Is Freud's Wish-Fulfilment Theory the most persuasive explanation of why we dream?

Continuity Hypothesis: Cognitive approach

Freud's Wish-Fulfilment Theory: Psychoanalytical approach

Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis: Neurophysiological approach

Threat Simulation Theory: Evolutionary approach

Outline

Outline

Outline

Outline

Evidence

Freud 1899 and Foulkes 1982

children's dreams

Wegner 2004

correlation between suppression and dream content

nightmares

‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ - 1899

understanding one’s dreams is “the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.”

Evidence

Zadra and Pesant

correlation between well-being and dream content

Domhoff

case study: Barb Sanders

Hall and Bell

case study: child molester

discontinuities

Hall and Lind 1970

dream content embodies the conceptions and concerns of waking life

Evidence

Zadra et al

recurrent dreams

Solms and Malcom-Smith

recent dreams

Revonsuo

“the repeated nocturnal rehearsal of the neurocognitive mechanisms that are essential for threat recognition and avoidance behaviours while awake”

Evidence

Dement and Kleitman

Solms

recall when woken from REM sleep

brain injury, REM and dreaming can occur without the other

Hobson & McCarley, 1977

brain attempting to synthesize the neuronal processes activated from the brainstem during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep with the cerebral cortex (forebrain).

Criteria for persuasiveness

validity or research supporting or opposing (scientific methods)

generalisability of theory

compared to other theories (focus on approaches)