Dreams and sleep: Are new schemas revealing?

Abstract

In this series of articles, several new hypotheses on sleep and dreaming are presented. In each case, we feel the data do not adequately support the hypothesis. In their lengthy discourse, Hobson et al. represent to us the familiar reciprocal interaction model dressed in new clothes, but expanded beyond reasonable testability. Vertes & Eastman have proposed that REM sleep is not involved in memory consolidation. However, we do not find their arguments persuasive in that limited differences in activity in REM and waking do not lend credence to the idea that memory consolidation occurs in one state and not the other. Solms makes an argument that dreams are generated from the dopaminergic forebrain based largely on pathological lesion studies in humans. We recognize that this argument has some intuitive appeal and agree with some of the tenets but we do not feel that the arguments are completely convincing due to the lack of anatomical controls, including symmetry and laterality. On the whole, there are interesting arguments put forward in these target articles but the evidence does not convince us that new vistas are opened. No Holy Grail of sleep here![Hobson et al.; Solms; Vertes & Eastman]