Dream Bizarreness and the Controversy between the Neurobiological Approach and the Disguise-Censorship Model: The Contribution of Children’s Dreams

Abstract

One current aspect of the debate on dream bizarreness is the controversy between the neurobiological approach and the Freudian disguise-censorship model. The neurobiological approach to dreaming—represented first and foremost by the “activation-synthesis” hypothesis, but which also includes other well-known theories—ascribes dream bizarreness to the unique neurobiological conditions of the brain during the REM phase of sleep (i.e., random ponto-geniculo-occipital activation and aminergic demodulation of the brain, deactivation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, etc.) and rejects the Freudian explanation of dream bizarreness as motivationally based. Furthermore, the disguise-censorship model is accused of being needless, misleading, and not empirically testable. This article describes how studies on young children’s dreams have cast light on some aspects of the nature of dream bizarreness and of the disguise-censorship controversy.