Sleep and Dreaming

• Freudian Theory of Dreaming


  The mind consists of the conscious, preconscious and unconscious. The unconscious contains unacceptable thoughts, feelings and desires that are repressed by the ego. When the ego is weakened during sleep, the unconscious tries to break through and we dream. Dream work is used to disguise the true (latent) content of dreams through symbols (manifest content)
• Support for Freud's theory comes from research by Freud himself on the Wolfman (1918). Freud concluded that in this case traumatic events were repressed into the unconscious and projected to the conscious mind
• Freud's theory has been widely criticised for being highly subjective. Dream interpretation is dependent on person's opinion, which may differ from another person's. Furthermore, a dream may not have a hidden meaning; 'sometimes a cigar is just a cigar'
• Activation Synthesis Theory of Dreaming


  Dreams are a result of the mind trying to make sense of brain activation during sleep. During REM sleep, neuronal activity increases in the brainstem and random brain waves are generated. These waves travel up to the cerebral cortex and the information is treated as if it was real sensory information. The brain then tries to synthesize and make sense of this information, resulting in bizarre and emotional dreams
• Support for the Activation Synthesis Theory comes from Williams et al. (1992) who found a difference between REM dreams and waking fantasies because of the difference in the neural activity of the brain between the two states
• The Activation Synthesis Theory can be criticised for being reductionist as it suggests dreams are a random result of what happens when the mind tries to make sense of brain activity, ignoring the view that dreams can be meaningful