IN HIS new book Dream Life: An experimental memoir, psychiatrist and dream researcher J. Allan Hobson looks back on his life and puts forward his dream theory of protoconsciousness.
Why did you choose to write an 鈥渆xperimental memoir鈥�?
I think it鈥檚 interesting to consider both autobiographical details and biological phenomena. Since my life鈥檚 work has been of that nature, I wanted to emphasise the importance of both.
What is your dream theory of protoconsciousness?
In 2008 I was preparing a lecture and I realised I was still thinking of dreaming as an unconscious mental process, and that that was wrong. The minute I threw out the Freudian idea that dreaming is derivative of waking experience was when I could see it for what it probably is 鈥� a prediction about waking experience.
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REM sleep is antecedent to waking. It occurs in utero. Now, you can鈥檛 tell me that鈥檚 because you鈥檙e trying to get rid of infantile wishes. It means that dreaming has a developmental function. It is also something that occurs relatively late in evolution: if you don鈥檛 have a thalamus and cortex, you don鈥檛 have REM sleep, despite the fact that it鈥檚 a brainstem function.
REM sleep is in the service of brain function that will ultimately lead to waking consciousness. My theory is that dreaming is not a replay of memory. It is a 鈥減replay鈥� of perception.
Why did you abandon the idea that dreaming is unconscious?
I had to ask myself, why do I say it鈥檚 an unconscious mental process? The answer was because I鈥檓 still a Freudian, even though I鈥檝e been trying to get over it. The philosopher Willard Quine once told me I belong to Freudians Anonymous. It鈥檚 true, and it鈥檚 not just me: I think everyone is addicted to Freudian misconceptions. We鈥檝e got to take all of these received ideas more seriously, and then take them apart.
鈥淓veryone is addicted to Freudian misconceptions. We have to take apart all these received ideas鈥�
How did you become disillusioned with psychoanalysis?
In the first two weeks of my psychiatry residency in 1960, I thought I鈥檇 see that my doubts about psychoanalysis had been mistaken. But it was just the opposite. I was told, 鈥淭here must be something wrong with you if you鈥檙e asking all of these questions.鈥� My chief suggested I really believed in science. I said, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 ridiculous. I don鈥檛 believe in science; science is our defence against belief.鈥� Science is institutional scepticism. We need to ask these questions.
Yet some people still hold to psychoanalysis?
Psychoanalytic theory is popular because it鈥檚 easy to understand, but I think it鈥檚 wrong. I don鈥檛 think dreams are caused by the release of repressed infantile wishes. There鈥檚 nothing scientific about psychoanalysis, there鈥檚 nothing scientific about Sigmund Freud. He didn鈥檛 do a single experiment, he didn鈥檛 do any direct observation, he used no controls. The guy was out to lunch.
You argue we should move toward a 鈥渟cience of subjectivity鈥�. What is that and what makes it worthwhile?
Subjective experience is a methodological approach to studying the brain: look, keep accurate records and then analyse them. That鈥檚 how we discovered 鈥渄ream bizarreness鈥�. Everyone said that dreams were bizarre, but nobody really knew what that meant. It doesn鈥檛 mean you see monsters or that you can fly, but that times, places and persons change without notice in dreams. I think there are other ways this will play out when people take the science of subjectivity seriously.
Where should research into dreams go from here?
One of the main problems is in understanding the brain imaging data in terms of cellular and molecular activity 鈥� there鈥檚 a big gap there.
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J. Allan Hobson is emeritus professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a prominent researcher in the field of REM sleep. He is the author of nine books on dreaming and consciousness, the latest of which is Dream Life: An experimental memoir, published by The MIT Press