Mourning Bit by Bit

In this piece I describe the process of mourning my mother since her death in 2001, via my short animated documentary ‘Oneironauts – the Dream Travellers’ (2011) and my more recent experiences as the mother of a young baby. I consider my experience in the context of Freud's ‘Mourning and Melancholia’.     

HOME AND LABORATORY DREAMS COLLECTED UNDER UNIFORM SAMPLING CONDITIONS

Twelve young-adult males spent two nonconsecutive nights at the laboratory (L) and two at home (H), six in the order LHHL and six in the order HLLH. Dreams were collected under uniform sampling conditions in both settings: S was awakened by an alarm clock at 6:30 a.m. and reported any dreams he could remember into a tape recorder. Twenty dream reports were collected in the laboratory, and 18 at home. Dream reports were rated by two judges on the six dimensions isolated by Hauri et al.'s factor analysis of dream ratings. Results showed no significant differences between home and laboratory in percentage of recall, median dream word counts, and dream ratings for Vivid Fantasy, Unpleasantness, Active Participation, and Sex. Home dreams were judged to contain more Verbal Aggression (p < .02) and Physical Aggression (p < .08). It was concluded that, although impulse-related content may be more likely to occur in home dreams than in laboratory dreams, the basic dream processes of imagination, distortion, dramatization, etc., are the same in both settings.     

Dreams and hallucinations: A common neurochemical mechanism mediating their phenomenological similarities

Dreams and drug-induced hallucinations have several phenomenological similarities, especially with respect to their visual and emotive components. This similarity is hypothesized to be due to a neurochemical mechanism which is common to both states: the inactivation of the brain serotonin system. This is supported by electrophysiological data indicating that the activity of serotonin-containing neurons is depressed during both dreaming (in REM and non-REM sleep) and in response to hallucinogenic drugs. Further support for the hypothesis derives from neuropharmacological data demonstrating that decreases in synaptic serotonin are associated with increased hallucinatory-like behavior or hallucinatory experience during waking, and increased duration of REM periods during sleep. Reciprocally, increases in synaptic serotonin are associated with decreased hallucinatory-like behavior or hallucinatory experience, and with decreased REM sleep time and dream reports. Neuroanatomical evidence that serotonin is heavily concentrated in brain areas which mediate visual perception and emotive experience is consonant with the strong visual and emotive components of dreams and hallucinations. When these data are considered in conjunction with the exclusively inhibitory synaptic action of serotonin in the forebrain, an explicit hypothesis can be formulated: A cessation, or decrease, in the discharge rate of serotonin-containing neurons, either spontaneously during REM and non-REM sleep, or in response to drugs such as LSD, precipitates, through disinhibition, a dramatic increase in activity of their target neurons in brain areas mediating visual sensation and emotional experience. These latter neural events are a primary physiological substrate for the emergence of strong sensory and emotive processes during dreams and drug-induced hallucinations.     

The dream: a psychodynamically informative instrument.

The dream is a unique psychodynamically informative instrument for evaluating the subjective correlates of brain activity during REM sleep. These include feelings, percepts, memories, wishes, fantasies, impulses, conflicts, and defenses, as well as images of self and others. Dream analysis can be used in a variety of clinical settings to assist in diagnostic assessment, psychodynamic formulation, evaluation of clinical change, and the management of medically ill patients. Dreams may serve as the initial indicators of transference, resistance, impending crisis, acting-out, conflict resolution, and decision-making. A clinically functional categorization of dreams can facilitate an understanding of psychopathology, psychodynamics, personality structure, and various components of the psychotherapeutic process. Examples of different types of dreams are provided to illustrate their relevance and use in various clinical situations.     

To sink or swim: the use of dream material in addiction treatment

An individual's dream is a unique production that offers insight into the conversation that occurs between the conscious and unconscious ‘mind’. Dreams are important as they allow insight into the transference, countertransference, dissociated aspects of the self, and the nature of the therapeutic alliance. In the treatment of addicted individuals, psychodynamically oriented addiction specialists have offered techniques and understanding in working with dream material. This paper offers the shared analysis of a dream by a patient in recovery and her therapist The dream's meaning is explored from an interpersonal perspective.     

Short-Term Memory During Stage-2 Sleep

A recently-proposed model of dream recall phenomena (Koulack & Goodenough, 1976) assumes a short-term memory store which functions during sleep, and from which either dreams or externally-delivered stimuli can be retrieved if the subject is awakened during the life of the short-term trace. To test this assumption, two experiments were designed to examine short-term memory for auditory stimuli over intervals of uninterrupted stage-2 sleep. A random series of single-digit numbers was presented at the rate of one every 30 sec throughout the night, at an intensity slightly above normal conversational levels. Subjects habituated to the sound and did not awaken spontaneously. Experimental awakenings took place either at 1 sec (Experiment 1) or at 1, 5, or 10 sec (Experiment 2) after selected target stimuli, and the subjects were asked to recall which number they had heard. Significant recall was obtained over intervals of up to 10 sec, and the likelihood of recall was inversely related to reaction times to the awakening stimulus. Repeating the target numbers at 30-sec intervals increased EEG alpha activity and K-complex amplitude, suggesting that some form of trace persists for at least 30 sec.     

EFFECTS OF A STRESSFUL PRESLEEP EXPERIENCE ON ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHRECORDED SLEEP

The effects on experimentally uninterrupted sleep of two films, one psychologically stressful and the other neutral, both seen just before bed, were studied in 12 male Ss on 2 nights according to a balanced design. EEG and electro-ocu-logram recordings were made of the first 6 hours of sleep. The stress film significantly increased the number of awakenings associated with rapid eye-movement periods (REMPs), but not that of non-REM sleep awakenings, as well as the proportion of REMPs terminated by spontaneous awakenings. It furthermore increased the frequency of REMs (REM density) during REMPs. These results suggest that the stress film produced a specific REM sleep disturbing effect via anxiety which carried over into the Ss’ sleep and dreams, and that it increased REM density secondary to drive enhancement.     

Defective inhibition of dream event memory formation: a hypothesized mechanism in the onset and progression of symptoms of schizophrenia

An average person normally spends at least 90 min to 2 h per night dreaming. Nevertheless, memories of dream events are not retrieved while awake unless the person awoke shortly after a dream. It is hypothesized here that schizophrenic delusions initially arise because a system that normally inhibits the formation of memories of dream events is defective. Therefore, memories of dream events or fragments would be occasionally made and placed in the normal memory store. The only reason that we really know anything happened to us in the past is that we have a memory of it, and having a memory of an event is sufficient to really believe it. Therefore, the schizophrenic would believe that the dream events actually happened. It is proposed that this is the basis of primary delusions. Because memories are represented by strengthened neural connections there will be an accumulation of connections that do not correspond to reality. This accumulation may account for other symptoms of schizophrenia such as thought disorder, loosening of associations, and hallucinations. The brain trying to draw conclusions from several memories may be the basis of secondary delusions. Evidence is presented for the ideas that primary delusions are due to memories of dream events, that a substance, with vasotocin-like bioactivity, is released in the brain during dreaming and inhibits memory formation, that the lateral habenula is a brain area involved in vasotocin actions and is affected by neuroleptics, and that brain mechanisms involved in vasotocin actions show pathological alterations in schizophrenia.     

Forgotten Dreams: Recalling the Patient in British Psychotherapy, 1945–60

The forgotten dream proved central to the early development of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic technique in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). However, little attention has been paid to the shifting uses of forgotten dreams within psychotherapeutic practice over the course of the twentieth century. This paper argues that post-war psychotherapists in London, both Jungian and Freudian, developed a range of subtly different approaches to dealing with their patients’ forgotten dreams. Theoretical commitments and institutional cultures shaped the work of practitioners including Donald Winnicott, Melanie Klein, Anna Freud, and Edward Griffith. By drawing on diaries and case notes, this paper also identifies the active role played by patients in negotiating the mechanics of therapy, and the appropriate response to a forgotten dream. This suggests a broader need for a detailed social history of post-Freudian psychotherapeutic technique, one that recognises the demands of both patients and practitioners.