JITOTM24: Dream Rehearsals
No one knows exactly why we dream, let alone why we dream the things we do. But one dream researcher has an interesting theory about nightmares...
Studies have shown that two-thirds of dreams actually centre on threats. Finnish researcher Ante Revonsuo theorizes that these threatening dreams may function as a sort of virtual rehearsal for real-life scenarios.
But if that's the case, then why are so many threatening dreams totally outlandish? Are you really likely to be attacked by aliens or werewolves? That's just one of the objections being asked by Revonsuo's critics, including Antonio Zadra at the University of Montreal.
The debate has beome a little bit snippy... but these kinds of challenges are what makes the scientific process both effective, and interesting. Get a ringside seat for the battle of the dream researchers in this week's episode of JITOTM, Dream Rehearsals.
Thanks for listening!
Behind the Curtain
- Song of the Week: "Crazy Visions of You" by Jeff Oussoren
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posted by David Newland at 1:35 PM
2 Comments:
Hello, Jay and David.
I hope that you do continue with your podcast next "season", and take up your idea to explore the world of dreams.
I found myself reacting strongly against the dream research your quoted in your July 12 podcast (#24). The idea that two-thirds of all dreams are chase dreams is so inconsistent with my own experience, that I am highly suspicious of a flaw in the researcher's data. I could readily believe that 2/3 of dreams recalled in some kind of general survey done some time after the dreams are had, are chase dreams. But that would be because nightmares are remembered (and for some time), and the vast majority of other dreams are not remembered by the average Joe in ordinary circumstances.
To get what I think is the real percentage of chase dreams, data from dream labs (where they awake patients right after they know they are in a REM stage) needs to be mined, if possible. I'm confident chase dreams are not 2/3.
I resonated with David's comment, that dreams are meant to be symbolic, not literal. Jay, if a poodle in a chase dream is (for example) symbolic (for you) of some annoying aspect of high society, I hope you get to crush its little yapping head in the slamming gate. What to me is exciting about dreams is that if you bring analysis of them into the concious part of the mind, you get somewhere in your personal struggles.
If thinking is planning for doing, than dreaming is planning for thinking. I wish I could take credit for that, but its not mine.
What I believe is the real purpose of dreams seems difficult to investigate with the scientific rigour you demand. But there is plenty of other kinds of research for you to poke into. Could I present a challenge to you: investigate some of Stanley Krippner's extensive work. Check out http://www.stanleykrippner.com/papers/VITAE.2003.htm for more about him. Please don't be put off the title of his most recent (or other) books. Instead, could you check out in particular some of his dream lab work (in the '70's, I think), where for example 12 pictures (unknown to 12 people dreaming nearby) were consistently and remarkably correlated by independent judges (i.e. this recorded dream goes with that picture). This was apparently a well controlled scientific study, repeated over many years. There seems to be little scientific explanation of the mechanism by which it works, except perhaps one like that given by Rupert Sheldrake in his book "The sense of being stared at". That's another example of a something I would love to hear you comment on. CBC did a show on this one - see www.cbc.ca/hottype/season02-03/03-05-12.html .
4:06 AM
Apologies, Jay about the poodle comment. My wife tells me that the podcast clearly indicates that you own one - something I missed.
9:36 PM
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