Behind the Magic and Mystery of Dreams

The Sleeping Gypsy

Source: Henry Rousseau/

I have been fascinated by dreams ever since I read Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams when I was 13. Of course, in Freud’s time, psychiatrists had to rely on case histories and abstract discussions. Today, dreams, sleep, and memory are the subject of scientific research and evidence-based inquiry. These studies tend to relegate dreams to be byproducts of neurological processes underlying sleep or relate dreams to daily events. Most academics reject dreams as what I would call messengers from the unconscious and generally dismiss the very existence of the unconscious.

Neuroscientists who have focused on studying the physiological origin and function of dreams all agree that dreaming is strongly linked to rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. REM sleep plays a crucial role in the consolidation of emotional memories and the regulation of emotions. Memory consolidation during sleep involves integrating new information into existing information, allowing the essence of experiences to be distilled.

While dream elements often seem to stem from memories of waking experiences, one study of 364 dream elements from 299 dream reports identified only 1 to 2 percent of dream elements reflected aspects of the waking experience.

Three main theories dominate the field of the neuroscientific view:

The activation-synthesis model proposed by Allan Hobson, professor of psychiatry at Harvard, hypothesized that during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, neural activity in the pons (brainstem) activates the brain, particularly the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and visual cortex, to generate information.

Hobson claimed that the dream narrative is haphazard and based on a design error and functional imbalance. In the REM state, without external stimuli, internally created inputs randomly activate sensorimotor information, and the passive synthesis of this information (perceptual, conceptual, and emotional) creates dreams.

I have two objections to this theory. Firstly, if dreams were truly the product of random cortical activity, the signals would be all jumbled up and unlikely to produce a cogent narrative.

Secondly, notice the word “randomly.” In my experience, nothing in the body occurs randomly. So, when I read that inputs randomly activate anything in the body, my inner skeptic sounds the alarm. And so should yours.

The part of this theory that makes sense to me is that during REM sleep, sensory inputs and motor outputs are blocked, and the visual cortex is activated so that the sleeper can dream in black or white or technicolor with little or no movement.

While local stimulation of the forebrain causes dreaming, lesions in the forebrain can eliminate dreams even though these lesions do not impact REM sleep. These findings support the role of the forebrain in dreaming.

Another widely accepted theory of dream generation posits that dreaming is controlled by dopaminergic forebrain mechanisms. Activation of the dopaminergic system may also contribute to creativity and problem-solving. Therefore, it is not surprising that dreaming often leads the dreamer to out-of-the-box solutions to problems. For instance, Kekulé's dream of "whirling snakes" is said to have inspired his discovery of the design of the benzene ring, and Mendeleev reportedly had a dream that revealed the arrangement of the periodic table of elements. Creative problem-solving dreams almost always happen after the individual has spent significant time working on the topic in an awake state. Such dreams typically solve one specific step in a multi-phase process.

A third dream hypothesis is the threat simulation hypothesis which suggests that dreams prepare you to meet dangerous situations. Animals and violent men appear as threats in dreams because they did so for early humans.

While none of the three theories fully explain sleep, memories, and dreams, each has made important contributions to the field.

Where does Freud fit in today? In my opinion, and that of many insight-oriented therapists, one of Freud’s singular discoveries is as relevant today as it was when first expounded, namely that dreams stem from intricate psychological processes within the unconscious mind, which are distinct from the thoughts, emotions, and memories of our conscious awareness.

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Freud's theory suggested that dreams contain hidden meanings often expressed in metaphors. M. Blair Evans held that “the language of inner experience and self-discovery is largely metaphorical.” George Lakoff, of the University of California-Berkeley argues that metaphors play a crucial role in how humans understand the world and that cognition during dreaming involves mappings of abstract ideas onto physical experiences. One example is “Love is a journey." In expressions like "the relationship is running into trouble," "the relationship is on the rocks," and "we must go our separate ways," romantic relationships are described using terms related to physical movement.

The meaning and purpose of dreams have been debated from time immemorial. And the debate continues. There are many neuroscientists and psychologists who believe that dreams offer no insightful information to the dreamer or to psychotherapists who treat that person.

Personally, having fought the good fight in the trenches of clinical psychiatry for over half a century, I have come to appreciate the salutary effect dream work can have with patients who are interested in exploring the root causes of their problems (not ”challenges,” I hate that term) rather than achieving a superficial relief of symptoms. In other words, talk therapy instead of drug therapy, though the two are not mutually exclusive.

I believe that dreams invite us to access parts of our hidden selves, face some hard truths, learn to change or accept these, and eventually integrate them into our conscious self. I also believe that we should listen carefully to our dreams. In my experience, on occasion, the unconscious self has proven to be wiser than the conscious self.

This article is an abridged version of a post originally published on Sept. 27, 2024, in The Globe and Mail.