Volume 7, Numbers 2 and 3, Spring and Summer (special issue), Part 4: Cognitive Therapeutics
Cognitive Psychology and Dream Research
Evaluating Dream Function: Emphasizing the Study of Patients With Organic Disease
Robert C. Smith, Michigan State University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Spring and Summer 1986, Vol. 7, Numbers 2 and 3, Pages 397 [267]-410 [280], ISSN 0271-0137, ISBN 0-930195-02-7
In spite of a rich heritage of scientific interest in dreams, there is still no known function or meaning of dreams. There are, however, a wealth of carefully worked out hypotheses that were spawned by Freud’s work. Because of the lack of answers from dream physiology and because of the maturation of the discipline of dream psychology, it is time to move into the phase of systematic testing of hypotheses to determine the function of dreams. This chapter reviews some methodologic considerations for hypothesis-testing and stresses the importance of data gathering and definition of the independent variable. The Staged Interview Technique is recommended as a way to achieve some control in both dimensions. The study of patients with organic diseases is proposed as a way to evaluate biological function of dreaming. Data are cited showing that, in medical patients, the number of death references (men) and separation references (women) correlates with a poor clinical outcome and that patients with no dreams have an even worse prognosis with significantly more deaths. These data indicate that dreams reflect, or are reactive to, biological function. They are consistent with Kardiner’s formulation that severe ego distress mediates these changes. This suggests that death and separation are the dream language of severe distress. Finally, this chapter reviews some future research directions with an organic disease approach. It also emphasizes the continued value of studying patients in severe distress, psychological as well as biological, as a way to gain insight into dream function.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Robert C. Smith, M.D., Michigan State University, Department of Medicine, B220 Life Sciences Building, East Lansing, Michigan 48824.
Affect and Dream Work from an Information Processing Point of View
Rosalind Cartwright, Rush University, Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Spring and Summer 1986, Vol. 7, Numbers 2 and 3, Pages 411 [281]-428 [298], ISSN 0271-0137, ISBN 0-930195-02-7
Data relevant to the emotional information processing function of dreams are reviewed from a study of the dreams of women undergoing a stressful life event (divorce). These data show that there were both structural and content differences in the dreams of women who were experiencing depression in relation to the event from those who were not, and differences of both of these from dreams of married controls living stable lives. Dream sequences show problem-solving progress when waking dysphoric affect is moderate, and poor quality dream work when affect levels are too high.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Rosalind D. Cartwright, Ph.D., Department of Psychology and Social Sciences, Rush Medical College, Rush-Prebyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center, 1753 West Congress Parkway, Chicago, Illinois 60612.
Dreaming and the Dream: Social and Personal Perspectives
Montague Ullman, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Edward F. Storm, Syracuse University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Spring and Summer 1986, Vol. 7, Numbers 2 and 3, Pages 429 [299]-448 [318], ISSN 0271-0137, ISBN 0-930195-02-7
Social (public) and personal (private) perspectives on the study of dreams and dreaming are contrasted. Dreaming is an intensely private and personal experience about public matters. Scientific descriptions of dream phenomena are publicly shared descriptions, and thus it is not possible to observe in a controlled manner the strictly private experience which is the essence of the dream. Housekeeping theories of dreaming, which posit that we dream so that unwanted material can be eliminated from the accumulating record of experience, founder because they rest upon a concept of undesirability that resists definition in terms of anatomical and physiological realities. Alternatively, the concept of undesirability may be founded on the categories of essentially private experience, categories which are inaccessible to public inspection. A vigilance theory of dreaming is described, a theory founded on familiar observable structures and processes in the nervous system. This vigilance theory is seen to be consistent both with present knowledge about the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system and with widespread perception that dreaming occurs in order that the dreamer may be alerted to sources of tension and conflict in his/her relationships with others.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Montague Ullman, M.D., 55 Orlando Avenue, Ardsley, New York 10502 or Edward F. Storm, Ph.D., School of Computer and Information Science, 313 Link Hall, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13210.
Dreams and the Development of a Personal Mythology
Stanley Krippner, Saybrook Institute, San Francisco
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Spring and Summer 1986, Vol. 7, Numbers 2 and 3, Pages 449 [319]-462 [332], ISSN 0271-0137, ISBN 0-930195-02-7
Personal myths are defined as cognitive structures that give meaning to one’s past, define one’s present, and provide direction for one’s future. They serve the functions of explaining, guiding, and sacralizing experience for the individual in a manner analogous to the way cultural myths once served those functions for an entire society. Dreams appear to synthesize one’s existing mythic structures with the data of one’s life experiences. Some dreams attempt to strengthen old myths, others may illustrate a counter-myth, and still others appear to facilitate a cognitive interaction between old and new myths. Dreams can be used to focus upon ongoing dialectics between personal myths in an attempt to attain a synthesis or to resolve the conflict in another way.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., Saybrook Institute, 1772 Vallejo Street, San Francisco, California 94123.