Hobson mentioned, there is “little in the new work to bolster Freud’s case.” (8)įigure 14 – What is a PET scan? ( ) The link between forgetting things in waking life and in dreaming conditions Some leading assumptions, such as Salience theory and the theory by Strumpell, concluded five factors that may influence dream recall: the intensity, repetition, disconnection (or disorder) of dream experience, lack of interest in recalling dreams, state dependency respectively in waking and dreaming states. (7) All the scientific development leads to a new aspect of analyzing dream recall and provides several new possible explanations of forgetting dreams. (6) Furthermore, the breakthrough in sleep and brain study as well as the development of neuroimaging techniques allow the observation of the living brain (for example, the use of PET scan to measure blood flow which indicates brain activation during REM and non-REM stages of sleep, see figure 1), and arouses a debate over the part of brain which triggers dream originally. Researchers are able to identify sleep cycles, dreaming period and brain activities by rapid eye movement (REM) and electroencephalogram (a way to provide evidence of brain activity during sleep by placing gentle electrodes on examinee’s scalps and near eyes, EGG). (5) Despite the content-based theory, the study in brain activities which was related to memory-based theories has developed significantly at that time. (4) Over decades, Freud’s theory was generally accepted in the study of dreams however, with the improvement in methodology of modern science, the unquestioned authority of Freud’s account was shaken, and his theory proved to be a speculative hypothesis because it is hard to find any definite discovery or data from dream laboratories or other science areas to support or be against it. After the publication of Freud’s famous and significant account “The Interpretation of Dreams” in 1899 with his brilliant theories, there came an increasingly heated debate on whether the same factors which cause people to forget things in waking life also lead to the forgetting of dreams. Changes brought by scientific improvement in dream study from historical view Long before the start of scientific studies on dreaming experience, there have already been several explanations raised by philosophers and psychologists, which were based on the comparison between the collected content of dreams and analogies with people’s experience of forgetting things in their waking life. However, it can be said that dream recall does have close relationship with the dream content, memory functions as well as brain activities. For the entire case of dream recall, there is hardly any definite scientific proof that can explain it completely therefore, the motivation of dreams and factors affecting dream recall are so complicated that they cannot be concluded into a single answer. In fact, confronted with a growing number of reports from laboratory tests and scientific evidences, traditional philosophical and psychological theories were weakened and seemed less persuasive. (3) Dreams were generally regarded as first person experience and something absolutely subjective, but cases show that third person methods for scientific examination actually work well in the study on dreams. ![]() All these phenomena above are cases of forgetting dreams, since studies show people are supposed to have five dreams a night on average and each can last for about thirty-five minutes. It’s also not unusual that some people believe dreams only last for a few seconds while others can recall a whole story of near half an hour about their dreams. For example, though somebody reports an average of 1-2 dreams every week, someone may never remember any of their dreams. (2) To many people in their daily life, it is common that they find it hard to recall their dreams. However, it was not until the 1950s when the laboratory study of dream began with the discovery of REM sleep stage (rapid eye movements) that dreaming experience was generally confirmed by the scientific world. (1) From then on the idea of dream became widely spread and accepted in the religious, philosophical and psychological fields. ![]() ![]() New Debate over dream recall with modern scientific developmentįigure 13 – Dream analysis ( ) Does dream exist? Back to the earliest written records, the existence of dreaming experience has already been mentioned as early as in ancient Egypt, India and Greece.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |