Activation Synthesis

• focuses on REM sleep - this stage has a lot of brain activity and at times, powerful electrical movements pass through brain

  * signals come from part of brain called pons
• pons?

  sits in the brainstem and operates like message station; signals come from neurons controlling eye movement and limbic system
• theory is that random surges of brain activity stimulate higher parts of brain like cerebral cortex to make sense of activation
• effort to make sense of signals and brain activity leads us to dream bc brain wants to attach meaning to random things, so that's why dreams can appear to be random
• criticisms?

  * highly reductionist - too simplistic to reduce complex dreams to random electrical signals

  * dreams often follow patterns - doesn't fit theory of randomness

  *people who have damaged brainstems still dream even though pons isn't necessarily producing signals, meaning dreams originate from somewhere else