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AUDIENCE COMMENTS
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THE SCIENCE OF DREAMS
Terence Walls - Science of dreams
During last weeks programme I heard the comment, "Why don't we dream when we are awake?". I would suggest that being 'awake' is when we dream best and continuously. Assuming the world, external to ourselves, exists, then the only access we have to it is through sense data. This stream of nerve impulses, which passes from our sensory receptors to our brain, cannot be said to represent, nor to be analagous to, those events which occur 'out there'. We can only assume that the brain 'fabricates' an image, of external reality, which serves to allow us to interact with it. It is this process of 'fabrication' that I would suggest is no more, or less, than dreaming. The real question is, "Why do we dream when we are asleep?". If we accept that the main function of the brain is to dream reality for us, then it is no surprise that this process ocurs on many levels. Even the basic brain centres must be involved. 'Sleeping dreams' will, by necessity, lack external stimuli and input from the neo-cortex. They, therefore have no need to relate to an external reality, nor fit in with the logic imposed by those higher brain functions. It is possible, also, to explain day-dreams, using this theory, as being detached from external stimuli, but under control of the higher brain functions. (Long train journeys, or boring lectures being excellent examples of lack of external stimuli, therefore opportunities for day-dreaming)
Dreams
I have been listening to the programme In our Time on Dreams, using the excellent Listen Again facility. An interesting discussion, but something that could have been aired in the last century. Where was the mention of Joe Griffin's "The Origin of Dreams' or the more extended research by Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrell, published in the the book 'Human Givens. Chapter Three, The Dreaming Brain? I quote from their summary, " The mystery of why we dream, and the puzzle about what dreaming does for us every night, is largely solved. if this insight - that the brain evolved to dream to deal with unresloved emotional arousals - is true, it should, as is so often the case with a new discovery, throw more light on other misterie, just as when one climbs a mountain abd can see much further than from lower down." I, with others, work using these new insights, that are already have a profound effect in the treatment of depression, anxiety disorders, trauma and psychosis and I am disappointed that your programme was perhaps not as well researched as it could have been. Rita Leaman
Maureen Ramsay / Dreams
I was interested to hear that if a person suffers damage to certain areas of the brain they are unable to dream. It worried me that my Mother who had a severe stroke in 2000 might be confused by her dreams. However, your programme pointed out that frontotemporal internal capsule haemorrhage, and right hemiplegia would have prevented this.
richard william - dreams
Congratulations on you programs. Very interesting theme, however the focus of the panel was very mechanical, too focused on the physical aspects of the brain instead of the mind stuff & emotions. In fact I was rather disappointed with your program this time. Were the psychological aspects of dreams purposely left out? I suggest a new program on dreams with a more Jungian view; after all there is much to be said. He studied also many native tribes & gathered information in a holistic way. I felt the panel had plenty of information but very fragmented knowledge.
LINDA BROOKES The science of dreams.
A facinating and fully accessible programme. Having just read through listeners' views to date, I too wondered why the omission of Jung. Perhaps,the programme timing was just not long enough to include his research. My recurring dream has, at its root, a fear of loss of control or failure. Perhaps one purpose of dreams is to give us insight into our personality. During the discussion a couple of questions came to mind. Why do people sleepwalk when the 'dream paralysis' state is possibly a self preservation mechanism? Are sleepwalkers' brains different? Do people who are blind from birth dream visually? I wonder if, when someone comes up with a definitive answer to all the queries about dreaming, will we not have a sense of disappointment in the loss of a little mystery in our lives.
Martin McDonagh Dreams
As I understand it we only remember the dreams which occur immediately before we wake up. However other periods of dreaming occur during the night. These we do not remember. This suggests that the content of dreams has no particular purpose or symbolic meaning. Also the fact that we remember the dreams which we wake with suggests a connexion between being able to remember and being awake. A fascinating feature of dreams is that there is a story line and that a number of bizzare things are linked together in the storyline. This suggests that we have a storyline making module in the brain and also a "reality filter " module the latter being switched off when we are asleep. My hypothesis is that memories are accessed randomly during sleep and then the storyline module does its best to make a narrative of these unrelated memories. It is also possible that as the brain sorts out the memories of the day misfiled memories are thrown out into general circulation and picked up by the storyline module and processed.
Chris Reason - dreams and dreaming
No mention of lucid dreaming! That is to say being 'awake' and fully conscious during one's dreams. This is an extraordinary experience which begs profound questions about what is 'real' and what is not. Stephen La Berge has researched and written about this [remarkably common] pheneomon extensively. Also tickled by the remark that a certain section of the brain 'only' turns on consciousness. Only! It's the sine qua non of everything!
j.martin1@blueyonder.co.uk - dreams
on reading other contributions - specifically those wondering what dream sequences could mean - I'd like to add some comments on interpretation (or deciphering if you wish). It's a fairly good rule of thumb when looking at dreams to take every element in a dream as representative of an element in one's own psyche, and the form this representation takes enables us to root out what we do actually know about ourselves but are not yet conscious of. Jung's approach was that we are a culmination of our entire history as a species, and having progressed from the animal through to a sophisticated consciousness we are liable to forget where we came from and hold consciousness in too high esteem at the expense of the animal. So animals in dreams are usually an attempt by the instincts to reassert themselves. Having said this, it is not the identification with the animal that is required but consciousness of it - so that it can be incorporated into a conscious attitude they has become somewhat severed from its roots. This is the only way mankind can progress - for progress does not come with science but with the development of the human mind and attitude. Of course animals are only one example, there are also specific functions attached to all of our other dream figures and events - many are personal, some more generally applicable and the way to work out these functions is by looking at the dream sequences themselves (nothing about dreams can be explained by describing the neurological process).So when we dream of our neighbour or spouse, for example, we can decipher it by asking simple questions like 'what do I think of him?' - and then apply the answer to oneself. If we are baffled by our dreams we must look at them in detail and use our own associations with the imagery to work out what this imagery means about us - it's a remarkable process which once started opens up huge vistas of possibility in terms of control over our own lives, and real connection with the rest of the human race - something which modern day consciousness sorely lacks and which science does nothing to restore.
tedrodgers DREAMS
DREAMS Interesting,but surely even more would be what is SLEEP FOR? ALSO Are you "dumming down"? the prog. is strewn with "sort ofs,kind ofs" etc
Jillian HIbbin - The Science of Dreams
Has intuition been proved to be less reliable than scientific method? The latter should only be used when choosing the best drug or remedy for treating a disease. To use it ubiquitously means that in other areas of enquiry its use makes hypotheses and conclusions too narrow to be of any use. Indeed it means that they are so insular they are dangerous. I thought the speakers on the programme - with the exception, perhaps, of the psychologist - were very unimaginative and very reluctant to discuss untested hypotheses. At one point Melvyn asked a very good question about why if one is highly aroused during certain periods of sleep, one stays asleep. No response! My daughter and I were able to come up with lots of IDEAS about the purpose of dreams - why couldn't they? Our ideas (!) : -dreams are the connection between the conscious and the subconscious mind -dreams protect you from dangers in the physical world while you are asleep;they're an alarm system; immediate dangers in the world around you are brought to your attention by being woven into your dream. - they are a reward, an inducement to get us to get the sleep we need to maintain optimum health - I read somewhere that growth hormone is released when we are asleep (? when we are dreaming) and when we cry (a strong emotion); emotions are the precursors (and felt effects) of hormonal activity; if we are depressed (ie have a subdued emotional life) or deprived of emotional stimulation then maybe we will dream more in order to make up the missing emotional (and consequent hormonal stimulation)
Elizabeth Dreams
Surely the response to the Dreams programme is the greatest yet here?
David Pollock
The idea of dreams as a try-out of unlikely scenarios / impossible wishes has no resonance with me, whose dreams (when they rarely have any discernible meaning at all)are generally sobering if distorted reflections of known limitations and failings of my own character!
Glenn Andrews Dreams
Two small points. We talk about REM but with an animal - let's say a dog - it's much more than the eyes. During those moments the animal is obviously running, barking and engaged in other activities so surely it must be dreaming. Hasn't it been shown that if a person is constantly woken over a period of nights during REM sleep they become extremely exhausted, irritable and unable to manage their everyday life, suggesting that REM sleep has a therapeutic value ?
Martin Anderson - Dreams
Melvyn Bragg c/o Radio 4 Dear Sir The programme about dreams was very interesting although the technical jargon was rather awesome. Is it not that dreams are simply our imagination when we are asleep? For instance I can easily create/imagine a scene in my mind of a busy street taken at a an angle from above so that I can see quite clearly the individual people walking past each other, past shops,buses, signs etc etc. Into this imagined scene I can place individual people - for instance I can 'put' Melvyn Bragg into the scene walking along the pavement either on his own or in the company of other people. For instance I can 'put' Tony Blair into the picture and see them walking together along the street having a conversation, and perhaps they then meet say, Lord Strathclyde coming in the opposite direction and they all stop for a chat. Or I could ' put' the late Donald Dewar into the same moving scenario, and they all stop to chat to each other. Altho it all sounds somewhat bizarre, and implausible, is this not the same as dreaming except that when we are asleep we do not have control over dream content? Interestingly after the programme on Thursday (4 March)when I fell asleep I dreamed briefly of a short ( but platonic) encounter I'd had with a very attractive lady about 20 years ago, and about whom I still think. So thank you ! best wishes Martin Anderson Kirkcudbrightshire
Gill Beresford - Dreams
It occurred to me, while listening to some of the programme that the subconscious part of our brain, taking on the role of the adult, throws out images during sleep to the hyperactive, demanding 'child' - the conscious brain, in an attempt to keep it occupied while it gets on with the seriou business of creating order...
Rebekah - dreams
If I remember correctly, I think Piaget had some interesting, if odd thoughts on dreams in children. He found that children up to seven believed that dreams occurred outside themselves, often thinking that they were next to their bed or above them (basically somewhere the child could see them) He went on to suggest that this was an ancient belief and that children sort of worked through the history of concept development (including ideas about dreaming) in their early years. Don't suppose it's "true" but sort of leads off into interesting areas philosophically, don't you think?
Sean Sherlock - Dreams
Having just finished listening to the discussion on dreaming on 'In Our Time' with Melvin Bragg. The program was extremely interesting but, as an interested amateur, I was rather surprised to hear no mention of two of the most original researchers in this area. One, Michel Jouvet, who coined the term 'Paradoxical Sleep' recently published an update of his theories in 'The paradox of sleep - the story of dreaming'. The other is Joe Griffin who's book 'The Origin of Dreams' addresses most of the points raised in the program within a comprehensive new theory of dreaming based on his own and others' research.
Ian Campbell - Dreams
I remember being amazed the first time I had a dream interpreted. Amazed because I could see how the apparently meaningless froth was just a different language, no more silly than Egyptian hieroglyphics or Chinese characters. I do not know how anyone who examines their dreams can suppose them to be literal rehearsals for life - unless perhaps they also view their lives as meaningless froth.
Newell White - Dreams - Recurring
Recurring dreams discredit the notion that dreams are random. I still awake from a dream of a friend who died in a motorbke accident 25 years ago - only about once a year now, but initially about twice a week. I also cried in my sleep then. I have had two other recurring dreams, one seems related to professional and intellectual frustration at work, another following a heart attack. From this I conclude that a significant portion of our dreams are involved with re-working unresolved issues. Plaudit - I listen only to Radio 4, "in Our Time" is worth more than all your other programs together. Don't retire yet please Melvyn!
Joy Gilson, Dreams and REM
How disappointing that you did not bring in Dr. Jo Griffin's work on dreaming and the REM state. This work has had a profound influence on the development of a new approach to therapy - The Human Givens approach - which is already revolutionising our understanding of depression, psychosis, and other mental health issues. Given that Human Givens Therapy is growing in acceptance so rapidly (in Hertfordshire for instance the HG approach is offered to troubled adolescents in schools, in the care system and throughout the Connexions Service. It is also idely used in Milton Keynes Mental Health Trust, Manchester City Council and many others. The understanding from Jo Griffin's work really ought to be have included in your programme - its revolutionary. Anyone interested can look it up at www.humangivens.com. J Gilson, Effective Therapy Centre joy@effectivetherapycentre.com
Adam Stritten - Dreams
Was the omission of Jung deliberate? It seems to be the case... Jung was a GIANT, and clearly decades or even centuries before his time. To be considered a serious discussion on dreams and to fail to discuss the work of Jung is quite absurd! Serious discussion? I think not...
Dave Cuthill : Dreams
Excellent, stimulating programme. Excellent panel of experts Rama I heard last year in the Reith Lectures. Hints of why not much progress has been made came from the slightly compartmentalised comments from the contributors. How would they accept the general approach that there are multiple levels of consciousness? A continuum. Awake is not really awake. It is just a state in which we and others believe we are fully conscious. Everyday awake state and night dream states are special cases of some general condition. Our brains surely filter reality and construct an acceptable model for us to believe in and live in. Rama said this before MB got him on to cats. Here's my £0.02 worth... When we open our eyes, most of the information is generated by memory. We don't experience a super-realtime image for everything we 'see'. We only experience that which can be coped with and assimilated. It could be that we are only fully 'awake' for seconds a day. The rest of the time we are in some other probably lower level of consciousness. They got a bit hung up on REM. Day Dreaming? I did some work with friends during recumbant rest after sports training. We had a leader and a subject. The leader set a scene and suggested a strongly imgined fantasy float and flight out of the room. The subject quite often took on the commentry, describing vivid and quite worrying experiences including meeting and speaking with other entities (weird birds and figures)in the daydream. The leader had to be strong and guide the experiencer wisely in how to deal with the dreamed experience. We stopped doing this as it was too disturbing. I can assure you that no 'substances' of any kind were involved. We were athletes. As to the question 'do cats dream?' predictably, the answer that came out from Mark was that 'we can never know because we are not cats'. I look at my dog friend, asleep, and whimpering, dream-barking, twitching the paws and limbs. If he isn't chasing a dream rabbit, what is he doing? A question for them: Are we closed systems, or do we interact at some level with other consciousnesses? Do we exist in other consciousnesses of which we are not conscious? Ridiculous? - perhaps. But surely a general science of dreams (consciousness) would have to allow for such a possibility in the same sort of way as a circle is a special case of an ellipse, our universe a special one of a huge number of possible universes. Also we are made of small particles which can communicate with eachother at some level. (Re Einstein Spooky Interaction at a Distance - and your Quantum Programme). Please keep doing full-strength programmes bringing in the experts in the subjects and pushing them. How about getting in someone like Fritjof Capra, (The Turning Point, The Tau of Physics Flamingo/Fontana/Collins) Who was a particle Physicist who described the parallels between what he was discovering within the atom in the 1970's and material written in Indian and Chinese literature 1000 years before? Thanks to all for the programme.
Alun Davies thoughts on dreams
Having heared your program today I though that if you go back to basic's then let us consider what Darwin would say on dreams ie how would it affect natural selection lets do a though experiment (I a maths person) let us assume there are two baby birds they all have dreams of white noise recalling the days events on that day they tried and failed to get any worms One has noise, the other is very deformed and dreams about the problem of the day (which may be noted during the day flaged in some way) he then does the dream thing of 'thinking differently' about the problem the bird then thinks of a new stratergy about how to catch the worm. the next day the bird with good dreams would have an marginal advantage and Darwin will do the rest. This may also work in other stressfull events like fighting for your life. These key dreams may well be worth waking up for (in a cold sweat) Us humans do things other ways now but for other animals should dream. If there is a benefit then there may be ways to test it on lab mice. Alun Davies
Jim Waters Dreams and Memory.
I liked the programme and was fascinated by the new science information on the brain. I wondered if dreams and the capacity to dream is affected by Abuse or child maltreatment. There is growing evidence that levels of Cortisol and its effect on flight/fight reactions in children are impacted by early histories of Maltreatment. Apparently the earlier the impacts and the greater the severity, the more profound the effects (Cicchetti and others in the USA have researched this). Some of the other great Founding Fathers including Jung were also interested in how the conetent of dreams and the unconscious could actually be activated in the service of Healing: Jung's so called "Numinosity": Could this incredible brain activity during REM sleep be the source of this Energy? If so y our presenters might also be bring CG Jung out of the shadows as well as Freud.
DREAMS
What about dreams which later occur in reality…At certain periods you may have dreams which happen or as the real thing occurs you realize you have dreamt it and can predict what will happen next.
Sheri Eggleton Dreams.
Has anyone studying dreams looked at the dreaming experience of meningitis sufferers during the course of their illness? I had a viral form of meningitis towards the end of last summer and was hospitalized in France for a week. During that time I was subject to the most astonishing dreams each night. I have never had any quite like them before. I made a good recovery in due course and I know that these dreams, and above all my perceived emotional state during them, had a profound effect on my healing process. Nothing that happened during these dreams, even drastic events such as holocaust, could dent or alter a supreme feeling of " being alright " for want of a better way of describing it in the limited time available to me now. This was a very vivid demonstration to me of the powerfulness of a brain able to act with such assuredness to save and heal itself. I would add for the sake of interest that I suffered from bad headaches periodically before contracting meningitis but have not had one since recovering from that illness.
Dreams
Being a tetreplegic for many years I was interested in some of the physiological aspects that were disscussed. I noted that after my accident when I was dreaming I was still walking and active in my dreams but after about five years I found that I was always disabled in my dreams, not necessarily in a wheelchair but very impaired and disabled over the years in my dreams while still disabled to some extent the degree of disability has lessened. During the dreaming process I recognise my disability and work my way through the dream always taking into account that I have to solve any problems that arise by non ordinary methords. Another interesting point is that when falling in my dreams unlike the situation before my accident I know hit the ground and it hurts. Duncan Haughey
Mrs Celia Hicks....Dreams ii
Further to my earlier mail, I am left with more questions... Could it be that at sleep the brain 'defragments' itself , to tidy up the neurological pathways and in so doing randon percetions and memories surface and are experienced as dreams? Could the lack of this process as in insomnia be a contributing factor to changes in neurofunction, changes in brain chemistry and consequent descent into mental instability? Please return to this subject.
Iain - Dreams
How fascinating! As an engineer, I try to maintain at least a "hand-waving" acquaintance with most of the sciences but I was not hitherto aware that the causal link between REM sleep and dreaming had been discredited. Earlier research in neurophysiology does, however, furnish an answer of a kind to Melvyn's query as to why we don't dream in the daytime. There has been shown to be a lag of some tenths of a second between the brain as a whole responding to a change in the environment and this knowledge reaching our consciousness. It is not, for example, just lack of knowledge that makes new drivers accident prone but the fact that they cannot react to a situation instinctively, before they become consciously aware of it. This may delay responses by as much as a second. So, even when we concentrate hard we are not, as we might imagine, confronting reality directly but reminiscing (daydreaming?) as to its state a brief time previously. Life really is, as the Spanish playwright Pedro Calderon suggested, "a dream".
Dr R Morley Dreams
I thought that the participants were most interesting on this topic, but as Freud himself had done, they tended to run together the idea of the meaning of dreams with the understanding of the function of dreaming. That function is, of course, intimately related to brain function and neurology, but it is not the same as attempting to understand the meaning of the dream inages. Freud,s great book was called The Interpretation of dreams. ie a study of how the dreams might be understood as contrasted with the biological function of the process. The discussion seemed to me to be making and assumption that any idea of there being a meaning to a dream could only be validated there was an objectively established definitive meaning to the images. The point about the meaning of dreams as the royal road to the unconscious is that they can be used to enable to patient to explore his own imaginative processes to produce a meaning relavant to himself. The end of the exploration cannot be predicted and is certainly not prescribed by Freud's notions of what unconscious contents of the human mind might be.
Frances Day - Dreams
It's so refreshing to hear scientific discussion on the radio, and this morning's programme was even more interesting than usual. It would be really good to have some links here that could take us to read more about the kind of research being discussed. I particularly appreciate the fact that In Our Time does not make the usual arbitrary distinction between Art and Science, but treats them both in the proper way as philosophy and learning necessary to all for a rounded view of the world. Please can't we have a whole hour? And more!
Dreams - Janet Taylor
I was amazed that in a very interesting discussion, there was no mention of Carl Jung. His contribution to the study of dreams was immense, and was in his view and that of many others, a serious scientific study undertaken over the course of a very long life. This was not in the neurological sense, but in the listening and studying of thousands of dreams brought him by his patients. A collaborator with Freud at the beginning of his career, he had to escape from the narrowness of Feud's interpretations. He went on to make important discoveries about the archetypal nature of dreams and their importance in what he called the individuation process, the struggle of individuals to become whole human beings. It was very surprising that there was no mention of the unconscious part of us which is where both Freud and Jung showed that dreams arise. In the view of many of us Jung was a towering figure of the 20th century, with a very important message for the healing of our world.
Judith Godfrey Dreams
Some dreams I have are forgotten on awakening but some vivid ones I still remember from anything to a few months ago to as long as twenty years ago. If they have no meaning why is this so ?
Sally Boorman. In Our Time - Dreams
I listened to this programme with great interest. I can recall some childhood dreams very clearly and continue to dream vividly and can almost always remember my dreams. I was interested to hear that you are supposed to be 'paralysed' whilst dreaming as this is not the case with me.I do not sleepwalk but I often act out violent dreams and have hit my poor husband many times during these dreams. On every occassion I have been in a deep sleep and my husband has to shout to wake me. I invariably wake in a fearful and confused state with a 'hangover effect' from the dream. I would have been interested to hear more on this area of 'acting out' dreams. Are there connections between this and sleep walking and why do some people experience these phenomena?
sergio viggiani "dreams" (4 march)
dear melvyn bragg, programme was most stimulating and fascinating. i feel however, for a layman,an important point was missing: the fact that the dreamer's word is the only evidence we have of dreams and their content. more specifically: 1. there is a general acceptance of someone's dream, no matter how absurd it may sound 2. we would not give credence to a similar story, if it was refered as a real one 3. a dream, by definition, has to be refered by the subject. it can never be verified. this introduces anoother two difficulties: 4. the first is that we have to rely on the 'articulation' of the narrator. experience seems to show, though, that people who would be incapable of relating a true story can narrate their dreams very vividly (a parallel to shy people who are good on the stage?) 5. the second point is that a lot of dreams' content is vague, sensations, feelings, unreal. in order to relate it, we have to verbalise them; this, apart from the difficulties highlited in point 4. above, implies a distorsion of the dream, like trying to pick up a icicle without destroying it. a dream version of the 'principle of uncertainty'? yours sincerely, sergio viggiani
Bruno Beloff: Dreams
What a fascinating programme! Yet missing from the discussion was a cognitive account of dream-like states that is long-familiar to computer scientists. This account is just a metaphor - not a hypothesis - but it suggests an answer to the question "How do we devise an experiment that tests the function of dreams?" Systems that manipulate symbols suffer from an inescapable weakness: at some point, normal operations must be suspended and the symbol space reviewed - what structures should be preserved, and what structures should be discarded? Logically, there is no escape from this task. Postponing this task leads to a characteristic pattern of degradation in the ability to compute. The review process is - from the user's point of view - non-goal-oriented. If you were to observe its possible symbol traversal sequences, these would appear bizarre and meaningless. But the function of the process is to root out and remove structures which do not play a part in the long-term symbolic life of the system. Even without a precise account of mental process, the metaphor suggests that the denial of REM sleep would cause very specific and predictable changes in cognitive ability. Performance of short-term memory? Relative performance in an IQ test? All of this suggests that dreams are purely epiphenomenological - they are just the subjective observation of a process beyond the observer's control. It suggests that REM sleep is not a cataloguing process, it is an anti-cataloguing process. bruno.beloff@opmath.com
Gillian Evans (Dr)
What a riveting discussion about dreams this morning. Only, what about the inescapably symbolic form that dreams take? Nothing was said of this.
jan martin
A programme on dreams which makes no mention of Carl Jung is seriously flawed. The programme gave the impression of floundering around in an area where the contributors were rather out of their depth. Jung was speaking of the reptilian nature of the unconscious about 70-80 years ago and had something actually quite sensible to say about it, rather than 'we just don't understand this process'; and to talk of Freud as the only alternative to the purely scientific 'dreams as froth or housekeeping' view (which is totally ludicrous), leaves out a massive chunk of the history of this area of study. I do think Melvyn Bragg was trying to make a vote for personal experience in this area, in his returning to the fact that these experiences mean something to us, but basically the science of dreams is only half a subject, and Freud isn't the other half.
Helen Morris: Dreams
According to Susan Greenfield's recent book,'The Brain', the neurological cause of consciousness has not yet been discovered. Her evidence seems to suggest that consciousness is a general state of readiness for interaction inside the brain rather like a computer when its power is turned on. If this is so, could the states of unconsciousness and sleep be quite close together-two sorts of partial activation? Have these two states been compared scientifically with the state of dreaming? It seems logical to suppose that wakefulness is full activation, dreaming is a state of partial activation, sleep is even less active and then unconsciousness would be the next level followed by death. Could the REM activity during sleep be a mechanism for ensuring that there is not a slip into unconsciousness? Could cot death (for instance) be caused by some sort of error in this process? It must be hard to investigate dreaming as it must be impossible by the subject's evidence to prove that a person cannot dream, only that they cannot recall their dream. Dreaming may be only a side effect during the process of transition between sleeping and wakefulness. I look forward to reading other comments on this subject.
V. E. Boolsen - Freud, dreams and neuroscience
So, here we go again: Freud's theories, including those of dreams, were not quite correct, for two reasons: they were not quite neuroscience - and they were not quite scientific as measured with current scientific standards. Listening to the second line of argument invariably arouses embarrassment - as had there been no radical criticism of philosophy of science, its ramifications, its preconditions and its consequences; not to mention the problem of double determination of validity that philosophy of science invariably involves with its equation of valitidity and scienticificity. Leaving this aside, however, one argument was striking: what is the function of dreams? It was said that if dreams have no function, then they could not be included in biology. Rubbish; this is a fairly familiar argument from the "structure-functionalism" in sociology that leads to tautologies, on the one hand, and presupposes that life, and therefore human activity has purpose - which is incompatible with the theory of evolution. Likewise, it was said that Freud said that dreams had "meanings" and that his writing on dreams of 1900 was called: "The Interpretation of Dreams". No. it is not: it is "Deutung" and this is better translated as "deciphering". Moreover, that it dealt with motivation. It did not. A bit of confusion was raised over the result that dreams are wish-fulfilling thoughts that are sexualised, and that these thoughts are discharged during sleep, through (some of) the usual channels. Now, if you study Chapter 7 of this writing from 1900 you will find the psychoanalytic concept of wish: a wish is a motion in the psychic apparatus (the organ the function of which is thought) FROM conscious/perception TO unconscious. It has got nothing to do with "an unconscious mind" - a conception that is incompatible with psychoanalysis. The relation betweeen the concept of the psychic apparatus and the concept of drive was subsequently developed by Freud during the rest of his life. The final formula is therefore that DREAMS ARE HALLUCINATORY WISH-PSYCHOSES, that they satisfy through hallucinations. Satisfaction (Befriedigung in German and so central to psychoanalytic theory) consists in ADQUATE ALTERATION OF SOURCE-OF-DRIVE, or somatic processes. The localisation of various thought-processes and emotions within the brain was no unknown theory in Freud's time - and one he especially warned about, as is obvious from his last attempt at writing on what is psychoanalysis - something that cannnot be gathered from the recently issued translation of it by the Freud Penguin Library in which it is translated as "location". This is a logical consequence of equating brain-processes and thought-processes; if we map out all the brain-processes, and if we subsequently allot various functions to various centres in the brain, then we must have mapped where to find the various thought-processes. This is a further refinement of the localisation theory put forward by Broca and Wernicke - which Freud dealt with and dismissed already in 1891 in his writing on aphasia as being basicly contradictory. That it turned out to be untenable in no way diminished its popularity, however - why should it? It could always call for the scaffolding aid of a theory of philosophy of science, as it has evidently done. As for the concept of dream itself what was discussed during the program hardly touched upon the concept in Freud's writings. Dreaming is a process, an activity (work), an achievement, the outcome of which is a compound - hence if this outcome can be remembered at all it can be analysed. If dream-work has been successful it vanishes without a conscious trace, however. What is left for analysis are therefore those compounds that have not been successful as dream-work.
Mrs Celia Hicks....Dreams
A most interesting programme. Melvyn, you asked why we don't dream when we are awake. I did. Living near London,I was frightened of the air raid sirens during the war and remember having repetitive nightmares. There was a grey flat plain with a small dot in the far diagonal corner. This dot became larger and larger as it rolled towards me, a sort of fog advancing at speed until it engulfed me. I would wake up in a sweat with all the bedclothes on the floor. I attribute this to the fear of sirens because one night, in 1945/6, I found myself on the stairs screaming at my parents to turn off the sound of sirens which were in an evening radio play. As an 10/11 year old I attended grammar school in Plymouth where we were then living. I had a maths test paper put in front of me, not to turn it over until told. My dream emerged. I sat there bathed in sweat, mentally telling 'it' to go away. I was paralised. Everyone else started but for several ?moments/?minutes I could not move. Mentally I defeated 'it', performed the test quite adequately. 'It' has never recurred. The answer you guest gave to your comment was that if we did dream awake we would descend into chaos and instability. No doubt that there may well be a link to psychosis. I am fortunate not to have mental health problems but I am always aware of how very vulnerable we all are. Thank you for your programmes, they are of real value along with many others on Radio 4.
evelyn Dreams
"But if dreams are about human's psychological processes why do animals dream?" Melvyn Bragg Answer : Domesticated or "In contact with human" animals have to work to hang on to their physical and mental health as they absorb our emotional frustrations. They may need to dream more than us as they are further down the power / hierarchial chain that humans and may potentially absort more suffering. Evelyn Gaylard
Alice Mumford
I was very interested in the recent evidence that dreaming is different to R.E.M. My daughter (5),often talks about having magic eyes. When I say you mean dreaming she says no, she dreams as well but that this is different,in magic eyes she says she can control the out come. She does'nt always have magic eyes but when she does it's often discribed in favorable terms because there is there is the ability to change the dirrection of the dream. The thinking that memory is linked to dreams interests me. My husband has a computerlike memory but dos'nt remember any dreams. On the other hand I remember my dreams so vividly and they are so real they intrude into waking life but have only dull recolections of the past. Just one more thought, is the Aboriginals dream time a way of getting in touch with those parts of the brain described as containing flight or fight? Prehaps this is why they feel the are able to contact the ansestors.Maybe they are conecting the ansestors by getting in contact with that part of the brain.
Jean Greening Dreams
I was interested in the subject discussed because I have very vivid dreams which I can almost always remember when I awake. I will be 70 this year, I have been married to my present husband for over 40 years, have 2 children and 3 grandchildren, I have lived in my present home for over 34 years, yet I rarely dream about my present family and they hardly ever take place in my home. They almost always take place in my first home and they are peopled by my parents, long dead, and my siblings, only 2 of whom, besides myself have survived out of 7. Also involved are the people I knew then. I left that house at 16 years old, I returned to live there for 2 years when I was 26. I have not been inside the house since 1963. I found it very strange therefore when it was stated that most dreams are about recent events and involved with people we interact with now. Very odd. Jean Greening
Dreams
I'm at present on a sleep & dreams course & to date have only just began to understand REM deep sleep night terrors & sleep walking etc. Although my own dreams relate to fears & some life style/current events? The fear dream is about my presenthome & flashes back to a 9 floor block of flats that I used to live in Its the fear of having to return to the the flat I believe that dreams do relate to every day activities & life style
Barbara Cordner - Dreams!!
After a dream-filled sleep, caused i think by seroxat(an anti-depressant) and my nicotine patches!!, i turned on the radio and the subject was dreams!! It is obviously so difficult to investigate this subject, as who can actually get inside the head of somebody else when they are dreaming. Even reporting afterwards loses the essential quality of the dream. But I can certainly vouch for the fact that anti-depressants do increase dreams substantially, and this is obviously all part of the study of what chemicals, neurons, parts of the brain actually produce dreams. I know from myself that dreams are a complete mixture of all sorts of images from television, books, current life, past life, and all the characters all appear at once. There does not seem to be a meaning to the dream but I do know that some kind of narrative is formed from totally disparate parts of my life so far. I really do think it is just the brain unwinding, and playing with the images it has stored. It is certainly a very interesting subject anyway.
Hazel Marshall - Dreams et al
I love your programme - please, please keep it going, and know that at least here there are those who rejoice in your refusal to dumb down for anyone. A delight each week -thank you. As to 'Dreams', yes, and I hope that in future you'll be able to follow this programme up with reference to the experience of the dreams of ordinary people (not particularly with reference to brain-function, and going on from Freud). How about Carl Jung and the symbology of dreams; how about Abraham Maslow, his studies of well-functioning people and the effects of dreaming upon them too ? Best wishes to you
Dick Frost;' Many things
I was interested in today's debate and remembered that on All in the Mind recently it was said that h sapiens is the only species which suffers schizophrenia. And I recalled a thought I had, years ago, that perhaps civilisation, i.e., the transition from hunter-gatherers to settled life, agriculture, etc, happened because some person or person was schizophrenic (or mentally out-of-the-normal in someway). Hunter gatherers are fundamentally conservative and resistant to social change; everyone in fact works to maintain the existing customs and ways of doing things so it required someone (or group) who were 'mad' to make serious change happen. Just a thought Best wishes Dick Frost
Dr. Simon Hill - Dreams
Loved your programme today on Dreams - had to listen in at work after I heard who the guests were! During the discussion, we heard that it is impossible to confirm whether or not mamals dream. Is this really true? Given the remarkable talent of a Parrot in the US for communication - it has a vocabulary of 1000 words - I wonder if the bird could be pursuaded to 'spend time on the couch'. And this begs the question, how would Freud interpret a craving to walk?! Kind regards, Simon.
shan bennett
Can any of your guests explain the following phenomenon which I have experienced often? During the time when I am waking from sleep if I allow myself to drift in and out of sleep and not jump up at the sound of the alarm,I experience a paralysis. I am aware that I want to be awake and try to move my arms or legs but they seem to be paralysed. My breathing isn't normal and I feel frightened that I won't be able to wake up and move properly. Whilst inthe 'drifting' state and have often been dreaming. What causes this do you think? I would appredciate it if someone could enlighten me. I have left my e-mail address. Super programme by the way !!
The item which related to trying out reality in dreams hit the nail on the head for me. In real time I was in the company of friends who had very smelly dogs who insisted on coming close to me which I did not like. Dream time: I was at a dinner table and smelly cats kept jumping on me. I told my host one of her cats smelt, her reaction was horrified and feeling embarrassed I changed the scenaria to - I was concerned it was smelley as it could be feeling unwell. I wont be telling my host about her smelley dogs.
science of dreams
This was an exciting, intelligent and capivating discussion. This is radio and academic excellence at its very best. As an economist, I can only dream that my colleagues were as as open, inventive and full of insight and modesty as the intellectuals on the programme today. Brilliant, the stuff of dreams!
Nick Fermi, Dreams
The science of dreams is undoubtedly a very tricky area, and I found your programme very interesting. However, it seems to me and many others that significant progress has been made in this field in the recent work of Joseph Griffin in 'The Origin of Dreams' and 'Human Givens'. How was this overlooked by the programme?
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