Beyond Freud
In retrospect, we learned a lot about dreams from psychoanalytic approach (e.g. Freud, 1900; Jung, 1974). But, isn’t it the time we should put subconscious aside? Over the couple of decades, scientists from various backgrounds ranging from philosophy to neuroscience have investigated dreams and dream consciousness in a multidisciplinary manner. Ever since the world began, dreams were almost always the most peculiar and interesting human phenomena. We invest nearly 30% of our lifetime in sleeping. As one might except, we know a whale of more about dreams than ancient people by the virtue of modern world. Nevertheless, the phenomenology of dream is still being scrutinised. Interestingly, whether we are conscious or not during the sleep is still a matter of long discussions (see Windt et al., 2016; Wamsley, 2013; for Indian philosophical debate, see Thompson, 2015). But at least we know that the time we are unconscious accounts for nearly half (44%) of our sleep (Berlucchi and Marzi, 2019). There are 4 main stages in sleep; stage 1 (pre-sleep), stage 2 (mild sleep), stage 3 (pre-REM sleep), stage 4 (REM sleep). One sleep cycle usually takes 90 to 100 minutes (Mutz & Javadi, 2017). All stages apart from REM, are called N-REM sleep.
Dennett (1976) believed that dreams are not even experiences and that we are unconcious of these internal experiences. Malcolm (1956) also found the possibility of saying ‘this is a dream’ very illogical. Nevertheless, we nowadays know that dreams are at least experiences by the virtue of science. Dreams are interpreted from various perspectives. These are ranging from subconcious meanings of dreams including unconscious motives and thoughts (Zhang and Guo, 2018) to the fuction of dreams as a natural protection mechanism (Revunsuo, 2000). There are two different states where a dream can prevalently take place; REM stage and Lucid Dreaming.
Lucid Dreams are augmented internal experiences in which a person reaches full meta-awareness of themselves whilst sleeping (Windt et al., 2016). In simple terms, it is ‘witnessing’ that you are dreaming. Surprisingly, random lucid dreaming is quite common until the puberty (Voss et al., 2012). Normally in REM dream, there is a diminished prefrontal and hightened limbic activity in the brain (Mutz & Javadi, 2017) which turns dreams into something very irrational (Revonsuo, 1995). Lucidity occurs when hypoactive dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) gets activated during sleep (Hobson et al., 2000); because DLPFC is a well-known region for executive and visuospatial abilities that could explain the features of lucidity (Zick & Pietrowshy, 2015). Dream research strongly argues that we are also dreaming in NREM stage (Hobson & Pace-Schott, 2002; Hobson, 2005; Desseilles et al., 2011; Mutz & Javali, 2017; Bréchet et al., 2020). However, Nir and Tonini (2010) estimated that almost 80% of REM reports were vivid, in contrast only 8% of vivid dreams occured in NREM stage. Baird et al. (2020) also suggest non-REM lucidity may have less vividness.
Windt et al. (2016) also believed that lucid dreams are best options to tackle queries of consciousness in NREM. Cognitively, lucidity is a combination of both waking and dreaming states (Hobson, 2009). Enhanced cognitive awareness of selfhood and augmented prefrontal activity are the common features of lucidity (Windt, 2007); more specifically, higher attention and rationality, willful internal world management and other qualities of wakeful cognition. Voss et al. (2009) and Baird et al. (2020) revealed that inactivity in parietal and frontal cortices leads to a lack of self-awareness and reflection in REM. But, these regions are playing an active role in lucid dreaming, therefore generate a meta-cognitive state of consciousness that resembles an awake cognition (Voss et al., 2009). Main activity differences owing to lucidity are seen in precuneus, supramarginal gyrus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, temporal and interior parietal cortices (Voss et al. 2009; Hobson, 2009).
Very recently, Konkoly et al. (2021) ran a mind-blowing lucid dreaming study, by which they showed a whale of possibilities to provoke lucid dreaming and to get interactive replies from participants whilst they were in a dream state; that provides tangible evidence that various cognitive abilities can be executed during the sleep. Group of participants who interactively replied to mathematical questions included experienced & trained lucid dreamers and narcoleptics. Voss et al. (2009) were successful to induce lucidity in a group of participants trained by using pre-sleep autosuggestion. Well beyond that, there are many techniques to induce lucidity, for example; intention, visualization, reality testing, re-entry to dreams, and post-hypotic suggestions (for techniques, see Hobson, 2000; Zick & Pietrowshy, 2015; Konkoly et al., 2021). LaBerge (1981,1994) notes that participants can be trained to use eye-movements and sign language. In fact, scientists approve that it also has several benefits over memory consolidation, problem solving, creativity, healing from psychological disturbances (Zick & Pietrowshy, 2015). For instance, lucid dreaming is now being used to alleviate psychotic symptoms of patients and it is thought that lucid dream will enhance psychotic patients’ control over internal events, thoughts and dreams (Mutz and Javadi, 2017; Voss et al., 2018). Moreover, using lucid dreams seemed to foster therapeutic intervention in sleep disturbances, nightmares, depression, anxiety and, PTSD (Brylowski, 1990; Spoormaker et al., 2003; Been and Garg, 2010; for a review, see Macêdo et al., 2019).
At the beginning, the idea of lucid dreaming was firmly rejected by prominent philosophers (Malcolm, 1956; Dennett, 1976). Nevertheless, dream scientists proved that individuals can actually be trained even by virtual reality to become a lucid dreamer (Gott et al., 2021). We are now curious to see what awaits us by the virtue of further research in dreams.
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