Dream Imagery Research Articles

Il disegno dei sogni

This article explores the multifaceted concept of dreams within the context of contemporary art. It examines how the term "dream" is interpreted and represented by different artists and their works, specifically in the exhibition "Dream: Art Meets Dreams" curated by Danilo Eccher. The exhibition is described as an allegorical journey into the deepest parts of the human soul, touching on desires, expectations, and fears. It showcases how dreams serve as a channel to access the unconscious and spiritual dimensions, influenced by Freudian thought. The article also delves into historical perspectives on dreams, from Plato to modern neuropsychology, and how these perspectives shape our understanding of dreams as both a personal and universal phenomenon. Through the analysis of various artworks and artistic approaches, the article highlights the ongoing dialogue between dream imagery and its aesthetic and symbolic significance in both historical and contemporary contexts.

Pandemic dreams: A qualitative analysis of dream imagery during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pandemic dreams: A qualitative analysis of dream imagery during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kresba nebo fotomontáž pro děti? Příklady inovativních přístupů ilustrace dětské knihy v meziválečném Československu

The aim of the paper has been to show the plethora of innovative approaches to the illustration of books for children in the interwar period in Czechoslovakia (1918–1938). In a journal focused on education and literature (Úhor [Fallow]), the first synthetic text devoted to the aesthetics of children’s books was published as late as 1935, written by Josef Novák. His text perceives the illustrations of children’s books as an important and distinctive artistic expression dependent on the drawing conception of a form. It highlights the most modern examples in the form of the book of Zdenka Marčanová and Toyen, Náš svět [Our World], but not without reservations; it provides another modern example in Karel Čapek’s Dášeňka, on whose typography Karel Teige worked in 1933. The artistic potential of illustration is thus dominated by the individual approaches of particular authors. As early as 1918, the anthology Nůše pohádek [A Basketful of Fairy Tales] brought some unconventional illustrations, adopting elements from progressive art movements. Jeníkovy pohádky [Jack’s Fairy Tales], written and illustrated by Jan Zrzavý in 1920, enriched the visual appearance of children’s books with variations of dream imagery and with the interconnection of image and text according to the author’s concept with the involvement of a visually dominant and aesthetically modified typeface. In particular in Milada Marešová’s drawings published at the turn of the 1930s, it is possible to observe a new way of working with traditional means of expression. Her drawings were a reaction to the contemporary foreign approaches of the New Objectivity. In the early 1930s, Josef Čapek’s book graphics and illustrations were characterised by a shift towards multimedia. The involvement of the avant-garde painter Toyen in children’s book illustration proceeds from Civilism to Surrealism. A distinctly avant-garde form was given to the experimentally conceived popular-educational book by J. V. Pleva Kapka vody [A Drop of Water] in the graphic design of Zdeňek Rossmann, who creatively combined typography with photomontage. Photomontage was used by Augustin Tschinkel in his popular-educational books, either together with Ladislav Sutnar, for instance in Malá vlastivěda [A Little Civics Reader]), or on his own in the book Zeměpisné rebusy [Geographical Rebuses]. The works of the last three mentioned avant-garde artists are typical examples of the progressive graphic design where graphic symbols have been replaced by illustrations. These publications were created within a new model of cooperation – collaboration between a typographer, designer and illustrator in an authorial whole. Significantly radical experiments applying constructivist aesthetics and involving photography were unique in children’s literature in Czechoslovakia.

Imagery of ritual actions in religious dreaming: steps toward a theory and method of the cognition of dreamt ritual interaction

ABSTRACT The research literature on religious dreaming demonstrates the commonness of supernatural agent (SA) imagery, as well as various ritualistic and divinatory uses of dream content in the waking state. Less well mapped is the related domain of dream imagery about rituals (DIR). This article aims to provide a survey and analysis of DIR items and interactions in line with dream and ritual theories, with case illustrations from dream reports based on ethnographic fieldwork among Hindus in Nepal. The analysis relies on an understanding of “ritual” based on their assumed “obvious aspects” and traits, and on theoretical assumptions drawn from cognitive and evolutionary accounts of ritualization in relation to prominent strands in dream research such as threat simulation theory, and social simulation theory. The aim is to develop a novel strategy for exploring imagined ritual traits in dreaming. This undertaking contributes to the methodology and theoretical understanding of religious dream cognition.

Mental Imagery in Dreams of Congenitally Blind People.

It is unclear to what extent the absence of vision affects the sensory sensitivity for oneiric construction. Similarly, the presence of visual imagery in the mentation of dreams of congenitally blind people has been largely disputed. We investigate the presence and nature of oneiric visuo-spatial impressions by analysing 180 dreams of seven congenitally blind people identified from the online database DreamBank. A higher presence of auditory, haptic, olfactory, and gustatory sensation in dreams of congenitally blind people was demonstrated, when compared to normally sighted individuals. Nonetheless, oneiric visual imagery in reports of congenitally blind subjects was also noted, in opposition to some previous studies, and raising questions about the possible underlying neuro-mechanisms.

From the Neighbourhood of Firuzağa down the Rabbit Hole

Intermediality is a term to investigate the dialogues between imaginative texts from various types of media. Being a product of postmodern discourse, it has a massive influence on comparative literary studies, in that analyses with regard to intermedial considerations reinforce the impact area of the examined texts. This article aims at analysing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll and Serial Cook (2017) by Ümit Ünal in order to show how an old canonical literary work demonstrates itself in a contemporary imaginative text on a cognitive level. It is obvious that artists build up such textual connections on purpose as well, but such an interaction achieved undeliberately, though the receivers of texts can never be confident, is another issue that requires attention. I argue that Serial Cook can be considered as a 21st century reception of AAW in that it exhibits certain aspects of Lewis Carroll’s style and content. It is apparent that the main character, Neslihan becomes a contemporary version of Alice in the face of a serial killer who has difficulties in adjusting to the mechanisms of the community she is part of. Throughout the movie, we see her relentless efforts to speak for herself and settle a new life. Furthermore, in both texts one can observe presence of dream imagery, which appears as an apparatus of initiation of both characters.

From the Neighbourhood of Firuzağa down the Rabbit Hole

Intermediality is a term to investigate the dialogues between imaginative texts from various types of media. Being a product of postmodern discourse, it has a massive influence on comparative literary studies, in that analyses with regard to intermedial considerations reinforce the impact area of the examined texts. This article aims at analysing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll and Serial Cook (2017) by Ümit Ünal in order to show how an old canonical literary work demonstrates itself in a contemporary imaginative text on a cognitive level. It is obvious that artists build up such textual connections on purpose as well, but such an interaction achieved undeliberately, though the receivers of texts can never be confident, is another issue that requires attention. I argue that Serial Cook can be considered as a 21st century reception of AAW in that it exhibits certain aspects of Lewis Carroll’s style and content. It is apparent that the main character, Neslihan becomes a contemporary version of Alice in the face of a serial killer who has difficulties in adjusting to the mechanisms of the community she is part of. Throughout the movie, we see her relentless efforts to speak for herself and settle a new life. Furthermore, in both texts one can observe presence of dream imagery, which appears as an apparatus of initiation of both characters.

Visuo-spatial imagery in dreams of congenitally and early blind: a systematic review.

The presence of visual imagery in dreams of congenitally blind people has long been a matter of substantial controversy. We set to systematically review body of published work on the presence and nature of oneiric visuo-spatial impressions in congenitally and early blind subjects across different areas of research, from experimental psychology, functional neuroimaging, sensory substitution, and sleep research. Relevant studies were identified using the following databases: EMBASE, MEDLINE and PsychINFO. Studies using diverse imaging techniques and sensory substitution devices broadly suggest that the "blind" occipital cortex may be able to integrate non-visual sensory inputs, and thus possibly also generate visuo-spatial impressions. Visual impressions have also been reported by blind subjects who had near-death or out-of-body experiences. Deciphering the mechanistic nature of these visual impression could open new possibility in utilization of neuroplasticity and its potential role for treatment of neurodisability.

Gauging oneiromancy—the cognition of dream content and cultural transmission of (supernatural) divination

ABSTRACT Dreaming is often connected with religious ideas and enjoys distinct epistemic status as a source of trusted information for divinatory practices—oneiromancy. These tendencies suggest the existence of a distinct content affordance relevance for dream divination, hypothesized in the “CARDD theory.” CARDD theory predicts that dreams containing nightmarish and threatening content, omission of self-agency models, bizarre and counterintuitive content, and SA imagery enhance the proclivity for dream communication and divination. Drawing upon ethnographic research among Nepalese Hindus, the purpose of the present article is to extend assumptions from cognitive and cultural transmission analysis of divination to the subcase of dream research and divination. The specific aims are (1) to quantify and compare dream contents according to their prevalence as described in CARDD theory, and (2) to test CARDD theory against the assumption that the dream contents have affordance value and provide motivation for dream communication and divination. According to the present data, however, only omission of self-agency models in dream imagery was significantly shown to predict dream communication and divination—a result that supports the idea that the formal features of “ostensive detachment” (Boyer, 2020; Mercier & Boyer, 2021) are decisive factors in cultural transmission of divinatory practices.

The Value of Subjectivity in the Study of Dreams: An Alternative Methodology in a Quantitative Field

<i>This article presents original research on the dreams of adults during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Mexico. Subjects went through a series of in-depth clinical interviews where they were asked to share their most recent dream and then explored the dream imagery in conversation with the interviewer to find meaning through an analytic, dialogical process. After gathering the data through the interviews, the authors proceeded to use the narrative method and grounded theory to process the findings. The fundamental objective of the article is to explore the advantages that a qualitative exploration of dreams offers over other methodologies of dream analysis. The article proposes that a qualitative approach has the benefit of validating the dreamer’s experience without generalizing it. This shifts the focus of dream research from the description of categories to the co-creation of meanings with the participants. Additionally, it constitutes an initial attempt to explore and understand the affective and/or cognitive conflicts that underly dream imagery rather than simply mentioning repeating elements within the dream content. </i>

Nocturnal visual hallucinations in patients with disorders of arousal: a novel behavioral and EEG pattern

To investigate clinical and video-polysomnography (VPSG) findings of hallucinatory experiences in patients suffering from disorders of arousal (DOA) in the absence of other pathologies. The authors retrospectively reviewed the records of 370 adults with DOA. Thirty (8.1%) patients concomitantly reported complex nocturnal visual hallucinations. VPSG recordings were scrutinized, and motor behavioral and electroencephalogram (EEG) patterns were classified according to previous descriptions of DOA. Thirty DOA patients reported seeing images of objects, people, and animals; either distorted, static, or mobile. The images disappeared with increased illumination in 80% of patients, and 23.3% reported preceding dream imagery. In addition to the classical DOA patterns on VPSG, a distinct pattern of behavioral and EEG manifestation associated with complex hallucinatory episodes was identified in 16 (53.3%) DOA patients. This consisted of low-voltage mixed-frequency EEG activity before eye opening that persisted while patients were observed staring or visually tracking before the onset of motor behavior. A novel, distinct behavioral and EEG pattern in patients with DOA and history of reported complex nocturnal visual hallucinations was identified. This may represent a unique phenotype of dissociation between sleep states that merits further investigation.

Нові штрихи до «Автопортрета зі свічкою» Тараса Шевченка – автора «Кавказу» та «Заповіту»

The comprehension of educational significance of the artist in the society by T. Shevchenko and W. Shakespeare is considered in the article. They are the writers, whose works have marked the beginning of new epochs. Comparative literary analysis of the fundamental ideas of the Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet and the poem Caucasus and The Testament poetry from T. Shevchenko’s Three Summers collection is accomplished. The motion from Classicism to Romanticism is rendered in Shakespeare’s work by the tragic collision between the kins’ hostility and a high feeling of love. An artist serves to the social insight for the sake of the person and nation in Shevchenko’s samples. The main images of Shevchenko’s poetry collection Three Summers and Life of the Saint Prophet Jeremiah (according to the collection Chetiyi-Mineyi by D. Tuptalo) are compared. An attempt to consider Shevchenko’s collection Three Summers as a literary and artistic integrity and to add Pereyaslavian vision of The Caucasus and The Testament to the traditional in this aspect imagery of the poem Dream, is made.

The Power of Story Telling: Michaela Kopp-Marx in Conversation with Author Patrick Roth

This interview addresses the need to bring back into view the archetypal background in the life of the individual. German-American writer Patrick Roth explains that our seemingly trivial and thus meaningless quotidian life is imbued with mythic dimensions that we commonly overlook. Roth?s most recent book, Starlite Terrace, set in the city of movies, Los Angeles, confronts the spiritually depleted world of today with the mysteriously deep imagery of dreams. It demonstrates how numinous forces are at work in the lives of individuals, which trace a hidden pattern providing coherence and orientation. The conversation revolves around the bringing together of opposites as a central task for the modern individual. A new relationship to the feminine principle, feeling, would be helpful in this context. Patrick Roth lets us know what he has learned from depth psychology—both for his personal individuation process and for his work as a writer. He vividly explains what the objective psyche means to him. With his background as a filmmaker, it is no coincidence that classic Hollywood cinema finds its way into his storytelling, as well as images from his own archetypal dreams. And thus every book Patrick Roth works on becomes a vessel for his own consciousness raising.

Confounded Dwelling: Architectures of Association in W. G. Sebald’sAusterlitz

Confounded Dwelling: Architectures of Association in W. G. Sebald’s<i>Austerlitz</i>

Mental Activity During Episodes of Sleepwalking, Night Terrors or Confusional Arousals: Differences Between Children and Adults.

Objective/BackgroundNight terrors, sleepwalking and confusional arousals are behavioral manifestations of incomplete awakenings from sleep. According to international diagnostic criteria, these behaviors occur in the absence of any mental experience, or in the presence of very limited cognition or dream imagery (eg, a single visual scene). The aim of this study was to systematically and retrospectively investigate the mental content associated with sleep terrors and/or sleepwalking in both children and adults.Patients and MethodsForty-five consecutive patients referred for a diagnosis of disorders of arousal (DOA) of all subtypes (sleepwalking/sleep terrors/confusional arousals) (25 adults: 30 ± 6 y, 15 females; 20 children: 10 ± 3 y, 6 females) underwent a detailed semi-structured interview about the mental content associated with their nocturnal episodes. The interview was comprehensive of specific questions about their subjective recall rate, several content details (characters, emotions, actions and setting/context), and hallucinatory or dissociative experiences during clinical episodes. Patients’ reports were classified for complexity (Orlinsky scale) and content (Hall and Van de Castle categories).ResultsMore than two-third of the children (n = 14) could not recall any mental activity associated with their episodes, whereas more than two-third (n = 16) of the adults recalled at least one mental experience. Half of the adult patients (n = 8) estimated that a specific mental content was subjectively present around 50% or more of the times. Seven adults and one child described clear and vivid hallucinatory experiences of “dreamed” objects or characters projected onto their real home environment, in the absence of any reality testing. Five adults and two children described one or more dissociative experiences. The content of the collected reports was dominated by dynamic actions acted out from a self-perspective, often with apprehension and in response to misfortune and danger, in a home-setting environment.ConclusionThese results suggest that current diagnostic criteria are tailored around the typical presentation of DOA in children, and do not always fit to adult patients with DOA. Furthermore, they support the concept that consciousness may reemerge in DOA patients during clinical episodes, in a peculiar dissociated, psychotic-like form.

Whole-body procedural learning benefits from targeted memory reactivation in REM sleep and task-related dreaming

Sleep facilitates memory consolidation through offline reactivations of memory traces. Dreaming may play a role in memory improvement and may reflect these memory reactivations. To experimentally address this question, we used targeted memory reactivation (TMR), i.e., application, during sleep, of a stimulus that was previously associated with learning, to assess whether it influences task-related dream imagery (or task-dream reactivations). Specifically, we asked if TMR or task-dream reactivations in either slow-wave (SWS) or rapid eye movement (REM) sleep benefit whole-body procedural learning. Healthy participants completed a virtual reality (VR) flying task prior to and following a morning nap or rest period during which task-associated tones were readministered in either SWS, REM sleep, wake or not at all. Findings indicate that learning benefits most from TMR when applied in REM sleep compared to a Control-sleep group. REM dreams that reactivated kinesthetic elements of the VR task (e.g., flying, accelerating) were also associated with higher improvement on the task than were dreams that reactivated visual elements (e.g., landscapes) or that had no reactivations. TMR did not itself influence dream content but its effects on performance were greater when coexisting with task-dream reactivations in REM sleep. Findings may help explain the mechanistic relationships between dream and memory reactivations and may contribute to the development of sleep-based methods to optimize complex skill learning.

Archetypes and Creative Imagination in ‘Ode to Psyche’: A Jungian Analysis

John Keats’ ‘Ode to Psyche’ is steeped in mythology and dream symbolism, which encourages us to understand it from the perspective of depth psychology/archetypal criticism. The odes of John Keats have been studied from historicist, feminist, and biographical perspectives. This paper aims to complement these perspectives by elaborating the mythical dream imagery of the poem as referring symbolically to the process of psychic integration and poetic creativity. The paper also views the poem as exemplifying the need for a complementary ongoing communication between the conscious and the unconscious aspects of the mind to maintain a holistic psyche. Archetypal theory is used to frame the figurative structure of the poem as a symbolic mythical variant of the process of poetic creativity. The paper employs three theoretical constructs, namely syzygy or complementation of opposites; active imagination; and individuation, as a framework to analyze the poem from an archetypal perspective. Employing a depth psychological perspective to understand poetry enhances the aesthetic pleasure derived from reading poetry and enhances the 'healing effect' of poetry by illuminating the psychological connotations of the poem. The paper concludes by attempting to answer two research questions explored in the analysis. First, does archetypal perspective contribute to enhancing readers' aesthetic pleasure derived from reading poetry? Second, what are the theoretical contributions of the current analysis towards contemporary Jungian literary theory?

The Dream Effect of Waking Thought, Experience, and Illness: A Research Proposal

Dream imagery and frequency amongst individuals who are victims of amputation, depression, anxiety, trauma, and many mental disorders, have produced similar content results across the board of many studies. Specifics of other biological and physiological factors that contribute to such content are also examined in the data presented, along with specific case studies that have resulted in self-reported statistics that demonstrate the outcome and impact of waking-day stressors, experiences, and state/trait anxiety on sleeping individuals. Previous data has been collected on dream content recorded amongst amputees, individuals who experienced dreams while undergoing mental disorders, dreams that were supposedly induced with familiar scents, and other outside factors that contributed to the purpose of the study. Further examination of participants is proposed, along with information given on sampling methods, study techniques, and possible outcomes.

Virtual reality training of lucid dreaming.

Metacognitive reflections on one's current state of mind are largely absent during dreaming. Lucid dreaming as the exception to this rule is a rare phenomenon; however, its occurrence can be facilitated through cognitive training. A central idea of respective training strategies is to regularly question one's phenomenal experience: is the currently experienced world real, or just a dream? Here, we tested if such lucid dreaming training can be enhanced with dream-like virtual reality (VR): over the course of four weeks, volunteers underwent lucid dreaming training in VR scenarios comprising dream-like elements, classical lucid dreaming training or no training. We found that VR-assisted training led to significantly stronger increases in lucid dreaming compared to the no-training condition. Eye signal-verified lucid dreams during polysomnography supported behavioural results. We discuss the potential mechanisms underlying these findings, in particular the role of synthetic dream-like experiences, incorporation of VR content in dream imagery serving as memory cues, and extended dissociative effects of VR session on subsequent experiences that might amplify lucid dreaming training during wakefulness.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Offline perception: voluntary and spontaneous perceptual experiences without matching external stimulation'.

Pilot study on geometrical movement in lucid dreams

In this pilot study a group of volunteer lucid dreamers were recruited to trace out specific simple symmetrical geometric structures, whilst lucid in their dreams. The experiment was a joint effort between the Dream Research Institute (DRI) in London, and Robert Waggoner, co-editor of the Lucid Dreaming Experience magazine (LDE). The purpose was to explore a hypothetical observation by psychotherapist Nigel Hamilton that psychotherapy clients who ultimately completed a balanced geometric movement in their non-lucid dream series, then experienced greater psychological balance and progress in therapy (Hamilton 2014). This novel pilot study sought to find whether tracing out simple symmetrical geometrical figures in the lucid dream produced any significant effect on or within the dream space. Two analytical methods, including a contents analysis revealed the significance of light/colour emerging in the dream imagery during the completion of the lucid dream exercises, as well as the addition of symbols of symmetry in the lucid dream imagery. By contrast, obstacles and a relative lack of colour/light appearing during the exercise tended to be associated with a lack of symmetry in the imagery and a greater difficulty in completing the geometric figures. Results also suggest that the lucid dreamer does not control the lucid dream, instead they influence the dream and frequently relate to unconscious activity in response.