The Emergence of Dreaming: Mind-Wandering, Embodied Simulation, and the Default Network

361 Pages·2017·17.215 MB·English

by  G. William Domhoff

The Emergence of Dreaming

The Emergence of Dreaming
MIND- WANDERING, EMBODIED SIMULATION,
AND THE DEFAULT NETWORK
G. William Domhoff
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Domhoff, G. William, author.
Title: The emergence of dreaming: mind-wandering, embodied simulation,
and the default network / G. William Domhoff.
Description: 1 Edition. | New York City : Oxford University Press, [2018] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017007621 (print) | LCCN 2017021605 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190673437 (UPDF) | ISBN 9780190674977 (EPUB) |
ISBN 9780190673420 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Dreams. | Developmental psychobiology.
Classification: LCC BF1078 (ebook) | LCC BF1078 .D576 2017 (print) |
DDC 154.6/3—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017007621
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
To David Foulkes, the most insightful, systematic, prolific, and theoretically
innovative dream researcher since REM sleep was first discovered, with
thanks for his frankness, encouragement, and careful reading of the
manuscripts for this and two of my previous books on dreaming.
and
To Adam Schneider, my research assistant and frequent coauthor since 1994,
for his technological, methodological, and coding help, as well as for his
insights and critiques, without which most of my work since 1995 and in this
book would not have been possible.

{ CONTENTS }
Introduction  1
1. Dream Reports from Sleep Laboratories  17
2. Dream Reports Collected in Non-L aboratory Settings  53
3. Findings from Studies of Individual Dream Series  85
4. The Emergence of Dreaming in Children and Adolescents  119
5. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Dreaming  167
6. The Activation-S ynthesis Theory of Dreaming  199
7. The Failed Freudian Revival  237
8. Does Dreaming Have Any Adaptive Function(s)?   255
9. A Promising Agenda  279
Acknowledgments  297
References  301
Index  339

Introduction
The neurocognitive theory of dreams presented in this book differs from past
theories. It stresses the similarities of dreaming to waking thought, demon-
strates that personal psychological meaning can be found in a majority of
dream reports, includes a strong developmental dimension, locates the neu-
ral substrate for dreaming in the same brain network active during mind-
wandering and daydreaming, and is skeptical that dreaming has any adaptive
function. The theory is based on five very different sets of descriptive empirical
findings that were developed between the early 1950s and the first 17 years of
the twenty-fi rst century. All of these findings were unanticipated by scientific
dream researchers and then resisted to varying degrees by dream theorists due
to age- old stereotypes about dreams, a strong preference for the ideas set forth
by one or another school of psychotherapy, a neurophysiological emphasis
that does not allow for dreaming as a coherent mind event, an insistence that
dreaming must somehow have a deep adaptive purpose that is yet to be discov-
ered, or the mistaken belief that dreams are similar to hallucinations, delirium,
schizophrenia, hypnosis, or drug states.
Stated in terms of a distinction within cognitive psychology between “top-
down” and “bottom-u p” systems, with top-d own systems largely self-c ontained
and not dependent on information from other systems or sources, the neuro-
cognitive theory of dreams presented in this book can be characterized as a
top-d own theory. This is because dreaming occurs within a cortically based
imagination network that draws on general knowledge and memories to gener-
ate novel dream scenarios. This top-d own view stands in contrast to bottom-u p
theories of dreaming, which are largely dependent on information from outside
sources, whether those sources are in regions of the brain outside the imag-
ination network or in the external environment (Foulkes & Domhoff, 2014,
p. 168; Reinsel, Antrobus, & Wollman, 1992, pp. 176–1 77). In addition to being
a top-d own process, dreaming also can be understood as a form of thought
that emerges spontaneously when the mind is not being directed by either exter-
nal stimuli or purposeful internally generated thought. In this regard, dreaming