It’s like Costner’s Field of Dreams, except much, much larger
WHAT IS A DREAM? Conventional view: mental experiences during REM This is going under numerous revisions due to new research
CONTENTS OF DREAMS Most dreams are mundane Familiar settings, familiar people Dreams tend to center on internal conflicts Usually self-centered Gender roles effect dreams
LINKS BETWEEN DREAMS AND WAKING LIFE Freud noticed that waking life is in dreams (daily residue) Stimuli are perceived in dreams while subjects are still asleep
CULTURE AND DREAMS Western civs don’t take dreams seriously Other civs see dreams as insight into self, prophecy, or the spirit world Some dream themes are universal Interpreting dreams varies from culture to culture
THEORIES OF DREAMING Freud: wish fulfillment Cartwright: problem-solving Hobson, McCarley: activation-synthesis model; by- product of bursts of activity from the subcortical areas in the brain
Franz Anton Mesmer stumbled onto the power of suggestion. James Braid coined the term hypnotism in 1843
HYPNOTIC INDUCTION AND SUSCEPTIBILITY Hypnosis: a systematic procedure that typically produces a heightened state of suggestibility 10% of population do not react to hypnotic suggestion Susceptibility depends on attitude and expectations of subject
HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA Anesthesia: sometimes used in medical procedures instead of drugs Sensory distortions and hallucinations: can be used to create or block senses Disinhibition: make someone do something they normally would not Posthypnotic suggestions and amnesia: influence behavior; make people forget what they did while under hypnosis
THEORIES OF HYPNOSIS Barber/Spanos: hypnosis as role playing People behave the way they believe a hypnotized person would behave Non-hypnotized subjects can duplicate results Memory of “hypnotized” is more fantasy than reality
THEORIES CONTINUED Beahrs, Fromm, Hilgard Role-playing theory does not explain all phenomena Hilgard: hypnosis creates an “altered state of consciousness” called dissociation---splitting off of mental processes into two separate, simultaneous streams of awareness