Hayden Benson
PSY 1010
Lab 1
SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF THIS
When reviewing what I read in the article, Hobson and McCarley believe that “dream
images arise randomly from neurons that fire in these various regions” (cortex, limbic system).
They go along to say they think the sleeping brain is doing what the waking brain is all the time;
trying to make sense of it all. If I’m receiving this information correctly I would assume they are
basically saying these impulses that are shot into the various parts of the brain, are random. With
these random impulses, our logical brain just like in the awake state, is trying to put the pieces of
everything together correctly.
If I wanted to somehow put Crick’s theory (dreaming is just dispersing of the
unnecessary, or unwanted information) to the test, I would assume that the best way to do this
would be to conduct a simple survey. I don’t really see in the article, anything specific as far as
technology we could use to assist us in finding this information. So with that being said, that is
why I’ve decided to land on a survey. You could ask a large number of subjects things that they
may vividly remember about certain things, and if those things are important in their lives or not.
It would most likely be tough to form any type of fact, but with this information you could
certainly begin to support your theory or hypothesis.
With Kleitman, and Aserinsky’s tests, the two different questions that are presented to the
subjects is most definitely what accounts for the massive shift in results. The reason I believe the
subjects may have firstly stated they were not dreaming, is they were trying too hard to
remember vivid dreams. When they are then asked the question “what was going through your
head right now?”, they are not pushing the term dream into their minds, yet just explaining what
was going through their mind. Now, many people even if not completely in a deep sleep may be
able to recall thoughts that were taking place, but not necessarily dreams exactly. That may be
one of the reasons the shift was so big, and also why people reported “dream-like” experiences.
As it asks, how can we avoid leading questions; I think that is what people were hesitant about
answering yes that they were dreaming, they were led by the question. If we leave it up to them
to explain what was going on, rather than ask directly yes or no, we may find results such as
these. So I believe by letting the subject ramble, will eliminate the issue with leading questions.
I personally have had many dreams; some which I believed were touching, and very
important, and others feeling like nothing really. I feel as though I do not have a set belief of
what I think is going on during a dream, because to me they all seem like pretty reasonable
theories. I understand that there is a chemical aspect of what’s taking place during dreams, but I
also believe that there is something much deeper. I am quite lenient towards believing dreams
are apart the sub consciousness. I also find the multidimensional beings theory quite possible. I
myself have looked into it a bit, and find I have experienced a lot of the similar feelings during
dreams, and gained understanding in some fields. To conclude I must say it is quite a confusing
topic, and very hard to grasp. I do however find dreaming fascinating whether it has some
amazing, deep meaning or it is only a process of dropping unnecessary info.
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All references, and quotes are from the article which I have done this essay on.
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SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF THIS. –Klosch, Gerhard(1); Kraft, Ulrich(2)