The Interpretation of Dreams and of Jokes: The Art and the Science

The Interpretation of Dreams and of Jokes provides a unique and integrative introduction to dream science. It addresses a notable gap in cognitive psychology on the subject of dreams and explores significant overlaps between the phenomena of dreams and jokes. Bringing together extensive research from cognitive psychology, neuroscience and psychoanalysis, the book provides a balanced approach to dream science that is underpinned by experimental and theoretical research. It considers the significance of dreams and their relationships to jokes, examining how both require an understanding of latent content in which context and individual differences play a large part. The book outlines a history of dream research and dream science and includes several original dream extracts for discussion. The book’s chapters explore how we can interpret meaning in dreams, how dreams might be indicators of inner psychological and somatic states, whether dreams can be used in problem-solving and the relationship between dreams and aphasia, memory and waking consciousness. This groundbreaking book will be essential reading for researchers and students from psychological and psychoanalytic backgrounds who are interested in the analysis and science of dreams.

Table of Contents:
BRIEF INTRODUCTION I. HISTORICAL FORESHADOWINGS 4,000 Years Ago: The Dream of Dumuzi and the Interpretation of Geshitinanna Cro-Magnon Cave Painting of a Dream: Jouvet’s Interpretation Semantic Depth: Manifest vs. Latent Content Repression of Dreams Dreams in Religion, Philosophy, Medicine, and War Bias in Interpretation Behaviorism and the Eclipse of Dreams in Modern Psychology Conditioning and Instinctive Drift Dreams and Darwin Helmholtz’s "Unconscious Inferences": Cognitive Psychology’s Neglect of Dreams Memory and Dreams II. FREUD’S INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS AND HIS TREATEMENT OF JOKES: BREAKTHROUGHS, ERRORS, REVISIONS Freud’s Transition from Neuroscience to Psychology Dreams as Just One Dialect from a Family of Release Phenomena Aphasia and Dreams Dreams as the Royal Road to the Knowledge of the Unconscious The Manifest-Latent Content Distinction and the Dream-Work The "Dream-Work" as Sub-Work Formalization of the Manifest-Latent Content Distinction: m ≠ m × context Outright Errors in Freud’s Dream Theory Jokes III. SAMPLES OF DREAMS AND OTHER RELEASE PHENOMENA, WITH INTERPRETATIONS AND COMMENTARIES Freud’s Standard Approach to Interpreting Dreams and other Release Phenomena Freud’s Interpretation of a Freudian Slip: The Fugitive Aliquis The Irma Dream and its Analysis (Sigmund Freud) The Picture Dream of Dolores P. (Matthew Erdelyi) The Elephant Dream of Alice V. (John Nemiah) Allan Hobson’s "Mozart at the Museum" Dream Zelda’s Dream: "Worst Case Scenario" Freud Dreams Chinese Poetry: 弗 梦 汉 诗 (Diane M. Zizak) Problem-Solving Dreams (Deirdre Barrett) Dream-Like Cognition in Schizophrenia Theoretical Cautions on the Overlap between Dreams and Schizophrenia CHAPTER IV. NEUROSCIENCE FOUNDATIONS OF DREAMING REM Sleep: REM’s, Short-Wave EEG’s, Motor Inhibition, Genital Arousal--and Dreams The Unravelling of the REM = Dreaming Consensus Double-Dissociation between the REM State and Dreaming (Mark Solms) Hobson’s Revision of the Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis: The "AIM" Model The "Hot Zone" of Dreaming (Giulio Tononi, Francesca Siclari, et al.) Form vs. Content: Hobson’s "Formalistic" Theory and the Question of Dream Meaning Dreams as Paradoxical States of Simultaneous Activation and Deactivation Complications with the "Frontality" Notion Complications with the "Limbic System" (Does it Even Exist?--Joseph LeDoux) The Neural Default Network: Mind-Wandering, Fantasy, Daydreams, Dreams Release Phenomena: Meaning and Implications V. QUANTITATIVE CONTENT-ANALYSIS Quantitative vs. Qualitative Analysis Recovery of Subliminal Stimuli in Dreams, Daydreams, and Fantasy Signal Detection Theory (SDT) and Fantasy: ROC Curves, d′, and β Quantitative Content-Analysis in Literary Criticism Quantitative Content-Analysis of Dreams (Hall, Van De Castle, Domhoff, Problems with Modern Quantitative-Analytic Approaches to Dreams The Continuity Hypothesis (Freud, Jung, Calkins, Hall, Domhoff, Schredl, Bulkeley, Erdelyi, Jenkins) Application of Signal Detection Theory to Dream Recall (Erdelyi et al.) VI. DREAMING AS NOISY REMEMBERING Incorporation of Awake Experiences in Dreams over Time (Freud, Jouvet, Nielsen, Blagrove, Brugger) Hypermnesic Dreams Dreams as Leading, Lagging, and Concurrent Indicators The Associative Structure of Memory and Resulting "Spheres of Meaning" Freudian Distortions are the Same as Bartlettian Distortions but for Motive: Repeated Long-Distance Recalls of the "War of the Ghosts": Interpretations and Quantitative Content-Analyses VII. OVERVIEW AND CONCLUSIONS Dreams Have Meaning, and at More than one Level Context is the Key to Latent Contents Formalization of the Manifest-Latent Content Distinction: m ≠ m × context Dynamics: Weighting of Items in the Contextual Ecology Interpretation is Probabilistic Symbolism Distortions—Bartlettian and Freudian: Implications for the Dream-Work Notion Dreams are Hypermnesic (Sometimes) Dreams as Leading, Lagging, and Concurrent Indicators The Continuity between Dream-Life and Awake-Life Dreams are One Dialect from a Family of Release-Phenomena Associative Structure Undergirds Meaning—as well as Errors and Biases The Essential Fact about Dreams: They are Confusing but Honest APPENDIX Application of Signal Detection Theory to Narrative Recall, Including Dreams: Classic Signal-Detection Theory, ROC Functions, d', P(A), and H│Fc Application of Classic SDT Notions to Recall: From ROC to roc Functions and Conditionalized Hits (H|Fc) Achieving the Target False-Alarm Level, Fc: Paring-Down Narrative Recall Texts Implementing the CCFR Procedure: Illustration of the Computation of H|Fc Empirical Validation of the CCFR Alternatives to the H|Fc Index of Criterion-Controlled Free Recall REFERENCES