My Senior Project
To finish of my high school career, I researched and wrote a paper on the biological necessity of dreaming. After completing this, I gave a "TED Talk" on the subject and finally painted a mural representing the information that I found in my research.
My thesis:
To what extent are dreams a necessary biological function?
Part I: Introduction
For centuries, scientists and philosophers have theorized about the purpose that dreams serve, trying to give tangibility to the imperceptible. Although there is no consensus, both modern neuroscience and technology have made bounds in the last several decades, and finally, we have the ability to back up these theories with credible evidence. Technological advancements have helped to shed light on what happens in the human brain throughout our lives, particularly while we are sleeping and dreaming. This allows us to answer an essential question that deals with a large portion of the human experience: what do dreams do for us? To understand this portion of our lives, we have to look at the biological function that dreams serve. These technological advancements show that although dreaming is sometimes thought of as random brain activity, dreams have been proven to have a number of essential biological functions.
Part II: Historical Background
The first recorded dream dates back to 2500 BC, when the Sumerian king Dumuzi of Uruk believed that he could see the future while he slept (Baer). Centuries later, ancient civilizations, including the Egyptians, admired dreams as a way to both see the future, and as a mode of communication with the Gods. As civilizations evolved, the importance of dreams did as well. In the early middle ages, dreams and the inner consciousness were first linked, as dreams were seen as one’s soul traveling through the night. The Christian religion included dreams as an integral part of life, seeing them as divine communication and visions from God (Lack). For as long as dreams have been acknowledged, they have been considered more than just the compilation of brain activity that creates them.
In the early 1900s, Sigmund Freud started to analyze dreams in a way beyond religion and theorizing. He determined through patient analysis that, like psychoanalyst James Fosshage states, “dreams, through hallucinatory wish fulfillment, provide an avenue of discharge of instinctual energies to serve as the guardian of sleep” (2). His student Carl Jung built off of his ideas and paved the way for one of the leading theories today on the subject, that “dreams correct or compensate for the conscious state of mind” (23). While Freud suggested that dreams were very private, and served only to protect sleep by providing an outlet for our suppressed desires, Jung theorized that dreams used the unconscious mind to benefit the conscious mind, and that dreaming is our imagination using metaphors to express itself. Despite their in-depth theories, both Freud and Jung lacked the technology and science to back up their ideas with quantifiable evidence. In the early 1950s, the discovery of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, specifically the fact that dreaming occurs in REM, was made at the University of Chicago, a discovery that initiated the height of dream research. Developments including Electroencephalography (EEG), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computerized Tomography (CT) have provided a way to analyze what happens neurologically while we are sleeping and dreaming, specifically compared to while awake. Using all of these tests, polysomnographic studies (sleep studies) can now be done, so that we can gain an understanding of what each part of the brain does while sleeping, and the function that each part of the brain serves in general. This gives us the ability to analyze dreams on a level beyond the limits that Freud and Jung had. With the information that tests like EEGs and MRIs give us, we can determine whether or not these past theories are true, as well provide evidence to the conclusions proposed within them. Finally, using these advancements, we can know fundamental details about such a large portion of our daily lives that we previously knew very little about.
Part III: Research and Analysis
Neuroimaging studies help prove what is happening neurologically while we are in REM sleep and show that the same parts of the brain active during the majority of wakefulness are active during REM. MRIs, EEGs, and CTs of the sleeping brain show that after slowed brain function in the initial portion of sleep, REM occurs, and dreaming initiates. With the start of REM, brain waves become highly active again. A small area at the base of the brain, the pons, signals the thalamus, the portion of the brain responsible for both relaying sensory information and pain perception, and begins REM. The pons also sends a signal to the spinal cord, deactivating neurons and beginning a state of temporary paralysis that protects the sleeper from experiencing their dreams physically. The thalamus relays the information to the cerebral cortex, where learning, thinking, and information organization occurs.
With all of this technology, we can determine exactly what dreams do for us. While some agree with the random activation theory (RAT) that suggests that “dreaming is a byproduct of neuronal activity during sleep, i.e., nothing but a nonfunctional REM-sleep-related spandrel” (Katja Valli et al. 850), this theory is considered the minority in the scientific community. It suggests that dreams are simply our brains trying to create a cohesive experience out of neurons firing while we are asleep similarly to those that fire while we are awake. The main problem with this theory is that if dreams were randomly activated, then we would not experience as many recurring dreams, and because the theory says that the brain’s attempt to form cohesive experiences is done by pulling from experiences in our memories, we would create much more literal experiences as opposed to the metaphorical one’s that are much more common in our dreams.
There are overwhelming amounts of evidence in scans like CTs that show how dreams do in fact benefit us biologically. One leading theory currently opposite the RAT, first proposed by psychoanalyst James Fosshage, is the organization model of dreaming suggesting that “the core process and function of dreaming is to organize data” (Fosshage). In sum, the idea behind this is that dreams develop and maintain psychological organization. This psychological organization assists in the logging of experiences in memory through the use of images. Our subconscious chooses what we dream about as “the best imagistic and linguistic language available to the dreamer at that moment to express and facilitate what the dreamer is thinking about profoundly” (Fosshage). This theory is based on Jung’s central idea that we typically dream in such unrealistic images because metaphors are the best way for our subconscious to communicate with us personally and directly. This theory is strong because it uses some of the ideas that the RAT stems from to form its main arguments about dreams, but considers the less concrete aspects that they hold as well. The RAT is highly evidence based, but lacks examination of the intangibility behind our dreams including the highly metaphorical tones that are often behind them. The organizational model takes into account how neurological activity while dreaming lines up with the sleep cycle, REM, and the abstract nature of dreams, concluding that, like Carl Jung proposed, dreams use the most straightforward and personal method our subconscious has available, metaphors, to help us organize our sensory input and interpret intake from the day to determine what is important enough to retain.
Along with interpreting important information, dreams serve to catalogue the relative importance of that information, particularly primitive mechanisms. Essentially, this idea, the threat simulation theory (TST) determines that “the function of dreaming is to mentally rehearse threat perception and avoidance in a safe, simulated environment, based on the emotionally charged memory traces about real threats in the environment. This function was selected for in the course of human evolutionary history, because in the environment of evolutionary adaptiveness” (Valli et al. 835). Essentially, the TST suggests that while we dream, we rehearse what to do in threatening situations so we are better prepared for those situations in waking life.
Though this theory was one of the first about the function of dreaming, the evidence to support it was only given a few years ago, when several Finnish psychologists performed a study on 39 unbiased individuals based on the hypothesis proposed in the TST that suggests dreams have more frequent and severe threatening events than real life. The subjects were asked to record both threatening events that they had previously experienced and that happened in their daily lives throughout the study as well any threatening events they dreamt about. After the 14-day period past, present, and unconscious threatening events were analyzed. The study’s conclusions matched with the TST hypothesis and determined that “dream content is negatively biased to begin with, not a result of selective memory bias, and that threats are overrepresented in dreams compared to waking life” (Valli et al. 843). Dreams do carry a negative bias and negative emotions are overrepresented in dreams, but that is beneficial to our primordial safety. Dreams evolved as a way to rehearse threatening situations so that in the future they could either be avoided or so that when those events occurred, we knew how to handle them.
Aside from the primitive necessities, dreams serve to convert sensory intake into cohesive memory. While we sleep, our brains convert the things that we have been exposed to throughout the day into long term memory, sensations and experiences. Relatable to the organizing function of dreaming, this theory determines that “Dreams appear to have a particularly vital role in the processing, consolidation, and integration of affectively arousing material” (Sands). We take in vast amounts of information on any given day from the subtle variations of color that we see to the differences of tones in our language. Whether or not we remember that information consciously, is determined by how important we view it. Even if we don’t internalize it as important consciously, we remember it on a deeper level because “During waking we are always simultaneously processing implicitly and explicitly-the implicit at a nonconscious (that is, unconscious) and the explicit at a conscious level of awareness” (Fosshage). While we are sleeping and dreaming, our brains sort through all of this implicit information and determine what we need to retain, and what we do not. Dreams turn the subtle variations of color that we internalize and to a greater extent the other memories and emotions we experienced while seeing them, and turn each sensory intake into a cohesive thought that can be stored in our long-term memory. Because we only retain the explicit in a more surface level conscious way, dreams are the only way that we can maintain the other information as well.
With such diversity between our conscious and unconscious minds, dreams on the unconscious level, also serve to process emotional states of mind that aren't consciously available to us. “There is wide agreement among dream researchers that emotional memories are activated during dreaming and that emotions play an important role in the thematic development of the dream. In accordance with this, neuroimaging studies have shown that the limbic system and amygdala are strongly activated during REM sleep” (Valli et al. 852). The former is the part of brain responsible for creating new memories about past experiences, and the latter is the a more specific part of the limbic system responsible for experiencing emotions. Together, they help us to experience emotions about the things that we have experienced recently on both the conscious and unconscious level. Dreams deal with such intangible things like emotions and memories because the conscious mind is unable to compensate for the need to evaluate only perceptible things, so the unconscious mind takes over. “The dreaming mind-brain uses vivid visual imagery to process emotional states of mind that are implicit and not yet available to consciousness which seek to emerge through the vehicle of dream into consciousness where they may be thought about” (Wilkenson). This pathway between consciousness and unconsciousness that dreaming creates provides a way for things that we have suppressed unconsciously to become conscious.
Part IV: Conclusion
Overall, these four theories all give very real and important ideas as to why we as a species dream on a biological level. Dreams develop and maintain psychological organization, help rehearse primitive mechanisms, convert sensory intake into cohesive memory and process emotional states of mind that aren’t consciously available to us. While there are no reported cases of an individual who lacked the ability to experience REM and dreaming, there are a number of cases of individuals who lacked the ability to recall those dreams. Everyone experiences days that they don't remember their dreams from the night before, but fundamentally not being able to recollect dreams has proven to hinder one’s ability to link the conscious and unconscious states of mind. In reported cases of this phenomenon, the lack of this link leads to frequent negative emotional repression and psychological conditions including schizophrenia, multiple personality syndrome, and numerous other implications.
The brain plays a valuable role in creating coherent and stable experiences, and since so much of that processing happens internally, it may be lost in translation as we try to convert it to a more external experience. If we keep these experiences subconscious, we may be able to retain more of that information. The major flaw in dream research is that it tries to connect unconsciousness to being awake, rather than unconsciousness to consciousness. This is why there are so many theories about this subject that are disproved so quickly. The problem with the theoretical aspects of dreaming is that if we try to make them tangible, we lose the careful orchestration that our subconscious has set up for us, looking at them subconsciously like these theories do means that they are far more reliable. If we maintain the intangibility of dreams, and look at them as they are meant to be looked at, we can see all of these amazing benefits that they give our conscious lives.
Despite all of the research that has been done on this topic, there is still a lot unknown when it comes to dreaming. Brain scans and studies can help us to understand the dream image generation process, which in turn can help us to understand how they can help us even more. Understanding that dreams serve as the link between consciousness and unconsciousness for example, opens up entirely new possibilities for treating people with problems unsolvable on the conscious level. Similar to the use of hypnosis in therapy, dreams can be used to help therapy patients access a deeper level of themselves, and provide aid to recovery.
Dreams have a specific ability to link a dreamer with their own unconsciousness. This shows that, with everything that we know dreams do for us currently, if we understand them better we can maximize their benefits even more. They have an innate ability to provide emotions not available to a person consciously an unconscious outlet, which suggests that therapy through dreams could be possible to access more suppressed memories and emotions. Even more helpful for this than regular dreams, would be lucid ones. Lucid dreams are dreams in which the dreamer can control their own actions, and are aware of the fact that they are dreaming. Doing more research and studies on this, and harnessing that means that we could have a discernable window into the unconscious mind, something that has never been possible before. The research that we have is limited, and there are still so many questions that we can't answer. Since we have discovered how vast dreams and the unconscious link that they bring can be, we have to wonder, how much about the implicit side of the human brain do we still know nothing about, how much of the benefits that dreams can serve are we not capitalizing on, and how much more could we accomplish if we maximize those benefits?
Because dreams have so little to do with external consciousness, it’s impossible to try to really make them concrete past the point of communicating personal emotions to the dreamer, but we can connect them to concrete things like daily experiences, which is how we are able to look at how they benefit those same daily experiences. When we see that dreams benefit waking consciousness, but are not a part of it, we can understand more about such a large part of the human experience that we didn't know anything about before. Dreams organize our consciousness so that we can maintain a clear mind and take in more new experiences. They maintain the flight or fight function that we developed as an evolutionary trait of survival but still use today, and they help us to keep an implicit side to our everyday lives including emotions and sensory memories. Dreams give an abstract side to our consciousness, and can help to give relief to people suppressing deep emotions. Overall, dreams serve as a functional and necessary safety valve for the psyche. jd
Works Cited:
Fosshage, James L. "The Organizing Functions Of Dreaming: Pivotal Issues In Understanding And Working With Dreams." International Forum Of Psychoanalysis 16.4 (2007): 213-221. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Jan. 2017.
Haladjian, Harry Haroutioun, and Carlos Montemayor. "Consciousness and Dreams." Psychology Today. N.p., 25 Jan. 2016. Web. 24 Jan. 2017.
HORI, Tadao, et al. "Brain Potentials Related To Rapid Eye Movements And Dreaming During REM Sleep: A Short Review Of Psychophysiological Correlates." Sleep & Biological Rhythms 6.3 (2008): 128-138. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Jan. 2017.
Jane, Laura. "Why Dreams & Altered States Of Consciousness Are Good For Us." Collective Evolution. Collective Evolution, 09 July 2014. Web. 24 Jan. 2017.
Lack, Caleb. "A Brief History & Scientific Look at Dream Analysis & Interpretation Great Plains Skeptic." Great Plains Skeptic. Skepticink.com, 15 Oct. 2013. Web. 24 Jan. 2017.
Sands, Susan H. "On The Royal Road Together: The Analytic Function Of Dreams In Activating Dissociative Unconscious Communication." Psychoanalytic Dialogues 20.4 (2010): 357-373. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Jan. 2017.
Valli, Katja, et al. "Dreams Are More Negative Than Real Life: Implications For The Function Of Dreaming." Cognition & Emotion 22.5 (2008): 833-861. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Jan. 2017.
Wilkinson, Margaret. "The Dreaming Mind-Brain: A Jungian Perspective." Journal Of Analytical Psychology 51.1 (2006): 43-59. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Jan. 2017.
Unfortunately, my TED Talk was unable to be recorded.