Freud And Activation Synthesis Theory

Freud’s dream theory 1990

1. The unconscious mind
He thought that a large part of the mind is non-accessible and is completely hidden. He referred it as the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind may contain something that is repressed by a person to help him forget or to avoid from facing it in reality. The conscious mind tends to push or repress something into the unconscious part of his mind. People may not be aware of the “secrets” they were repressing into their unconscious mind as they do not deliberating repress those thoughts.

2. Power of the unconscious
The unconscious thoughts, desires or wishes guide a lot of our behavior even though we are not aware of them and cannot describe them. Freud found the unconscious very important. While our conscious mind may contains only 10 % of our thinking, the remaining 90% of our thinking may be categorized as our unconscious mind.

3. Analysis of dreams
Freud thought that by analyzing our dreams, it’s possible to uncover our thoughts, wishes or desires hidden in our unconscious mind. According to Freud, we may analyze the “manifest content” as well as the “latent content” of a dream. Manifest content is the story of the dream that the dreamer describes. Latent content is the hidden content of the dream, which is the underlying meaning of the dream. A psychoanalysis may analyze and interpret the symbols of hidden unconscious desires.

4. Case study
Freud carried out a number of case studies, finding out from clients what was causing them problems or holding them back. They may have symptoms (e.g. phobia) that arose from the unconscious. E.g. Little Hans case study.

Activation-synthesis theory of dreaming – Hobson and McCarley 1977

1. Biological theory of dreaming
Dreams are random messages in the brain being interpreted to make a story. Messages are activated randomly, and then synthesized into a story.
There is a dream state generator in the brain and this part of the brain that gives a dream state is switched on during REM sleep.
REM sleep is when there is rapid eye movement. This happens around five or more times a night.
During REM sleep, any incoming information from the senses is blocked – sensory blockade.
Physical movements are also blocked in REM sleep – movement inhibition.
The neurons in the brain are activated during REM sleep because there are random impulses that provide information as if it were from the senses. This is known as “random activation”
The brain tries to make sense out of such internally-generated information. It is synthesizing the information to make it into a story.

2. Weaknesses of the theory
Dreams do have more meaning than the activation-synthesis theory suggests. People tend to recognize parts of the dream from what has happened in their lives. The thoughts in the dream are not really as random as the activation-synthesis theory suggests.
This theory is based on the assumption that dreams often show unusual, bizarre situations and do not make full sense. However, some studies show that only about 15% of dreams do not make logical sense. It may be due to the dreamer’s interpretation of the dream but it shows that dreams do make sense when dreamer tries to explain it.
Lucid dreaming is when people are dreaming but know they are dreaming. This idea does not fit with activation-synthesis, as it means dreams are controllable and not random.