Michael Tappan MA & Irene Clurman  

Dream Portrayal: Discovering Meaning by Playing the Part

This workshop is interactive and provides a method of staging portions of dreams so that the content of dreams and their meaning can be more easily understood and physically experienced. In this workshop, a dreamer describes a dream, and the dream's landscape is clarified by questions and initially analyzed by other participants with the projective If this were my dream  format. The dream portrayal is then carried out when the dreamer identifies a particularly resonant, powerful or enigmatic part of the dream. The opportunity to re-enter the dream occurs when the dreamer sets the stage by choosing workshop participants to play various parts of the dream. It is always dreamer's choice  as to the level of involvement of the dreamer. The dreamer may choose to play himself or herself, direct from the sidelines, play a dream symbol or simply be an observer.

We bring to the workshop an array of objects including masks, hats and yards of colorful cloths and scarves to be used as props. We find that these materials are intuitively used to flesh-out  the dream symbols, adding important information and fostering an imaginative understanding of the dream for the dreamer, the role-players, and the other workshop attendees. The dreamer will have the opportunity to play other parts of the dream, switch roles, or ask questions of the role-players. This enables the dreamer to experience the dream from an unfamiliar but often very meaningful perspective.

We find that the dream fragment has a life and power of its own. And tho ugh some dreamers report a sense of d??vu as they initially set the scene of the dream, once the action begins there is a sense of physical involvement that pushes the dreamed scene into new (or newly recognized) emotional territory.

 

Robert Tompkins, PhD, MFT with Winnie Piccolo, MA, MFT; Meg Pierce, MA, MFT; Dawn Matheny, MA, PhD

Dreams and Soul-Making:  Four Perspectives on Encountering the 'Other' Within In the deepest sense, we all dream not of ourselves, but of what lies between us and the other.

                                                               C.G. Jung

The work of C.G. Jung underlies the notion of a new spirituality based on a deep personal integrity arrived at, in part, through personal experience of the sacred. Soul-making  refers to the experience of the sacred taken into the body to ensoul  and expand human consciousness. Last year, at the 2007 IASD, we (as a panel of four) presented our personal perspectives on dreams, soul-making and the religious function of the psyche. Back from the Spirit of the Dream  conference, we began to imagine our way into a new theme of Dream Without Borders.

We are confronted in today's media with a seemingly endless array of images of violence, torture and degradation that leave us aghast and without adequate recourse. We are also fed images of self-negation, of addictions and compulsions that are our human attempts to ease soul's pain. When such disturbing images emanate as well from within our own dream realm, we are placed in direct relation to these dark energies. Exploring dreams as vehicles that cross borders  is a way to come into conscious relationship with whatever is other  within us, thereby engaging us in a process of soul-making.

Each of us on the panel shares the view that soul-making is a life-ling process of renewal that brings integrity, vitality, meaning and creative energy. From that common ground, each of us will share our own journey of grappling with the other within us. Dreams, where borders are already vague and poetic, shifting and integrating, invite us to consciously evolve a relationship to this archetypal other,  who is also our self, and so to begin to reveal a potential for a whole human life, with spirit, body and soul in relationship, engaged in the world and connected to cosmos.

Guided by this perspective the panelists will discuss the role dreams have played in their own soul-making process.

 

Robert Tompkins, PhD, MFT:  

Dreaming the Beloved: Eros, Life Energy and the Making of Soul 

Building on his presentation of last summer, Robert will discuss three dreams with regard to the changing relation of dream ego to dream and to their portending a process, over many years, of his search for the Beloved.

 

Meg Pierce, MA, MFT:

In the Midst of Death We Are in Life: Dreaming Through Depression 

Utilizing her own dreams and writings, Meg offers the possibility that the deadness of depression is a necessary process in reclaiming the individual soul and restoring it to the larger world community.

 

Winnie Piccolo, MA, MFT:

Dreams and the Work of the Threshold: Dwelling in Marginality, Ambiguity and Chaos 

Following up on last year's presentation, Winnie will again address the dreaming process of a traumatized psyche where the Other  within is the dark aspect of the self. Soul-making is the medicine, via a process that involves a passage of unknown length through sacred chaos. 

 

 Dawn Matheny, MA, PhD:

Seeking Balance Across the Great Divide: Dreaming the Animus as the Other Within

From a woman's perspective, Dawn Matheny, PhD, will share her self-study of the men and male energy in her dreams over a five year period, coming from the frame that this other  within has much to say about her own and culture's developmental edges.

 

Katja Valli, PhD candidate (Co-author:  Antti Revonsui)

The Threat Simulation Theory in the Light of New Empirical Evidence  A Review

The Threat Simulation Theory (TST) states that dreaming about threatening events has a biological function. Within the past few years, the TST has led to several dream-content analysis studies that empirically test the theory. The specific predictions of the TST have been investigated mainly with a new content analysis system, the Dream Threat Scale (DST), a method developed for identifying and classifying threatening events in dreams. In this presentation, we review the studies that have tested the TST with the DTS. We summarize and re-evaluate the results based on the dreams of Finnish and Swedish university students, traumatized and non-traumatized Kurdish, Palestinian, and Finnish children, and special dream samples, namely recurrent dreams and nightmares collected from Canadian subjects. We furthermore sum up other recent research that has relevance for the TST, and discuss to what extent the currently available empirical evidence offers support for or is in conflict with the TST. We conclude that the available new evidence and the new direct tests of the predictions of the TST yield relatively strong support for the theory, and thus the strengths of the theory seem to outweigh its weaknesses.

 

Cecilia Voiculescu

Hasdeu, an Evolution of the Dreaming Spirit:  A Romanian seeker

The prestigious and encyclopedic Romanian spirit Hasdeu, philologist, historian, playwright and politician, confined himself after the dea th of his beloved 19-year-old daughter, a prolific writer herself, to one single topic: the knowledge of the world beyond. Out of deep suffering and a passion for science came spiritualist experiments and eventually pioneering studies of dreams and sleep, in the last decade of the 19th century. Up-to-date with the latest European scientific experiments and theories, armed with valuable cultural skills to unify human knowledge, he stretched a wider philosophical net over the topic of the evolution of mankind. In 1892, although praising Darwin's new theory, he thought anatomy and embryology without the psychic element were insufficient; this was his missing link. We will try to explore his attempt.

Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu was a romantic in the historic sense and no transcendental experiment was alien to him. First, he identified the fundamentals of sleep and perfectly described lucid dreaming, the natural alternation of active and quiet sleep, and the nature of the dream reality. He classified dreams and analyzes dream telepathy, and described somnambulism and hypnotism. He examined the same phenomena and considered some of the same connections as 20^th-century medical science. We will try to explain and put into perspective.

Then, at a time where the scientific language had already started to dissociate from the humanities, this scholar, who reputedly knew 26 languages, firmly translated science into philosophy and defined the role of dreams as food for the body and as the highway towards 'infinity'. In a book written almost entirely from 'transcendental dictation', as he called it, he drew a correspondence among all orders of existence, including both life and after-life experiences. He already sensed the danger of instrumentalizing general human culture, and separating it entirely from science. We will try to unfold some of the ideas in 'Sic Cogito' and compare them with some contemporary philosophical language.

Hasdeu's universal messag e before he died in 1907 seems to be: Conscious dreaming brings happiness to the soul and it uniquely unchains us from Time, Space, Form, Movement, Language, Mind, and ultimately Death. The alchemy of dreaming and conscious Love ( 'Altruism') is the key to a life worth living, to accepting destiny and death, to the 'unlimitation of the soul'. He tried to formulate what today would be considered a phenomenology of the soul: unlimited during dreaming, the soul gains the ingredient of happiness. Most probably, mysterious messages still worth exploring, and a history worth retracing.

 

Robert Waggoner

Seeking the Dreamer of the Dream Through Lucid Dreaming

Robert Bosnak's book, Tracks in the Wilderness of Dreaming, begins with a deceptively simple question provoked by the extraordinary creativity of dreams when compared to our everyday consciousness, and asks, Who is the dreamer?   His book concludes with a fascinating dream in which he argues with Dr. Sigmund Freud that people always considered the dream environment real while dreaming.   Well,  he (Dr. Freud) concludes, research the dream reports of one hundred and one dreamers and you'll see that this is not true.  

This presentation will address a number of personal lucid dreams in which I began to experience an interaction with a responsive, creative and presumably intelligent inner awareness or inner ego within the lucid dream state. The presentation will focus on the lucid dreams that led me to suspect, like Jung, that an awareness exists behind the dreaming, and is both conscious and purposeful.  Unlike many who suggest the unconscious has primitive, archaic and instinctual aspects, my conscious-within-the-dream interactions have shown that the unconscious is actually very much conscious and alive, and seems to operate in a thoughtful and purposefully educational manner. 

In the author's view, an advanced lucid dreamer can use certain techniques to call out the inner ego and engage it more fully.  Like Hilgard who suggested a Hidden Observer accessible in deep hypnosis, lucid dreaming seems to uncover an inner observer or inner ego, similarly aware, thoughtful and conscious.  By investigating this, the study of dreams may move further along to determining the correct answer to the Bosnak's question, Who is the dreamer? 

 

References: 

Bosnak, R. Tracks in the Wilderness of Dreaming (New York: Delacorte Press, 1996)

 

 

Robert Waggoner  

Conversing with Dream Figures in Lucid Dreams

Lucid dreamers possess conscious awareness in the dream state and thus can engage, converse and challenge dream figures.  By doing so, lucid dreamers discover that dream figures are much more complex than previously suppose.  In fact, dream figures show awareness, knowledge and volitional ability, different than the lucid dreamers. In numerous lucid dream examples, dream figures use the following methods to persuade lucid dreamers of their awareness:

1)      Some use logical or reasoned thinking,

2)      Some provide unknown to us, but verifiable information

3)      Some display greater comprehensions than ours

4)      Some ask us to do something: What's that book in your hand? 

5)      Some return again as if to prove  their ongoing existence.

Therefore the study of dreams may need to take into account varying levels of awareness when interacting with dream figures.  For example, some may be thought-forms  which briefly express a symbolic representation of an idea, thought, intent or emotion.  The thought forms may have very little durability, limited functiona l capability and disappear when requested.

Some dream figures may be aspect-forms  or symbolic representations of some ongoing issue for our selves with semi-permanence.  They possess the greater energy of a larger issue, and may be able to respond about that issue.

Some dream figures may be core aspect-forms  or symbolic representations of some permanent feature of our psyche, or some permanent issue in our psyche; they may feel at home  and alive  in the dreaming, a responsive functional capability, and have insight into our waking and dreaming life as fragmentary consciousnesses.

Some dream figures may directly represent the Self, the Inner Ego or dreamer of the dream  which may have a deeper life and understanding, and may be conversant with other means of expression via concepts, emotions, light, energy.

Lastly, though obviously complex, some dream figures may represent something outside  IASD papers our conception of our waking-ego-self; these dream figures may represent the deceased, the living, aspects of greater consciousness, etc., or they may be the symbolic representations of their knowledge somehow passed on telepathically or in an unknown manner.

In effect, consciously aware dreamers are discovering that dream figures exist on a wide spectrum of actuality from ephemeral thought form to those that have an actuality similar to the lucid dreamer in that state. 

 

Erin J. Wamsley, PhD with Robert Stickgold, PhD; Jessica Payne, PhD; Carlyle Smith, PhD

Dreaming and Sleep-Dependent Memory Processing  (Symposium)

To Dream, Perchance to Learn

Robert Stickgold, PhD

Recent studies have provided growing evidence that one important function of sleep is to enhance memories.  This includes not only the simple strengthening of previously formed memories, but the ide ntification and extraction of the gist represented in large sets of studied information, as well as the selective enhancement of memory for emotional aspects of memories.  These findings have led many researchers to suggest that dreaming may be a component or consequence of such sleep-dependent memory processing mechanisms.  But how dreaming can be integrated into these models remains unclear.  One approach is to look for the incorporation of recent events into dream content and the correlation of these dreams with subsequent changes in memory.  A second is to look more carefully, from a memory systems perspective, at the sleep-stage dependency of dream content.  Another is to correlate sleep-stage specific dream content with sleep-stage specific memory consolidation.  A fourth is to correlate the impact of various pharmacological agents on sleep, dreaming, and sleep-dependent memory consolidation.  Another is to correlate changes in dreaming and sleep-dependent memory consolidation across neurological and psychiatric conditions.  Recent findings on sleep-dependent memory consolidation and on dreams and memory will be reviewed, and methodological problems discussed, in an attempt to identify research paradigms that can effectively address the question of the role of dreaming in sleep-dependent memory processing.

 

Memory Reactivation and Dreaming during NREM Sleep

Erin J. Wamsley, PhD

Studies of neural activity in rodents clearly demonstrate that recent experiences are replayed  in cortical and hippocampal networks during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep.  Similar mechanisms have been hypothesized to support memory processing in humans, and indeed, reactivation of learning-related brain activity has been observed during human sleep.  An intriguing possibility is that this replay of recent learning experiences may be observable, not only in these measures of neural activity, but also in subjective reports of dream experienc es.  Data will be presented in support of this hypothesis.

We report a powerful, direct effect of an engaging visuomotor learning task on verbal reports of dreaming during light NREM sleep.  Following task exposure, participants were more likely to report mentation unambiguously related to the learning experience, as compared to during baseline data collection.  Participants' initial task performance predicted the extent to which this cognitive-level memory reactivation would occur.  Furthermore, the nature of this cognitive replay  was altered with increasing durations of sleep. Reports collected early in the sleep phase most often contained direct and unambiguous representations of the learning task, as compared reports elicited further into the sleep period.  These data suggest not only that cognitive replay of a learning task can be observed during human NREM sleep, but also that changes in this replay across a night can inform us about the role of sleep and dreaming in transforming memory representations across time.

In a second study, we used Pavlovian conditioning to experimentally induce hippocampus-dependent memory reactivation during NREM sleep, and observed the effects of this manipulation on physiological conditioned responses (CRs), as well as on reports of dreaming. Trace  conditioning, where the CS and UCS are separated by a temporal gap, is a hippocampus-dependent task that provides a simple model of declarative memory. In contrast, Delay  conditioning proceeds independently of hippocampal involvement. Prior to sleep, subjects underwent either Trace or Delay differential auditory fear conditioning. The conditioned stimulus cue (CS+) and a control cue (CS-) were then presented to subjects during stage 2 NREM sleep. Dream reports were elicited following each cue presentation. It was hypothesized that both Delay and Trace participants would exhibit CRs during sleep. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that in Trace, but not Delay participants, physi ological CRs would be accompanied by concomitant effects within sleep mentation reports. Both Delay-conditioned and Trace-conditioned participants exhibited conditioned responses (CRs) during post-training sleep. In Trace-conditioned participants, where CRs were hippocampus-mediated, the emotional valence of dream reports was significantly more negative in response to the CS+ as compared to the CS- cue. These findings support the hypothesis that hippocampus-dependent learning can be accessed during NREM sleep, and again suggest that reactivation of memories during sleep can be observed in reports of dream experiences.

 

Emotional Memory Trade-Offs Occur Preferentially During Sleep

Jessica D. Payne, PhD

People often remember central, emotional information at the expense of background details. An example of this trade-off is the weapon focus effect , where victims vividly remember an assailant?s weapon but have little memory for the scene?s background. However, it is unknown how this effect develops over time, or whether a period of sleep would affect the consolidation of these memories differently than a period spent awake.  Seventy-two participants studied scenes containing a negative or neutral object embedded in a background scene. These scenes were studied at 9AM or 9PM. Memory for objects and backgrounds was tested (1) after 12 daytime hrs spent awake, (2) after 12 hr including a night of sleep, or (3) in the morning or evening, just 30 minutes after training. Emotional items were better remembered after sleep than wake (p < .01). Measures of forgetting showed a 10% deterioration of emotional items after sleep, which was no different than that occurring after just 30 minutes (also 10%), indicating that there was no further loss of memory in the sleep condition; however, after 12 hr of wake, these items deteriorated by nearly 25%, a value that was significantly greater than that seen in the 30-min and sleep conditions (ps < .05). across all groups, emotional objects were well remembered at the expense of background details. But importantly, this trade-off was more pronounced after sleep than after an equivalent period of wake (p < .05). 

We demonstrate that human emotional memory develops differentially across time delays containing sleep and wake. Sleep appears to facilitate the process of emotional memory enhancement, and to strengthen the trade-off of memory for central emotional objects over their background details. Thus, sleep may act to selectively enhance those aspects of a memory that are of greatest apparent value to the organism.  Implications for a theory of dreaming will be discussed.

 

Do dreams reflect memory processing?

Carlyle Smith, PhD

There is now strong support for the idea that memory consolidation occurs during sleep states. One paradigm that has been used to demonstrate this relationship has been stimulus cueing. A salient cue is presented during acquisition of a task and then is presented again during sleep (without waking the organism) to remind  the subject to process the recently acquired information. This technique has been reported to induce memory enhancement over normal levels in humans during REM sleep.

The present study was done to examine the dream content during post-acquisition REM sleep. After an acclimatization night of sleep, 12 female undergraduate college students were asked to learn the Mirror Trace task, a task considered to involve REM sleep for memory consolidation. They were then placed in one of the following groups:  Group 1 subjects were exposed to the sound of a ticking alarm clock during task acquisition. During the subsequent night of sleep they were presented with approximately five hundred 70db ear clicks via mini earphone that sounded very much like the alarm clock ticks. These clicks  were triggered by the maximum deflection of their eye movements during REM sleep. Group 2 was a click  control group that received an equal (matched) number of clicks during the moments when REM was occurring, but there was no eye-movement activity (REM quiet times). Group 3 learned as did the other groups, but no clicks  were ever delivered during the night. Subjects were all awakened after 50-80% of the REM period was predicted to have passed and asked to report any dream activity. Retest on the Mirror Trace task was done one week after acquisition.  Sleep states were scored using the standard methods of Rechtshaffen and Kales. Dreams were scored using the Hall-Van de Castle method as well as special detailed activities and objects not included in this scale.  There were no differences between the groups on time spent in any of the sleep states. However, the REM dream reports of Group 1 were significantly longer than those of the other two groups (p < .02). One of the most salient differences was the scores on Recreational Implements (IR), and competitive themes seemed common. Because the theme of driving seemed very prevalent, a special lexicon of driving related activities was generated and groups were scored on the incidence of this specialized set of words. Group 1 showed a higher incidence of these activities compared to the other two groups (p < .05).

The results suggest that dream content, when examined carefully, does show signs of reflecting memory consolidation. Group 1 was exposed to an accelerated or intensified memory consolidation process and may have exhibited an exaggerated dream content to match. Mental activity during REM appeared to take the form of previously learned activities (driving, staying on the road) to express the novel activity of staying inside lines while drawing (while looking in a mirror).  

 

Carol D. Warner, MA, MSW 

Psychokinesis, Dreaming and Communication with the Dead

In the year 2006, 3 close family members grew ill and died one right after the other.  Over the years we had all had many conversations about the nature of the afterlife and the possibility of communication beyond the grave.  All of us had psi experiences.  Beginning with my father's death and continuing through my mom's twins' death and the death of my mom, my uncle (my mom's twin's husband of 60 years) and I had a series of poignant and often quite humorous communications from the deceased, included a number of dramatic psychokinetic experiences and a number of dream communications.  These dream and pk experiences are detailed in this paper.

 

Craig Sim Webb  

Universal Dream Dance Circle

This is not an abstract, nor is the event abstract It is the real thing. The movement, breathing, singing and community synergy offer a unique boost of energy that is key to bringing about powerful, clear, and even lucid dreams. Think of it as an enhanced social hour where you you get to not only enjoy yourself and meet the great souls who make up IASD, but also prepare for a great night of powerful dreaming. All dances will be simple and quick to learn, so no previous dance experience is necessary.

Bernard Welt, PhD

The Emptiness of Dreaming:  Transcendental Fantasy in the Cinematic Nightmare

The nightmare is a standard device in the horror film, but it also features in other genres of both mainstream and experimental film especially, as might be expected, those with a surrealist sensibility. In this presentation, we propose that critical analysis of the cinematic nightmare may yield insight into the functions of actual nightmares, not only confirming but extending recent theories in dream studies. In particular, the cinematic use of the trapped-in-a-dream motif the nightmare from which one cannot awake offers viewers a model of understanding th at transcends reason, in the manner of a Zen koan. Yet in both the horror genre and art films, the possibility of seeing through the illusory nature of experience is accompanied by typical nightmare anxiety over loss of identity, incorporation into another, and annihilation. The transcendental theme invites philosophical investigation, while the existential anxiety suggests psychoanalytic themes, especially the pre-Oedipal theory of Melanie Klein. If the analysis of cinematic dreams can propose a way to accept both these views at once, integrating them into a fuller understanding of situation of the characters, the audience, and the artist in cinema, perhaps the same may be done for actual nightmares, in which the dreamer is character, audience, and originator. Acknowledging the influence of the views of Carl Jung, John E. Mack, Ernest Hartmann, and Mark Blechner, the presentation will propose that the nightmare in reality as in cinema may be valued for its power to subvert rational thought and shock the dreamer/viewer into seeing things in a new way, even when the experience is accompanied by feelings of confusion and dread. Examples will be drawn from: Dead of Night (Alberto Cavalcanti et al, 1945), A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984), Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Bunuel, 1972), and Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001).

 

Pia E. Wigren, PhD, NYU School of Medicine

Waking and Dream Affect During Pregnancy from Five Theoretical Perspectives

The biopsychosocial experience of pregnancy, labor and delivery is a mystery of the feminine in need of further understanding.  The present investigation explored the relationship between waking and dream affect during pregnancy and studied obstetrical variables as well as the experience of labor and delivery in relation to affect.  A longitudinal research design was used, in whic h sixteen primiparae (pregnant women) were asked to record waking experiences and dreams and to rate them for affect one week per month during gestation.  The amount and intensity of discrete affects (e.g., fear/anxiety; happiness/elation) and affect summary scores (e.g., positive and negative affect; affect in general) were evaluated.  Postpartum, participants rated their experience of affect, pain and difficulty during labor and delivery.  Background data and information about pregnancy-related attitudes and concerns were also obtained.

Hypotheses were derived from five theoretical perspectives: psychoanalytic, interpersonal, analytical psychology (Jungian), information processing and neurocognitive.  The continuity hypothesis concerning affect across states of consciousness and the evolutionary hypothesis addressing affect consistent with species propagation were tested as well.  The present findings are consistent with some previous results and theoretical assumptions, yet contradict others.  Central findings revealed stable affect patterns in waking and dreaming states of mind throughout pregnancy.

Few relationships were found between affect variables and either obstetrical variables (e.g., delivery complications) or subjectively perceived difficulty and pain of childbirth.  Most participants' pregnancies and deliveries were relatively healthy and normal.  In addition, there was no evidence of major affective disorders. Thus, few correlates of outcome may have been found because participants' experiences did not extend into the pathological realm.  Recommendations were made for improving methodology in future research on pregnant women's affect.

 

Jennifer M. Windt, MA with Ahmed A. Karim, PhD; Nicholas Langlitz, MD, PhD; Valdas Noreika, MSc

Across Disciplinary Borders:  First-Person Dream Reports, Neurophilosophy and Neuroscientific Research

In a sense, dreaming is the most private of all conscious experiences, because it is only accessible via retrospective reports about previous dream experiences. While no study claiming to investigate the conscious experience of dreaming can circumvent subjective dream reports, their epistemic status continues to be a matter of controversy. Many neurophysiological studies of sleep stages make inferences about dreaming independently of dream reports, while many content-based studies of dreaming are exclusively based on subjective dream reports and therefore cannot be directly linked to neurophysiological sleep research. Clearly, a much closer integration of both types of research is needed.

The symposium will address the issue of subjective dream reports from different disciplinary perspectives. First, Ahmed A. Karim will discuss the beginnings of dream reporting in Ancient Egypt and assess its impact on Greek and Roman culture. Then, Jennifer M. Windt will review some of the most important philosophical arguments concerning the phenomenology of dreaming and the concept of dream consciousness. By assessing the epistemic status of subjective dream reports, she will present a constructive critique concerning their role for an objective science of dreaming. Based on these general philosophical arguments, Nicolas Langlitz will turn to some of the specific problems associated with the concept of first-person data  in dream research. Against the background of the recent renaissance of introspection in cognitive neuroscience, he will analyze the transdisciplinary debate between neuroscientist Allan Hobson and philosopher Thomas Metzinger over the employment of their own experiences for the process of theory formation. Valdas Noreika will use examples from recent EEG-based studies of dreaming that either contrast content-analyzed dream samples or compare EEG epochs of dreaming and dreamless sleep. These two basic methods for correlating electrophysiological patterns with subjectively reported dreams present an important challenge for neuroscientific approaches to consciousness in sleep. In the final presentation, Jennifer Windt will argue that the integration of systematic first-person phenomenology with scientific research can only be achieved by an interdisciplinary approach transcending the traditional borders between philosophy, psychology and neuroscience. Such an approach is not only needed to establish a science of dream consciousness that is both neuroscientifically oriented and based on sound philosophical arguments, but also to ensure the contribution of dreaming to the field of consciousness research in general.

The theoretical ideas presented in this symposium are closely associated with the Dream Team , funded by the Volkswagen Foundation as part of the European Platform for Life Sciences, Mind, Sciences and the Humanities. This interdisciplinary group of young researchers, in which all of the presenters are active, is currently working on a project titled Approaching the dreaming mind: experimental modification of dreams within a new neurophilosophical framework.  Within this project, the group members are writing several theoretical papers on the neurophilosophy of dreaming and conducting experiments that will integrate sleep laboratory data with the content analysis of dream reports. This symposium can be considered as the outcome of their ongoing cooperation, which unites multiple disciplinary perspectives from philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, history of science and anthropology.

 

Ann Sayre Wiseman, MA    Recurring Dreams, Nightmares and What We Can Learn from Them

Exploring Recurring Dreams and Nightmares in a hands-on workshop, participants will have a chance to recreate the dream as if on a stage to better visualize the images that symbolize the content of the story of the dream. Role-reversal dialogue and guided imagery will be used to explore the message in hopes of clarifying the meanin g of the dream or the message we can learn from it.

Ming-Yih Yeh, PhD and Chung-Hsiing Huang 

Dreaming reactions and sharing:  Gender differences observed in a Taiwanese Sample

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

 

Antonio Zadra, PhD  

Sexual Dreams of Men and Women:  A Study of Their Frequency and Content

Given the longstanding clinical, academic and popular interest in dreams with erotic or sexual content, it is surprising to note the paucity of empirical literature on this topic. The aim of the present study was to conduct an investigation of the frequency and content of sexual dreams. Participants were 109 women and 64 men who recorded their dreams in a daily log upon awakening for 2 to 4 consecutive weeks.  Participants reported a mean of 20.6?10.8 dreams each for a total of 3564 dreams. Approximately 8% of both men and women's dreams were found to contain some form of sexual activity.  Sexual intercourse was the most common type of sexual dream content, followed by sexual propositions, kissing, and fantasies. Masturbation accounted for approximately 6% of both males' and females' sexual dreams.  The dreamer reported having had an orgasm in approximately 4% of all sexual dreams. Women were 2.5 times more likely than men to have sexual dreams in which they initiated the sexual contact but they were also more likely than men to describe at least part of the sexual activity as being unwanted.  Multiple sex partners were reported more frequently in men's sexual dreams. Several differences were also found in the sex dreams of student versus non-student adults. For instance, whereas student and non-student women had comparable proportions of dreamer-initiated sexual contact, non-student males were 2.5 times more likely than student males to describe themselves as the initiators of erotic activities.  These findings and variations across age and gender may be indicative of different waking needs, experiences, desires and attitudes with respect to sexuality. This is consistent with the continuity hypothesis of dreaming which postulates that the content of everyday dreams reflects the dreamer's waking states and concerns (i.e., that dream and waking thought contents are continuous).