Abstract
Sleep and dreaming are overlapping and inseparable phenomena, but they have not often been addressed simultaneously in the scientific sleep research literature. This chapter describes dream research with a focus on objective dream content analysis and on neurocognitive theory analysis. Special emphasis is placed on connecting dream content analysis with current and advanced sleep research methodologies. This chapter presents some of the traditional and current interventions on dreaming during the periods of REM and NREM sleep, namely the behavioral and physical interventions. A more holistic view is provided through the description of the relationship of REM–NREM sleep and dreaming neurophysiology with the autonomous nervous system. A survey of current dream therapy usage is discussed in the light of the holistic approach provided, with the aim of showing pathways for future applications.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
When the neuron’s membrane potential becomes more positive, the neuron is said to depolarize. This brings the membrane potential closer to the threshold for the cell to produce an action potential, and thus to conduct.
- 2.
Hyperpolarization is the opposite process to depolarization: the membrane potential becomes more negative, increasing its distance to the necessary threshold for producing an action potential.
- 3.
Activity in neurons that has acetylcholine as its neurotransmitter is called cholinergic activity. Cholinesterase is a group of enzymes responsible for the decrease in the acetylcholine levels. If these enzymes’ action is inhibited, in this case by physostigmine, the levels of acetylcholine and the activity in the cholinergic neurons are maintained.
References
Ako M, Kawara T, Uchida S, Miyazaki S, Nishihara K, Mukai J, Hirao K, Ako J, Okubo Y (2003) Correlation between electroencephalography and heart rate variability during sleep. Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 57:59–65
Aserinsky E, Kleitman N (1953) Regularly occurring periods of eye motility, and concomitant phenomena, during sleep. Science 118:273–274
Avila-White D, Schneider A, Domhoff GW (1999) The most recent dreams of 12–13 year-old boys and girls: a methodological contribution to the study of dream content in teenagers. Dreaming 9:163–171
Battaglia FP, Sutherland GR, McNaughton BL (2004) Hippocampal sharp wave bursts coincide with neocortical “up-state” transitions. Learn Mem 11:697–704
Bechara A, Tranel D, Damasio H, Adolphs R, Rockland C, Damasio AR (1995) Double dissociation of conditioning and declarative knowledge relative to the amygdala and hippocampus in humans. Science 269:1115–1118
Coenen AM (1998) Neuronal phenomena associated with vigilance and consciousness: from cellular mechanisms to electroencephalographic patterns. Conscious Cogn 7:42–53
Dang-Vu TT, Desseilles M, Albouy G, Darsaud A, Gais S, Rauchs G, Schabus M, Sterpenich V, Vandewalle G, Schwartz S, Maquet P (2005) Dreaming: a neuroimaging view. Swiss Arch Neurol Psychiatry 156(8):415–425
Domhoff GW (1999a) Drawing theoretical implications from descriptive empirical findings on dream content. Dreaming 9:201–210
Domhoff GW (1999b) New directions in the study of dream content using the Hall and Van de Castle coding system. Dreaming 9:115–137
Domhoff GW (2001) A new neurocognitive theory of dreams. Dreaming 11:13–33
Domhoff GW (2005) Refocusing the neurocognitive approach to dreams: a critique of the hobson versus solms debate. Dreaming 15:3–20
Domhoff GW, Schneider A (1998) New rationales and methods for quantitative dream research outside the laboratory. Sleep 21:398–404
Dudai Y (2004) The neurobiology of consolidations, or, how stable is the engram? Annu Rev Psychol 55:51–86
Ehrhart J, Toussaint M, Simon C, Gronfier C, Luthringer R, Brandenberger G (2000) Alpha activity and cardiac correlates: three types of relationships during nocturnal sleep. Clin Neurophysiol 111:940–946
Eichenbaum H (2001) The hippocampus and declarative memory: cognitive mechanisms and neural codes. Behav Brain Res 127:199–207
Fischer S, Hallschmid M, Elsner AL, Born J (2002) Sleep forms memory for finger skills. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 99:11987–11991
Fosse MJ, Fosse R, Hobson JA, Stickgold RJ (2003) Dreaming and episodic memory: a functional dissociation? J Cogn Neurosci 15:1–9
Foulkes D (1979) Home and laboratory dreams: four empirical studies and a conceptual reevaluation. Sleep 2:233–251
Foulkes D, Rechtschaffen A (1964) Presleep determinants of dream content: effect of two films. Percept Mot Skills 19:983–1005
Gais S, Born J (2004a) Low acetylcholine during slow-wave sleep is critical for declarative memory consolidation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101:2140–2144
Gais S, Born J (2004b) Multiple processes strengthen memory during sleep. Psychol Belg 44:105–120
Grassberger P, Procaccia I (1983) Measuring the strangeness of strange attractors. Phys D 9:189–208
Herbert JD, Gaudiano BA (2001) The search for the holy grail: heart rate variability and thought field therapy. J Clin Psychol 57:1207–1214
Hobson JA, McCarley RW (1977) The brain as a dream state generator: an activation-synthesis hypothesis of the dream process. Am J Psychiatry 134:1335–1348
Hobson JA, Stickgold R, Pace-Schott EF (1998) The neuropsychology of REM sleep dreaming. Neuroreport 9:R1–R14
Hobson JA, Pace-Schott EF, Stickgold R (2000) Dreaming and the brain: toward a cognitive neuroscience of conscious states. Behav Brain Sci 23(6):793–842; discussion 904-1121. Review. Erratum in: Behav Brain Sci 2001 Jun;24(3):575. [PMID: 11515143]
Ji DY, Wilson MA (2007) Coordinated memory replay in the visual cortex and hippocampus during sleep. Nat Neurosci 10:100–107
Kuriyama K, Stickgold R, Walker MP (2004) Sleep-dependent learning and motor-skill complexity. Learn Mem 11:705–713
Kuriyama K, Mishima K, Suzuki H, Aritake S, Uchiyama M (2008) Sleep accelerates the improvement in working memory performance. J Neurosci 28:10145–10150
Lamberts J, van den Broek PLC, Bener L, van Egmond J, Dirksen R, Coenen AML (2000) Correlation dimension of the human electroencephalogram corresponds with cognitive load. Neuropsychobiology 41:149–153
Manis G, Nikolopoulos S, Alexandridi A, Davos C (2007) Assessment of the classification capability of prediction and approximation methods for HRV analysis. Comput Biol Med 37:642–654
Maquet P, Laureys S, Peigneux P, Fuchs S, Petiau C, Phillips C et al (2000) Experience-dependent changes in cerebral activation during human REM sleep. Nat Neurosci 3(8):831–836
Morris RGM (2006) Elements of a neurobiological theory of hippocampal function: the role of synaptic plasticity, synaptic tagging and schemas. Eur J Neurosci 23:2829–2846
Nielsen TA (2000) A review of mentation in REM and NREM sleep: “covert” REM sleep as a possible reconciliation of two opposing models. Behav Brain Sci 23:851–866
Paller KA, Voss JL (2004) Memory reactivation and consolidation during sleep. Learn Mem 11:664–670
Payne JD, Schacter DL, Propper RE, Huang LW, Wamsley EJ, Tucker MA, Walker MP, Stickgold R (2009) The role of sleep in false memory formation. Neurobiol Learn Mem 92(3):327–334
Peigneux P, Laureys S, Fuchs S, Collette F, Perrin F, Reggers J, Phillips C, Degueldre C, Del Fiore G, Aerts J, Luxen A, Maquet P (2004) Are spatial memories strengthened in the human hippocampus during slow wave sleep? Neuron 44:535–545
Rasch B, Born J (2007) Maintaining memories by reactivation. Curr Opin Neurobiol 17:698–703
Rasch BH, Born J, Gais S (2006) Combined blockade of cholinergic receptors shifts the brain from stimulus encoding to memory consolidation. J Cogn Neurosci 18:793–802
Rasch B, Buechel C, Gais S, Born J (2007) Odor cues during slow-wave sleep prompt declarative memory consolidation. Science 315:1426–1429
Rittenhouse CD, Stickgold R, Hobson JA (1994) Constraint on the transformation of characters, objects, and settings in dream reports. Conscious Cogn 3:100–113
Schenck CH, Bundlie SR, Ettinger MG, Mahowald MW (1986) Chronic behavioral disorders of human REM-sleep: a new category of parasomnia. Sleep 9:293–308
Steriade M, Mccormick DA, Sejnowski TJ (1993) Thalamocortical oscillations in the sleeping and aroused brain. Science 262:679–685
Sterpenich V, Albouy G, Darsaud A, Schmidt C, Vandewalle G, Vu TTD, Desseilles M, Phillips C, Degueldre C, Balteau E, Collette F, Luxen A, Maquet P (2009) Sleep promotes the neural reorganization of remote emotional memory. J Neurosci 29:5143–5152
Stickgold R, Hobson JA, Fosse R, Fosse M (2001) Sleep, learning, and dreams: off-line memory reprocessing. Science 294:1052–1057
Strauch I, Meier B, Foulkes D (1996) In search of dreams: results of experimental dream research. State University of New York Press, New York
Vertes RP (2004) Memory consolidation in sleep: dream or reality. Neuron 44:135–148
Wagner U, Gais S, Haider H, Verleger R, Born J (2004) Sleep inspires insight. Nature 427:352–355
Walker MP, Stickgold R (2005) It’s practice, with sleep, that makes perfect: implications of sleep-dependent learning and plasticity for skill performance. Clin Sports Med 24:301–317, ix
Walker MP, Stickgold R (2006) Sleep, memory, and plasticity. Annu Rev Psychol 57:139–166
Walker MP, Brakefield T, Morgan A, Hobson JA, Stickgold R (2002) Practice with sleep makes perfect: sleep-dependent motor skill learning. Neuron 35:205–211
Weisz R, Foulkes D (1970) Home and laboratory dreams collected under uniform sampling conditions. Psychophysiology 6:588–596
Zhuang Z, Gao X, Gao S (2005) The relationship of HRV to sleep EEG and sleep rhythm. Int J Neurosci 115:315–327
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
da Rosa, A.C., Rodrigues, J.P.M. (2011). Dream Therapy: Correlation of Dream Contents with Encephalographic and Cardiovascular Activations. In: Cvetkovic, D., Cosic, I. (eds) States of Consciousness. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18047-7_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18047-7_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-18046-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-18047-7
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)