1. Dreaming: What’s Going on?
Dream behavior
Theories of Dreaming
Conclusions
What can we learn from our dreams?
Are they meaningful? True / predictive?
Basic Methodology (if we have time…)

2. Some Questions: Are Dreams meaningful--what do they mean?
Are the predictive or “true”?
How do they differ from other states?
What is their function do they even have one?
Are they brain functions or mind functions?

3. Dream behavior & description
Within sleep
Amount
Brainwave activity & bodily quietude
the paradox
REM

7. Dreams & REM sleep REM amount & periodicity
Brainstem cholinergic & adrenergic promoting & inhibiting areas
A regular activity rooted in the brain

9. Outline Characteristics and Descriptions Theories of Dreaming
Conclusions
What can we learn from our dreams?
Are they meaningful? True / predictive?
Basic Methodology (if we have time…)

10. Theories of Dreaming Dreams as meaningful events: Freud
Are dreams meaningful???--the big question

11. Psychoanalytic Theory
Mental conflict
Unconscious motivations
Two forces: impulses & defenses
Dreams as a release
Dreamwork and its results
Latent dream
Manifest dream
Remembered dream
Dreamwork and forgetting as protective mechanisms
Poetzel Effect

12. Freud & Neuroimaging (Allen Braun)
Limbic system (emotion active during REM)
Prefrontal cortex (working mem. Att’n, logic & self-monitoring) inactive during REM
Above consistent with dream bizarreness & emotional disinhibition/wish fulfillment
Visual cortex inactive but higher visual areas active so we see w.o. visual input
Mark Solms: injured Pons vs. injured Forebrain
Pons-disrupts REM but dreaming goes on, Forebrain-lose dreaming but REM goes on.

13. Variations on Psychoanalytic Explanation + Challenges
Dement & Kleitman: REM & implications
Hall and Cartwright: Dream Series
Challenging Views
Dreams as random activity (Hobson +)
Synthesis (perhaps)

14. Other Neuroscience Views
Crick: Purge extraneous connections
Evans: Sorting function on day’s events
Winson: Sorting for survival
Hobson: random activity & activation-synthesis hypothesis

15. Hobson: Dream Transformations
From: inanimate animate character
To:
inanimate
Animate
Character

16. Outline Characteristics and Descriptions Theories of Dreaming
Conclusions
What can we learn from our dreams?
Are they meaningful? True / predictive?
Basic Methodology (if we have time…)

17. Dream Characteristics
Lack of active volition
Absence of ongoing reflective judgment
Limited to phenomena of the immediate present
Diffuse cognitive slippage--dreamlike confusion - transformations of perception, thought, memory, emotion, relationships, etc.
Gaps in experience: 20%
Confusion of thought & irrational intuitions: 41%
Problems in sustained attention: 5%
Memory deficiencies within the dream: 15%
Overall, even 51% of "clearest dreams" had clouding
But not radical (scz, psychedelic) but rather more like that of waking life
Can even have hallucinations or psychedelic experiences in dreams (as in waking life!)
Ex. flying 4%, bizarre figures, 4%, changed identity 3%, LSD-like transformations of vision 13%. Mostly visual 47%. Somatic 10%, audit. 14%.

18. Conclusions
Can we obtain meaningful insights about ourselves through our dreams?
What can we learn from our dreams?
Are they meaningful? True / predictive?

19. Outline Characteristics and Descriptions Theories of Dreaming
Conclusions
What can we learn from our dreams?
Are they meaningful? True / predictive?
Basic Methodology

20. Basic Methodology Experimentation Independent vs. Dependent variables
Observational vs. Experimental studies
Causation vs. Correlation
Experimental “control”

21. Making Observations
Scientific observations often begin with a question or hypothesis.
The hypothesis must be testable.
This calls for an operational definition of key terms to specify the study’s dependent variable.
Data must also be systematically collected.
Researchers ignore anecdotal evidence.
- Psychologists, like all scientists, proceed by examining patterns in carefully measured data.
- But what exactly should they measure?
- Need to specify a research question as a testable, falsifiable hypothesis about concepts that are well defined as observable responses (or operationalized).
- These operational definitions must also be valid; a concept like "aggression" is better operationalized by counting punches than by measuring frowns.
Once a question is formed, data collection must be systematic (that is, not dependent on anecdotes) and not influenced by the hypothesis.

22. Courtesy of American Media, Ltd.
1.2 Testable hypotheses? Astrologers and newspaper tabloids often predict the future, but the phrasing of these predictions is usually so open-ended that we can’t test the claims in any rigorous way.

23. Defining the Sample
Based on observations of a sample, psychologists want to draw conclusions about a broad population.
Random sampling
All members of the population have an equal chance of being picked to participate.
Researchers also use other procedures, including stratified sampling and case studies.
Defining the right sample for the desired conclusions is a key step in measurement; common approaches include random sampling, maximum variation sampling, and carefully chosen case studies.

24. The Power of Experiments
The two groups must be matched at the outset of the experiment.
To ensure matching groups, researchers use:
random assignment.
within-subject comparison.
taking precautions to address problems created by the sequence of conditions
Control groups should be matched as closely as possible to the experimental group to isolate the desired effect.
Random assignment is the best way to guarantee that groups are matched and prevents the third-variable problem.
An additional tool for matching experimental and control groups is to use the same groups for both conditions (a within-subjects design). These design features are all used to establish that only our variable of interest can potentially explain any differences we see in the data, which is the goal of internal validity.

25. The Control Condition

26. Assessing External Validity
Researchers want their study to mirror circumstances of the broader world.
external validity
External validity depends on many factors.
The study should not change behaviors the researchers hope to understand.
- Having the right sample is important in allowing us to generalize our conclusions—that is, for the study's external validity.

27. Assessing External Validity
One concern here involves the study’s possible demand characteristics:
cues that can signal to participants how they’re supposed to behave
One way of avoiding this problem is to use a double-blind design.

28. Courtesy John Chase/Chasecartoons.com
1.8 Double-blind testing Unlike the effort shown here, double-blind testing doesn’t involve experiments done by pairs of blindfolded researchers. Instead, it involves studies in which neither the person tested nor the person conducting the test knows the experimental hypothesis and neither knows which participants are in which comparison group.

29. Measurement The Description of Data Central tendency Variability
Mean, median, mode
Variability
Variance
Standard deviation
Correlation & significance level

31. Measurement

32. T H HT TH HH TT
T = tails
H = heads

33. More Measurement