梦的理论及挑战

本文综述了近30年占主导地位的梦的几个理论假设及遇到的挑战。     

The Dream of Psychoanalysis: Irma's Dream, Some Commentaries, and a Contemplation of its Navel

Freud's dream of 1895, 'Irma's Dream', stands at the beginning of psychoanalytic theory, but Freud's analysis only glancingly refers to the 'unknown' elements that are found at 'the navel of the dream'. The imagery of the dream suggests this phrasing is significant and that unconscious elements refer to the oracle at Delphi. At Delphi a chthonic goddess was supplanted by a patriarchy; the 'unknown' at the centre of the dream is the archaic mother, repressed by Freud and by the patriarchal character of early psychoanalytic theory.     

Brainformatics:Concept,Scope and Challenge

Brain science is a well-recognized frontier science with extensive and profound contents. According to the spatial scales of the contents involved,multiple sub-disciplines have been setup,such as cellular neurobiology,molecular neurobiology,and there are also some sub-disciplines defined according to the main tools adopted,such as computational neuroscience,electroencephalography. This paper points out that the brain research driven by information science is forming a new disciplinebrainformaticsa very vigor and vitality one,withbrain information acquisition,brain information decodingandbrain information applicationsas the main contents.This paper explains the concept,scope and challenge of brainformatics with some concrete examples.     

The Black Executive: A Challenge for Psychiatry

The task of developing a body of knowledge about specific problems, both intrapsychic and psychosocial, which influence a black executive''s maturation, must be initiated. There is currently a definite interest, among black executives, in obtaining access to appropriate psychotherapeutic intervention. A psychobiographical approach facilitates development of a construct for analysis of, and insight into, transference phenomena that translate into organization based behavioral responses to the black executive. Analysis of frequently encountered organizational ethos and also stimulus-response mechanisms in the black executive lead to formulation of viable conclusions for resolution of conflict. Modes of recognition of specific conflict with authority in the black executive psychotherapy patient include examination of (1) defense mechanisms frequently encountered in response to authority conflicts, (2) stated intentions of the patient in relation to career development, and (3) the affective stance of the patient. Psychobiographical issues very often have a direct developmental influence on black familial conceptualizations of authority. Childrearing practices and parentally based ego ideals and other aspects of development are linked to analogues in adult human behavior frequently observed among black executives. Suggestions for therapeutic directions involve affective and thematic strategies, all contingent upon a productive, informed, therapeutic effort. The therapeutic relationship is a most important element in the treatment strategy with the black executive.     

Symposium: Dream research methodology: The quest for dream sources

Within a Human Information Processing (HIP) framework, dreaming can be subdivided into three main components: Input, Processing and Output. Until recently, only the Output has been extensively studied due to its relatively easy accessibility in the form of dream reports. Much less is known about the other two components. A method is presented by which one can get information on the nature of the input component to dream processing. In this method the subjects are requested to identify the memory sources of their dreams, collected upon experimental awakenings. The materials thus obtained are then classified into categories derived from Tulving's distinction between Episodic and Semantic memory. Several aspects, including interviewing and scoring procedures, had to be specified in order to use the method, which was applied in a series of studies. The aim was to clarify the similarities as well as the differences between REM and NREM dreams. The main results give further support to the hypothesis of the existence of a unique dream production system that operates at different levels of engagement during the various sleep phases.     

The Courage to Dream: A Beginning Psychotherapist Encounters Bion

In this paper, a psychotherapy student is given an assignment to analyse one of her own dreams using Freudian dream theory. She struggles to engage with the task until she discovers the ideas of Wilfred Bion. The notions of alpha function and beta function offer a framework for the student to understand why she has had so much difficulty in staying connected to her dreams or delineating in a culturally appropriate way between what is reality and what is her dreamworld. The student questions whether her early life, taking place within the political and ideological conflict of apartheid-era South Africa, may have influenced her ability to stay in reality, and wonders about her own ability to contain the affects of her children. She presents a vignette of a dream of her own in which she has to free a naked baby who is stuck in a wall in a bathroom. The writer and her therapist construct the dream as aligning with her own psychoanalytic work to integrate the very young part of herself. In coming to this understanding with the ideas of Bion, the student experiences her own reality in a more vivid and present way.     

Dream sources, associative mechanisms, and temporal dimension

Using the technique of free association in an experimental setting, this author and colleagues previously found differences in the quality of memory traces involved in the production of REM and sleep onset (SO) dreams. The present study aims to answer two questions raised by those results: (a) Must the associative session be temporally contiguous to the dream production to gain access to the sources of the dream? (b) Are the differences between SO and REM associations due only to differences in structure and content of the two types of dream reports? Free associations with the same dream collected immediately after an experimental awakening were compared with those recalled 2 months later. A first group of results supports the hypothesis that free associations are sensitive to the proximity to the amount of dream production. A second group shows that the differences between SO and REM dreams noted in the previous research are not attributable to differences in formal characteristics of the report.