Kluwer Academic/Human Sciences Press, Inc., New York City
Volume 10, Number 4, December 2000
CONTENTS
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.
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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