Dreaming: An Introduction to the Science of Sleep

Rating:
Summary: What Dreams Mean, Scientifically
Review: Everyone is interested in dreams. If you are lucky enough to remember one, it will be something you think about upon awakening and perhaps through the day. Dreams are strange, frightening, and funny enough that it isn't at all uncommon to tell a friend, "Guess what I dreamt last night?" if there is a peculiar dream that bears relating. Most of us are convinced that dreams mean something. It used to be thought that gods communicated their intentions to us via dreams. Other people insisted that dreams could predict the future, and there were dream books in which you could look up the subject of your dream, say "cat," and find that dreaming of a cat was a certain prediction for maybe riches or maybe love. Freud's thoughts about dreams were close to this sort of thinking; the content of a dream had hidden meanings that were available for interpretations. But everyone who looked to dream content for meaning was looking in the wrong place, according to J. Allan Hobson in _Dreaming: An Introduction to the Science of Sleep_ (Oxford). Not the content of dreams, but the form involved and the neurological basis for it are where the meanings of dreams lie.

Dreams are characterized by visual hallucinations, emotionalism, disorientation, and other characteristics of delirium. Hobson makes the case that we do not have to wait for senility or brain damage to descend into delirium, but we do it every night. Careful analysis of what happens to the brain in dreaming indicates some basic neurobiology. Dreaming represents an alternate form of consciousness represented by alternate neurochemical functioning within the dreaming brain; noradrenaline and serotonin in particular, chemicals that neurons use between each other as signal transmitters, are shut off in the dreaming brain in the parts that would allow a waking brain to direct thoughts, make decisions based on experience, and so on. Brain scanning has revealed that the regions of the brain involved in vision and in emotional reactions are quite busy in dreams, but the areas governing decision-making and judgment are quiet. The state of Rapid Eye Movement, when dreams are most likely, seems to be important in consolidating memories and in giving children rehearsal for action, enabling them to become their own agents when awake.

These REM activities are what is important, and will need much more research; what we dream is not exactly a random side effect of the brain's REM work, but the content of the dream seems to defy scientific interpretation. Freud's concentration on content, and his insistence that there was a wish drive producing the dream, and a censorship function that made the dream bizarre so that we could handle the wishes in a distorted form, has been a bedrock of psychoanalysis, but has not leant itself to confirmation the way science is done now. For Hobson, who does his research in the sleep labs at Harvard, the dream is not symbolic, nor is it wish fulfillment, nor a process of censorship. The dream is simply the dream; what was cryptic for Freud is, for researchers with scanners and brain wave recorders, clear and penetrable because of scientific tools Freud could never have dreamed of. Hobson's pithy book, full of humor and of examples from the journal he keeps of his own dreams, is a fine basic primer to a new way that science is investigating this aspect of consciousness.

Rating:
Summary: What Dreams Mean, Scientifically
Review: Everyone is interested in dreams. If you are lucky enough to remember one, it will be something you think about upon awakening and perhaps through the day. Dreams are strange, frightening, and funny enough that it isn't at all uncommon to tell a friend, "Guess what I dreamt last night?" if there is a peculiar dream that bears relating. Most of us are convinced that dreams mean something. It used to be thought that gods communicated their intentions to us via dreams. Other people insisted that dreams could predict the future, and there were dream books in which you could look up the subject of your dream, say "cat," and find that dreaming of a cat was a certain prediction for maybe riches or maybe love. Freud's thoughts about dreams were close to this sort of thinking; the content of a dream had hidden meanings that were available for interpretations. But everyone who looked to dream content for meaning was looking in the wrong place, according to J. Allan Hobson in _Dreaming: An Introduction to the Science of Sleep_ (Oxford). Not the content of dreams, but the form involved and the neurological basis for it are where the meanings of dreams lie.

Dreams are characterized by visual hallucinations, emotionalism, disorientation, and other characteristics of delirium. Hobson makes the case that we do not have to wait for senility or brain damage to descend into delirium, but we do it every night. Careful analysis of what happens to the brain in dreaming indicates some basic neurobiology. Dreaming represents an alternate form of consciousness represented by alternate neurochemical functioning within the dreaming brain; noradrenaline and serotonin in particular, chemicals that neurons use between each other as signal transmitters, are shut off in the dreaming brain in the parts that would allow a waking brain to direct thoughts, make decisions based on experience, and so on. Brain scanning has revealed that the regions of the brain involved in vision and in emotional reactions are quite busy in dreams, but the areas governing decision-making and judgment are quiet. The state of Rapid Eye Movement, when dreams are most likely, seems to be important in consolidating memories and in giving children rehearsal for action, enabling them to become their own agents when awake.

These REM activities are what is important, and will need much more research; what we dream is not exactly a random side effect of the brain's REM work, but the content of the dream seems to defy scientific interpretation. Freud's concentration on content, and his insistence that there was a wish drive producing the dream, and a censorship function that made the dream bizarre so that we could handle the wishes in a distorted form, has been a bedrock of psychoanalysis, but has not leant itself to confirmation the way science is done now. For Hobson, who does his research in the sleep labs at Harvard, the dream is not symbolic, nor is it wish fulfillment, nor a process of censorship. The dream is simply the dream; what was cryptic for Freud is, for researchers with scanners and brain wave recorders, clear and penetrable because of scientific tools Freud could never have dreamed of. Hobson's pithy book, full of humor and of examples from the journal he keeps of his own dreams, is a fine basic primer to a new way that science is investigating this aspect of consciousness.

Rating:
Summary: The Neuroscience of Dreaming
Review: If one is looking for a book that is a cookbook for the interpretation of dreams or a guide to the collective conscious of dreams, then keep on searching. However, if you are seeking an introduction to the science of dreams, the underlying physiological and chemical basis of dreaming, then look no further.

J. Allan Hobson provides an excellent introduction to neuroscience models of dreaming and their application to common psychological phenomena such as disruptive dreams, learning, and dream consciousness. Very informative and very readable.

Rating:
Summary: Decent
Review: This is a decent book on dreaming. It answered many of the questions that I might have raised about the subject. It does so in an informed and easy-to-read manner. It is not stuffed with references (both pro and con). Much of the medical science is filtered so that the person-on-the-street will understand it. Many sidebars answer some basic questions. The headings are brief and accurate, making it easy to skim and find answers to questions. Overall, a worthwhile reading. Recommended.