Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:13:37.588Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dreaming: The Functional State-Shift Hypothesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2018

M. Koukkou  and
D. Lehmann
D. Lehmann
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology, University Hospitals, 8091 Zürich; and Sleep and Dream Laboratory, Klinik am Zürichberg, 8032 Zürich, Switzerland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

The different brain functional states during sleep and wakefulness are associated with differences in processing strategies, memory stores, and EEG patterns. Shifts of functional state occur spontaneously or as orienting reactions to processed information, and cause the formal characteristics of dreams. Forgetting of dreams is a function of the magnitude of the difference between states during storage and recall. Based on EEG similarities between sleep stages and developmental stages, brain states during sleep in adults are proposed to correspond functionally with waking states during childhood. Repeated functional regressions occur during sleep, with access to earlier memory material and cognitive strategies unavailable during waking life, so that earlier experiences can be used for current problems. This dream work constitutes the biological significance of sleep.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 142 , Issue 3 , March 1983 , pp. 221 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adam, K. & Oswald, I. (1977) Sleep is for tissue restoration. Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London, 11, 376–88.Google ScholarPubMed
Angst, J. (1974) Genetic aspects of depression. In Factors in Depression (ed. Kline, N. S.). New York: Raven Press.Google Scholar
Antrobus, J. S. (1978) Dreaming for cognition. In The Mind in Sleep (eds. Arkin, A. M., Antrobus, J. S. and Ellman, S. J.). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Arnold, M. B. (1960) Emotion and Personality. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Barlow, J. S., Creutzfeldt, O. D., Michael, D., Houchin, J. & Epelbaum, H. (1981) Automatic adaptive segmentation of clinical EEGs. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 51, 512–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Basar, E. (1980) EEG-Brain Dynamics. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Bernstein, A. S. (1979) The orienting response as novelty and significance detector: Reply to O’Gornay. Psychophysiology, 16, 263–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bliss, D. K. (1974) Theoretical explanations of drug-dissociated behaviors. Federation Proceedings, 33, 1787–96.Google ScholarPubMed
Bloch, V., Hennevin, E. & Leconte, P. (1979) Relationship between paradoxical sleep and memory processes. In Brain Mechanisms in Memory and Learning: Front the Single Neuron to Man (ed. Brazier, M. A. B.). New York: Raven Press.Google Scholar
A., Borbely. A., Baumann, F., Brandeis, D., Strauch, F. & D., Lehmann. (1981) Sleep deprivation: Effect on sleep stages and EEG power density in man. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 51, 483–93.Google Scholar
Breger, L. (1967) Function of dreams. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 72, 1–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cartwright, R. D. (1981) The contribution of research on memory and dreaming to a twenty-four-hour model of cognitive behavior. In Sleep, Dreams and Memory (ed. Fishbein, W.). Lancaster: MTP Press.Google Scholar
Cooper, L. M. (1979) Hypnotic amnesia. In Hypnosis: Developments in Research and New Perspectives (eds. Fromm, E. and Shor, R. E.). New York: Aldine.Google Scholar
Craik, F. I. M. (1979) Human memory. Annual Review of Psychology, 30, 63–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, R. J. (1972) Pavlovian conditioning and the brain. In Inhibition and Learning (eds. Boakes, R. A. and Halliday, M. S.). London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Dumermuth, G. (1976) Elektroencephalographie im Kindesalter. Stuttgart: Thieme.Google Scholar
Dumermuth, G. & Lehmann, D. (1981) EEG power and coherence during non-REM and REM phases in humans in all-night sleep analyses. European Neurology, 20, 429–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ehrlichman, H. & Wiener, M. S. (1980) EEG asymmetry during covert mental activity. Psychophysiology, 17, 228–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Emmons, W. H. & Simon, C. W. (1956) The non-recall of material presented during sleep. American Journal of Psychology, 20, 76–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, F. J., Gustafson, L. A., N., O’Connell, D., Orne, M. T. & Shor, R. E. (1969) Sleep-induced behavioral response, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 148, 467–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Evans, F. J., Gustafson, L. A., N., O’Connell, D., Orne, M. T. & Shor, R. E. (1970) Verbally induced behavioral responses during sleep. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 150, 171–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Evans, F. J. & Kihlstrom, J. F. (1973) Posthypnotic amnesia as disrupted retrieval. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 82, 317–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Farnham-Diggory, S. (1972) The development of equivalence systems. In Informative Processing in Children (ed. Farnham-Diggory, S.). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Firth, H. (1973) Habituation during sleep. Psychophysiology, 10, 43–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fischer, R. (1971) A cartography of the ecstatic and meditative states. Science, 897–904.Google Scholar
Flavell, J. H. (1977) Cognitive Development. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Foulkes, D. (1962) Dream reports from different stages of sleep. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 65, 14–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Foulkes, D. (1966) The Psychology of Sleep. New York: Scribner.Google Scholar
Foulkes, D. (1982) Children’s Dreams: Longitudinal Studies. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1955) The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Basic Books, (Translation, original: (1960) Die Traumdeutung. Leipzig: Deuticke).Google Scholar
Galin, D. (1974) Implications for psychiatry of left and right cerebral specialization. Archives of General Psychiatry, 31, 572–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goodenough, D. R. (1978) Dream recall. In The Mind in Sleep (eds. Arkin, A. M., Antrobus, J. S. and Ellman, S. J.). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Greenberg, R. (1981) Dreams and REM sleep—An integrative approach. In Sleep, Dreams and Memory (ed. Fishbein, W.). Lancaster: MTP Press.Google Scholar
Grosser, G. & Siegal, A. (1971) Emergence of a tonicphasic model for steep and dreaming: Behavioral and physiological observations. Psychological Bulletin, 20, 60–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gücer, G. (1979) The effect of sleep upon the transmission of afferent activity in the somatic afferent system. Experimental Brain Research, 34, 287–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hartmann, E. (1976) The Functions of Sleep. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Hebb, D. O. (1961) Organization of Behavior. New York: Science Edition.Google Scholar
Hetherington, E. M. & McIntare, T. W. (1975) Developmental Psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 26, 97–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobson, J. A. & McCarley, R. W. (1977) The brain as a dream state generator: An activation-synthesis hypothesis of the dream process. American Journal of Psychiatry, 134, 1335–48.Google ScholarPubMed
Horn, G. (1969) Novelty, Attention and Habituation. In Attention in Neurophysiology (eds. Evans, R. C. and Mulholland, T. B.). London: Butterworth.Google Scholar
Itil, T. M., Shapiro, D. M., Herrmann, W. M., Schulz, W. & Morgan, V. (1979) HZI systems for EEG parametrization and classification of psychotropic drugs. Pharmacopsychiatrie und Neuropsychopharmakologie, 12, 4–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jacobson, A., Kales, A., Lehmann, D. & Zweitzig, J. (1965) Somnambulism: All night electroencephalographic studies. Science, 148, 975–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Katada, A., Ozaki, H., Suzuki, H. & Suhara, K. (1981) Developmental characteristics of normal and mentally retarded children’s EEG. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 52, 192–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keesey, U. T. & Nichols, D. J. (1969) Changes induced in stabilized image visibility by experimental alteration of ongoing EEG. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 27, 248–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koukkou, M. (1980) EEG reactivity in acute schizophrenics reflects deviant (ectropic) state changes during information processing. In Functional States of the Brain: Their Determinants (eds. Koukkou, M., Lehmann, D. and August, J.). Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Koukkou, M. (1981) EEG and behavioral differences between first acute schizophrenic episode and remission. In Advances in Biological Psychiatry, Vol 6 (eds. Mendlewicz, J. and von Praag, H. M.). Basel: Karger.Google Scholar
Koukkou, M., Dittrich, A. & Lehmann, D. (1975) Hypnagogic experiences and EEG: Assessment by post-awakening questionnaire. Sleep Research, 4, 169.Google Scholar
Koukkou, M. & Lehmann, D. (1968) EEG and memory storage in sleep experiments with humans. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 25, 455–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koukkou, M. & Lehmann, D. (1976) Human EEG spectra before and during cannabis hallucinations. Biological Psychiatry, 11, 663–77.Google ScholarPubMed
Koukkou, M. & Lehmann, D. (1980) Psychophysiologie des Träumens und der Neurosentherapie: Das Zustands-Wechsel Modell. Fortschritte der Neurologie und Psychiatrie, 48, 324–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koukkou, M. & Andreae, A. (1981) Information processing and hemispheric electrical states: Studies with normals, acute schizophrenics and neurotics. In Biological Psychiatry 1981 (eds. Perris, C., Struwe, G. and Jansson, B.). Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Koukkou, M. & Andreae, A. A psychophysiological model of dreaming with implications for the therapeutic effect of dream interpretation. In Proceedings of the First European Conference of Psychotherapy Research, Vol. 2 (eds. W. R. Minsel and W. Herff). Frankfurt: P. D. Lang. (In press).Google Scholar
Koulack, D. (1969) Effects of somatosensory stimulation on dream content. Archives of General Psychiatry, 20, 718–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koulack, D. & Goodenough, D. R. (1976) Dream recall and dream recall failure: An arousal-retrieval model. Psychological Bulletin, 83, 975–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhlo, W. & Lehmann, D. (1964) Das Einschlaferleben und seine neurophysiologischen Korrelate. Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, 205, 687–716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehmann, D., Beeler, G. W. & Fender, D. H. (1965) Changes in patterns of the human electroencephalogram during fluctuations of perceptions of stabilized retinal images. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 19, 336–43,CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lehmann, D., Dumerluth, G. & Meier, C. A. (1979) High interhemispheric EEG coherence during REM periods in all-night analysis of human EEG. Sleep Research, 8, 28.Google Scholar
Lehmann, D. & Koukkou, M. (1974) Computer analysis of EEG wakefulness-sleep patterns during learning of novel and familiar sentences. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 37, 73–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lehmann, D. & Koukkou, M. (1980) Classes of spontaneous, private experiences, and human background EEG. In Event-related Rhythmic Cortical Activities; Behavioral Correlates (eds. Pfurtscheller, G., Buser, P., Lopez da Silva, F., and Petsche, H. H.). Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Lehmann, D., Dumermuth, G., Lange, B. & Meier, C. A. (1981a) Dream recall related to EEG spectral power during REM periods. Sleep Research, 10 (in press).Google Scholar
Lehmann, D., Koukkou, M. & Andreae, A. (1981b) Classes of day-dream day-dream mentation and EEG power spectra. Sleep Research, 10, 152.Google Scholar
H., Lopez da Silva, F., Hoeks, A., Smits, H. & Zetterberg, L. H. (1974) Model of brain rhythmic activity. Kybernetic, 15, 27–37.Google Scholar
Lynn, R. (1966) Attention, arousal and the orienting reaction. International Series of Monographs in Experimental Psychology, Vol. III. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Mandler, G. (1975) Mind and Emotion. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Matousek, M. & Petersen, I. (1973) Frequency analysis of the EEG in normal children and adolescents. In Automation of Clinical Electroencephalography (eds. Kellaway, P. and Petersén, I.). New York: Raven Press.Google Scholar
McCarley, R. W. & Hobson, J. A. (1977) The neurobiological origins of psychoanalytic dream theory. American Journal of Psychiatry, 134, 1211–21.Google ScholarPubMed
McDonald, D. G., Schicht, W. W., Frazier, R. E., Shollenberger, H. D. & Edwards, D. J. (1975) Studies of information processing in sleep. Psychphysiology, 12, 624–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Neisser, U. (1967) Cognitive Psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.Google Scholar
Neisser, U. (1976) Cognition and Reality. San Francisco: Freeman.Google Scholar
Nelson, K. (1974) Concept, word, and sentence: Interrelations in acquisition and development. Psychological Review, 81, 267–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norman, D. A. (1976) Memory and attention. An introduction to human information processing (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Öhman, A. (1979) The orienting response, attention and learning: An information-processing perspective. In The Orienting Reflex in Humans (eds. Kimmel, H. D., van Olst, E. H. and Orlebeke, J. F.). Hillsdale, New Jersey. Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Oltman, P. K., Goodenough, D. R., Koulack, D., Maclin, E., Schroeder, H. R. & Flannagan, M. J., (1977) Short-term memory during stage-2 sleep. Psychophysiology, 14, 439–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oswald, I. (1962) Sleeping and Waking. Amsterdam: Elsevier.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oswald, I., Taylor, A. M. & Treisman, M. (1960) Discrimination responses to stimulation during human sleep. Brain, 83, 440–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Overton, D. A. (1961) Discriminative behavior based on the presence or absence of drug effects. American Journal of Psychology, 16, 453–4.Google Scholar
Overton, D. A. (1973) State dependent retention of learned responses produced by drugs. In Sleep (eds. Koella, W. P. and Levin, P.). Basel: Karger.Google Scholar
Overton, D. A. (1978) Major theories of slate dependent learning. In Drug-Discrimination and State Dependent Learning (eds. Ho, B. T., Richards, D. W. and Chute, D. L.). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Overton, D. A. (1979) Drug discrimination training with progressively lowered doses. Science, 205, 720–1.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Palombo, S. R. (1978) Dreaming and Memory. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Pearlman, C. A. (1970) The adaptive function of dreaming. International Psychiatry Clinics, 7, 329–34.Google ScholarPubMed
Piaget, J. (1962) Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood. London: Routledge and Kegan.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. & Inhelder, B. (1969) The Psychology of the Child. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
T., Pivik. K. (1978) Tonic states and phasic events in relation to sleep mentation. In The Mind in Sleep (eds. Arkin, A., Antrobus, J. S. and Ellman, S. J.). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Pompeiano, O. (1967) The neurophysiological mechanisms of the postural and motor events during desynchronized sleep. Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease, Research Publications, 45, 351–423.Google Scholar
Pribram, K. H. (1971) Languages of the Brain, Experimental Paradoxes and Principles in Neurophysiology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Pribram, K. H. (1976) Exeutive functions of the frontal lobes. In Mechanisms in Transmission of Signals for Conscious Behaviour (ed. Desiraju, T.). Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Rechtschaffen, A. (1980) The single-mindedness and isolating of dreams. Sleep, 1, 97–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rechtschaffen, A. & Foulkes, D. (1965) Effect of visual stimuli on dream content. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 20, 1149–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reese, H. W. (1976) The development of memory: Life-span perspectives. In Advances in Child Development and Behavior (ed. Reese, H. W.). New York: Academic press.Google Scholar
Reus, V. T., Weingartner, H. & Post, R. M. (1979) Clinical implications of state-dependent learning. American Journal of Psychiatry, 136, 927–31.Google ScholarPubMed
Rosvold, H. E. (1956) A continuous performance test of brain damage. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 20, 343–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samson-Dollfus, D. & Goldberg, P. (1979) Electroencephalographic quantification of time domain analysis in normal 5–7 year-old children. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 46, 147–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, D. G., Weinstein, L. N. & Arkin, A. M. (1978) Qualitative aspects of sleep mentation. In The Mind in Sleep (eds. Arkin, A. M., Antrobus, J. S. and Ellman, S. J.). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Shevrin, H. & Dickman, S. (1980) The psychological unconscious. American Psychologist, 35, 421–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, A. (1967) Dreaming and the physiology of sleep. Experimental Neurology, 19, 56–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shiffrin, R. M. & Schneider, W. (1977) Controlled and automatic human information processing: IL Perceptual learning, automatic attending, and a general theory. Psychological Review, 84, 127–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sitaram, N., Wyatt, R. J., Dawson, S. & Gillin, J. C. (1976) REM sleep induction by physostigmine infusion during sleep. Science, 191, 1281–3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sokolov, E. N. (1963) Higher nervous functions: The orienting reflex. Annual Review of Physiology, 25, 545–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Strauch, I. (1969) Psychological aspects of dream recall. Paper presented at the Symposium on Sleep and Dreaming, 19th International Congress of Psychology, London, July/August 1969.Google Scholar
Strauch, I. (1981) Neue Ergebnisse der experimentellen Traumforschung. In Klinische Psychologie: Trends in Forschung und Praxis, Vol. 4 (eds. Baumnn, U., Berbalk, H. and Seidenstücker, G.). Bern: Huber.Google Scholar
Stroebel, C. (1967) Behavioral aspects of circadian rhythms. In Comparative Psychopathology (eds. Zubin, J. and Hunt, H. F.). New York: Grune and Stratton.Google Scholar
Tauber, E. S. (1974) Phylogeny of sleep. In Advances in Sleep Research, Vol. I (ed. Weitzman, E. D.). New York: Spectrum.Google Scholar
Vaughan, H. G. (1975) Electrophysiologic analysis of regional cortical maturation. Biological Psychiatry, 10, 513–26.Google ScholarPubMed
Velden, M. (1978) Some necessary revisions of the neuronal model concept of the orienting response. Psychophysiology, 15, 181–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vogel, G. W., Barrowclough, B. & Giesler, D. D. (1972) Limited discriminality of REM and sleep onset reports and its psychiatric implications. Archives of General Psychiatry, 26, 449–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vogel, G. W., Barrowclough, B. & Giesler, D. D. (1978) Sleep-onset mentation. In The Mind in Sleep (eds. Arkin, A. M., Antrobus, J. S. and Ellman, S. J.). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Webb, W. B. & Cartwright, R. D. (1978) Sleep and dreams. Annual Review of Psychology, 29, 223–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weingartner, H. (1978) State dependent learning. In Drug-Discrimination and State Dependent Learning (eds. Ho, B. T., Richards, D. W. and Chute, D. L.). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Williams, R. L., Agnew, H. W. & Webb, W. B. (1964) Sleep patterns in young adults: An EEG study. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 17, 376–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, H. L. (1973) Information processing during sleep. In Sleep (eds. Koella, W. P. and Levin, P.). Basel: Karger.Google ScholarPubMed
Wolman, B. B. (ed.) (1979) Handbook of Dreams. New York: Van Nostrand.Google Scholar
Woodworth, R. S. & Schlossberg, H. (1954) Experimental Psychology. New York: Holt.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, W. B. (1970) Sleep mentation and auditory awakening thresholds. Psychophysiology, 6, 540–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koukkou, M., M.D., Research Department, University Hospital of Psychiatry, 8029 Zürich, Switzerland Google Scholar
Lehmann, D., M.D., Professor of Neurology and Clinical Neurophysiology, Department of Neurology, University Hospitals, 8091 Zürich; and Sleep and Dream Laboratory, Klinik am Zürichberg, 8032 Zürich, Switzerland Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.