Dreaming : Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams
Kluwer Academic/Human Sciences Press, Inc., New York City

Volume 10, Number 4, December 2000

 
 


CONTENTS



Dream Bizarreness and Inner Thought
Bert O. States
Page 179
Available online

The Dream Pun: What Is a Play on Words Without Words?
Patricia A. Kilroe
Page 193

Masochistic Dreams: A Gender-Related Diathesis for Depression Revisited
Michael Bears, Rosalind Cartwright, and Patricia Mercer
Page 211

Dream Clairvoyance Study II Using Dynamic Video-Clips: Investigation of Consensus Voting Judging Procedures and Target Emotionality
Simon J. Sherwood, Kathy Dalton, Fiona Steinkamp, and Caroline Watt
Page 221

Counterfactual Thought in Dreams
Patrick McNamara
Page 237


BOOK REVIEW:
Dreams and Nightmare: The New Theory on the Origin and Meaning of Dreams.1
Ernest Hartmann, M. D.
Reviewed by Michael Schredl
Page 247

 


Bert O. States
Dream Bizarreness and Inner Thought
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 10(4) 179-192, Dec 2000.


Abstract:

The paper offers a critique of bizarreness studies that compare dreams to real world probability ratios and directed thought processes as a basis for determining the degree of bizarreness in dreams. It examines two cases from the literature and suggests that dreams are better compared to non-directed, or imaginative waking thought processes, specifically Inner Thought and Speech (or "speech for oneself," in Lev Vygotsky's definition), in which associative mechanisms operate freely hand in hand with (primarily) visual imagery before logical thought mechanisms come into play. The article suggests that dreams create a world order, or umwelt, with its own distinct cognitive domain in which waking considerations of efficiency, logic, and common sense are only thematically relevant. Dreams follow their own "logic" and can only be approached as thought-in-progress, or a search for coherence leading up many "blind alleys." Finally, the relevance to dreams of the Inner Thought principle of "predication," or "abbreviation" is examined.

Key Words: bizarreness; inner speech and thought; associative process; visual imagery; cognitive domain.

Available online



Patricia A. Kilroe
The Dream Pun: What Is a Play on Words Without Words?
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 10(4) 193-209, Dec 2000.

Abstract:

This paper reviews punning in dreams as described in a popular 1974 book by Ann Faraday, The Dream Game. The reasons for undertaking this analysis are threefold. The first reason is to show that dream puns are all based on either homonymy or polysemy and seem to have the purpose of representing abstract thought in concrete form. The second reason is to point out that dream puns are dependent upon a specifically linguistic relationship, a mapping between the concrete and abstract senses of some linguistic data; a direct word-image relation is impossible. The third reason is to suggest that our linguistic minds create dream puns while we sleep, continuing the mind chatter of the previous day.

Key Words: pun; homonymy; polysemy; metaphor.


Michael Bears, Rosalind Cartwright, and Patricia Mercer
Masochistic Dreams
: A Gender-Related Diathesis for Depression Revisited
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 10(4) 211-219, Dec 2000.

Abstract:

Masochistic dreams, as defined by Beck (1967), are reportedly more prevalent among women and individuals with past or present depression. However, it is unclear whether these prevalence differences are a function of depressogenic personality traits or fluctuating mood symptoms. In the present study, 30 men and 30 women without histories of major depression slept two consecutive nights in a sleep laboratory and reported their dreams from each REM period on the second night. Dream content from this sample was compared to that of 60 depressed participants who were studied previously under the same protocol. Analyses did not support a heightened prevalence of masochistic dreams among women or depressed individuals. Interestingly, the masochistic dreams of the non-depressed sample were equally distributed across the night, whereas depressed individuals tend to report masochistic dreams closer to morning. This hypothesized pattern suggests that masochistic dreams may be pathognomic of depression in that their occurrence near the end of the night affects morning mood with negative dream residue.

Key Words: dreaming; depression; gender role; gender; REM sleep.


 

Simon J. Sherwood, Kathy Dalton, Fiona Steinkamp, and Caroline Watt
Dream Clairvoyance
Study II Using Dynamic Video-Clips: Investigation of Consensus Voting Judging Procedures and Target Emotionality
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 10(4) 221-236, Dec 2000.

Abstract:

This partial replication study investigated whether individual versus small group consensus target judging procedures, and/or the emotionality of dynamic target video clips, would affect the frequency of correct identification of the target in a free-response dream ESP study. Two people located in Edinburgh (Scotland) and a third person located in Derby (England) acted both as experimenters and as participants and slept at their respective homes. On each of the 28 trial nights, a randomly-selected video clip was shown repeatedly between 3.00-4.30am. The following morning the participants viewed four video clips (i.e., 3 decoys plus the target) and then judged the correspondences between the clips and records of their dream mentation. The Edinburgh participants obtained a greater number of direct hits using consensus as opposed to individual judgements. A discussion consensus procedure was marginally more successful than a more objective consensus procedure (12 hits, p = .0294, ES(h)= 0.38 vs. 11 hits, p = .0679, ES(h)= 0.30). Participants, both as a group and as individuals, obtained a greater proportion of direct hits when the target was emotionally negative than when it was either positive or neutral.

Key Words:  extrasensory perception; parapsychology;  emotionality; consensus voting.


Patrick McNamara
Counterfactual Thought in Dreams

Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 10(4) 237-246, Dec 2000.

Abstract:

Counterfactual cognitive simulations are considerations of what might have been if what actually happened could be undone. I hypothesize that counterfactual thought is characteristic of dreams and that cognitive operations in dreams function to identify a norm violation recorded in autobiographical memory and then to re-instate normality in memory by generating counterfactuals to the violation. Dream counterfactuals therefore obey the same constraints on mutability as waking counterfactuals. Both dreaming and counterfactuals typically focus on the self, involve negative affect, and narrative form, promote problem solving and learning by running mental simulations and variations on a given problem theme, employ memory fragments in these various mental scenarios, plausibly rely on neural networks in right limbic and orbitofrontal cortices, and are largely automatic and pre-conscious operations.

Key Words:
dream content; cognition; norm violations; autobiographical memory.


Notes:

1. Final published title of book : Dreams and Nightmares: The Origin and Meaning of Dreams

 


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