Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T17:14:28.357Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

41 - Dreaming is Imagination Roaming Freely, Based On Embodied Simulation, and Subserved by an Unconstrained Default Network

from Part VI - Altered States of the Imagination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2020

By
G. William Domhoff
Edited by
Anna Abraham
Anna Abraham
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
Get access

Summary

Dreaming is a form of imagination, based on embodied simulation. Dreams frequently involve enactments of a dreamer’s personal conceptions and concerns, both positive and negative, in relation to known persons and favorite avocations. More generally, most dreams include social interactions and activities. Dreaming is supported by an unconstrained portion of the default network, including its dorsal medial and temporal lobe functional subsystems, along with a region in the secondary visual cortex and by the caudate nucleus. The fact that this portion of the default network is unconstrained by the frontoparietal and the dorsal attentional control networks gives dreaming its unique character as imagination roaming freely. This neural substrate has cognitive insufficiencies that are consistent with what is known about dreaming and dream content from six decades of systematic research in laboratory and non-laboratory settings, such as a dearth of episodic memories and only rare indications of “symbolic” content. Nevertheless, there are lawful aspects of dreaming, such as the “small-world” nature of its character networks and consistency in dream content over many years.

Keywords

Dreamingimaginationcognitive developmentdefault networkelectrical brain stimulationneuroimagingneurological lesions
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination , pp. 676 - 691
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abraham, A. (2013). The World According to Me: Personal Relevance and the Medial Prefrontal Cortex. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, 341–344.Google Scholar
Abraham, A.(2016). The Imaginative Mind. Human Brain Mapping, 37, 4197–4211.Google Scholar
Andrews-Hanna, J., Reidler, J., Sepulcre, J., Poulin, R., and Buckner, R. (2010). Functional-Anatomic Fractionation of the Brain’s Default Network. Neuron, 65, 550–562.Google Scholar
Andrews-Hanna, J., Smallwood, J., and Spreng, R. (2014). The Default Network and Self-Generated Thought: Component Processes, Dynamic Control, and Clinical Relevance. Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 1316, 29–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bauer, P. (2013). Memory. In Zelazo, P (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Developmental Psychology (Volume 1): Body and Mind. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 503–541.Google Scholar
Baylor, G., and Cavallero, C. (2001). Memory Sources Associated with REM and NREM Dream Reports throughout the Night: A New Look at the Data. Sleep, 24, 165–170.Google Scholar
Beaty, R. E., Silvia, P. J., and Benedek, M. (2017). Brain Networks Underlying Novel Metaphor Production. Brain and Cognition, 111, 163–170.Google Scholar
Blagrove, M. (1992). Dreams as a Reflection of Our Waking Concerns and Abilities: A Critique of the Problem-Solving Paradigm in Dream Research. Dreaming, 2, 205–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blagrove, M.(1996). Problems with the Cognitive Psychological Modeling of Dreaming. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 17, 99–134.Google Scholar
Blagrove, M.(2000). Dreams Have Meaning but No Function. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 910.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blake, Y., Terburg, D., Balchin, R., Morgan, B., van Honk, J., and Solms, M. (2019). The Role of the Basolateral Amygdala in Dreaming. Cortex, 113, 169–183.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bulkeley, K. (2014). Digital Dream Analysis: A Revised Method. Consciousness and Cognition, 29, 159–170.Google Scholar
Cicogna, P., Natale, V., Occhionero, M., and Bosinelli, M. (1998). A Comparison of Mental Activity during Sleep Onset and Morning Awakening. Sleep, 21(5), 462–470.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Curot, J., Valton, L., Denuelle, M., et al. (2018). Déjà-rêvé: Prior Dreams Induced by Direct Electrical Brain Stimulation. Brain Stimulation, 11(4), 875–885.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Desjardins, S., and Zadra, A. (2006). Is the Threat Simulation Theory Threatened by Recurrent Dreams? Consciouness and Cognition, 15, 470–474.Google Scholar
Domhoff, G. W. (1996). Finding Meaning in Dreams: A Quantitative Approach. New York, NY: Plenum.Google Scholar
Domhoff, G. W.(2003). The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural Networks, Cognitive Development, and Content Analysis. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Domhoff, G. W.(2015). Dreaming as Embodied Simulation: A Widower Dreams of his Deceased Wife. Dreaming, 25, 232–256.Google Scholar
Domhoff, G. W. (2018). The Emergence of Dreaming: Mind-Wandering, Embodied Simulation, and the Default Network. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Domhoff, G. W., and Schneider, A. (1999). Much Ado about Very Little: The Small Effect Sizes When Home and Laboratory Collected Dreams Are Compared. Dreaming, 9, 139–151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Domhoff, G. W., and Schneider, A. (2008). Similarities and Differences in Dream Content at the Cross-Cultural, Gender, and Individual Levels. Consciousness and Cognition, 17, 1257–1265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Domhoff, G. W., and Schneider, A. (2015). Assessing Autocorrelation in Studies using the Hall and van de Castle Coding System to Study Individual Dream Series. Dreaming, 25, 70–79.Google Scholar
Domhoff, G. W., and Schneider, A. (2018). Are Dreams Social Simulations? Or Are They Enactments of Conceptions and Personal Concerns? An Empirical and Theoretical Comparison of Two Dream Theories. Dreaming, 28, 1–23.Google Scholar
Dorus, E., Dorus, W., and Rechtschaffen, A. (1971). The Incidence of Novelty in Dreams. Archives of General Psychiatry, 25, 364–368.Google Scholar
Fair, D., Cohen, A. L., Dosenbach, N., et al. (2008). The Maturing Architecture of the Brain’s Default Network. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 4028–4032.Google Scholar
Fiss, H., Ellman, S. J., and Klein, G. S. (1969). Waking Fantasies following Interrupted and Completed REM Periods. Archives of General Psychiatry, 21(2), 230–239.Google Scholar
Fosse, R., Hobson, J. A., and Stickgold, R. (2003). Dreaming and Episodic Memory: A Functional Dissociation? Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15, 1–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fosse, R., Stickgold, R., and Hobson, J. A. (2001). The Mind in REM Sleep: Reports of Emotional Experience. Sleep, 24, 947–955.Google Scholar
Foulkes, D. (1982). Children’s Dreams: Longitudinal Studies. New York, NY: Wiley.Google Scholar
Foulkes, D. (1985). Dreaming: A Cognitive-Psychological Analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Foulkes, D. (1993). Data Constraints on Theorizing about Dream Function. In Moffitt, A, Kramer, M and Hoffmann, R (eds.), The Functions of Dreaming. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 11–20.Google Scholar
Foulkes, D. (1999). Children’s Dreaming and the Development of Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Foulkes, D. (2017). Dreaming, Reflective Consciousness, and Feelings in the Preschool Child. Dreaming, 27, 1–13.Google Scholar
Foulkes, D., and Domhoff, G. W. (2014). Bottom-Up or Top-Down in Dream Neuroscience? A Top-Down Critique of Two Bottom-Up Studies. Consciousness and Cognition, 27, 168–171.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Foulkes, D., and Fleisher, S. (1975). Mental Activity in Relaxed Wakefulness. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 84, 66–75.Google Scholar
Foulkes, D., Hollifield, M., Sullivan, B., Bradley, L., and Terry, R. (1990). REM Dreaming and Cognitive Skills at Ages 5–8: A Cross-Sectional Study. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 13, 447–465.Google Scholar
Foulkes, D., Sullivan, B., Hollifield, M., and Bradley, L. (1989). Mental Rotation, Age, and Conservation. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 150, 449–451.Google Scholar
Foulkes, D., and Vogel, G. (1965). Mental Activity at Sleep Onset. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 70, 231–243.Google Scholar
Fox, K. (2018). Neural Origins of Self-Generated Thought: Insights from Intracranial Electrical Stimulations and Recordings in Humans. In Fox, K and Christoff, K (eds.), Handbook of Spontaneous Thought: Mind-Wandering, Creativity, and Dreaming. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 165–179.Google Scholar
Fox, K., Nijeboer, S., Solomonova, E., Domhoff, G. W., and Christoff, K. (2013). Dreaming as Mind Wandering: Evidence from Functional Neuroimaging and First-Person Content Reports. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, article 412, 1–18. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00412. eCollection 02013.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fox, K., Spreng, R., Ellamila, M., Andrews-Hanna, J., and Christoff, K. (2015). The Wandering Brain: Meta-Analysis of Functional Neuroimaging Studies of Mind-Wandering and Related Spontaneous Thought Processes. NeuroImage, 111, 611–621.Google Scholar
Germain, A., Jeffrey, J., Salvatore, I., et al. (2013). A Window into the Invisible Wound of War: Functional Neuroimaging of REM Sleep in Returning Combat Veterans with PTSD. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 211, 176–179.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. (2014). Conceptual Metaphor in Thought and Social Action. In Landau, M, Robinson, M, and Meier, B (eds.), The Power of Metaphor: Examining its Influence on Social Life. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 17–40.Google Scholar
Gopnik, A. (2009). The Philosophical Baby: What Children’s Minds Tell us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.Google Scholar
Hall, C. (1951). What People Dream About. Scientific American, 184, 60–63.Google Scholar
Hall, C., Domhoff, G. W., Blick, K., and Weesner, K. (1982). The Dreams of College Men and Women in 1950 and 1980: A Comparison of Dream Contents and Sex Differences. Sleep, 5, 188–194.Google Scholar
Hall, C., and van de Castle, R. (1966). The Content Analysis of Dreams. New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts.Google Scholar
Han, H. (2014). Structural and Longitudinal Analysis of Cognitive Social Networks in Dreams. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Unpublished PhD Dissertation.Google Scholar
Han, H., Schweickert, R., Xi, Z., and Viau-Quesnela, C. (2015). The Cognitive Social Network in Dreams: Transitivity, Assortativity, and Giant Component Proportion Are Monotonic. Cognitive Science, doi:10.1111/cogs.12244.Google Scholar
Hori, T., Hayashi, M., and Morikawa, T. (1994). Topographic EEG Changes and the Hypnagogic Experience. In Ogilvie, R and Harsh, J (eds.), Sleep Onset: Normal and Abnormal Processes. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 237–253.Google Scholar
Hurovitz, C., Dunn, S., Domhoff, G. W., and Fiss, H. (1999). The Dreams of Blind Men and Women: A Replication and Extension of Previous Findings. Dreaming, 9, 183–193.Google Scholar
Jenkins, A., and Mitchell, J. (2011). Medial Prefrontal Cortex Subserves Diverse Forms of Self-Reflection. Social Neuroscience, 6, 211–218.Google Scholar
Kerr, N. (1993). Mental Imagery, Dreams, and Perception. In Foulkes, D and Cavallero, C (eds.), Dreaming as Cognition. New York, NY: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 18–37.Google Scholar
Kerr, N., Foulkes, D., and Jurkovic, G. (1978). Reported Absence of Visual Dream Imagery in a Normally Sighted Subject with Turner’s Syndrome. Journal of Mental Imagery, 2, 247–264.Google Scholar
LeDoux, J. (2019). The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains. New York, NY: Viking Press.Google Scholar
Madsen, P. L., Schmidt, F., Wildschidtz, G., et al. (1991). Cerebral O2 Metabolism and Cerebral Blood Flow in Humans during Sleep and Rapid-Eye-Movement Sleep. Journal of Applied Physiology, 70, 2597–2601.Google Scholar
Marquis, L.-P., Paquette, T., Blanchette-Carrière, C., Dumel, G., and Nielsen, T. (2017). REM Sleep Theta Changes in Frequent Nightmare Recallers. Sleep, 40, 1–12.Google Scholar
Nelson, K. (2007). Young Minds in Social Worlds: Experience, Meaning, and Memory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pace-Schott, E. (2003). Postscript: Recent Findings on the Neurobiology of Sleep and Dreaming. In Pace-Schott, E, Solms, M, Blagrove, M, and Harnad, S (eds.), Sleep and Dreaming: Scientific Advances and Reconsiderations. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 335–350.Google Scholar
Pesant, N., and Zadra, A. (2006). Dream Content and Psychological Well-Being: A Longitudinal Study of the Continuity Hypothesis. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62(1), 111–121.Google Scholar
Pivik, R. T., and Foulkes, D. (1968). NREM Mentation: Relation to Personality, Orientation Time, and Time of Night. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 32, 144–151.Google Scholar
Pyszczynski, T., and Taylor, J. (2016). When The Buffer Breaks: Disrupted Terror Management in Posttrauamtic Stress Disorder. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25, 286–290.Google Scholar
Reese, E. (2013). Culture, Narrative, and Imagination. In Taylor, M (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Development of Imagination. Oxford, UK; New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 196–211.Google Scholar
Reinsel, R., Antrobus, J., and Wollman, M. (1992). Bizarreness in Dreams and Waking Fantasy. In Antrobus, J. S. and Bertini, M (eds.), The Neuropsychology of Sleep and Dreaming. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 157–184.Google Scholar
Revonsuo, A., and Salmivalli, C. (1995). A Content Analysis of Bizarre Elements in Dreams. Dreaming, 5, 169–187.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, R., and Ambady, N. (1995). Experimenter Effects. In Manstead, A and Hewstone, M (eds.), Encyclopedia of Social Psychology. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 230–235.Google Scholar
Roussy, F., Brunette, M., Mercier, P., et al. (2000). Daily Events and Dream Content: Unsuccessful Matching Attempts. Dreaming, 10, 77–83.Google Scholar
Roussy, F., Camirand, C., Foulkes, D., et al. (1996). Does Early-Night REM Dream Content Reliably Reflect Presleep State of Mind? Dreaming, 6, 121–130.Google Scholar
Sacks, O. (2013). Hallucinations. New York, NY: Knopf.Google Scholar
Sämann, P., Wehrle, R., Hoehn, D., et al. (2011). Development of the Brain’s Default Mode Network from Wakefulness to Slow Wave Sleep. Cerebral Cortex, 21, 2082–2093.Google Scholar
Sato, J. R., Salum, G. A., Gadelha, A., et al. (2014). Age Effects on the Default Mode and Control Networks in Typically Developing Children. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 58, 89–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schacter, D., Addis, D., and Buckner, R. (2008). Episodic Simulation of Future Events: Concepts, Data, and Applications. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1124, 39–60.Google Scholar
Sherman, L. E., Rudie, J. D., Pfeifer, J. H., et al. (2014). Development of the Default Mode and Central Executive Networks across Early Adolescence: A Longitudinal Study. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 10, 148–159.Google Scholar
Snyder, F. (1970). The Phenomenology of Dreaming. In Madow, L and Snow, L (eds.), The Psychodynamic Implications of the Physiological Studies on Dreams. Springfield, IL: Thomas, 124–151.Google Scholar
Solms, M. (1997). The Neuropsychology of Dreams: A Clinico-Anatomical Study. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Stickgold, R., Scott, L., Rittenhouse, C., and Hobson, J. A. (1999). Sleep-Induced Changes in Associative Memory. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 11, 182–193.Google Scholar
Strauch, I. (2005). REM Dreaming in the Transition from Late Childhood to Adolescence: A Longitudinal Study. Dreaming, 15, 155–169.Google Scholar
Strauch, I., and Lederbogen, S. (1999). The Home Dreams and Waking Fantasies of Boys and Girls Ages 9–15. Dreaming, 9, 153–161.Google Scholar
Strauch, I., and Meier, B. (1996). In Search of Dreams: Results of Experimental Dream Research. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Suddendorf, T., and Dong, A. (2013). On the Evolution of Imagination and Design. In Taylor, M (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Development of Imagination. Oxford, UK; New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 453–467.Google Scholar
Tonay, V. (1990/1991). California Women and their Dreams: A Historical and Sub-Cultural Comparison of Dream Content. Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 10, 83–97.Google Scholar
van Rijn, E., Eichenlaub, J. B., Lewis, P. A., et al. (2015). The Dream-Lag Effect: Selective Processing of Personally Significant Events during Rapid Eye Movement Sleep, but Not during Slow Wave Sleep. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 122, 98–109.Google Scholar
Vignal, J.-P., Maillard, L., McGonigal, A., and Chauvel, P. (2007). The Dreamy State: Hallucinations of Autobiographic Memory Evoked by Temporal Lobe Stimulations and Seizures. Brain, 130, 88–99.Google Scholar
Webb, E., Campbell, D., Schwartz, R., Sechrest, L., and Grove, J. (1981). Nonreactive Measures in the Social Sciences. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Weisz, R., and Foulkes, D. (1970). Home and Laboratory Dreams Collected under Uniform Sampling Conditions. Psychophysiology, 6, 588–596.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, W. B. (1970). Sleep Mentation and Auditory Awakening Thresholds. Psychophysiology, 6, 540–549.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×