THE NARRATIVE OF DREAM REPORTS PART 1 A Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Mark Thomas Blagrove Department of Human Sciences, Brunel University March 1989 BRUNEL UNIVERSITY, UXBRIDGE. DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES MARK THOMAS BLAGROVE THE NARRATIVE OF DREAM REPORTS (1989) Two questions are addressed: 1) whether a dream is meaningful as a whole, or whether the scenes are separate and unconnected, and 2) whether dream images are an epiphenomenon of a functional physiologicaL process of REM sleep, or whether they are akin to waking thought. Theories of REM sleep as a period of information-processing are reviewed. This is Linked with work on the reLationship between dreaming and creativity, and between memory and imagery. Because of the persuasive evidence that REM sleep is implicated in the consolidation of memories there is a review of recent work on neuraL associative network models of memory. Two theories of dreams based on these models are described, and predictions with regard to the above two questions are made. PsychoLogicaL evidence of relevance to the neural network theories is extensively reviewed. These predictions are compared with those of the recent application of structuralism to the study of dreams, which is an extension from its usual field of mythology and anthropology. The different theories are tested against four nights of dreams recorded in a sleep Lab. The analysis shows that not only do dreams concretise waking concerns as metaphors but that these concerns are depicted in oppositionaL terms, such as, for example, inside/outside or revolving/static. These oppositions are then permuted from one dream to the next until a resolution of the initial concern is achieved at the end of the night. An account of the use of the single case- study methodology in psychology is given, in addition to a replication of the analysis of one night's dreams by five independent judges. There is an examination of objections to the structuralist methodoLogy, and of objections to the paradigm of multiple dream awakenings. The conclusion is drawn that dreams involve the unconscious dialectical step-by-step resolution of conflicts which to a great extent are consciously known to the subject. The similarity of dreams to day-dreams is explored, with the conclusion that the content of dreams is better explained by an account of metaphors we use when awake and by our daily concerns, than by reference to the physiology of REM sleep. It is emphasised that dreams can be meaningful even if they do not have a function. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful for the help of my supervisors, Professor Adam Kuper, Professor Liam Hudson, and Professor Michael Wright. I also wish to thank Professor Alan Stone and Dr. Vernon Dobson for many useful suggestions. This research was funded in part by a grant from the Ann Murray Award Fund, which was greatly appreciated and very helpful. The texts of the dreams of the subject KJ were kindly supplied to Professor Kuper by Professor Rosalind Cartwright. THE NARRATIVE OF DREAM REPORTS Introduction - Two Questions about Dreams p.1 SCIENTIFIC TRADITION Chapter 1 - The Natural History of REM Sleep p.5 Chapter 2 - The Human Experience of Dreaming p.12 Chapter 3 - Older Physiological Theories of Dreaming p.29 Chapter 4 - Newer Physiological Theories of Dreaming p.33 Chapter 5 - Experiments on REM Sleep and Memory p.43 Chapter 6 - Imagery, Creativity, and Dreams p.57 Chapter 7 - The Neural Basis of Memory p.66 Chapter 8 - Three Current Theories of the Function of Dreaming p.93 Chapter 9 - The Scientific Study of the Meaning of Dreams p.115 PSYCHOANALYTIC TRADITION Chapter 10 - Freud and the Experience of Dreaming p.137 Chapter 11 - Dreams and Metaphors p.141 ANTHROPOLOGICAL TRADITION Chapter 12 - Structuralism and Dreams p.150 EXPERIMENTAL PREDICTIONS Chapter 13 - A Comparison of the Phenomenological Predictions of the Major Dream Theories p.171 THE EVIDENCE Chapter 14 - Night 1, Dreams and Analysis p.222 Chapter 15 - Night 2, Dreams and Analysis p.239 Chapter 16 - Night 3, Dreams and Analysis p.236 Chapter 17 - Night 4, Dreams and Analysis p.274 DISCUSSION Chapter 18 - Commentary on the Methodology of this Study p.292 Chapter 19 - Conclusions p.339 Postscript - Suggestions for Further Research p.381 References p.384 Appendix 1 - 'Unlearning' has a stabilizing effect in collective memories. Hopfield, Feinstein & Palmer (1983) p.426 Appendix 2 - The Complete Dream Texts p.428 INTRODUCTION There are two questions that remain unanswered in current dream research. 1) Do individual dreams have meaning as a whole, with each scene related to the other scenes, or are they collections of separate scenes which do not influence each other and which the conscious mind then sometimes ties together? 2) Are dreams related to low level neural activity in the brain, such as neurochemical or synaptic changes, or are they related to higher brain activity and akin to waking thoughts, albeit in a different language? Each of the possible answers to the two questions is coherent, and each has cogency because of its everyday counterparts. So, the first question can be paraphrased as: is a dream (or a series of dreams) like a play, which progresses towards a conclusion, or is it like a revue, with separate unrelated snippets, incidental pieces and extemporary elaborations? The second can be paraphrased as: is a dream like gurglings in the stomach, which do have their causes and meanings, or is it like a composed song? I consider that these questions may be answerable by a detailed study of the phenomenology of the experience of dreams, and that such data may be used to decide between some theories of dreaming which are presently postulated. I relate in chapter 1 some facts about the physiology and biology of dreaming which will help us in an initial evaluation of the theories presented later. In chapter 2 I give evidence about the experience of dreams for humans, and I suggest that an important 1 aspect to be explained is the narrative of the scenes. This choice of a feature of dreams which is often ignored in the emphasis on their bizarreness and creativity mirrors the study by Rechtschaffen (1978) of 'single-mindedness' as an almost continuously present and equally ignored facet of dreams. I examine in this chapter the physiological concomitants of the images of dreams, and in chapter 3 review old theories of where these images come from. Chapter 4 shows the problems and strengths in certain theories which hold dreams to be an epiphenomenon of Rapid Eye Movement Sleep, and introduces the idea of dream sleep being a state of information-processing, separate and different from the processing that occurs during waking life. Chapter 5 provides evidence that our time of unconsciousness during REM sleep has beneficial effects on memory storage and examines common criticisms of this idea. Chapter 6 expands on the conclusions of the previous chapter with evidence memories are creatively manipulated during REM sleep, and relates this activity to the fact that dreams occur as images, that REM sleep provides a state of mind different from that of waking life. Chapter 7 describes theories of memory storage in associative neural nets, which are composed of many interconnected artificial neurones. Two types of such networks are reviewed, with the conclusion that their efficiency is increased if they have periodic changes of state, during which their activity follows different rules than normal. This serves as an introduction to chapter 8, which gives details of two theories of human and mammalian dreaming which are based upon these two neural network theories. I show that the theories as published are not completely applicable to biological dreaming, but 2 that they do explain much of the data reviewed in the first 6 chapters, and that they have a similarity with a third, psychoanalytically based theory of dreams. Chapter 9 argues that a solely psychological account of dreams is needed as opposed to the psychophysiological work of the previous chapters. A review is given of the use of case studies and content-analysis in psychology. Chapter 10 explains the different facets of dreams from the standpoint of classical psychoanalysis. Chapter 11 is concerned with Rycroft's revision of such an account, based on dreams as a source of enlightening metaphors rather than obscuring disguises of the unconscious. This chapter introduces the notion that, as Jung (1968) wrote, 'the dream does not conceal; we simply do not understand its language'. In Chapter 12 I explain the suggestion that one method of analysing myths, totems, \iris1riip, aiu various other languages, t1nat ol Structuralism, may be applicable to the study of dreams. I give examples of the application of the method in its original field, that of social anthropology, and give evidence that the vicissitudes in the development of social anthropology over the last hundred years are similar to the changes in the theories of dreams over the same period. In chapter 13 I compare the seven major theories from chapters 3-12 from the stance of their phenomenological predictions about narrative and condensation. Chapters 14-17 contain the reports of every dream of the night for a subject who attended a dream lab for 4 separate nights. (The full-length reports are in the second appendix.) I analyse this 3 data in the light of the different theories, measuring the evidence against the predictions made. However, there are problems with the whole project of interpretation and the discovery of what thought and meaning is 'really there' in texts. In chapter 18 I compare the scepticism towards exegesis that Structuralism and Psychoanalysis both encounter, and then reply to criticisms that the findings of this piece of dream lab research, and other work using multiple awakenings, are artefactual to the experimental regimen used.