Dream World
Webquest
By: Davin-Kyle Thompson
Aaron Lagana
Matthew Kiprovski
Dream Theories:
Sigmund Freud’s Theory of Dreams
• Sigmund Freud suggests that dreams are a representation of
unconscious wishes and desires
• These can be either sexual or violent in nature
• All dreams, no matter how bizarre, serve a purpose
• These dreams must be studied to understand a person
Dream Theories:
Activation-Synthesis Theory
• First proposed by John Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley
• This theory states that dreams don’t serve a purpose at all,
but rather are rather nuerual firings from the brainstem during
REM sleep
• To keep us asleep and not wake us up after every impulse, our
cerebral cortex associates certain dreams with certain
impulses
Dream Theories:
St. Francis Crick’s Theory of Dreams
• According to Francis Crick, dreams are just mental garbage
• Every day, we encounter many things and a lot of major and
minor events occur
• At the end of the day, when we dream, we go through these
events and we separate them into “wanted” and “unwanted”
categories
• We tend to weaken the synaptic connections of our unwanted
memories, going through a process of “reverse learning”
• This strengthens our memory of the events that we actually
want to remember
Why do dreams occur?
• According to Freud, dreams occur so we can fulfill our
unconcious desires
• Do things we wouldn’t normally be able to do
• Activation-Synthesis theory suggests that neural firings cause
dreams, associating certain images with certain neural
impulses
• Francis Crick states that dreams occur to “reverse learn”
unwanted memories, strengthening our wanted memories
What occurs physiologically
when we dream?
• Freud’s theory states less about what happens physiologically
when we dream and more with what happens unconciously
• He called dreams “the royal road to the unconcious”
• According to activation-synthesis theory, the brainstem fires
off random neural impulses during REM sleep, and the
cerebral cortex associates images with the firings, causing
dreams
• According to Francis Crick, during dreams we weaken synaptic
connections in our brains for unwanted memories, which in
turn causes us to remember more important things
What purpose do dreams serve?
• Freud says dreams serve as ways to fulfill unconscious desires,
allowing us to do things we always wanted to do
• Activation-synthesis theory states that dreams serve no
purpose at all and are just the random neural firings
• Francis Crick’s theory goes with the assumption that dreams
serve to distinguish our unwanted and our wanted memories
and to help us keep the wanted ones
Can you explain why many people report
dreaming of experiences which they have
recently encountered
• Fruedian theory may suggest that people may have certain
wishes about certain daily events, and can only fulfill them in
dreams
• People wish a day at school or a job goes a certain way
• Activation-synthesis cannot explain this; it states all dreams
are just the random firings
• Francis Crick’s whole theory is based on recently encountered
experiences and choosing which ones we want to remember
in the end
Is there any way in which the content or
meaning of dreams could be scientifically
studied?
Do dreams have universal
meanings?
• Freud says
Do people dream in color?
• People do dream in color; most do not realize it,
however
• If you are more noticeable and appreciative of
colors when awake, it’s easier to notice color in
dreams