Sleep and Dreaming

perceptions of something that is not present

hallucination

characterized by false belief

delusional

tendency for a single train of thoughts and images to persist over time without disruption or competition from other thoughts and images

singlemindedness

Characteristics of dreams

hallucinations, delusional, metacognition, emotional, singlemindedness, disconnected from reality

What did the Greeks and Roman believe about dreams?

direct messages from gods

used by certain Native American tribes to protect children from nightmares

dreamcatchers

Person who claimed “the experience of a dream is, in principle, indistinguishable from waking life”

Descartes

Who wrote The Interpretation of Dreams?

Freud

What did Freud believe dreams stemmed from?

Unconscious

Reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories outside of human conscious awareness that influence our behavior and experience

Unconscious

Freud believed dreams represent:

attempts by the unconscious to resolve some conflict or unmet need

Types of content in dreams (Freud)

manifest, latent

Information the individual remembers upon awakening (Freud)

Manifest content

hidden meaning of dreams, unconscious thoughts, drives, and desires, suppressed to protect us from primitive feelings that may be difficult to face

Latent content

When do hypnogogic dreams take place?

N1

a state of heightened awareness that allows the sleeper to recognize they are dreaming and possibly control some aspects of a dream

lucid dreaming

Defining features of lucid dreaming

awareness, control, episodic memory

Ways of lucid dreaming

Dream-induced Lucid Dream (DILD), Wake-induced Lucid Dream (WILD)

Hypothesis that states that dreaming is triggered by random firing of neurons in the pontine reticular formation (PRF) of the brainstem, and the forebrain responds by constructing a narrative that explains these visual sensation

activation-synthesis hypothesis

Hypothesis that states that dreams provide a form of simulation training for threatening situations

threat simulation hypothesis

Dreaming plays a key role in:

emotional processing

Dreaming is a form of ____ ____ processing

sleep-dependent memory