Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4rdrl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-04T18:44:43.406Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beware of being captured by an analogy: Dreams are like many things

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2013

Matthew Hugh Erdelyi
Matthew Hugh Erdelyi*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Brooklyn College, City University of New York (CUNY), Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889. erdelyi@brooklyn.cuny.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Classic traditions have linked dreams to memory (e.g., “dreaming is another kind of remembering” [Freud 1918/1955]) and modern notions like implicit memory subsume dreaming by definition. Llewellyn develops the more specific thesis that rapid eye movement (REM) dreams, because of their similarities to mnemonic techniques, have the function of elaboratively encoding episodic memories. This proposal is premature, requiring exigent testing. Other analogs of dreams, for example, jokes, do not invoke function but do contribute to dream science.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 36 , Issue 6 , December 2013 , pp. 617 - 618
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bartlett, F. C. (1932) Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bergstein, J. & Erdelyi, M. H. (2008) Recognition hypermnesia: How to get it. Memory 16:689–702.Google Scholar
Blagrove, M., Fouquet, N. C., Henley-Einion, J. A., Pace-Schott, E. F., Davies, A. C., Neuschaffer, J. L. & Turnbull, O. H. (2011a) Assessing the dream-lag effect for REM and NREM stage 2 dreams. PLoS ONE 6(10):e26708. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0026708.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Breuer, J. & Freud, S. (1895/1955) Studies on hysteria. In: The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 2, ed. and trans. Strachey, J.. Hogarth Press. (Original work published in 1895).Google Scholar
Brugger, P. (2008) The phantom limb in dreams. Consciousness and Cognition 17:1272–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Erdelyi, M. H. (1985) Psychoanalysis: Freud's cognitive psychology. Freeman.Google Scholar
Erdelyi, M. H. (1996) The recovery of unconscious memories: Hypermnesia and reminiscence. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Erdelyi, M. H. (2012) The interpretation of dreams, and of jokes. Invited address, Association for Psychological Science, May, Chicago.Google Scholar
Erdelyi, M. H. (under review) The interpretation of dreams, and of jokes.Google Scholar
Fisher, C. (1988) Further observations on the Poetzl phenomenon: The effects of subliminal visual stimulation on dreams, images, and hallucinations. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 11:3–56.Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1891/1953) On aphasia, trans. Stengel, E.. International University Press. (Original work published in 1891).Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1900/1953/1981) The interpretation of dreams. In: The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, vols. 4 and 5, ed. and trans. Strachey, J.. Hogarth Press/The Institute of Psychoanalysis. (Original work published in 1900; Hogarth Press Complete Works edition, 1953; Institute of Psychoanalysis reprint, 1981).Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1905/1958) Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. In: The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 8, ed. and trans. Strachey, J.. Hogarth Press.Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1918/1955) From the history of an infantile neurosis (trans. A. and J. Strachey). In: The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 17, ed. Strachey, J., pp. 3–122. Hogarth Press.Google Scholar
Mulder, T., Hochstenbach, J., Dijkstra, P. U. & Geertzen, J. H. B. (2008) Born to adapt but not in our dreams. Consciousness and Cognition 17:1266–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nielsen, T. A., Kuiken, D., Alain, G., Stenstrom, P. & Powell, R. A. (2004) Immediate and delayed incorporations of events into dreams: Further replication and implications for dream function. Journal of Sleep Research 13:327–36.Google Scholar
Nielsen, T. A. & Powell, R. A. (1988a) Longitudinal dream incorporation: Preliminary evidence of cognitive processing with an infradian period. Sleep Research 17:112.Google Scholar
Nir, Y. & Tononi, G. (2010) Dreaming and the brain: From phenomenology to neurophysiology. Trends in Cognitive Science 14(2):88–100. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2009.12.001.Google Scholar
Pötzl, O. (1917) The relationship between experimentally induced dream images and indirect vision. In: Preconscious stimulation in dreams, associations, and images: Classical Studies by Otto Pötzl, Rudolf Allers, and Jakob Teler, ed. and trans. Wolff, J., Rapaport, D. & Annin, S. H., pp 41–120. Psychological Issues 2(3), Monograph 7.Google Scholar
Solms, M. (2003a) Dreaming and REM sleep are controlled by different brain mechanisms. In: Sleep and dreaming: Scientific advances and reconsiderations, ed. Pace-Schott, E. F., Solms, M., Blagrove, M. & Harnad, S., pp. 51–58. Cambridge University Press. (First published in the December 2000 Special Issue of BBS on “Sleep and dreaming,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23(6):843–50).Google Scholar
Solms, M. & Turnbull, O. (2002) The brain and the inner world: An introduction to the neuroscience of the subjective experience. Other Press.Google Scholar
Werner, H. (1956) Microgenesis and aphasia. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 52:347–53.Google Scholar