Dreaming, Psychoanalysis, and Neurobiology

Abstract

Psychoanalysis and neurobiology are complementary approaches to the study of dreaming that have demonstrated significant convergences of findings. Hobson's tendentious effort to utilize neurobiology to disprove psychoanalysis is largely unsupported. The perspective of Barbara Jones, like Hobson a central contributor to neurobiology, illustrates an open and judicious approach. Solms has made a major contribution in demonstrating and elucidating the crucial role of the forebrain in dreaming. However, his model detaches dreaming from REM sleep and the brain stem to a degree that is unwarranted and limiting. A number of lines of evidence for a close relationship between dreaming and REM sleep, and for the relevance of the brain stem in dreaming, are delineated. Finally, many of the more specific and subtle aspects of the psychoanalytic theory of dreaming are seen as beyond the present reach of neurobiology. This is not a basis for discarding these elements, some of which have already found experimental and clinical support.

Keywords:

• psychoanalysis
• neurobiology
• dreaming
• REM sleep
• brain stem
• muscle atonia
• instinctual drive

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alan S. Eiser

Alan S. Eiser, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a practice in psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy. He has an additional specialization in sleep and sleep disorders and is board certified by the American Board of Sleep Medicine. He is on the faculty of the University of Michigan Sleep Disorders Center, Department of Neurology, where he teaches in the Sleep Medicine Fellowship Program, and has an appointment in the Department of Psychiatry, where he provides supervision to residents learning psychodynamic psychotherapy. Recent publications and presentations have focused on the integration of psychoanalytic and sleep research findings on dreaming, and on sleep disorders involving complex behavior arising during sleep, in particular the widely unrecognized psychological factors in some of those disorders.