dream

n. a physiologically and psychologically conscious state that occurs during sleep and is often characterized by a rich array of endogenous sensory, motor, emotional, and other experiences. Dreams occur most often, but by no means exclusively, during periods of REM sleep. Those that occur during NREM sleep are characterized primarily by thoughts and emotions, whereas REM dreams are characterized primarily by (a) visual imagery along with a sense of motion in space; (b) intense emotion, especially fear, elation, or anger; (c) belief that dream characters, events, and situations are real; and (d) sudden discontinuities in characters, situations, and plot elements. Because it is generally difficult to recall such dreams in detail more than a dozen seconds after waking, REM dream reports are optimally obtained immediately after waking an individual in whom rapid eye movements and electroencephalographic arousal have been observed. Individuals awakened during NREM sleep report fewer dreams.

Theories about the nature, meaning, and function of dreams are diverse. The Greek physician Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 377 bce), for example, suggested that dreams provide early evidence of disease. Sigmund Freud viewed dreams as symbolic condensations of conflicting impulses that are rejected from waking consciousness to avoid emotional distress. Carl Jung proposed a problem-solving function for dreams, in which archetypal symbols convey prototypical life conflicts and their possible resolutions. Alfred Adler advanced the view that inferiority conflicts are played out in dreams. The discovery in the early 1950s of REM sleep, as well as findings in the 1960s about NREM sleep, initiated the scientific study of dreaming as a neurocognitive process, and various hypotheses have since emerged about that process (e.g., activation–synthesis hypothesis; AIM model).

The physiology of REM dreaming is routinely observable in many nonhuman animals as well, following the same circadian timing as in humans. It is therefore considered to be a product of evolution, though additional function may accrete in humans. See also lucid dream; nightmare. —dream vb. —dreamlike adj. —dreamy adj.

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Psychology term of the day

May 8th 2024

mental chemistry

a concept proposed by John Stuart Mill as an alternative to the mental mechanics described by his father, James Mill. The concept is modeled on a common phenomenon in physical chemistry, in which two chemical substances combine to form a compound with properties not present in either of the components. Similarly, Mill held that compound ideas were not merely combinations of simpler ideas but that they possessed other qualities not present in any of the constituent ideas. Thus, such an idea could be an essentially new one. See associationism; association of ideas.