Dream Research and the Psychoanalytic Theory of Dreams

Implications of Recent Dream Research

“…On the contrary internal or external stimuli could not be found to instigate a REM period and even the degree of their incorporation into an ongoing dream was below what had been expected (7,12,16,19,34,31,36,41,42,63). The research findings indicate that the cyclic occurrence of dreams during the night is the result of neurophysiologicbiologic processes, which may have some psychological meaning, but it does not seem to be a unique response to a specific psychological-experiential factor (64).…”

“…Thus, the REM period is apparently primarily determined by physiological factors, while psychological factors are involved concomitantly in influencing the quantity and content of dreams. It appears that the quantity of dreaming has an absolute value, independent of the content of the dreams themselves (64) .…”

Dream function reconsidered.

“…Challenges to the assumption that the dream functions as a guardian of sleep are not new. Gerard rejected the notion in his 1955 academic lecture to the American Psychiatric Association, and more recently, Trosman (1963) has ably reviewed his arguments and a number of others and reached the same conclusion. For present purposes, however, a single argument suffices: the need for dreaming has been shown to exist quite independently of the need for ordinary sleep.…”

The maintenance of the ego: implications of sensory deprivation research for psychoanalytic ego psychology

“…Sleep may have an effect similar to light in lowering the threshold for hallucinating (cf. Trosman, 1963. ) Now let us look in greater detail at the hallucinations themselves.…”