Dream Sources Research Articles

Symposium: Dream research methodology: The quest for dream sources.

Within a Human Information Processing (HIP) framework, dreaming can be subdivided into three main components: Input, Processing and Output. Until recently, only the Output has been extensively studied due to its relatively easy accessibility in the form of dream reports. Much less is known about the other two components. A method is presented by which one can get information on the nature of the input component to dream processing. In this method the subjects are requested to identify the memory sources of their dreams, collected upon experimental awakenings. The materials thus obtained are then classified into categories derived from Tulving's distinction between Episodic and Semantic memory. Several aspects, including interviewing and scoring procedures, had to be specified in order to use the method, which was applied in a series of studies. The aim was to clarify the similarities as well as the differences between REM and NREM dreams. The main results give further support to the hypothesis of the existence of a unique dream production system that operates at different levels of engagement during the various sleep phases.

Memory Sources of REM and NREM Dreams

Sixteen male volunteers slept 4 nonconsecutive nights each in a sleep laboratory. They were awakened for one dream report per night. Awakenings were made, in counterbalanced order, from early-night and late-night rapid-eye movement (REM) and non-REM (NREM) sleep. Following dream reporting, subjects were asked to identify memory sources of their dream imagery. Two independent judges reliably rated mentation reports for temporal units and categorized memory sources as autobiographical episodes, abstract self-references, or semantic knowledge. We replicated earlier findings that semantic knowledge is more frequently mentioned as a dream source for REM than for NREM reports. However, with controls for length of reports, the REM-NREM difference disappeared, indicating that the stage difference in memory sources was not independent of stage difference in report lengths. There was a significant effect of time of night on source class, but only in REM sleep: Both without and with controls for report length, more semantic sources were cited for late than for early REM dreams.

Temporal Reference of the Mnemonic Sources of Dreams

The aim of this experiment was to investigate the temporal reference of elements which served as the mnemonic basis for dreams. Free associations with REM and Sleep Onset dreams were collected to determine the quality of the memories presumably activated during the production of the two types of dream. Associations referring to particular episodes of the dreamer's life were classified, according to their temporal dating, into Day residues, Recent residues, Remote residues. The hypothesis that there are differences in the temporal reference of the mnemonic sources of REM and sleep onset dreams has been confirmed. Day residues are significantly more associated with sleep onset than REM dreams. Moreover, in sleep onset, Day residues are significantly more frequent than Remote residues, while this is not true for REM dreams. Day residues are more easily available to sleep onset than REM dreaming because of the recent encoding which characterizes this kind of memory traces. In both sleep phases recent residues are more frequently used in constructing the dream.

Dream sources, associative mechanisms, and temporal dimension.

Using the technique of free association in an experimental setting, this author and colleagues previously found differences in the quality of memory traces involved in the production of REM and sleep onset (SO) dreams. The present study aims to answer two questions raised by those results: (a) Must the associative session be temporally contiguous to the dream production to gain access to the sources of the dream? (b) Are the differences between SO and REM associations due only to differences in structure and content of the two types of dream reports? Free associations with the same dream collected immediately after an experimental awakening were compared with those recalled 2 months later. A first group of results supports the hypothesis that free associations are sensitive to the proximity to the amount of dream production. A second group shows that the differences between SO and REM dreams noted in the previous research are not attributable to differences in formal characteristics of the report.

Basic Psychoanalytic Concepts on the Theory of Dreams

Humberto Nagera, MD, is professor of psychiatry in the University of Michigan and used to be the chairman of the Concept Research at Anna Freud's clinic in London. He has edited, together with his team from the Hampstead Child Therapy Clinic, this second volume of basic psychoanalytic concepts which follows a similar book on libido theory and which will be followed by two more volumes on psychoanalytic theory. In this volume 25 basic concepts have been isolated from Freud's work which are considered cornerstones of Freud's theory and interpretation of dreams. These concepts become fundamental for the understanding of psychoanalytic theory generally. They include subjects such as dream sources, dream work, censorship, manifest and latent contact, condensation, displacement, symbolism, secondary vision, and interpretation. The presentations are condensed but seem to contain all significant statements which were made by Freud at different points in his work during his lifetime. References to

The Interpretation of Dream and Poetry

Just as it is possible to trace back the manifest or surface elements in a dream, its images and events, to the previous experience of the dreamer, it is possible to show how the words and content of a poem are derivable from the poet's life. John Livingston Lowes has demonstrated this possibility in his justly famous study examining the sources of two poems by Coleridge, The Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan. Although it takes as its starting-point the common source of dreams and poetry in individual experience, this article has the purpose of indicating how the nature of poetry puts limits on its interpretation by the methods of psycho-analysis.