Brain Mechanisms of Dreaming

In 1900, Sigmund Freud published his landmark book The Interpretation of Dreams, in which he claimed that dreams are meaningful psychological acts which (1) attempt to fulfil wishes arises during sleep and (2) attempt to protect sleep.

Karl Popper famously claimed that Freud’s theories were pseudoscientific, since they were unfalsifiable. However, between the 1950s and 1970s a series of neuroscientific studies were reported (using methods not previously unavailable) which seemed to falsify Freud’s theory.

These studies pivoted around the discovery of the brain mechanisms of REM sleep, which Allan Hobson described as mindless, meaningless and motivationally neutral – an automatic physiological process.

This event will focus on subsequent studies, conducted by the speaker between 1997 and 2017, which demonstrate that the brain mechanisms of dreaming are dissociable from those of REM sleep - and anything but motivationally neutral. His most recent findings (not yet published) suggest that dreams may very well serve the function of protecting sleep.