly skilled professional and high achiever, but he is fraught with self-doubt. He is the son of a narcissistic father whom he could never please. His father would often fly into rages unpredictably, and very often insulted and berated John, from childhood to the present, questioning and criticizing everything. As a result, John struggled with making decisions and being assertive, and even when he did decide something, he agonized about it and second-guessed himself to such a degree that it was having a detrimental effect on his life. This was the main reason he sought therapy, and in session, he recounted the following nightmare: I am an outside observer of a small group of miners who are in a cave and are pushing tubes down holes deep into the ground. They are doing this repeatedly, and I want to tell them this is dangerous! One of the tubes has a pulsating red blister that I can see is volatile and could explode in their hands. But they seem oblivious to the danger. Then, as they continue pushing the tube down into the ground, something pushes back and will not let the device go in. I try to tell them the device will explode, but they persist. And it does explode, killing them all. I wake up very afraid.

In working with the dream, John sees the obvious symbolism: the continual pressure he puts on himself in various ways, continuing even though he is aware that it is hurting him somewhere deep down. He can see the pattern and its relationship to his childhood and explosive father. But all of that insight does not change things

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for John. It is interesting, but not new. With focusing, looking for the “help” in the dream, what came up from his bodily felt response was surprising. What felt to John like the most positive dream element was the place underground that pushed back. When he sensed into this dream element, he found it was located in his chest and was familiar to him. He said he had this very specific feeling during particular times in his life when he felt most sure of himself. Gendlin would suggest that when you find something as positive as this in a dream (or in any focusing session), stay with it, explore it deeply, and anchor it in the body and in images and words that can help the client bring it back again. He would ask, “Can you keep that with you?” While exploring this helpful felt sense in the session, John said the feeling was calm, elemental, and ancient, bigger than him yet also part of him. He identified it as a magnetic force that resists its opposite. It gave him a good solid feeling, and he was invited to keep in touch with it. What is interesting about this particular dream, and the felt sense that came from exploring it, is its tremendous staying power. In the year following this dream, John solidified his relationship to this felt sense in his chest, which he came to call simply “push-back.” He reflected that it guides all of his decision-making processes, and the tremendous struggle he used to have around making decisions is a thing of the past. As a result of this dream and embodying the life force contained in it, John became a much stronger advocate for himself, and his fear of his father’s rage and all of the ways this was generalizing in his life began to fall away. This example is certainly one of the most positive and lasting shifts one might observe from a single session of focusing dreamwork. It illustrates the central place of finding the help or life-forward force Gendlin suggests is present in every dream, even a nightmare like this one. The helpful aspect of a dream is not always readily obvious. In John’s dream, it was found in quite a surprising place. This shows how the benefit of the dream may not be realized until the dreamer actively seeks it. THE STEPS OF FOCUSING-ORIENTED DREAMWORK To provide a sense of how one might systematically use focusing to work with a dream, what follows is an outline of the protocol used in research for working with PTSD nightmares, which was chosen because it is simple, replicable, and brief. It begins with the first step in focusing, called clearing a space. This step invites the dreamer to simply check into their internal space and set aside any distractions or obstacles to being fully present, such as things on one’s mind, imminent tasks, or worries. Clients are encouraged to clear space by checking inside and asking something like, is there anything in between me and feeling good and present right now? Then they are asked to gently acknowledge and set aside anything that comes up inside in response to that question. They do this repeatedly until the space inside feels clear. Next, the dreamer is asked to recount the dream in detail and to explore the setting, which is generally a safe place to begin and can give a sense of the context of

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the dream. It can also be helpful to ask for associations here, ways that aspects of the dream remind the dreamer of other elements in their life. These are all quite familiar approaches to the dream. What might be different is that these queries are directed to the dreamer’s embodied felt sense of the situation, not to the mind, which often has a ready answer. As well, the initial exploration is guided by the search for the “help” or the dream’s life force. Sometimes the help is obvious: anything green, alive, young, beautiful, or numinous contains inherent life force. Other times, in nightmares, or in our example, it can be harder to find. However, Gendlin would say that once this help is found in the dream, the main point is to embody these images and to live forward from there, from the shift that embodying such images inevitably brings. Gendlin would say that if a person does this, they have all they need from the dream. However, there is often more to explore, and Gendlin does not object to this. In fact, he has developed a list of 16 questions one can ask about a dream (available from the Gendlin online library at https://www.focusing.org/gendlin /docs/gol_2169.html). Some of the more experiential of these questions might include the following: can the dreamer be that dream element, or can the dream continue? The questions will be familiar to anyone who has studied dreams because most are taken from Freud and Jung, with some Gestalt techniques included as well. When dreamers begin by embodying the help in the dream, this opens the dream up and empowers the dreamer to explore the dream’s more challenging aspects in a way that tends to be more constructive than if they had done so in a different order. The good feeling this brings can be a resource, allowing the dreamer to journey deeper into the dream or to dream the dream forward, allowing it to complete or resolve in some way. Gendlin said that all dreams are pieces of unfinished process, and because they are not complete, they can be worked with as if they are alive and something we can interact with. Their incompleteness is what gives them such potential power. He felt that dreams need our conscious participation to complete them because, in dreaming, we are in an altered state where our bodies do not interact as fully or in their usual ways. However, when we play with our dreams experientially while awake, our embodied response can carry the dream forward.

Hartmann’s Contemporary Approach Robert J. Hoss

Ernest Hartmann, a researcher and professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine (see Chapter 12), believed that a useful insight or “interpretation” must be made by the dreamer or at least feel completely right to the dreamer—that it is up to the dreamer to decide what is useful or what seems true. Hartmann preferred “useful” to “true” because even the dreamer may not always be

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right, and the dreamer is capable of self-deception. Below are some key elements of his approach (Hartmann, 2011): • Hartmann suggested that one make use of the entire dreaming-to-waking continuum. • A good place to start is with the central image of the dream. This usually quickly leads to important underlying emotions, particularly when time is limited. Becoming aware of important underlying emotions is the beginning of understanding, and of course not an ending point, but it is important and can quickly lead into significant new material. • Next, he made use of his contemporary theory’s emphasis on the importance of the emotion underlying each dream (Chapter 12). Even a quick attempt to identify, examine, and sometimes intensify the underlying emotion can be useful— spending five minutes feeling the emotion and gradually intensifying it and noticing any thought or imagery that comes to mind. • A dream cannot be completely translated. Getting the “gist” of the dream involves appreciating the dream as a whole, looking at the connections to see whether there is anything new or surprising, and certainly examining the central image to help identify the underlying emotion and concerns. • Of course, it is possible to go further, much further if we wish, but now we are analyzing the patient—the person—not interpreting the dream. We frequently find that the one dream can be examined interminably: its associations do not produce a few simple intersecting lines of association; rather, they lead outward to involve almost everything in the patient’s life. Maybe there is no problem with this. After all, everything in the mind is connected, and all the many lines of association can help in our understanding. If useful material emerges, why not go on? But we are now analyzing the entire patient, or our entire selves, and not the dream. We are just taking a dream as a starting point. • Do not expect to understand the dream completely. The effect the dream can have on your life may be dramatic, even if the dream only gives you a hint or a possibility, a new connection or association that you had not been aware of. Hartmann cautioned that in interpreting dreams, we should be satisfied with new connections and new insights that might give us a broader view or perhaps make a change in our lives. We should not expect total truth.

Chapter 22

INTEGRATIVE DREAMWORK

As in the previous chapters, this chapter describes a number of methods for working with an individual’s dream (whether one-on-one or in a group) that also provide insight between the dream and the dreamer’s waking-life situation. The category of integrative, however, implies a focus on integrating multiple approaches or including a further action (resolution or therapeutic) technique in the protocol. These typically proceed from understanding the dream and revealing personal associations and insights, to providing a protocol that explores resolution, action, and closure as appropriate to the work.

The Cognitive-Experiential Dream Model (CEDM) Clara E. Hill

The cognitive-experiential dream model (CEDM) integrates ideas and techniques from several approaches (behavioral, client-centered, Gestalt, Jungian, phenomenological, and psychoanalytic) into a clear and simple semistructured sequence. The CEDM was developed through practice, teaching, and research and appears to be best suited for single 90-minute sessions, preferably used within a psychotherapy relationship or by a well-trained therapist. The CEDM involves three stages: (1) exploration, helping the dreamer explore several individual images; (2) insight, gaining insight into the whole dream; (3) action, deciding about making changes in waking life based on the exploration and insight. In this approach, the therapist is an expert in the process (i.e., he or she knows how to apply the steps of the model), but he or she is not an expert in the meaning of the dream. Rather, it is the dreamer who arrives at the interpretation of

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the dream and makes the decisions about action, with the support, encouragement, and collaboration of the therapist. Thus, dream dictionaries or standard interpretations are not used. The goal is to teach the dreamer a method for working with dreams. Although specific steps are described below for this model, dreamwork rarely proceeds quite so smoothly. These steps are provided as a guideline for how dreamwork can proceed rather than as a rigid requirement that each step must be followed exactly. The most important principle is for the therapist to be responsive to what the dreamer needs at the moment. GETTING STARTED CEDM begins with the therapist briefly explaining the three-stage model and making sure the dreamer understands and is willing and eager to work on a dream. The therapist then asks the dreamer to tell the dream (it is best to present only one dream, although it does not need to be recent) in the first-person present tense (i.e., describing the dream as if he or she were currently experiencing it). The therapist then asks the dreamer to choose three to five of most salient images (defined as scenes, moments, objects, or people) from the dream. EXPLORATION STAGE The idea here is to go sequentially through each of the selected three to five images in as much detail as possible. It is generally best to cover fewer images in more depth than to rush through multiple images superficially. Taking the first image, the dreamer is asked to Describe, Reexperience, Associate, and link to Waking life (which can easily be remembered by the DRAW acronym). After completing the process for the first image, the therapist and dreamer work on two or three more images from across the range of the dream if they have time (a good exploration stage takes about 45 minutes). • Description: The dreamer is asked to provide as many details as possible about the image. For example, with the image of a racetrack, the dreamer might be asked to verbally paint the picture of the image so that the therapist can imagine being there, including describing who and what are present, colors, smells, and temperature. Many more details often come back to the dreamer when going back to describe the specific image. • Reexperiencing: The dreamer is asked about what feelings are present when they are back in that image in the dream, remembering that feelings can be complex and layered (e.g., anger often masks sadness). The idea is to not only say the feelings but to experience the feelings in the present moment (e.g., “What is it like to be there in this moment?” “Where do you feel that feeling in your body?”). If the dreamer has a hard time experiencing the feelings, the therapist may reflect more of the feelings and encourage immersion into the feelings. If the dreamer becomes overwhelmed by the feelings (as in nightmare work), the therapist can pull back and help the client become grounded and not proceed until the client feels safe.

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• Associations: The therapist asked the dreamer to say the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the image. Alternately, the therapist may ask about memories of the image. Associations usually take longer than the other components, sometimes leading to tangents, but with the therapist gently guiding the dreamer back to the image after some exploration; one never knows exactly what will turn out to be important, and it is good to learn about the dreamer’s history during associations. • Waking-life triggers: Although these have often been touched upon in the earlier steps, the therapist asks explicitly now for waking-life triggers to this specific image. New relevant insight almost always arises as the dreamer thinks more deeply about the links between the image and what has gone on in waking life.

Again, these steps are repeated for two or three more images, depending on the amount of time available. It is important to make time in the session to help the client make sense of the dream and decide how to act on it, so therapists are encouraged to move on from exploration, even though the whole dream is rarely covered and so many additional images seem tantalizing. INSIGHT STAGE Through the help of the therapist in the exploration stage, dreamers are sometimes able to see the links between waking-life triggers and the meaning of specific images. Thus, the first important step here is to ask what the dreamer now thinks the whole dream means. If the dreamer has pretty good insight into the dream, the therapist may only ask a few questions of clarification to help the client reflect more deeply about the dream. For example, the therapist may ask about parts that were left out of the interpretation, about contradictions, or about connections between different parts, focusing on the feelings elicited by the dream and the interpretation. If the dreamer is stuck and having a hard time understanding the dream, the therapist may provide more input. The dream can be considered at three different levels: • The first level involves the experience of the dream itself. Rather than interpreting the dream as if it means something else, the therapist can help the dreamer look at the experience of the dream. Much as one would think about the meaning of a piece of art or a book, one can ask about the experience of the dream and what that means to the dreamer. Given that we do things in dreams that we might not do in life (e.g., affairs, murder, success, failure), what does it say about us as people that we have such impulses? And what were the consequences of the behaviors in the dream? What were the surprises? • The second level involves looking at the dream as if it represents something going on in waking life. Does the dream represent a message about something that is going on in our waking life to which we need to pay attention? Is the dream signaling anxiety, frustration, lust, sadness, despair, or other feelings that we are having a hard time admitting to in daily life?

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• The third level involves deeper psychological functioning. The images in the dream may each represent parts of our selves (e.g., a tiger might represent my hostile side, whereas a kitten might represent my playful side, and a dog might represent my passive side). The dream might be a replay of childhood conflicts (i.e., we tend to keep replaying unresolved issues trying to master them). Finally, the dream might represent existential concerns (e.g., a lack of meaning, spiritual needs).

Any dream can be interpreted at any of these levels. There is no “right” interpretation, but helpful ones are those that click (i.e., make sense) for the dreamer and that the dreamer can make sense of and expand upon to learn more about himself or herself. It is ideal for the therapist to ask questions to facilitate the dreamer’s insight at any of these levels. It is also occasionally acceptable for the therapist to offer interpretations, as long as such interpretations are offered tentatively, with the awareness that we never have complete information about another person, and with the humility that such interpretations might be wrong or projections of our own issues rather than reflections of the dreamer’s concerns. That said, dreamers sometimes like to hear other possible interpretations so that they can try them on and see which parts fit. The key here is to engage in a collaborative process with the dreamer by trying to understand the dream together. This stage typically involves about 15–20 minutes of a 90-minute session. In this amount of time, it is typically possible to cover only one of the above levels, but dreamers can be encouraged to pursue other levels for the dream outside the session. ACTION STAGE Once the dreamer has some understanding of the dream (the understanding is never complete), the natural tendency is to start to think about how to use the newfound insights. One way to transition into this stage is to ask the dreamer to change the dream. The therapist might explain that the dreamer created the dream, so the dreamer can change or extend the dream, in any way. When listening to the changes, the therapist can inquire about what caused the dreamer to change some parts of the dream and not others. Changing the dream often allows the dreamer to feel empowered about the ability to make changes. Once the dream has been changed, the therapist can bridge from the changes in the dream to changes in waking life (e.g., “You indicated that you would like to be more assertive with the monster in your dream; I wonder how you could apply that change to situations in your waking life where you feel out of control?”). By bridging, the therapist is now able to help the dreamer specifically focus on what needs work in waking life. Importantly, the therapist is not invested in “making” the dreamer change, but, rather, he or she nonjudgmentally helps the dreamer think about whether or not change is desirable and possible. If the dreamer wants to make changes in waking life, the therapist can help the dreamer define more specifically what changes are needed. The therapist may

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then need to teach behavioral skills (e.g., behavioral rehearsal, decision making). Alternatively, if no specific change is desired but the dreamer wants a chance to honor what was learned about the dream, the therapist may help the dreamer think of a ritual (e.g., writing a poem, painting a picture, meditating about the dream) to help solidify the gains. Finally, giving the dream a title (e.g., “Making Friends with the Monster”) can help the dreamer remember the dream and the insights. The action stage thus helps to consolidate the insight gains as well as to make changes in the target problems reflected in the dream. The action stage typically requires about 15–20 minutes of the 90-minute session. If the therapist hopes to help the dreamer make changes in waking life, it is best to make sure there is adequate time for this stage. ENDING THE SESSION The therapist can end the session by asking the dreamer about the process of working with the dream (e.g., “What was this experience like for you?” “What worked well?” “What did you have a hard time with?”). The therapist can also encourage the dreamer to continue working on the dream outside of the session and report back about additional learning about the dream. Dreamwork can be very exciting if dreamers gain new insights and are able to apply these insights to waking life. Not all sessions go so well, however, and therapists need to be attentive to problems that might arise and would do well not to force dreamers to do dreamwork if they do not recall a dream or do not wish to. If dreamers become too emotionally wrought (which can be especially true with nightmare work), it is best to back off and help the person regulate the emotions. If dreamers have a hard time getting into the steps, particularly into their emotions, the therapist can slow down the process and support the dreamer. If the dream is too long, therapists can ask for just one segment. In general, all the clinical skills involved in doing psychotherapy apply to doing dreamwork. More detail about this model and its implementation can be found in Hill, Dream work in therapy: Facilitating exploration, insight, and action (2004) and a helping skills text (Hill, Helping skills: Facilitating exploration, insight, and action, 2014). For empirical evidence about CEDM effectiveness, see Chapter 16.

Cognitive Behavioral Dreamwork Jacques Montangero

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy based on two main categories of treatment: cognitive therapy and behavior therapy. Cognitive means dealing with mental abilities aimed at processing elements of knowledge, for example, decoding information, storing or retrieving it in our memory, creating mental images, and logically controlling our trains of thought. The basic principle

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of cognitive therapy (refer to Beck, 1971) is that psychological problems are maintained and partially caused by the biased ideas of the patients about themselves and external events. The aim of the therapy is to render the clients aware of the distorted nature of these “automatic thoughts” and to help them to discover more realistic and soothing judgments (refer to Greenberger and Padesky). The second main category of treatment used in CBT is borrowed from behavior therapy (refer to Joseph Wolpe). It aims at helping clients to modify aspects of their behavior related to their psychological problem by means of exercises based on methods of conditioning. DREAMWORK AND COGNITIVE THERAP Y Most cognitive behavioral therapists do not practice any dreamwork due to differences in principles with the psychoanalytical approach, although one of the two main founders of cognitive therapy advocated the use of dreams in an early publication (Beck, 1971). Some CBT therapists refuse to ignore the dreams reported by their clients because this would be a rejection of the most intimate content provided by them. Suggestions for working with dreams in CBT have been published since the 1970s (Rosner et al., 2004; Montangero, 2009). To be compatible with CBT, a conception of dreaming has to grant importance to cognition, to be based on experimental research, and to involve the idea that dreams reflect waking concerns of the dreamer (Montangero, 2013). Studies of the categories of content of large samples of dream reports (see the “Does Dream Content Reflect Waking Life?” section Domhoff in Chapter 14) have shown that dreams reveal the specific views, concerns, and interests of the dreamer. It is therefore legitimate to analyze dream reports to learn more about the impactful experiences and the aspirations and concerns of the clients. However, to analyze dream content, we must take into account that our mind functions somewhat differently during sleep. First, dream representations use visualization as main modality. For example, a difference of social position between two persons might be represented by one of them sitting on a high chair and the other one on a low stool. A second specific aspect of dream thought is the tendency to represent a life event or a complex idea with a minimum of images and other impressions. The use of metaphors permits the mind in sleep to produce scenes that are both a concrete and economic way of evoking things (as discussed in Chapter 14). PART I OF DREAMWORK IN CBT: “INTERPRETING” THE DREAM Finding a relationship between the content of a dream and topics of interest or of concern to the client constitutes the first part of the dreamwork proposed here. We can distinguish four steps in this systematic procedure. Step 1: Complete Description of the Dream Experience Most of the time, the dream reported by the client does not completely describe the dream experience. Therefore, the first step has two aims: obtaining

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more information about the dream experience and immersing the client into the memory of the dream experience. The instruction given is the following: In order to work fruitfully on this dream, we must take into account everything that you remember to have visualized, felt, performed and thought. I am going to read aloud your report, stopping after each scene. Your role will be to check whether everything that was present in the dream experience is mentioned in the report.

The therapist must carefully avoid influencing the client’s answers. Questions must be open, and the client must be informed that some things present in a dream can often be visualized partly, imprecisely, or not be visualized at all. Questions may be asked about the setting, the characters, the event or actions, possible objects, and circumstances (e.g., a sunny day, at a wedding party). Below is an example. Example: Lionel’s dream

Lionel is a man in his thirties being treated for a gambling dependency. In my dream I see a chamois [a wild mountain goat] rubbing its horns against a tree trunk, but they are deer antlers, not chamois’s horns. Therapist (T): You did not describe the setting. Was there something of it that you could see or not? Client (C): I could just see the tree and I knew we were in a forest, but I didn’t visualize it. T: Was the movement of rubbing aggressive or did it suggest something else to you? C: I knew the animal was rubbing its horns in order to get rid of them.

This last answer of Lionel is a piece of information that will play an important role in the discovery of the meaning of this dream fragment. Step 2. Search for Memory Sources of the Dream Content Elements of dream content are not provided by the environment; they are selected in our autobiographical memory or in our general knowledge. The second step aims at retrieving possible memory sources of elements of the dream content. The following instructions permit the client to retrieve memory sources, even when they are not immediately recognized as such because they are truncated or mixed with other memory elements: In this second step of the method, you are expected to search among recent or old memories of your waking experience what is related to elements of the content of your dream. My question will be, “What memory comes to your mind about (this place, this person, this kind of activity, this animal, etc.). When a memory is retrieved, I will ask you what ideas and feelings are related for you to the recalled episode. This may be a cue that could help you to discover some meaning to your dream.”

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Example: Lionel’s dream

T: What memory comes to your mind about chamois? C: Before I got married, I used to hike in the mountains, and I sometimes could see chamois. T: What was striking or important in this experience? Was it neutral, pleasant, or unpleasant? Which ideas were associated with it? C: I felt happy and free, and the chamois seemed still freer than I was. They were the embodiment of freedom. T: What memory comes to your mind about deer antlers? C: A friend of mine, a hunter, often talks about this sport. He once told me that, at a certain period of the year, deer rub their antlers until they lose them or part of them, although it is painful. T: What ideas or feelings were elicited by that piece of information? C: I was struck by the fact that these animals accepted to suffer in order to get rid of something. T: Does another memory come to your mind about deer? C: Nothing in particular. Just these hunting stories of my friend’s.

Steps 3 and 4: Reformulation and Interpretation As the step of interpretation often immediately and spontaneously follows the reformulation, the two steps are presented together, although they constitute successive steps of the dreamwork. The reformulation step consists in describing the main elements of the dream report not as a part of a specific concrete event but as a more general idea. The instructions are as follows: Let us turn back to the completed description of your dream. Could you describe it, sentence after sentence, using when possible more general words? You can give your personal definition of each element (e.g., “an uninteresting housewife” instead of “my neighbor”) or the encompassing category (“changing level” instead of “going down the stairs”) or its function (“what gives access to” instead of “door”)? I will help you by making some suggestions, but only you can decide whether they are relevant.

Example: Lionel’s dream

T: For the chamois, would it be appropriate to use the definition you gave in commenting upon your memory of chamois, that is, the embodiment of freedom? C: Yes. T: So how can you reformulate your dream report? C: Freedom is rubbing . . . T: What was the aim of the rubbing? C: . . . is trying to get rid of . . . T: How do you define a deer? C: It’s a victim, the victim of hunters.

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T: Now please reformulate the whole description. C: Freedom is trying to get rid of . . . a characteristic of a victim. Well, that applies very well to me, to my current effort to get rid of my gambling dependency.

This last answer contains, first, the reformulation of the dream content and, second, its interpretation—that is, how it applies to the client. Sometimes, the client does not immediately see how the reformulation applies to his or her aspirations or concerns. In this case, the therapist reads aloud the reformulation of the dream content and asks, “Could you see whether it seems to apply to something related to you: a topic of concern, something you desire, or an autobiographical episode?” PART II: USING THE RESULTS OF THE INTERPRETATION IN THE COURSE OF THERAP Y The relationship discovered between the dream content and an experience, aspiration, or concern of the client can contribute to the treatment in various ways. Four types of contribution will be very briefly presented, whereas the last two ones will be illustrated with a dream report. Revealing New Topics to Work on within the Therapy Dream interpretation rarely brings forth an entirely new topic, but it can give the opportunity to work on an issue that remained unexplored until then. This was the case for Lionel: “Freedom tries (painfully) to get rid of a characteristic of a victim; this applies to my current effort to get rid of my gambling dependency.” Two concerns never mentioned until then were worded in the interpretation. First, being in psychotherapy was a difficult situation for Lionel. Second, freedom was for him an important value and the aim of the therapy. Consequently, the two topics became the focus of the subsequent sessions. Underlying Resources of the Client In periods when the patient’s troubles are not the most severe, dream content often reveals some resource. Frequently, the clients ignore this positive aspect of their dream. For instance, they reformulate its content as showing that their life is full of difficulties. The therapist asks, “Did the difficulties prevent you from going on, in your dream?” and “How could this idea of going on in spite of obstacles apply to you in your waking state?” Becoming Aware of a Cognitive Distortion Dreams represent, often in an exaggerated and striking way, the ideas and feelings of the dreamer. It is therefore easier for them to become conscious of the biased nature of their view than in their waking representations. For instance, a frequent form of cognitive distortion is “dichotomous thinking”—that is, the propensity to

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think in absolute terms, as in black and white or all or nothing, without the possibility of taking into account the fact that people and events are most often in an intermediate status. This distortion appeared in the dream of a depressed client. There were only two types of characters: either people whom the client called poor and submissive or exceptionally powerful persons. When asked whether that corresponded to his view of society, the client answered, “Now that you make me thing about it, that’s the way I see society. If you aren’t a winner, you are a total loser.” This provided the opportunity to work on the theme of dichotomous thinking. A Dream May Facilitate Elimination of a Distorted View The fact of noticing that their viewpoint is biased can help clients to rapidly adopt a more realistic and soothing viewpoint. Charles, a client who had entered into a marriage of convenience, arrived at a therapy session very depressed because he had been informed that a divorce could not be obtained before several months. He also reported that he had dreamed of having sexual intercourse with a very unattractive former fellow student of his and gradually feeling disgusted. The reformulation of the dream was this: “To be involved into an unwanted intimate relationship.” As this could apply to his marriage, Charles was asked to compare all the unpleasant aspects of the dream situation with his being married. At the end of the session, he admitted that his marriage did not involve any obligation or intimate bonds and that he could wait one more year before a divorce. Representing the Dreamer’s Evolution Giovanna was a 30-year-old client being treated for insomnia. After the sixth session, she stopped taking sleeping pills and was able to sleep normally most nights of the week. She reported the following dream: A man wanted to rape me. He followed me and joined me, and he said I could not escape being raped. I was first terrified, then I suddenly realized that I could change the situation. I undressed the man and made love with him being on top of him. I heard a voice saying: “I admire you: you don’t panic; you manage the situation!”

Giovanna’s reformulation was this: “At first, I feel I am the victim of something that causes lasting physical and psychological troubles. Then I decide to invert the roles: I am in control of the situation; it gives me pleasure and pride.” She added that she thought her dream was about insomnia. Actually, during the first therapy session she had said she was convinced insomnia caused lasting physical and psychological issues. The striking inversion of attitude in her dream—from a victim to someone who controls the situation—emphasized that, as far as insomnia was concerned, she was the actor in her partial victory. This feeling of control is very important to release the anxiety relative to the difficulty, to fall asleep, and to get rid of a psychophysiological insomnia.

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Becoming Aware of a Dysfunctional Belief A few weeks after reporting the dream of the seduced rapist, Giovanna still had one or two difficult nights every week because she was upset and worried about an incident that had occurred during the day. The topic of the worry changed, but the therapist thought that the underlying cause was identical. It was a core belief that generated negative thoughts and maladaptive behaviors. Another dream reported by Giovanna gave her the opportunity to become aware of that belief and to formulate it: My mother and a friend of hers had made an appointment with my boss, a female lawyer, from whom they expected advice and support. When they arrived, the boss was absent. I was embarrassed, and I said there must be a serious and unexpected reason for the boss not to be on time. Twenty minutes later, the boss arrived, calm and smiling, saying she was sorry, but she had wanted to finish something she had started. I felt terribly embarrassed. T: What do you think about your boss’s behavior? C: I could never behave like my boss in the dream! T: Why not? C: I would feel guilty. T: What could be the reasons for this guilt? C: My mother always insisted that I should not be selfish, that it was my duty to help people when they needed it. T: But now, as an adult, what is the rule you feel you must obey? C: I must do everything possible for other people and do it immediately. T: Otherwise, what would happen? C: They will take their revenge by not loving me.

This core belief became the focus of the following sessions.

Transformative Dreamwork Robert J. Hoss

Transformative dreamwork was designed to follow the natural transformative or learning process often observed in dreams (refer to the “Advanced Learning Functions” section in Chapter 13). It begins by exploring the issue the dream is dealing with then gains insight by revealing underlying emotional conflicts, and finally explores action based on how the dream is attempting to resolve the problem. The protocol integrates the amplification and active imagination techniques of Carl Jung; an adaption of Fritz Perls’s Gestalt role-play; the Color Questionnaire; and observing problem-resolution cues based on Jungian theory and

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neuroscience. It is designed for clinical practice and personal dreamwork. The protocol below is worded as instructions for personal dreamwork. Practitioner instructions can be found in Dream to Freedom (Hoss & Hoss, 2013). The protocol is illustrated with an example based on a session with a woman who had placed herself in a nurturing role, wanting to “be there” for her new boyfriend, who was about to get a medical procedure. She found herself consumed with anxiety for no rational reason, however, to the point that, at the time of this session, she had decided she needed to end the relationship. This approach and the example illustrate just how much underlying emotional information and resolution insight can be gained from even a simple two sentence dream. PART 1: WORKING WITH ASSOCIATIONS IN THE DREAM NARRATIVE The objective of Part 1 is to discover what unresolved emotional situation the dream might be dealing with by exploring possible metaphors and associations in the dream narrative. Step 1: Dream Reentry and Recording Record the dream as if you are reexperiencing it (first-person, present tense). If the dream had many segments or scenes, it is likely testing multiple scenarios involving the same core issue, so mentally note the associations between each one. Example: I am in the home I shared with my ex, looking out over trees that contained black things. My mother is there, and we are trying to decide whether they are birds or bats. It was a very upsetting dream.

Step 2: Waking-Life Situation Describe any situation(s) in your life around the time of the dream that was emotionally important or impacting, either negative or positive. The situation may or may not be the subject of the dream, but it may link to it in some way. Example: My present boyfriend has a medical procedure, but when I think about having to be there for him during the procedure, I grow so anxious [that] I am about to decide to leave him.

Step 3: Explore Dream-to-Life Associations Using the various tools below to explore the narrative, collect clues to the personal dream to waking associations. (see Chapter 14). Do not jump to conclusions too early; just compile the clues. 1. Structure: To guide the investigation, briefly orient yourself to the dream by looking for elements of a possible problem-resolution structure in the dream story: (a) does the dream metaphorically picture the dreamer’s waking situation or concern?

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(b) Does the dream picture the focus of the problem to be resolved (opposing pairs, a decision or elements in conflict) or introduce obvious insight, guidance, or a resolution scenario, perhaps an alternative viewpoint to that of the dream self. 2. Metaphors: Underline phrases and word-play in the dream narrative that also seem to describe a situation or feelings in your life, Describe the situation. 3. Themes: Is what you are (a) feeling or (b) doing or trying to do in the dream thematically similar to something you are feeling, doing, or trying to do in life? 4. Define: (a) Define the purpose or function of things mentioned in the narrative. (b) If a character is a known person, define their personality. They may be there to represent a way you are acting or quite often a characteristic that would help in your situation (i.e., how would this person deal with the situation?). 5. Memories: If a thing or person from your past is present, describe one emotionally important past event that it/he/she brings to mind. Did anything else in the dream trigger a recent memory? How does that relate to the situation in your life at the time of the dream? 6. Rewrite the Dream Story: Substitute the metaphors, definitions, and association in place of their related words or phrases in the narrative; rewrite and reread the dream story in relation to your life story. Example: 1. Structure: Situation metaphor = “I am in a ‘place’ related to a past relationship (my ex) and in the presence of my mother (a nurturer)”; possible resolution scenario = conflicted decision, regarding birds or bats, was introduced. 2. Theme: Anxiety and decision point—“I am anxious about deciding whether to stick with my boyfriend.” 3. Define: (a) Home of my ex = “house my ex and I were building together”; (b) personality (mother) = “nurturing.” Birds: fly away; bats: stay around the cave. 4. Memories: The terrible divorce we went through. 5. Rewrite the Dream Story: “I am in the ‘place’ I was before our terrible divorce, looking out over trees that contained black things. My nurturing side is there, and we are trying to decide whether to fly away or stay around.” She felt it related to her anxiety over nurturing her boyfriend—to stay with him or not. The anxiety was so great she was thinking of leaving him (right after this session actually).

PART 2: EXPLORING UNDERLYING EMOTIONS The next step explores the underlying conflicts, fears, or emotional factors pictured by the images that contribute to anxiety or feeling stuck. These can be revealed by (1) role-play, that is, “giving the dream a voice,” and (2) color, exploring the subliminal associations between emotion and color. Step 4: Give the Dream a Voice (Scripted Role-Play) Fritz Perls developed an approach called Gestalt role-play, whereby the dreamer “becomes” the thing in the dream and gives it a voice to reveal the emotional

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conflicts or impasses pictured within it (see the “Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy” Perls section in Chapter 15). Hoss developed a simple scripted version for dreamwork with six questions designed in three pairs to reveal three different dream to waking-life emotional connections: (1) the role the dreamer might see themselves in; (2) the emotional conflict that the dream and dreamer are dealing with; and (3) the fears and desires that motivate or keep the dreamer stuck in the conflict. An optional seventh “dialog” question sometimes provides a useful metaphor for problem resolution. Note: Repeat this step for multiple images or things in the dream that seem emotionally important or curious. 4a. Pick a dream image (X): Close your eyes and reenter the dream, perhaps at the most emotionally charged point, and look around the dream. Pick something that seems to curiously draw your attention—whether a lesser element or a dominant one. Example: “a lone bird’s nest”

Hints: There are no rules, but the image (X) should be something easy to “become.” So, it is best to pick something tangible, and one thing rather than a cluster. Perhaps avoid archetypal images (that have little personal content), such as ill-defined masculine or feminine characters or purely mythical imagery. Perls indicated that the less human the image, the more “alienated” that fragment of the personality might be, thus containing more revealing content. 4b. Role-play: Close your eyes and bring that thing in the dream (X) to your mind’s eye and imagine “becoming” that thing. If you can’t fully immerse yourself in it, at least imagine how X might answer the questions below. Stay in character, answer in first person, present tense—“I am” or “I feel”—as X would answer it, and don’t overthink the response. Just say the first thing that comes to mind. 1. What are you, name and describe yourself, perhaps how you feel in that role? “I am a lone bird’s nest, warm and enveloping.” 2. As X, what is your purpose or function? “My purpose is to provide a safe landing spot.” 3. What do you like most about being X? “I like that I am soft and warm.” 4. What do you dislike about, or what is the downside of, being X? “I dislike getting crapped on!” 5. As X, what do you fear the most; what is the worst thing that can happen to you?” “What I fear most is getting blown out of the tree!” 6. As X, what do you desire the most? “What I desire most is to be there and be strong when needed.” 7. Dialog (optional): As X, look around and spot the dreamer; what would you like to say to them? “Protect me from being blown away.”

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Note: If X is a person the dreamer knows, then question 1 is changed to explore the personality characteristic being represented: 1a. Who are you? Describe your personality. 1b. How is your personality similar and different to that of the dreamer? 1c. How would this person approach the waking-life situation the dream is dealing with?

Hints: Role-play works best if a therapist or someone else asks the questions and records the answers so that the dreamer can stay in character, but for self-help, you, as the dreamer, will have to write down the answers or, better yet, use a voice recorder. Stick with these six to seven questions and avoid adding questions because that risks going off in too many tangential directions. A seasoned therapist, however, may wish to explore certain statements a bit more with further questioning, but it is always good to return to the basic script so that all factors are explored. 4c. Waking-life reflection: Now switch roles and imagine that the statements now came from you talking about a way you have felt lately or a situation in your life (rather than that thing in the dream). If any statement sounds like a feeling or situation in your waking life, describe and rephrase the situation/feelings involved. Try reading the statements in pairs, in particular the “I like . . .” and “I dislike . . . ” statements as a pair and the “I fear . . .” and “I desire . . .” statements, and ask, “Do these statements sound like conflicting emotions you are feeling about a situation in your life?” Example: The dreamer indicated that all statements related literally to her situation. Feeling “crapped on” and “blown out of the tree” brought up the traumatic memories of her divorce. She wanted to play a nurturing role (warm and enveloping) and “provide a safe landing spot” and “be there and be strong” for her boyfriend during his procedure. But in the past, when she put herself in that position of trying to nurture her “ex,” she was “crapped on” or taken for granted and then finally “blown out of the nest” with the divorce.

Step 5: Exploring Color Color can combine with dream imagery to add emotional emphasis to that image and help reveal its full meaning (see the “Significance of Color” section in Chapter 14). The tabular Color Questionnaire (Table 22.1) lists unconscious or subliminal color to emotional associations, originating from waking-state color psychology studies, and is based on the hypothesis that the brain in the REM state maintains the same associations. The statements are not the “meaning” of color but to be used as questions (have I felt this way lately?) to trigger or test your own personal associations in relation to the dream. 5a. Color: What color was the dream image you role-played or, alternatively, what color in the dream particularly stood out or draws your attention? Example: The color black of the birds.

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5b. Color questionnaire: Pick the closest color(s) in the tabular questionnaire in Table 22.1 and read each statement for that color. Note any statements you “connect” with or that remind you of a recent feeling or situation. Note: If the image or scene contains a pairing of two colors, explore and contrast each as a possibility that the two may represent conflicting emotions. Example: Black. I am feeling anxious and don’t know why; I have been dealt an unacceptable blow, and I feel the need for extreme action. 5c. Describe the waking situation that the statements recall, your feelings at the time, and how this relates to the situation revealed in step 4. Example: The two feeling statements relate exactly to the anxiety and need for extreme action that I am feeling that I don’t understand, as well as to the past divorce situation, which has “dealt me an unacceptable blow.’”

Step 6: Situation Summary At this point, reflect on all of the insights (steps 3, 4, and 5) and summarize the situation that the dream appears to be dealing—perhaps a specific event or traumatic moment. Example: The statement “getting crapped on” recalled the moment I decided to divorce my ex. I had gone all out to help him, and he showed up two hours late and began yelling at me for not having done enough. I guess I “feel the need for extreme action”— to protect myself by breaking off the relationship with my new boyfriend—because I fear it will happen again if I try to nurture him.

PART 3: EXPLORING DREAM RESOLU TION AND CLOSURE With the above information in mind, again explore the flow or structure of the dream story to understand how the dream may have been trying to resolve the problem (see “Advanced Learning Functions” in Chapter 13): (a) Did the dream picture the emotional situation of the dreamer? (b) Was a resolution scenario introduced, perhaps guidance, insight, a discovery, a decision point, or an alternative to the actions or thinking of the dream self ? (c) Did the dream self accept the resolution scenario and reverse its thinking or direction? (d) Was the scenario or outcome positively or negatively reinforced (e.g., positive dream ending)? Assuming the dreamworker is familiar with archetypal motifs, was there an emergence of such archetypal motifs representing order, wholeness, completion, or integration (opposing image pairs) (see Chapters 14 and 15)? Example: The dream metaphorically pictured the dreamer’s emotional conflict: associations with a traumatic divorce (the home she shared with her ex-husband) juxtaposed with the desire to nurture her present boyfriend (pictured as her nurturing mother). It then introduced a resolution scenario by placing the dreamer in a position of having to decide between birds or bats (archetypally deciding whether birds or bats are living

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in her “tree of life”—a symbol of individuation or personality growth according to Jung) (see the “Symbols of Transformation and Individuation” section in Chapter 15).

Step 7: Exploring Resolution Scenarios Close your eyes and reenter the dream and review it to the end. How did it end? Example: I was trying to decide whether the black things were birds or bats. 7a. Guidance: Did you experience a question or moment of decision, a guiding event (advice, action, discovery, insight) or message (written or verbal)? Define the new direction or insight provided and how it changed your behavior or thinking in the dream. Example: I was posed with a question and trying to make a decision—birds or bats. 7b. Surprise: Did something surprise you (action/situation opposite to expectations, unexpected twist, sudden discovery or insight, humor or an odd imagery blend)? How did it differ from expectation or represent a different point of view? Example: I was surprised about the black things and, since I am a bird expert, surprised by my inability to determine whether they were birds or bats. 7d. Acceptance/reversal: Did you at some point accept what appeared to be the guiding scenario or viewpoint or reverse your thinking or direction in the dream; what brought this about? Example: No, other than trying, unsuccessfully, to make the decision. 7a. Positive ending: Did the dream end positively or with a potentially positive direction to it? If so, what specifically happened to bring it about (surprise, guidance, or reversal)? Example: No, it was inconclusive, and I woke with anxiety.

Compare to life: Can you see an analogy to your waking-life actions, attitudes, or beliefs? How might the surprise, guidance, or reversal actions be analogous to a change in view, attitude, or direction that might be helpful in resolving your waking-life issue? Example: No clear resolution or guidance. The dreamer was placed in a scene related to her emotional conflict—surrounded by the traumatic memories of her divorce (in the home she shared with her ex.) yet wanting to nurture her boyfriend (represented by her mother’s image). The resolution scenario that was introduced is the need to decide birds or bats, but other than that no obvious guidance. The archetype of transcendence, the “great tree,” suggested that her decision to symbolically become a bird or bat had to do with her transcendence and further growth. To understand what these symbolic associations were, we used active imagination.

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Table 22.1. Color Questionnaire The statements in this table are not the meaning of color and should be used only as a questionnaire (per step #5) to trigger your own emotional associations. These subliminal color-toemotion associations were derived from color psychology studies and literature, and the Max Lüscher color testing tool; they have been augmented where noted by Jungian archetypal theory. Red: (1) I feel intense, vital, or animated. (2) I feel transformed. (3) I feel assertive, forceful. (4) I feel creative. (5) I want to live life to its fullest. (6) I want to win or succeed or achieve. (7) I feel sexy or have strong sexual urges. (8) I have a driving desire. (9) I feel anxious. (10) I need something to make me feel alive again. (11) I need to be more assertive and forceful. (12) I need to get out and enjoy myself. Note: Red may also appear when the dream is stimulated by an injury or inflammation. Orange: (1) I want to expand my interests and develop new activities. (2) I want a wider sphere of influence. (3) I feel friendly and welcoming. (4) I want more contact with others. (5) I feel enthusiastic, outgoing, and adventurous. (6) I am driven by desires and hopes toward the new, undiscovered, and satisfying. (7) I feel driven but need to overcome my doubts or fear of failure. (8) I must avoid spreading myself too thin. Yellow: (1) I feel a sense of joy and optimism. (2) I feel alert. (3) I am seeking a solution that will open up new and better possibilities and allow my hopes to be fulfilled. (4) I feel the new direction I am taking will bring happiness in my future. (5) I am hopeful. (6) I need to find a way out of this circumstance or relationship. (7) I need a change. (8) I may be compensating for something. (9) I feel I may be acting compulsively. Green: (1) I need to establish myself, my self-esteem, my independence. (2) I want recognition. (3) I need to increase the certainty of my own value and status through acknowledgment by others of my achievements. (4) Hard work and drive will gain me recognition and self-esteem. (5) My opinion must prevail. (6) I must hold on to this view to maintain my self-esteem. (7) I want what I am due. (8) I must maintain control. (9) Things must not change. (10) Detail and logic are important. (11) I need to increase my sense of security. (12) I need more money to feel secure. (13) I want to withdraw or retreat into my own center. (14) I feel I am emotionally healing or have a need for healing. Blue: (1) I need rest, peace, or a chance to recuperate. (2) I need a relationship free from contention in which I can trust and be trusted. (3) I need a peaceful state of harmony offering contentment and a sense of belonging. (4) I feel tranquil, peaceful, and content. (5) I feel a sense of harmony. (6) I feel a sense of belonging. (7) I feel a meditative awareness or unity. Violet: (1) I seek a magical state where wishes are fulfilled. (2) I yearn for a magical relationship of romance and tenderness. (3) I have a need to identify with something or someone. (4) I need more intimacy. (5) I often engage in fantasy, perhaps because I feel a bit insecure about the situation. (6) I like to win others over with my charm. (7) I feel an identification or “mystic” union with something or someone. (8) I feel I am gaining a deep intuitive understanding of the situation. (9) I feel a sense of intimacy. (10) The feeling is erotic. Brown: (1) I seek a secure state where I can be physically comfortable and relax or recover. (2) I am uneasy and insecure in the existing situation. (3) I need a more affectionate environment. (4) I need a situation imposing less physical strain. (5) I want to satisfy the physical senses (food, luxury, sex). (continued)

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Table 22.1. (continued) Note: If the color is a natural or wood brown, try these Jungian associations: (1) I am concerned about matters of family, home, or my “roots.” (2) I am concerned with a son or daughter. (3) I am searching for my true self or natural state of being. Note: A dirty brown or green-brown color can sometimes accompany physical illness. Gray: (1) I want to shield myself from those feelings. (2) I feel emotionally distant, only an observer. (3) It is as if I am standing aside, watching myself mechanically go through the motions. (4) I want to remain uncommitted, noninvolved, shielded, or separated from the situation. (5) I do not want to make a decision that will require my emotional involvement. (6) I have put up with too much and wish to avoid any further emotional stimulation. (7) I am trying to escape an anxious situation. (8) I may be compensating for something I don’t like. Black: (1) I am anxious and don’t know why. (2) I am fearful of or intimidated by the situation. (3) I have been dealt an unacceptable blow. (4) Nothing is as it should be. (5) I refuse to allow it or them to influence my point of view. (6) I can’t accept the situation, and don’t wish to be convinced otherwise. (7) I feel the need for extreme action. (8) I am in revolt. Note: To Jung, black and darkness represented the realm of the unconscious. The dreamer entering darkness may suggest exploring the unconscious self, a turning within, or a submission (“death of the ego”) so that the new self can be “reborn.” Something entering darkness might relate to suppression. Beautiful shiny black might be a positive view of the unconscious, from which a new self emerges. White: (1) This is a new experience. (2) I’m becoming aware of new feelings. (3) I’m experiencing a new beginning, a reawakening, a transformation. (4) I have a new outlook, a new awareness. (5) I feel pure and innocent. (6) I feel open and accepting. (7) I feel unprepared. (8) I feel alone, isolated. (9) It feels cold or sterile. Note: Grouping of colors with white might add a sense of newness (or emergence) to the emotions involved, and mixing with white (pastels) can add a calming or renewal tone.

Step 8: Active Imagination, Finishing the Dream If the explorations in step 7 are nonobvious or when the dream does not seem to conclude, it can still be used as a platform for active imagination to help create a resolution metaphor to guide thinking in how best to move forward. Close your eyes and place yourself at the end of the dream and review what happened that brought you to this point. What you were trying to achieve? Focus for a moment on your feeling as the dream ends. Then, spontaneously, without thinking about it (just let the images and story flow), finish the dream with a new imagined ending that makes the dream work out positively for all involved. Example: I fly away with the bats.

Compare to life: Can you see an analogy to a solution in your waking-life situation, conflict, attitudes, or beliefs? (This may require metaphor work or further role-play on the new images to understand the associations.)

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Example: Most of us think of bats in a negative sense, but this dreamer was a bird expert. She explained, “Bats like birds are free, but unlike birds are helpful and come home to the cave at night.”

Step 9: Solution and Next Steps 9a. Define the apparent solution: Use the resolution metaphors from steps 7 and 8 to define (in specific terms) how they might represent a practical solution to your waking-life situation. Example: I can be like the bat, be there, be helpful, and still be me (free)! 9b. Check it out: As you are working with metaphors, it is easy for cognitive and ego filters to misinterpret the resolution the dream was attempting. Also, as a dream or dream segment may only be testing a way to accommodate one aspect of your overall situation (say an associated trauma, experience, influential role model, desire/ passion, etc.), the apparent solution may not be appropriate to your entire situation. So, before proceeding with something that could create a further problem, you must check the proposed solution out. Question: Is this a healthy, appropriate, and practical solution, or does it leave you stuck again? Example: Yes, it is practical and allows me to move forward. 9c. Next steps: To actualize a solution, it must be put into practice or it may simply fade. Imagine being in the situation again, and this time define at least one step you can take to bring the solution about or how you would do it differently this time. Example: I will tell my boyfriend today that I have decided to stay in the relationship. Note: Her boyfriend happened to walk into the room at that moment. At that point, they embraced. 9d. “ Token” reminder image: It can be helpful to take away some simple visual reminder of the new solution in the event a similar situation is experienced in the future. From the positive ending (actual or visualized), select a “resolution” image to remind you of your new solution. Example: The dreamer stated, “The bat.”

The Fivestar Method G. Scott Sparrow

Given the number of books that have been written on dream interpretation, and the diversity of approaches that are currently available, one might conclude that

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dream analysis is a particularly difficult endeavor. But it is also possible that the apparent difficulty is due to a limited view of dreams and effective dreamwork. To illustrate this problem, let’s examine the following dream: I was alone, outside my childhood home. I looked to the north and saw UFOs approaching side by side, spewing fire from their undersides and setting fire to the ground below. I thought to myself that they had come to destroy the world. Terrified, I ran into the house, went into the bedroom, and hid under my bed.

After telling the dream, the dreamer asked, “What do you think the UFOs represent, and what do you think I’m being warned about?” These questions are typical of an approach to dreams when the dream is considered a fixed communication from the unconscious mind and the message is wholly expressed in the symbolic visual imagery. Freud’s view of the psyche supported this, but it was not a new idea; it has prevailed for centuries. This view can overlook the dreamer’s impact on the dream imagery and outcome, effectively freezing the dream in place rather than viewing it as an interactive process that unfolds as a consequence of the dreamer’s feelings, choices, and responses. It may have been more effective and meaningful had the dreamer asked, “What would have happened if I had faced the UFOs and not acted in fear?” THE CO-CREATIVE DREAM PARADIGM The “co-creative paradigm” approach (Rossi, 1972; Sparrow, 2013; Sparrow & Thurston, 2010) is based on the premise that the dream is not fixed from the outset but unfolds, as any relationship does, in real time, moving from one moment to the next and developing as a result of the interaction between dreamer and dream content. From this standpoint, the dream report reflects the ongoing, reciprocal contributions of both the dreamer and the dream content. Not only do the dreamer’s reactions impact the course of the dream, but the specific imagery itself may transform in response to the moment-to-moment encounter—adjusting to and mirroring the dreamer’s feelings, choices, and actions—and impact the dreamer, in turn, in a “circular causal” manner. This clearly happens during a lucid dream, or a dream in which the dreamer becomes aware that he or she is dreaming and sets about to experiment with different responses to the dream characters and situations. But to some extent, the dream ego can be observed asking questions and experimenting with new responses in nonlucid dreams, as well. APPLYING THE FIVESTAR METHOD The FiveStar Method was developed as a way to systematically apply the tenets of the co-creative paradigm. To show you how to implement this method, consider the UFO dream. The dreamer’s questions were typical of a person facing such an

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obvious threat. Consequently, she focused on the meaning of the UFOs and tacitly accepted her own reactions as justifiable. Instead of answering limiting questions about the meaning of the imagery, one can bring an altogether refreshing and empowering approach to the analysis. The five steps of the FiveStar Method were designed to do this. Step 1: Retell the Dream and Share Feelings The first step is to ask the dreamer to retell the dream in the first-person, present tense, if she has not done so already. This is a tactic that was introduced by Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt therapy (Chapter 15). It is designed to bring the dream into the here and now to reawaken the dreamer’s feelings and to underscore the fact that the dream is still alive and “unfinished.” Note the verb tense changes in this new version of the dream: I am alone, outside my childhood home. I look to the north and see UFOs approaching side by side, spewing fire from their underside, setting fire to the ground below. I think to myself that they have come to destroy the world. Terrified, I run into the house, go into the bedroom, and hide under my bed.

During this initial sharing, you would ask the dreamer about her feelings during or after the retelling and share with her whatever feelings that the dream may have awakened in you. She might say, “I feel vulnerable and scared.” Step 2: Formulate the Dream’s Theme or Process Narrative This technique was developed by Mark Thurston and Scott Sparrow back in the 1970s (published in 1978) to summarize and make sense of lengthy and confusing dreams. It was originally referred to as the “dream theme,” and then Thurston adopted the phrase “simple story line” as a substitute. The author has since used the term “process narrative,” as it corresponds to concepts used in psychotherapy. But regardless of what one calls it, the technique is exactly same. To summarize the dream theme, you simply reduce the dream to a succinct summary of the dream’s generic process or story line without mentioning any of the specific people, places, or other details in the dream. Thus, the dreamworker usually starts the summary by saying, “Someone is . . .” and uses similarly generic pronouns, such as some place, something, or the like to complete the statement. One could summarize the UFO dream as, “Someone becomes aware of something approaching that threatens her and then seeks safety in a familiar place.” Notice that all the specific features of the dream have been removed. A theme or process narrative is brief and generic. One must resist the temptation to include specific content features of the dream—such as names, numbers, colors, and so on—or to make interpretive statements about the dream content. It initially takes considerable discipline to do this step correctly, and the dreamworker needs to

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gently remind the dreamer, and anyone else who might be involved, to refrain from getting ahead of the FiveStar process. While this step may seem overly simplistic, it is quite powerful in practice. Indeed, if you can reduce the dream to its generic story line, you will help to free the dreamer from the dream’s often-distracting literal features. This will assist the dreamer in identifying places in her life where this basic pattern may be expressing itself. For example, by converting the UFOs into “something threatening,” the dreamer may be able to see that the UFOs scorching the earth is an apt metaphor for anything powerful having its ways with us. By seeing the broad metaphor encompassed by the theme, the dreamer is better able to identify scenarios in her waking life that may be intimidating or threatening, but which are totally unrelated to the literal dream content. Step 3: Assess the Dreamer’s Responses and Their Impact on the Dream’s Imagery On the surface, the dreamer’s response can be reduced to a single act of flight from the perceived threat. But there is more to the dreamer’s response than the mere act of running for cover. The dreamer also assumed certain things about the UFOs that were not necessarily true. Perhaps the fire was a cleansing fire, designed to eliminate a contagious disease. Or perhaps the fire was merely the way the UFOs remained aloft. The dreamer could have arrived at these alternative conclusions. Would they have been “true”? Regardless, they would have resulted in a different response, and perhaps a completely different outcome. Consequently, at this stage of the dreamwork, the dreamer may be questioned about her assumptions concerning the intention of the UFOs and the necessity of what she did, or whether this flight response is commonplace or chronic (Sparrow, 2014) in her overall life, or whether it might represent something new and desirable for her (e.g., being able to get away from threatening situations). Even though the response might initially seem counterproductive, that assessment must be left up to the dreamer, who should always be to one to determine whether a given response is desirable or not. This is in keeping with the best practices of modern dreamwork, which depend on a noninvasive, dreamergoverned approach to dreamwork (see the “Dreamwork Ethics and Safety” section in Chapter 19). The dreamer may also be asked to consider what she could have done differently, and what might have happened. Initially, most of us do not take well to the idea that what we did in such a frightening dream was anything other than necessary, but the central tenet of co-creative dream analysis—that the dreamer is ultimately free to respond differently—requires us to ask whether the dreamer imposed an assumption on the dream that was not necessary. This inquiry gently challenges the dreamer to consider other ways of viewing the content and supports alternative responses to it, as well.

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Step 4: Analyzing the Dream Imagery This step involves focusing on the meaning of the dream content to the dreamer. Instead of imposing personal views, ask the dreamer about her associations to UFOs, fire, and her childhood home. This is called amplification, and it is based on the work of Carl Jung, who believed that the personal dimension of dream content could only be discerned through open-ended inquiry into the dreamer’s own unique associations (see the “Dream Analysis” section in Chapter 15). During this step, the dreamer may be asked to dialogue with one or more of the dream images. For example, “What would you like to say to the UFOs?” And then, in turn, ask her to pretend that she is one of the UFOs and have her respond to the dreamer. This kind of exchange was pioneered by Fritz Perls (see Perls the “Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy” section in Chapter 15), who considered all of the dream images as parts of ourselves to which we have become alienated. Thus, by encouraging dreamers to dialogue and to identify with the images, they become aware of the value of what the images reveal within themselves and thus forge a deeper connection with, and respect for, what they offer. Step 5: Developing a Plan for Responding in New Ways to Future Dreams and Waking-Life Parallels In this step, the dreamer is engaged in formulating alternative ways of responding to the original dream encounter in the event that it happens again in future dreams. These new responses should always be formulated in collaboration with the dreamer based on what she sees as creative alternatives to what she did during the original dream. She should also be asked to identify areas of her waking life where parallel relationship dynamics may be evident and to formulate new, appropriate responses to those scenarios based on the dreamwork. In the case of the woman who shared the UFO dream, she realized later that she had been afraid of entering the ministry for fear that she would lose control of her life. While she did not initially make the connection between the UFOs and God, she later realized that the power and transformative potential of the UFOs dramatized the daunting implications of a direct relationship with her higher power. She subsequently decided to embrace her spiritual calling, and she is a minister today.

Embodied Imagination (EI) Robert Bosnak

Remember your last dream and spend a moment reflecting on it. You will become aware that a dream is an environment, a place where you find yourself. In an ordinary dream, you know that at the moment of dreaming, the world surrounding

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you is experienced as physical, an embodied realm that feels as real as the world in which you are now reading this. While dreaming, you experience a real world—you only declare it a dream when you wake. EXPERIENTIAL DEFINITION OF DREAMING This perspective leads to a universal definition of the ordinary (nonlucid) dreaming experience used by embodied imagination (EI): “A dream is a spontaneously occurring quasi-physical environment in which you find yourself, convinced that you are in fact awake, where everything presents itself as real and from which you wake” (Bosnak, 2007). Any statement beyond this would be a nonuniversal cultural statement representing the culture in which you wake and to which you belong. Whether dreams represent anything beyond the environment they present (whether they have any external meaning whatsoever) depends on your cultural understanding. For example, common Western psychology holds that dreams are about the dreamer. This does not say anything about dreams, just about the philosophy that dreams take place inside of us and therefore belong to us. Experientially speaking, neither part of this is self-evident: we do not experience dreaming as taking place inside of us; we find ourselves inside our dreams. And if I said that everything in my environment is mine, you might rightfully call me a megalomaniac; yet, we frequently say it about dreaming environments as a matter of course. EI was developed in the tradition of the third-century neoplatonist philosopher Iamblichus and is based on in-depth studies of the creative imagination by psychiatrist C. G. Jung, archetypal psychologist James Hillman, scholar of the Islamic visionary tradition Henry Corbin, theater according to director Konstantin Stanislavski, complexity theory, and the dream embodiment work of Robert Bosnak. Although EI gleans many of its insights from neuroscience, the foundational perspective of EI is phenomenological. Phenomenology is the science of experience. It states that by way of experience, we can get partial access to something beyond experience. Comparing the work of phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, when you see a glass you get a partial view of it at any one time, but this partiality does not diminish the likelihood that the glass exists in some way or other beyond your experience of it. Therefore, experience is a two-way event: it is simultaneously your perception of the glass mixed with a self-manifestation of the glass itself, a self-manifestation of the phenomenon. Applied to dreaming, from within its own perspective, this would mean that while I dream of a glass on a table, there is an actual glass there that I simultaneously perceive and that presents itself. But this glass exists in a world from which I wake, so it exists in a quasi-physical world. The dream glass is only unreal if we are fully convinced that material reality is the only true reality. To the science of experience, there are (at least) two realities: dreaming and waking. EI attempts to explore dreaming from within its own perspective, from the point of view we have while dreaming.

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EI PRACTICES Flashback If we want to work on a dream from within its own perspective, we have to be able to reenter into the reality as it was while dreaming. This, however, is impossible. One can never return to a previous moment. It is forever gone. Between the time you started reading this entry and now, about 1,000 people were born and about 1,000 died; you are in a different world now than the moment before. You can never go back. That having been said, there is a kind of memory that makes us feel as if we are fully back in a previous moment. This is called flashback memory, and it occurs naturally to people who have suffered severe trauma. A soldier returning from the battlefield walking down the street in her hometown hearing a loud bang may suddenly find herself back on the battlefield with bombs exploding all around her. A flashback involves all of her senses and is experienced as entirely real—as real as a dream while dreaming. This dreaming analogue makes flashback memory perfect for working with a dream from within its own perspective. Hypnagogic State The twilight state you pass through on your way to falling asleep (as well as the beginning of sleep onset itself ) is called hypnagogic by sleep researchers. In this inbetween state of consciousness, the world of images already presents itself, but you still have one foot in the waking world. This natural state of consciousness can be accessed artificially by slow-motion exploration of a dreaming environment. In the example of a dream of a glass on a table, we ask the following series of questions in slow succession: “Is the table inside or outside? Is it a large space or small? What is the light like? Are there any sounds? Where are you in relation to the table? What is the table made of ? What does the glass look like? Are there any smells? Are you touching anything? What is there below you? What is the atmosphere in the environment? What is your mood?” As we ask these questions, the dreamer will slowly begin to experience the dreaming environment as increasingly present, until he or she feels fully surrounded by it. It feels to the dreamer as if he or she is back in the dreaming environment, and the events are experienced as real as they had been sensed while dreaming. The dreamer is now in a hypnagogic state, describing the environment no longer from narrative memory but from direct observation, the way you would describe the room in which you are reading this. The dreamer is now “back” in the dream. Theater and Interior Miming Dreams have many characteristics of theater. A theater play is immersed in a different reality than the ordinary waking world of the audience. In a play, as in a dream, multiple perspectives are simultaneously embodied by a variety of characters, each perspective being essential to the play. Therefore, a dream of a woman chased by a dog must be felt from the perspective of the woman running away

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as well as from the perspective of the chasing dog, or we will have a one-sided monologue. The narrator of the dream is only one of the characters—the character with whom the dreamer is identified and calls “I.” This “I” in the dream usually feels much like “I” when awake, so we confuse them. But “I” in the dream actually exists in a different reality than the physical body we call “I”—which is asleep. That is why we first have to get back to the dreaming environment, so we can have an embodied experience of “I’m running” in the dream. We have to get “in character.” This is done by “interior miming.” Through micromovements in our body, while barely physically moving, the dreamer mimes “I” in the dream in a subtle way until she becomes like the one running from the dog in the dreaming environment. She can now feel the terror “I” feels while being chased. She feels her lungs out of breath and her legs strained while running as fast as she can, dread in her heart. She is now fully embodied by the experience of the “I” character. To remember the embodied condition of the “I” character, she anchors the experience as a felt sense in her lungs, her heart, and her legs. When we trigger these felt-sense locations in her body at the end of the work by paying focused attention on them, she will automatically be surrounded by the embodied experience of “I” in the dream. EI has this technique in common with acting methods derived from Stanislavski. In this dream of a woman and a dog (an actual dream the author worked on in his analytical practice), not only is “I’m running” a product of the dreaming imagination, but the streetlights around her are as well, as is the street still glistening after a mild rain, as are the clapboard New England houses around. In an act of pure genius, dreaming instantly creates an entire world experienced as fully real, more so than any $300 million 3-D movie created over a period of more than a year could ever be. EI assumes that each particular element in a dream is an integral embodiment of creative imagination. Habitual Consciousness From a phenomenological perspective, the character called “I” is an identification with a dense cluster of habits of consciousness. This particular dreamer identifies with being a woman, white, of a certain age, American (U.S.), from a particular ethnic background (Anglo-American) that has inculcated her with its cultural values, a mother, a teacher, liking particular foods, feeling that her body is too heavy and unattractive, and so on. This cluster of habits of self-awareness EI calls “habitual consciousness.” Habitual consciousness informs us as to who we are, where we live, and how to drive a car, to name but a few elements. Without it, we would be completely lost. On the other hand, it is also the box inside of which we exist. EI has developed ways to get out of the box. As each element of a dream is a product of creative imagination, each presence in the dream including “I” can be understood as a character. The clapboard houses are embodiments of imagination and are thus characters in the dream. A character is a subject. We gain a subjective experience of a character through identification. The dreamer is identified with the character “I” and can thus feel the dream subjectively from “I’s” perspective. This

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“I” is the narrator who tells us the dream from her particular point of view. The theatrical understanding of dreaming, as employed by EI, understands dreaming to consist of a multiplicity of subjects and characters, such as the clapboard houses, streetlights, the glistening street, “I,” and the chasing dog. In this demonstration, we will only access the subjective world of one character besides “I”: the dog. (In EI, we actually access up to four or five embodied states simultaneously in a composite of states. This would take too long to describe in the current context.) The dog is in a different embodied state than “I.” When carefully observed, the dog appears to have very tight growling jaws suffused with a desire to bite. Through the process of interior miming by way of micromovements, the dreamer can sense the clenched jaws of the dog, the legs running after prey, bloodthirst, saliva dripping, sharp teeth, and then suddenly she is identified with the dog and can feel its intense desire to devour the prey that is running away from it. She can feel the growl coming up from deep inside the body of the dog and is thus in a subjective self-experience of the dog-as-subject. She feels this mainly in the jaws of the dog. She is consciously possessed by the dog as an autonomous living being that exists in the reality of a dreamed world. Alchemy Alchemical psychology was developed by C. G. Jung and James Hillman. It takes alchemy not just as the precursor of chemistry but as a metaphor system about the refinement of matters that matter. Matters that matter are called material (usually metals) in alchemy. Alchemists assume that metals in their raw state are suffused with an inherent desire to become gold, to increase in value. To the current dreamer, both the raw bloodthirsty rage of the dog and the raw dread of violence with which she is habitually identified are matters that matter, making her life miserable. She lives them sequentially: when unconsciously possessed by the dog, she flies into rages, and when unconsciously identified with habitual consciousness, she is terrified of impending violence. However, when she is able to consciously feel both embodied states at the same time by way of simultaneously triggering the bloodthirsty jaws of the dog and the terror in the heart and lungs of “I,” a transmutation happens: she feels lightness in her breathing and a sense of centering in her belly. Her legs feel stable. Afterward, she practices the simultaneous experience of the jaws of the dog and the heart of terror for several minutes every day, until the lightness of breathing and the centering in the belly emerges. Over time, this practice changes her way of being in her body and shifts her existence in the world. She gains confidence. These matters that matter profoundly to her have gained in value. APPLICATION OF EI TO PSYCHOTHERAP Y The above case shows how EI can be applied in psychotherapy. By extension, it has been used in responding to physical illness. Contemporary healing sanctuaries have emerged where EI is applied as integrative medicine. EI is also being used for pain management.

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EI is frequently practiced in groups, in person, and via the Internet. The group becomes a ritual space where images such as the dog have a place to be honored as living beings from another realm of experience. As EI deals with getting out of habitual consciousness, it stimulates the nonhabitual creative imagination and gets us out of the box. This matters to art, theater, writing, business, technology, and scientific research. EI has been applied in all of these fields. “Directed dreaming” is an EI technique that has been used successfully for creative issues. It seeds the dreaming imagination through sharp embodied focus on a matter at hand (e.g., a business issue, research problem, creative blockage; wherever the dreamer bumps into the walls of the box,) in order to dream about it. This method is based on dream incubation in classical antiquity, where directed dreaming was used in healing sanctuaries for over a thousand years. Focused incubation of particular issues (be they health problems or creative conundrums) elicits dreamed responses from the creative imagination. The dream is subsequently worked as if it were a self-revelation of the conundrum. Dreams emerging from directed dreaming are frequently startling and can lead to radically fresh insights and creative solutions.

Integral Dreaming Fariba Bogzaran and Daniel Deslauriers

PART 1: FRAMEWORK OF AN INTEGRAL APPROACH TO DREAMS Dreams are creatively complex events. Working with them holds the promise of connecting us to the fullness of our being. Approaching dreams with this in mind, we become spacious and begin to recognize ways of knowing that can tap into this complexity. Such an approach to dreams is by design holistic, multidisciplinary, and, in practice, eclectic. Thus, we use the term integral. Conceptually, the integral approach calls for a view of dreaming that integrates three main streams: 1. General systems theory and complexity theory, informing about the nature of whole systems and the notion of spontaneous self-organization, including dreaming; 2. Psychospiritual integralism (Chaudhuri, 1977), recognizing the development of the whole person, with a view toward unfolding its fullest potential; and 3. Epistemological plurality, celebrating literacy in different ways or modes of knowing. These modes of knowing include: • Science (yielding objective knowledge), • Phenomenology (yielding subjective knowledge), • Relationships with others (yielding intersubjective and cultural knowledge),

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•  Socio-ecological knowing (yielding interobjective and practical knowledge about the social and ecological systems we are embedded into), • Spiritual knowing (knowledge yielded from ancestral or religious traditions or from spiritual inquiry).

In the book Integral Dreaming (2012), a four-quadrant model developed by Ken Wilber is applied to offer a view of dream studies that shows how these different modes of knowing complement each other, intersecting between the individual and collective and between the inner and outer aspects of our lives. The practice draws from several sources in particular: psychology, neuroscience, arts, and indigenous science. Furthermore, an artistic sense is central as a means to integrate the modes of knowing enumerated above. Three core concepts inform an integral approach to dreaming: multidimensionality, awareness, and creativity. These have been distilled from decades of experience with working with our own dreams as well as the dreams of our students and clients. Multidimensionality Multidimensionality pervades our waking and dreaming experience. This is drawn from two main observations. The first is that by nature, the self is multidimensional. The second is that dreams are complex multifaceted events. Therefore, an integral approach to dreams should also be multifaceted. Dreams reflect the complexity and multidimensionality of our self. Some of these dimensions of being are somatic/bodily self; vital/energetic self; affective/ emotional self; cognitive/intuitive self; intersubjective/relational self; socio/cultural self; and spiritual/transcendental self. None of these dimensions are entirely distinct and separate from each other. All are interconnected, or nested, into each other in various degrees of development and integration. Nevertheless, each of these dimensions of being is a distinct and powerful gateway for experiential inquiry. Dreams are occasions of experience where we can witness the unfolding of the multidimensional self. When possible, one of the best ways to engage our dreams is to reenter them with lucidity and notice what happens when we make contact with the various aspects of our multidimensional self. Awareness Personal awareness impacts our experience and is open to cultivation. Dreamwork is, in its essence, a practice of awareness. Working with dreams, either by ourselves or with others, fosters greater awareness of the nuances of our interior and relational world. An integral approach attempts to foster awareness of the experience as it arises, creating new connections and enlisting experience in a fresh way. The way we relate to our dreams and create from them is crucial in the gaining deeper insight into our dreams.

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The simple but powerful act of “being present” with our dreams helps dreamers notice aspects of their being that were not familiar to them before. This in turn reinforces the motivation of dreamers to know more about themselves and helps them overcome self-limitations. In this way, dreams become a potent vehicle for personal and collective growth. Creativity We are part of an evolutionary process, wherein the self, and the world, is creatively unfolding and transforming, and dreaming is a part of our personal and collective evolutionary process. The self is in a constant unfolding that includes growth, regeneration, and (alas!) eventual decay. Evolution and developmental models tend to map transformation into recognized stages. By contrast, most of our dreams can be seen as microdevelopmental events, gentle tweaks in the process of becoming, although big dreams can seed insights for a lifetime. The notion of creative unfolding has an important place in an integral approach because, at any moment, we are faced with the challenge of understanding our state of being, which is composed of flowing streams of experiences nested within larger open-ended processes. Dreams are not only personal and subjective, they are also attuned to our relational, cultural, and ecological living contexts. The integral approach sensitizes us to the fact that; by becoming a participatory actor in these processes, we are impacting our own self-system, as well as the greater systems, ecological and sociocultural, in which we are imbedded (family, community, nation, etc.). The human organism is an open system in constant flux. Sleep and dreaming are core to healthy living, and without them, we fail to learn, renew ourselves, or creatively adapt and act. In a world in constant change, in which both order and disorder exist, dreams contribute to the organization of a cohesive, unified, and flexible self. “Dreams present situations by which we can observe how the self is ‘updating’ itself by trying to make sense creatively of ongoing emotions, cognitive and existential changes that take place simultaneously within itself and the world” (Krippner et al., 2002, p. 21). PART 2: INTEGRAL DREAM PRACTICE Integral dreaming takes a broad view of dream interpretation and proposes a specific sequence of methods. Dreams are complex; thus, we ask, how could simple methodology solve the riddle of multifaceted dreams? What method(s) can be comprehensive enough to be able to decipher dream meaning? Dreams are too complex to be confined to only one method of interpretation, thus the need to combine methods to work with one dream in depth. Integral dreaming encourages multilayered, flexible approaches to unfolding a dream. These sets of practices can be changed according to different cultural contexts. Integral dreaming questions the assumption of dream interpretation whereby dreams are viewed as text—or “unopened letters”—that must be properly

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translated and read. Meaning making becomes a deciphering task, probing the text of the dream or the dreamer’s reactions to it. The study of understanding, hermeneutics, tells us that each time we engage in the reading of a text, we do so from a given perspective, and we project into the text our presuppositions (preunderstanding). This method of analysis might be called “hermeneutics of interpretation.” Creative methods of approaching dreams are proposed, however, which are noninterpretive and view dreams as embodied experiences. The understanding emerges out of the creative process rather than an intellectual analysis of the dreams. This “hermeneutic of creation” uses intuitive knowing, which follows a path of epistemic uncertainty—that is, within not knowing, there is a knowing. By first approaching dreams noninterpretively, the dreamer is invited to display openmindedness and become comfortable with uncertainty to gain a larger view of possibilities. The integral dream practice method was developed out of a series of creative methods of working with dreams called dream creations (Bogzaran, 1983) and inspired by experiential methodology and phenomenology (Kidd & Kidd, 1990; Bogzaran, 1996). It is a holistic approach to viewing dreams that consists of two main phases: (1) reflexive emergence and (2) reflective integration. Each of these two phases leverages different skills. The first emphasizes noninterpretive approaches, whereas the second emphasizes reflective and integrative skills. The dream is experienced through creativity, reflection, and creative action, fostering an integration of the experience of the dream into waking. Within each of the two phases, there are several movements. The two phases hold the general structure: reflexive first, followed by reflective stance. The movements within each phase are varied and depend on the practitioner. Reflexive Emergence The first phase includes practices such as dream reentry and visualizations, followed by creative expressions such as drawing, creative writing, movement, dance, theater, poetry, and music. Each one of these expressions is followed by automatic writings. The culmination of these writings is created into a poetic synthesis. These movements within the first phase of reflexive emergence allow the dreamer to meet the dream from a creative stance that is very similar to how dreams are constructed. The dreaming mind and creative mind work similarly. Reflective Integration The second phase includes reflective practices and analysis. Traditional dreamwork often emphasizes the second phase with a focus on reflective analysis. In this phase, the dreamer bridges dream metaphors to waking experiences, examines emotional connections with the dreams, and uses personal mythology to reflect on relational patterns, family history, and somatic awareness. In so doing, the dreamer begins to understand how the dream narrative fits into their life narrative.

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Integrative Act The last movement inside the second phase of integral dreaming, and perhaps one of the most important, is integrative act. This movement is the culmination of the explorations of the dream into action. When dreams are examined and understanding ensues, is there any action needed after an insight? If we claim dreams are transformative, how do we know? The integrative act encourages dreamers, as inquirers, to ponder their reflective and creative experience and to explore a culminating point of integration. Dreamers have a chance to connect insights and realizations gained through the process of exploring the dream not only in relation to their personal life but also to a larger context. Dreams can come in the service of personal insight, or they can also manifest into larger issues, informing social, interpersonal, and environmental action. Besides the movement, awareness and creativity are the two ingredients of working with dreams. Integral dream practice views dreams as self in creation and promotes coparticipating in that creation. This comprehensive method of practice requires that the dream practitioners use creative methodologies both reflexive in nature and reflective to be with the dream. It is within the unfolding of such inquiry that surprises emerge, shift in consciousness, and possibly transform.

Chapter 23

DREAMWORK ENHANCEMENT PRACTICES

Exploring the unconscious psyche is not always about translating the symbolic or manifest imagery of the dream into cognitive terms that relate to the dreamer’s waking or inner life. Chapter 15 introduced various existential-phenomenological contributions to dreamwork that evoke a healing or therapeutic experience without systematically interpreting the dream imagery. When integrated with the expressive arts, dreamwork has also become a highly effective healing modality: • Artistic expression. See Chapter 25 for examples of how dreamwork has been and can be extended into the various modalities of artistic expression: visual arts, literature, photography, poetry, and music. Application to dreaming might be considered an extension of the long-established field of art therapy (Slayton, 2011). Painting, drawing, or sculpting an emotionally charged scene from the dream, perhaps evolving it into a resolution theme and allowing the unconscious and body feel emotion to direct much of what is created, can become a healing process in much the same way as that of sandplay described below. • Collage. The art form of collage is often used in conjunction with dreamwork (Weiss & Twomey, 2011). There are a number of approaches, but, essentially, the dreamer brings the dream to mind, perhaps focusing on its effect on the dreamer, and then lets it go and allows the unconscious to guide the development of a collage by clipping out and pasting images onto a sheet or card. Self-exploration work may continue with the collage as it would in the dream that inspired it. • Psychodrama. Founded by Jacob Levy Moreno in the 1930s, psychodrama, when used with dreams, is a form of artistic or emotional expression whereby a person spontaneously and creatively brings the dream to life, as in a play, and acts through the emotions, much like Gestalt role-play but in this case choosing group members to play characters and objects in the dream (Verhofstadt-Denève, 1995).

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This chapter focuses on two means for engaging the unconscious in dealing with the symbolized experience of the inner world and felt sensations that emerge from the dream, as opposed to a systematic interpretation. In sandplay the symbolic world of the unconscious and symbolic process of individuation, as experienced in dreams, becomes tangible. Although it is a waking exercise, it remains totally driven by the unconscious. Sound imagination employs a somatic experience to shift from an outer to an inner focus, from what happened in the dream to what happens within the dreamer when relating to a dream image.

Sandplay Therapy Barbara A. Turner

Sandplay therapy (Turner, 2005) is a method developed to do psychoanalytic work with children. In the early 1950s, Carl Jung suggested that Dora Kalff, a newly certified analyst, find a method for doing Jungian analysis with children, as they were seen to lack the more mature brain development that gives rise to the selfobservation skills necessary for analysis. Kalff subsequently observed a demonstration of physician Margaret Lowenfeld’s World Technique. In this modality, Lowenfeld had created a means to better understand children’s thinking through the use of miniature toy figures in a box of sand. In her clinic, Lowenfeld instructed the children to “make a picture of your world.” Using the figures and shaping the sand, the children created a three-dimensional, image-based means of communication. The images constructed by the children provided a way to communicate with the young patients in an emotionally rich image language that talking with them could never touch. It also gave Lowenfeld a way to sketch and study the image further after the child’s session. In the children’s “worlds,” Kalff saw Jung’s individuation process, or patterns of the psyche’s healing and personality development, expressed in the mythic language of symbols, much as their dreams do. Kalff studied with Lowenfeld, but she felt that introducing words and more conscious thought into what was essentially an unconscious experience interfered with the continued healing and development of the child by prematurely attempting to make it conscious. Kalff developed a separate, largely silent method of working in the sand, calling it sandplay to differentiate it from the World Technique. Today, sandplay therapy is used with both children and adults—initiated either by a scene from a dream or in lieu of a dream. DOING SANDPLAY In the psychotherapy office, the therapist has two sand trays, wet and dry, along with numerous miniature figures displayed on shelves representing all parts of life and fantasy. The box of sand is referred to as the tray, and the method is called sandplay. A completed construction is called a tray or a sandplay. A series of trays is called a process.

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Children require very little instruction when doing sandplay. Most children dive into the sand and immediately begin building and playing. Even so, the therapist tells the child a little about how the work is done. Because most adults have abandoned their capacity to play, they need more encouragement and instruction. The therapist moves the sand to show the client how the bottoms of the trays are blue and can be used as water or a design, how the wet sand can be shaped and sculpted, and how he or she is free to use any and as many figures needed. As the client works in the sand, the therapist sits nearby taking notes and making a small map of the client’s creation. When the client finishes, the therapist respectfully views the tray from the client’s viewpoint. With children, the therapist asks, “Is there a title or a story?” With the adult client, the therapist may ask, “Were there any associations that came up as you were doing this?” The therapist simply records what the client says and probes no deeper. Kalff intuitively understood that attempting to force something into consciousness that had just emerged from the unconscious impedes the psyche’s growth. The sandplay method is a process of doing several trays over a period of time. As in dreams, the content concerns the most pressing psychological needs of the client, whether it be healing old wounds or developing new psychic qualities to further personality integration. As children are younger, their processes tend to be shorter, averaging around 15 trays. Adult processes can span a wide range, depending on the development of the individual and the issues that arise. Some adults do amazing work in a minimum of 3 trays; others do equally valuable processes by continuing to work through 50 to 100 sandplays. Each case is unique. DREAMS AND SANDPLAY Sandplay shares many similarities with dreams, including misperceptions about the process. As with dreams, some people are quick to dismiss the sandplay method as “meaningless” or “just child’s play.” Of course, this notion is flawed, in both its lack of understanding of sandplay and for its dismissal of the significant neurological work that transpires in children’s play. In Carl Jung’s early work with psychotic patients, he observed that human thought spans a wide range of possibility, from the accustomed rational, conscious thinking to immersion in the depths of symbolic and mythic realms. By attending closely to the ramblings of his psychotic patients, Jung recognized that there was an underlying structure to their seeming incoherence. He observed that this was not the logic of ordinary conscious thought, but it was a completely different form of thinking composed of the language of symbols and the mythic stories they create. They are visually rich and illogical, or irrational, as Jung would say. Dreams and sandplay work in this symbolic dimension of human experience, using the language of image, feeling, myth, and metaphor. Differences between Dreams and Sandplay Dreams and sandplay are both composed of emotionally charged images that work to facilitate human development that ranges from fundamental physical

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metabolic maintenance to psychological consolidation and spiritual growth. Unlike sandplay, however, dreams are ephemeral. It is challenging to recall an entire dream, or even portions of it. Sandplay, on the other hand, is three-dimensional and occurs in the shared presence of both the client and the therapist. Both experience the immediacy, the emotional impact, as well as all the elements and their relationships. Not only do dreams depend on recall, they are influenced by the dreamer’s description of the dream experience. To share a dream in a dreamwork group, or with the therapist, the logic of language intervenes between the actual experience of the dream and the image the dreamer creates with his or her verbal recount of it. Let’s look at an example from the sand tray of a nine-year-old boy, Aaron, shown in Figure 23.1. If the dreamer were to recall a dream such as the image in the sand tray, he might say something like this: There was a lot going on, activity everywhere. There were ninjas going through their moves; a lion tamer and a big cat; I even think Batman and Robin were there. Cars were whizzing through the area. I felt excited and apprehensive at the same time.

The dreamer’s description is logical, but it does not include all of the elements, the spatial relationships of the various clusters of figures, nor the configuration of the landforms. In addition, the content is dependent on the images that are activated in the listener. The sandplayer will often make similarly brief comments about a finished tray because the reflections come from a more conscious point of view. Aaron said the following when he finished the tray: Batman caught the Joker, and this guy is getting chased by the police, because he went too fast. These guys (Asian monks near left) are doing magic.

If we were to hear only the dreamer’s or Aaron’s more conscious descriptions, we would not be privy to the depth of feeling and energies held in Aaron’s Tray 1. By being present as the client constructs the tray, observing all of its elements, feeling the emotional impact of it on the client, and the feelings that arise in the therapist, the three-dimensional dream is experienced conjointly in a deeper, less conscious manner. Its images, symbols, and thematic content appear before both participants as a whole. Of course, what takes place in the sand tray is not conscious to the sandplayer and is only partially conscious to the well-trained therapist. Even so, the construction in the tray is an open window to the most intimate, vulnerable aspects of the individual. The therapist and the client share in the client’s psychic growth experiences that can travel the range from the darkest night of the soul, battles through hell with profound loss and grief, to the heights of spiritual epiphany and oneness with the divine. It is the strength of the therapist’s presence that allows the client to continue with what can be very difficult and terrifying work in sandplay. In silence, the client understands that the therapist shares the experience and can tolerate it—thus making is safe for the client to carry on. The sandplay is not interpreted for the client, the reasoning behind this being that what is happening in the tray is the initial movement of the client’s psyche into

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new ways of being in the world. The changes to the neuro pathways necessary to bring about the client’s healing and development are just budding. Any attempt to force this entirely new way of being into consciousness interferes with and actually halts the new neural development. Apart from the client, however, the sandplay therapist does analyze the symbolic material to deepen his or her understanding of what the client’s work entails, how it is progressing, and where it might be heading. This understanding is not shared with the client, but it can be tracked in the individual’s progressive development and life changes. With children, we see this as reductions in behavioral problems, and with adults, they begin to perceive themselves differently in the world, in their relationships, and in their value systems. What is happening in the tray is far in advance of its manifestation in our outer lives, as it takes the new neural pathways some time to grow. The Sandplay Process Let’s take a look at some highlights from nine-year-old Aaron’s sandplay work, whose first tray we saw above. Aaron did a total of 15 trays over a period of one and a half years. We will discuss his first few trays as an example of how the psyche moves and changes through the symbols. When Aaron was not doing sandplay, his sessions were filled with a variety of play therapy techniques, including art work and games. In adult cases, the time not spent in sandplay is used for verbal therapy. Figure 23.1. Aaron, a Nine-Year-Old Boy—Tray 1.

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In Aaron’s Tray 1, we find a mixture of opposing energies. Some of these show aggression being brought under control, such as the lion tamer holding his hand up to the roaring tiger and Robin and Batman subduing their enemies. This theme is repeated with the race car and the policeman and with the martial artists, whose movements can be powerful, if not deadly, yet are highly disciplined. In contrast to the harnessing of aggression, we also discover a rather refined, if not spiritual, theme carried by the meditating monks, and even the skiers, who must be finely balanced to make their way down the hill. The sandplay therapist considers the entire environment of the tray, its felt sense, and the possible symbolic significance in the client’s life. The sandplay therapist may understand that Aaron’s psyche is struggling with aggression having to do with his inner balance, the spiritual aspects of his personality. The spatial configuration of these elements is highly interesting. The lion tamer and Batman and Robin are at opposite ends of one long diagonal across the tray, and the monks and the skiers are on the opposite diagonal. At the point where these two diagonals cross in the center is a disproportionately large armored knight. Aaron did not even mention the huge knight. As an observer, we must consider what psychic energies this element of the sandplay holds. If we imagine we are inside the suit of armor, we might get a sense of how it feels. Doing that might feel cold and isolated; you cannot move your arms or legs and feel trapped, as in a prison. Analytically, we might infer that the conflict between the aggression and the spiritual potential has culminated in a powerful obstruction in Aaron’s further development. By understanding these possibilities, the sandplay therapist is better prepared to witness the progression and any setbacks in the client’s work ahead. Through the therapist’s understanding and witnessing, the sandplay client finds the strength and courage to continue his or her journey into the unknown parts of himself or herself. Neurobiologically, this phenomenon works through the mirror neuron networks, those neural functions that allow us to jointly experience and feel what another person is doing or undergoing, allowing us to silently understand the intentions of others, as well. In sandplay, the silent witness provides the client with the sense that what he or she is doing in the tray is significant and filled with meaning. In addition, the client is validated in that what has appeared in the tray and is completely new and different is a very real part of himself or herself. Like dreams, the symbolic language of the sandplay spans the depths of crosscultural possibility into what Carl Jung called the “collective unconscious” and “archetypes,” templates for being human (see “Carl Jung and Analytical Psychology” in Chapter 15). When constructing his or her tray, the sandplay client’s unconscious moves the sand and chooses the figures that correspond to the activated archetypes in his or her psyche. Working in the sand tray and softening our hold on consciousness allows the new material to emerge, and these aspects of ourselves come forward symbolically. As with many introductory dreams, in Aaron’s first tray, his psyche presents the conflict he is currently carrying as the aggression resulting from feeling stuck and trapped, along with its resolution in the development of his spiritual qualities. We can understand this better perhaps if we consider how it might feel to have a deeply

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spiritual aspect to oneself that has not been touched or developed but is pressing to be born. We can better understand how anger and aggression might result from this growing possibility within him that has had no avenue for expression in the current way he holds his consciousness. He will have to move beyond the limits of his consciousness to allow for something more to develop. In his second tray (not shown), Aaron symbolically confronts some psychic obstacles in the various clusters of figures. Dorothy and her friends from the Wizard of Oz confront the dark witch. Symbolically, this is a dark, self-destructive aspect of the psyche, something that is in the way of Aaron’s continued development and one of his frustrations, as we previously discussed. Another confrontation happens when the little boxer knocks out the big boxer. As these obstacles are confronted, there is the promise of new development in the center of the tray, where Scrooge McDuck discovers a bag of gold. Gold is symbolic of the center of the personality, what Jung referred to as the Self. The Self is the anchor point in the human psyche that creates order and meaning; it is what makes life a cosmos, rather than a chaos. The new qualities that develop in the sandplay process are necessarily related to this center point of the personality. Aaron’s psyche continues to confront obstacles as new qualities develop. In Tray 2 in Figure 23.2, Superman halts the dragons. In the near center of the tray is a scene of death, symbolically the surrender of former ways of being that no longer serve the Self. These are the obstacles that prevented Aaron’s continued progression as a whole person. In the near right corner, a round, silver spaceship brings aliens to Earth from a far-off place. New and valuable qualities are entering from far off in the unconscious. Behind the large tree is a similar scene with a golden coach heading toward a golden castle. This is not Aaron’s final tray. He did 15. It is important to not give the impression that the process stops when the Self is touched. In Tray 3, Aaron fashioned Figure 23.2. Aaron’s Tray 2.

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Figure 23.3. Aaron’s Tray 3.

a mandala, with a square of trees and gods surrounding an inner circle of what he called “an Indian ceremony.” He also commented that “these are the gods they pray to. This princess (figure on far edge) was the first Indian. She is dead now, but hangs over the fire.” You may notice that Tray 3 is qualitatively different from the previous ones. We call this the centering of the Self. It is a special moment when the psyche takes the new qualities that have emerged and anchors them in the Self. In this centering, all parts of the psyche acknowledge that the newly developing qualities are in service of the central archetype of the Self. Following the centering of the Self, the sandplay work concerns the development of the newly acquired psychic qualities, eventually leading to their integration into consciousness.

Sound Imagination Sven Doehner

As an actual experience, there can be no doubt that dreams exist or that they appear to contain an intrinsic purpose. It is notable, however, that most practices involving dreams consider them to be messages, contained within a puzzle, for the dreamer to decipher. The basic supposition is that the dream is intended for the dreamer. What if we go in the contrary direction? This would mean taking dream images as invitations for the dreamer to put his or her known world to one side, so as to actually go into an awake experience of the invisible world revealed in the images

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of the dream, just as it is. We can avoid bringing external concerns to the dream by simply sticking to the image itself. Sound imagination dreamwork (Doehner, 2012) treats particularly moving dream images as invitations for the dreamer to experience things unknown to his or her daytime states of consciousness. It is done through a series of mirroring exercises, to open windows for imagining how to consider invisible plots, patterns, issues, and themes into account, issues beyond the ego’s reach, beyond the merely literal and personal aspects of life. SOUND IMAGINATION PRINCIPLES Dream images present perspectives and points of view that run contrary to those of the Ego, ones that complete our experience by giving unexpected form, voice, and palpable presence to truly other points of view—frequently very specifically different from those with which the dreamer identifies. In certain moments, a very particular dream image triggers a more or less urgent need in the dreamer to understand its significance and implications for his or her life. The relationship and relevance of our dream images to our well-being, beyond what the dreamer wants, is an essential thread in this brief essay. The sound imagination approach is designed to shift from an outer to an inner focus, from what happened in the dream to what happens within the dreamer when relating to the dream images. The aim is to discover how they resonate within us by carefully differentiating among our actual sensations, emotions, feelings, thoughts, and intuitions in the face of the situation that grabs us in the dream. Rather than trying to make sense of something essentially mysterious, or understanding a dream, the goal is to cultivate a relationship with the mystery underlying the images—in some way to reexperience a key moment in the dream image sequence in a waking state of consciousness. By directly engaging in the emotionally charged implications of what is essentially at stake in a key dream scenario, the basic function of the dream is completed. The challenge is how to become an objective witness to oneself without having to depend on another person or theory and wondering whether one is fooling oneself. It is notable that we tend to not trust inner references. As a starting point, nothing can be more real than our actual somatic experience. The experience of a witnessing mirror unexpectedly moves the dreamer deeply—more than an ideational system. Sound imagination dreamwork is designed to touch the dreamer somatically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. It moves beyond understanding and interpreting and away from theories and ideas about a particularly irresistible dream image to an awakening experience of the essential emotional theme presented by that image. Sound imagination evokes a consciously felt experience of invisible aspects of what the dreamer was convinced he or she knew all about and discovered while vocalizing. New movements, particularly unexpected ones, instantly awaken specific energetic reactions. An emotion is our way of experiencing energy in movement. Inversely, certain emotions trigger movements at all levels of our being. While

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emotional tensions appear and reappear in all sorts of ways and situations in our lives—often suggesting that something beyond the literal conflict wants to be taken into consideration—the fact that this phenomenon is so clearly replicated in dreams makes their value evident, as they represent an authentic experience of an independent and autonomous invisible reality, one whose existence runs parallel to, and independent from, better-known reality of everyday life. While there are many creative and transformative ways of doing this, the one proposed here involves the act of discovering with the voice the sounds of the emotions awakened by a particular dream image. Doing this activates the unconscious, which responds by providing clear experiential mirrors of particularly invisible aspects of vital issues in our lives, revealed in the dream image vocal sound sensitization exercises. Given that sound vibrations literally (1) dissolve that which is stuck (opening, breaking, cleaning, freeing, liberating) and (2) give form to what lies in potential to things still diffuse and unrealized (shaping, forming, delimiting, defining, organizing), it is proposed that something similar happens within ourselves that is actually multiplied when the sound comes out of our own mouths. Given that what happens with sound in itself also happens within us, let us incorporate vocal sound practices in our work with images. What follows is a summary of the sound imagination protocol for experienc­ ing a prolonged vocal sound emission, finely tuned to the emotional essence of a particular dream image. The goal is to suggest specific vocal sound experiences that prove to be genuine sound journeys of self-exploration, bringing new movement to an individual’s sense of emotional “stuckness.” SOUND IMAGINATION PROCESS The word “sound” in sound imagination refers to the audible experience of all vibration, a characteristic of energy in motion. While hearing a sound is an ephemeral experience—lasting only for as long as it lasts—the vibration that is released touches on experiences that are timeless, leaving an emotional imprint that remains charged long after the sound dissolves. The act of giving wordless voice to what has been emotionally awakened by a particularly provocative dream image sequence is an imaginative act, involving us in the dynamics of image creation. It is an active response to a dream image that is intended to open possibilities for the dreamer to actively engage in a creative way with his or her images. Through the voice, the dreamer gives form to certain complex emotional situations found highlighted by a particular dream image. The sustained vocalization that emerges from the dreamer’s body for several minutes becomes a palpable experience of what the soul most certainly desires in that moment. Developing a sound imagination involves discovering the resonant vocal sounds of an emotionally charged moment in a scenario that truly matters to us in our lives. We know that it matters because we experience the emotional charge, both in dreams and in our lives. Emotions are the primary alchemical material with which we work. The work is with the impulse in the emotion. The approach is to

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discover the precise vocal sounds that are most in tune with what we are experiencing within ourselves with the images. When the sound emerging from a person´s mouth manages to reflect the heart and soul of what one truly feels, and it is deeply heard, an inversion takes place. The experience is of perceptions being turned inside out. Contrary forces meet to participate in a process of dissolving and discovering new forms that is often expe­ rienced as a reorganization and repatterning of what C. G. Jung called a “central complex.” The contrast between what we think we know and actually say, and what is palpably revealed in what appears in the sounds of our voices, can be both deep and powerful: a nodal turning-point moment. The experience of concentrating, emitting, hearing, and listening to the sounds that emerge from deep within oneself while connecting to the specific set of emotions experienced and concentrating intensely on a particular dream image moment becomes profoundly transformative. An inner reorganization takes place when listening to the sounds that emerge from one’s mouth while finely tuning the emerging sound to what is most deeply moving within in that particular moment. Heraclitus called this movement enantiodromia: the tendency of things, when fully formed and expressed, to go through an inversion in which contraries somehow come together to generate new movements and life forms. Try as we might to control it, actually emitting vocal sounds is something that ultimately takes on a life and course of its own, leading inevitably into an experience of things beyond the Ego and yet essential to the soul. The experience is transformative for the sounder, much as it is for whomever hears it. Rather than force something, the objective is to create a space where authentic vocal sound can truly emerge and be heard and listened to. Key to the practice is a sincere commitment to allow specific inner experiences to take outer shape and form by way of a vocal sound emission. The intention is to discover the true sound of things that we think we know well. This involves moving from seeing to hearing, to emitting, to listening, to awakening. When our voices manage to truly reflect the sound of our souls in a particular moment, a resonant reaction is triggered. That resonant reaction is what we are after. It means creative movement.

Chapter 24

RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL TREATMENT

Most every culture around the globe has at one time or another approached dreaming from a spiritual or religious perspective; some considering dreams messages from a divine or spiritual realm, some as the work of satanic forces, and some simply hallucinations that have no spiritual significance at all. Although the nature of our spiritual connection with dreams is changing with our evolving beliefs and understanding of the mysteries of the universe, the connection remains as strong as ever.

Comparative History Kelly Bulkeley

For the study of dreams, there is great value in the history of religions as a legitimate source of information, evidence, and insight. Most dream research today takes place within the field of psychology. But before psychology arose as an academic discipline in the mid-19th century, how did people discuss the nature and meaning of their dreams? Throughout history, in most parts of the world, people have used religious language to talk about their dreams. This is the first reason why anyone interested in dreams can benefit from studying the history of religions, because in this history we find the earliest systematic explorations of human dreaming. To be clear, we do not have to accept the metaphysical claims of these religions to benefit from learning about their teachings about dreams. The second reason for looking closely at the relationship between religion and dreaming is that dreams naturally bring forth images, emotions, and insights that

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people frequently associate with religious and spiritual themes. No matter what the setting, no matter how secular and scientific the approach may be, it very often happens that studying dreams will open up issues that touch on deep existential questions, the kinds of questions that the world’s religions have tried for millennia to answer. TRADITIONS Virtually every religious and spiritual tradition in history, from all parts of the planet, has found dreaming to be an important means of connecting humans to the divine; however, people have defined that term. This is a fundamental fact of human religiosity, and it raises the crucial issue of definitions. Western scholars tend to treat as a religion any cultural system that includes beliefs about supernatural beings, the origins of life, why people suffer, and what happens after death. Religions usually include codes of morality, methods of healing, and metaphysical theories about reality and the divine powers that shape our lives. A shorthand definition of religion might be the following: an awareness of powers that transcend human control or understanding and yet have a formative influence on, and active presence within, human life. These transcendent, divine powers can be represented in many different forms, such as gods, spirits, ancestors, mythic beings, and forces of nature. All religions venerate special places, objects, and texts because of their capacity to bring people closer to these powers, and all religions have developed ritualized practices to help people gain an experiential encounter with the divine. These practices include pilgrimages, sacrifices, dancing, music, prayer, meditation—and dreaming. The following summaries illustrate the various ways in which dreaming has appeared in the world’s religious traditions. Paleolithic Shamanic Practices Perhaps the earliest indications of religion and dreaming in human history date back to the remarkable array of beautiful and highly skillful paintings found in the caves of southern Europe, in modern-day France and Spain, vividly rendered animals, strange half-human creatures, and a variety of geometric shapes and designs. These astonishing paintings, so unlike anything in the previous history of our species, were connected to the early religious practices of the ritual and healing specialists known as “shamans.” Among their many skills, shamans could travel intentionally into their dreams to gain special knowledge and powers. Candidates to become a shaman were often chosen because of vivid dreaming early in childhood, and the initiation process typically involved a nightmarish series of torments that killed the old self and gave birth to the new shamanic identity. All the spiritual powers of a mature shaman—being able to interact with supernatural beings, journey to otherworldly realms, heal illness, prophesize the future—flowed out of their experiences of intensified dreaming. Archeologists do not know what exactly the Paleolithic communities did in these caves in terms of ritual activities. But it seems highly likely that anyone going into

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these caves and viewing the paintings would undergo a profoundly consciousnessaltering experience. It seems reasonable to suppose that at least some of these paintings represented people’s dreams. This would mark the Paleolithic caves as the oldest surviving dream journals in history. It also seems reasonable to suppose that these paintings served as “oneirogens,” as dream stimulants. The caves functioned as subterranean theaters of the unconscious that aroused the dreaming imaginations of those who entered them, perhaps generating a kind of shamanic feedback loop: going into the cave stimulated new dreams, which led to new paintings in the caves, which then led to new dreams, and so on. Echoes of these shamanic practices have been found in the earliest religious traditions of indigenous people in many parts of the world, from Siberia and Tibet to Greece, the British Isles, and the Americas. Hinduism The religious beliefs and practices of the people of the Indus River valley go back thousands of years. There is not a central Hindu church or supreme leader, but rather an extremely diverse range of religious pursuits that revolve around a shared set of teachings, rituals, and divine beings. The earliest sacred texts, the Vedas, included spells, charms, and incantations to ward off evil spirits, such as those that attack people in their sleep and dreams (such as pregnant women, whose wombs are frequent targets of malevolent demons). Another major source of Hindu spirituality are the texts known as the Upanishads (Olivelle, 1996), written many centuries ago by mystics who explored the furthest reaches of meditative consciousness. Their writings about awareness in sleep are perhaps the earliest active efforts to explore the realm of what we today call lucid dreaming, although Hindus regarded lucidity not as something to dwell on but as a means to a higher end. According to the Upanishads, there are four states of being: waking, dreaming, deep dreamless sleep, and ultimate self-realization. Lucid dreaming marks a potential transition from the second to the third state. For ordinary Hindus who are not specialists in meditation, there are numerous sacred stories and tales that offer spiritual guidance. For example, the epic myths known as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana form an important part of Hindu religious life even today, as countless people over the centuries have told, retold, and acted out these ancient stories of gods, demons, and heroes. Looking at all the strands of Hinduism, from the Vedas up to the present, it is clear that certain dreams are believed to originate from the gods, but most dreams are believed to be natural products of the human mind. This is an important point found in all religions: a recognition that dreams can have different sources, some of which are more spiritually meaningful, and others that are more trivial and mundane. For Hindus, the spiritually meaningful dreams included those that conveyed the powers of prophetic warning, medical diagnosis, divine guidance, mystical enlightenment, and the heralding of new birth. Hindus also see dangerous or negative functions in dreaming—sleep is a time of vulnerability to attack by malevolent spiritual forces. Dreaming has many practical values for Hindus in daily life, but

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the mystical teachings of the Upanishads encourage people to look past the illusions of their dreams to achieve a higher state of awareness that transcends both waking and dreaming. Buddhism The Buddhist tradition grew out of Hinduism; spread east into China, Tibet, Japan, and other Asian lands; and developed into a powerful system of mental self-awareness that is almost more like a psychology than a religion. The story of Buddhism is the story of the enlightenment of a Hindu prince, Siddhartha Gautama, who was born in 563 BCE and was raised in a splendid palace, where he was shielded from the cruel realities of the world. When, at the age of 29, he went outside the palace for the first time and encountered illness, old age, suffering, and death, he resolved to renounce all attachments to the world and seek the truth. He finally achieved enlightenment and became an awakened one, that is, a Buddha. After his death, his teachings provided the path for later generations to give up their worldly attachments and seek the truth as he did. Dreams played a crucial role in his life story. His mother, Queen Maya, had a powerful dream of a heavenly elephant on the night she conceived her son. The night before he left the palace and renounced his previous life, his wife had a terrible nightmare that the world was ending. His final night of meditating before reaching enlightenment was like an extended nightmare, with relentless attacks by demons, and once he defeated them, he became enlightened as the dawn of a new day began. Later Buddhist teachings developed into three broad schools of thought: Therevada, Mahayana, and Tantrayana. In each of these schools, dreaming has been both dismissed as meaningless illusion and venerated as a harbinger of new spiritual teachings. Ordinary dreams are considered distractions from higher consciousness, but it is possible to cultivate new levels of awareness through dreaming. Several Buddhist practitioners, including Naropa, Milarepa, and many others in the Tibetan lineage, have used dreaming as an arena in which to extend one’s conscious range and insight. Dreaming in this way functions as a special kind of meditation in sleep. Buddhists tend to pay less attention to dream interpretation than other religions. Rather than examining what dreams mean, Buddhists seek to create greater awareness within the dream state as a major step on the religious path toward ultimate enlightenment. Judaism Several thousand years ago, humans began the practice of agriculture in the fertile valley lands between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, in present-day Iraq. These early farmers developed methods of cultivating food that enabled the growth of large cities-states, which began a violent competition for territory. Several mighty civilizations rose, dominated, and then fell—the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Egyptians, among others. The Jewish faith began when a small

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band of people followed a man named Abram (later called Abraham) in his quest for a safe place to settle and raise his family. Abram told his followers about the visions and auditory revelations he had received from the god Yahweh, in which a future of great prosperity was promised for all of them. Some of these divine visions and revelations came to him during sleep in his dreams, and at one level this would not have been a strange or surprising claim to his followers. All of the other civilizations and religions of this area believed that the gods could speak to humans in their dreams. But at another level, Abram’s claim was very surprising because he was an ordinary man having such dreams. In the other great cultures of Mesopotamia, the gods only spoke in dreams to important people like kings, generals, and priests. The God of Abram was willing to speak in dreams to normal people, too. The Hebrew Bible (which Christians refer to as the Old Testament) includes numerous references to dreams functioning in exactly this way, as a broadly accessible medium of divine-human communication. In the book of Genesis, Jacob has a powerful dream of a ladder spanning heaven and earth, and Joseph has an inspiring dream of his future as a leader of his people. Joseph and Daniel (in the Book of Daniel) serve as wise dream interpreters whose abilities to discern the meanings of dreams derive from their faith in God. Dreams in the Hebrew Bible can be warnings, as with Job in the Book of Job, or they can offer a blessing, as with Solomon in 1 Kings. However, several passages in the Hebrew Bible warn people not to be naïve in accepting anything people claim based on a dream. The prophets Moses, Jeremiah, and Zechariah all emphasize that interpreting dreams is difficult; not all dreams are heaven sent; and people can easily become deceived and misled by their dreams. Judaism thus advocates both an open receptivity to divine dreams for all people and a skeptical wariness of dreams as potentially deceptive fancies that can lead people away from God. Christianity The Christian faith tradition, currently the largest in the world, originated in the ministry of a Jewish prophet and healer named Jesus, who lived in an area of the eastern Mediterranean (present-day Israel) under the control of the Roman Empire. As reported in the Book of Matthew in the New Testament, the birth of Jesus was a miraculous event heralded by several dreams that warned his parents of threats against them and their new child. Dreams also served as divine guides for the missionary Paul in his travels to convert people to the new faith. The Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament, presents a horrifying vision of apocalypse that many Christians over the centuries have found resonates with their dreams and nightmares. In the first few centuries of the tradition, Christians were fairly open to dreams as a source of divine guidance and insight. Theologians such as Tertullian, Origen, and Synesius argued that dreaming was a legitimate means for Christians to relate to God. However, other theologians, such as Augustine and Jerome, warned that

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dreams could be deceptive, especially around issues of sexual desire and temptation. Later Christian theologians emphasized this concern about sexual seduction in dreams, and over time the authorities of the church focused more on the dangers of demonic dreaming than the benefits of heaven-sent revelations. This has not stopped Christian laypeople from looking to their dreams for prophecy, healing, inspiration, and reassurance, just like the Bible describes the dreams of other faithful people from the past. Indeed, many Christian mystics, such as Julian of Norwich and Emmanuel Swedenborg, had powerful dream visions that brought them into intimate connection with the divine. Although most Christian authorities remain wary of dreams, many groups and congregations have continued to explore the religious legacy of dreaming that goes back to the very beginning of the life of Jesus. Islam In the early seventh century CE, a man named Muhammad went into a cave on Mount Hira, in present-day Saudi Arabia, to pray. He and his people had learned a great deal from the Jewish and Christian prophets, but they yearned for their own special connection to God. During his time in this cave, Muhammad received, whether in a dream or vision is unclear, a simple command: “Recite!” The angel Gabriel appeared and compelled him to begin writing a text of God’s commands and teachings. The result of this process, the Koran, is the holy text of the religion of Islam, and like the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, it includes several important references to dreams as divine messages and warnings. In the hadiths, or sayings, of the Prophet (which are separate from the Koran but are considered very important by Muslims), Muhammad asks his followers to tell him their dreams each morning to see if anyone has received a significant message from God. As Islam grew into an international faith, the study of dreams became an important topic of study for Muslim philosophers and theologians. The writings of the great dream interpreter Ibn Sirin became the model for dream books that explain how to connect images in people’s dreams with specific verses from the Koran. Muslims were just as aware as Jews and Christians about the potentially deceptive qualities of dreaming, and theologians warned people about demonic dreams sent to seduce people and lead them astray. But this skepticism has always been tempered with an appreciation for the religious benefits of dreaming, as taught by Muhammad himself. Indeed, Muslims believe a dream of Muhammad is always a true dream, as the Devil cannot take the shape of the Prophet. Modern-day Muslims still practice a method of dream incubation called istikhara, in which they pray for a dream that will give them God’s guidance about an important choice or decision in waking life. Other Cultures Along with the Paleolithic shamanic practices, these are the five religious traditions that have most often been regarded as global religions. But, of course, there are

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many other religious and spiritual traditions around the world with a high degree of interest in dreaming. For example, the Australian Aborigines have a founding myth about the “Dream-Time” in which the world itself was created in the primordial dreaming of their ancestors. In their personal dreams, the Aborigines can reconnect with those ancestors and their powerful sources of creativity. Many Native American cultures practiced a ritual known as the “vision quest” or “dream fast,” in which an adolescent would go out into the wilderness alone and pray for a dream of a spirit guide. These dreams became an anchor of the adolescent’s emerging adult identity, and the lifelong relationship with the spirit guide provided a steady stream of dream-influenced cultural innovation. T YPES OF DREAMING The second way to approach this topic is to look at the recurrent types of dreaming that appear most frequently in religious and spiritual contexts that offer important clues to understanding the perennial value of dreams for religion. Dreaming of the Dead The existential fact of death means that humans in all places and times have pondered the mysteries of what happens when someone dies. An important part of this process is the cross-cultural phenomenon of visitation dreams, which have been reported throughout history in cultures all over the world. In this type of dream, the individual has an extraordinarily powerful and vivid encounter with the figure of a dead person. Many people describe their visitation dreams as so vivid and realistic that it seems the person was really there, as fully present as he or she ever was in waking life. In the face of such profoundly memorable experiences, questions naturally arise about the source and significance of such dreams. Where do they come from? What do they mean? How should people respond to them? Most of the world’s religions have answered that the spirits or souls of the dead are capable of returning in the dreams of the living, although they can only appear in a limited and temporary form. This type of dream is actually a vital part of many religious traditions, where a visitation from a deceased loved one is the single most common and direct means by which ordinary people can connect with sacred powers and realities. Especially in cultures where respect and veneration for the ancestors is a highly valued moral principle, these kinds of dreams provide an arena for maintaining a meaningful connection with people whose physical bodies are gone but whose spiritual essence remains. A famous example from classical Greek mythology is the dream of the hero Achilles, after his friend Patroklos has been killed in battle. The dream is described in Homer’s epic poem The Iliad, and it portrays Patroklos visiting Achilles during sleep to deliver a message of anger and disappointment for Achilles’s failure to properly mourn his slain friend. In the dream, Achilles promises to perform all the necessary funeral rites and then asks his friend for one last embrace. But Patroklos cannot stay: “The spirit went underground, like a vapour, with a thin cry, and

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Achilles started awake, staring, and drove his hands together, and spoke, and his words were sorrowful: ‘Oh, wonder! Even in the house of Hades there is left something, a soul and an image, but there is no real heart of life in it” (Iliad, Book 23). Among the Greeks, visitation dreams provided a primary source of information about the realm of death and the future fate of those who have passed away from this life. This is true among virtually every other religious tradition in the world, and one does not have to believe in an afterlife to appreciate the profound impact these dreams have had on people during times of intense grief and mourning. Dreaming of Divine Births Many women have powerful dreams about pregnancy, childbirth, and bringing new life into the world. These dreams are grounded in the biological process of procreation, but they often soar into spiritual dimensions of meaning and significance. Some religious traditions tell stories of divine births heralded by dreams. One of these has already been mentioned briefly, in the Christian teachings about the birth of Jesus. The Book of Matthew describes how Joseph is told in a dream that his soon-to-be wife, Mary, will give birth to the Son of God: “An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 2:20–21) After the baby’s birth, Joseph has several additional dreams in which God guides his family away from the dangerous King Herod and ultimately to the safety of the town of Nazareth. These passages in the Book of Matthew presuppose that the early Christians would have been comfortable with the ideas that dreaming can be a source of divine revelation and helpful guidance in times of danger. In theological terms, these dreams help connect the spiritual teachings of the Jewish tradition with the new message of the Christian faith. Just as the Old Testament shows God offering guidance via dreams to his chosen people, the New Testament shows God offering guidance via dreams to the parents of Jesus as they bring the founder of a new religion into being. Buddhism also has a story of divine birth at its center. The mother of Siddartha Gautama was Queen Maya, a young Hindu woman of supreme virtue. One night while she slept, she was visited in a dream by a magnificent white elephant, whose trunk touched her on the stomach. This was the moment of conception of the child who would one day grow to become the Buddha, the savior of the world. This dream has been widely told throughout the history of Buddhism, suggesting it carries an important spiritual message about the creative power of dreaming, especially around the process of birth. A fascination with dreams and birth is also evident in the Buddhist-influenced culture of Korea. Even today, Korean people avidly seek to experience a special kind of prebirth dream, taemong, which is considered a revelation of a child’s future character, personality, and fortunes. The

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spiritual belief in such dreams reflects a deep apprehension of the powers of life that emerge in human dreaming experience. Prophetic Dreams One of the most widespread types of spiritual dream experience is the prophetic dream, one that gives a glimpse of the future. Whether attributed to the gods, to the travels of the dreamer’s soul, or to some other supernatural force, there is a nearly universal belief that dreams can reveal aspects of the future. The warning dreams of Jesus’s father, Joseph, have already been mentioned, and Muhammad described two dreams in the Koran that foretold victory in battle. The medieval Jewish mystical text, the Zohar, speaks of dreams as a primal source of anticipatory visions of the future, in harmony with God’s messages to the prophets described in the Bible. Among the Azande people of Central Africa, dreams are treated as oracles that can reveal hidden things, with varying degrees of clarity, depending on how severe a danger may be looming in the future (e.g., a natural illness, an attack of witchcraft). Among the native people of the island of Tikopia, in the South Pacific, dreams serve as a valuable source of insight into future events related to urgent concerns about birth, sickness, death, and success or failure in fishing. A legend is told about the great Chinese sage Confucius and a dream he experienced about sitting between two pillars with sacrificial offerings around him; he interpreted the dream as foretelling the funeral rites to honor his death, and seven days later, he did in fact die. Every religious tradition has its own beliefs and teachings about such dreams. A key element in nearly all cases is the strong emotional concerns at the core of the prophetic dreams. People usually have anticipatory, predictive dreams in relation to events or activities that concern the dreamer in a direct and personally meaningful way. Pregnancy and childbirth are high among these concerns, and so are suffering, death, and the afterlife. In many cultures, prophetic dreams center on conflicts, battles, and wars, especially in the face of a sudden encounter with an unknown enemy. Prophetic dreams also revolve around basic matters of survival, such as the weather, farming, hunting, and fishing. A common theme in all these examples is that the situation is beyond direct control of the individual; there is high uncertainty combined with high significance, and as a result, people look to their dreams for possible insights of divine guidance, warning, and reassurance about what the future will bring. Conversion Dreams The transformative power of dreaming has often led people to adopt a new religious faith or to switch from one tradition to another, perhaps none more significant than the Roman military leader Constantine, for example. The night before a decisive battle in the early fourth century CE, Constantine had a dream of Christ appearing to him and showing him a cross of light that would protect him against his enemies. The next day, Constantine’s troops won the battle, and when he became emperor, he gave thanks to the dream by converting to Christianity and making it the official religion of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic tradition, dreams have

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been a source of conversion among various people in Africa and South Asia, whose native beliefs about dreams can easily be connected to similar themes in Muslim teachings about dreams. When the people hear about the teachings of Muhammad, and then Muhammad appears in a dream, they gain an experiential understanding of the meaning of his faith. In this way, religiously powerful dreams become a bridge across which people from different cultural backgrounds can communicate, learn about each other, and potentially adopt as a new spiritual worldview. The occurrence of conversion dreams seems most likely when a community is experiencing unusual stress or conflict. For many indigenous cultures around the world, this kind of stress has occurred when colonizing forces suddenly arrive to impose, often violently, a new military and religious regime. In such conditions, powerful dreams can arise that become a transformational source of religious guidance, consolation, and encouragement for people who are suffering a profound cultural crisis. In some cases, this led to greater resistance against the colonizing forces, as with such Native American leaders as Black Elk and Smohalla, whose dreams and visions gave their people a renewed commitment to their traditional spiritual beliefs. In other cases, it led to a kind of compromise or syncretistic religious approach, combining elements of the old and the new faiths. This occurred in various parts of Africa, where Christian teachings from the Bible were absorbed into local traditions to form “independent churches” that included dream sharing and interpretation as central features of their worship practices. Spiritual mergers like this have not always pleased the missionaries, who would prefer that indigenous beliefs about the ancestors be abandoned. But for the besieged people, trying to make sense of a radical and mostly negative shift in the welfare of their community, these kinds of religious dream practices became an invaluable resource for navigating through the present crisis to a more favorable future. Philosophical Wonder The world’s religious traditions have also looked to dreaming as the origin of what might be called “philosophical wonder,” meaning an experience of deep insight that is startling and decentering, yet also awe-inspiring and transformative. An early example in the Western tradition comes from the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, whose method of questioning people’s most basic assumptions often led to moments of surprise and wonder. In the dialogue known as Theaetetus, Socrates asks the young man of the title how he can know for sure whether he is truly awake or actually asleep and dreaming. After a series of skeptical questions, Theaetetus admits he cannot be certain he is either awake or dreaming, and he feels dizzy with the wonder of it. Socrates is very pleased, and he tells the young man he has taken a meaningful step toward the truth: “This sense of wonder is the mark of a philosopher. Philosophy indeed has no other origin” (Plato, 860). The classic Chinese version of this dream theme appears in Zhuang Zi’s Daoist mystical text the “Inner Chapters,” which presents the famous “butterfly dream”: “Long ago, a certain Zhuang Zi dreamed he was a butterfly—a butterfly fluttering

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here and there on a whim, happy and carefree, knowing nothing of Zhuang Zi. Then all of a sudden he woke up to find that he was, beyond all doubt, Zhuang Zi. Who knows if it was Zhuang Zi dreaming a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming Zhuang Zi?” A dream of philosophical wonder occurred to one of the great patriarchs of the Bible. All three of the Abrahamic religious traditions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—venerate the God who led Abraham and his people out of danger to safety. Abraham’s grandson Jacob, frightened for his life, had fled into the desert and dreamed of a ladder spanning heaven and earth, with the angels of God ascending and descending it. God told Jacob that the future would be prosperous for him and his descendants because God would stay with them and protect them. When Jacob awoke from the dream, he reacted with amazement and wonder: “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it . . . this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28). All of these examples are from literary and mythic sources, but they reflect an awareness of the open-ended possibilities that are truly latent in everyone’s dreams. At their best, religious traditions celebrate these potentials and welcome a wider embrace of the divine in all its manifestations. CONCLUSION The world’s religions disagree about many things—how to pray, where to worship, what to eat, who may marry whom, why there is suffering, and so on. But one thing the world’s religions agree on is the importance of dreams as a vital source of connection between the human and divine realms. It may help, in conclusion, to highlight some of the key themes found in most religions regarding their views of dreams: • Experts and ordinary people: Most traditions recognize some who have a special skill in the spiritual exploration of dreaming but also that ordinary people can have religiously significant dreams, although in some there is conflict as experts try to limit or control the access of ordinary people to spiritual dreaming. • Natural and supernatural: Almost all traditions recognize that most dreams come from ordinary, natural sources, but a few extraordinary dreams are usually attributed to the activities of supernatural beings and forces. • Individual and collective: In many traditions, an individual’s dream can be interpreted as significant for the larger social group. Rather than opposition, these traditions generate a dynamic relationship between the personal and communal dimensions of dreaming. • Power and danger: To many religions, the great danger of dreaming is the difficulty distinguishing between truly spiritual dreams and dreams that are merely nonsense from the brain or, worse, temptations from evil spirits—thus, they to try limit access to dreaming. Even those that enthusiastically welcome the spiritual benefits fear the potential dangers of a deep exploration, and thus they teach special rituals and practices to guide people safely through the process.

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METAPHORIC PRESENCE IN SPIRITUAL DREAMS Melinda Powell

THE “HARDY QUESTION” In the 1970s, Sir Alister Hardy (1966), seeking to reconcile evolutionary theory and human spirituality, argued for the development of a “scientific natural theology” by collecting data to build a more comprehensive knowledge of people’s spiritual experiences. To collect such data, he advertised what became known as “the Hardy Question”: “Have you ever experienced a presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday self ?” Hardy invited people to contribute personal accounts of spiritual or religious experiences to the Religious Experience Research Unit (RERC) in Manchester College, Oxford, receiving over 6,000 submissions. One woman contributed this life-saving dream: During a period of awful mental and physical suffering a few years ago, I called in despair to God to help me. I then dreamt that I was travelling through space—the earth rotating on its axis before me—the stars all around me. I experienced within the dream a feeling of most wonderful peace and when I awakened I was both mentally and physically refreshed and my problems were given a different perspective. I had contemplated suicide. I have had many dreams which have restored my mental and spiritual balance. (RERC Account 000786)

Analyses of the Hardy Archive Dreams In his book The Spiritual Nature of Man, Hardy (1979) outlined a classification system for the first 3,000 accounts in the archive, noting that spiritual or religious experiences in dreams appeared on average 88 times per 1,000. Hardy listed “Dreams” as one of 12 main categories of experience appearing in the archival material, but he did not analyze the dream accounts. Nonetheless, he observed, “Of the importance of dreams to many individuals concerned as a channel for religious experience, there seems to be no doubt” (1979). In conjunction with what is now the Religious Experience Research Center (RERC) at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Lampeter, United Kingdom, this author has reviewed the first 1,000 archival accounts and found that 51 provide dream narratives sufficiently detailed to warrant further analysis. Interpretive Frameworks Dreams in the RERC selection could be described within the taxonomies of other dream studies. For example, a survey of “extraordinary dreams” (Krippner, Bogzaran, & de Carvalho, 2002; also see Chapter 11) focuses on dreams that “appear to create new experiences.” The 51 RERC dreams include 10 of the 12

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listed categories: creative, lucid, out-of-body, healing, telepathic, clairvoyant, precognitive, initiation, visitation, and spiritual dreams. The selected RERC dreams also share characteristics apparent in the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) collection Dreams That Change Our Lives (Hoss & Gongloff, 2016), namely, “a sense of spiritual or divine presence, lucid intervention; genetic or ancestral influences, forces that appear to transcend space and time or simply the natural creative, healing and adaptive learning process of the dreaming brain.” (Hoss, 2016). Of the RERC respondents in this review, 94 percent recount positive cognitive or affective change occurring in relation to a dream (e.g., from struggle to peace, confusion to a sense of knowing, feeling lost to feeling guided, moving from a problem to a solution, fear of death to acceptance). In an analysis of 73 dreams set in contemporary miracle stories, Anne-Marie Korte (2015) identifies 10 categories, of which 8 appear in the 51 RERC dreams: miraculous rescue, special sign of guidance, contact with a deceased person, forecast or premonition, miraculous healing, miraculous fulfilment of urgent wish, apparition, and contact with “other reality.” Korte observes that many of the 73 dreams in her study have a “non-religious frame of reference.” She proposes that “the personally meaningful dream functions as a parallel to the experience of miraculous intervention that many miracle stories relate. . . . The dream itself becomes experienced as a wondrous intervention— although not explicitly identified as such.” Of the 51 RERC dreams, although 86 percent of the respondents identified themselves as “Christian,” only 16 percent of the dreams feature symbols associated with classic Christian iconography. Spiritual or religious experiences in dreams appear not to be dependent on religious frameworks for their structure or understanding. How, then, is the spiritual or religious nature of the dream manifested and experienced? REEVALUATING TERMS: “RELIGIOUS” AND “SPIRITUALIT Y ” Despite the lack of religious iconography found in this study, the dreams nev­ ertheless connote the original meaning of the word religious, which stems from the Latin root re-ligare, meaning “to bond, join, bridge, put back together again,” capacities the Jungian analyst Robert Johnson (1991) calls “sacred faculties.” “There is,” Johnson explains, “no such thing as a religious act or list of characteristics. There can only be a religious insight that bridges or heals.” Spirituality broadly refers to “the meaning, purpose and values in people’s lives” (Aponte, 1998). Transpersonal psychology recognizes “experiences in which the sense of identity or self extends beyond (trans) the individual or personal to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, psyche or cosmos” (Walsh & Vaughan, 1993), a sense that “we belong to more than ourselves” (Powell, 2017). DREAM AS METAPHOR Viewing dream metaphors as primarily explanatory and revealing of memory patterns connected to emotional states, Ernst Hartmann observed, “When a dream

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is fully structured—a true dream—its structure can be understood not only as pictures in motion, but usually as metaphor in motion” (see Chapters 12 and 14). Metaphors also provide bridges between analogical categories, between abstract thinking and subjective feelings, and between the symbolic portrayal of phenomenal forms and spiritual values—giving the dreamer an experiential encounter with their inner life (Hamilton, 2014). Writing on the nature of metaphor as it relates to children’s cognition as the foundation of spirituality, Shellie Levine (1999) argues that a child’s use of “metaphoric truth” has the same validity as the traditional “cognition of truth,” in which truth is understood as a correspondence between thought, thing, and behavior. Stephen Pepper (1948) used the term “root metaphors” to identify organizing metaphors shaping differing worldviews or scientific paradigms. Kelly Bulkeley, who understands dreams “as a primary source of root metaphor” (Bulkeley, 1994), identifies root metaphors found in individual dreams and concepts of dreaming. In Kelley’s view, root metaphors provide what “has always been lacking in the study of the religious or spiritual dimension of dreams: a clear, sound well-developed notion of religious meaning.” The findings described here not only explore the metaphoric content of individual dreams reported as spiritual or religious by the dreamer, but they also reveal how one overarching metaphor—that of presence—operates across a collection of such dreams. The Dream as Metaphor in Spiritual Experience Huston Smith suggests that the Christian cross expresses analogical processes involved in creating religious meaning. He describes the vertical axis of the cross as the axis mundi, the axial point of the world, which intersects all planes of existence, and the horizontal axis as the space-time continuum. Where the two planes intersect, there arises an experience of (1) the union of complements and (2) the resolution of opposites. “Existentially, then,” Smith notes, “the cross’s center represents the point where complements unite and opposites are resolved. Ontologically it is the ‘here and now’ from which time and space protrude” (Smith, 1992). The following dream account illustrates this analogical process: I was being swept along in a broad, swirling river towards the open sea. It was a wild stormy day, with dark rain clouds racing along overhead, and the trees on the banks of the river were being tossed hither and thither in the wind which blew over the face of the waters. I must perish in such turbulence. As I was being swept along I heard a quiet voice saying, “Take hold of the rope,” and beside me in the water I saw lying the end of a strong rope. “Hold it firmly, but easily,” said the voice. I took hold of it in the way I had been told, and imperceptibly the raging waters became calm—or I quiet in their midst. I looked again at the rope and saw that it was no longer an end that I held; it stretched before me and behind me and I knew that I only needed to hold it in this way to be taken to the sea. I knew too that it had been there all the time. I was no longer afraid, and the waters that had before seemed so hostile, sweeping me to the sea against my will, now seemed friendly. (RERC Account 000128)

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The respondent adds: “I awoke from this dream to feel that I had discovered the key to all life—the whole secret of being.” This dream as metaphor allows the dreamer to know experientially qualities of spirituality. The dreaming mind itself acts as the center point, a fulcrum where the concrete metaphor (the rope) and its metaphoric nature (the source of comfort and connection to “being”) unite to create a sense of presence. Metaphoric Presence “The Hardy question” specifically asks people to share experiences of a presence or power—whether called God or not—that differs from their everyday self. Hardy’s own analysis of the archival material identifies on average only 202 accounts per 1,000 as demonstrating a sense of presence, which he includes under the general category of “cognitive and affective elements” (such as “feeling of love, affection,” “sense of purpose behind events,” etc.). However, the researcher in this study has chosen to view the cognitive and affective elements described by Hardy as contributing to the quality of presence. On this basis, 96 percent of the 51 dreams involve a sense of presence. Metaphors of Presence The following five subsets and percentage breakdowns can be distinguished in the 51 RERC dream accounts under analysis: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Auditory phenomena: 8% Concrete phenomena having extraordinary properties: 12% Ideal personifications of human spiritual potential: 12% Abstract phenomena: 30% Human personifications of transcendent reality: 33% Other: 5%

In the first subset, auditory phenomena, dreamers report hearing an unforgettable voice with little or no reference to a dream setting or context. For instance, one respondent wrote, “Whilst asleep one night, I heard a solemn, drone-like voice which said, ‘Come with me’” (RERC Account 000678). The second subset involves concrete phenomena having extraordinary properties. This includes metaphors of presence symbolized by objects, such as a rope, book, or flowers in an unusual context and with unusual properties. The term “hierophany,” coined by Mircea Eliade (1957), designates “the act of manifestation of the sacred” in which ordinary objects of the “profane world,” such as trees and stones become, “something of a wholly different order” (p. 11). In this subset, “profane” forms carry a strong cognitive or affective quality: guidance, knowledge, a sense of help, encouragement, love, and so on. The dream in which the respondent took hold of a rope exemplifies this category (RERC Account 000128). Another respondent describes a dream in which she read a book “about the nature of reality” (RERC Account 000928).

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The third subset involves personifications of human spiritual potential through an ideal being. This may take the form of a famous person or a divine being— religious or non-religious—or an unknown being with powerful cognitive or affective qualities. Henry Corbin (1969) uses the word “theophany” for the imaginative apprehension of a spiritual being in physical form. The following dream describes such an experience: I saw in my dream a famous poet—Ghalib. He is an Indian poet of great fame and his poetry in Urdu has great depth and beauty. . . . He came and recited a poem of his. . . . I am writing them down with their general translation in English. Translated [from Urdu] literally it means: The string or reed that has not played the music for a very long time. . . . Let us bring it to life and by its music, let the whole world be brightened and as if, brought to life. (RERC Account 000008)

This dreamer, a scientist, reports that after the dream, he became a recognized poet. The fourth subset features abstract representations, such as light, space, a vortex, or a void, that communicate powerful cognitive or affective qualities. The opening dream of this chapter wherein a woman views the earth from space exemplifies this category (RERC Account 000786). Here is a further example: I was one with eternally pulsing light. . . . Nor was I by any means alone: I was communicating with infinite wisdom, not as an individual but as an entity; this wisdom was in me and flowed through me and yet was also outside me. I had no need for companionship because I was, in a sense, companionship. I seemed to be part of some mighty essence, some ultimate, unknowable reality. (RERC Account 000266)

Another respondent simply said of the light in her dreams, “It smiles” (RERC Account 000166). The fifth and largest subset, “human personification of transcendent reality,” involves a close friend or relative who is deceased or who, shortly after the dream, becomes injured or dies. In such dreams, the metaphoric presence develops from the dreamer’s recognition—either in the dream or after waking—of a dislocation in ordinary space-time, attributed to a nontemporal, transcendent dimension. For example, one respondent reports that his dream presaged his cousin’s tragic suicide (RERC Account 000782). The following dream account illustrates a personification of “the next world”: I remember feeling strongly that there was religious significance in a dream. . . . It was that those of my relatives who had passed on before me, including one who was and is actually alive, seemed to be in a room in a house in which I had just entered and in which I was feeling rather strange. The relative who is still alive seemed to sense my feelings. She seemed, as she came out to me, so happy, and she said to me, “They’re all sitting at table in there.” . . . I have more than once had a dream in which relatives who had passed on seemed to be preparing a place for me. (RERC Account 000151)

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Another respondent, who dreamed of her deceased husband, wrote, “It is always with the same wonderful feeling of love and security that he generated in life. I always awaken with an awareness that I have actually been with him” (RERC Account 000687). In each subset, the organizing metaphor of presence serves a religious function, enabling the dreamer to experience deeply human qualities, values, purposes, and meanings, the subjective qualities of spirituality. RECEP TIVIT Y AND REFLECTIVE AWARENESS IN DREAMS In the dreams under review, the dreamers align themselves with the metaphoric element of presence, demonstrating varying degrees of reflective awareness and cognition by making a choice within the dream (Kahan & LaBerge, 1996). For example, in RERC Account 000128, when a quiet voice asks the dreamer to take hold of the rope, she chooses to do “as she is told” and feels calmed. Similarly, in dreams resulting in positive cognitive/affective outcomes, the dreamer harmonizes with the manifestation of presence through a demonstration of receptivity in a number of ways, for example, following dream guidance, allowing themselves to be carried or transported, listening to a message, accepting an invitation, overcoming fear, or, as shown in the following lucid dream, maintaining the capacity to remain open to the transcendent presence: I was sitting at the foot of a long dinner table after a meal. On my left, at the end of the left side, was . . . a man, aged about 40. I knew I was dreaming. . . . I asked my companion whether he was a figment of my imagination, the creation of my own mind. . . . My companion made no answer, but I felt a firm and friendly hand in my right hand, and looking to the side, saw the hand extend to a robed arm, which disappeared into cloud. . . . I quickly fell on my knees and bent over the hand in awe and reverence. (RERC Account 000465)

The dreamer’s capacity for reflective awareness deepens the relational and existential reality of the metaphoric experience of presence. In contrast, in the few cases wherein the dreamer resists the element of presence or cannot overcome their fear, the dream narrative lacks a positive resolution, an experience that apparently has negative effects on the dreamer’s well-being. Yet, because of their powerful affect, such dreams, whether for good or ill, are experienced by the respondents as spiritual. CONCLUSION This preliminary investigation suggests that an analysis of the root metaphor of presence across a collection of dreams experienced as spiritual or religious provides an understanding of what makes such dreams meaningful for the dreamer. Whether the sense of presence appears in an ordinary or extraordinary way, in a religious or nonreligious context, such dreams provide a deeply felt spiritual value and generally prove to be a positive, life-changing experience.

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Psychospiritual Transformation: Light, Color, and Symmetry Nigel Hamilton

Have you ever had a dream in which you were struck by the presence of light? Do you remember dreams in which the colors were so luminously vivid that you can still recall the images and their impact on you? Or have you ever puzzled over the meaning of a dream object or form that was particularly striking in its beauty and symmetry? The narrative and symbolic meaning of dreams is important on a psychological level, but the colors and light in dream images are of particular significance in a psychospiritual transformation process—in awakening our hidden, inner potential. A primary sign that the “awakening” process is underway is the marked increase of color and light in dreams and, in particular, the quality of that color and light—its luminosity and radiance. It defies adequate description by the dreamer because it comes from a deeper, much subtler source. The experience of light and color in dreams is archetypal and transcendental. Light phenomena can have a profound impact on the dreamer and, if worked with in the waking state, over time, can lead to a significant shift in consciousness and an opening of the psyche to spirit. The psychospiritual transformation process accelerates as the shadows of our negative impressions and scripts clear. Light, which was hidden, is unveiled, transforming and bathing the dream images in light. This discovery emerged from research into the role of dreams in transformation carried out between 1998 and 2005 (Hamilton, 2006) that tracked the changes in consciousness of subjects as the process unfolded. The research also revealed that the increase in color and light, and color combinations, correlated with increased symmetry in the dream imagery—a measure not only of positive change in the psychological development of the dreamer but also of the transformation of the psyche. The symmetry emerged at key points in the process of balancing the polarized and undeveloped aspects of the psyche in the progression toward wholeness. Symmetry shows itself in dreams through the balance, harmony, and beauty of the images—their colors and forms—and in the balance of the elements, actions, or directions of the dream imagery or narrative. So, for example, if a conscious aspect of the dreamer’s psyche is represented by something or somewhere located in the north in a dream, the dreamer may find themselves moving, or being drawn toward, a more southerly direction in dreams—symbolizing something of the dreamer’s inner world that is relatively unexplored and somewhat unconscious. In making this movement from north to south, the polarity represented by these directional positions is balanced. This directional balancing in dreams (as in north, south, east, and west; up, down; above, below; left, right; in, out) leads, ultimately, to symmetry in the psyche ( Jung, 2010). Symmetry is created in dreams through directional balancing; in the appearance of numbers and geometric forms, for example, three children, a cube-shaped gift, or a circular pond, which reflect the development and emergence of something

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fundamental in the dreamer’s psyche; and in the combining of color pairings that symbolize the balancing of different psychic elements. It was evident from the dream research that contrasting or opposite colors not only often appear in dream images in pairs (e.g., black-white, red-green), but that the number of color pairs seemed to increase markedly as the dreamer progresses with their psychospiritual transformation. Reflecting on this, there seemed to be a similarity between the growth, through pairings, of molecules, cells, crystals, and other organic structures, and this phenomenon of the increase in color pairings in the development of symmetrical images in dreams. Could these color pairings and the increase in colors and light in dreams be signs of a new self, a new psychic structure, being formed—signified by the emergence of colorful, symmetrical images? As in nature, growth, and life itself, is dependent on light. It would seem from the research that the same applies to psychic growth, where the emergence of light in dreams presents as a frequency spectrum of steadily increasing color and light, looking and behaving like a radiation spectrum of physical light. In other words, the light of the inner world and the outer light of the external world mirror each other. In science, symmetry is regarded as natural and fundamental. In all organic life processes, symmetry develops through the pairing of opposite elements. This is precisely what happens in dreams when psychological and spiritual transformation is taking place in the dreamer. In this way, we can see transformation in our psyche (and dream life) as a living, natural, organic process, like any other we find in nature. It seems from the research (Hamilton, 2006) that, in the evolution of symmetry in dreams, something is actually being constructed in the psyche. The awakened self is being made with the building blocks of the subtle archetypes held in the dream— “shaped energies,” as Jung called them ( Jung, 2013)—just as physical cells are made up of the building blocks of DNA. Something fundamental is being born into the psyche through these separate, seemingly unrelated dream images, which are, in fact, linked by this purpose. The completion of each developmental step is heralded by a perfectly symmetrical and richly beautiful image. Beauty is, perhaps, the ultimate sign of a creation completed. In mathematics, it is the profound simplicity and elegance of an idea expressed as an equation. In art, it is the beauty of a vision expressed as a painting. In dreams, it is the manifestation of the beauty of the spiritual archetype being expressed consciously through the symmetrical dream image. The presence of beauty indicates that something essential has emerged in form and is fully present. A CASE STUDY The case example that follows, one of many presented in the original research study, illustrates the emergence of light, colors, and symmetrical dream images in the transformation process as a result of the interplay of psychic forces. It is illustrated graphically in Figure 24.1. Anne had attended bimonthly seminars on dreamwork and asked to have her dreams reviewed. She had recently ended her therapy of five years when her Jungian analyst declared, after a series of significant

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spiritual dreams, that he could not take her any further. In seeking a deeper way into her dreams, she activated a major psychospiritual transformation process. Over 1,000 recorded dreams followed and described the stages of her spiritual awakening, culminating in a series of profound mystical experiences. The analysis presented here is a highly condensed summary of the first two cycles of her process for the purposes of illustration. Dream Cycle 1: November 1999 to End of February 2000 Anne’s process begins with a dream of her animus figure, a “famous writer”—a mental aspect that cuts her off from deeper feelings. When he is being photographed, he looks stiff, uncomfortable, and ugly. When he smiles, he looks beautiful. The writer wants to die (to be transformed), and Anne, because she loves him, tries to help him. The writer is wearing a yellow blanket during his suicide attempt. Following this, her dreams show how the suppressed aspect (the heart) learns to love and embrace the male figure (the persecuting, rational mind). This reconciliation facilitates the descent to a deeper and most precious part of her nature, previously unconscious—her suppressed spirit. This is illustrated by a dream in early January 2000. Anne descends into a salt mine to discover a beautiful blue painting of a vest made of golden wool in which there are three shining diamonds. Gold and blue is the first color combination (see the peak in January 2000, Figure 24.1). The gold reappears in her second dream cycle and throughout her process, symbolizing, alchemically, the perfection of matter. On January 16, she dreams of a celebration out in nature, wearing a shining green dress. In contrast with her animus figure, she now feels comfortable and allows a more natural photograph to be taken of her. It seems possible that the qualities symbolized by the subtle blue painting and the earthy yellow blanket of the first dream have combined, resulting in the shining green dress that Anne wears—a symbol of the earthy and the spiritual in her. Green is considered a sign of life force and spirit in dreams (Hamilton, 2014). By mid-February, she dreams of a deceased spiritual guide and teacher, who prescribes a remedy of rose-colored and white flower essences to clear her headache (the grip of the mind). The red (or any color), when combined with white, is infused with, and purified by, light (Hamilton, 2014). At the end of February, she dreams of a baby being baptized in a church. The product of the reconciliation of opposites thus far is a dream child—a new, more conscious aspect of her soul nature. There is a light shining behind her. A second dream followed on the same night. Anne is married, wearing a fire-red gown under a white wedding dress. This color pairing of white and red, and the beautiful, symmetrical image of the gown, symbolizes the coming together of masculine and feminine—the first big step toward redressing the imbalance of rational, conscious mind and feelings. It is heralded by the presence of a shining light. In Figure 24.1, the light in cycle 1 increases toward cycle 2 and peaks on February 28. The process was reflected in Anne’s professional life—she gave up her career as a lecturer in literature, finding it somewhat “heady” and meaningless.

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Figure 24.1. Anne’s Dream Imagery, Color, and Light in the Transformation Case Study.

In terms of directional movements in the dreams, a remarkable balancing out took place. Anne descends into the salt mine in early January (letting go of the conscious mind), ascends a castle’s spiral staircase in mid-February, and descends a spiral staircase on her wedding day (February 28). Ann recorded three motions going to the front and three going backward (in separate dreams). She went to the right on four separate occasions, and to the left four times during this cycle. She traveled south twice and north twice, suggesting that these opposing movements were balancing out the one-sidedness of her psyche (and the dominance of head over heart), while also, crucially, facilitating the flow of spirit energy traveling in a spiral (the staircase) up and down from the base center to the crown center. These balancing and symmetrical movements seemed to be linked to the combining of opposite colors in the dream cycle. This is illustrated in Figure 24.1. Dream Cycle 2: March to December 2000 The next two symmetrical symbols occur on May 26 and July 15, 2000 (see Figure 24.1). In the first dream, Anne encounters a huge, 10-story black and white

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cubic building. This symmetrical image is rich with meaning. The levels of the building seem to indicate the subtle levels of consciousness in the dreamer, and black and white, the balancing of opposites. Jung saw the cube as a highly significant symbol of the “greater self.” The same night she has a second dream of steering a huge ship that veers too far to the left when she tries to turn it around, endangering everyone. In the waking dreamwork we did together, she imagines a bridge for everyone to use to disembark onto the shore. A woman with a white veil is standing behind her to the left—a dream guide, there to illuminate for Anne (the white is light) her need to move to the left (her feminine, receptive side). Now, Anne feels she can turn the ship around and point it in the other direction. She sets off into a feeling of lightness. In the second dream in July, there are two intertwining gold necklaces—one fine, one heavy. Here we have, not only a higher (fine) and lower (heavy) consciousness represented in the image, but also the interconnectedness and balance of the two in the symmetry of the intertwined necklaces. Anne felt that the tension between her masculine and feminine sides was resolving by this point in her life and that a new balance had been achieved. She also had a strongly felt sense of the solar plexus and heart energy centers churning. This she experiences as centering and energizing. Between July and September 2000, the directional movements in the dreams continue the balancing-out process. The cubic building and the necklaces have prepared the way for the symmetrical image that now appears in Anne’s dreams—a golden, cuboid-shaped upper tooth. In alchemy, gold symbolizes the emergence of a pure state of consciousness, untarnished by worldly thoughts. This image coincided with the peak of cycle 2. The balancing of the tension between above and below, and the horizontal energies, now culminates in the most important symmetrical image of cycle 2. A man gives a silver moon-shaped watch to Anne; she gives him a gold sun-like watch. This beautiful symmetry in the dream suggests a further stage of integration and balancing of masculine and feminine energies. (see Figure 24.1). The process of cycle 2 continues, and a second marriage takes place on October 26, 2000, with a crown of white hair (her hair is white too) and a blue wedding dress. The blue vibration, now combined with white, is infused and purified by light. Interestingly, on November 3, triangular windows on both sides of the upper floor of a hotel that she had been staying in are being installed. The house is a symbol of the psyche. The triangles suggest the transforming of the lower (heavier) energies by the finer ones above, balancing left and right in her psyche. This dream event coincides with a dip in the quantity of light and color as the prelude to a new growth surge. By December 10, the symmetrical image that appears is a blue and white scarf and white top, the colors forming two triangles, like the Zürich flag, indicating a balancing of horizontal and vertical energies. On December 16, 2000, Anne dreams of wearing a heavy red sweater with a light-blue sweater under it (an echo of the red and white wedding gown). Now red and blue are finally combining, drawing cycle 2 to a close. So far, the color

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combinations have been yellow-blue, gold-blue, red-white, black-white, silvergold, blue-white, and red-blue. In looking at Figure 24.1—a quantitative analysis of light and color across the first two cycles—it is notable that, largely, the spectrum peaks in light and color coincide with symmetrical images at points of psychic growth. (Conversely, the transit, or interval, between each distinct stage or phase sees a distinct dip in color and light.) What is also striking is the coincidence of the balancing of directional movements, the reconciliation of opposing psychic tendencies, and the appearance of symmetrical images. A qualitative analysis of light and color in the dreams revealed several phases of dreams, each characterized by a distinct sense of self. Each phase showed a corresponding peak in the frequency of color and light, as if the different aspects of Anne’s deeper nature were emerging through the process, with each progressive aspect exhibiting more of the light of her spirit than the one before. Furthermore, it became clear from the analysis that four distinct stages were present in the cycles, and that these echoed Jung’s description of the four stages of nigredo, albedo, citrinitas and rubedo in alchemy ( Jung, 2010). From November to December 1999, Anne enters nigredo as she struggles to harmonize with the male and female figures in her dreams. Only a few colors appeared. The albedo stage (December 1999 to September 2000), which involved an ascent of consciousness toward a clear or pure sense of self, shows, in contrast, steadily increasing color and light. In this stage, the biggest peak coincides with the golden cuboid tooth. The dreams continued in cycles 3 and 4 to clearly show the continued balancing out of the higher and lower energy centers, together with the balancing of right and left—masculine and feminine, thinking and feeling. At the point at which the horizontal and vertical energies reached equilibrium, mandala-like images appeared in Anne’s dreams (symbolizing wholeness), together with experiences of “light, beauty and splendor.” Finally, she dreams of a spiritual master in dreams where she moves “outside of time and space.” In looking across all the cycles of Anne’s process, in Figure 24.1, it is evident that there is a rapid increase in light and color combinations for the first few cycles but, thereafter, a tapering off, suggesting that a major shift in consciousness had taken place. While further profound spiritual experiences of light and transcendence continued in cycles 3–6, a kind of plateau was reached. The dreams became very short, simple, and clear, with little psychological interpretation needed. The dream (and waking) experiences were more mystical in nature, with the light becoming luminous and, ultimately, replacing imagery altogether. A profound psychospiritual transformation process had taken place over some six years and six dream cycles. CONCLUSION Anne’s case demonstrated the importance of tracking and focusing on the colors, light, and symmetrical motifs of the dreams consciously (in the waking state) to facilitate the unfoldment of the transformation process. Although this is not an

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exact science, the waking dream process is a powerful method of waking dreamwork, researched and developed over many years (Hamilton, 2014). By tracking the dream through the body and, simultaneously, engaging the realm of imagination consciously, the psychological, as well as the transpersonal, aspects hidden within the dream are revealed and encountered. The dream comes alive. In actively engaging with the light, color, and symmetry of our dreams, we are cooperating with the messengers of awakening and a deep, inner wisdom that seeks to be known and manifested in our conscious personalities and waking life. The work begun on the inner plane is completed in the outer world, and the one becomes a mirror of the other.

Chapter 25

DREAMS AND THE ARTS

Dreams have been a source of artistic inspiration since long before writing systems existed to document the phenomenon. Beyond a source of inspiration, the arts have also become a means of dream expression, an integral part of the dream-to-waking continuum—a healing aspect of the dreamwork itself.

Dreaming, Creativity, and Imagination Bernard Welt

Although dreams have been a source of artistic inspiration since long before writing systems existed, imagination and creativity are not concepts we find much in the ancient world. As late as the 18th century, imagination was largely conceived negatively: under the strictures of classicism. In 17th-century England, “imagination” was actually a criminal charge that could be brought for daring to conceive of harm to representatives of realm, monarch, or church. In the Age of Reason (ca. 18th century), dreaming meant hallucinating, deceiving oneself with false images. At the end of the 18th century, when old aristocratic regimes were being overthrown, new democratic and egalitarian stirrings shook up ancient ideas, and the artist could now be regarded as a person especially suited by talent and temperament to speak unspoken truths for the tribe. The English artist and writer William Blake (1757–1827) not only wrote of his dreams, but he did not shrink from letting his audience know that he learned his unique and influential style of painting in dreams as well as his innovative method of engraving. Examples of many of the most familiar tales of literary and other works arising from dreams can be found in Chapter 10. Probably the most famous of these comes in Mary Shelley’s 1831

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introduction to her novel Frankenstein. She relates how, in 1816, she competed with her soon-to-be husband, the poet Percy Shelley, and the Romantic literary hero Lord Byron to see who could write the most horrifying ghost story. She simply could not think of a theme. And then she dreamed the following: “When I placed my head on my pillow . . . I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. . . . His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious handywork, horror-stricken. He would hope that, left to itself, the slight spark of life which he had communicated would fade. . . . He sleeps; but he is awakened; he opens his eyes; behold the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening his curtains, and looking on him with yellow, watery, but speculative eyes.” I opened mine in terror. . . . “I have found it! What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.” I announced that I had thought of a story. (Shelley, 2012)

CREATIVIT Y Creating art, at least as moderns understand it, requires overcoming some internal resistance to sharing one’s inner world, with all the vulnerabilities and potential for embarrassment that implies. Those risks appear similar, if not identical, to those that come with sharing our dreams. There is no doubt that many successful and satisfying artworks in every medium have been inspired by dreams. When we consider these stories looking for common elements, we find that dream experiences that inspire creative expression or the resolution of a problem most often • Are experienced as innovative, path-breaking, surprising to the dreamer. In 81∕2 (1963), Federico Fellini offered an indelible portrait of a film director at a creative impasse, tormented by anxious dreams, until he surrenders to his persistent visions and makes his dreams the subject of his film—just as Fellini did in the movie. • Come in the form of symbolic narrative, whose key elements resolve the dreamer’s problem. For example, Elias Howe was imprisoned by hostile forces in the dream that inspired the design of the sewing machine; Mary Shelley coming face to face with a Monster of her own making; and Robert Louis Stevenson confronting his own repressed aggression and lust, dreaming the plot of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. • Appear to the dreamer to come from “elsewhere,” often through guide or narrator. Stevenson imagined “brownies” who brought him ideas for fiction; Srinivasa Ramanujan received mathematical formulas from a goddess in his dreams; and William Blake not only learned engraving from a man who appeared in his dreams, but he was also instructed in a new printing process in nighttime visions of his late brother. • May mystify the dreamer, while also seeming intuitively correct, perfect for the situation. Luis Buñuel’s dreams were ultimately structured as the record of one night’s troubled sleep in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), a film that broke new ground internationally in bringing surrealist art strategies to commercial cinema. Richard Link later used his own dreams the same way in Waking Life (2001).

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These common elements remind us that creativity is an inherent capacity of dreams, especially if we consider creativity in the sense that linguists and cultural theorists use the term: “the capacity to recombine elements from lived experience, represented in symbolic form, to introduce new elements of meaning.” Dreams have the productive capacity to produce limitless instances and variations derived from a limited set. A basic view of creativity accords with many of the most influential theories of dreams and dreaming circulating in modern scholarship: • Dreams are uniquely inspiring messages from another dimension of existence. This is, of course, most likely the oldest theory of dreaming. Setting aside the hundreds of historical and literary instances of prophecies and religious revelations reputedly sent by gods, spirits, and the dead to sleeping humans, there are still many examples of artists, writers, film directors, and the like who claim that their creative work is inspired by supernatural beings or derived from a special connection to another plane of existence. Perhaps this should not be dismissed too easily by a too-confident rationalism. Contemporary and future research on lucid as well as ordinary dreaming may yet hold surprises regarding the role in dreams of an unsuspected capacity in humans to detect dimensions beyond the reach of our accustomed senses. • Dreaming is a special form of metaphorical thinking natural to the sleeping mind. Dreaming is “creative” in the sense of proposing insights in symbolic form. Ernest Hartmann (see Chapter 12) proposed that dreams were produced when loose conceptual associations during sleeping thought, triggered by emotionally significant material, resulted in compelling metaphors. This essentially creative response to daytime preoccupations often leads the dreamer to seek expression, perhaps just by sharing the dream, perhaps by identifying a key metaphor as a personal symbol to explore in creative work.

IMAGINATION Imagination as such may be defined as the capacity to form mental representations (regarding all the senses) positing things other than as they present themselves to perception at the present moment. With the understanding that these mental pictures generally operate by metaphor and associative thinking rather than rational deliberation, dreaming may simply be considered a form of imagination that sometimes inspires creative expression but is at least a precondition for it. Or perhaps, as Michel Foucault (1986) declared in a provocative essay early in his career, imagination is a form of dreaming—dreaming being an essential state of being as a human. THE PSYCHOLOGY Freud treated the creative work of artists as symptomatic, and he insisted that dreams could not positively affect the dreamer’s life and work without the assistance of psychoanalytic interpretation. By presenting a dream of Leonardo’s as central to his understanding of the great artist’s consistent themes, Freud set a precedent for psychoanalytic criticism for the following century, analyzing a creative personality’s dreams and artworks according to the same method (Freud, 1990).

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Carl Gustav Jung, on the other hand, considered dreams as natural mechanisms of individuation—the lifelong process of becoming one’s most complete, realized Self (Chapter 15). The Jungian stance that dreams are crucial to the personality’s self-care suggests that artistic endeavors contribute to the reintegration of the psyche when the stresses of modern life have fragmented it and substituted false satisfactions for deeper, more authentic fulfillment. Jung’s own artwork, depicting his breakthrough dreams, especially in The Red Book (Chapter 15), are almost venerated as a modern revelation by many artists inspired by their example. Jackson Pollock, Federico Fellini, and Ingmar Bergman are among the many artists whose encounter with Jung’s thought transformed their work. Disturbing dreams and nightmares may be the occasion for positive creative activity. The psychologist John E. Mack (1970) presents convincing examples of spontaneous creative work in response to the terrifying material raised in nightmares, even in small children. Patrick McNamara (2008) characterizes the nightmare as a subjective experience that inspires the subject to offer something to the community—to share the dream in some form that redeems a state of fear with a socially unifying interaction, such as art, which includes, at least in nightmare dreaming, a creative impulse. Fritz Perls (2011), drawing upon existential psychology, views the nightmare as an outgrowth of actual marginal experiences—challenges to the subject’s basic view of self, forcing us to confront the limit of being, which we seek to deny. This perspective may help us to understand why nightmares feature so prominently in famous accounts of creative work. The creative nightmares are attended as much by intense anxiety as by the exhilarating feeling that some breakthrough has been forced upon the dreamer. Creative activity, when it addresses the human condition in a profound way, may respond to the same anxieties as dreams do, calling upon the artist to confront the unexamined life (as Plato called it).

Dream Artists Sheila McNellis Asato

People who self-identify as being creative have high dream recall (see Chapter 6). So it should come as no surprise that many artists instinctively tap into the vast reservoir of creative energy that dreams provide as a core part of their artistic process. What ultimately sets dream artists apart from other artists is the fact that they consciously value, honor, and invite dreams to participate in their creative process. While some artists try to depict them realistically in an illustrative fashion, others prefer to focus on the essence of a dream, amplifying it in a more abstract manner. Some create art around themes emerging from a series of dreams, while others may bring the vitality of a dream into their body before they begin working in the studio. Still others take a phenomenological approach, striving to give form to various aspects of the dream experience through art, while expressive artists

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enjoy playing with art materials in a way that mimics the movement of emotional energy throughout a dream with little or no reference to specific imagery at all. In the end, the ways in which artists integrate dreams into their work are as varied and unique as the resulting art itself. Yet, there are many commonalities in the creative process, which are true for all artists, regardless of whether they consciously welcome dreaming into their work. Before creating a work of art, an artist must have an idea, a spark of inspiration, or a feeling that provides direction for artistic exploration. Once this first inkling has presented itself, there is a period of experimentation in which the artist develops and tests out the viability of their idea. This often takes the form of rough sketches and experimentation with a variety of media. As an idea starts to grow and take on more tangible form, the focus naturally shifts to the creation of a more fully developed work of art. Once the work is finished, it is shared with others, discarded, or set aside for further exploration in the future. As with everything in the arts, there is seldom a clear-cut, direct path from an idea to a fully realized work of art. In fact, it is not at all unusual for an artist to circle back numerous times to any part of this process as new ideas emerge and challenges are faced. But with each circumambulation, forms become more stable and clear, eventually resulting in a new work of art. THE CREATIVE CYCLE OF DREAM ARTISTS Although the creative process for dream artists is complex and may appear elusive at times, it is possible to break it down into four main stages: • Dreaming: Where new ideas are born and inspiration discovered. • Amplification: Initial explorations to develop and test ideas and imagery. • Studio work: Hands-on creation of art from elements developed during the amplification stage. • Completion: Artwork is exhibited, set aside, or discarded.

This four-stage model of the creative process applies to all artists, regardless of whether or not they work with dreams. While all artists dream, those who refer to themselves as dream artists consciously attend to their dreams, cultivate specific practices to enhance their ability to recall dreams, incubate dreams around specific topics, and enrich their relationship with dreams through a variety of dreamwork practices. As a result, the dream artist already has a deep and meaningful relationship with their dreams long before they begin making art. Stage One: Dreaming Stage one is the act of dreaming. This is the place where new ideas and inspiration are born. To dream well and access imagery for creative work, dream artists have several practices in place and a knowledge base about dreaming that supports their work in the arts.

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The first skill many dream artists cultivate is the ability to sleep well and record dreams upon waking. While sleep patterns certainly change over time, artists who value dreams understand how important it is to practice good sleep habits throughout their lives, adjusting them over the years to support changing life and health circumstances, if they want to capture any dreams upon waking. The next step is to have a method for recording dreams in place before one goes to bed. In an International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) dream arts survey performed in preparation of this chapter, most artists reported keeping a written dream journal, often supplemented with sketches. A few dreamers prefer to use an audio recorder to record their dreams verbally. Although there are a wide variety of methods for recording dreams, the importance of keeping a regular dream journal is common to all dream artists. Keeping a dream journal is a significant practice, as is reviewing the dreams on a regular basis for emerging patterns, new ideas, inspiration, and clues on how to proceed with current art projects. The dream journal is the initial place where the seeds for new art are planted. In the IASD survey, artists report specific types of dreams that they find particularly useful to their creative process: • Incubated dreams: An artist sets an intention for a dream about a specific topic before going to bed. They ask the dreams for support and help in solving problems. • Guidance dreams: These are dreams that offer an answer to a creative problem, give advice on how to proceed in a project, or provide insight on what is getting in the way. • Threshold dreams: These dreams are also known as hypnogogic (while falling asleep) or hypnopompic (while awakening) dreams. Many artists report that they are able to consciously cultivate the ability to hover in these threshold states of consciousness as a way to reenter dreams, test out new ideas, play, or use as a gateway to lucid dreaming. The sense of delight with which they describe these threshold dream experiences is clear, carrying a feeling similar to the sense of play that one often encounters when watching an artist work in the studio. • Lucid dreams: These are dreams in which one is aware of the fact that they are dreaming while dreaming. • Big dreams: These are also known as life changing or spiritual dreams.

Stage Two: Amplification Once a dream has been recorded, dream artists begin to explore imagery, emerging themes, or underlying patterns through a variety of dreamwork practices. During amplification, the artist becomes familiar with the imagery and tests out ideas to see which media would best serve the dream. There is significant experimentation and play at this stage. This initial stage of amplification is often characterized by a lot of energy and emerging emotions. As images are roughly sketched out, the dream space is mapped, and various feelings given shape through marks, texture, color and repetition, ideas for a new work of art slowly become more concrete and refined. The core elements

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from which a new work of art will be composed are clarified as energy to carry forward builds. The artist begins to get a sense of what is ready for deeper exploration and could be carried into more fully developed work of art. While many delightful scribbles, prototypes, and quick paintings emerge at this stage, most of the work is unfinished and not regarded as a fully realized works of art that could go into the world on their own. The artifacts created in this part of the creative process are generally not mature enough for exhibition. Stage Three: Development The development stage often differs between professionally trained artists and those who are in still in the earlier stages of their creative development. Professional artists generally strive to take the initial explorations further and use them as the basis for creating fully realized works of art. When they start pushing the imagery past the initial amplification stage, many artists report a need to set aside the dream report so that they can “dream the dream forward.” As the work develops, the focus on a core image or theme will intensify, helping carry the work forward, to create new and original work. Compositions at this point often combine imagery from earlier explorations, simplifying and exaggerating along the way. As the artist creates a new composition with elements from previous explorations, a new painting, print, drawing, collage, or other format begins to emerge. Throughout the process, the artist might ask, “What does the dream need?” The artist will often circle back to incubate further dreams as the art progresses. Even if not consciously incubated, the dreaming self will continue to work on the issues the artist is exploring if they are emotionally relevant. As Mace and Ward (2002) state in their paper on the creative process, It is important to note that making an artwork does not involve rendering a prethought idea; rather, making an artwork involves a process of negotiation between the artist and the developing work such that movement through the stages described here are virtually seamless. The artist must manage a delicate balance among suggestions for the work, knowing the outcome of art making activities, and discovering outcomes.

This is especially true for dream artists who often work very intuitively, deeply trusting their creative process, which continues to be supported by attention to dreams. Stage Four: Completion In this stage, the work of art is brought to completion, allowing the artist to step back to survey the results. The artist may choose to share their work with others at this point, to get feedback on the work, or to decide to set the work aside for future consideration or discard it altogether. If they have developed an entire body of work that is thematically coherent, they may decide to hold an exhibition to see

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how all of the pieces work together as a whole. Once the work has been taken to resolution or the energy has dissipated, it is time to move on—to take a break, go back to sleep, and see where their dreams will take them next. CLINICAL VERSUS STUDIO ART In the IASD survey, artists also noted an important difference between dreams that are worked through the arts as part of a therapeutic relationship in a clinical setting and art that is done by an artist with the intention of sharing their vision through exhibition or other forms of public display. Although the materials and methods used are the same in both cases, there is a big difference in the intent and purpose of the work when used as a tool for enriching one’s relationship with dreams in a therapeutic setting. Work done in a therapeutic setting uses art as a means to facilitating inner work, discovery, and healing within the context of a therapeutic relationship. The resulting art is not created with an audience in mind, but rather a private, intimate experience, best done in a well-protected space. Later, the work can be used as the seed for future work to exhibit, if that is what is desired and what the dream images need. In contrast, professional artists who use dreams as part of their creative process know from the start that they are creating art with an audience in mind, and they fully intend to share it with a public audience. Therefore, it must be taken to resolution so that the artist can communicate their vision effectively with a viewer. This kind of dream-driven art must be able to live out in the world and establish its own relationship with an audience, without the artist being present to explain it. Regardless of whether dream art is created in a therapeutic setting, at home in a visual journal for personal reflection, or for exhibition by a professional artist, all of these dream artists report that including dreams as part of their creative process provides a sense of greater wholeness. In other words, true to the origin of the word healing, which means wholeness, dream art heals across the spectrum.

Photography and Dreams Richard Russo

The use of photography as a medium for dream imagery seems paradoxical at first. Photography is a recording medium; the photographic image captures patterns of light reflected by objects in the physical world. Consequently, documentary photography—the recording of objects, people, and events in the physical world— has been at the core of the medium since its inception. The dream is a subjective experience. As dreaming is not an experience of the physical world, it would seem an unlikely, if not impossible, subject matter for photography. Yet, artists working in this medium argue that it is precisely the implied verity of the photograph that gives photographic dream images their power.

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HISTORICAL OVERVIEW From the beginning, an expressive approach to image making has woven through the history of photography as an alternative to documentary photography, and this has included dream imagery. In the 1930s, the surrealists developed a style of street photography that reflected their interest in dreams and synchronistic experiences. In 1941, Bill Brandt, a British documentary photographer who had briefly been an assistant to Man Ray, published a dream sequence, “Nightwalk: A Dream Phantasy in Photographs,” in Coronet. In the 1950s and 1960s, Minor White, an influential teacher and founder of the journal Aperture, developed an approach to photography as a spiritual practice that emphasized exploring inner states by capturing their “equivalents” in the physical world. White was more concerned with ineffable states of feeling, but his approach has been applied to remembered dream experiences as well. It was in the 1960s and 1970s that dream imagery became an explicit genre in photography, through the work of such early pioneers as Jerry Uelsmann (who had studied with White), Ralph Gibson, and Arthur Tress. Uelsmann’s work was especially influential in establishing critical acceptance of a more expressive approach to the medium. Although not literally about dreams, his use of multiple enlargers to create complex, dreamlike montages offered an alternative to documentary photography by showing that powerful photographic images could be created in the darkroom. Today, these pioneering dream artists are still at work, while a new generation of photographers, heavily influenced by digital technology, has continued to use the medium to explore dream imagery. Every year, there are new exhibitions of dream-inspired photographic work, many of which can be seen on the Internet. For example, the Center for Fine Art Photography in Ft. Collins, Colorado, mounted international juried exhibitions on the theme of “Dreams” in both 2015 and 2016, and undoubtedly will continue to do so in the future. APPROACHES TO DREAM PHOTOGRAPH Y Photographers have developed different strategies for working with dream imagery. One approach is to create a dreamlike object or scene or to stage a dream reenactment, and then photograph it. For example, in the 1970s, Ralph Eugene Meatyard and Les Krims created and photographed dreamlike tableaus, an approach later used by Anders Aabel to create images from his own dreams. Arthur Tress, and later Wendy Ewald, interviewed children about their dreams and enlisted their help in staging and photographing their dream scenarios. Duane Michals stages scenes and then creates narrative sequences of photographic images that tell dreamlike stories. A second approach, perhaps the most challenging, is to find and photograph images that are “equivalent” (in White’s sense) to a dream. An example would be the work of Ralph Gibson. Gibson shoots straight photographs and then enhances the dreamy quality of his images in the darkroom through a grainy, high-contrast look.

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A third approach, at the other end of the spectrum, is to create a new dream by combining elements from several different photographs to create an image of a dream reality that never existed in the waking world. Thus, the darkroom becomes, in Uelsmann’s words, a “visual research laboratory.” Uelsmann’s complex method of creating montages with multiple enlargers has been succeeded by the digital composite, a form being explored by many contemporary photographers, including his wife, Maggie Taylor.

Music and Dreams Craig Webb

You must learn the way to follow the dream.

—Joseph Shabalala, songwriter

Dream-inspired music brought impressive success to renaissance classical composers, who tapped and acted on their muse’s gifts, and for millennia to shamanic musical dreamers from numerous indigenous cultures worldwide, who received great healing and teaching dream gifts for their tribes. Perhaps modern composers and artists who tap dreams for music, lyrics, and performing skills can be likened to creative public shamans in this big world tribe that we call our society. The book The Dreams behind the Music, (Webb, 2016) documents over 200 dream-inspired musicians, composers, producers, and others, including plenty of well-known artists who attribute dreams as a source of creative inspiration or career guidance, not only describing their dreams but also how the dreams directly impacted their music, careers, and lives. Seen together, this unique collection of individual experiences shapes an impressive picture of how dreams have played a significant role in weaving the musical, if not overall, fabric of our culture. It may come as a bit of a surprise, but there are at least 20 Grammys, and probably at least double that, as well as scores of other major awards that have been won thanks to dream-inspired works. It is hard to know the exact number, as some Grammys were won for albums or artists with dream-inspired songs; or for artists such as Dave Grohl, whose career path was set in motion by a dream; or Beyoncé, whose dream-inspired backup band Suga Mama may have contributed to some of the Grammy wins she has gathered since they joined her. There is 15-time Grammy-winner Michael Jackson, who claimed that many creative inspirations came in dreams, even though few specifics are known. And 31-time Grammywinner Sir Georg Solti won Grammys for conducting two dream-inspired works, including his most famous recording: Richard Wagner’s dream-harvested The Ring of Nibelung opera. The dreams of 25-time Grammy-winner Vladimir Horowitz were claimed to have improved his piano playing. There is the Grammy-winning 1973 audiobook, LP, and film adaptation soundtrack of Richard Bach’s dream-inspired novel Jonathan Livingston Seagull. There are many other dreamland creations that

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resulted in award nominations, including a dream for American R&B and gospel singer-songwriter Charlie Wilson by his wife, Mahin, that not only brought lyrics for Wilson’s inspirational song If I Believe that was later nominated for a Grammy but also specifically predicted the nomination. Musical icons Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, and Sting; opera composer Richard Wagner; and African singer-composer and Ladysmith Black Mambazo founder Joseph Shabalala are all documented as having been prolific at creating and sharing very successful dream-inspired music. In addition to scores of other mainstream artists, such as Roy Orbison, the Rolling Stones, U2, Johnny Cash, Taylor Swift, Drake, Lorde, Michael Jackson, Jimmy Hendrix, and Lady Gaga, numerous folk and electronic music artists, as well as composers and instrumentalists past and current, have also tapped dreams for their creations. Even the melody for the wellknown Christmas carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem” came in a dream. Describing his experience, organist Lewis H. Redner stated, “I was roused from sleep late in the night hearing an angel-strain whispering in my ear, and seizing a piece of music paper, I jotted down the treble of the tune as we now have it, and on Sunday morning before going to church I filled in the harmony.” A few dream-inspired composer examples among many include Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Igor Stravinsky, and French composer Frédéric Chopin. Some artists had their life path radically changed, literally overnight, by dreaming about their new musical calling, such as a revelatory vision dream by seventhcentury Anglo-Saxon singer-poet Cædmon (who was a simple sheepherder until the dream led him into a new calling); a career-sparking dream during high school by rock musician Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana); the dream that seeded classical composer Giuseppi Tartini’s best-known work and later led to the violin school he created; and modern-day surgeon and now pianist Tony Cicoria, whose musical muse came calling shortly after he was struck by lightning. Even African musical dreamer-shaman Joseph Shabalala might have never met collaborator Paul Simon or reached international acclaim had he and his group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, not overcome concerns thanks to a crucial career-guidance dream that encouraged them to accept an important album recording contract in Johannesburg. There are also fascinating accounts of music-related life-and-death warning dreams, such as Canadian folk composer and CBC radio host Clary Croft’s song “Black Sails” about a powerful warning dream that both saved a man from death by shipwreck and, unheeded by others, cost them their lives. A very similar scenario and dream is linked with the deaths of the Lynyrd Skynyrd band and crew members. John Lennon had dreams that seem to have foretold his murder, and artist Patti Smith seems to have had a premonition that predicted Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones’s tragic drowning. There are also a number of songs and tours by well-known artists, such as Stevie Wonder, Ziggy Marley, the Barenaked Ladies, David Bowie, Florence and the Machine, and classical composers Gustav Mahler, Robert Schumann, and Anton Bruckner, among others, that were inspired by dream visitations from deceased loved ones or colleagues. Both Stevie Ray Vaughan and Duane Allman were paid

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dream visits by the late rocker and dream-inspired songwriter Jimi Hendrix, who they report brought them performing and songwriting tips from “the other side.” Jazz-blues legend Dr. John also recorded an entire 13-song album of Louis Armstrong songs because the late Armstrong (also a dream-inspired artist) appeared in a dream and encouraged him to do so. Virtuoso pianist Olga Kern was helped in a dream by deceased master pianist Rachmaninoff to win an important piano competition that lifted her budding career to international success. Famed Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and master dream analyst Carl Jung even spoke about the transformational power of universal musical archetypes and music therapy to help clients heal psychological problems. “I can only draw your attention to the fact that music represents the movement, development and transformation of motifs of the collective unconscious,” stated Jung. “In Wagner, this is very clear and also in Beethoven, but one finds it equally in Kunst der Fuge [by Johann Sebastian Bach].” Jung invited San Francisco music therapist and pianist Margaret Tilly to visit him at his home near Zürich. He was so impressed by the power of musical motifs to affect his emotions that he exclaimed to Tilly, This opens up whole new avenues of research I’ve never dreamed of. Because of what you showed me this afternoon—not just what you’ve said but what I have actually felt and experienced—I feel that from now on music should be an essential part of every analysis. This reaches the deep archetypal material that we can only sometimes reach in our analytical work with patients. This is most remarkable.” (Tilly, 1956) Music should be an essential part of every analysis.

—Carl Jung

THE DREAMING MUSE According to French Israeli ethnomusicologist Simha Arom, all music is “an act of creation that actualizes intention.” It can be surprisingly valuable then when the initial inspiration for a waking intention and action arises from deep levels of our being, such as when we remember and then act on a dream. As humans, we have free will, so we can live in alignment with the natural process of insight and creative expression—or not. It is quite possible to block the process unknowingly, via hidden limiting beliefs, fears, or habits. And while few people consciously resist the process and most artists happily embrace it, one example of conscious blocking is classical composer Hector Berlioz for what seemed at the time to be understandable reasons, but which may in retrospect have been an unfortunate acquiescence to a voice of fear that limited his creative expression and success. One study of 5,000 dreams shows that less than 1.5 percent of dream reports mention sound or music. Another 2005 study shows that musical dreams are twice as common for musicians and that about half of all music dreamed is original to the dreamer.

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Musical dreamers report varying ease of recall when it comes to dream melodies as compared to dream imagery, feelings, or plot. Research suggests that recall of music lasts longer than other elements of the dream, which has also been my experience. Psychiatrist and frequent musical dreamer Heinz Prokop reported that, for him, “The musical element was almost always far stronger than the visual element of the dream.” American cognitive scientist and psychologist Roger Shepard, father of the fascinating audio illusion called the Shepard Scale, reported a number of musical dreams, describing the instruments and sounds that he heard with crystal detail and specificity. Other artists, such as Sir Arthur Sullivan or Shawn Colvin, report dreamed music as being tougher to remember. French composer Vincent d’Indy often awoke from musical dreams, yet he recalled them only vaguely and had to focus intensely to capture even a few measures. Conversely, music prodigy Mozart’s remarkable “hearing it allat-once” musical imagining process is an especially interesting case of extremely clear recall of inner musical perception. From research, the majority of musical dreamers seem to remember more of their dreamed music near the moment of waking rather than experiencing it as an intrinsic part of the dream, as though it were coming on a separate channel of information than the imagery of the dream. This interesting subjective separation seems to be supported by recent brain research evidence suggesting that music may well be processed by specialized neural networks in the brain that are distinct from those for processing other cognitive functions, including even speech and the recognition of nonmusical sounds. (Peretz & Hyde, 2003) Although both sides of the brain process sound, the distinction between perception of sounds, speech, and music extends even to the ears, with research showing that “the left ear is better at perceiving vocal nonverbal sounds, such as hummed melodies, laughing, and crying; the right ear is better at perceiving verbal sounds.” SYNESTHESIA A fair number of well-known musical artists have auditory-visual synesthesia, a somewhat dreamlike experience of “seeing” sound or music as colors. A few, among many others, include dream-inspired artists Billy Joel, Beyoncé, Pharrel Williams, Lorde, Lady Gaga, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, ColdPlay’s front man Chris Martin, Eddie Van Halen, Kanye West, Tori Amos, and composers Beethoven, Richard Wagner, György Ligeti, Franz Liszt, and Shirish Korde. Pop artist John Mayer even describes his experience quite bluntly as “melody is color.” HELP FROM THE DECEASED In a number of dream-inspired songs, some artists report that they have received creative help from the deceased, a process apparently honored by Train lead singer Pat Monahan when he thanked his late mother in his Grammy-winning acceptance speech. David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, and many other artists speak of late parents, siblings, and grandparents appearing in the dreams that inspired their creations.

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As those we are close to in life are often glad to contribute to our well-being and success, it does not seem too surprising that a similar process continues after they graduate from earth (i.e., after they pass on). The duration of recalled melodies is generally about 10–30 seconds, a duration that may be due to a short-term brain mechanism called echoic memory. Shorter musical “ideas” can become a song chorus or hook or theme, similar to how guitarist Keith Richards dreamed the guitar hook for the song that became the Rolling Stones’ first international number one hit, “Satisfaction.” Once one begins crafting a dreamed sound bite into a larger piece, other elements of the composition may come in another dream. This point demonstrates an important principle whereby the “dream weaver” part of us that produces creative inspiration dreams seems more likely to do so to help along our creation process once we have made a commitment to work on the song (or other artistic work) in question. That is to say, such subsequent dream inspirations generally come only after action has been taken and time has been spent developing the initial inspiration. It is as though the muse at first goes on a date with us to learn whether we are open to the greater relationship that can bring additional creative flashes and joy, yet which also requires the greater commitment of actively completing and then publicly sharing the creative work. People vary in their reports of how much of the music they dream is original. Some only remember dreaming of known music, and other musical dreamers cannot recall ever having dreamed music that they recognize. Dream melodies and musical motifs can return days, weeks, months, and perhaps even years later, just like dream characters, symbols, and plot themes do. One interesting case of a returning musical dream inspiration, as you will soon learn, was reported by popular artist Billy Joel, who redreamed the melody for “Just the Way You Are” while dozing two weeks after he originally awoke with it in the middle of the night. MUSIC AND LUCID DREAMING The audio aspect of a dream can also sometimes stimulate lucidity, which is to say, it can help you recognize during a dream that you are dreaming. A Stanford University research team that the author was part of helped bring lucid dreaming into the mainstream because the experience can be life changing and can powerfully enhance the various benefits dreams offer. In lucid dreams, the dreamer’s waking mind can, to varying degrees, interact with the dream in real time. Sound and unusual audio effects can even trigger lucidity. One example of sound-triggered lucidity is an interesting dream by the author where the awareness dawned during the dream that the voices of the other characters were lagging a few moments after their lips moved, much like a poorly edited film. This oddity encouraged the dreamer to look at his hands to check whether he was dreaming. Surprisingly, his “hands” looked fuzzy and wavy (as they sometimes do in dreams), and the dreamer realized that he was indeed dreaming.

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While becoming lucid (conscious) during a dream is often exhilarating, it can also be helpful for dreaming creatively, as demonstrated by the following lucid dream: A lively instrumental musical phrase is playing repeatedly. I become lucid and listen closely to memorize the tune so I can record it when I awaken. One or two instruments suddenly go quiet so that I hear the pizzicato strings much more distinctly. Then about 5 white horizontal lines appear in what looks like a musical staff, yet each line also seems to correspond with an instrumental track since some lines disappear in the middle for the tracks that are “switched off.” I mentally “choose” just to hear piano—then only the piano track is playing. I am intrigued and do the same with the drums, which then play alone, continuing the lively beat. I like that I can focus on individual tracks, just like with my music software in waking life. I am unsure about remembering all the details when I awaken, but I am enjoying the process, and it seems like a great “dream skill” to develop. (Craig Webb, Montreal, 2015)

Perhaps the “inner light” that composes dream images and the “inner sounds” that form dream music are both perceptual translations of a single underlying energy. Perhaps some source energy, whatever it is, can be perceived as visual dream images and symbols from one perspective and dream music or sounds from another, just like the flip sides of a coin, although appearing different, are simply impressions of, and both composed from, the coin’s metal. This point is reflected in the following dream: As I watch, these yellow plastic curled petals morph into curly red and gold Christmas ribbon tassels. I become aware of this pretty musical phrase playing that I seem to know I have created at some other time. As I very slowly begin to awaken, rather than the music being a soundtrack separate from the dream imagery, it seems as though the lovely notes actually are the pretty-colored ribbon, yet simply perceived in a different way. What makes us feel drawn to music is that our whole being is music: our mind and body, the nature in which we live, the nature which has made us, all that is beneath and around us, it is all music. —Hazrat Inayat Khan (Sufi master)

CONCLUSION In summary, dreams are without doubt a powerful tool for inspiring artistic creations and also guiding us toward the goals and vision we have for our waking lives. Although, most of the ways they can directly benefit us is available to anyone who chooses to track and explore their dreams, dream skills such as creative dreaming, lucidity, psi dreaming accuracy, and other such subtle talents can also be developed and learned, even dreaming of music, as demonstrated by seven out of eight students in one of my courses who experienced one or more musical dreams the first night they intended to have one.

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Dreams and Literary Narrative Bernard Welt

In all societies, in every era, literary dream narratives both reflect and communicate prevailing beliefs about the nature and function of dreams. Interpreting literary dreams according to our own personal, cultural, or theoretical assumptions can offer provocative insights, but real understanding of literary dreams depends first of all on awareness of their originating cultural context. In the literature of the ancient world, dreams generally indicate the dreamer’s special relation to the divine. Divinely inspired dreams mark the life crises of the hero in one of the oldest extant texts in world literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, from ancient Sumer (ca. 1800–1700 BCE). As in most epic literature around the world, the appearance of dreams reinforces the origin of all the story’s actions in an inevitable divine order. In the Hebrew Bible, dreams also signify the deity’s special favor, as when the patriarch Jacob’s covenant with the Lord is affirmed in dreams (Genesis 28 and 32). But it is his son Joseph who proves to be the model of the gifted dreamer in biblical literature—becoming the archetypal dream interpreter and winning his freedom, and ultimately high office in Egypt, because he alone can decipher dreams to foretell events (Genesis 37, 41). Centuries later, the Book of Daniel, with its hero who also achieves high status in exile through interpreting a foreign monarch’s dreams, demonstrates the enduring prestige of dreams in the ancient Near East. In the classics of ancient Greece, the appearance of dreams does not serve merely to reinforce the moral order, but to question it. In the Iliad, Zeus sends a deliberately misleading prophetic dream to Agamemnon, prompting doubts that lead to disaster. In the Odyssey, Penelope rejects a stranger’s interpretation of her dream— unaware that he is her long-lost husband, Odysseus, in disguise—but acts upon it anyway, whereupon it turns out to be true. In Greek tragedy, dreams and their contexts are similarly nuanced and complex. Clytemnestra dreams of a serpent in Aeschylus’s Libation Bearers and of a tree in Sophocles’s Electra, indicating that the queen’s own son will be the agent of her impending death, but also intensifying the psychological state of the doomed queen—with Freudian implications that the contemporary reader cannot miss (see Devereux, 1976). In the classical literature of India, as the distinguished authority Wendy Doniger (formerly O’Flaherty) argues at length in Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities, dreams in both Hindu and Buddhist texts serve to propose an epistemology that challenges Western readers’ assumptions about the nature of reality. Typical motifs include the dream shared between two characters (sometimes strangers to each other), nested dreams, and dreams suggesting the contingency of identity (such as dreams of switching gender or of living a whole life as another person). In Doniger’s view, these dream motifs encourage the reader to recognize that the world perceived by our senses is not ultimately real, and even that the dream, and the text, are legitimately worlds in themselves (O’Flaherty, 1986). While there is

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a parallel in Western philosophy in Descartes’s dream-inspired skepticism of the senses, such metaphysical play with dreams does not appear in Western literature until the 20th century. (Consider, for instance, Jorge Luis Borges’s modern classic The Circular Ruins, in which the focal character cannot discern whether he is dreamed or dreamer.) The heavenly dream visions of medieval Christian literature feature the selection of the dreaming protagonist as the special beneficiary of a guide, or hypnopomp, who provides a view of heaven or another sacred realm as well as a spiritual lesson, couched in complex allegories. A few instances of sacred dream visions belong to the world’s greatest literature: The Dream of the Rood (9th century CE), Piers Plowman (ca. 1370), and above all, Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (ca. 1320) (where only the Purgatorio is presented explicitly as a dream). The 14th century, however, also saw dream visions elaborating upon the secular fascinations of courtly love, influenced by Guilllaume de Loris and Jean de Meun’s Romance of the Rose (ca. 1230–1275) and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Book of the Duchess, House of Fame, Parliament of Fowls (ca. 1374–1386), among others. (See Kruger, 1992.) Marjorie Garber explains in Dream in Shakespeare how William Shakespeare introduces dreams to examine the conscience of characters in Richard III, to heighten suspense and focus themes in Julius Caesar, to elucidate a theory of imagination in Romeo and Juliet, and ultimately to explore the capacity of human beings to change for the good in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Garber, 1974). The plays of Shakespeare usher in a new era in the use of dreams in literature as means of exploring ideas and character far beyond the supernatural associations and plot devices of earlier texts. The same might be said for the most remarkable dream literature of 18thcentury China. Cao Xueqin’s The Dream of the Red Chamber (ca. 1750) employs both a dream frame tale and characters’ dreams to signify the impermanence of human achievement and the mutability of fortune. Similarly, Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (ca. 1740) features many dream tales that invoke a world of spirits, but the allusions to folk beliefs are nostalgic, not naïve, employing the device of fable to smuggle in subversive commentary on divisions of class, wealth, and family status. During the same century, European writers also turned to dreams, ghost stories, and folktales during the Enlightenment—a deliberate shift of focus from rationalism to the irrational as a valid aspect of human experience. In Germany, macabre tales, especially those of E. Hoffmann, whose celebrated short story “The Sandman” seems literally a descent into nightmare, heralded the new sensibility of Romanticism (the prominence of dream themes in Romantic poetry is discussed later in this chapter). In Great Britain, Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1765) and Ann Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) set the tone for dozens of Gothic novels, whose dreamlike atmospheres were often distilled in nightmare sequences vital to plot and mood. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the preeminent example, as described earlier. The influence of the Gothic was huge, especially on writers of tales of terror and fantasy, such as Edgar Allan Poe and, later, Robert Louis Stevenson and H. P. Lovecraft—all of whom not only derived plots from dreams but

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also related characters’ dreams for psychological depth and deliberately cultivated a confusion of dream and reality in their fiction. The pioneering writers Charlotte Brontë, in Jane Eyre (1847), and her sister Emily Brontë, in Wuthering Heights (1847), provided the pattern for the modern psychological novel by delving into their protagonists’ hidden fears and fantasies, presenting them in riveting dream accounts. Thus, their works harken back to ancient views of dreams as supernaturally inspired and premonitory, but notably look forward, too, to Freud’s and Jung’s conceptions of the unconscious mind as revealed in dreams. In 19th-century realist novels, such as Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1856) and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1878), dreams conjure a parallel existence for protagonists who feel trapped in the conventions of bourgeois society. (In a much darker vein, dreams provide Winston Smith’s only escape from the totalitarian society of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).) In Feodor Dostoevsky’s works, especially the extraordinary short story “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” (1877), dreams express deeper truths that characters do not recognize in their waking lives. This incursion of dream into realism is evident in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843), whose protagonist’s whole worldview is profoundly changed by the dreams of a single night. Lewis Carroll took up the device of the dream journey in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1871). The modern fairy tale, with a brave and inquisitive child as hero, and fantastic elements naturalized by a dream setting became the classic model for “children’s literature”— with the emphasis on literature. In opposition to the Victorian ideal of the silent and obedient child, dream narratives in modern children’s literature celebrate the power of fantasy. The best-known instance is L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). Of special note are the American cartoonist Winsor McCay’s lengthy series Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905–1914; 1924–1926), of the child hero in the land of dreams, and Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are (1963) and In the Night Kitchen (1970). One of the most beautiful versions occurs in the form of an opera, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (1925)—a classic expression of the now-familiar theme of the protagonist who learns compassion and humility in a dream. The literature of science fiction and fantasy has employed dream narrative to present visions of another world, whether better or worse than the one we share in waking life, generally with pointed lessons to teach. In this respect, the genre descends directly from the medieval dream vision, with its concern for moral order. The protagonist in Richard Matheson’s What Dreams May Come (1978) literally enters a dreamworld—like Dante, following his beloved—as does the heroine of Yasutaka Tsutsui’s Paprika (1993). Dream narrative has been employed to communicate new scientific concepts, beginning with Johannes Kepler’s Somnium in 1608, which envisions the earth as viewed from the moon, and including Alan Lightman’s much admired Einstein’s Dreams (1992), which teaches relativity through fictional dreams. Dreams erupt into reality in The Lathe of Heaven (1971) by Ursula K. LeGuin and The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You by Dorothy Bryant (1971). In several of Philip K. Dick’s landmark sci-fi novels, characters navigate

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between alternate realities, implicitly or explicitly identified as dream states; the same is true for Jeff Noon’s Vurt (1983). Dreams show us every night how we create our perceptions of the world as much as we receive them. Thus, the dream has emerged as a vital topic in literary postmodernism—a term that generally signifies preoccupation with the capacities of texts and sign systems rather than a descriptive relation to external reality. In the 21st century, realism or verisimilitude—lifelikeness—has given way to a liberation of imagination that owes much to the Modernist experimentation with the representation of dreams, as in the Nighttown section of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) and Virginia Woolf ’s Night and Day (1919), and even more to the surrealism of the early 20th century. Although surrealists such as André Breton and Giorgio De Chirico were inspired by Freud’s exploration of dreams, their work omitted the notion that dreams should be interpreted, or required to “make sense,” and instead celebrated the freedom from all convention granted by profound irrationality. Randomness, seemingly unmotivated spatial and temporal shifts, metamorphoses of character and setting—these mystifying aspects of dreams were for the surrealists the truth of how human experience of the world actually works, in contrast to the neatly resolved puzzles of psychoanalytic rationalization. Celebrated contemporary works, such as Kathy Acker’s Blood and Guts in High School (1984), Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams (2011), Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1995), and The Unconsoled (1995) by Kazuo Ishiguro (2017 Nobel Prize laureate), carry on this tradition, engaging readers in dream chronicles they refuse to naturalize or explain. Contemporary literature has also embraced the mixture of genres and the elevation of mass and commercial forms. Two of the most significant literary works focused on dreams and dreaming appeared in the popular form of the graphic novel. Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? (2012) relates the author’s history with different analysts and cogently explains key psychological theories through commentary on 12 of her own dreams. Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, a graphic novel series executed with a variety of artists from 1989 to 1996, is perhaps the most ambitious and fully realized work of dream literature in modern times, integrating elements of the mythology of many cultures and the dreamworks of noted authors into the fantasy realm of its tragic hero, Dream of the Endless. Excerpts from the dream journals of a number of modern writers have been published as remarkable literary works in their own right, notably those of Graham Greene, Marguerite Yourcenar, Georges Perec, Naguib Mahfouz, Franz Kafka, Jack Kerouac, and Vladimir Nabokov. In Writers Dreaming, Naomi Epel collected enlightening statements on dreaming by contemporary authors, including Isabel Allende, Charles Johnson, Stephen King, and Bharati Mikherjee. Many writers, notably Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, H. G. Wells, and Colson Whitehead, have described how dreams inspired celebrated works of creative fiction; some examples are discussed earlier in this chapter and by Barrett in Chapter 10. Of course, two of the most important texts ever written on the subject of dreaming, Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900 (Chapter 15) and C. G. Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections in 1962 (Chapter 15), are both masterpieces in the integration of reflection upon dreams with frank personal memoir, often

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recognized for literary style as well as contributions to thought, and thus indispensable works of literature themselves.

Graphic Novels and Dreams Jeremy Taylor

The proliferation of widely available, increasingly inexpensive electronic photocopying equipment, plus the ability to send out written and visual material over the Internet to many recipients simultaneously, has placed the means of production and distribution of comic strips into the hands of just about every person on the planet (with the possible exception of those without access to the Internet or electricity). Many artists (as well as many people who do not even self-identify as being “artists”) have been inspired by this state of affairs to create their own sequential graphic stories. Of particular interest in the context of this chapter are the growing numbers of people creating graphic renditions of their most intriguing and compelling dreams remembered from sleep. THE GRAPHIC ARTISTS Rick Veitch is an indefatigable creator of long-running dream-themed comic books, particularly his series Rare Bit Fiends, which has been appearing, sporadically and continuously, since 1979. As you may have guessed, the title is a conscious homage to Winsor McCay’s immensely popular American newspaper dreamcomic strip Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend, which ran in syndication in Hearst newspapers from 1904 to 1925. Rick V. has said on several occasions, “The comic strip is the best way to render the dynamic, visual/verbal, time-slipping experience of a dream into easily accessible and shareable form.” All over the world, dreamers—particularly younger dreamers—have figured this out for themselves and are publishing and distributing their own “dream comix” electronically. As these self-published “zines” (magazines usually produced by amateurs, for fans of a particular group, or as a form of entertainment) find wider and wider audiences, many of the author/illustrators are republishing edited collections of these comic strip dream narratives, distributing these collections as what are now known more fashionably as “graphic novels.” Another example of such a zine was Bug City Comics, apparently written, drawn, and published by Leah Ryan and Moira Gentry (although these may be pen names) in the mid-1990s. The “bug” in Bug City is a shorthand term for “insect,” which in itself was used to represent an almost rhyme between “insect” and “incest” (a “klang” association where words are connected by sound instead of by meaning). Bug City Comics recounts in raw, vivid, poignant, sardonically selfaware language and quickly sketched, iconically clear images depicting the interior dilemmas, pains, and confusions of incest survivors as they struggle to “make

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it”—“one way or another”—in a world where their feelings, recurrent traumatic memories, and current experiences are profoundly ignored, censored, rejected, and tabooed. Many of these individually created and produced “underground” zines give touching, moving, and evocative shape to a wide and deep variety of “minority,” nonstandard views and experiences—bringing them to wider audiences more vividly and compellingly than more formal and traditional exclusively written narratives appear to have been able to do. These technological innovations in inexpensive mass communication have led to a profound democratization of “mass” visual media. Over the same period, these technological developments in electronic graphic communication have been paralleled by dramatic technological advances in the scientific study of human brain activity, perception, and consciousness itself. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, some of which have involved laboratory subjects reading single-panel cartoons and multipaneled comic strips, have offered evidence that the process of perusing a comic strip, and absorbing the multiple levels of visual and verbal information it offers, also activates and stimulates both the visual and verbal areas of the cerebral cortex simultaneously— to a degree noticeably greater than produced by either reading printed words alone or looking at pictures alone. The confirmation that this simultaneous visual/verbal stimulation across brain hemispheres while absorbing the intertwined verbal/visual meanings and implications of the basic form of “comics” parallels the experience of dreaming itself— blending as it does multiple influences, implications, and levels of meaning in “a single glance.” These studies offer support to Rick Veitch’s intuitive/experiential observation about the value and advantages of rendering dream memories in comic strip/graphic novel form. THE GRAPHIC ART OF JEREMY TAYLOR Over the years, this author has come to the conclusion that deeper knowledge and understanding of, and insight into, the true instinctive nature and healing, growth-and-wholeness-promoting function of the dreams we remember from sleep is far too important to limit its dissemination just to readers of scholarly books, journals, and other occasional publications with no pictures. For that reason, I have been doing much of my most serious work over the past few years in the form of graphic novels, in the hopes of reaching larger and more diverse audiences than I have yet been able to reach with my more conventionally published, all-text work. Although at first glance the dream depicted in Figure 25.1 may not appear to be classically lucid, it is in fact a lucid dream. The thoughts and sentiments articulated by the “rat” in the last panel are actually thoughts, feelings, and intuitions of the “disembodied observer” aspect of the dreamer’s own consciousness, which come to the fore in the dream itself and persist in developing further in the subsequent process of awakening. They are emotions and ideas that force themselves on the

Figure 25.1. “Tunnel, Bear, Crash” by Jeremy Taylor.

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dreamer’s awareness in the dream, and they focus on the simultaneous personal and collective psychospiritual growth that are given dramatic symbolic shape in the dream. The events experienced in the dream point to the dreamer’s personal development and also to the process of collective human evolution. There is a strong suggestion that these are complimentary processes are equally “driven” by unconscious energies mutually influencing (and perhaps even mutually dependent upon) each other. These intuitive understandings begin to be understood and articulated in the dream. These trains of thought and intuition, which began in the dream, persisted into waking self-awareness as I awoke (which is one of the reasons I chose to explore the dream further by rendering it into evocative, accurate sequential comic strip form). The word “dream” is used sparingly in the original dream record, but the remembered understanding, initially present in the dream itself, is that the vivid, compelling experience is much more important and understandable as a gripping, distressing, and above all attention-grabbing moment. This understanding is born within the dream itself as a conscious understanding that it is also a symbolic event, rather than just the seemingly frightening and distressing physical experience it first appears to be. In this way, the vivid experiential impact of the dream is not lost in calm, lucid contemplation of its being “just a dream,” nor does its intensity of the sensations and emotions overwhelm the consciousness of the dreamer in the dream, blinding me to its deeper implications with the fear and distress. Intense, gripping fear and imaginative curiosity exist together in something like equal parts and become part of the whole experience/memory of the event, leading directly to the deeper understanding that it is all “real and important” and not “just a dream.” It retains its full, gripping “gut feelings” and emotional impact, while simultaneously opening into a deeper intuitive understanding of at least some of its more profound implications, all before awakening. For these reasons, categorizing this dream as prelucid is to fail to recognize the health and wholeness, which it serves as a deeper and more involving, heartfelt, and thus even more profoundly lucid experience. More fully awake, the memory of the dream provokes the thought that unless our deep shared survival instincts—to procreate on the one hand and extend our individual lives as far as possible on the other—are themselves helped to evolve collectively, the species as a whole is, alas, less and less likely to survive. My experience working with dreams—both my own and the dreams of others, for more than 50 years—leads me to believe that it is moments like the one described in Figure 25.1, when our individual psychospiritual lives and survival instincts mirror, parallel, and coincide with the more collective survival instincts of the species as a whole, that are likely to be noted in our dreams, and they mark the most likely venues for those collective instinctive drives themselves to develop, evolve, and mature.

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My interest in comics and graphic novels, particularly in the independent, underground zines that creative dreamers are inspired to produce, is that they may indeed have their own roles to play in supporting, reflecting, and promoting the development of new and expanded awareness upon which our individual and collective survival at least appear to depend.

Dreams and Poetry Betsy Davids

Dreams have had a widespread presence in poetry from the earliest times. Near the transition from oral to written poetry, we notice many prophetic dreams in which significant events are foretold, often in symbolic images that call for interpretation. These big dreams had a prominent place in mythic narrative poems, such as the Sumerian The Descent of Inanna, and epic poems, such as the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey of ancient Greece, the Sumerian Gilgamesh, and the Mahabharata of ancient India. Another major dream category that made an early appearance in poetry is the epiphany dream, in which a divinity appears, sometimes in disguise. The early Greek lyric poet Sappho, for example, composed a poem to tell Aphrodite of a dream conversation with her (Carson, 2002). The poet-saint Sundarar composed a sacred song in Old Tamil to praise the shrine where he dreamed his god Siva, first as an old man and then as a boy (thevaaram.org, 2013). As in much later dream poetry, the heightened language of poetry serves to memorialize personal dream experience. During the many centuries when poetry (i.e., metered verse) was the principal medium for written discourse or narrative of all kinds, a medieval poetic form known as dream vision developed, in which lengthy exposition of ideas and teachings, often allegorical, would be presented within a fictional dream. The poet narrates a dream journey in which a dreamer character meets teachers, learns something, and is initiated or empowered. In the 13th century Old French Roman de la Rose, by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, the dreamer learns courtly love. In The House of Fame, by 14th-century poet Geoffrey Chaucer, the dreamer learns about fame and infamy, rumor and hearsay, lies and truth. The dream frame serves to loosen the reader’s expectations and allows free exploration of new ideas. Erotic dreams have been a perennial source of poetic expression. An ancient example by the Sangam poet Kaccipēt.t.u Nannākaiyār in Old Tamil voices a hero¯¯ ine’s dismay at finding her hero absent in waking life after such fine lovemaking in her dream (Ramanujan, 2014). In the Renaissance, the 14-line European sonnet form became an especially witty and concise poetic structure for juxtaposing the joys of dreaming the beloved with the harsh distance of waking reality, as in English sonnets by Shakespeare, Philip Sidney, and John Donne. The issues of reality

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and illusion, truth and falsehood that are inherent in the experience of dreaming and waking receive especially poignant expression in poems about erotic dreams, as in “Castile,” by 20th-century American poet laureate Louise Glück about an awakening from a dream tryst. Narrative and dramatic poets of the 16th and 17th centuries in Renaissance Europe and South Asia used dreams for examining how the imagination creates its own realities that then can transform the “real” world. In the Sanskrit poem Usha Abhilasha, by Sishu Shankar Das, the heroine’s dreamed lover must be brought into the waking world through a process of drawing before he can become physically present (Malla, 2010). In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, dreaming provides a protected space in which characters can try out alternative marriage partners so that they are better prepared to make the right choice in the waking world. Dreams thus came to be understood in poetic tradition as a model of imaginative experience in general. In the 19th-century Romantic era, dream as a shorthand metaphor for poetry itself was especially common. In “Ode to Psyche,” by the English poet John Keats, the creative power of a remembered dream image of Eros and Psyche merges into the imaginative power of the poem, generating a choir and a forest shrine to Psyche “in some untrodden region of my mind.” Dream and poem cocreate ( John-Keats.com, 2017). Perhaps the best-known dream poem in English, Samuel Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” was composed in a dream, according to the poet, who transcribed it on waking but left it incomplete when he was interrupted by a visitor (poetryfoundation.org, 2017). Dream consciousness was foundational for the 20th-century international and interdisciplinary movement surrealism. In 1924, French poet André Breton in the First Manifesto of Surrealism, proclaimed the goal, in art and life, of attaining a state of “surreality” (surréalité) in which dreams and waking experience would no longer seem contradictory (Seaver & Lane, 1969). In surrealist poetic practice, much influenced by Freud’s method of free association, an “automatic” (spontaneous) movement from image to image favored surprising juxtapositions. The 20th century saw a flowering of first-person lyric poems sourced in the poets’ actual dream experience. Dreams of the dead, especially deceased parents, have been an especially active and insightful category. Poets whose bodies of work have been particularly rich in dream poems include Allen Ginsberg, Elizabeth Alexander, Tomas Tranströmer, Louise Glück, and Denise Levertov. Similarities between dreams and poetry have been noted by many theorists but seldom explored in depth. The German Romantic writer Jean Paul, for example, famously characterized dreams as “involuntary poetry” (Rycroft, 1979). A few recent detailed analyses of the poetic characteristics of dreams have concluded that poems differ from dreams in that a good poem is subject to a conscious editing process and skilled craft (Rycroft, 1979; Russo, 2003). The pathways between dreams and poems go both ways. Not only do dreams lead to poems, but writing poetry can also be a form of dreamwork, as Richard Russo and others have explained (Russo, 2003).

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Dreams and Cinema Bernard Welt

Both popular and critical responses to dream-themed cinema reflect the paradoxical attitude toward dreams in the modern world. On the one hand, dreams are dismissed as ephemera, fleeting illusions with no real-world significance. On the other, people validate their best moments in life as “dreams” and their worst as “nightmares” and confess themselves fascinated by the search for meaning in the visions of the night. Setting up a similar contradiction, classical film theory has promoted the “realist paradigm”: cinema possesses a special power to show us the world as it really is, which defines its artistic mission. Yet it is obvious that some of the most beloved films succeed by violating this precept: they do not show us merely an image of the exterior world, but what it is like to experience that world, not only through the senses but through imagination and feeling—hence, the conception of the cinema as “the artificial dream,” a countertradition to realism. This internal contradiction dates back to the earliest motion pictures. In 1895, August and Louis Lumière began to produce 50-second documentary films of everyday scenes. Just to present photographic images, moving as people and objects in reality did, was enough to astonish spectators. But within a year of first seeing the Lumières’ films, Georges Méliès—a magician as well as theatrical entrepreneur—began exploring the potential of the new medium to captivate audiences with hallucinatory fantasies of a kind that had never before been experienced in any art form. Méliès rapidly innovated basic motion picture special effects to carry viewers from earth to the moon, introduce otherworldly creatures, and transform people and objects instantly. In doing so, he often used the frame narrative of a dream to naturalize the representation of a fantastic scene. (Consider A Nightmare, 1896; The Astronomer’s Dream, 1898; and The Artist’s Dream, 1898.) Other early 20th-century film producers, such as Thomas Edison in the United States and G. A. Smith in Great Britain, also explored the capacity of the new art form to represent and delight viewers with dream visions. Smith’s Let Me Dream Again (1900) innovated a device still used in popular media: a soft-focus fade to establish the transition between dream and reality. Edwin S. Porter’s Dream of the Rarebit Fiend (1906), one of the Edison Studio’s biggest successes, used superimposition, fast-motion, split scenes, and other antirealist effects to replicate the atmosphere of Winsor McCay’s hugely popular comic strip of the period. From these early examples to such contemporary blockbusters as Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010), film technology has progressed from primitive incamera effects to hyper-realistic sensory experiences (such as CinemaScope and THX sound) and most recently to fantastic, unreal imagery that lends hallucinatory intensity to dreamworlds (through CGI in particular). Yet, while mass audiences may be drawn to movie theaters by spectacular display, they still fall under the spell of story motifs and devices dating back to the most ancient dream literature.

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Dream-themed films generally characterize the dream as a journey of discovery: the dreaming hero or heroine is transported to a dream world (or encounters a series of dream visions) that teach a life-changing lesson through virtual experience that is so convincing that it seems real—just as in the medieval dream vision or Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Thus, The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming et al., 1939) and the underrecognized The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T. (Roy Rowland, 1953) take child protagonists through dream journeys that teach them to trust their own imagination and courage in the face of a heedless adult world. Of course, the cinematic dream journey is not limited to fantastic or supernatural premises. A genre-defining early example is Buster Keaton’s ingenious comedy Sherlock, Jr. (1924): Keaton’s hapless hero slumbers while his dream ego resolves all his real-life problems in daring adventures. In some of the greatest classics of European cinema, such as Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, 1957) and 81∕2 (Federico Fellini, 1963), the lives of protagonists are made more meaningful and productive by dreams whose cinematic depiction has enthralled audiences. The founding myth of psychoanalysis, as it might be called, is a journey into the depths of the unconscious mind, from which the subject emerges a more integrated and self-aware person—undoubtedly the foundation to Bergman and Fellini’s masterworks. In film, this metaphorical journey has been depicted through a dreaminterpretation plot, originally in G. W. Pabst’s stylistically dazzling Secrets of a Soul (1926): a therapist leads the protagonist through the elements of a single dream to the rediscovery of repressed childhood memories, and thus to psychic wholeness. The most celebrated example of this form is Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945), a key work in the canon of “Hollywood Freudianism” that probably did more to popularize the psychoanalytic view of dreams than any works of theory. Cinema has the capacity to portray not only an external reality, shared by the characters in a film, but also characters’ subjective responses—as well, of course, as fantastic scenes that we do not encounter in our daily lives, spun from the imagination of writers, art directors, and special-effects wizards. Movies can therefore convey the experience of troubling dream content, of the awareness that one is in a dream, and even of being unable to wake up from a frightening dream—sometimes to truly disconcerting effect. Paperhouse (Bernard Rose, 1988) and In Dreams (Neil Jordan, 1999), explore the derivation of the horror genre from the universal experience of the nightmare. Since Dreamscape ( Joseph Ruben, 1984) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984) introduced popular audiences to the cultivation of lucid dreaming as a therapeutic technique, the dream warrior has become a common trope in horror films. The more recent successes of lucidity-themed films such as Richard Linklater’s highly innovative Waking Life (2001) and Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010) indicate an original genre arising from increasing popular interest in dream phenomena. In Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999); Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001, adapted from Alejandro Almenábar’s Open Your Eyes); and The Science of Sleep (Michel Gondry, 2006), protagonists are incapacitated by haunting dreams. The classics Dead of Night (Cavalcanti et al., 1945) and The Discreet Charm of the

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Bourgeoisie (Luis Buñuel, 1972) are among a few exceptional films that carry this motif further, trapping their dreaming protagonists—and thus, film spectators— in inescapable nightmares, posing puzzles that extend, arguably, beyond narrative structure into metaphysics. The same could be said of the more recent popular successes Inception and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Some films have artistically explored the similarities of dreams and films, especially in order to foreground the solipsistic immersion into the imagination for both filmmaker and film audience—notably, Sherlock, Jr.; 81∕2; Tom DiCillo’s sly Living in Oblivion (1995); The Science of Sleep; and, most extensively, Waking Life. In criticism as well as everyday discourse, the dream/film analogy is widely cited— for example, in casual references to dreams as “movies of the mind” or to Hollywood as “the dream factory”—but rarely seriously examined. Hugo Münsterberg was the first thinker to postulate that, as films “obey the laws of the mind rather than those of the outside world,” the film audience’s experience resembles dreaming more than the observation of external reality (Münsterberg, 1916). Susanne Langer noted cinema’s dreamlike inflection of perception with affect, as well as the absorbing sensation of a “virtual present,” from the point of view of phenomenological aesthetics (Langer, 1953). The contemporary philosopher of consciousness Colin McGinn has largely followed her lead (McGinn, 2005). Other significant critical statements on the relation of film to dream are found in the work of Ricciotto Canudo and the filmmaker Jean Epstein (Canudo, 1926; Epstein, 2014). Psychoanalytic criticism has followed the premise that film viewing is, like dreaming sleep, a “regressive” state that activates repressed infantile fantasies and emotional responses—a highly speculative approach that has been dogmatic as often as it is richly suggestive (Metz, 1986; Eberwein, 1985; Rascaroli, 2002). Surrealists practicing in all art media represent the antithesis of realism, as the epithet suggests; they forthrightly take the dream rather than reality, the symbolic and irrational rather than the logical and rational, as the starting point of their aesthetic aims. Surrealist film is often judged especially oneiric, or dreamlike. The definitive instance is Un chien andalou, Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel’s scandalous success, produced in 1926, which made surrealism a household word within months. The most celebrated dream sequence in cinema is the self-consciously surrealist animation designed by Salvador Dalí for Hitchcock’s Spellbound. Important surrealist works that portray dream experience, implicitly or explicitly, include Jean Cocteau’s Le sang d’un poète (1930); Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943); and Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks (1947), all profoundly influential in later art film. In effect, the most disorienting aspects of dreaming—uncanny figures, sudden shifts of scene, transformation of characters and objects, intense focus on apparently trivial details—more or less define experimental cinema. The critic Parker Tyler summed up the matter by proclaiming that American avant-garde film depicted “the order of the dream” (Tyler, 1960). In addition to the works and artists cited here, some films are especially noteworthy for the role dreams play in plot structure, character development, and artistic effects. Cabin in the Sky (Vincente Minnelli, 1943); Invaders from Mars (William Cameron Menzies, 1953); Jacob’s Ladder (Adrian Lyne, 1990); and Click (Frank

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Coraci, 2006)—spoiler alert!—all naturalize fantastic or unlikely incidents by using the device thoroughly familiar from The Wizard of Oz—it was all a dream. Dreams are crucial to plot in Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968); Andrei Tarkovsky’s exquisite Mirror (1975); and Terminator 2 ( James Cameron, 1991). Dream sequences are noted for providing keys to character in Stand by Me (Rob Reiner, 1986); Raising Arizona ( Joel and Ethan Coen, 1987); American Beauty (Sam Mendes, 1999); and Antwone Fisher (Denzel Washington, 2002). Film culture abounds with tales of writers and directors who have received inspiration from dreams, notably (from the filmmakers’ own accounts) Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel, Un chien andalou (1926); Maya Deren, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943); Federico Fellini, 81∕2 (1963); Sergei Parajanov, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965); Andrei Tarkovsky, Mirror (1975); Robert Altman, 3 Women (1977); John Sayles, The Brother from Another Planet (1984); James Cameron, The Terminator (1984); David Lynch, Blue Velvet; Akira Kurosawa, Dreams (1990); Richard Linklater, Waking Life (2001); Michel Gondry, The Science of Sleep (2006); Christopher Nolan, Inception (2010); and Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Dance of Reality (2013).

Chapter 26

DREAM EDUCATION

As this chapter illustrates, dream education is a highly diverse and evolving process that encompasses teaching people of all ages, and in many environments, not only what is known from a scientific and psychological basis about dreams, but, as importantly, how to work with dreams and benefit from an appreciation or understanding of dreams. How one approaches the specific education process depends on what the focus of that activity might be—from simply teaching someone how to understand or work with their own dreams to a full tutorial course or dream studies program on the topic of dreams and dreamwork. This chapter provides a perspective on the diverse nature of dream education, including capturing the dream itself, the influence of evolving psychology and research, the incorporation of the humanities, future directions, and available resources. Furthermore, this two-volume reference book was designed as a tutorial reference for those engaged in one or more aspects of dream education. The contents are organized in a manner that might be incorporated in a tutorial syllabus found in a dream studies program at an educational institution: Chapters 1 through 4, the science and research that has led to our understanding of the dreaming process; Chapters 5 through 11, the diversity and multiplicity of the dream experiences and content; Chapters 12 through 18, the psychology of dreaming, including the evolution and contributions to dream psychology, psychological theories of function and meaning, and the therapeutic application and benefits; Chapters 19 through 23, the diversity and methods of dreamworking approaches in our Western culture; and finally Chapters 24 through 28, the humanities, including the cultural, historical, artistic, and psychospiritual aspects as well as the influences of technology. What might be applied to a particular education activity depends on the nature and scope of that activity, so the discussion here will cross-reference some of the relative chapters as a guide to those engaged in developing education programs.

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For more information on dream education, the reader is referred to Philip King, Kelly Bulkeley, and Bernard Welt’s Dreaming in the Classroom (2011) and Weaving Dreams into the Classroom, edited by Curtiss Hoffman and Jacquie Lewis (2014).

The Diverse Nature of Dream Education Philip King, Bernard Welt, and Kelly Bulkeley

What does dream education involve, and how might you, the reader, participate in dream education, both as learner and teacher? Dream education encompasses training in recall and recording, in sharing, in making the most of one’s dreams for creativity, psychological balance, and health. It also involves researching past and present accounts and theories, measuring and analyzing dream content, and investigating connections between dreams and culture. Dreams are studied by and taught to young children just beginning to experience their dreams; to students at all levels, from elementary, high school, undergraduate, through graduate schools; to professionals in many fields; and to lay adults, including senior citizens. Whatever one’s particular interest in dreams and dream education, there are habits of mind and personal orientations that are most conducive to dream studies. These include intellectual openness and curiosity and, importantly, a willingness to consider the feelings, emotions, and thoughts we have, what we are comfortable and uncomfortable contemplating and discussing with others, and our levels of trust versus wariness with revealing aspects of ourselves that could prove embarrassing or otherwise make us uncomfortable. In short, the optimal conditions for learning and teaching about dreams are the very conditions that foster intellectual, academic, and personal growth in our lives, essentially an openness to experience, an interest and willingness to look at ourselves to figure out what makes us tick. A FIRST STEP: DREAM ORIENTATION Perhaps the first step in educating students about dreams is teaching them how best to orient themselves to their own dream life. This begins by learning how to recall and properly record dreams by keeping a sleep and dream journal, with instructions provided on the first day of class. The journals can remain private. The teachers simply need to verify that the students are making regular entries. The journal becomes a powerful educational resource in giving the student an experiential connection to the ideas and theories discussed in class. For many students, this will be the first time they have ever examined their dreams in so much detail, so teachers need to be prepared to offer guidance, encouragement, and reassurance through the process. Framing the journal as a record of both sleep and dream experience has several benefits. First, many students, especially those of college age, tend to get insufficient

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amounts of sleep, and the journal will give them an impetus to improve the quality and healthfulness of their sleep habits. Second, sleep is the physiological state out of which dreaming emerges, and the more students know about sleep, the better they will understand the connections between dreaming and the brain’s activities during the sleep cycle. Students should be encouraged to record the following information every night: the date, their location (city/state), the time they went to sleep, the time they woke up, and a subjective assessment of the quality of their sleep (e.g., good, fair, poor). If they do not remember any dream for that night, at least they have gathered some information about their sleep that can be studied later in the class. If they do remember a dream, the key is to record it in as much detail as they can manage, including aspects of their internal experience (e.g., what they were thinking or feeling during the dream). When people narrate their dreams, they typically leave out various details that seem trivial or too obvious to mention. Yet, it is precisely these seemingly trivial details that often become highly significant in later analyses. When researchers record a dream, they might ask the dreamer to immediately write down such details as settings, objects, characters, animals, social interactions, activities, positive and negative emotions, and general feeling tone, as well as descriptors such as color, shape, movement, and the like (see Chapter 5 and 6). Although more rigorous than a student may be prepared for, establishing such a discipline can become helpful. Students should be encouraged to take their time when initially recording a dream, and they should not worry if certain aspects of the dream are vague, fragmentary, or hard to explain. These, too, can be sources of unexpected significance. Along with the dream report, a dream journal will typically include any thoughts, memories, or associations that come to the student’s mind in relation to the dream. It is important that they also record what was happening in their life at the time, particularly emotional events, positive or negative, as the dream is generally dealing with waking life and the recognition of associations can lead to valuable insights (see Chapter 16). It can be helpful to ask the students to give each dream a title, as if it were a poem or short story. This exercise prompts the students to come up with a crystallized phrase or image that expresses something important in the dream. The titles later become a helpful way of referring to the dreams and sifting through them for important themes and patterns. Once the students have been keeping their journals for some period of time, teachers can put them to several different uses. For example, at the beginning of class, the teacher might open the discussion by asking whether any students have noticed an interesting pattern in their sleep behavior. Because they have been keeping the journal, all the students have been paying close attention to their sleep, so it usually takes no more prompting than this to generate a lively opening conversation. More formal assignments can also draw upon the material in the journals. Students are often eager to write an essay in which they get to explore one or more of their dreams in depth, using the ideas and theories from the class to guide them.

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(Some students are not comfortable writing about their own dreams, so an alternative assignment can ask them to analyze a set of dreams provided by the teacher.) This kind of essay can be a wonderful learning experience in bringing the abstract material of the class into practical connection with their own dream lives. Depending on how advanced the students are, the teacher can offer more challenging assignments in which the students are asked to use sophisticated methods of analysis to identify associations and themes relating to their waking-life situations and meaningful patterns in their dreams over time. More advanced methods can include coding systems, such as the Hall and Van de Castle content analysis approach (see Chapter 6), and word searching tools found in the Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb) (see the resource section below). Variations in sleep behaviors may also be correlated with the content of dreams. For example, do the students remember more dreams on nights when they sleep well or poorly, during the week or on the weekends, or before or after a big test? Depending on the objective, a particular course may include, or be focused purely on, a method or methods for working with dreams. This sort of training can vary from training persons to lead a dream group to how to include dreamwork in professional therapeutic settings. See Chapters 19–23 for descriptions of some of the principles of ethical dreamwork and dreamworking approaches practiced today that are representative of the psychologies discussed below. The dream journals, along with related waking-life notations, would be used in conjunction with those methods. PSYCHOLOGY IN DREAM EDUCATION It is not surprising that psychology is, for many, the first area that comes to mind when we consider how dream education is woven into the greater enterprise of human knowledge and research. Psychology is the scientific study of the human mind and of human behavior, and dreams are first of all a mental phenomenon. Psychology is a broad field, with many components connecting to dreams and dreaming (see Chapter 12), that is constantly evolving as psychological theory and practice are influenced by research and neuroscience. The reader is referred to Chapter 15 for a summary of the history and contributions in this evolution. The Evolving Psychology Sigmund Freud and his onetime disciple Carl Jung are founders of modern studies of the unconscious. Freud founded the theory and practice of psychoanalysis and Jung that of analytical psychology; both deal with dreams and the nature of the psyche, but in very different ways (see “Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalytic Psychology” and “Carl Jung and Analytical Psychology” sections in Chapter 15). Knowledge of the theories and work of Freud, Jung, and their successors is basic and essential for any student of dreams. For many decades, Freudian and (more recently) Jungian approaches dominated dream education. As time went on, other psychological theories and perspectives

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within and outside psychology gained their footings and places in the field. Contemporary dream teachers and students have a rich and complementary array of viewpoints and methods at their disposal (see Chapters 20–23). Phenomenological and existential psychology is yet another subfield that has had a dramatic influence on dreamwork, with its focus on the uniqueness of a person’s immediate moment-to-moment experience and the freedom (and necessity) of human choice and free will—in dreams and waking. Gestalt interpretations and therapy methods look at every element of the dream, animate and inanimate, as expressing a quality of the dreamer. Transpersonal psychology studies the selftranscending, mystical, and spiritual aspects of human experience—including dreams—within psychological theory. It is a newer development that extends ideas of personal identity, and therefore expands ideas about the origins, functions, and interpretability of dreams. The Influence of Research The scientific study of dreaming began with an emphasis on careful recording, measurement, and statistical analysis of dream content and the connections between dreams and waking thoughts, actions, and concerns. Note that this approach does not involve the unconscious but rather focuses on observable phenomena. Cognitive psychology contributes to dream studies in its comparison of dream thinking patterns of individuals and groups—in particular different ages and genders. How do dreams change over the human life span? Neuroscience studies within a laboratory setting the structures and processes within the brain itself that produce brain imagery and experience. Knowledge of underlying biological processes illuminates understanding of the potential functions and meanings of dreams per se. THE HUMANITIES IN DREAM EDUCATION Students (and just about anyone interested in dreaming) will find that many of their most urgent questions fall under the heading of psychology: What do my dreams mean? Do I really dream every night? Why do we dream? But many other academic disciplines pursue important issues, such as those involving the communication of dreams, the values accorded to dreams in different societies and at different times, and even the ultimate question of just how real (or not real) we believe dreams to be. These questions are the province of the humanities, which encompasses the study of culture—history, literature, the arts, and philosophy, along with the social-psychological aspects of anthropology and sociology (see Chapters 24–27). By tracking the dream from its first appearance as a private and subjective psychological product and experience to everything that follows from sharing it with others, we can learn about the impact of dreams on human life and perhaps discover many challenges to our basic conception of the dream.

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Studied in detail, dreams reveal not only keys to personal identity but culturebased understandings of the nature of the cosmos, the construction of reality, and the status of the living and the dead in human communities, including our own. For example, an atheist might dream of angels, and such a dream can tell us something about how a culturally accepted concept has influence even when it is not held by the conscious mind. This kind of analysis—taking dreams as data about how societies construct meaning—is undertaken by anthropology and sociology, which contribute to our understanding of dreams by examining what happens when they are shared. In many cultures, dream experiences, construed as visions or supernatural messages, are accorded very high value. A group may adopt ideas arising from the unconscious to address crises as if one dreamer were delegated to dream a solution for the whole group (see the “Big Dreams” section in Chapter 15). These cases also challenge a common assumption that the dream holds meaning primarily, if not solely, for the dreamer. Beyond the study in psychology of how dreams arise, or how they express personal themes, the sociological dimensions of dreaming—or treating them as songs and poetry, produced to be shared, and teaching how dream sharing facilitates social bonding and reconciliation, confirmation of beliefs and traditions, and acceptance of innovations—may possess great value in understanding more traditional societies and in looking at dream education more broadly. In philosophy, the phenomenon of dreaming has for centuries raised central questions in epistemology (how we know what we know, and what are the limits of our knowledge) and ontology (what kinds of experiences count as real). There are fruitful and provocative questions that dream teachers can pose to their students: Where do our beliefs come from? Do we observe the world as it is or actively construct our own versions in our imaginations? It is the business of philosophy to inspect the premises of all other kinds of study or knowledge. Such metaphysical questions remind us that our own beliefs about dreams—even the ones that seem most obvious to us, such as the notion that the dream is not “real” in the sense that waking life is—are the products of cultural, historical, and even political contexts. In other words, we may think we dream, as Heraclitus said 2,500 years ago, each in our own separate worlds. But what we make of dreams springs from the highly communal sharing of knowledge and ideas—the ways we study dreams, the institutions that generate and direct such study, and the methods we approve for studying them. Because many fields of study contribute so fundamentally to our investigation of dreams and dreaming, it makes sense for educators to encourage the collaboration across disciplines of psychologists and philosophers, sociologists and artists, and cultural historians and neuroanatomists, each contributing their own defining issues and methods to advance our understanding of dreams. Dream teachers can advance this process by developing genuinely interdisciplinary courses and programs, where scholars and teachers can mutually benefit from each other’s knowledge and expertise and share those benefits with students and the larger world. When the interdisciplinary study of dreams is undertaken with one’s own dream life as primary evidence, learning becomes an active and engaging process.

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The Future of Dream Education Philip King, Bernard Welt, and Kelly Bulkeley

Looking ahead, it is doubtful whether anyone can actually foresee what will become of dream education in a globally connected, high-speed, culturally diverse century. We cannot say for certain what is coming, but we can suggest what is already driving change. CHANNELS OF EDUCATION First, social and institutional channels of education are rapidly evolving and diversifying, resulting in an unprecedented increase in accessibility of nonprofessional, non-credit-granting courses of study and programs. Let us think of them as community or alternative educational environments, as distinguished from traditional institutional academic settings. Dream education is tailored to its particular audiences, in schools, colleges, and universities or outside academia in the community. For children, dream education can first take place in the family and then at school. In either of these settings, it works well when integrated with other age-appropriate activities, such as storytelling, art, dramatic play, and developing reading and writing skills. Interpreting dreams, the major interest of older learners, is not appropriate for youngsters, who generally have not yet developed requisite psychological knowledge and self-awareness. For older students in academic settings, dream education expands to include research on dreams in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, along with interest in theories of dream interpretation. For adults who have completed their formal educations, the emphasis is often on understanding their dreams’ implications for the lives they are living. For older adults, understanding dreams may be more about seeing the meaning, value, and integrity of the life already lived. THE EVOLVING APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING DREAMING We envision more attention to dream interpretation, reconciling competing theories of what dreams mean. Linking and transcending specific theories is the fundamental question of the extent to which dream meanings are embodied (and often hidden) within the dream itself and to what extent we ascribe and impose meanings on dreams from the outside—from our conscious and unconscious expe­ riences and concerns (see Chapter 14). If the former, there are meanings to be discovered in a dream by analysis of symbols and other means. If the latter, much consideration should be given to whether the interpreter is the dreamer or someone else. The possible paths for arriving at a dream’s meaning(s) are many. The question becomes, “What are this dream’s meanings to you, the dreamer?” Contemporary

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thought and dreamwork ethics (see Chapter 19) suggests that it should be the dreamer who is the final authority on the meanings in a dream, not an outside “expert,” however gifted, perceptive, and persuasive. The last few decades have seen three developments in particular that have shifted the focus in dream studies away from the dream as evidence of inner life, to be analyzed and encoded, and toward appreciation of the dream as a unique and authentic experience for the dreamer. Lucid Dreaming The first is the still-evolving study and science of lucid dreaming, in which the dreamer knows he or she is dreaming as the dream occurs (see Chapter 9). Contemporary sleep labs have been catching up to the artists and amateurs who have long been fascinated by the lucid dream as a state of heightened awareness, paradoxically combining the immersive atmosphere of imagination and fantasy with the directive, problem-solving powers of the rational mind. The Multiplicity of Dreaming The second is a challenge to the validity of defining the dream as a single type of human experience. For example, the characteristic “feel” of the lucid dream is so different from other states of dreaming sleep that one might question whether they are both theoretically the same phenomenon of mind. Researchers and dream studies programs focus on how lucid dreams are different from “regular” dreams, not how they are the same. By the same token, 50 years ago, at the discovery of REM sleep dream studies experts confidently asserted, “REM = Dreaming and Dreaming = REM.” This is decidedly no longer the case. The “multiplicity” of dreaming, as Harry T. Hunt called it in a groundbreaking work in 1989 (see “Pioneers of Psychological Dream Theory: Harry Hunt” in Chapter 15) occupies a central place in determining where dream studies will go next. Consciousness Studies The modern genesis of consciousness studies is analogous to that of dream studies: it occurred when philosophers, psychologists, and neuroanatomists all realized that new work in one field was transforming that of the others. In the 1950s, many philosophers still responded to the “problem” of dreaming by declaring it out of bounds in a consideration of a human mind defined by consciousness and rationality, while others accepted the dream only as evidence for a psychoanalytically inflected view of the human condition. Recently, however, consciousness studies explore how relations between mind and brain may be more complex, particularly when it comes to the relation of thought in all its forms (including memory, emotional states, imagination, and dreaming) to the neural and neurochemical states that constitute the brain, awake or asleep, or in states in between. New discoveries, and the new alliances of philosophy and science, will inevitably shift the ground of dream studies.

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THE MEDIA ENVIRONMENT Finally, as with all aspects of education, we can count on continuing profound changes in “the media environment.” The capacity of digitized information to make hitherto unthinkable masses of information accessible to previously unimaginable masses of people—to link up nearly everyone in the world—means that universities and research centers have thoroughly revised their approaches in every field of knowledge as well as their relation to students and the general public. Digital communication means that the serious study of dreaming is not and cannot be what it used to be. Wired classrooms, online instruction, course blogs, and instantaneous messaging between the instructor and class members, or among students—all these innovations have already demonstrated the applicability of digitized information to the fundamentals of dream education. Study group participants can store their dream journals online, set reminders to record or review their dreams, and share their dreams and offer their responses in online networks. Dream education outside the traditional classroom may find Internet-based virtual settings even more crucial to its key goals than do accredited programs. With consistent access, learners can speak directly to each other, offer spontaneous insights, and significantly decenter the classroom so that a course of study becomes an active community of explorers, each bringing their own experience of dreaming and theorizing about dreams to a transformative conversation. Learners can pursue intuition as much as argument, offer each other support and encouragement, and experience the importance of informal brainstorming in the development of ideas—a phase far too often neglected in formal educational practice, to the detriment of innovation and creativity in academic thought. Online communication, fueled by quick access, lowered inhibitions, and the desire to impress or provoke, does not always provide a safe space. The confidentiality indispensable to effective dream sharing cannot be guaranteed once dreams are shared as texts that can be cut and pasted and stored in the cloud. One might question whether online communications, no matter how carefully guarded, are really secure. Just as crucially, we actually know very little as yet about the socialpsychological differences between in-person transactions and online communications. Undoubtedly, there will be more and better study of how online learning does or does not fulfill its basic mission. It seems quite possible that the classroom setting is as different from online learning as real life is from movies (or digital videos). However, digital representations are never people. Aspects of communication crucial to dream studies in particular—cues that arouse empathy, intuition, signals of acceptance, and encouragement—may be difficult or impossible to reproduce in online transactions. The transformative impact of digitizing knowledge has been shown most dramatically in access to information. In contrast to the situation for professional and student researchers 50 years ago, now any library is practically all libraries, and any library is a couple of clicks away on your laptop or phone. Classroom technology permits the monitoring of labs and facilitates Skype sessions with authorities in

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dream studies and collaborative research. (You may not have heard this, but you used to have to wait for your classmates to return a text vital to your research before you could get a look at it.) However, the proliferation of digitized information has not only occurred in channels overseen by scholars. A topic like dreaming— intriguing to the public, mysterious to most, significant to our aspirations and inner lives, the subject of a huge amount of folklore and unexamined belief—calls forth unfounded opinions and self-proclaimed authorities, who have just as much access to the Internet as accredited researchers and scholars. At least one result of the explosion of digitized information and misinformation is that courses in dream studies (as in other areas of secondary school and undergraduate college research) must devote considerable attention to training in identifying authoritative sources, in resisting the impulse to cut and paste from huge masses of data available and instead forming one’s own ideas and arguments, and in navigating databases instead of accepting the results in the first 10 items in a Google search.

Resources: Dream Databases Philip King, Bernard Welt, and Kelly Bulkeley

While misinformation about dreams and dreaming has unquestionably proliferated via the World Wide Web, students can instantly link to databases that provide authoritative, academically reputable foundations for their own original research and thought, such as PsycARTICLES (for psychology), JSTOR (for the humanities), ERIC (EBSCO) (for research on education), and Academic Search Complete (for practically everything). Of special interest to researchers in dreams and dreaming are several databases that provide access to thousands of dream reports, freely available for exploration by students at any level. Teachers can design a wide variety of classroom exercises by drawing on the dream texts and accompanying information contained in these online sites. The contents and tools of the databases enable students to examine thousands of dream reports and to apply both basic and advanced techniques of data analysis to identify meaningful dimensions of dreaming experience. The goal of this kind of approach is not to replace other modes of interpretation and analysis, but rather to enrich them with new insights into the recurrent patterns of dream content (see “The Content of Dreams” section in Chapter 6). One of the first databases to be developed was the Dreambank.net Web site run by researchers G. William Domhoff and Adam Schneider, now containing over 30,000 dream records that can be searched a number of ways. Dreamboard. com is another large dream database, which is oriented more toward public dream journaling than pure research. The Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb), developed by Kelly Bulkeley, is another research-focused site with a large collection of dream material. The future will likely witness the development of many other online databases, which will greatly accelerate the expansion of dream research and education.

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To illustrate the practical use of such resources, consider the SDDb and its approach to digitally enhanced dream research. The SDDb currently contains more than 25,000 dream reports of various types from a wide range of people. Some of the reports come from individuals who have kept a dream journal for many years. Some of the reports come from participants in surveys and questionnaires. Some come from the studies of other researchers who have shared their experimental data. The SDDb contains dream reports from anthropological studies, historical texts, literary sources, and media interviews. The SDDb also encompasses answers given by survey participants to a variety of questions about their sleep and dreaming (e.g., how often they remember their dreams, how often they experience insomnia, whether they have ever had a dream of flying or experienced lucid dreams, etc.). Included as well are people’s responses to various demographic questions about their gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, religious practices, and political beliefs. The SDDb offers two basic functions for exploring this material. First, “Survey Analysis,” enables users to compare people’s answers to questions posed on a survey or questionnaire. This function allows users to create a statistical table to compare, for example, the dream recall frequencies of people from different age groups, or the insomnia frequencies of people with different political views, or the occurrence of lucid dreams among men and women. The second function, as most other databases provide, is “Word Searching,” which enables users to sift through large numbers of dreams for particular words and phrases. Users can search the dreams by choosing their own word strings, or they can also use the built-in word search templates to search for typical categories of dream content. This tool allows users to choose, for example, a particular set of dreams and search it for all the references to water, or colors, or emotions, or the names of famous people or places. The major advantages of the word search function as a mode of dream research include its speed, transparency, flexibility, and power to analyze very large quantities of material. The process is fairly easy to learn, and such sites as SDDb, Dreambank, Dreamboard, and others provide free and open access for users to engage in their own study projects aided by these new digital tools. The major disadvantages of using this approach alone is deemphasizing the qualitative aspects of dreaming, overemphasizing the measurability of dream content, and leaving unanswered the key question of how to connect the numerical frequencies of word usage with the waking-life concerns of the dreamer. These disadvantages can be diminished by using quantitative analysis as just one method among many others in a multidisciplinary approach to dreams, in coordination with qualitative insights and evaluations. Indeed, the future prosperity of dream research depends in large part on developing better interdisciplinary models for integrating the results of several different methods of study. And it is the methods and findings of dream research that propel dream education. If students are using these databases for exploring the potentially meaningful connections between the dream and the individual’s waking situation, they may consider searching on words or themes based on two principles. One principle is the continuity hypothesis: the relative frequency with which something appears in a person’s dreams can be a reflection of its importance as a meaningful concern

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in the person’s waking life. In other words, the more often something (a character, setting, activity) shows up in dreams, the more emotionally important it is likely to be. The other principle is the discontinuity hypothesis: infrequent and anomalous elements of dream content can be spontaneous expressions of playful imagination, occurring at any point in life but especially in times of crisis, change, or transition. Something that appears very rarely and is dramatically discontinuous with typical patterns of dream content can reflect the mind’s concerted effort to go beyond what is to imagine what might be. These images may relate to what Carl Jung considered the compensatory action of the dream, or what researchers often observe as counterfactuals (refer to Chapters 13 and 15). CONCLUSION Dreams are vivid experiences and vital statements. They speak to our spiritual and aesthetic lives, our internal psychological integration, relations with others, and the social worlds in which we live. They comment on our pasts and anticipate our futures. For these reasons, education about dreams and dreaming—from learning to record and examine one’s own dreams, to understanding the theories of their origin and functions, to appreciating their significance in art and culture around the globe—may seem more and more important as we progress into an increasingly wired but apparently fragmented new world. Are there still new worlds of dreaming to explore as groundbreaking as Freud’s version of the Unconscious or the discovery of REM? Could wider knowledge of lucid dreaming transform our view of the human mind? Can dreams actively reconnect people in an age that appears beset by alienation and mistrust? All of these questions remain to be answered— perhaps by you.

Chapter 27

DREAMS IN ANCIENT AND NON-WESTERN CULTURES

To explore the historical traditions around dream experience, dream telling, and dream interpretation is to engage with rich and diverse cultural heritages that display a broad range of insights and viewpoints and reveal shifting reflections and value orientations. To interpret a dream is to engage with cultural contexts that include geography, language, religious beliefs, customs, family practices, education, art, and literature.

Prehistoric, Tribal, and Ancient Middle Eastern Curtiss Hoffman

One of the fundamental questions about dreaming that is still under debate is how it might have evolved in the first place. Freud argued that dreaming is essentially retrospective: that is, it recounts and helps us to cope with past events. Freud mostly saw these events as repressed traumas from early childhood, though in his later writings, he suggested that they might also reflect an ancient, collective, traumatic event in the evolution of humankind (the primal father scenario, in Totem and Taboo, 1913), which resulted simultaneously in the origins of incest, food taboos, and religion. Jung’s view of dreams was more prospective in that he posited the existence of a collective unconscious that is the repository of all past human experience, but out of which archetypal images emerge in dreams with an aim of personality growth and individuation (see “Historical Perspective: Carl Jung” in Chapter 15). These

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ancient images might include the ideas of the evolutionary history of our species, which Jung personified as the “two million-year-old man,” or a being in us all that might provide the dreamer with much-needed wisdom. Other theories, most recently championed by Antii Revonsuo and his students (see Chapter 3), also regard dreams as primarily prospective, in that they rehearse scenarios for future events, either environmental threats or social situations. This perspective views dreaming as adaptive in an explicitly evolutionary sense, in that dream recall gave early ground-dwelling hominins living in the dangerous conditions of the African savanna the ability to plan for the future better, both to escape predators and to find prey, and to negotiate increasingly complex social interactions caused by increases in brain size. As we shall see in this chapter, the idea of dreams as predictors of the future is ancient and widespread. Other theories relate to the functions of dreams for healing (see Chapter 10), where dreams are seen as diagnostic of bodily or psychological conditions, warn of impending imbalances in those systems and may also include prescriptions for how to restore the balance. We shall see that this approach to dreams also carries great antiquity. Throughout this section of the chapter, I shall show how these three themes—retrospection, prospection, and prescription—weave through the dream interpretations of peoples across time and geographical space. THE EVOLU TION OF DREAMING From a strictly evolutionary perspective, there is considerable evidence to the effect that dreaming is not peculiar to hominins. Studies of brain activity among all mammals and birds show that they exhibit the same kinds of sleep stages as we do, including REM (see Chapter 4). Anyone who has owned a dog has doubtless observed the animal, while fully asleep, whining and kicking its legs, as if it were dreaming about running after prey. This strongly suggests that for whatever evolutionary reasons dreaming itself may have evolved, it long antedates Freud’s primal father scenario, Jung’s two million-year-old man, or Revonsuo’s terrestrial apes. What does appear to be peculiar to human dreams, however, is our ability to recall them and our desire to relate them to one another. As far as we know, no other animal does this in the wild. Some apes in captivity who have learned American Sign Language or other forms of nonverbal human communication systems appear to have the ability to relate their dreams, but only under human supervision and encouragement (Patterson, 2016). This leads to an obvious phenomenological problem: how can we trace the origins of dream recounting in the absence of tangible evidence? What we can suggest is that the ability to relate dreams must be intimately bound up with the evolution of language as a means of communication. Without exception, all human cultures today use spoken and gestural language as their chief medium of communication. Language differs from the communication systems used by almost all other life forms because—very much like dreaming—it is wholly dependent on symbols, which are inherently multireferential: their meaning depends on their context. Any particular combination of vowels and consonants to

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form a word is highly arbitrary and may have multiple meanings within the same linguistic community, let along between speakers of different languages. Just as with dream symbols, the context determines the meaning, and the ability to shift context to alter meaning is a prominent feature of both systems. Nonlinguistic communication among animals is largely based on signals, whose meaning is invariant and unireferential. For example, tree-dwelling rhesus monkeys, whose arboreal habitat protects them from most ground-dwelling predators, have a call to warn the troupe that a baby has fallen out of the tree, in response to which the entire troupe scrambles down the tree trunk to retrieve the endangered infant. But the call is never used in any other context—for example, reminiscence (“I saw a baby fall out of the tree last week”), concern about present conditions (“How should I respond if a baby were to fall out of the tree today”), or speculation about the future (“I wonder what would happen if a baby were to fall out of the tree next month”). Obviously, language gives us the flexibility to do all of these. In this way, it functions precisely in the same ways that dream theorists argue that dreams do: retrospectively, prescriptively, or prospectively. Evidence of language in the form of written texts goes back only about 5,500 years in the Middle East—and much later in other parts of the world. By around a thousand years after that, we have the earliest recorded dream narratives. However, spoken language is definitely much older than written language, as evidenced by the fact that during the colonial era, wherever members of literate societies from Europe traveled, they invariably found cultures communicating linguistically, even in the absence of any form of writing. And one of the things about which people communicated was dreaming. DREAMING CROSS-CULTURALLY Throughout Australia, aboriginal cultures, who reached the island continent as early as 50,000 years ago, lay such great emphasis upon dreams that the entirety of the mythological past is referred to by terms that mean “Dreamtime” or “Dreaming” (Chatwin, 1988). This is a time when archetypal ancestors are said to have wandered the land, creating all of its landforms. Every location is deeply imbued with the sense of the past as reflected in dreams. Young men, to be considered adults, are expected to go on solitary “walkabout,” in which they replicate the journeys of these Dreamtime ancestors and attempt to contact them during dreaming. Both men and women have initiation processes and ceremonies connected with the Dreamtime that encompass every aspect of life, because Dreamtime also refers to codes of ethical, cultural, and social governance interrelated with the land, the people, and the ancestors. Dreamtime extends right up to the present, as persistently practiced rituals attempt to reenact the deeds of the ancestors. What these people have done is to create a cognitive map of the environment, every detail of which is mythologized and considered as a manifestation of a greater dream. In North American Plains Indian culture, young people are also sent out into the natural environment, where they are expected to find a specific spot for their visioning (Irwin, 1994). They fast, usually for four days, and dream with the expectation

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of being granted a connection to a spirit guide who will be their helper throughout their adult lives. When they return to their camps, they relate these visions to an experienced elder, who helps them to integrate the vision into their lives. The spirit guides often appear in animal forms, and a successful vision quest may provide the young person with a new name that refers to this guide, or that the guide might have granted to itself. This name forms the core of selfhood that the young adult will thereafter be expected to manifest. Individuals who have had strong dreams and visions during their vision quests may become medicine persons who revisit the spirit realm through fasting and dreaming repeatedly, bringing back much-needed instructions for healing, both on the individual and the collective level. A good example of this is the famous vision of the Lakota Sioux elder Black Elk, who experienced a spontaneous visitation by the Six Grandfathers during a serious childhood illness that rendered him unconscious for several days. He related a part of the vision, and the tribe assembled the paraphernalia needed to reenact it (Neihardt, 2004). Among the Garifuna, an Afro-Caribbean people living on the coasts of Belize and Nicaragua in Central America, repetitive dreams of a deceased family member generally indicate some unfulfilled obligation on the part of the living relative. If the dreamer fails to undertake the obligation, the dreams may become nightmares. The dreamer is then advised to consult a shamanic specialist, a buio, who has the ability to go into the person’s dream and negotiate with the deceased person, and who then informs the dreamer of what they must do (Hoffman, 2007). This is clearly a retrospective view of dreaming. Among the Semai Temiar (sometimes referred to as the Senoi) of the Malaysian peninsula, dreams are regarded as a means of contact with powerful spirit beings and may be related to the entire community the following morning ( Jennings, 1995). This may lead to decisions about hunting or planting. Western researchers such as Kilton Stewart have sometimes appropriated these ideas and projected their own onto them, for example, suggesting that the Semai encourage children to practice lucid dreaming to deal with monsters in their dreams (Domhoff, 1990). Responsible ethnographers have shown that this practice does not occur among them. But the idea of using dreams as prospective guides for hunting is not limited to them; the Beaver Indians of British Columbia dream about hunting trails in advance of going on moose hunts, and they report success in finding precisely the animals of which they dreamed (Brody, 2002). The Ashanti of West Africa also have a vibrant dream tradition. They consider dreams to be a form of soul travel to other realms that are considered just as real as the waking world. Their word for dream literally means “to arrive at a place during sleep” (Sobel, 2000). They also consider the possibility that they may be visited by spirit beings in sleep, who, like the Beaver and the Temiar, may guide them in their hunting and also may provide advice for diagnosing and healing illnesses. THE COEVOLU TION OF DREAMING AND LANGUAGE Like dreams, Paleolithic cave paintings have been interpreted as retrospective, prospective, and diagnostic symbols. Many of them depict animals, sometimes with

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oblique lines intersecting them, which are interpreted by some as spears. It is not surprising that the early researchers in the 19th century saw in them attempts to recount successful hunts, while others related them to the practice of sympathetic magic—an attempt to influence future hunts by symbolically slaying an image of the animal to be hunted. Some of the animals are fanciful combinations of different species that never existed at all. This strongly suggests that the paintings are related more to imagination—and, thereby, to dreaming—than they are to waking physical reality. The location of the paintings within any of the caves is remarkably consistent: they do not appear until one has passed beyond the point where ambient light from the outside can be seen. To reach the painted chambers of some caves requires a tortuous journey through passages barely large enough to fit through, crawling on one’s back or stomach. The only light sources available were small tallow lamps that could cast a beam no more than a meter in diameter—yet some of the individual images are larger than that and are executed perfectly in a single stroke. This suggests that they were the work of specialists. The best analogy we have from ethnographic sources is those gifted individuals present in small numbers in every society to whom anthropologists refer by the collective term shamans. This is a term that has been extended to include practitioners of the sacred among tribal peoples everywhere in the world, and some paleoanthropologists attribute the work of the cave painters to these early mystic warriors (Clottes & Lewis-Williams, 1992). Where humans are depicted in the caves—rarely—they sometimes appear in remarkable positions, for example, the “sorcerer” of Trois Freres, who is depicted wearing a reindeer costume, possibly as a shape changer, or the ithyphallic birdheaded human figure in the deep vault at Lascaux, who is accompanied by a staff with a bird at the top of it (Ryan, 1999). This is also consistent with the worldwide practice of shamanism. It has been suggested by some that the painted animals may have been considered conceptually as doorways, through which the eternal spirit of the animal ancestor might emerge into manifestation as actual animals, and into which that spirit might then return. That ancestor may have been totemic—that is, ancestral to both the animal species and a human group, who thereby have a kinship with that species. The shaman, in this case, is one who has the ability—by going into a trance state akin to hypnagogic dreaming—to transform from the human to the animal form and back again. Shamans make use of these altered states of consciousness to serve as diagnosticians for their group, discerning illnesses and prescribing remedies for both individual and collective deviations from a state of balance. All of this suggests that the experience of going into the darkness of the cave, whether to view the images already there or to add new ones, bears a strong resemblance to our nightly descent into the unconscious world of the dream. But that world is not random or chaotic; it reflects a kind of organization the parameters of which are so consistent from cave to cave that it can only be considered a product of a communicated tradition: that is, through language. To achieve this degree of consistency would have required communication, at least among the shamans of many cultural groups.

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DREAMING IN THE ANCIENT MIDDLE EAST As human settlements grew and developed agriculture, especially in the Middle East, they moved from caves to open-air settlements. But it appears that some of the archetypal symbolism used in the caves continued in these settlements, though in constructed shrines within villages or at special ritual centers rather than in caves (Solecki, 1954), at Neolithic sites such as Çatal Höyük (Hodder, 1996) and Göbekli Tepe (Schmidt, 2012) in Turkey. These depictions especially centered on animal images, chiefly of bulls and predators. Eventually, these villages grew into towns and cities, and their populations diversified into professions that were ancestral to many of those we know today. These included priests, scribes, artisans—and dream interpreters. The earliest of these civilizations, and the first to develop writing, was centered in what is today southern Iraq, called by the later Greeks Mesopotamia, but known by its early inhabitants as Sumer. The Sumerians and their successors, the Akkadians and Babylonians, were very concerned to know about the future, and they developed numerous systems of divination to accomplish this. Among these systems was a form of dream interpretation that functioned as a simple set of if-then statements: “if a man dreams x, then it means y.” In later times, long lists of these if-then statements were recorded by the scribes on clay tablets that were kept for reference in temple libraries (Oppenheim, 1964). In addition to these manuals, we also have some literary and historical texts that relate to dreaming. One of the earliest, dating to around 2100 BCE, is embedded in a mythological epic concerning the fate of Dumuzi, one of the kings of the city of Uruk. He had been the lover of the Inanna, the goddess of love and war, represented by the planet Venus, but he had lost her favor. He then had an impactful dream, which he related to his sister, Geshtinanna. In this dream, he saw his goats and sheep scratching the earth for him, his sheepfold abandoned, his milk churn overturned, his cup broken, and several other portentous omens. Geshtinanna interpreted each of these symbols in turn to mean Dumuzi’s impending death and the mourning for him that she and their mother would do, and she advised him to flee to a hiding place known only to her and one other. He told her that if she or her companion disclosed this, his dogs would pursue them to their deaths. The companion did betray Dumuzi, and he was killed and carried off to the underworld. In this case, the dream was clearly prospective and was correctly interpreted as such (Hoffman, 2004). Although this is one of the earliest dream narratives we have, there are several depictions on the cylindrical seals that were used to mark property ownership on documents, which are a few hundred years older than the text, of a scene that contains all of the same elements—the sheep and goats, the sheepfold, the churn, the cup, a female figure kneeling in prayer or grief, and even the dogs—while a man is carried aloft on the back of an eagle, under a crescent moon. This suggests that the story of Dumuzi’s dream was known and recounted verbally and pictorially before it was written down. Another Mesopotamian dream text concerns a king of Lagash, Gudea, who had a dream in which was commanded by a giant winged divinity to build a temple for

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him. Gudea saw various building materials being assembled and placed upon the back of a patient donkey. The king took this dream to a priestess, who interpreted each of its symbols in a similar one-for-one fashion, and concluded it contained instructions for Gudea—whom she identified as the donkey—to build the temple (Edzard, 1997). This is a good example of a prescriptive dream, and Gudea obediently enacted its prescription. While Dumuzi is a mythological personage who may or may not have actually existed, Gudea is an actual historical figure, who ruled around the same time as the Dumuzi text was written, and who had his dream experience and its result written down. There are even statues showing him holding the ground plan of the temple on his lap. Similarly, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, compiled around 1500 BCE, Gilgamesh has three dreams of an axe falling from the sky, which he embraced. He recounts these to his mother, Ninsun, who interprets them to prospectively mean that he will soon meet a companion who will be his close friend. This friend turns out to be Enkidu, with whom he shares many adventures (Campbell, 1930). Here the interpretation is not as literal, but it nevertheless shares with the other two examples the facts that the dream is considered prospective, that its interpretation is prescriptive, and that the person relied on for the interpretation is a woman. In ancient Egypt, dreams were regarded as a means of communication between the living and the dead or with the gods. The former were more often recounted for commoners, while the latter—except in the very late period—were reserved for royalty. These include the famous dream narrative of the New Kingdom Pharaoh Thutmose IV, who while still a prince went to sleep at the foot of the Great Sphinx. An image of the god Ra-Herakhty appeared to the prince in his dream and instructed him to clear away the sand that had buried the image up to its neck. The god assured him that if he did this, he would succeed to the throne. Like Gudea’s dream, this dream features a divinity’s request for a public works project, coupled with a prospective prediction—but, unlike Gudea’s dream, the instruction is straightforward and requires no interpretation. Until the Late Period, there is little evidence for professional dream interpreters in Egypt. There are also a few examples of texts in which gods appeared to pharaohs and prospectively promised them victory in battle, which indeed ensued. It is obviously possible to question the authenticity of these dream accounts; they could have been composed after the fact as a means of justifying ascension to the throne with a divine imprimatur, or simply as propaganda (Szpakowska, 2003). Egyptian commoners might petition a deceased relative for help by incubating dreams about them or by placing dream texts in their tombs. These requests include relief from dreams of a negative nature, such as repetitive unwelcome visitations from persons on the other side. In this sense, the dreams may be diagnostic of current conditions from which the dreamer seeks relief. Some poetical texts appear to regard life itself as a dream. In another sense, the entire progress through death into afterlife in ancient Egypt also has a dreamlike quality. For example, the tomb paintings of Pharaoh Thutmose III depict his soul’s journey through 12 stages of the nether world, battling a variety of monsters along the way before emerging into the light of a new day.

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There are a few Egyptian lexical lists of dream images and their meanings in a one-for-one set of correspondences. These texts also provide judgments on the quality of the dream (good or bad). The interpretation sometimes depends on verbal puns—which, as we know, are frequently found in dreams. They, too, may be regarded as largely diagnostic, rather than prospective or retrospective. Both the Old and New Testaments have vivid depictions of dreams and dream interpretation. Jacob and his son Joseph were powerful dreamers. Jacob’s dream at Bethel, as he was leaving his family’s homeland, contains the memorable image of angelic beings ascending and descending some sort of connecting link between heaven and earth (Genesis 28:11–19). This visionary dream explicates the nature of the connection, but it doubtless gave Jacob some confidence to proceed. Upon his return to his homeland, Jacob had another visionary experience in which he wrestled with an angelic being who dislocated his thigh and gave him a new name, Israel, “He fought with God” (Genesis 33:24–30). This is very comparable to Native American vision quests, some of which also involve wrestling matches with spirit beings—for example, Henry Schoolcraft’s account of the Ojibways’ acquisition of maize through a youth’s visionary struggle with a corn spirit, Mondawmin (Schoolcraft, 1991). Joseph, the Bible’s greatest dream interpreter, had prospective dreams, including one in which he saw 12 sheaves of wheat, and 11 of them bowed down to the 12th. He interpreted the 11 sheaves as his 11 brothers and the 12th as himself, but he was naïve enough to relate this dream to them, which angered them so much that they attempted to do away with him. They cast him into a pit, stained his manycolored cloak with ram’s blood, and claimed to Jacob that Joseph had been killed by a lion (Genesis 37:6–24). Joseph, however, was found and sold into slavery in Egypt, where he gained such notoriety as a dream interpreter that he was eventually brought before the pharaoh and asked to interpret some of his “big” dreams, which none of his own priests had succeeded in unraveling. The nature of Joseph’s interpretations is highly symbolic: for example, the seven fat and seven lean cattle in the pharaoh’s dream stand for seven fat and lean years for Egypt’s productivity, respectively. They are also prospective, in that he was able to advise the pharaoh to store up food during the seven fat years to fend off the famine that would follow (Genesis 41:15–32). Typical of dreams from this region, there are one-for-one interpretations of each symbol in the dream. The prophet Daniel also had a reputation as a dream interpreter and was called upon by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II to interpret a dream in which he saw a gigantic statue with a gold head, silver arms, bronze legs, and feet of clay (Daniel 2:26–45). As Joseph did for Pharaoh, Daniel interpreted this dream on a one-for-one basis as prospective of the future of his kingdom, with the end result being its downfall. In later Rabbinic writings (especially the Mishnah and the Talmud), there are numerous references to dreams as well as detailed interpretations of the dream texts found in the Old Testament. Dream interpretation, like text interpretation, was generally reserved for specialists, who sometimes used verbal and numeric

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correspondences to the Hebrew alphabet (Gematria) to interpret dreams. For example, a Midrash on Jacob’s dream at Bethel explains, “And behold a ladder”—this is the incline leading to the Temple altar. “Stationed on the earth”—this is the altar, as it says, “Make for me an altar of earth.” And “Its top reaches the sky”—these are the offerings whose fragrance rises to heaven. “And behold the angels of God”—these are the high priests. “Ascending and descending on it”— that is, they ascend and descend on the incline. “And behold God stands above it,” as it says, “I saw God standing on the altar.”

“An alternative word on this matter: ‘And behold a ladder’—this is Sinai, for the numerology of the letters of ladder are equal to those of Sinai (namely, they both add up to 130)” (Leiser, 2016). The tractate Berakhot, in the Talmud, provides a long list of dream themes and their one-for-one interpretations, many of which are highly symbolic, rather than literal or retrospective in the Freudian sense; for example, “If one dreams that he has intercourse with his mother, he may expect to obtain understanding, since it says, ‘Yea, thou wilt call understanding “mother”’” (Berakhot 57a). This text also contains the well-known injunction that “an unexamined dream is like an unopened letter” (Berakhot 55a). There are three well-known dream texts in the New Testament. The first is a dream of Joseph, the husband of Mary, who is warned after the birth of Jesus by an angel to flee the country to Egypt with his family to escape persecution from King Herod (Matthew 3:13–14). This is another example of a clear dream that requires no interpretation. The second, also of Joseph, contained a similar angelic message that it was safe to return to Judaea because “those who sought the young child’s life are dead” (Matthew 3:19–21). The third dream is described in the Book of Acts and is a dream of St. Paul while he was staying overnight at the site of Troy. A Macedonian man appeared at the foot of his bed in the dream and said, “Come over and help us” (Acts 16:9). Paul interpreted this dream as a clear, prospective invitation to spread the Gospel to a new continent, Europe, which he proceeded to do.

Western, Islamic, and Eastern Susan Benson

To interpret a dream is to engage with cultural contexts that include geography, language, religious beliefs, customs, family practices, education, art, and literature. How the dreams in a culture are preserved, shared, and talked about—personally and socially—impacts the valuing of dreams. The belief in the importance of dreams in the Western, Islamic, and Eastern traditions is verifiable through historical records, artifacts, oral histories, literature, and, increasingly, through scientific research and study. Curiosity and belief in the importance of dreams has also engaged inquiry about the reality of waking experience versus dream state; the paradox of dream as illusion

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or dream as superior reality; reason versus imagination; and existential questions about birth, death, and the nature of body, soul, and spirit. Each tradition— Western, Islamic, and Eastern—reflects cultural and historical diversity relevant to time, place, and period, but at the heart of these traditions and historical narratives is a shared human concern to give or find meaning. GREEK/ROMAN HERITAGE The Western cultural heritage of dreaming has its roots in Egyptian, Middle Eastern, Greek/Roman, European Medieval, and Romantic traditions. The term “Western” refers to theoretical systems of thought and meaning that have been generally identified with and regarded as central to the construction of the Western cultural tradition in the sense of dominant patterns of knowledge, worldviews, paradigms, and themes. It is important in speaking of the Greek and Roman heritage of dreams to differentiate among epochs, locales, and cultural and social environments. It is also helpful to consider that a central theme running through Greek and Roman thinking on dreams is how to discern between trustworthy, truthful dreams and deceptive, illusory dreams. We can also trace through early Greek writing from the Homeric period to Plato and Aristotle a movement away from the messenger/prophetic tradition familiar from the Middle Eastern traditions to more naturalistic or secular interpretations. A well-known dream report from Homer’s Odyssey (ca. late eighth or early seventh century BCE) beautifully frames this dialectic around trustworthiness. Penelope, speaking to her disguised husband, Odysseus, seeks help on the interpretation of a dream and asks, “But please, read this dream for me, won’t you? Listen closely . . .” To which Odysseus replied, “Dear woman,” quick Odysseus replied, “twist it however you like, your dream can only mean one thing. Odysseus told you himself—he will make it come to pass.” In response, the seasoned Penelope dissents: Ah, my friend, dreams are hard to unravel wayward, drifting things—not all we glimpse in them will come to pass. . . . Two gates there are for our evanescent dreams, one is made of ivory, the other made of horn. Those that pass through the ivory cleanly carved are will-o’-the wisps, their message bears no fruit. The dreams that pass through the gates of polished horn are fraught with truth, for the dreamer who can see them. (Homer, 1996, p. 408)

In the Greek archaic mapping of the cosmos, dreams exist in a nether world near where the souls and images of the dead dwell outside the reality of the domains of time and space. These images suggest a world of the nonreal and of the primordial powers of darkness. Nevertheless, as a world where gods and the daemons— benevolent or malevolent forces of nature contest—it was a world to be respected. The earliest Greek view of dreams recorded by Homer perceived them as emanating from an in autonomous presence, and in later periods as a god/goddess. In reported dream experiences, the dreamer may refer to a dream as having been

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“seen” rather than “had,” which also served to convey a sense of external source or authority. The writings of Plato (ca. 428–347 BCE) and Aristotle (384–322 BCE) provide key understandings to the evolving Greek thought on the subject of dreams, divination, and the nature of sleep. In the Theaetetus, Plato, via the trope of Socratic dialogue, invites us to consider that, as we can never prove we are dreaming, it is open to dispute whether we are awake or in a dream. This is a theme that has continued to be reflected on in the Western tradition. Plato also shares a distrust of dreams, which he also identified with the lower instincts and feeling states. Plato’s often quoted Allegory of the Cave (Republic VII) expresses through the imagery of prisoners’ shadows and projections how perceptions of material reality can be based on false perceptions and illusions. His theories suggest that the soul approaches truth in proportion or relationship as it distances itself from the influence of the senses, which orients to a potential antagonism between ideas of spirit and material reality. Aristotle’s thinking around dreams has been preserved in the Parva Naturalis in three main treatises: On Sleep and Dream, On Sleeping and Waking, and On Divination through Sleep. Aristotle recognized that dreams could influence future actions of the dreamer and that dreams could be prophetic. He also considered a daemonic influence in dreams and the idea of the inborn entelechy—life-forward action of a living organism, together with the divine gifts and fates bestowed by the gods. Aristotle located the source of ordinary dreams in the feelings of the dreamer and likened dreams to reflections in a mirror. He discussed the phenomenological experience of dream images as subtle after images that correlated with the physiological experience of organic sensitive movements that are more present in a dream state when bodily/sense perceptions are not as active. For Aristotle, the most skillful judge of dreams is the person who possesses the ability to detect likenesses. Dreams were also considered important in medical diagnoses, and the dream treatises of Hippocrates (460–370 BCE) and Galen (129–200 CE) were influential. The practice of dream incubation was already an established tradition in the ancient world, but in the Greek tradition, it reached a celebrated status with the establishment of many sanctuaries devoted to Asclepius, the divine patron of healing. The healing practice required a supplicant to complete a process of purification, necessary sacrifice, and ritual in preparation to receive a dream. A supplicant would usually judge the success of a dream incubation by a dream vision that included Asclepius, sometimes accompanied by his daughter Hygiea or in theriomorphic form as a dog or snake. Dream interpretation was the preserve of priests attending the temple. The role of dream interpreters has a long history in the ancient world. Although the role was respected, the historical literature reveals a healthy scepticism of interpreters and interpretations. The challenges encountered in dreams of ambiguities, contradictions, illusions, and false perceptions are well recognized. Nevertheless, the cultural valuing of dream-incubation rituals can be attested to by the existence in 200 CE of hundreds of active temples in Greece and the Roman Empire devoted to Asclepius.

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The continuing existence of incubation sites/practices in the Roman world and extant historical records and imaginative literature support the view that the Greek dreaming tradition continued to influence and frame the Roman tradition. This tradition, like its predecessor, shared shifts and variances in response to changing historical periods and influences. The Romans also believed in oracles and prophetic dreams and used a wide range of divination practices. Like the Greeks, the Romans believed in the ability to communicate in dreams with the dead and recognized that dreams could serve a diagnostic function. The archaeological evidence of temple stelae and inscriptions and sources such as Josephius (37–100 CE), Philo (25 BCE–50 CE), Plutarch (46–120 CE), and Suetonius (69–122 CE) point to a general increase among the populace during the first to second centuries CE in dream divination in preference to other forms of divination. This shifting orientation can be considered through an interplay of multiple factors related to wars, extended trade, cultural contact, and shifting economic and political boundaries that contributed to the experience of an intense phase of cultural uncertainty and transition. The shifting political and social boundaries were contemporaneous with shifting religious affiliations that were most notably connected with the assimilation and integration of Christianity. The growth in popularity of Christianity that occurred over several centuries also saw an increase in references to instructions/ advice received in dreams. The Hebrew Bible, referred to by Christians as the Old Testament, has a rich narrative tradition of visitations, revelations, prophecies, and dream telling. Competing viewpoints from other religious ideas and sects, such as the Gnostics, also warned of demonic possession and deception, especially around sexuality and desire, which contributed to an ambiguous mix of beliefs and practices that both validated and condemned dreams. Dream guides were popular. The Oneirocritica (The Interpretation of Dreams) by Artemidorus of Daldis, dating from the second century CE, is the only extant dream guide from this period. The Oneirocritica has played an important role in expanding cultural knowledge about dreams from this period; it also influenced theories about dream interpretation in Islamic and Christian traditions in the Early and Middle Ages. Artemidorus validates his authority on dreams by drawing on his own life experiences, knowledge of the literature, and a collection of over 3,000 dreams. He recognizes dreams can have an internal or external source, and he provides a classification of dream experiences that distinguishes between personal memory dreams, which he considers of little lasting value, and meaningful dreams, which are classed as either theorematic or allegorical dreams. In the Oneirocritica, theorematic dreams correspond very closely to reality. They do not require interpretation and will play out very soon after being dreamed, whereas the dreams that are more symbolic and enigmatic and require interpretation may take a longer time to manifest. Artemidorus takes into account details of the dreamer’s life, culture, character, and mood connected with the dream. He utilizes metaphor and metonym and illustrates these points by providing examples of different meanings of similar symbols, dependent on the life circumstances of the dreamer.

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In this respect, Artemidorus’s advice would not sound dissimilar to a modern dream approach. However, he differs in a very important aspect in that he incorporates the epiphany or message dream category familiar from the Middle Eastern texts and acknowledges the source as divine, as indicated by the appearance in the dreams of the god/goddess, guide, teacher, or ancestor. Dreaming is valued for its ability to reveal or anticipate one’s fate or destiny and, as such, serves to forewarn or help avert harm. The epiphany or message type dreams have very strong antecedents in the Middle Eastern tradition. Traditionally, these dreams were most frequently associated with kings and power/authority figures, and they served to consolidate positions of power and status. In the Greek and early Roman traditions, message dreams were not the reserve of the privileged secular or religious hierarchy. Neoplatonism, which arose around the third century CE, allowed that such dreams were accessible to everyone by virtue of the belief in the soul’s essential divinity. Such dreams were associated with the belief in the soul’s capacity to leave the body when the senses are perceived as asleep and to travel through higher realms not corrupted with matter. However, in this transitional cultural period, while message dreams continued to be reported, they were increasingly considered to be the reserve of the spiritually sanctioned, which was predominately a male spiritual hierarchy. Dream interpretation also fell within the domain and preserve of this same hierarchy and reveals how dreams are subject to political manipulation, co-option, and theological purview. “It is not permissible for a woman to speak in church, nor is it permitted for her to teach, to baptize, or to offer (the Eucharist) nor can she claim a share for herself in any masculine office, nor to speak of any priestly duty” (Tertullian, quoted in Miller, 1994, p. 171). The evolving heritage of Western dreaming reveals continuing concerns with the paradox of dream as illusion or dream as superior reality, the relationship between the sacred and the secular, and questions truth, causality, and meaning in dreams. Personal records such as those of Synesius (373–414 CE) and Augustine (354–430 CE) reveal awareness of the subjective nature of dreaming, the impact of daily residual activities on dream content, somatic responses, and wish fulfillment. The changing nature of the cultural content or themes that appear or are recorded in dreams is perhaps best evidenced by the decline in appearance of familiar gods or statues, and the increase in angelic visitations and the appearance of Christian saints and martyrs in dream narratives. The dream diary of the Christian martyr Perpetua, dating from the early third century CE, is valuable for the personal, psychological, religious, and political tensions it reveals at the nexus of a religious-political conflict. In the fourth of the dreams reported in the dream diary, Perpetua dreams of the ordeal ahead in the arena, where she is to face wild animals: The day before our fight, this is what I saw in vision: Pomponius the deacon was coming to the prison gate and knocking urgently. And I went to him and opened for him. He was wearing a loose, gleaming white tunic, and damasked sandals, and he

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said: “Perpetua, we are waiting for you: come!” He took my hand and we began to go over rough, winding ways. We had hardly reached the amphitheatre, breathless, when he took me into the middle of the area, and said: “Don’t be afraid: here I am beside you sharing your toil.” And he vanished. And I saw the immense, astonished crowd. And as I knew I had been condemned to the wild beasts, I was amazed they did not send them out at me.

The dream report continues in a long, detailed narrative from which Perpetua wakes with a sense of peace. “And I knew I should have to fight not against the wild beasts but against the Fiend; but I knew the victory would be mine” (Miller, 1994, p. 162). Macrobius’s Commentary on the Dream of Scipio (Stahl, 1952) is a later surviving text from the fourth century CE that continued to be very influential and a leading source book about dreams through the Middle Ages. The commentary, which included the only surviving full text of Scipio’s dream originally recorded in Cicero’s De Re Republica, engages the reader in a masterful Neoplatonic synthesis of classical philosophy, liberal arts, and science. The third chapter includes five main dream types based on some revisions of Artemidorus’s original classification: the enigmatic dream (somnium), the prophetic dream (visio), oracular (oraculum), the nightmare (insomnium), and apparition (visum). The enigmatic or symbolic dream includes an additional five categories: personal, alien, social, public, and universal. This classification continues to be useful, and Harry Hunt (1989) argues that a full range of dream types continues to occur in Western society. Within this cultural landscape, there were many competing trends and ambiguities, which from the 6th century CE took a familiar cast until the early Middle Ages of the 10th–12th centuries. Stories of the lives of the saints, hagiographies, and spiritual biographies, which included dream narratives, were popular, and together with the ritual practices associated with saints’ relics held great imaginative weight and spiritual authority. Together, they served to consolidate or confirm the belief in the possibility of an ongoing relationship with the sacred and with convictions around the necessity of propitiation around sin and hopes of salvation and redemption (Miller, 1994; Harris, 2009). Although the veracity of biblical and classical literary texts may be questioned and narratives of gods/angels and demons discounted, the importance of the issues that are being engaged with through dream, image, metaphor, and story cannot be discounted. Also, while a predominant theme of the Western dreaming heritage can be identified as religious and concerned with a search for an integrated and transcendental truth, it has been a highly contested and debated area that reflects shifts in cultural value systems. These systems were both conscious and unconscious and were the outcome of a complex interrelationship of spiritual values and sociopolitical pressures. MEDIEVAL PERIOD The period of the 10th through 12th centuries marked a time of cultural and social change associated with the shifting boundaries of institutional power connected with the rise of feudalism, the growth in cities, the increase in literacy, and

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the availability of classical texts, such as those of Aristotle and Macrobius, via Arabic translations. During this historical period, a greater separation between the laity and ecclesiastical orders of society developed in conjunction with the establishment of the first Western universities and the monastic revival associated with Gregorian Reforms, which were a series of reforms that dealt with the moral integrity and independence of the clergy. At the same time, the expansion in levels of literacy and availability of translations enabled incorporation of oral traditions of Celtic and Germanic epics and romances. Within the universities, the gradual incorporation of Aristotelian writings on the naturalistic causes of dreams also contributed to the continuing cultural dialogue around the dichotomy of true/false dreams and visionary states. This period reveals greater interest in dreams of a more secular, personal, and nonreligious nature. The resurgence of the interest in the phenomenon of dreams in 12th-century Western Europe has been commented on as being a pivotal marker in terms of modern Western consciousness, particularly in relationship to the concept of individualism (Davidson, 1989). The prophetic nature of dreams and divine revelations was still accommodated within the Christian worldview, albeit not without some difficulty, as we see in the influential writings of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274 CE), who sought to integrate the earlier medieval view best represented by Augustine while also finding agreement with Aristotle and the naturalistic perspective. It may be helpful to consider this cultural period of flux as a border crossing, where inevitably there will be close supervision and placement of border guards at demarcation points or critical junctures. So, while this was a period of fluidity, it was also a period of tightening and control. On the religious side, there was greater demarcation of territory, with an increasing delineation of who is judged a trustworthy or likely recipient of divine revelation. By and large, this status was jealously reserved for and by the masculine hierarchy. On the philosophic side, it led to an orientation where reason was associated with a superior function and imagination with an inferior function. The contested nature of this field in terms of male and female relationships and social and political relationships continued to play out in both private and public spheres in the idealization of the feminine in terms of the devotion to the cult of Mary, the literature of the Grail, the knightly quest in the romance literature, and the demonization of women as seen in dream imagery of the witch and the evil enchantress. The Anglo/Celtic vernacular literature of epics and romance, dream guides, and visionary experiences literature bears witness to the continuing tension being held in these cultures on the nature of true and false dreams and the spirit/matter continuum as reflected on the soul’s capacity to receive or produce dreams and visionary experiences. By the time of the late Middle Ages, when Chaucer (1343–1400) was writing such works as the Wife of Bath, The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, and Troilus and Criseyde, the inclusion of dream narratives was a popular literature device. Such narratives served to question both the possibilities of imaginative transcendence as well as beliefs in an abstract truth discernible by intellect and reason. Shakespearean plays

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and popular entertainment and theater of the late 15th and early 16th centuries also served to frame this cultural dialectic. The Shakespearean social world engages us with a mixed genre in respect to the world of dreams, visions, and imagination. The narrative of the dream vision, the otherworldly journey, the altered state of consciousness, the phantasy, nightmare, illusory, and “unreal” nature of the dream is interspersed with “truthfulness” of the dream and questions of fate, destiny, and oracular prophecy. Shakespeare’s comment in a Midsummer Night’s Dream that after all the delusions, projections, and comedic confusion of the play, it is “but a dream,” invites a playful, insightful contemplation. The play also invites reflection on the limits of reason and the excesses of imagination and consideration that the crucible of understanding is connected to character, personality, and psychological development more than social or spiritual status or standing. The continuing publication of dream guides and dream reports demonstrates within the general populace a continuing interest in dreams. Thomas Hill’s Pleasaunte Arte of the Interpretacion of Dreames (1576) was a popular dream guide that continued the belief in “truthful” predictive dreams. It included a dream symbol canon, but it also focused on the interior, inward function of dreams in terms of encouraging greater self-knowledge. The influential philosopher Rene Descartes (1596–1650 CE) emphasized an approach to knowledge based on reason alone, independent of sensory experience, which he judged as unreliable. Descartes’s view of the mind is of an immaterial substance that engages in various activities, such as thought, imagining, feeling, and willing. He famously raised the question, at any moment, how do we determine whether we are dreaming? He argued that only knowledge derived a priori from innate ideas and through deductive reasoning that is bestowed by God can be trusted. Descartes was drawn to this perception through three important dreams of his own. While he allowed that it is still possible by virtue of the intellect/mind to perceive truth in dreaming, his views on the mind-body relationship have heavily influenced theoretical perspectives on dualism in Western philosophical thinking. Following on from the Enlightenment, which generally centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, the normative cultural stance placed decreasing value on reports of dream visitations or oracular insights in public discourse records. Nevertheless, similar strands of dream reports continued in the popular literature, personal autobiographies, and spiritual accounts in religious groups (Plane & Tuttle, 2013). The most significant change to these historical patterns came in the early 20th century with Sigmund Freud’s publication of The Interpretation of Dreams (1899). Freud championed dreams as the “royal road to the unconscious.” While he validated the symbolic and imaginal function of dreams, he emphasized the biophysiological and instinctual aspect of dreaming, which, through his theory of the latent versus the manifest content of the dream, stressed the wish fulfillment function of dreaming and the deceptive, illusory nature of dreams. Freud’s work had evolved in the context of the earlier revival in the 19th century of Romanticism, which valued imagination, feelings, fantasy, dreams, and the

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unconscious. A range of writers within the Romantic school, for example, Mary Wollstonecraft, Shelley, and Samuel Coleridge, reflect on dreams as being creative, revelatory, prophetic, and problem-solving, as well as expressing repressed or neglected aspects of the personality. Carl Jung disagreed with Freud on the relationship of the manifest and latent content, instead placing emphasis on the compensatory nature of dreams to waking life. He stressed the creative, transformative function of dreams and imagination. His views are more aligned with a Neoplatonic, archetypal perspective that values the revelatory and anticipatory nature of the symbol—both individually and collectively. With the advent of film and the changing social-political realities of World War I, there was also renewed interest in the subject of dreams—socially and culturally. Surrealism is a movement that attracted artists and thinkers interested in working with dreams as a heightened form of perception that could be used in service of greater consciousness—personally and socially (Groth & Lusty, 2013). The fascination with dreams and imagination has a long and valued tradition of study and contemplation in the Western tradition that continues to flourish, aided by cross-cultural disciplinary study, experiential practices, dialogue, and modern scientific advances in neuro-imaging techniques and research. ISLAM “The Islamic Oneirocritica tradition emerged at the crossroads of the intersection of ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, Greek and Asian concepts of dreaming, synthesizing and islamicising these traditions into its own unique and rich heritage” (Hermansen, 2001, p. 73). This exchange was a two-way process, with the Latin West and Christian tradition greatly enriched from the Islamic tradition via translations of classical Greek texts and Islamic philosophical and scientific treatises (Gutas, 2016). The primary authoritative sources for Islamic dream interpretation are the Koran and the life and practice of the Prophet Muhammad (570–632 CE). Within the Islamic tradition, Muhammad’s personally recounted dream experiences are interpreted as giving weight and support for his later prophetic revelations and message. Within the ancient Middle Eastern tradition, to tell a dream was seen as beneficial either by virtue of seeking interpretation or for purification (Oppenheim, 1966, p. 349). In classical Arabic, Ta’bir, dream interpretation, literally means “taking across, make something pass over” (Mittermaier, 2015, p. 149). Muhammad interpreted dreams, his own and others, but he also cautioned about only telling a dream to a knowledgeable person or loved ones and to avoid telling your enemies, children, or impious persons. He is quoted as saying, “A dream will take effect according to how it is interpreted.” In the case of bad dreams or a dream that one dislikes, it is advised to not mention it, but instead to offer prayer or recite some verses from the Koran or give to charity to mitigate its effect. Advice was also given on the use of associated divination related to the etymology of names, astrological symbolism, time of day, metaphors, and correspondences.

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In Islamic culture, dreams are held in high regard, as they are considered to bear a close relationship to prophecy. An Islamic tradition states, “The veridical dream is one forty-sixth of prophecy” (Sivri, 1999, p. 252). The dream vision was considered a divine gift and distinguished from other kinds of dreams that may be demonically influenced and between symbolic dreams that were to be taken literally or dreams that reflect the dreamer’s worries or visions. Treatises on dreams as well as dream guides were popular. One of the most famous authorities was Ibn Sirin (653–728 CE). Although it is likely that the writings attributed to him are a compilation of orally transmitted stories, his name is synonymous with Arab oneiromancy. Artemidorus’s Oneirocritica became available in an Arabic translation in ca. 783 CE, and as with the Latin translation in the West, it had a big impact. The comprehensive guide by ad-Dinawari (ca. 1006 CE) provides broad coverage of all aspects of dreams in the context of life work, environment, politics, social relationships, religion, spirituality, hopes, and wishes. In the Islamic tradition, “There is hardly any phase in the life of the community and the individual where dreams will not play a part” (Von Grunebaum, 1966, p. 11). The objective significance accorded to the dream in relationship to external reality is consistent with theological and philosophical perspectives that validate a natural connection between earthly and divine realms via the receptive capacities of the rational soul, the individual active intellect, and the universal intellect. During what has been termed the Golden Age of Islam, generally dated from the 8th to the 12th centuries, science, economic development, and scholarship flourished. It was a period of increasing literacy, when great libraries were established and Arabic translations of the great works from Greek, Chinese, and Indian sources were made. In the Islamic West and Eastern regions of the Islamic world, separate theological and philosophical schools debated and contemplated dreams and visionary experiences through the multidisciplinary lens of philosophy, science, rational argument, theology, and imagination. Arabic translations of Aristotle’s writings that had been available from 750 CE were intensely studied and critiqued. Two of the most influential of the Arabic commentators of Aristotle’s ideas were Avicenna (980–1037 CE) and Averroes (1126–1198 CE). Both writers sought with varying success to incorporate Aristotle’s ideas on the naturalistic basis of dreams. Avicenna developed an impressive breadth of knowledge in the fields of science, medicine, philosophy, and theology. His writings on metaphysics and logic had enormous influence in the Islamic and medieval and Renaissance Christian worlds, with his medical treatises serving as instruction guides into the 17th century. For Avicenna, the ability to receive knowledge and gain insight was possible because of the human intellect’s natural affinity or consubstantial relationship with an external, celestially active intellect. Although Avicenna argued this faculty was the result of a natural affinity and was an innate potentiality, it had to be developed or acquired through a recipient’s readiness to receive and to actualize the content received. Intention was important as well as attaining balance in disposition and internal and external senses. Avicenna affirmed the problem-solving function of

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dreams in sleep, commenting that he had solved philosophical issues while sleeping. He attributed this faculty to the state of imagination being more active when the senses are asleep. He also reasoned that it was possible through dreams to acquire knowledge about the past, the present, and the future. Averroes was less influential than Avicenna, but he was nonetheless very influential in the 13th century, particularly influencing philosophers and theologians of the Latin West. Thomas Aquinas referred to Averroes as “the Commentator,” in response to his writings on Aristotle. Avicenna and Averroes disagreed on a number of theological beliefs, such as the immortality of the soul and the eternity of the world. While Averroes advocated a philosophy that perhaps could best be described as secular rationalism, he also validated the importance of dreams. He supported the “truth” of prophetic vision and “true” dreams by virtue of a belief in the natural affinity of the individual intellect and a divine intellect and his conceptual understanding of the soul’s capacity to abstract images from the preexisting supernal world intellect or collective soul. Al-Ghazali (1058–1111 CE) trained as a jurist and philosopher and was another influential voice in the philosophical and spiritual dialogues concerning the trustworthiness of dreams and the debates around reason versus imagination. Al-Ghazali had experienced a spiritual crisis in which dreams had been central to revealing the nature of the crisis and also supporting his healing. During this lifetransformational process, Al-Ghazali moved closer to align with the Sufi schools of thought. Al-Ghazali favored greater separation of the sciences and religion and, while not disregarding the importance of reason and intellect, was an advocate of the prime importance of imagination. He considers that “perhaps the life of this world is like a dream in comparison to the world to come,” and to find truth requires the seeker to go beyond the intellect. He believed imagination permits a certain truth that is not accessible by discursive or abstract thinking. He likened this capacity to perceive truth in dreams as the capacity to listen through the heart’s organ. In this view, dreams are not limited to the individual psychobiological self; they have a future-oriented cast, provide guidance and direction, and are indicative of moral and ethical development. Favored images to describe the nature of image and imagination are the veil and the mirror. The metaphor for the heart is a mirror in which images and realities are reflected. A keynote of the Islamic Sufi dream tradition is the emphasis on the initiatory or threshold nature of dreams that brings the dreamer into a meeting or engagement with a spiritual authority figure, an invisible guide—the best friend—the wise companion on the spiritual path. Autobiographical texts illuminate this spiritual theme of journey and return—of waking, sleeping, dreaming, death, and afterworld perceived as a continuous cyclic pattern of dreaming and awakening. Ibn´Arabi (1164–1240 CE) is a celebrated Sufi master, philosopher, and spiritual guide whose teachings and writings on the nature of imagination and dreams have also been very influential in the Islamic tradition and have become better known in the modern West (Henri Corbin (1996).

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For Ibn´Arabi, the whole of existence is imagination within imagination. Dreams and images, like images in a mirror, are neither there nor not there, existent or nonexistent. Reality can be perceived of as a simulated reality of perceived presences. There is nothing independent nor autonomous about the absolute reality that is perceived as the divine unity of being. This perception sounds very familiar to Plato’s thoughts in the Timaeus 29/30 about the anima mundi: “This world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence . . . a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related.” While there is some scholarly debate that in the earlier Islamic writings imagination is conceived of as a faculty or function of soul, from about the 12th century onward, it is generally regarded that this activity is now spoken of as an intermediary world, as the ´Alam al mithãl—the world of images—and as ontologically real. It is a world where ideas, forms, universals, and “the real” clothe themselves in sensible forms that are recognizable by clear criteria to the initiated. It is valuable to consider the common psychospiritual grounding in the dreaming imagination that Christians and Muslims share, and it is also valuable to reflect on the variations, graduations, and differences that have developed in response to unique cultural tensions, orientations, spiritual experiences, and economic, political, and social conditions. The questions of fate, destiny, and free will are complex matters of existential concern and metaphysical speculation that also have unique social and cultural orientations. Modern anthropological and cultural studies confirm the significance that is still accorded to dreams within contemporary Islam, and, in some cases, there appears, since the 1970s, to be renewed interest in dream interpretation in the wake of Islamic revivalism (Mittermaier, 2010). This trend is consistent with a similar pattern identified in the Western tradition, where the cultural valuing of dreaming assumes greater significance and transitional status in response or contemporaneously with the shifting transitional status of the culture. In the case of the Islamic world, these shifts have been associated with the introduction of Western psychoanalytic theories, religious extremism, Muslim reformism, and the challenges of contested religious and secular beliefs associated with modernity. EASTERN TRADITIONS At last we are in the position that Plato and the Indian sages argued for: we are dreaming still, but now we know that we are dreaming. (Doniger, 1984, p. 196)

Dreams and dreaming have been the subjects of study, meditation, and practice within Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Daoism, Ch´an, and Zen. Popular literature, autobiographies, myths, legends, and oral traditions reflect Eastern cultural patterns and thinking around the matter of dreaming that is rich, multiversed, and polysemic. Within this multiverse, a major existential concern is this: what is the nature of reality, and how are dreams reflecting reality or bringing about reality. A general response to this concern is to conclude that there are multiple realities and that the

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boundaries between realities are more porous, soft, and less concrete or permanent than is recognized in the Western perspectives. Deep inquiries have been engaged around such questions as, what is the nature of awareness and of wakefulness; how do we identify and substantiate that we are awake, dreaming, or sleeping; and what is the illusory nature of both waking and dream states? (Doniger, 1984; Wilber, 2000; Varela, 1997). The earliest Indian references to dreams appear in the religious texts, notably the Rg Veda (ca. 1500–1200 BCE). The references in the Rg Veda present a cautionary note focused on prayer and ritual to prevent nightmares, avert harm, and safeguard oneself or direct harm to one’s enemies. The Atharva Veda, which is a later compilation (1200–1000 BCE), includes dream guide interpretations and a dream symbol canon that draws on Vedic medical texts. In this text, dreams are divided into auspicious and inauspicious types. While the Atharva Veda discusses that dreams come from Yama’s world, the “Lord of the Dead,” it generally presents a favorable view of dreaming in terms of anticipatory value and medical prognostication (Wayman, 1967, p. 6). Dreaming is connected to an individual’s life circumstances, physical condition, imagination, and personality. This is discussed within three broad categories of humoral dispositions: phlegmatic/watery, bilious/fiery, and windy/sanguine. Advice is given about paying attention to one’s dreams as well as noting time of night of dream recall, season, and preceding waking events. In the literature of the Upanishads (ca. 700 BCE), further development about the relationship of waking and dreaming is developed. The texts speak of four states of being: waking, dreaming, dreamless sleep, and the fourth transcendent state of Turiya—ultimate realization. Dreaming and dreamless sleep are the intermediate states. In the former, one can gain insight into the nature and experience of creation and creativity—personally and collectively—and in the latter, one rests in a primordial state of potentiality. The subjective and objective nature of dreams are considered closely related. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad provides a psychophysical analysis of sleep and dreaming that also allows for connection between the human and divine realms. Dreaming is perceived as a means of spiritual education and enlightenment as well as a creator of imaginal spaces. In Sanskrit, the same verb (srj) is used to describe the acts of seminal emission, creation, speaking, imagining, and dreaming. “One sees (drs’) the world just as one sees a dream” (Doniger, 1984, p. 16). One sees the real and unreal, and the objective, illusory nature of both is questioned. Dreaming is a liminal field, and in this cultural perspective, it is also an intersubjective world of shared realities, where two or more people can share the same dream or parallel dreams. As such, the dream has social implications. In epic narratives, such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata, tales of transformation, transmigration, projections, realizations, misfortunes, and good fortune both reveal and contribute to the continuing cultural dialogue on the questions of time, illusion, and reality. The consequences and continuities of dreams, thoughts, and actions, as interpreted through the law of karma, are considered and reflected upon.

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In contrast with the Western perspective of time as linear or “synchronic”—fixed at a certain point in time—the sense of “time” reflected on in these religious and cultural narratives is best perceived as “diachronic,” that is, across and through time, and is consistent with Eastern perspectives on the afterlife and reincarnation. Conception dreams and dreams of ancestors, parents, teachers, guides, and spiritual figures feature significantly in the spiritual and popular accounts. In China, dreams of ancestors play an important role. Dream divination is also important. The earliest surviving text from ancient China, the Shu-jing (Book of Documents ca. 1100 BCE), gives evidence of the cultural valuing of authority, reverence for the ancestors, and maintaining harmony in social, political, and cosmic order. Dreams of legendary leaders, such as King Wu, are used to both claim and sanction positions of power and action. The Zuo-zhuan (Zuo Commentary tradition ca. fifth to fourth centuries) includes shared as well as prophetic dreams. It also points to the problematic authority of some dream figures and dream messengers and to a world where gods are sometimes inconsistent, betray promises, and ignore the conduct of the supplicant (Li, 1999, p. 28). By contrast, the dreamer in the Daoist classic Zhuangzi (ca. fourth BCE) is concerned with the transitional states of dreaming and awakening, with the flux of opposites, transformation, and transcendence. The butterfly dream is one of the best-known dreams within the Chinese tradition: Zhuang Zhou once dreamed he was a butterfly—joyous and creative in being a butterfly. His heart’s desires were fulfilled, and he did not know about (Zhuang) Zhou. All of a sudden, he woke up; there he was, palpably and irrevocably (Zhuang) Zhou. He did not know whether he was (Zhuang) Zhou dreaming of a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being (Zhuang) Zhou. Between being (Zhuang) Zou and being a butterfly there must be a difference. This is called the transformation of thing. (Li, 1999, p. 31)

The spread of Buddhism from India into China, and indeed throughout East Asia, impacted social, cultural, and religious traditions and contributed to a rich collection of popular and spiritual accounts of dream experiences. In China, dream interpretation manuals and detailed classification systems continued to be developed that drew upon the traditional and classical interpretations as well as the Buddhist and earlier shamanic perspectives. The 11th-century Buddhist philosopher and mystic Naropa stated that a dream is not a passive surrender to a stream of images of which the recipient is the unwitting plaything. Dreams, in this view, are an active component of the ultimate goal of enlightenment, and, as such, they cannot be merely judged as complementary or compensatory to waking consciousness. Naropa’s dream yoga practices include a typology of dreaming. These practices continue to inform modern-day dreamers through a practice designed to increase personal and spiritual understanding as well as support an intuitive and applied system of medical diagnosis (Wangyal, 1998; Wallace, 2012; Norbu, 2002). Buddhist spiritual biographies provide important information about cultural values, spiritual beliefs, and dream practices. The Buddha’s own dreams were valued

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and seen as a significant indicator of his spiritual achievements. Spiritual dreams also serve to confer authority, veracity, and status, and, generally, as in the Western tradition, this is reserved within a male spiritual hierarchy. Tibetan literature has a very strong tradition of spiritual biographies. The biography of Milarepa, the Tibetan yogi and Buddhist spiritual master (1052–1135 CE), provides an extensive record of the significance of dreams in his life and in others’ shared dreams. The account includes prophetic dreams, shared dreams, encounters with teachers, dreams of giving and receiving guidance/teachings, and dream interpretation. In this text and similar texts, while interpretation varies, dreams are considered meaningful, and significant dreams have always had social relevance, particularly to maintaining spiritual connections and relationships. From the Japanese Zen tradition, we have the remarkable 40-year dream diary and spiritual biography from the Buddhist monk Myoe (1173–1232 CE). His dreams are a great animator of his life and the motive force for deepening his faith and his practice. There is a strong anticipatory focus in the quality of Myoe’s recorded dreams and the description of waking-life events that follow the dream experience. Myoe’s added commentary demonstrated insight into the continuity of his dreams and waking experience, and he brings to these images an interpretative level of insight that is noteworthy for its rational and intuitive grasp, or its integration of objective and subjective perspectives. The famous conception dream of the Buddha’s mother, Queen Maya, is celebrated in Buddhist art and literature. A large number of women’s prophetic dreams are reported in early Indian literature, whether Buddhist, Jain, or Hindu. However, these reports are generally filtered through male experience, and where women do appear in the narratives, they generally assume a quite passive role or are accorded low agency. In the Tibetan Vajrayana and Tantric traditions, positive female images do appear, and sacred iconography and visualization practices feature powerful female deities. “Dreams are pervasive in Tibetan religious life” (Young, 1999, p. 55). Tibetan Buddhism maintains that the dreaming mind is open to external, spatial, temporal, and nonlocal influences and accepts precognition and remote viewing. It is a syncretic tradition that draws on the earlier cultural influence of the Bon Shamanistic tradition and Tibetan folklore. It engages with ritual, mantra, dream incubation, and visualization practices and draws on a variety of dream lists and dream manuals. The dream manuals provide a range of classificatory dream systems that allow for subconscious impressions, past experiences, and prophetic dreams. Dreams are attributed to the activity of the five senses plus the activity of the sixth sense—the mind or subtle consciousness. The goal of such dream practices is concerned not only with loosening ego identification but extending awareness of the interdependence of all phenomena. It is a spiritual process that focuses on the integration of phenomenal appearances with subtle processes of consciousness—awareness of awareness. “The main purpose of dream yoga in the context of tantric practice is to first recognize dream state as dream state” (Dalai Lama, quoted in Varela, 1997, p. 129). Wallace (2012) discusses that the goal within the Tibetan cosmological worldview is to see beyond, or rather through, the appearances of conventional reality

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and the emptiness of forms and to perceive and realize the clarity of Buddha nature, which is translated as awakened mind. This is a view that is endorsed in Buddhist philosophy. David Fontana (2000) discusses the Advaita model in Vedantic Hinduism, which includes recognizable interconnected levels of consciousness, and compares it with Buddhist cosmologies. The significant aspect within both systems is the understanding that waking consciousness represents only a very small portion of potential human consciousness. This consciousness extends into dreaming sleep and dreamless sleep. The cross-cultural growth in the field of mindfulness studies and meditative practice has also extended knowledge and recognition of the types of insights developed through contemplative and direct experience validated within these traditions. Wilber, for example, in his Spectrum of Consciousness model, which is informed by both Vedanta and Tibetan Buddhism, discusses the categories of subtle and deep subtle consciousness and identifies dreaming with these categories. Of course, the dream state is only one of the many types of subtle-realm phenomena; the classic subtle state is savikalpa samadhi, “non-dual absorption with form,” which introduces one to the subtle realm while awake. The dream state is said to be a subclass of the subtle, in that there are no gross material phenomena in the dream state (only images and forms). Thus, to enter the dream state consciously has always been seen as an analog of the savikalpa samadhi. (As we might put it; in both there is alpha-waking and theta-dreaming.) (Wilber, 2000, p. 294n.33)

The study and practice of lucid dreaming (see Chapter 9) has been of growing interest in the Western tradition and has been enriched through research and cross-cultural dialogue. Greater insight, appreciation, and knowledge about dreams and dreaming will continue to be best supported through cross-cultural and crossdisciplinary study.

Shamanism and Dreams Stanley Krippner

From a psychological perspective, shamans can be defined as community-sanctioned spiritual practitioners who obtain useful information from unusual sources, such as nighttime dreams and daytime visions, utilizing this information for the benefit of their community and its members (Krippner, 2012). Shamans could be considered the first healers, the first psychotherapists, and the first family counselors because they mediated conflicts, presided over rituals of transition, and attempted to heal sick community members. The term shaman derives from Siberian practitioners, but anthropologists found similar practitioners in indigenous societies around the world. Each shamanic society has its own cultural model about dreams and dreamwork. For example, the naachin of the Dunne-za tribe in Canada claim

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to visit both the “upper world” and the “lower world” in their dreams, obtaining songs that they use in rituals honoring both the living and the dead. Benedict (1923) wrote that dreams were the most basic expression of spiritual life for most Native American tribes. Krippner and Thompson (1996) compared the dream models of 16 Native American tribes and found more similarities than differences. For example, Native Americans generally considered the dream world as “real” as the waking world. Many of these models were highly sophisticated; yet, they were denigrated by European colonists and religious authorities, and later by Western psychiatrists. When most of Africa was colonized, strict laws were passed against the practice of “witchcraft,” notably the Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1899, which led to a revolt spearheaded by shamans and other spiritual practitioners. Mbuya Nehanda, who reputedly could communicate with the deceased, was hanged for helping lead the revolt but is currently revered in Zimbabwe for her heroism. Nonetheless, shamanic dreamwork has gradually attained the interest and respect of social scientists as well as members of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD). For example, the Mapuche people of southern Chile posit four levels of analysis: the intertextual level (which focuses on specific dream images), the contextual level (which focuses on the social and personal life of the dreamer), the intertextual level (which relates the dream to a person’s earlier dream reports), and the retrospective level (in which subsequent events in the dreamer’s life are examined in light of the dream report) (Degarrod, 2004). European colonists were advised to ignore their dreams because they would not know which were divinely inspired and which were demonic in nature. Native American shamans, on the other hand, had no such dilemma because they had centuries of traditional dreamwork that provided the determination of the origin of dream content. In many of these societies, individuals and family members were encouraged to work with their own dreams, only bringing them to shamans if their meaning was in doubt. This practice attained considerable publicity when an amateur anthropologist described the Senoi of Southeast Asia as a “dream culture,” a claim that became controversial because he did not adhere to standards of fieldwork described later in the 20th century. However, there are several verified groups that might be referred to as “dream cultures.” The Guarani and Xavante Indians in southeastern Brazil hold that native people divided themselves into three groups: the People of the Sun, the People of the Moon, and the People of Dreams. The Guarani and the Xavante are members of the latter group and many of their communities have ongoing “dream circles” and morning dream-sharing sessions. Often, a dream is shared that gives direction to the daily life of the village, and it is not necessary that the dream is that of a paje (a common term for shaman in the Bra­ zilian Amazon) or not. Even a child can have a dream that will indicate an impor­ tant direction for the community. In all shamanic societies, dream reports can be considered to be “narratives” that are orally communicated to their communities by means of stories, songs, diagnoses of illness, and informal conversations. These narratives are valued not only for the healing, political, or spiritual meaning but also for their aesthetic value (Degarrod, 2004).

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Many shamans, such as the dukuns in Indonesia and the “wise people” in aboriginal Australia, guide their clients to a socially sanctioned understanding of their dreams, therefore maintaining the community fabric. This concern for communal values can also be seen in the Northern Iroquois “dream festivals,” looked upon with abhorrence by the European invaders and their descendants. During these festivals, dreamers were allowed to act out their dreams. For example, a woman who dreamed about a neighbor’s turquoise necklace was permitted to wear that necklace for the duration of the festival. There were even cases of “spouse swapping,” sanctioned by the dream narrative. Several centuries before Freud’s notion of “wish fulfillment,” the Iroquois felt that dreams revealed “the secret wishes of the soul.” This belief was also common among the Hurons; an observant Jesuit priest wrote that these people have souls whose desires are concealed during the day but are revealed during dreaming. If the soul is not given what it desires, it becomes “angry,” much to the detriment of the dreamer and tribe alike. The “dream festivals” allowed the direct or symbolic acting out of these desires, typically under the guidance of a shaman. Among some Iroquois tribal groups, the Ononharia ritual (literally an “upturning of minds”) includes a “dream-guessing” contest. The “up-turning” segment involves a “giveaway” in which treasured necklaces, blankets, and spouses (of both genders) are “given away.” Again, the shaman plays a central role, keeping the giveaway within boundaries that will not disrupt tribal cohesion. Some shamanic dreamworking approaches resemble those used by Western dreamworkers, for example, dream sharing, dream incubation, lucid dreaming, and psychodrama. There are instances of Native American dreamers using extreme measures to change the outcome of a dream by dramatizing the dreaded event. A Mohawk warrior who dreamed he was taken captive and tortured insisted that his peers restrain him and burn him with red hot metal to prevent his later ordeal. Apparently, the ritual served its purpose, much to the discomfort of the warrior. Some shamanic dream models differentiate dreams from nightmares; contempo­ rary researchers have found that the neurology of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) nightmares differs from that of ordinary dreams and other nightmares. The Ojibwa have a dozen categories of dreams, for example, “bad,” “beautiful,” “impure,” “ominous,” “painful,” and “visionary.” This is roughly analogous to some current schemes of categorizing dreams or identifying dream content. Parapsychological investigation of putative precognitive dreams was preceded by shamans who incubated dreams about the future; Mapuche shamans do this regularly because they live in a seismically active part of South America. Siberian shamans employ lucid dreaming so that they can recall their “journeys” to the “lower world” or the “upper world.” Some dreams appear to bolster the shaman’s powers (and reputation); among the Temiar in Malaysia, “spirit helpers” appear in dreams to point out dances and songs that will enhance shamanic healing skills. Among balians, on the island of Bali, it is not uncommon for future shamans to receive their instructions from “spirit helpers” during a series of dreams. Some shamans are “called” to shamanize by dream “spirits,” and these calls are ignored to the dreamer’s peril. Among members of

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Candomblé, an African-Brazilian sect, “when the spirits come knocking in your dream, you must let them in.” Among the Paviotso of the western United States, a deceased shaman (and a relative of the recipient) will typically issue the call in a dream. These dream calls are also common among the bare (i.e., shaman) initiates of Brazil’s hunting and gathering Bororo tribe. The Harney Valley Paiute tribe values the call so highly that parents encourage their sons to recall their dreams and warn them of dire consequences if they ignore the call. Dreams are used more frequently by shamans and other community members in those societies that live by hunting, fishing, and food-gathering activities rather than those dependent on agriculture and animal husbandry. The Xavante Indians of central Brazil use their dreams to establish and maintain contact with the birds and animals (parrots, puma, anteaters, etc.) with which they share their ecosystem. When Xavante paje and tribal elders dream about their ancestors, these dreams are shared with the community, which prepares reenactments of the dream, with elders playing the roles of their progenitors. These rituals help to align the present with the past, providing cultural continuity. On some occasions, Xavante members will sing, dance, and enact each other’s dreams, developing a sense of communality and trust among tribal members. The Menominee employed a language to describe dreams that was subtle, complex, and radically different from Western languages in its organization of action and object, time, and occurrence. This language permeated not only Menominee dreams, but social interactions as well, providing a social map in which each person could be placed as well as a set of values for which one would live and die. Shamanic dream models generally see dream life and waking life on a continuum; among the Saora people of India, both male and female shamans could have dream spouses as well as human spouses and raise children from both sets of unions. Dream interpretation can be either literal or symbolic; most North American Indian tribes used a combination of the two. An example of a symbolic interpretation would be the dreams of death common to shamanic initiates among Australian aboriginal, many South American Indian, Alaskan, and Siberian tribes. In these dreams, the initiate may be dismembered or devoured, only to be reborn— sometimes after a lengthy physical illness. Sometimes this dismemberment occurs in a waking vision. Some shamanic groups differentiate between dreams and visions, but others do not. The southern Canadian coast’s Salish Indians often send their young men on “vision quests” to establish their path in life, shamanism being one possible outcome. Psychoactive plants are not used by the Salish to facilitate these quests, but Amazonian tribes often employ ayahuasca and other native brews to facilitate the visionary voyage. Tobacco is commonly used by both North and South American shamans to facilitate visions, especially when a diagnosis is needed for an ailing tribal member. Psychedelic mushrooms have been used to facilitate “journeys” among Siberian, Mexican, and North African shamans for millennia. Tedlock (1991) has suggested that researchers interact within the context of the group they are studying, even if it means participating in dream sharing of one sort or another. In such contexts, the introduction of the researcher’s own dreams would

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be quite natural and might reveal the researcher’s unconscious reactions to the groups they are studying. This participant-observation method would abandon the long discredited notion that investigators must distance themselves from the phenomena they are studying. In these dream-sharing activities, both the researcher and the tribal members would comment on each other’s dreams. Among the Paratinin tribe of Brazil, it is said that “everyone who dreams has a bit of shaman” (Kracke, 1987). Indigenous cultures are changing due to acculturation, and not all of these changes are for the better. It is important that shamanic dreamworking models be preserved and studied for what insights they can yield, for dream science in particular, and for humanity in general.

Chapter 28

TECHNOLOGICAL INFLUENCES

Many in the dream research community appear to lean toward the hypothesis that dream content is continuous with the dreamer’s experiences (i.e., dream content is a representation of, or reaction to, the dreamer’s personal experience of reality). However, past research and reasoning has suggested that some dream content comes from an unknown source. Certainly, Freud and Jung’s theories of the unconscious as a source of instinctive forces, that in the case of Jung appear as archetypal imagery within a dream, would refute that view. Allan Hobson (Hobson & Schredl, 2011) argues that the continuity between recent experience and dreams primarily operates in the reverse direction—that the development of waking consciousness is moderated by dreaming consciousness. In his protoconsciousness theory (Hobson, 2009), he claims that dreams are a combination of replays of recent experience and synthetic content from within. In concert with so many other researchers who prescribe to the idea of an adaptive and learning function to dreaming (see Chapter 13), the synthetic or “creative” content may be the brain’s way of simulating possible future experiences or expanding consciousness by simulating scenarios and creating new content for the dreamer to experience. From an evolutionary perspective, the synthesis of dream content provides a survival advantage through threat rehearsal (as Revonsuo hypothesizes) or an adaptation to changes in our environment by preparing, simulating, and expanding the waking consciousness of beings. Although the changes and threats in our modern society differ from those of our ancestors, the relationship between dreams and waking consciousness remains the same. However, the dreaming process has been forced to adapt to the radical and abrupt shifts in daily human life that technology has brought about. Dependence on our technology and constant exposure to media defines our environment and does influence our dreams; therefore, if the dreaming process moderates our waking consciousness, it is important to understand that interaction.

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The Influence of Media Understood through Video Game Play Johnathan Bown and Jayne Gackenbach

Studies with video games can give us a view into how we process external reality in relation to internal reality, particularly because of its interactive nature and ability to present progressive changes. The results from studies have been consistent with both the continuity and discontinuity hypotheses (Gackenbach & Hakopdjanian, 2016; Gackenbach & Kuruvilla, 2008a). Direct mirror representations of games in dreams are rare; instead, the impact of video game play on dreams is often abstracted and integrated with other material that carries emotional or cognitive weight. Although this makes the question more challenging to answer, it also makes it interesting because the association between video game dream content and other content can inform how people process reality at other levels of consciousness. Video games change the content and quality of dreams. Gamers have been found to have more lucid and control dreams than nongamers (Gackenbach, 2006, 2009); they have increased bizarreness of dream content (Gackenbach et al., 2009); and they report feeling less threat and more excitement during nightmares (Gackenbach et al., 2011). These findings may imply that players learn a response style from video games that is generalized into sleep. In games, players adapt to controlling their avatars and the virtual environment, which is a frame of mind that appears to extend into dreams. This response style may have real-world advantages, one of which was observed in soldiers experiencing a war-related threat in their dreams. The soldiers reported more adaptive and empowered responses to the threat than nongamers (Gackenbach, et al., 2011). At the least, some shift in perspective has occurred for these gamers, and it is measurable in their dreams. This shift in perspective may be signaling a possible function of dreams and nightmares, that of threat simulation (Gackenbach & Kuruvilla, 2008a; see “The Threat Simulation Theory” section in Chapter 3), which suggests that threatening scenarios in the biologically created virtual environment of dreams provides an evolutionary advantage by preparing an individual for future conflict. Video games potentially offload this function into waking reality due to the high level of absorption that high-end gamers experience while playing games—especially combatcentric games. As a result, video game play may be an effective form of nightmare rehearsal, which reduces the felt helplessness of actual nightmares. While the content of nightmares reported by gamers is not reduced in intensity compared to nongamers (in fact, many report increases in violent content), the emotional impact is lessened, and the degree of control is improved. Players exhibit a greater frequency of choice and problem-solving in face of threatening dream content. Their in-dream intent plays out successfully for defensive maneuvers. Aside from the shifts in emotional and cognitive processing that players appear to exhibit in dreams, elements from video games also appear to be integrated into some dreams—which supports the continuity hypothesis. The authors have investigated what factors predict the incorporation of content as well as what

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type of content is more likely to be incorporated. Doing so builds a framework to explain how and to what extent video games are changing our dreams, and perhaps it will ultimately give insight into how our waking consciousness develops. To aid in measurement, dream researchers have categorized video games by such things as genre, cognitive load, and emotionality of game content, and, more recently, distinctions are being made on the basis of content due to the increasing complexity of modern games. Video game genre, unlike book genre, is usually independent of content and refers to the mechanics and interactions of the game (e.g., first-person shooters, role-playing games, racing games, etc.), although, as mentioned, some distinctions are made on content (e.g., zombie games, Mario games, etc.). When exploring how games affect dreams, the authors have adopted the cognitive model of Das (2002) to measure the cognitive load of game play, which rates the following categories: planning, attention, physiological arousal, simultaneous processing, and successive processing. This metric may have predictive value because cognitively demanding tasks are often associated with meaningful tasks, and any sufficiently meaningful experience is associated with dreaming (Kramer, 2014). Finally, although the emotionality of game content is rated based on the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) classifications that categorize the degree to which the imagery and subject matter could be disturbing to players, the true emotional impact on any individual is extremely challenging to measure. Past experiences, variance in mood, and individual belief systems are some of the moderators of emotional impact—all of which are difficult to capture. Because dreams are so intimately linked with memories and emotions, it is possible that the realized emotionality of game content is one of the most impactful but difficult to measure variables in predicting dream incorporation. Not surprisingly, ESRB ratings for emotional impact have been found to be insignificant in predicating dream incorporation. Conversely, it was surprising to find that none of the other variables were significant either (Gackenbach, 2011)! In other words, emotionality of content, cognitive load, and genre do not appear to make any difference when it comes to dreaming about gaming. However, in the same study, it was found that when video game content was incorporated, violent content was, by far, the most common type of content, and that is consistent with other inquiries (Gackenbach & Kuruvilla, 2008b). For a long time, video games have been commonly criticized for making children more violent or antisocial. Reflecting back to the discontinuity theory and protoconsciousness theory, one could argue that the incorporation of violent game content into dreams reflects the synthesis of new violent and conscious experiences. In other words, the waking consciousness of gamers is being expanded with additional violent content. Likely, the human brain has a higher affinity toward processing violence (i.e., threating content) due to the implications for survival. While this may translate into violent behaviors (Anderson & Dill, 2000), part of the mechanism for this may be that games serve to relieve players (and dreamers) of the emotional impact of violence or perhaps for the evolutionary drive to survive with the use of violence.

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Despite there being more violent content in dreams, we have found that gamers tend to report a neutral emotional response. The nightmare protection effect discussed earlier as well as the threat simulation hypothesis are possible reasons. However, the direction of causality can be questioned: are gamers who play violent games becoming emotionally neutral to the violence in their dreams, or did the emotional neutrality come first? The former appears to be true due to findings about absorption in gamers. Absorption is the degree to which gamers report losing track of time while playing, experiencing emotional reactions to game content, and feeling as though the player is inside the virtual environment. Violence, a pervasive element in video games, demands attention and is particularly absorbing. Of note, gaming elements such as title screens, console controllers, and physical game media are rarely represented in dreams, which unsurprisingly supports the hypothesis that attention and absorption are critical variables in determining what content is incorporated. Absorption into video games creates alterations in consciousness that are generalizable enough to result in dreamers having increased control within their dreams. Studies into virtual reality stereoscopic gaming may provide some clues as to the mechanisms. This type of video game play induces a sense of presence in the player more often than traditional video games and evokes great emotional responses (Diemer, 2015). Presence during video game play is described as a felt sense of genuinely being in the virtual landscape and being able to interact with, and be vulnerable to, whatever is there. A head-mounted display that occludes the player’s view of the real environment and a sense of presence is established, so the mental experience of playing a VR game is that of switching realities. Players become interlopers in a variety of virtual realities that have different laws and attributes. In doing so, they jump from one paradigm to another, learning and testing the extent of what they can influence. In one regard, they are learning not to assume that the laws of reality are inviolable. In dreams, it may be this conditioning that leads them to question their reality and find that it can be manipulated—hence, they experience more control or a lucid dream. Switching frames of reality may also jostle loose some long-assumed truths and attachments in our lives and serve as training for lucid or “active” dreams, argues Heim (2017), or it may break the frame of reality, as pointed out by Gackenbach and Hakopdjanian (2016). They suggest that entering and exiting a VR world juxtaposes the real with the simulated and forces the senses to struggle with the unfamiliar. When players become absorbed into the virtual environment, they are immersed in cognitive presence, losing touch with the real physical world around them, including their own bodies. The experience of taking off the VR device causes a reintegration of cognitive awareness with the greater waking consciousness. Lucid dreams, being the marriage between conscious attention and unconscious content, parallel the experience of entering and exiting VR games. Indeed, the dreams of VR gamers have been found to imply greater awareness and control. So, while video games can be tools to investigate dream and consciousness on a deep level, so too are they tools to direct and train consciousness. As VR devices

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that reliably induce presence and absorption have only recently become accessible to mainstream consumers, dream research over the next decade will be particularity exciting. Already, VR gamers are reporting more control in their dreams, so as the technology is refined, it may be possible to create hardware and software that can train our own biological hardware to dream lucidly. Presumably, the need for threat simulation would then be offloaded more effectively from dreams as well, while at the same time, gamers gain some control in the development of their own consciousness through dreams. Ultimately, video games are a form of media that, due to their interactive nature, are causing shifts in consciousness that the human race has not experienced before. As of yet, some benefit to dreams and consciousness appears to come from video game play, but we must acknowledge what is at stake in a world where technology is advancing both online and offline. This is especially noteworthy in the heavy, pervasive use of smartphones. Technology is becoming more influential in the shaping of our dreams, so we must also try to become more aware of the relationship between technology and consciousness so that we can, in turn, shape our technology accordingly.

The Internet and Social Media Ryan Hurd

Years before google became a verb, tech-savvy dreamers were sharing their weird and fantastic nighttime experiences on the Internet. What began humbly with peer-to-peer modem connections in the 1980s has grown into a multidimensional collection of social media sites, apps, blogs, forums, and online educational venues, all dedicated to dreaming. After 30 years, it can be said with confidence that the most ancient of social practices, asking, “What did you dream last night?” has successfully adapted itself to the most current technological trends—for example, peer-to-peer dream sharing on the Internet—and will continue to do so. No matter how we communicate—be it around a campfire or with a handheld device that wirelessly transmits texts that self-destruct within 24 hours—dreams always find a way to be shared. That is what dreams do, because dreams are themselves a social technology, propelling information and propagating novel memes precisely at times when people are susceptible to fresh ideas and nonordinary experience. However, keep in mind that the digitalization of dream telling is a two-way street. The mediums of digital technology and its mass media content—especially since the advent of the smartphone—have not only radicalized dream sharing but also affected the ways people dream as well as how well they sleep. This is a topic that Jayne Gackenbach explores in Chapter 7 of this work and will not be covered here.

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CYBERSPACE, THE PALACE OF DREAMS Online dream sharing is currently defined by a lack of direct human contact during the sharing of dream texts and verbal narratives. Yet, psychologically, the Internet is more than a way to receive information. As early as 1984, award-winning science fiction author William Gibson suggested cyberspace is a “consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators” (p. 51). More exactly, the Internet is itself a dream world, a realm that transports and transforms. For example, psychologist John Suler provided groundbreaking work on identity politics and gender fluidity with an early multimedia server program known as “The Palace.” Users were free to socialize, move to different “rooms,” and try on new visual avatars to represent themselves. Like dreams, cyberspace is a place where users have experiences that are characterized by transcending physics and time, the spontaneous generation of imagery, having loose social boundaries, and identity shifting and disassociation. The editors of Psychology and the Internet noted something similar, suggesting, “In this manner, the Internet can function as alternate, supplemental, or amplifying vehicles for our experience of the world, and of our participation in it” (Gackenbach,1998, p. 346). Remarkably, participation in cyberspace also stirs unconscious associations, inviting an eruption of potent emotional knowledge. In his virtual environments, Suler (1999) notes, “For some people, the Palace may have an even higher potential to stir the unconscious because it mimics many of the qualities of dream life. As a dream-like state of consciousness, it may draw to the surface a variety of unconscious thoughts and feelings. The issues that surface may reflect the personal concerns of the user or archetypic themes that apply to us all.” Aristotle made a parallel observation 2,000 years ago regarding the memory recall technique known as arsmermoria (“the art of memory”). This skill involves mentally constructing palaces and corresponding images to anchor information to retrieve later. Adepts who built these “memory palaces” showed amazing results, such as the ability to hear a list of 2,000 names and recite them back in perfect order. Apparently, the more vibrant the image, the more effective the anchoring technique is in successful memory recall. Erik Davis, (1999) a scholar of mysticism and cyber cultures, muses, “No wonder Aristotle warned his readers that memory palaces could leak into the dreams of their creators—adepts of the art were trafficking with the fierce phantasms of the unconscious. So, while online dream sharing is currently defined by a lack of direct human contact, being removed from the body and the local environment may bring Internet users closer to the state of dreaming itself. The act of immersion and losing contact with consensual reality while taking on new identities is remarkably appropriate for not only sharing dreams but reexperiencing them and even reframing waking life in new terms. HISTORY, EFFECTIVENESS, AND ETHICS OF ONLINE DREAMING Dreamers were some of the first Internet users who made use of regional bulletin board services (BBS) in the 1980s. These BBSs were modem-to-computer

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connections that only worked if two users were “online” at the same time, much like a telephone. In 1991, Jack Campin established an international news group on USENET for dream-related news. This kind of news group still functioned like a BBS, but it also allowed home computer users to share dreams and comment on others without other users having to be online at the same time. Although not its original intention, the group quickly coalesced as primarily a dream-sharing platform. In the early 1980s and still today, the advantages of Internet dreaming are a microcosm of the psychological advantages of virtual life in general. Using text rather than voice to convey meaning is indeed a loss of a rich texture for dream telling, but what is gained is scale. Dreams as text can be archived, searched for, and easily shared again. Dreamers can find themselves in conversations with people halfway around the world who speak different languages, discovering fresh insight that comes with cross-cultural exchange. Dream educators have noted the same advantages for teaching dreams online (King et al., p. 201) (something that is discussed in Chapter 26, “Dream Education”). The variety of dream-sharing protocols also gives dreamers flexibility and options. For example, sharing through e-mail remains the most private method, while chat rooms—and more commonly today, Facebook groups—can provide instant feedback. Finally, dreamers who rarely get to attend meetings due to geographical isolation, illness, or financial strain are able to participate without barriers. The Internet is a great leveler in this way. Another early issue that still ricochets today is the double-edged sword of online anonymity. On one hand, creating an avatar and participating without fear of one’s identity being discovered allows dreamers to discuss sensitive issues that naturally come up in the process of dreamwork. On the other hand, there are flamers and trolls, those who use their anonymity to wreak havoc and offend, especially in spaces that are not heavily moderated. Safety was a concern from the beginning, especially for anonymous dreamers who may seek dream sharing as an adjunct to psychotherapy. This historical review is relevant precisely because all of these core Internet touchstones—hyperlocality, equality, and privacy—test the practice of safely sharing dreams. In 1995, the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD), the leading professional dreamwork association, concluded that dream sharing was not safe enough to be conducted on the association’s own web properties due to a host of legal and clinical concerns (Wilkerson, 1997). However, IASD members continued to monitor the phenomenon. A few years later, an IASD-sponsored ethics panel supported the idea that online dreamwork can indeed be safely done, and an online dream-sharing ethics policy was recommended that would protect dreamers no matter the online venue (Wilkerson, 2000). Meanwhile, psychologist John Herbert’s study about online dream sharing found that online methods can provide more insight than traditional dream-sharing methods. However, emotionality is dampened, most likely due to the perceived distance between dreamer and listener, both physical and psychological. Online dream sharing is more abstract and intellectual, and its format allows people more time to reflect and respond before submitting opinions and reflections (Herbert, 2000).

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Unfortunately, many influential sites run by professional dream educators that used tighter restrictions and moderated spaces to ensure safe dream sharing are no longer publicly active, even though the groups’ founding members still share privately with each other. Classic news groups can still be accessed online through classic news group applications, but most of the original and splinter groups (such as Google’s alt.dreams) are inactive, or filled with spam. Dream Journal Network went offline completely in 2014 after over 20 years of safely moderated dream sharing and dreamwork. Electric Dreams, which published between 1994 and 2007, is also no longer active, but the entire span of the magazine—a rich archive of hundreds of articles on dreamwork and research—is still actively hosted by cyberdream researcher Richard Wilkerson. SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE REINVENTION OF ONLINE DREAM SHARING The public Internet (the World Wide Web) was originally built on usergenerated content, such as forums, bulletin boards and chat rooms, as well as static Web sites consisting mostly of text. In the late 1990s, static Web sites with more visual graphics drove a new wave of Internet development as local economies, government entities, and local businesses all tried to cash in on all the people “surfing the Web.” Yet, all of these developments pale in comparison to the massive amount of content and capital that has been generated since the rise of social media sites. Starting with MySpace and Friendster in the early 2000s, and followed by the dominance of Facebook, social media has stolen the show of online life. Known originally as Web 2.0, social media properties and interactive Web sites, such as blogs and wikis, promote old school Internet values (peer-to-peer communication with flexible anonymity) with emergent multimedia technologies and easy-to-navigate user interfaces. The Internet found its watering hole. At first glance, social media appears to solve many of the early problems for online dream sharing. For example, dozens of groups in Facebook.com are dedicated to dream sharing and allow for synchronous sharing of experiences. Indeed, a user can now post live-streaming video and get real-time comments and questions back. Users are not anonymous and can be banned at any time by a moderator or by Facebook’s own algorithms that detect content that goes against their terms of service. Professionals have taken notice. By way of example, after years of cautious debate, the IASD now allows for in-depth dream sharing on its moderated Facebook group. Still, dream sharing has not become as popular on social media as one may have expected with this developing technology. Indeed, dreamworker Jeremy Taylor, who moderated a popular America Online (AOL) webshow in the early 2000s, suggested nearly 20 years ago that advancing multimedia technology could infringe on the benefits of online dream sharing as anonymity is replaced by identifying profiles. In keeping with dream-sharing psychology, the postulated loss here is that predictable dream projections come with knowing someone’s ethnicity, age, gender, and culture. Although debatable, Taylor’s comment appears to prophesy the

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relative drop in public dream sharing that accompanied the rise of Web 2.0 and the withdrawal of tech support for many classic forums and user groups to the extent that they restrict anonymity. THE F U TURE OF CYBERDREAMING DREAMING As the value of anonymity continues to dissolve online, dream sharing largely appears to be going underground, such as in e-mail correspondence, private online classes, and workshops that live behind a paywall. However, new applications (apps) for mobile devices and computers are using social media technology to build safe and flexible communities for dreamers where privacy can be adjusted at a finegrain level. One of the most successful of these is DreamsCloud, a dream-sharing Web site that has collected over a million dreams. The mobile DreamsCloud app, known as DreamSphere, lets users record their dreams by voice, transcribing it into text and posting online to friends or all members, or forwarding it to social media accounts, such as Facebook and Twitter. Users can also communicate with each other and comment on each other’s dreams. Some other pockets of dream sharing are thriving due to adherence to classic technology and values rather than cutting-edge social media integration. For example, every year, a small but robust community of dreamers convenes online to take part of a global online conference called PsiberDreaming. Sponsored by the IASD, this online venue features text presentations and discussion forums that explore some of the more esoteric aspects of dream research, such as psychic dreams, mutual dreams, and urban shamanism. Participants engage in two weeks of discussion that is peppered with moderated dream sharing and imagination exercises that further propel participants into novel dreamlike cyberspaces. The key to success in this community appears to be its “old-fashioned” technological structure and attendant online values. In usual Internet metrics, success is defined by popularity, or virality: the amount of times media (text, graphic, or audiovisual art) has been reproduced and viewed by Web users around the world. In contrast, success for online dream sharing highlights the values that have been encoded into the structure of cyberspace from the beginning: privacy and equality. In other words, the social technology of dreaming is not a top-down cultural force but is necessarily peer-to-peer, transforming minds by virtues of uniqueness, authenticity, and psychological depth rather than the prepackaged and universal “must watch” qualities of popular culture. A dream does not need to hit the top of the list of social media trends; they penetrate deeply. This innate psychological structure of the dream may be why dream sharing largely remains a grassroots activity, quietly penetrating the nooks and crannies of the palace of information. Currently, the guiding ethos of the “open Internet” is threatened by the so-called net neutrality debate. As vast media giants make up much of the content consumed online, commercial interests lobby hard to receive privileged support and prioritization (Federal Communications Commission, 2017). Yet, no matter whether the Internet becomes less free, dreams will continue to be shared, shoring up the

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unconscious structure of the Web and providing people with fresh ways to navigate the ambiguities of the waking world. Indeed, thanks to immersive cyberspaces such as Second Life and virtual reality workshops, which may be the next technological revolution, it is even possible for a group of people to sit around a cyber-campfire and ask, “What did you dream last night?”

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CHAP TER 26 Hoffman, C., & Lewis, J. (2014). Weaving dreams into the classroom. Boca Raton, FL: Brown Walker Press. Hunt, H. T. (1989). The multiplicity of dreams: Memory, imagination and consciousness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. King, P., Bulkeley, K., & Welt, B. (2011). Dreaming in the classroom: Practices, methods and resources in dream education. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

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ABOU T THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBU TORS

EDITORS Robert J. Hoss, MS (US), is a director and past president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams and a faculty trainer at the Haden Institute. He also directs the IASD/DreamScience Foundation for research grants. As a former scientist trained in Gestalt therapy and humanistic psychologies, he authored Dream Language, Dream to Freedom and is the coauthor and editor of Dreams That Change Our Lives. His website is www.dreamscience.org. Katja Valli, PhD, is currently a senior researcher at the Department of Psychology, University of Turku, Finland, and an associate professor in cognitive neuroscience at the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy, University of Skövde, Sweden. Her research mainly focuses on the simulation theories of the evolutionary function of dreaming and the content and neural correlates of consciousness and dreaming. She is a former president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. Robert P. Gongloff, MA (guidance and counseling), has served as secretary, board chair, and president of IASD and has hosted three international dream conferences, two in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1997 and 2010, and one in Washington, D.C., in 2000. He has led dream study groups, dream workshops, and weekend retreats for over 30 years. He is a graduate of the Dream Leadership Training course offered by the Haden Institute. He is author of Dream Explo­ ration: A New Approach, which helps dreamers identify the core “theme”—the

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“heart”—of the dream, and he is coeditor of the IASD book Dreams That Change Our Lives. He lives in Malaga, Spain. His website is www.heartofthedream.com. CONTRIBU TORS Kelly-Ann Albrecht graduated from the University of Alberta with an honors bachelor of arts degree majoring in psychology in 2017. She currently works as an educational assistant to children with autism at the Children’s Autism Services of Edmonton. Isabelle Arnulf is a sleep neurologist and head of the Sleep Disorders Unit of the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital, Sorbonne University. Her research focuses on using dream-enacted behaviors (movements, behaviors, utterances, and facial expressions) as a way to access cognitive processes and dreaming during sleep, especially in parasomnias and hypersomnias. Sheila McNellis Asato, MA, is a visual artist deeply influenced by dreams, Japan, and the natural world. Her favorite media are drawing, watercolor, and photography, which she combines to create unique handmade books and textile designs. Asato is also a faculty member at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and a lecturer on dreaming, creativity, and health at the Earl Bakken Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota. Anne Aulsebrook studied zoology and ecology at Monash University, Australia, before moving to nearby University of Melbourne to begin her PhD. She is primarily interested in animal evolution and urban ecology. For her PhD research, Anne is investigating how artificial light at night affects sleep and other circadian rhythms in birds. Benjamin Baird, PhD, is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Sleep and Consciousness at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He obtained his PhD in cognitive neuroscience from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Deirdre Barrett, PhD, teaches at Harvard University. Her books include The Committee of Sleep and Trauma and Dreams. Deirdre is editor of the journal Dreaming and past president of both IASD and the Society for Psychological Hypnosis. She also makes dream art, which has appeared in galleries around the country and in the IASD art show. Susan Benson, PhD, is a board member and past president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) and founding president of Dream Network Australia. Her research interests are in the areas of dreams, consciousness studies, and depth psychological approaches to cultural narratives.

About the Editors and Contributors

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Mark Blagrove, PhD, is a professor of psychology at Swansea University, Wales, United Kingdom, and director of the Swansea University Sleep Laboratory, where research is undertaken on the relationship of sleep and dreaming to memory. He is a former president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams and is a fellow of the British Psychological Society. Fariba Bogzaran, PhD, is a scholar and artist who founded the first graduate certificate dream studies program (1996) at John F. Kennedy University in Berkeley, California, where she taught for 25 years. Among many of her publications are two major coauthored books, Extraordinary Dreams (2002) and Integral Dreaming (2012), both published by State University of New York Press. Robert Bosnak, PsyA, is an American Dutch, Zurich-trained Jungian psychoanalyst (1977) who has pioneered Embodied Imagination. He is the author of several books that have been translated into a wide variety of languages. He is a past president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams and is founder of the Santa Barbara Healing Sanctuary. Johnathan Bown received his MEd in counseling psychology at the University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Canada. He has been working with Dr. Gackenbach on various projects over the last seven years and has coauthored several papers, presentations, and a book chapter. He coedited Boundaries of Self and Reality Online and works at Edmonton North Primary Care Network. Brenda L. Bressler is a master’s degree candidate at Harvard University, where she is focusing on clinical psychology. She is interested in how sleep and circadian rhythms have physical and psychological impacts on cognitive and emotional regulation. She is currently at Brigham Women’s Hospital in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders chronobiology lab. Kelly Bulkeley, PhD, is a psychologist of religion focusing on dreams. He is director of the Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb), senior editor of the journal Dreaming, and former IASD president. His books include Lucrecia the Dreamer (2018), Big Dreams (2016), and Dreaming in the World’s Religions (2008). Michelle Carr, PhD, is a researcher at the Swansea University Sleep Laboratory. She holds a PhD in biomedical science from the University of Montreal, where she conducted research at the Dream and Nightmare Laboratory. Her work focuses on how dreams and nightmares are related to sleep physiology and memory processing. Mary A. Carskadon, PhD, is director of chronobiology/sleep research at EP Bradley Hospital and professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University Alpert Medical School, Providence, Rhode Island. Carskadon has written over 200 scientific papers, and her work has been acknowledged with the following honors: Lifetime Achievement Award, National Sleep Foundation, and Outstanding

794

About the Editors and Contributors

Educator Award and Distinguished Scientist Award, Sleep Research Society. She is an elected fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Megan Cook graduated from the University of Alberta with a bachelor of science with a specialization in psychology. She is currently a research assistant in an occupational therapy lab. She hopes to pursue graduate studies in the near future. Scott Coussens, PhD, is coordinator of the Centre for Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience and the Centre for Body, Brain and Behaviour at the University of South Australia. He has written numerous scientific papers in the fields of sleep and neuroscience and participated in the drafting of sleep practice guidelines as well as being a practicing sleep technician. Allyson Dale is a defense scientist at the Department of National Defence in Ottawa. She conducted studies on dream interpretation techniques with soldiers during her master’s degree and more recently focused on normative studies of the dreams of Canadian men and women, examining age and gender differences, during her PhD at the University of Ottawa. Thien Thanh Dang-Vu earned his MD and PhD at the University of Liège in Belgium. He is an associate professor at Concordia University (Montreal) and holds the University Research Chair in Sleep, Neuroimaging and Cognitive Health. He is also an attending neurologist and the associate director for clinical research at the Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal. Betsy Davids, MA (English, University of California, Berkeley), is professor emerita at California College of the Arts, where her signature creative writing/ literature class was Reading and Writing the Dream. A book artist, she published her literary dream memoir Dreaming Aloud (1989) as an editioned artist book from her Rebis Press. Joseph De Koninck is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Ottawa. With 45 years of experience studying sleep and dreams and over 100 publications, his main interest has been the understanding of the sources and consequences of dreaming and, more recently, a comprehensive normative study of the dreams of Canadians has been conducted. Teresa L. DeCicco, PhD, is a professor, author, and researcher in the field of dreams and dreaming. She has explored the connection between dreams and waking life with a wide variety of populations and continues to do so to better understand the complex connection between sleep mentation and waking day experiences. Gayle Delaney, PhD, is founding president and cofounder of IASD and codirector with Loma Flowers MD of the Delaney & Flowers Dream Center. She created

About the Editors and Contributors

795

the dream interview method of interpretation, introduced a secular form of dream incubation in 1977, and authored Living Your Dreams, Sensual Dreaming, and All About Dreams. Daniel Deslauriers, PhD, is a professor in the Transformative Studies Doctorate and former chair of East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). He is coauthor of Integral Dreaming: A Holistic Approach to Dreams (SUNY Press). Teacher, author, and performer, he directs narrative, theoretical, and art-based research at CIIS, spanning from dreams to contemplative dance. Luke Dietrich-Egensteiner acquired a bachelor of arts in philosophy and psychology from Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York, and has coauthored two articles with Patrick McNamara in the journal Dreaming. Sven Doehner, PhD, MFA, from Mexico City, is trained in Jungian archetypal psychotherapy, somatic consciousness, and voice work. As director of Instituto Macuil (Transpersonal Education in Mexico), he guides workshops in countries around the world, blending contemporary psychotherapy with ancestral healing practices to work with vocal sound linked to images in dreams and life. G. William Domhoff is a distinguished professor of psychology emeritus and research professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is most recently the author of The Emergence of Dreaming: Mind-Wandering, Embodied Simulation, and the Default Network (Oxford, 2018). He received his PhD from the University of Miami. Martin Dresler is assistant professor for the cognitive neuroscience of sleep at the Donders Institute, Nijmegen. He was trained in biopsychology, philosophy, and mathematics at Ruhr University, Bochum; received his PhD from Philipps University, Marburg; and performed postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Oxford University, and Stanford University. Chris Edwards studied at Swansea University and completed his PhD on the topic of insight generation within dream discussions. His research interests include the impact of experiential dreamwork on well-being, social connectivity, sense of purpose in life, and understanding of the self and others. Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub holds a PhD in neuroscience from Lyon 1 University (2011). His research interests include the incorporation of waking-life experiences into dream content, the cerebral correlates of dream recall frequency, and the neural mechanisms underlying offline memory processing. Leslie Ellis, PhD, is a teacher, writer, and therapist who has a lifelong personal and professional interest in dreams. She has a PhD from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology and a master’s from Pacific Graduate Institute. She is adjunct faculty at Adler University and a coordinator with the International Focusing Institute.

796

About the Editors and Contributors

Daniel Erlacher is an associate professor for sport science at the University of Bern. His research interest tries to connect the areas of sleep medicine, dream research, and sport science. Alejandro Ezquerro-Nassar is a PhD student at the Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge. He is interested in the changes in human cognition brought about by altered states of consciousness, such as the sleep-onset period, dreaming, and sedation, as well the neural correlates underlying the subjective experiences of these states. Jayne Gackenbach, PhD, is a professor of psychology at MacEwan University and a past president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. She has published 10 books, 31 chapters, and 54 journal articles about digital life and dreams. Her most recent book came out in 2017, Boundaries of Self and Reality Online. Nigel Hamilton, PhD (UK), is director of the Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy Education and founding director of the Dream Research Institute (DRI), a Transpersonal Psychotherapy Training Centre and Clinic in London, where he lectures and practices as a psychotherapist. He is the U.K. representative for Sufi Order international and originally trained as a physicist, working at MIT on the use of light in energy storage research. Josie Henley obtained her PhD in psychology from Swansea University. Her main research interests are memory in older adults, particularly as intersecting with marginalized identities. She currently works as a research assistant in the Cardiff University Healthcare Department. Clara E. Hill is a professor of psychology. Her major research interests are helping skills, psychotherapy process and outcome, training and supervising therapists, dreamwork, meaning in life, and qualitative research. She has published more than 300 articles and chapters and 14 books, including Helping Skills, Dream Work in Therapy, and Meaning in Life. Curtiss Hoffman, PhD, is a professor of anthropology at Bridgewater State University, where he teaches courses in archaeology and cognitive anthropology. He frequently presents at IASD conferences on various topics, often drawn from his own dream journals over 25 years. He facilitates a long-term dream group at Bridgewater State University. Caroline L. Horton, PhD, is a reader in psychology: cognition and consciousness, and director of the DrEAMSLab at Bishop Grosseteste University, United Kingdom. She has conducted and published numerous experiments exploring relationships between memory processing and dreaming, with a particular emphasis on autobiographical memory and emotion.

About the Editors and Contributors

797

Ryan Hurd, MA, is an educator, researcher, and author. He is coeditor, with Kelly Bulkeley, of Lucid Dreaming: New Perspectives on Consciousness in Sleep (2014) and author of Sleep Paralysis (2011). Ryan is also a lecturer in psychology and holistic studies at John F. Kennedy University and founder of DreamStudies.org. David Kahn has a PhD in physics from Yale University. David is currently an instructor in psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, engaged in research to help develop a neuropsychology of dreaming that can be used as a basis for a brain-based theory of psychiatry. He is currently an advisor to the Executive Committee of the International Association for the study of dreams (IASD), having served as president and as board chair of IASD. Philip King is a retired professor of quantitative methods and psychology at Hawaii Pacific University. He is coauthor, with Kelly Bulkeley and Bernard Welt, of Dreaming in the Classroom (SUNY Press, 2011), the first major academic survey of the study and use of dreams and dreaming in contemporary education. Milton Kramer, MD, is a past president of IASD and the author of 192 articles, 8 books, and 200 reviews. He graduated from the University of Illinois, College of Medicine, in 1954 and retired with the title professor emeritus (psychiatry) from the University of Cincinnati in 2000. Stanley Krippner, PhD, is a professor of psychology at Saybrook University, Oakland; a fellow in five American Psychological Association (APA) divisions; and a past president of two divisions. He was formerly the director of the Kent State University Child Study Center, Kent, Ohio, and the Maimonides Medical Center Dream Research Laboratory, Brooklyn, New York. Lukas B. Krone, MD, obtained a medical degree and doctorate from the University of Freiburg, Germany, pursuing human sleep research. During a MSc in neuroscience at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, he investigated sleep regulatory mechanisms in the fruit fly Drosophila and mice and is now a Wellcome Trust–funded PhD student in the Vyazovskiy lab. Donald L. Kuiken, PhD, is a professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, specializing in the study of dreams, aesthetics, and phenomenology. He has published a number of journal articles and book chapters concerning self-transformation through significant dreams, aesthetic experience, and intensive self-reflection. John Lesku, PhD, has over the last 15 years sought to provide insight into how sleep and sleep functions have evolved in different animals, from invertebrates to birds and mammals. He is also interested in studying how ecological factors (e.g., predation risk, reproduction) influence the amount, composition, depth, and timing of sleep in wild animals.

798

About the Editors and Contributors

Jacquie Lewis, PhD, is a faculty member of Saybrook University, where she is the codirector of the Dream Studies Certificate Program. She has written articles and book chapters on dreams and coedited Weaving Dreams into the Classroom: Practical Ideas for Teaching about Dreams and Dreaming at Every Grade Level, including Adult Education and Working with Dreams and PTSD Nightmares: 14 Approaches for Psychotherapists and Counselors. She is a former board member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. Jacquie also facilitates an Ullman method dream group in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Monique Lortie-Lussier is an adjunct professor at the School of Psychology, University of Ottawa. As a professor in social psychology and the psychology of women, she developed an interest for the dreams of women at a time major societal changes were taking place in their lives. She initiated studies of age- and rolerelated dream content in the 1980s. Josie E. Malinowski, PhD, is an oneirologist and lectures in psychology at the University of East London. She conducts dream research into the benefits of dreamwork, the emotion-processing theory of dreaming, and the effect of suppressing thoughts on dream content, and she is particularly interested in the metaphorical and hyperassociative nature of dreaming. Patrick McNamara, PhD, is associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine. He has published numerous articles and several books on the science of sleep and dreams. He also writes a blog on dreams for Psychology Today online: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog /dream-catcher. Kenneth Meyer, PhD, is a past president of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy, founded by Fritz and Laura Perls in 1952. He has served as academic director of the Gestalt Center in New York City, where he remains on the postgraduate faculty. He trained in Gestalt dreamwork with Marilyn Rosanes-Berrett, a longtime colleague of Fritz Perls. Jacques Montangero, PhD, is emeritus professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. After obtaining a degree in history and literature, he studied psychology at the University of Geneva, with Jean Piaget as main professor. He earned a PhD in psychology in that university, where he taught successively as lecturer, assistant professor, and full professor. He received an honor degree from the University of Coimbra and was director of the Archives Jean Piaget. His domains of research and publications are the theory of intellectual development of Jean Piaget, the development of the concept of time in children, and the cognitive aspects of dreaming in adults. He is concentrating on that latter domain, on which he wrote three books in French and several articles in English. He received training in cognitive-behavioral therapy.

About the Editors and Contributors

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Umberto Moretto earned his MD at the University of Padua in Italy. He is currently attending his psychiatry residency at the University of Pisa in Italy, while collaborating as research assistant with Concordia University in Montreal. Sérgio Mota-Rolim is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Brain Institute and Onofre Lopes University Hospital of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte and is currently working on DMT for depression treatment. He received training on different sleep topics as MSc at the Federal University of São Paulo and both MD and PhD at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. Valdas Noreika, PhD, is a research associate at the Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. His research interests include the neurocognitive processes underlying different states of consciousness, including dreaming, drowsiness, and sedation; time processing in developmental disorders; and the neurodevelopment of religious and moral beliefs. Edward F. Pace-Schott, PhD, is assistant professor of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He received his PhD from Boston University in 2006. His research focuses on how sleep helps humans regulate their emotions and how this function of sleep is altered in psychopathology. James F. Pagel is associate clinical professor at the University of Colorado Medical School and the coeditor of Primary Care Sleep Medicine. His books include The Limits of Dream: A Scientific Exploration of the Mind/Brain Interface; Dreaming and Nightmares; Dream Science: Exploring the Forms of Consciousness; and most recently Machine Dreaming and Consciousness. Tiina Paunio, MD, PhD, is professor of psychiatry at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and research professor at National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland. The research of Dr. Paunio’s research group Sleep&Health&Mood is focused on etiology and epidemiology of mood disorders and sleep disturbances and their therapeutic interventions. Currently, she is vice president (clinical) for the European Sleep Research Society, leader of the ESRS Sleep Examination Subcommittee, and deputy editor of Journal of Sleep Research. Tarja Porkka-Heiskanen (Stenberg) is presently a senior researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland, leading a sleep research team, Sleep Team Helsinki. Her research has concentrated on the mechanisms of recovery sleep, leading to the finding that adenosine and nitric oxide increase in the basal forebrain during sleep deprivation and induce recovery sleep. She has also studied the effects of prolonged wakefulness in humans and the connection between sleep and depression using animal models. Melinda Powell, née Ziemer, MA (psychology and religion), is director and cofounder of the Dream Research Institute, London. She has served as past vice

800

About the Editors and Contributors

president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. Her writings on dreams have appeared in a variety of publications. She works as a registered psychotherapist and teaches lucid dreaming. Antti Revonsuo is professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Skövde, Sweden, and professor of psychology at the University of Turku, Finland. His empirical work focuses on dreaming and on the neural correlates of visual consciousness, and his theoretical views on consciousness are outlined in Inner Presence: Consciousness as a Biological Phenomenon (2006). Richard Russo, MA, is associate director of the Dream Institute of Northern California. He is a past president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, and former editor of the journal DreamTime. His publications include Dreams Are Wiser Than Men (1987), a collection of dream texts and articles about dreaming. Suzanne Saldarini is a certified psychoanalyst and licensed professional counselor in private practice in Ramsey, New Jersey. She is an active member of the New Jersey Institute for Training in Psychoanalysis, where she teaches and supervises candidates. Suzanne’s publications include Dream Work: A Psychoanalytic Perspective (NetCE, 2016), About Dreams (2013), and Harry’s Dream (2014). Nils Sandman received his PhD in 2017 from the University of Turku, Finland. He has studied the epidemiology of nightmares among adults as well as addressed the methodological questions in epidemiological dream studies. He is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku in a project that investigates the effects of digital media on sleep quality and quantity. David T. Saunders, PhD, is a psychologist and lucid dream researcher. He is a lecturer in biological and cognitive psychology at the University of Northampton, United Kingdom. He has published a number of research articles and book contributions on lucid dreaming and has held a fascination with the topic for two decades. Melanie Schädlich is a psychologist and has been engaged in lucid dream research since 2010. Currently, she is finishing her doctoral thesis on motor learning in lucid dreams at Heidelberg University. Michael Schredl has been working in the sleep laboratory of the Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany, since 1990s. His publications cover various topics, such as dream recall, dream-content analysis, nightmares, dreams and sleep disorders, and sleep physiology. He is the editor of the online journal International Journal of Dream Research. Alan Siegel, PhD, is an associate clinical professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Department of Psychology. He is a past president of the International

About the Editors and Contributors

801

Association for the Study of Dreams, editor emeritus of the IASD magazine Dream Time, a consulting editor for the APA journal Dreaming, and author of Dream Wisdom: Uncovering Life’s Answers in Your Dreams. Pilleriin Sikka is a PhD researcher at the University of Turku, Finland, and a lecturer in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Skövde, Sweden. She conducts research on the neurocognitive basis of dream emotions, with a special focus on methodological issues in dream research. Joacim F. Skancke obtained his MA in psychology from the University of Bergen, Norway. His main research interests are continuity between dreams and waking life and dreams of psychiatric patients. He currently works as a clinical psychologist at the Resource Center for Children and Families, Stovner, in Oslo, Norway. Carlyle Smith is professor emeritus of psychology at Trent University and the director of Trent University Sleep Laboratories. He is an internationally respected expert on the topics of sleep, memory, and dreams. His latest book is “Heads-Up” Dreaming. Dylan Smith earned his PhD at the University of Ottawa in Canada, specializing in EEG-based research in cognition and mental health. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Concordia University in Montreal, where he uses neuroimaging techniques to study cognition in sleep disorders. Mark Solms is director of neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and an honorary lecturer in neurosurgery at the Royal London Hospital. He has published 350 articles and chapters and 8 books, including The Neuropsychology of Dreams, The Brain and the Inner World, and Beyond Evolutionary Psychology. His selected writings were published as The Feeling Brain. Elizaveta Solomonova is a postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry at McGill University, Montreal. She completed an interdisciplinary PhD in cognitive science and philosophy and an MSc in psychology at the University of Montreal, where she studied dreams, sleep, memory, and meditation at Tore Nielsen’s Dream and Nightmare Laboratory. G. Scott Sparrow, EdD, LPC, LMFT, was an early pioneer in lucid dreaming. He has since developed the FiveStar Method, a dreamwork approach based on cocreative dream theory, derived in part from his work in lucid dreaming. Under DreamStar Institute (www.dreamanalysistraining.com), he offers training and certification in this methodology. Tadas Stumbrys, PhD, is a psychologist, educator, and lucid dream researcher. He is a lecturer in psychology at Vilnius University, Lithuania, and is pioneering transformative postgraduate education via distance learning globally with the Alef

802

About the Editors and Contributors

Trust. He has been immersed in lucid dream research since 2008 and has published a number of research articles in the field. Jeremy Taylor, DMin, was a past president and cofounder of IASD and the founder and director of the Marin Institute for Projective Dream Work. He served on the board of the Unitarian Universalist Society for Community Ministries and is the author of many globally influential books in the field, including The Wisdom of Your Dreams—Using Dreams to Tap into Your Unconscious and Transform Your Life and The Living Labyrinth, Exploring Universal Themes in Myths, Dreams, and the Symbolism of Waking Life. Brian Teed, MDiv (Boston University School of Theology), has coauthored two articles with Patrick McNamara in the journal Dreaming and is currently pursuing a JD at Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. Jarno Tuominen is a junior researcher at the Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Turku, Finland. His research primarily considers states and contents of consciousness, including—but not ­ ­limited to—sleep and dreaming, hypnosis, and time perception. Barbara A. Turner, PhD, began her sandplay work with Dora M. Kalff, the founder of the method. She is the author of The Handbook of Sandplay Therapy and editor of The Routledge International Handbook of Sandplay Therapy. Dr. Turner is the founder and president of the Association for Sandplay Therapy. Her Web site is www.BarbaraTurner.org. Elaine van Rijn holds a PhD in psychology from the Swansea University, United Kingdom. In her PhD, she focused on the effect of sleep on memory consolidation and whether the content of dreams reflects this ongoing process. As a research fellow at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, she is currently examining whether certain types of memories are preferentially consolidated during sleep. Vladyslav V. Vyazovskiy obtained an MSc from Kharkov National University, Ukraine, and PhD from the University of Zurich. He held the positions of associate scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and lecturer at the University of Surrey, United Kingdom, prior to joining the University of Oxford in 2013 as an associate professor of neuroscience at the Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Genetics. Robert Waggoner has been a lucid dreamer since 1975 and authored Lucid Dreaming—Gateway to the Inner Self (2008) and Lucid Dreaming Plain and Simple (2015) with Caroline McCready. He is also a past president of IASD. Waggoner coedits the online magazine Lucid Dreaming Experience and presents internationally on lucid dreaming’s potential (see www.LucidAdvice.com).

About the Editors and Contributors

803

Carol D. Warner, MA, MSW, trained at Smith College and the University of Virginia. She is author of Return: Dreaming and the Psychospiritual Journey and uses dreams and spirituality extensively in her private practice. By combining these, she has helped guide her clients into powerful healings. Craig Webb is an author, researcher, inventor, and dream-inspired musical artist. At 21, he nearly drowned and then began recalling ~10 dreams/day, including lucid and precognitive dreams. As a McGill University graduate physicist with pioneering lucid dreaming research at Stanford University, he has designed biofeedback tools sold worldwide and consulted for major films, universities, and over 1,000 media. Bernard Welt is professor emeritus at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University and is coauthor, with Phil King and Kelly Bulkeley, of Dreaming in the Classroom (SUNY Press, 2011), the first major academic survey of the study and use of dreams and dreaming in contemporary education. Henna-Kaisa Wigren, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher and junior group leader at the University of Helsinki, Sleep Team Helsinki, led by Dr. Tarja Stenberg (PorkkaHeiskanen). She studies the cellular mechanisms of sleep and sleep homeostasis in animal models (rodent and zebrafish) by combination of in vivo behavioral, electrophysiological, neurochemical, and imaging methods. Jennifer M. Windt is a lecturer in philosophy at Monash University in ­Melbourne, Australia. Her research centers on dreaming, sleep, and waking mind-wandering. She is the author of Dreaming (MIT, 2015) and together with Thomas Metzinger edited Open MIND (MIT, 2016; an open-access version is available at open-mind.net). Antonio Zadra is professor of psychology at the Université de Montréal. He is director of the university’s Dream Research Laboratory and leads a research group investigating non–rapid eye movement sleep parasomnias at the Hôpital du SacréCoeur’s Center for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine. Erika Zaid is a PhD student in the Sleep Ecophysiology Group at La Trobe University, Australia. Animal behavior has always been her passion, and this led to her studies on behavioral ecophysiology in birds and mammals. Currently, she is researching the sleep patterns of marsupials, with a particular interest in the semelparous Antechinus.

INDEX

Page numbers followed by t indicate tables and f indicate figures. Acetylcholine (ACh; cholinergic neurotransmission): and AS theory/ AIM model of dreaming, 72, 75; and cortical activation only theories of dreaming, 73, 74, 76; and dream content, 226t; and induction of sleep, 20, 21; and lucid dreaming, 288–289; neurochemical theories of dreaming, 71–76, 78; nicotine’s effect on, 228; and pharmacology, 229–230, 288–289; and REM sleep, 63–64, 84; wakefulness role, 17, 18–19f, 20 Activation-synthesis (AS) hypothesis and activation-input/output gatingmodulation (AIM) model of dreaming, 72–73, 75, 80, 395, 425, 711 Adaptive learning, 381–385 Adaptive sleeplessness, 14–15 Adler, A., 383, 417, 466, 520 Aisenstat, S., 424 Alpha-agonists, 227–228, 230; prazosin, 75, 76, 230, 237, 492–493 Alpha waves: in blind subjects, 211; and dream recall, 61–62; EEG correlates of dreaming, 56–62; frequency band classification of, 25f, 27, 56;

and genetics, 35t; and history of electroencephalography, 25–26; and lucid dreaming, 272–273, 274–275; occipital alpha, 272–273, 274; and REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), 246; and sleep-onset dreaming, 60; and sleep stages, 25, 25f, 26t, 26, 29; and sleepwalking, 239; and subtle consciousness, 706 Amadeo, J., 208–209 American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), 26t, 29 Amphetamines, 71, 74, 77, 229 Amygdala, 64, 66–67, 102, 109, 275, 341, 344–345, 373–375, 379, 403, 407, 425 Animals (nonhuman) and dreaming, 141–149; amount of postlearning REM sleep, 146f; EEG and EMG of the rat in the three vigilance states, 142f; evidence for dreams in animals, 147–149; memory processing, 142–147; memory processing during sleep, 143–145; sequential operant task, 145f; states of sleep in mammals, 141–142. See also Evolution of sleep Apnea hypopnea index, 38t, 40

806 Aristotle, 292, 692–693, 697, 700–701, 716 Arnold-Forster, M., 486 Arnulf, I., 108, 131 Arts. See Creative and problem-solving dreams; Dreams and the arts Ascending reticular activating system (ARAS), 17, 71–72 Aserinsky, 27, 188, 340, 424 Associative dreamwork, 549–570; body dreamwork, 566–569; dream interview method, 549–554; dream translation, 562–566; Hartmann’s contemporary approach, 569–570; storytelling method (TSM), 554–558; theme work, 558–562 Attachment and dreaming, 112–116 Attachment theory, 112–114 Barnett, A., 91 Barrett, D., 184, 298, 306, 347, 425, 426, 659 Basal forebrain (BF): adenosine levels in, 23, 51; part of ascending reticular activating system (ARAS), 17; REM sleep, 21, 63, 64, 65f, 341; wakefulness, 17, 18–19f, 24 Bell, A. P., 88 Berger, H., 25 Berger, R. J., 217 Bertolo, H., 59, 210–211 Beta blockers, 227–228, 230, 236, 485 Beta-carboline harmala alkaloids, 75, 76, 77 Beta waves: caffeine’s effects on, 41; and dream content, 59; EEG correlates of dreaming, 57, 58, 59, 60; frequency band classification of, 27, 56; and lucid dreaming, 60, 273, 274; parietal beta, 273, 274; and sleep-onset dreaming, 60 Betaxolol, 76, 77 Big dreams, 291, 310, 314, 445–446, 523, 545–546, 601, 646, 664, 690. See also Impactful dreams Big Five personality traits, 169–170, 279–280 Binswanger, L., 421 Blagrove, M., 91, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 281, 282, 471

Index Blake, W., 302, 308, 641, 642 Body dreamwork, 420, 566–569; clinical example of, 567–568; felt sense, 566– 567; history of, 566; steps of focusingoriented dreamwork, 568–569 Bogzaran, F., 270, 291, 323, 335, 424, 544 Bonime, W., 421, 520, 521 Boreau, J., 303 Bosnak, R., 299, 424, 595 Boss, M., 299, 421–422 Boundary theory, 170, 364, 419 Brain lesions and dreaming, 65, 69, 73, 78–86, 343, 425; cessation of dreaming following prefrontal leucotomy, 82–84; Charcot-Wilbrand syndrome, 79–80; Charcot’s variant, 80–81; deficits of dreaming, 79–84; dreaming/reality confusion, 84–85; effects of pontine lesions, 84; excesses of dreaming, 84–86; and neurocognitive theory of dreaming, 97–99; nightmares, 86; and state effect, 171; Wilbrand’s variant, 81 Brain stem: and activation synthesis theory of dream activation, 395; effects of pontine lesions, 84; and evolution of sleep, 7, 10–11; in neurochemical theories of dreaming, 72, 73, 74; pontine tegmentum, 84, 340; and REM sleep, 20, 63, 64, 71, 72, 246; and REM sleep behavior disorder, 246; wakefulness role, 17, 18–19f, 24 Braun, A. R., 341, 425 Brunette, R., 91 Buddhism, 620, 656, 702, 704–706; and divine births, 624; and lucid dreaming, 270; Tibetan Buddhism, 270, 272–273, 286, 620, 705–705; Zen Buddhism, 705 Bulkeley, K., 132, 137, 163, 630, 672, 680 Burk, L., 298, 301 Busink, R., 312 Caffeine, 38t, 41, 74, 77, 78 Cai, D. J., 314 Calkins, M. W., 173, 419 Campbell, P., 315 Campin, J., 717 Carlsson, A., 71 Carroll, L., 305, 658

Index Cartwright, R., 105, 110–111, 369–370, 424, 425, 512–513 Cassette theory of dreaming, 190 Cataplexy, 85 Characterization of sleep, 4–5 Charcot-Wilbrand syndrome, 79–80; Charcot’s variant, 80–81; Wilbrand’s variant, 81 Chellappa, S. L., 58 Childhood dreams, 203, 500–504 Chladni, E., 308 Cholinergic neurotransmission. See Acetylcholine Christianity, 318, 333, 621–622, 624–626, 629–630, 657, 694–695, 699, 700, 702 Chronic nightmares, 480–486 Chronotype (sleep timing), 34, 39 Cinema and dreams, 219–220, 303–304, 642, 643, 650, 666–669 Circadian regulation of sleep, 21–22; circadian peak, 194; circadian rhythm, 21; and dream recall and content, 188, 194–195; entrainment of the circadian rhythm, 21–22; and function of sleep, 44, 51, 54; genetic basis of, 22, 32, 35–38t, 39, 42; and human sleep architecture, 30, 31; and induction of sleep, 20; two-process model of sleep regulation, 23–24 Clinical applications of dreamwork, 461–477; application of dreamwork in psychology, 466–469; benefits of dreamwork in psychology, 461–466; evidence of insight from dreamwork, 469–477 Cognitive behavioral dreamwork, 575–581 Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), 237, 466–467, 469, 481, 493, 575 Cognitive-experiential dream model (CEDM), 470, 571–575 Cognitive theory of dreaming, 95–96. See also Neurocognitive theory of dreaming Coleridge, S., 303, 304, 665, 699 Collective unconscious, 211, 258, 335, 347, 405–406, 416, 434–436, 438, 446–448, 541, 610, 652, 683 Color in dreams, significance of, 406–413; archetypal color patterns, 412; color and emotion, 407–409; “meaning” of

807 dream color, 412–413; neurobiology of color perception, 412; personal preference, 411; waking influence of color, 409–411 Compensatory theory of dreaming, 251, 299, 362, 370, 372, 379, 386, 422, 438– 440, 442, 444, 682, 699 Content of dreams. See Dream content Corsi-Cabrera, M., 57 Cortical activity only theories of dreaming, 74, 76–77 Craig, P. E., 421 Creative cycle of dream artists, 645–648 Creativity, 642–643 Creativity and problem-solving dreams, 301–309; architecture, 303; filmmaking, 303–304; inventors, 307–308; literature, 304, 699; and lucid dreaming, 678; music, 305; in nonWestern cultures, 308; painting and sculpture, 302; research on, 308–309; science and medicine, 306–307; sports enhancement through dreams, 305–306. See also Dreams and the arts; Mood regulation and emotional problem solving Crook, R. E., 467 Culture dreaming (deep dreaming), 543–547; background of, 544; process of, 544–545; deep dreaming, 545–546; relation to Jungian thought, 547; relation to shamanism, 546. See also Group dreamwork Daan, Serge, 14 Dahlström, A., 71 Dang-Vu, T. T., 425 Das, J. P., 713 Das, S. S., 665 Davis, Erik, 716 Davis, H., 27 Davis, J. L., 483 Davis, L., 303, 305 Davis, P. A., 27 Davis, T. L., 462, 465 Davis, W., 329 De Carvalho, A., 291 De Foe, Daniel, 301 De Koninck, J., 91, 368

808 DeCicco, T., 299, 423 Deep sleep. See N3 NREM sleep Delaney, G., 410, 423 Delta waves: age-related changes, 31; caffeine’s effects on, 41; and dream content, 59; and dream recall, 193; EEG correlates of dreaming, 56, 58–59, 60, 62; frequency band classification of, 25f, 27, 56; and function of sleep, 45, 47–47, 49; and genetics, 34, 39; global delta, 274; and homeostatic regulation of sleep, 22–23, 24f; and NREM neuroimaging, 69; and sleep duration, 39; and sleep stages, 26t, 29, 30; and sleepwalking, 239. See also Non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep Dement, W., 27–28, 56–57, 188, 293, 308–309, 340, 424 Descartes, R., 117, 657, 698 Deslauriers, D., 424, 544 Desseilles, M., 425 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), 232–233, 252, 311, 480 Diemer, R., 463, 472 Disabilities, dreams of people with, 208–211; blindness, 208; deafness, 210; paralysis, 210; and protoconsciousness hypothesis, 211; theoretical implications, 210–211 Disturbed dreaming, 231–256; in mental disorders, 249–256; in parasomnias, 238–249; nightmares and bad dreams, 231–238 Domhoff, G. W., 89, 95–99, 140, 174– 177, 210, 310, 343, 346, 392, 393, 402, 419, 426, 680 Dopamine: and dream content, 225, 226t, 227; and dream frequency, 64; neurochemical theories of dreaming, 71, 73–77; and pharmacology, 71, 74, 78, 84, 225, 226t, 227; and rewardbased theories of dreaming, 75–77; wakefulness role, 17, 18f Dorsal raphe nucleus (DR), 71, 84 Dream appreciation dreamwork method, 422, 455–460, 469–472, 474, 535–536 Dream artists, 644–648. See also Dreams and the arts

Index Dream construction, 206–207; layers in the construction of dreams, 207f Dream content, 173–211; characters, interactions, and events, 177–178; dream-lag effect, 195–201; effects of media on dreaming, 219–224; emotional tone of dreams with selfratings and external ratings, 179f; emotions, 178–179; examples of sensory incorporation, 215–216t; external influences on, 213–230; frequency of typical dream themes, 184–186; general nature of, 176–180; Hall and Van de Castle system of content analysis, 92, 163, 174, 175–176, 178, 185t, 186, 203–204, 240, 300, 328, 419, 425, 674; incorporation of external stimuli into dream content, 213–219; layers in the construction of dreams, 207f; medication that affects dreams and nightmares, 224–230; and ontogenetic development of dreaming, 201–208; in people with disabilities, 208–211; percentage of participants reporting typical dreams, 182–183t; rare dream content, 179–180; rating scales, 175–176; sensory modalities in dreams, 176; similarity or bizarreness in relation to waking life, 177; in sleep stages, 188–195; and social simulation theory, 132–137; somatosensory incorporations, 214–218; typical dream themes, 180– 188; typical dreams and waking life, 186–188; variations by sleep stage, 190– 192; variations across a night of sleep, 194–195; variations across ultradian sleep cycle, 192–193. See also Dream recall; Theories of dream meaning Dream education, 671–682; diversity of, 672; dream databases, 680–682; dream orientation, 672–674; future of, 677–680; humanities in, 675–676; and media environment, 679–680; psychology in, 674–675 Dream groups. See Group dreamwork Dream Institute of Northern California, 543 Dream interview method, 401, 423, 549–554; cue card, 551–553; five steps

Index of, 550–551; sample dream interviews, 553–554 Dream-lag effect, 93, 195–201, 526; and affirmative bias, 197–198; contradictory findings on, 200–201; daydream-lag effect, 200; and different types of daily events, 198–200; and memory consolidation, 197 Dream recall, 167–173; defining and measuring, 168–173; and dopamine, 64, 84; EEG correlates of, 57–59, 61–63; empirically-supported models of, 172–173; individual differences in, 167–168; effect of lesions and white matter on, 68; and memory bias, 90; and neurocognitive theory of dreaming, 98; in sleep stages, 188–195; state factors associated with frequency of, 170–172; state-shift model of, 173; trait factors associated with frequency of, 169–170; variations across a night of sleep, 194–195; variations across ultradian sleep cycle, 192–193. See also Dream content Dream sharing, 422, 467; in culture dreaming, 543, 545, 546; ethics of, 529–530; family, 503, 512; and literary dream motifs, 656; and religious treatments of dreams, 626; and shamanism, 546, 707–710; and technology, 715–719 Dream translation, 562–566 Dream work. See Dreamwork principles Dreams and the arts, 641–669; cinema, 666–669; clinical versus studio art, 648; creative cycle of dream artists, 645–648; creativity, 642–643; dream artists, 644–648; graphic art of Jeremy Taylor, 661–664; graphic novels, 660–664; imagination, 643; literary narrative, 656–660; music, 650–655; music and lucid dreaming, 654–655; photography, 648–650; poetry, 664–665; synesthesia, 653. See also Creativity and problemsolving dreams Dreams in ancient and non-Western cultures: Ancient Middle East, 688– 691; Ashanti culture (West Africa), 686; Australian aboriginal cultures,

809 685; coevolution of dreaming and language, 686–687; Eastern traditions, 702–706; dreaming cross-culturally, 685–686; evolution of dreaming, 684–685; Garifuna culture (AfroCaribbean people), 686; Greek and Roman heritage, 692–696; Islam, 699–702; Medieval period, 696–699; North American Plains Indian culture, 685–686; Semai Temiar (Malaysian peninsula), 686; Shamanism, 706–710 Dreamwork principles, 519–530; and Adler, 520; definition of, 521–522; dream incubation, 525–527; ethics and safety of, 527–530; evolution of, 519–520; and Freud, 519–521; and Jung, 520–521, 525; personal dreamwork experience, 522–527; recall, recording, and reflection, 522–525. See also Associative dreamwork; Clinical applications of dreamwork; Group dreamwork; Integrative dreamwork; Nightmare therapies Dreamwork enhancement practices, 605–615; artistic expression, 605; collage, 605; psychodrama, 605; sandplay therapy, 606–612; sound imagination, 612–615 Dreamwork Ethics Statement (DES), 528–530 Dresler, M., 98, 276 Durndell, A., 281 Dwyer, R., 526, 527 Eating disorders: dreams of people with, 255; sleep-related eating disorder, 242–243 Edwards, C., 472, 473, 476 Edwards, D., 91 EEG. See Electroencephalography Eichenlaub, J.-B., 61, 201 Electroencephalography (EEG): caffeine’s effect on, 41; correlates of dreaming, 55–63; and electromyography (EMG), 28; and electrooculography (EOG), 27; first recorded human EEG, 25; and genetics, 34; history of, 25–26; and local distribution of sleep, 23; in nonhuman animals, 4–8, 10, 14–15;

810 Electroencephalography (EEG) (Continued ) and polysomnography, 43; purpose of, 4; REM and NREM sleep, 4–8, 10, 21, 56–57, 61–62, 271–275, 277, 287, 320, 342, 398; and sleep intensity, 22; and sleep stages, 25–32; and wakefulness, 17, 60; waveforms, 27. See also Alpha waves; Beta waves; Delta waves; Gamma waves; K-complex; Sigma waves; Sleep spindles; Theta waves Electroencephalography (EEG) studies: disturbed dreaming, 239; dreaming in childhood, 203; dream-lag effect, 199, 201; external influences on dream content, 216; extraordinary dreams, 320; first EEG human sleep study, 27; lucid dreaming, 271–275, 277–278, 287; nonhuman mammals, 141–142; psychological theories of dreams, 342– 343, 398; sleep paralysis, 245; sleep talking, 244; visual stimulation, 287 Eliade, M., 631 Ellis, L., 420 Emotion regulation in dreaming, 105–112; Cartwright’s emotionregulation theory, 110; definition of emotion regulation, 108–109; disturbed emotional regulation, 109; emotional characteristics of dreaming, 106–107; Hartmann’s contemporary theory, 110; hyperassociativity, 111; Malinowski and Horton’s emotion-assimilation hypothesis, 111; nightmares and disturbed dreaming, 111–112; theories of dreaming and emotion, 110–111 Emotional activation, 66–67, 108 Emotional learning, 378–389 Erikson, E., 418, 476 Erlacher, D., 177, 259 Ermacora, G. B., 319 Esposito, M. J., 58 Evolution of dreaming, 684–685; coevolution of dreaming and language, 686–687. See also Function of dreaming Evolution of sleep, 3–16; in avian reptiles, 9–10; characterization of sleep, 4–5; in fishes and amphibians, 11; in invertebrates, 11–14; losses of REM sleep, 6–8; in mammals, 5–9; in

Index nonavian reptiles, 10–11; phylogenetic comparative analyses of sleep, 8–9. See also Function of sleep Exceptional dreams, 291–316; creative and problem-solving dreams, 301–309; diagnostic dreams, 298–299; impactful dreams, 309–316; prodromal dreams, 296–298; research on health-related dreams, 299–301; somatic and healthrelated dreams, 292–301; symptomatic dreams, 295–296 External influences on dream content, 213–230; effects of media on dreaming, 219–224; incorporation of external stimuli into dream content, 213–219; medication that affects dreams and nightmares, 224–230. See also Dream content Extraordinary dreams, 317–336; history of, 317–324; mutual dreaming, 327– 330; out-of-body dreams, 331–332; past-life dreams, 334–336; spiritual dreams, 332–334; spontaneous healing dreams, 330–331; telepathic and precognitive dreams, 324–327 Fabião, S., 303 Fear extinction, 310, 345, 379 Film and dreaming, 219–220, 303–304, 642, 643, 650, 666–669 Finkelstein A., 296 Flockhart, C., 223 Fontana, D., 706 Foulkes, D., 96–97, 179, 189, 194, 202, 203, 208, 219, 315, 343, 347, 425, 501, 502 Frank, J., 82 Frank, M., 328 Frankenstein (Shelley), 304, 642, 657 Frankenstein (trope), 498t, 505 Frankl, V., 477 Franklin, M. S., 132 French, T., 418, 420 Freud, S., 416, 426–434; and associative dreamwork, 429–432, 554, 563–564, 569; and beginnings of psychoanalytic psychology, 426–427, 674; children’s dreams, 502; color in dreams, 410; condensation, 399; differing “iceberg” models of the psyche of Freud and

Index Jung, 417f; and dream work, 433f, 519–521; dreams and the arts, 643, 658, 659, 665, 667; and ego psychology, 432; extraordinary dreams, 319; function of dreams, 339, 344, 360; iceberg model of the psyche, 416, 417f; influence of, 416–417, 420–421, 432–434, 698–699; The Interpretation of Dreams, 180, 319, 410, 417, 426–430, 507, 519–520, 659, 698; Jung compared with, 427–428, 434–436, 439, 446–448, 520, 699; object relations, 432–433; Perls compared with 454; pleasure principle, 416, 436; and psychoanalytic dream theory today, 432–434; psychoanalytic method of, 430–432; retrospective nature of dreaming, 683; and selfpsychology, 433–434, 398; symbols, 398, 429–429, 431, 505, 507, 691; suppression theory, 170, 172, 428, 436; theory of the psyche, 404, 416, 417f, 591; typical dreams, 180, 186–187, 414, 558; wish fulfillment, 416, 430, 432, 698, 708 Friston, K. J., 122, 123, 124 Function of dreaming, 87–140; continuity hypothesis of dreaming, 88–94; dreams and attachment, 112–116; dreaming and play, 137–140; emotion regulation in dreaming, 105–112; factors influencing continuity between waking and dreaming, 92–94; Hartmann’s contemporary theory, 358–364; memory consolidation and dreaming, 99–105 (see also Memory); mood regulation and emotional problemsolving, 349–355; neurocognitive theory of dreaming, 94–99; predictive coding and protoconsciousness, 112–124; psychological processes in dreaming, 340–349; simulation and, 117–122; social influence (theory of mind and self-reflection), 355–358; social simulation theory, 132–137; studying continuity between waking and dreaming, 89–94; threat simulation theory, 125–132 Function of sleep, 42–54; brain detoxification theory, 49–50; criteria for

811 influential theories of, 46–48; energy conservation and replenishment of energy stores theory, 50–52; hypotheses for, 3–4; influential theories of, 48–54; macromolecule biosynthesis and intracellular repair theory, 48–49; memory consolidation and brain plasticity theory, 52–54; and problem of defining sleep, 43–44; and study of nonhuman animals, 42–46 Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), 55, 67, 70, 102, 271, 275, 276, 278, 358, 376, 661 Fuxe, K., 71 Gackenbach, J., 223, 281, 282, 330, 714, 715, 716 Gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA), 225; neurochemical theories of dreaming, 77–78; and pharmacology, 77–78, 225–227; and REM sleep, 20–21; wakefulness role, 17, 18–19f, 20 Gamma waves, 57, 62, 67; frequency band classification of, 56; frontal gamma, 273, 274, 277; and lucid dreaming, 273, 274, 277, 288 Garfield, P., 186, 187, 292–293, 297, 505 Gendlin, E., 420, 566–569 Genetic basis of human sleep, 32–42; and epigenetic mechanisms, 41–42; gene-environment interaction, 40–42; genetic background of selected sleep disorders, 40; genetic variations implicated by genetic studies on sleep, 35–38t; involvement of genes and environment in regulating sleep traits, 33f; molecular genetic studies, 34–40; and sleep duration (somnotype), 39; and sleep quality, 39–40; and sleep timing (chronotype), 34, 39 Genome-wide association (GWA) studies, 39–42, 44, 169 Germain, A., 59, 60 Gestalt psychology, 263; and dream education, 675; and dreamwork, 386, 404, 409, 418, 420–421, 451–455, 449–455, 520, 525, 539, 569; and FiveStart method of dreamwork, 592, 594; Gestalt theory of dreams, 450;

812 Gestalt psychology (Continued ) and transformative dreamwork, 581, 583–584 Gibson, R., 649 Gibson, W., 716 Gilliland, J., 210 Gongloff, R., 423 Gottesmann, C., 74 Graphic novels and dreams, 660–664; graphic art of Jeremy Taylor, 661–664 Green, C., 332 Greenberg, R., 348 Grieving and dreams, 511–514 Group dreamwork, 531–547; cultural traditions of, 532; culture dreaming (deep dreaming), 543–547; Dream Appreciation (Ullman), 535–536; Dream Group Protocol (Haden Institute), 536–538; formalization of dream studies organizations, 532–533; group projective dreamwork approach (Taylor), 538–543; history of, 531– 533; projective and group projective dreamwork principles, 538–543; safety measures for, 534–535; starting a dream group, 533–535 Guillain-Barré syndrome, 85, 248 Gupta, M. C., 464 Haden Institute, 536–538 Hakopdjanian, S., 714 Hall, C. S., 88, 92, 163, 174, 175–176, 178, 185t, 186, 240, 328, 407, 409, 425, 674 Halliday, G., 488 Hamilton, N., 412 Hardy, A., 628–629, 631 Hardy, C., 32 Hartmann, E.: boundary theory, 170, 360, 364, 419; contemporary theory of dreaming, 110–111, 344, 346, 358–364, 419, 569–570; on dream as metaphor, 402–403, 629–630, 643; on emotional content of dreams, 403–404, 407; on exceptional dreams, 291, 293, 310; hyperconnectivity, 398; influence of, 419, 423, 425, 426; on memory and learning, 370–371, 376, 380, 382, 385, 386; on post-traumatic dreams, 413, 490–491 Harvey, E. N., 27

Index Health-related dreams, 292–301; cancer studies, 301; diagnostic dreams, 298– 299; migraine studies, 300; prodromal dreams, 296–298; research on healthrelated dreams, 299–301; severe disease studies, 300; somatic and health-related dreams, 292–301; symptomatic dreams, 295–296 Hearne, K., 259, 272, 279, 287–288, 426 Heather-Greener, C. Q., 300 Heim, M. R., 714 Henley-Einion, J., 91, 196, 197, 198, 199 Hervey de Saint-Denys, L., 214, 217, 318, 486 Hill, C., 424, 462–465, 467, 470–474, 476, 481 Hillman, J., 421, 422, 595, 598 Hippocampus, 64, 67, 197, 341, 344, 373, 374, 376, 377 Histamine, 17, 18f, 74, 226t; antihistamine, 75, 76, 225, 228 Hitchcock, A., 304, 667, 668 Hobart, G., 27 Hobson, J. A., 134, 135, 173, 179, 368, 398, 426; activation-synthesis (AS) hypothesis of dreaming, 72–73, 75, 80, 395, 425, 711; protoconsciousness theory, 122–124, 211, 347, 370–371, 711, 713 Hoffman, C., 179, 672 Hoffman, E., 657 Holzinger, B., 60, 273 Homeostatic regulation of sleep, 22–24: and chronotype (sleep timing), 39; definition of, 4, 24; and evolution of sleep, 5, 9, 11, 46; in fishes and amphibians, 11; in mammals, 5, 9; and metabolic regulation, 51; molecular genetic studies, 39; and NREM sleep, 5, 9, 39; and REM sleep, 5, 39; and sleep deprivation, 5, 39; and sleep duration and intensity, 22; sleep homeostasis, 22–23; synaptic homeostasis hypothesis, 53–54; twoprocess model of sleep regulation, 23, 24f Hong, C. C.-H., 122, 123, 124 Horton, C., 94, 107, 111, 112, 344, 346, 425, 426

Index Hoss, R., 382, 383, 385, 387, 408, 424, 426 “Hot zone” hypothesis of dreaming (posterior cortical region), 59, 201, 342, 398 Human sleep architecture, 24–32; effects of age on total sleep time and NREM and REM sleep quota, 31f; epochs, 24, 28–30; factors that change sleep architecture, 30–31; hypnogram, 28, 29f, 192; modern sleep staging, 28–30; polysomnogram measures of, 25–28; polysomnographic recording of wake, NREM, and REM sleep, 25f; sleep cycles, 30; sleep stages as defined by different scoring systems, 26t; sleep staging methods, 28–29 Humphrey, M., 82 Humphrey, N., 132 Hunt, H., 282, 310, 314, 419, 678, 696 Hurovitz, C., 209 Hypnogram, 28, 29f, 192 Hypnopedia (sleep learning), 218–219 Hypnotherapy, 420 Hypnotics, 225, 226, 227, 230 Hypothalamus: neurocognitive theory of dreams, 98; neuroimaging during REM sleep, 65f; orexin, 17, 18f, 36t, 39, 226t, 228t; and sleep, 20, 21, 24; tuberomammillary nuclei, 17, 18f; wakefulness role, 17, 18, 20, 24 Imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT), 237, 481–486, 493, 504 Impactful dreams, 309–316; aftereffects of, 313–316; empirically establishing dream types, 311–313; monothetic versus polythetic typologies, 311; nightmare-centered dream categories, 310–311; types of, 310–313 Individuation, 365, 385–389, 412, 417, 436–446, 520, 587, 606, 644, 683 Induction of sleep, 20–21 Induction of wakefulness, 17–20 Influential contributions to dream psychology, 415–460; body-focused dreamwork, 420; contemporary dreamwork approaches, 422–424; contribution of research, 424–426; existential-phenomenological

813 approaches, 420–422; Freud, Sigmund, and psychoanalytic psychology, 426– 434; historical perspectives, 415–426; hypnotherapy, 420; Jung, Carl, and analytic psychology, 434–448; Perls, Fritz, and Gestalt therapy, 449–455; pioneers of psychological dream theory, 416–419; Ullman, Montague, and group dream appreciation, 455–460 Insula, 66, 244, 373, 375, 381 Integrative dreamwork, 571–603; cognitive behavioral dreamwork, 575–581; cognitive-experiential dream model (CEDM), 571–575; embodied imagination (EI), 594–599; FiveStar Method, 590–594; integral dreaming, 599–603; transformative dreamwork, 581–590 International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD), 265, 297, 298, 327, 330, 335, 358, 419, 520, 527–533, 717–719; artists survey, 646–648; Dreaming (journal), 358, 419, 532–533; Dreams That Change Our Lives, 330, 333, 335, 629; Dreamwork Ethics Statement (DES), 528–530; IASD Cancer Project, 297; PsiberDreaming conference, 298, 719 Islam, 308, 622, 699–702 Jencks, Penelope, 302 Johnson, R., 629 Jones, E., 479 Jones, G., 198 Jouvet, M., 28, 196, 380, 424 Judaism, 620–621 Jung, C., 416–417, 434, 448; alchemical symbols, 444–445; archetypal figures, 441–442; archetypes, 380–381, 386–387, 405–406, 412, 417, 434–446, 610, 612, 635, 652, 683–684, 699, 711; big dreams, 291, 310, 314, 445–446; collective unconscious, 211, 258, 335, 347, 405–406, 416, 434–436, 438, 446–448, 541, 610, 652, 683–684; compensation, 251, 299, 362, 370, 372, 379, 386, 422, 438–440, 442, 444, 682, 699; conscious mind, 436–437; and development of analytical psychology,

814 Jung, C., (Continued ) 434–435; differing “iceberg” models of the psyche of Freud and Jung, 417f; dreamwork, 446–448, 520, 521, 525, 547, 571, 581, 594, 595, 598; Freud compared with, 427–428, 434–436, 439, 446–448, 520, 699; function of dreaming, 251, 346, 347, 348, 362, 436–446; functions of the psyche, 438–439; and group dreamwork, 547; iceberg model of the psyche, 416, 417f; lucid dreaming, 268, 258; personal unconscious, 437; The Red Book, 435, 644; and sandplay, 606–607, 610–611; symbols of the self, 442–443; synchronicity, 319, 439, 525, 526; theory of the psyche, 435–438; symbols of transformation and individuation, transformation, 443–444, 587 Jus, A., 82 K-complex, 25f, 26t, 27, 29, 30 Kahn, D., 134, 135, 179 Kaiser, W., 12 Kalff, D. M., 606–607 Kasatkin, V., 293, 296, 299 Kellogg, E., 260, 267, 298, 330 Kerr, N., 209–211 Kimbles, S., 547 King, D., 299 Kings, S., 304, 502–503, 659 Kleine-Levin syndrome, 85 Kleitman, N., 27, 56–57, 188, 340, 424 Korte, A.-M., 629 Koulack, D., 172, 344, 382, 425, 426 Kramer, M., 108, 175, 345–346, 348, 379, 380, 423, 425, 490 Krippner, S., 291, 320–326, 332, 334–335, 384, 413, 422, 425, 707 Kuiken, L., 311–312, 315 L-DOPA, 71, 73, 76, 85 LaBerge, S., 192, 218, 259, 266–268, 272, 284, 287, 289, 330, 426, 488 Labetalol, 75, 76, 77 Langdridge, D., 421 Lasley, J., 533 Laterodorsal tegmentum, 17, 18–19f, 21

Index Lawrence, G., 544, 545 Learning theories, 365–372; counterfactual operations, 366–367; dream-to-waking learning continuum, 368–369; emotional reinforcement, 371; interleaving and reorganizing memory, 370; memory consolidation, 368; memory operations, 367; memory processes during sleep, 368–372; memory reconsolidation, 371–372; predictive modeling, 370–371; selective reactivation and reintegration, 369–370 Learning and dreams, 372–389; adaptive learning, 381–385; advanced learning function, 378–389; declarative and procedural learning, 376–378; emotional learning, 378–389; restorative learning, 379–381; transformative learning, 385–389 Lee, M., 312 Lesions. See Brain lesions Leu-Semenescu, S., 84 Levin, F., 381, 383, 426 Levin, R., 112, 222, 310, 345, 379, 425 Levine, S., 630, 672 Lewis, J., 369 Life transitions and dreaming, 497–515; developmental themes in turning point dreams, 498–500t; dreams of expectant mothers and fathers, 506–510; dreams of midlife and aging, 510–511; early childhood dreams, 500–504; grief stages revealed in dreams, 511–515; premarital and relationships dreams, 504–506. See also Ontogenetic development of dreaming Limbic system: and emotional activation, 66; and function of dreaming, 340–341, 343, 345; and hallucinations in Parkin­ son’s disease, 85; imaging of, 172–173; and learning, 373–375, 379; and NREM sleep, 69, 191, 373; and REM sleep, 109, 191, 340–341, 343, 345, 373, 393, 403, 407, 408, 425; and rewardbased theories of dreaming, 73–74, 78 Literature and dreams, 304, 656–660 Locus coeruleus, 17, 18f, 21, 71, 84 Loomis, A. L., 27

Index Lowenfeld, M., 606 Lowy, S., 418 Lucid dreaming: biological correlates, 279; brain stimulation and, 277; cognitive techniques of induction of, 285–287; control, 257; and diagnostic dreaming, 298; Dream Lucidity Questionnaire (DLQ), 284, 289; and electroencephalography, 60, 271–274; endings of, 268–269; experience of, 258–269; external stimulation and induction of, 287–288; extraordinary or extrasensory experiences, 258; false awakening, 257, 268; and function of dreaming, 92, 358; and healing dreaming, 330–332; and Hinduism, 619; hyperspace lucidity (transpersonal or spiritual experiences), 258, 269–271; induction of, 283–290; interacting with dream figures, 257; lifestyle correlates, 282–283; Lucidity and Consciousness in Dreams (LuCiD), 277, 284, 289– 290; mnemonic induction of lucid dreams (MILD), 284–285, 287; and music, 654–655; neuroimaging studies of, 275–277; neuroscience of, 271–278; and nightmare therapies, 486–489; and NREM sleep, 274; oneiric correlates, 278–279; playing, 257; practicing and enhancing skills or healing, 257; psychological and lifestyle correlates of, 278–283; psychological correlates (cognition), 280–281; psychological correlates (personality variables), 279–280; reflection, 257; and spiritual dreams, 332; and visitation dreams, 334; “wisdom” behind the dream, 258 Lyons, T., 297 Mack, John E., 644 Magoun, H. W., 71 Malinowski, J., 94, 107, 111, 112, 344, 346, 425, 426, 469, 476 Manual of Standardized Terminology, Techniques and Scoring System for Sleep Stages of Human Subjects (Rechtschaffen and Kales manual), 26t, 28, 29f, 29–30, 272

815 Maquet, P., 341, 344, 425 Marzano, C., 61 Maury, A., 168, 190, 214, 318 McCarley, R., 72–73, 80, 395, 425, 711 McNamara, P., 114–116, 132, 134, 135, 329, 343, 370, 382, 425, 644 Meaidi, A., 209 Media’s effects on dreaming, 219–224; lucid/control dreaming by gamers, 221–222; nightmare protection hypothesis, 222–224; traditional media incorporation, 219–220; video game incorporation, 220–221. See also Technological influences on dreams; Video game Medication and dreaming, 224–230; agents affecting host defense, 228–230; Alpha-agonists, 75, 76, 227–228, 230, 237, 492–493; amphetamines, 71, 74, 77, 229; anesthetics, 228–229; benzodiazepine, 227; beta blockers, 227–228, 230, 236, 485; effects of medication on dreaming classified by effect, 226–227; effects of medications that affect neurotransmission and neuromodulation systems, 226t; effects on dopamine, 227; effects on gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA), 226–227; effects on histamine, 228; effects on norepinephrine, 227–228; effects on serotonin, 227; hypnotics, 225, 226, 227, 230; and lucid dreaming, 288–289; medication types documented to affect sleep and dreaming, 225–226; medication’s effect on central nervous system, 224–225; monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOI), 71, 75–77, 227; neuromodulation systems with minimal effects on dreaming, 229–230; nicotine, 228; prazosin, 75, 76, 230, 237, 492–493; selective serotonin inhibitors (SSRIs), 227, 230, 236, 251; treating PTSD-associated nightmares, 230; withdrawal from addictive drugs, 229 Memory: declarative memory, 100–101; dream content and, 102–104; dreamlag effect and memory consolidation, 197, 199; and emotion,

816 Memory: declarative memory (Continued ) 344; mechanisms of, 100; memory consolidation and brain plasticity, 52–54; memory consolidation and dreaming, 99–105; memory consolidation in nonhuman animals, 143–144; memory operations and learning, 367–376; memory sources of dream content, 577–579; neuroscience of, 68; nondeclarative memory, 100; sleep and declarative memory, 101; sleep and emotional memory, 101–102; sleep and procedural memory, 101; sleep and types of, 101–102. See also Dream recall; Learning and dreams; Learning theories Memory bias, 106 Memory palace (arsmermoria), 716 Mental disorders, dreaming in, 249– 256; anxiety, 252–253; depression, 251–252; eating disorders, 255–256; methodological issues, 250–251; obsessive-compulsive disorder, 254– 255; personality disorders, 253–254; post-traumatic stress disorder, 255– 256; psychosis, 253 Mesulam M. M., 71 Meumann, E., 94 Mitchell, E. G., 296 Moffitt, A., 282 Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOI), 71, 75–77, 227 Monroe, R., 331, 332 Montangero, J., 424 Mood regulation and emotional problemsolving, 349–355 Moreno, J. L., 605 Moruzzi, G., 71 Music and dreaming, 305, 650–655; music and lucid dreaming, 654–655 Mutual dreaming, 327–330 Narcolepsy, 32, 38t, 40, 85, 244, 245f, 247, 273 Neurochemistry of dreaming, 71–78; activation-synthesis (AS) hypothesis and activation-input/output gatingmodulation (AIM) model, 72–73, 75, 80, 395, 425, 711; cortical activity only theories, 74, 76–77;

Index current neurochemical theories of dreaming, 72–74; evaluation based on recent pharmacological literature, 74; neuropsychoanalytic theory, 73; psychotomimetic theory, 74, 76; rewardactivation model (RAM), 73–74; reward-based theories, 73–74, 75–76 Neurocognitive theory of dreaming, 87, 95–99, 392, 419; and cognitive theory of dreaming, 95–96; and function of dreaming, 98–99 Neuroimaging studies of dreaming, 63–70; NREM sleep and dreaming, 69–70; REM sleep dreaming, 63–64 Neuroscience of dreaming, 55–86; and cessation of dreaming following prefrontal leucotomy, 82–84; and Charcot-Wilbrand syndrome, 79–80; and dream recall, 61–62; and dreams/ reality confusion, 84–85; EEG contrast of dream content, 60–61; EEG contrast of dreaming vs. dreamless sleep, 58–59; EEG contrast of dreaming vs. waking consciousness, 60; EEG correlated of dreaming, 55–63; EEG of dreaming = EEG of REM sleep, 56–58, 188–190, 678; EEG studies of dreaming, 63–70; effects of brain lesions on dreaming, 78–86; effects of pontine brain stem lesions on dreaming, 84; neurochemistry of dreaming, 71–78; and nightmares, 86 Nicotine, 74, 226, 228 Nielsen, T. A., 59, 60, 112, 181, 190, 196, 199, 216, 219, 222, 240, 310, 345, 379, 425 Night terrors, 128, 227, 238–242, 243, 249, 539–540 Nightmare disorder, 232, 249, 254, 480 Nightmare therapies, 479–495; chronic nightmares, 480–486; clinical vignettes of, 488–489, 493–495; dream lucidity and nightmares, 486–489; exposure, relaxation, and rescripting therapy, 483; imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT), 237, 481–486, 493, 504; post-trauma dreams as adaptive, 493; trauma-related nightmares, 490–491; treatment of PTSD-related nightmares, 490–493

Index Nightmares and bad dreams, 231–238; correlates of frequent, 236–237; defining, 232–233; idiopathic versus post-traumatic nightmares, 234–235; prevalence of, 235; study of nightmares, 233–234; treatment of frequent, 237. See also Nightmare therapies Nofzinger, E. A., 341, 343–344, 345, 425 Non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep: and aftereffects of impactful dreams, 313; caffeine’s effect on, 41; discovery of, 27; and disturbed dreaming, 238–239, 242–244, 247–248, 249; and dream recall and content, 167–168, 171–173, 188–195, 197, 202, 217; and dream-lag effect, 93, 197; EEG correlates of dreaming, 57–59, 61–62; and emotions, 343; and evolution of sleep, 5–16; lucid dreaming during, 274; main differences between Dreaming in NREM and REM sleep parasomnias, 241t; and memory, 100, 101, 103–104, 377–378; and mood regulation, 353; neuroimaging and dreaming, 69–70; and nocturnal seizures, 86; in nonhuman animals, 5–16, 141–143, 146–148; and psychological function of dreaming, 340, 341–342; quiescence during, 16–17; REM sleep compared with, 16; and sleep-onset dreams, 368. See also NREM stage N1 sleep; NREM stage N2 sleep; NREM stage N3 sleep Noradrenaline, 17, 18f Nordby, V. J., 88 Noreika, V., 61 NREM stage 1 sleep: and agerelated differences in sleep, 31t, 31; dream content during, 190; hypnagogic hallucinations during, 69–70; lucid dreaming during, 274; polysomnographic recording of wake, NREM, and REM sleep, 25f; sensory incorporation into sleep during, 214; and sleep cycles, 30; and sleep staging systems, 26t, 29. See also Non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep NREM stage N2 sleep: and agerelated differences in sleep, 31t, 31; dream content during, 190–192; and

817 dream-lag effect, 197, 200; EEG correlates of dreaming, 57–58, 70; lucid dreaming during, 274; and memory, 101, 103, 147, 377, 378; polysomnographic recording of wake, NREM, and REM sleep, 25f; REM sleep dreams and NREM N2 dreams, 57–58, 474–475; and sleep cycles, 30; and sleep-related eating disorder, 242; and sleep spindles, 69; and sleep staging systems, 26t, 29. See also Nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep NREM stage sleep, 69, 70; and agerelated differences in sleep, 31f, 31, 32; and disordered dreaming, 238–239, 242–243, 249; and dream content, 190; delta waves in, 22; and dreamlag effect, 197–198; and hallucinatory choking during sleep, 243; and homeostatic regulation of sleep, 22; and lucid dreaming, 274; and memory, 100, 101, 143; in nonhuman animals, 5, 141; polysomnographic recording of wake, NREM, and REM sleep, 25f; and sleep cycles, 30; and sleep duration, 39; and sleep-related eating disorder, 242–243; and sleep staging systems, 26t, 29; and sleepwalking, 238–239. See also Non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep Occipital alpha, 272–273, 274 Odyssey (Homer), 656, 664, 692 Ohayon, M. M., 31 Ontogenetic development of dreaming, 201–208; continuity between dreaming and waking, 205–206; dreaming in childhood, 203; dreams from adolescent to old age, 203–204; implications for understanding dream construction, 206–207; layers in the construction of dreams, 207f. See also Life transitions and dreaming O’Rourke, K., 209 Out-of-body dreams, 331–332 Pace-Schott, E., 72, 134, 425, 426 Palagini, L., 58 Pannier, W., 297–298

818 Parasomnias, dreaming in, 238–249; hallucinatory choking during sleep, 243–244; main differences between dreaming in NREM and REM sleep parasomnias, 240t; NREM sleep parasomnias, 238–244; parasomnias as window into dreaming, 248–249; projective approach to parasomnias, 539–541; REM sleep behavior disorder, 246–247; REM sleep parasomnias, 244–248; sexsomnia, 243, 249; sleep paralysis, 85, 244–245, 245f, 249, 289, 331; sleep-related eating disorder, 242–243; sleep talking, 243–244, 539; sleepwalking and night terrors, 128, 227, 238–242, 243, 249, 539–540; status dissociatus, 247–248 Parietal beta, 273, 274 Past-life dreams, 334–336 Patrick, A., 281 Payne, J., 108, 344, 382, 393, 425, 426 Pedunculopontine tegmentum, 17 Peigneux, P., 425 Penfield, W., 86 Pepper, S., 630 Perls, F., 360, 386, 404, 415, 418, 421, 449–455, 581, 583–584, 592, 594, 644 Perls, L., 418, 421, 449 Perogamvros, L., 371, 375 Persinger, M. A., 322 Photography and dreaming, 648–650 Phylogenetic tree of animals, 13f Piehler, R., 84 Pivik, T., 194 Plato and Platonism, 318, 626, 644, 692, 693, 702; neoplatonism, 595, 695, 696, 699 Play and dreaming, 137–140; animals, evolution, and play, 137–138; bizarreness in dreams and play, 138; and default network, 139–140; and post-traumatic stress disorder, 138– 139; sandplay, 605–612 Poetry and dreaming, 602, 632, 642, 657, 664–665 Polysomnogram (PSG), 25–28; electrooculogram (EOG), 25, 26t, 27, 28, 29, 43, 57, 249, 271; electromyogram (EMG), 25, 25f, 26t,

Index 28, 29, 43, 142f; and extraordinary dreams, 319; polysomnographic recording of wake, NREM, and REM sleep, 25f; in sleep laboratory studies, 158; used to confirm lucid dreaming, 284. See also Electroencephalogram (EEG) Polysomnogram (PSG) studies: disturbed dreaming, 239, 242, 243; effects of media on dreaming, 219; hallucinatory choking during sleep, 243; incorporation of eternal stimuli into dream content, 213; lucid dreaming, 259, 285, 319; mind-body isomorphism; sleepwalking, 239. See also Electroencephalography (EEG) studies Positron-emission tomography (PET), 55, 64, 70, 275, 345, 398, 400, 425 Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 111, 126, 227, 235–237, 255–256, 311, 350, 362, 363, 396, 568, 708; and episodic reply, 413; eye movement desensitization/reprocessing and hypnosis as treatments for, 484; medications for treating, 230; nightmare therapies, 490–495; and play, 138–139 Potocki Lupski syndrome, 40 Pötzl, O., 79 Powell, R. A., 199–200, 219 Prazosin, 75, 76, 230, 237, 492–493 Predictive coding and dreaming, 122–123 Prefrontal cortex, 64, 67–69, 73, 273, 275, 277, 278, 288, 341, 373–375, 379, 381, 393 Prefrontal leucotomy, 81, 82–84 Projective dreamwork approach, 538–543 Prolonged wakefulness: and adenosine, 23; and decline in attention and ability to memorize, 52; and sleep homeostasis, 22–24. See also Sleep deprivation Protoconsciousness theory, 122–124, 211, 347, 711, 713 Psychological processes in dreaming, 340–349; cognition, 347–349; emotional processes, 343–346; neurobiological influences, 340–343; perception, 346

Index Psychospiritual transformation (light, color, and symmetry), 634–639 Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep: auditory and visual components, 64–66; bizarreness, 67–68; and brain hemisphere activity, 400; brain state in REM sleep, 342f; and childhood dreams, 500; coinage of the term, 27; and color in dream content, 406–408, 410; and definition of sleep, 43, 45; discovery of, 340; and dream content, 173, 176–177, 183; and dream content and recall in sleep stages, 188–195; and dream-lag effect, 197–201; and dream recall, 167–168, 171, 173; and dreams and metaphors, 314, 403; and EEG correlates of dreaming, 56–62; effects of age on total sleep time and NREM and REM sleep quota, 31f; emotional activation, 66–67; and external influences on dream content, 214, 215–216t, 217, 218; and factors that affect sleep architecture, 30–32; fear extinction during, 345; and function of dreaming, 340–341, 343–347, 349, 351–355, 368, 373, 377–378, 379, 381; functional neuroimaging during REM sleep in relation to typical properties of dreaming, 65f; and genetics, 39, 41; and impactful dreams, 310, 313–314; influential researchers, 424–425; and learning theories of dreaming, 368, 373, 377–378, 379, 381; limbic system in, 109, 191, 340–341, 343, 345, 373, 393, 403, 407, 408, 425; and lucid dreaming, 259, 271–277, 282, 284, 287–289; and medications, 227–230; and mind reading in dreams, 135; and mood regulation and emotional problem solving, 351–355; movement, 66; memory, 68; neurochemical changes during, 71–74, 396; neuroimaging of, 63–70; in nonhuman animals, 5–16, 27, 141–147, 684; N2 sleep dreams and REM dreams, 474–475; and neuroimaging, 63–64; NREM sleep compared with, 16; and ontogenetic development of dreaming, 202–203;

819 polysomnographic recording of wake, NREM, and REM sleep, 25f; and post-trauma dreams, 493; REM sleep = paradigm, 56–58, 188–190, 678; and parasomnias, 539; REM sleep behavior disorder, 246–247; REM sleep parasomnias, 239–240, 244–248; and play, 138–139; and regulation of sleep, 17–21; and sleep cycles, 30; and sleep staging methods, 28–29; and symbolism of dream imagery, 398, 400, 403, 406–408, 410–411; theory of mind, 68–69; thermoregulation inactive during, 16–17; and typical dreams, 184 Recall. See Dream recall Rechtschaffen and Kales (R&F) manual, 26t, 28, 29f, 29–30, 272 Reed, H., 527 Regulation of sleep, 16–24; circadian regulation of sleep, 21–22; homeostatic regulation of sleep, 22–24; induction of sleep, 20–21; induction of wakefulness, 17–20; modulation of physiological functions during sleep stages, 16–17. See also Circadian regulation of sleep; Homeostatic regulation of sleep Reinhard, I., 91, 94 Religious and spiritual treatment, 617–642; Buddhism, 620; Christianity, 621–622; comparative history, 617– 625; conversion dreams, 625–626; dream as a metaphor, 629–633; dreaming of divine births, 624–625; dreaming of the daed, 623–624; Hardy, Alister, 628–629, 631; Hinduism, 619–620; Islam, 622; Judaism, 620– 621; metaphoric presence in spiritual dreams, 628; Paleolithic shamanic practices, 618–619; philosophical wonder, 626–627; prophetic dreams, 625; psychospiritual transformation (light, color, and symmetry), 634–639; receptivity and reflective awareness in dreams, 633; terminology (“religious” and “spirituality”), 629; traditions, 618–623; types of dreaming, 623–627 REM sleep. See Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep Restless legs syndrome, 37t, 40

820 Restorative learning, 379–381 Revonsuo, A., 125, 128, 132, 310, 341, 381, 426, 684, 711 Reward-based theories of dreaming, 73–74, 75–76 Rheingold, H., 488 Rhine, L., 320, 326 Rochlen, A., 464–465 Rogers, C., 420, 566 Ruby, P., 62 Russo, R., 543–546, 665 Sabini, M., 543–546 Sacks, O., 298–299, 306 Sandplay, 605–612; dreams vs. sandplay, 607–609; process of, 609–612 Saunders, D. T., 281 Schädlich, M., 259 Schatzman, M., 308–309 Schindler, R., 84 Schizophrenia, 32, 74, 251, 253, 351, 542 Schonbar, R. A., 172 Schader, Paul, 304 Schredl, M., 92, 94, 107, 168–173, 177, 179 Schwartz, S., 371, 375, 425 Seage, C. H., 91 Seizures, 49, 86, 244, 427 Serotonin: and AS theory/AIM model of dreaming, 72, 75; and dream content, 225, 226t, 227, 236; and dreaming in mental disorders, 251; neurochemical theories of dreaming, 71–78; and pharmacology, 74–78, 225, 226t, 227, 230, 236, 251; and REM sleep, 64, 74, 396; selective serotonin inhibitors (SSRIs), 227, 230, 236, 251; wakefulness role, 17, 18f, 64, 71, 72 Sexsomnia, 243, 249 Shakespeare, W., 429, 657, 664–665, 697–698 Shamanism, 308, 325, 546, 618–619, 687, 706–710 Sheehy, G. 510 Shelley, M., 304, 641–642, 657, 659 Shelley, P. B., 315–316, 642 Shift work, 38t, 41 Siclari, F., 58–59, 61, 201, 342, 398 Siegel, A., 187, 295, 558

Index Siegel, B., 297 Sigma waves, 9, 25f, 27, 29, 30, 32, 34. See also Sleep spindles Sikka, P., 279 Sikora, S., 311–312 Simulation and dreaming, 117–121; self-simulation, 117–119; simulation theories and the function of dreaming, 119–120; virtual reality and dreams, 87, 120–121, 154, 211, 347, 370. See also Social simulation theory (SST); Threat simulation theory (TST) Singer, T., 547 Singh, T., 312 Sleep and Dream Database, 163, 174, 674, 680–681 Sleep spindles: and dream recall, 58; and memory, 101, 103, 146–147; EEG correlates of dreaming, 55, 58; in nonhuman animals, 9; polysomnographic recording of wake, NREM, and REM sleep, 25f; and psychiatric illnesses, 32; in sleep cycles, 30; sleep stage scoring systems, 26t; slow and fast classifications of, 69; and synaptic plasticity, 47. See also Sigma waves Sleep-active cell groups in the brain, 20–21 Sleep apnea, 38t, 40, 304 Sleep architecture, definition of, 24–25. See also Human sleep architecture Sleep deprivation, 5, 30, 39, 42–43, 46–49, 51–54, 99, 102, 109, 111, 159, 350–351 Sleep disorders, 3, 29; genetic background of, 40; International Classification of Sleep Disorders (ICSD-3) 233; narcolepsy, 32, 38t, 40, 85, 244, 245f, 247, 273; shift work disorder, 41; sleep apnea, 38t, 40, 304; and threat simulation system. See also Parasomnias Sleep duration: and availability of food sources, 50–51; and circadian peak, 194; and dream recall, 171, 188, 192–194; and energy conservation during sleep, 50–51; and genetics, 22, 34, 39; and human sleep architecture, 30; and imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT), 481; and sleep homeostasis, 22; somnotype (individual sleep need), 39

Index Sleep homeostasis, 22–23 Sleep intensity: in nonavian reptiles, 10; and sleep homeostasis, 22, 24 Sleep stage, 25–30; sleep stages as defined by different scoring systems, 26t Sleep talking, 243–244, 539 Sleepwalking, 227, 238–242, 243, 249, 539–540 Slow wave sleep (SWS): in nonhuman animals, 5, 7, 9–10, 12, 15, 141; polysomnographic recording of wake, NREM, and REM sleep, 25f; and sleep cycles, 30; and sleep staging systems, 29. See also Delta waves; N3 NREM sleep; Non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep Smith, B. V., 282 Smith, C., 325, 368, 378, 425 Smith, G. A., 666 Smith, H., 630 Smith, R. C., 300 Smith-Magenis syndrome, 40 Social simulation theory (SST), 124, 131, 132–137, 381; critique and future prospects, 136; mind reading in dreams, 135; relationship between dream and wake social interactions, 135–136; social nature of dreams, 133–134; social dream contents, 134–135 Solms, M., 73, 81–82, 84–86, 340–341, 425 Somatic dreams. See Health-related dreams Somnotype (individual sleep need), 39 Sopčák, P., 315 Sparrow, G. S., 333, 424, 592 Spiritual dreams, 332–334. See also Religious and spiritual treatment Spontaneous healing dreams, 330–331 Sports enhancement through dreams, 305–306 State reversibility, 43 Staunton, H., 209 Stekel, W., 417–418 Stevens, W., 308 Stevenson, R. L., 304, 642, 657, 659 Stewart, D., 344, 382, 425, 426 Stickgold, R., 369, 425 Storytelling method (TSM) of associative dreamwork, 554–558

821 Study of dream experiences, 153–165; affirmative probes, 157–159, 162, 165; continuum of subjective experiences during sleep and definitions of dreams and dreaming, 154f; definition of dreams and dreaming, 153–155; dream data collection methods, 155–161; dream questionnaire, 161; home dream diary, 89, 159–160, 199; Most Recent Dream (MRD) method, 89, 160–161, 184, 202; methodological aspects to consider when collecting dream data, 155–156t; narrative, reports, 157, 159, 161–163, 165; narrative dream report analysis, 162–164; recommendations for addressing biases, 164–165; relationship between dream experiences and the data that is collected, 154f; selfratings, 161–162, 165, 174–175, 177, 179t, 179, 277; self-reports, 154f, 155, 157, 159, 161–162, 164, 220–221, 284, 470; Sleep and Dream Database, 163, 174, 674, 680–681; sleep laboratory dream log, 158–159; studying the continuity between waking and dreaming, 89–94 Stumbrys, T., 259, 262, 284, 288, 289 Sublaterodorsal nucleus (SLD), 20–21 Substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc), 71 Suler, J., 716 Synesthesia, 653 Takeuchi, T., 58 Taylor, J., 423, 523, 531, 532, 538, 540, 542, 718; “Tunnel, Bear, Crash,” 662f Taylor, M., 650 Technological influences on dreams, 711– 720; DreamsCloud, 719; International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) and, 717–719; internet and social media, 715–720; nightmare protection hypothesis, 222–224, 714; online dream sharing, 715–719; PsiberDreaming, 298, 719; video game play, 712–715. See also Media’s effects on dreaming; Video games Tedlock, B., 709 Telepathic and precognitive dreams, 324–327

822 Thalamus, 7; and circadian rhythm, 21; functional neuroimaging during REM sleep, 65f; and loss of dreaming, 81; and neurochemical theories of dreaming, 72; and neurocognitive theory of dreaming, 98; NREM neuroimaging and dreaming, 69; REM neuroimaging and dreaming, 63, 64; reticular thalamic nucleus, 20; role of, 19–20; thalamocortical circuits, 19f, 20, 48; ventrolateral preoptic nucleus, 18f, 20; wakefulness role, 19–20, 24, 64 Theme work (associative dreamwork), 558–562 Theories of dream meaning, 391–414; association guided by emotion, 398–399; and associative cortex, 398; condensation (linked associations), 399–400; dream narrative as sentence of association, 400; emotional content, 403–404; episodic replay, 413–414; imagery formation, 394–395; latent content in dream imagery, 401–413; meaningful association, 397–401; metaphor, 402–403; self-organization hypothesis, 395–397; significance of color, 406–413; typical or university dreams, 414; unconscious content ( Jung), 404–406 Theory of mind (ToM), 68–69, 133, 135, 355–358, 379 Theta waves: and dream recall, 57, 61; EEG correlates of dreaming, 57, 60, 61; frequency band classification of, 27, 56; polysomnographic recording of wake, NREM, and REM sleep, 25f; and sleep-onset dreaming, 60; and sleep paralysis, 245; and sleep stage scoring systems, 26t; and subtle consciousness, 706 Tholey, P., 263, 265, 286, 486–487 Threat simulation theory (TST), 120, 124, 125–132, 222, 310, 381; critical arguments against, 129–131; empirical tests of, 128–129; evidence and arguments for, 125–127; prehistoric and evolutionary biases in dream content, 127; as unifying explanatory framework, 127–128

Index Thyroid, 36t, 39, 297 Tibetan Buddhism, 270, 272–273, 286, 620, 705–706. See also Buddhism Tien, H. S., 463, 465 Tobler, I., 12 Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), 62, 277, 288, 290 Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), 65, 70, 277, 288 Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), 53, 62 Transformative learning, 385–389 Tuominen, J., 132 Two-process model of sleep regulation, 23, 24f Typical dreams: and cognitive theory of dreaming, 96; exceptional dreams beginning as, 295; feeling-guided reflection upon awakening from, 314; frequency of typical dream themes, 184–186; Freud on, 180, 186–187, 414, 558; percentage of participants reporting typical dreams, 182–183t; and theme work, 448–562; themes of, 126, 180–180, 413–414; and waking life, 184–186 Typical Dreams Questionnaire (TDQ), 181, 184, 186 Tyrrell, G., 331 Ullman, M., 320–321, 348, 382, 402, 421, 423, 426, 520, 528–529, 534; dream appreciation dreamwork method, 422, 455–460, 469–472, 474, 535–536 Valli, K., 128 Van de Castle, R. L.,295, 297, 407, 409, 410, 417; Dream Helper Circle, 527; Hall and Van de Castle system of content analysis, 92, 163, 174, 175–176, 178, 185t, 186, 203–204, 240, 300, 328, 419, 425, 674; Van Rijn, E., 198–200 Ventral tegmental area (VTA), 71, 73 Video games: hard-core gamers, 282; incorporation into dreams, 220–221, 368; lucid/control dreaming by gamers, 221–222, 282; and nightmare

Index protection hypothesis, 222–224, 714; used to understand influence of media, 712–715; virtual reality (VR), 714–715 Virtual reality and dreams, 87, 120–121, 154, 211, 347, 370 Vogel, G., 425 Voss, U., 62, 98, 210, 211, 279, 284, 288, 289–290 Wackermann, J., 60 Waggoner, R., 269, 330, 334, 802 Wakefulness: induction of, 17–20; prolonged, 22–24, 52 (see also Sleep deprivation); sleep- and wakeregulating cell groups in the brain, 18–19f; thalamocortical circuits, 19–20f; thalamus, 19–20; waking nuclei, 17, 20 Walker, M. P., 106, 110, 197, 369, 425 Wallace, B. A., 705–706 Walsh, S. J., 421

823 Wamsley, E. J., 344, 368, 369, 370, 378, 382, 393, 425–426 Warner, C. D., 528 Warnes, H., 296 Watson, D., 280 Webb, C., 650, 655 Welt, B., 426, 672 Wernicke’s area, 60, 66, 244, 343 Wilber, K., 600, 706 Wilkerson, R., 292, 718 Wilmer, H., 490, 539 Wilson, C., 651 Wilson, M., 377, 425 Winget, C., 175 Wonnell, T., 462, 463 Wright, D. C., 483 Wright, S., 477 Zadra, A., 181, 425 Zangwill, O., 82 Ziegler, A., 296 Zyphur, M. J., 132