WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:04.160 Oh hey, so up top. This episode is exclusively sponsored 2 00:00:04.240 --> 00:00:06.919 by Stfa and this is the first in ologies history, 3 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:10.080 the first one we've ever had sponsored by just one company, 4 00:00:10.279 --> 00:00:14.560 and it's Sotfa Luxury Mattresses, which is perfect because I 5 00:00:14.640 --> 00:00:18.000 love sofas. If you're looking for a new mattress, trust me, 6 00:00:18.160 --> 00:00:20.760 just go straight to sofa dot com slash ologies. They 7 00:00:20.760 --> 00:00:23.559 have mattresses with inner springs, they have memory phone, they 8 00:00:23.559 --> 00:00:26.879 have adjustable firmness, they have white glove delivery, they have 9 00:00:27.120 --> 00:00:30.359 so many good reviews. People love their sofas, as do I. 10 00:00:30.719 --> 00:00:34.079 It's so luxurious, it's so plush. Who knew sleeping can 11 00:00:34.159 --> 00:00:40.039 get better? SATA did? That's s doubleatva dot com slash ologies. 12 00:00:40.240 --> 00:00:44.280 What a dream? Oh hey, it's your friend's fiance who 13 00:00:44.320 --> 00:00:48.399 commits everything to spreadsheets aliboard. We are back. It's the 14 00:00:48.439 --> 00:00:51.679 top of twenty twenty three. We're going to talk about 15 00:00:51.679 --> 00:00:54.640 hopes and dreams, but not hopes at all, just dreams, 16 00:00:54.719 --> 00:00:58.079 just dreams, all dreams. So this episode is a dream. 17 00:00:58.119 --> 00:01:00.759 It was years in the making. This expert has been 18 00:01:00.799 --> 00:01:03.679 at the top of the dream research game for decades. 19 00:01:03.799 --> 00:01:07.879 I have waited through the pandemic until everyone was quadruple 20 00:01:07.959 --> 00:01:11.239 vaxed and rapid tested. And also his new book just 21 00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:13.879 came out this fall. The timing was right. I went 22 00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:17.519 to Santa Cruz, a college town in this crunchy enclave 23 00:01:17.560 --> 00:01:20.319 on the California coast, where he has been a professor 24 00:01:20.719 --> 00:01:24.000 since nineteen sixty five. And I walked around the misty, 25 00:01:24.400 --> 00:01:27.640 rainy you see Santa Cruz campus until we spotted each other. 26 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:32.000 Are you in the white coat? Ah? Okay, cool, I see, 27 00:01:32.120 --> 00:01:36.719 I'll walk through, And then ducked into the offices. We 28 00:01:36.719 --> 00:01:38.439 said hello to his colleague. 29 00:01:38.480 --> 00:01:40.840 All Lords and is in Barbara Laurs. 30 00:01:40.920 --> 00:01:44.840 She's my very lifelong residence fare And we posted up 31 00:01:44.840 --> 00:01:49.719 at his desk, and he has an affable smile, contagious warmth, 32 00:01:50.200 --> 00:01:53.319 and surprising humility for someone who is so celebrated in 33 00:01:53.359 --> 00:01:56.560 this field. He is a distinguished Professor emeritus and a 34 00:01:56.599 --> 00:01:59.480 research professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and 35 00:01:59.519 --> 00:02:03.400 has written several books on dreaming, including the Scientific Study 36 00:02:03.439 --> 00:02:07.239 of Dreams and the Emergence of Dreaming, and his latest 37 00:02:07.519 --> 00:02:13.560 twenty twenty two release, The Neurocognitive Theory of Dreaming, The Where, How, when, 38 00:02:13.879 --> 00:02:18.039 what and Why of Dreams. This dude knows dreams, wrote 39 00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:21.240 the actual book on them, and also really quick before 40 00:02:21.240 --> 00:02:24.240 we ask him one million not smart questions. Thank you 41 00:02:24.280 --> 00:02:26.919 to everyone supporting for a dollar or more a month 42 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:30.599 at patreon dot com, slash ologies and submitting the questions 43 00:02:30.599 --> 00:02:33.759 for the show. Thanks to everyone for leaving reviews. I 44 00:02:33.800 --> 00:02:36.520 read them all every week, and this week Cam left 45 00:02:36.520 --> 00:02:39.159 one that said do yourself a favor and listen to 46 00:02:39.240 --> 00:02:42.560 as many episodes as possible, even if they sound odd, 47 00:02:42.879 --> 00:02:46.439 like the one about flags. Cam and everyone else, Thank 48 00:02:46.479 --> 00:02:51.039 you and welcome to Owneurology. Owneurology. It's not easy to say, 49 00:02:51.159 --> 00:02:54.639 but it's an established field, stemming from the Greek word 50 00:02:55.039 --> 00:02:59.400 for dreams. And this man runs the research site dreambank 51 00:02:59.479 --> 00:03:02.879 dot net and has been privy to thousands of dream 52 00:03:02.919 --> 00:03:05.919 records over decades of research. And he lets me ask 53 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:08.759 him things like what even is a dream? Why do 54 00:03:08.840 --> 00:03:11.520 we do it? Our dreams? A wish that your heart 55 00:03:11.560 --> 00:03:15.400 makes our dreams ghosts? Are we smarter when we dream more? 56 00:03:15.800 --> 00:03:18.759 Why is sleep important? And what does it all mean? 57 00:03:19.280 --> 00:03:22.280 So this week we'll arm you with the fundamental facts 58 00:03:22.319 --> 00:03:26.360 of dreaming, some brain basics, and sleep trivia, and then 59 00:03:26.560 --> 00:03:29.039 we'll be back with him next week to answer so 60 00:03:29.199 --> 00:03:32.599 many Patreon questions explaining all the weird stuff that happens 61 00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:36.319 to us when we dream, from nudity to flying to 62 00:03:36.520 --> 00:03:39.479 teeth dropping from their sockets. It's all good stuff. So 63 00:03:39.520 --> 00:03:42.879 pull up the covers and open your ears for author, 64 00:03:43.439 --> 00:03:51.199 researcher psychology and sociology, professor, dream expert and onnirologist, doctor g. 65 00:03:51.520 --> 00:04:16.759 William Domhoff Bill Domhoff pronouns he him and title your 66 00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:17.600 doctor Domhoff. 67 00:04:17.639 --> 00:04:23.160 Right, yeah, Professor. I prefer might tell my students Professor Donoff, 68 00:04:23.199 --> 00:04:25.120 you can call me Billy. You can call me professor 69 00:04:25.160 --> 00:04:26.360 donmalf Doc. 70 00:04:26.480 --> 00:04:28.240 You don't good people ever, just call you doc. 71 00:04:28.519 --> 00:04:34.040 No, No, okay, Willie Wild, Willie Billy George. 72 00:04:35.040 --> 00:04:38.480 Now I got to ask, first off, how much sleep 73 00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:41.360 do you get a night? Because I feel like you're 74 00:04:41.399 --> 00:04:44.879 more productive and you look more well rested than I do. 75 00:04:46.600 --> 00:04:48.879 I'd probably get eight to nine hours sleep a night. 76 00:04:49.040 --> 00:04:50.000 Have you always been that way? 77 00:04:50.240 --> 00:04:54.360 Yeah? I've always been a night owl that sleeps in. 78 00:04:55.399 --> 00:04:58.759 Which was so it was when I went to college 79 00:04:58.800 --> 00:05:01.040 the first year, the nine your courses and I had 80 00:05:01.040 --> 00:05:04.079 an eight am class it was on botany, and they'd 81 00:05:04.120 --> 00:05:06.120 get in there and he'd start to show slides and 82 00:05:06.120 --> 00:05:10.279 the fall asleep, fall asleep. So I never again took 83 00:05:10.319 --> 00:05:14.560 a class before ten in the morning. And then when 84 00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:17.360 I became a professor, I never taught a class before 85 00:05:17.439 --> 00:05:21.480 ten or eleven. I m's preferred late morning or afternoon, 86 00:05:22.160 --> 00:05:25.120 so I really get rolling later at night. And that 87 00:05:25.279 --> 00:05:30.319 was reinforced when I had young children, and so we'd 88 00:05:30.319 --> 00:05:34.240 get the kids to bed and then maybe nine nine 89 00:05:34.319 --> 00:05:37.759 thirty I'd start in and go to two or three. 90 00:05:38.040 --> 00:05:41.720 So for some reason, that's when I think the best. 91 00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:45.360 And we do know from research that there are you know, 92 00:05:45.639 --> 00:05:50.439 night owls and larks, and people do their circadian rhythm 93 00:05:50.519 --> 00:05:53.399 does differ. One of the things that I want to 94 00:05:53.399 --> 00:05:57.839 emphasize is that on every generalization I make, there's huge 95 00:05:57.839 --> 00:06:04.360 individual differences people huge individual differences. The processes are the same, 96 00:06:04.759 --> 00:06:05.800 but we still. 97 00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:09.560 Vary for more on those broad chronotypes like being an 98 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:14.000 up and out a morning person versus a midnight cyber goblin. 99 00:06:14.199 --> 00:06:16.879 You can listen to the circadian rhythms episode which is 100 00:06:16.920 --> 00:06:20.040 called chronobiology that's in the show notes. But wait, what 101 00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:23.240 is this one? Is it onrology? I had to check. Also, 102 00:06:23.279 --> 00:06:29.399 have you heard of the term ourology? Neurology, own neurology. Yes, yeah, 103 00:06:29.439 --> 00:06:32.959 that would that's apparently that would be you're you would 104 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:33.920 be an on neurologist. 105 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:37.160 Yeah, that's a Greek word, yes, for dreaming. Yeah, we 106 00:06:37.160 --> 00:06:39.839 don't use it much, I know, I know we used 107 00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:45.720 we once used psychopompologists. No carrier of souls to the underworld. 108 00:06:46.800 --> 00:06:49.360 That's an even better ology. Use that. 109 00:06:49.360 --> 00:06:53.560 You know, you call me a psychopompologist. They kind of 110 00:06:53.680 --> 00:06:55.160 took you over the river sks. 111 00:06:55.480 --> 00:06:59.519 Yeah, oh I love that. Okay, So Professor Domhoff and 112 00:06:59.600 --> 00:07:02.120 his men, we're really the only ones to use the 113 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:06.399 term psychopompologist, and I love it. But onerrology is the 114 00:07:06.399 --> 00:07:09.040 one that you're going to hear more often in the literature. 115 00:07:09.279 --> 00:07:13.560 But if you become an oneerrologist, though, and you want 116 00:07:13.560 --> 00:07:18.199 to spearhead an industry wide change to psychopompology, hey, follow 117 00:07:18.360 --> 00:07:21.439 your dreams. At any point during your dream research, have 118 00:07:21.519 --> 00:07:25.160 you had to watch people in the lab sleeping and dreaming? 119 00:07:25.199 --> 00:07:26.639 Has that ever been part of the research? 120 00:07:27.079 --> 00:07:30.279 I just once one or two nights, and I've watched 121 00:07:30.360 --> 00:07:34.839 videos of it, and certainly in the very early days. 122 00:07:34.800 --> 00:07:37.000 And we're talking to other people's studies from the late 123 00:07:37.079 --> 00:07:39.920 nineteen fifties early nineteen sixties, there. 124 00:07:39.800 --> 00:07:44.279 Were people that watched people's sleep, and there was one 125 00:07:44.399 --> 00:07:49.279 especially great one looking at the influence of external stimuli 126 00:07:49.399 --> 00:07:52.439 on dreams, which is very minor in dreams because dreams 127 00:07:52.439 --> 00:07:56.439 are an act of imagination and we're basically screening everything 128 00:07:56.480 --> 00:08:00.720 else out. Hey, they taped these people's off, eyes open, 129 00:08:01.360 --> 00:08:04.920 and they're in the bed and they fell asleep so 130 00:08:04.959 --> 00:08:06.920 they could watch their eye movements, and they not only 131 00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:12.240 watch their eye movements, they wig a little light around. No, 132 00:08:12.519 --> 00:08:15.360 I didn't phase them at all, because all that kind 133 00:08:15.399 --> 00:08:18.560 of incoming input goes into a kind of a terminal 134 00:08:19.639 --> 00:08:23.759 lower part of our brain where it's no the gates 135 00:08:23.759 --> 00:08:27.160 are down. In other words, when that is we say included. 136 00:08:27.439 --> 00:08:31.079 But when it's excluded, like do not enter, you're going 137 00:08:31.160 --> 00:08:35.440 no further. So those stimuli don't have any impact. 138 00:08:35.879 --> 00:08:37.639 What about when it's waking you up, Like if you 139 00:08:37.639 --> 00:08:40.039 hear cat meowing and meowing and in your dream there's 140 00:08:40.080 --> 00:08:41.759 a tiger after you or something. You wake up and 141 00:08:41.799 --> 00:08:42.919 your cat's just hungry. 142 00:08:43.399 --> 00:08:48.559 Well, it's possible, but way more rare than people want 143 00:08:48.600 --> 00:08:52.120 to believe. Because we have this enormous need to think 144 00:08:52.799 --> 00:08:58.120 that we're somehow processing external stimuli that our dreams are 145 00:08:58.159 --> 00:09:03.240 influenced by recent events, but when it happens, as one 146 00:09:03.279 --> 00:09:06.559 of my colleagues one says, the dream has a greater 147 00:09:06.639 --> 00:09:09.639 influence on the stimuli than the stimula I have on 148 00:09:09.679 --> 00:09:13.879 the dream. So if you ring a bell, they're hearing 149 00:09:13.919 --> 00:09:18.720 a symphony, or you ring a bell and they hear 150 00:09:18.799 --> 00:09:23.759 something entirely different. So there's no real connection with the 151 00:09:23.919 --> 00:09:27.960 external world in dreams, and when to the degree there is, 152 00:09:28.480 --> 00:09:31.519 what happens is in one of the ways people get 153 00:09:31.759 --> 00:09:36.120 confused about what's in a dream is that as we awaken, 154 00:09:36.720 --> 00:09:41.240 we're also having imagery, and in that transition kind of 155 00:09:41.279 --> 00:09:46.519 period you may still have imagery or thoughts, but in 156 00:09:46.600 --> 00:09:49.200 terms of what is a dream, those aren't really dreams. 157 00:09:49.200 --> 00:09:53.720 There's a lot of experiences, mental experiences we have during 158 00:09:53.759 --> 00:09:56.480 the night that are not dreams. 159 00:09:57.159 --> 00:10:01.080 So that gait that goes down metaphorically is part of 160 00:10:01.120 --> 00:10:03.639 the thalmus, which is a nugget right in the center 161 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:06.720 of the brain that acts as your information station, and 162 00:10:06.799 --> 00:10:10.519 it gathers intel from your body's senses and processes it 163 00:10:10.960 --> 00:10:13.879 so your cerebral cortex can figure out exactly what the 164 00:10:13.919 --> 00:10:17.039 hell's going on. Thanks to pathways called the thalamo cortico 165 00:10:17.080 --> 00:10:19.240 thalamic circuits, which is a term I dare you to 166 00:10:19.240 --> 00:10:22.480 try to work into casual conversation. You simply can't. But yes, 167 00:10:22.600 --> 00:10:26.559 the thalamus noodles around with learning and memory as well 168 00:10:26.600 --> 00:10:31.080 as sleep and waking, and some research suggests that external 169 00:10:31.159 --> 00:10:35.960 stimuli makes it into our dreams somewhere between nine to 170 00:10:36.159 --> 00:10:40.240 eighty seven percent, which is how has that ranged even possible? 171 00:10:40.559 --> 00:10:43.039 Because it's tough to study how much of the waking 172 00:10:43.080 --> 00:10:44.919 world makes it into your dreams because part of the 173 00:10:44.919 --> 00:10:48.480 research involves watching people sleep and then tickling them with 174 00:10:48.519 --> 00:10:50.759 a feather or squeezing parts of their limbs, and then 175 00:10:50.799 --> 00:10:52.840 waking them up and being like, what were you dreaming about? 176 00:10:52.879 --> 00:10:55.840 Were you dreaming about the feather? And results have really 177 00:10:56.000 --> 00:10:58.600 varied and sleep subjects maybe they're just waking up pissed. 178 00:10:58.600 --> 00:11:01.159 I don't know. But in doctor Domo's new book, The 179 00:11:01.240 --> 00:11:05.559 Neurocognitive Theory of Dreamings, he lists several factors that need 180 00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:11.159 to happen to allow spontaneous and undirected thinking aka dreaming. 181 00:11:11.559 --> 00:11:14.919 So those things are an adequate level of cortical activation 182 00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:18.720 in the brain. There's also the blocking of external stimuli 183 00:11:19.039 --> 00:11:22.039 via those gating mechanisms in the thalmus, and also a 184 00:11:22.159 --> 00:11:26.679 loss of conscious self control through deactivating three networks in 185 00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:30.919 your brain, the frontoparidle control network, the dorsal attention network, 186 00:11:31.039 --> 00:11:34.840 and the salience ventral network. There will not be a quiz, 187 00:11:34.919 --> 00:11:37.039 and it is okay if you remember none of that. 188 00:11:37.279 --> 00:11:39.960 But the point is it's not just about which areas 189 00:11:39.960 --> 00:11:42.639 of the brain are active, but also which ones are 190 00:11:42.639 --> 00:11:44.879 told to chill out for now so that we can sleep. 191 00:11:45.279 --> 00:11:48.679 And not all dreaming happens in REM and not all 192 00:11:48.759 --> 00:11:51.679 imagery is dreaming because we're not fully asleep the whole 193 00:11:51.759 --> 00:11:52.559 night what. 194 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:57.320 And some of them were actually awake well at other times. 195 00:11:57.559 --> 00:12:01.799 There's one particular experience where where our mind is awake 196 00:12:01.960 --> 00:12:06.440 but our body is still in this state of paralysis 197 00:12:06.440 --> 00:12:11.039 called atonia. And so you're awake and you're thinking it 198 00:12:11.080 --> 00:12:15.200 and you can't move, but that's not dreaming. The EG record, 199 00:12:15.200 --> 00:12:19.360 the electro on cephalogram says you're awake, but your body 200 00:12:19.399 --> 00:12:23.440 has not the usual change that happens from when you're 201 00:12:23.440 --> 00:12:26.639 awaking from this particular stage of sleep called rapid eye 202 00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:30.320 movement sleep, which we'll call REM sleep, and that stage 203 00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:34.120 of sleep is unusual and it has this sleep paralysis 204 00:12:34.600 --> 00:12:37.600 kind of aspect. So and then we have many awakenings 205 00:12:37.639 --> 00:12:41.240 during night. All that gets confused in and mumbled into 206 00:12:41.519 --> 00:12:44.360 thinking it's a dream, but most of them aren't. 207 00:12:44.840 --> 00:12:47.600 And my biggest giant question is what is a dream? 208 00:12:47.879 --> 00:12:50.159 But before I ask that, I want to ask a 209 00:12:50.240 --> 00:12:53.399 little a little bit about you, because you were so 210 00:12:53.679 --> 00:12:57.559 prolific and you are so well recognized in this field. 211 00:12:57.799 --> 00:13:01.240 When it came to for me researching who knows the 212 00:13:01.279 --> 00:13:03.440 most about dreams, it was like all signs pointed to you. 213 00:13:03.720 --> 00:13:07.480 But you also have this other full career where you're 214 00:13:07.759 --> 00:13:11.840 a sociologist who's written textbooks. At what point in your 215 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:14.080 long career did you say I want to go do 216 00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:14.960 dream research. 217 00:13:15.679 --> 00:13:18.879 I started out in dream research. I was a psychology 218 00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:22.360 undergraduate major. I did that in my junior year, but 219 00:13:22.399 --> 00:13:25.039 I wasn't really sure because I didn't know for sure 220 00:13:25.080 --> 00:13:29.320 what I wanted to do. I graduated in psychology. I'd 221 00:13:29.360 --> 00:13:33.320 had two or three social courses, but I still I 222 00:13:33.360 --> 00:13:36.679 wasn't sure I wanted to do grad school. My advisor said, oh, 223 00:13:36.720 --> 00:13:38.879 you got to go to grad school, and he wanted 224 00:13:38.919 --> 00:13:41.919 to send me to the University of Iowa, which was 225 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:48.360 famous for this behavioristic stuff and conditioning learning with pigeons 226 00:13:48.360 --> 00:13:52.360 and rats, and I didn't like it at all, and 227 00:13:52.399 --> 00:13:53.960 so I wasn't sure what I was going to do. 228 00:13:54.440 --> 00:13:57.440 And then, oh my goodness, so I quickly went down 229 00:13:57.600 --> 00:14:01.559 enrolled in Kent State University, which was near my home 230 00:14:01.720 --> 00:14:04.840 raised in the suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. And I went 231 00:14:04.879 --> 00:14:06.960 to Kent State and they were glad to have me 232 00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:09.440 because I'd been a good student at Duke where I 233 00:14:09.480 --> 00:14:13.200 went undergraduate, and there I really got into it. And 234 00:14:13.240 --> 00:14:15.919 even though I had these professors that my interests weren't 235 00:14:15.919 --> 00:14:19.080 the same as theirs, they really were exciting in terms 236 00:14:19.080 --> 00:14:23.039 of rigorous thought and how to do experiments and so on. 237 00:14:23.759 --> 00:14:26.759 But it then went to the University of Miami had 238 00:14:26.759 --> 00:14:31.480 a brand new program and it was called humanistic and personality. 239 00:14:31.679 --> 00:14:35.000 In other words, they weren't doing what traditionally psychology had done, 240 00:14:35.039 --> 00:14:37.519 and that's why I said, Wow, I'm going there. And 241 00:14:37.559 --> 00:14:41.799 when I arrived, by coincidence, there was a visiting professor 242 00:14:42.679 --> 00:14:45.759 named Calvin S. Hall, and he was it turns out 243 00:14:46.320 --> 00:14:51.159 he was the finest expert in psychology about dreams, and 244 00:14:51.240 --> 00:14:56.240 he was very rigorous psychologist. He'd been trained as a 245 00:14:56.279 --> 00:15:02.240 behavior geneticist in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. 246 00:15:02.519 --> 00:15:05.200 And Calvin S. Hall was the mentor that we mentioned 247 00:15:05.240 --> 00:15:08.399 who co coined the term psychopropology. But yes, he was 248 00:15:08.399 --> 00:15:12.919 a well respected psychologist and studied how fast smart little 249 00:15:13.039 --> 00:15:16.440 rats could make it through mazes as well as pioneered 250 00:15:16.639 --> 00:15:20.279 this method still known as the open field test, and 251 00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:23.200 that is where they put a little mouse on a 252 00:15:23.279 --> 00:15:28.720 checkerboard table and observed it venturing around to determine heritable 253 00:15:28.799 --> 00:15:32.960 traits of emotionality. Akaa, how freaked out they get being 254 00:15:33.039 --> 00:15:35.840 in an open space, based on how scared their parents were. 255 00:15:36.080 --> 00:15:39.360 And for more on your own heritable emotionality now that 256 00:15:39.399 --> 00:15:42.360 we're all right, from visits with our family, you can 257 00:15:42.399 --> 00:15:45.080 see the personality psychology episode which we'll link in the 258 00:15:45.080 --> 00:15:47.720 show notes. But yes, doctor Calvin Hall. 259 00:15:47.919 --> 00:15:51.559 He bred the brave with the brave, and the scared 260 00:15:51.600 --> 00:15:54.279 with the scared, and so he bred for temperament and 261 00:15:54.320 --> 00:15:57.320 mice within four or five generations. So he's very rigorous. 262 00:15:57.799 --> 00:15:59.919 But then he got interested in dreams and he brought 263 00:16:00.080 --> 00:16:03.919 that rigor to dreams and he developed a what's called 264 00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:08.279 a coding system, which I best can describe as you 265 00:16:08.360 --> 00:16:11.799 put things in boxes. You put elements in a dream 266 00:16:11.840 --> 00:16:14.879 in boxes. So if I have a dream that I 267 00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:18.039 was sitting in my house and a friend walked in 268 00:16:18.639 --> 00:16:22.240 and he had his dog and the dog bit me, Well, 269 00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:26.039 the setting is my house, the character is my friend, 270 00:16:27.039 --> 00:16:30.960 and there's an animal character, this dog, and there was 271 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:31.600 an aggression. 272 00:16:31.720 --> 00:16:34.639 The dog bit me, and Bill says that a bite 273 00:16:34.720 --> 00:16:38.039 would be an example of physical aggression, of course, so 274 00:16:38.120 --> 00:16:42.320 that goes in the physical aggression box. Wait, the what box? Okay? 275 00:16:42.360 --> 00:16:45.039 So his mentor, Calvin Hall and then this other guy, 276 00:16:45.200 --> 00:16:49.519 Robert Vandcastle, developed a quantitative system. It is known as 277 00:16:49.559 --> 00:16:53.080 the Hall, vand Castle dream coding system. This was back 278 00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:55.519 in the nineteen sixties. What the hell is a dream 279 00:16:55.559 --> 00:16:58.840 coding system, We're all asking. So it's a way of 280 00:16:58.960 --> 00:17:03.279 taking dream reports from subjects and then indexing them to 281 00:17:03.360 --> 00:17:07.799 measure who is dreaming about what, how often? And some 282 00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:11.359 of the tags they assigned to these dream reports are characters, 283 00:17:11.680 --> 00:17:17.960 the people who appear, settings, objects, activities, success and failure, 284 00:17:18.559 --> 00:17:23.599 misfortune and good fortune, emotions, and then social interactions. And 285 00:17:23.799 --> 00:17:29.960 social interaction has subcategories for friendliness, sexuality, and aggressions. So 286 00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:35.839 this coding system forever changed psychopapology and also showed that 287 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:39.839 humans tended to dream about pretty similar things. Based on 288 00:17:39.920 --> 00:17:43.839 this now quantitative research and dream scientists were kind of 289 00:17:43.839 --> 00:17:46.920 able to forge this new world of research just by saying, 290 00:17:47.319 --> 00:17:51.240 give me, you're tired, you're friendly, your horny masses yearning 291 00:17:51.319 --> 00:17:52.319 to dream free. 292 00:17:52.640 --> 00:17:57.720 So we have all these boxes for minor misfortunes, major misfortunes, 293 00:17:58.200 --> 00:18:03.799 types of aggression, physical and on physical, whether you befriended 294 00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:09.599 me or I befriended you, it's very detailed. And what 295 00:18:09.880 --> 00:18:14.119 happened was taking his course, I also learned an amazing 296 00:18:14.200 --> 00:18:17.640 thing for that time period, and it's still always always 297 00:18:17.640 --> 00:18:20.240 surprising to us, and that was it had just been 298 00:18:20.279 --> 00:18:24.480 discovered in nineteen fifty three that our sleep, contrary to 299 00:18:24.559 --> 00:18:29.319 being just a simple sort of one undifferentiated state, in 300 00:18:29.440 --> 00:18:34.319 fact has these various stages we call them. And one 301 00:18:34.359 --> 00:18:37.440 of these stages this rim sleep stage, which we go 302 00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:41.880 into four or five times a night, about every ninety minutes. 303 00:18:42.440 --> 00:18:45.240 This stage of sleep is what we call really activated. 304 00:18:45.319 --> 00:18:50.079 That is, your breathing rate changes, and your heart rate changes, 305 00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:54.240 your little twinges that you'll see it in your dog. 306 00:18:54.319 --> 00:18:59.160 It's the work pause or moving, and then it's called 307 00:18:59.240 --> 00:19:03.240 rapidie move and sleep because your eye eyes are moving. 308 00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:06.880 And it's even the name of It's funny because the 309 00:19:06.920 --> 00:19:10.400 person who originally studied it the high movements. They jump 310 00:19:10.440 --> 00:19:13.279 all around, and he was going to call him jerky 311 00:19:13.319 --> 00:19:17.920 eye movements, and he decided that wouldn't be right. They 312 00:19:17.960 --> 00:19:21.680 would be known as gems and they would be jerky 313 00:19:21.720 --> 00:19:25.279 eye movements, so he called them rapid eye movements. 314 00:19:25.759 --> 00:19:29.720 Who was this guy? Okay? Doctor Nathaniel Kleitman, a renowned 315 00:19:29.880 --> 00:19:33.240 sleep researcher, in his student Eugene Azarinsky, and they hooked 316 00:19:33.319 --> 00:19:38.039 up willing volunteers to electrodes in nineteen fifty three and 317 00:19:38.119 --> 00:19:41.200 discovered the REM phase of sleep, which is called a 318 00:19:41.240 --> 00:19:44.000 paradoxical form of sleep because it has a lot of 319 00:19:44.039 --> 00:19:48.319 similarities to being awake. Your cerebral neurons are firing with 320 00:19:48.400 --> 00:19:51.200 the same intensity as you're waking hours, and you're only 321 00:19:51.240 --> 00:19:54.839 in REM sleep about twenty to twenty five percent of 322 00:19:54.880 --> 00:19:57.599 the night if you're an adult. But babies they're in 323 00:19:57.640 --> 00:20:00.920 that zone roughly eighty percent of their sleep time. Although 324 00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:03.799 dream scientists know that their brains aren't having the same 325 00:20:03.920 --> 00:20:07.519 level of dream activity that fully developed adult brains have, 326 00:20:07.880 --> 00:20:10.759 but what is happening when our eyes are darting around 327 00:20:10.920 --> 00:20:12.559 shiftily under our lids. 328 00:20:12.960 --> 00:20:15.240 It gave people more of a sense that these eye 329 00:20:15.240 --> 00:20:18.400 movements maybe we're tracking dreams, which was one of our 330 00:20:18.440 --> 00:20:22.799 early beliefs. But in fact, I think the studies show 331 00:20:23.319 --> 00:20:27.359 that our eye movements are just jerking around randomly, and 332 00:20:27.440 --> 00:20:30.599 people have desperately tried to find patterns in them that 333 00:20:30.680 --> 00:20:33.920 would relate to dreams, but that didn't happen. But the 334 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:37.480 point is very simple, and that is that if you 335 00:20:37.680 --> 00:20:43.400 combine the seeming finding that we only dream during these 336 00:20:43.559 --> 00:20:48.200 rapid eye movement periods when our brain is basically activated 337 00:20:48.240 --> 00:20:51.119 again certain parts of our brain that later turned out 338 00:20:51.160 --> 00:20:55.240 but we'll get to that probably later, then if you 339 00:20:55.319 --> 00:20:59.119 then collect a dream during that period, and which we 340 00:20:59.160 --> 00:21:03.160 call a verbal reins because we're very psychologists, all we 341 00:21:03.279 --> 00:21:06.240 have if you want to ask me what a dream is, 342 00:21:06.559 --> 00:21:08.799 as you know it or I know it, a dream 343 00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:11.799 is a verbal report of a memory of a subjective 344 00:21:11.880 --> 00:21:14.279 experience that you had during the night. 345 00:21:16.599 --> 00:21:19.920 From a scientist perspective, they are data hounds and they 346 00:21:19.960 --> 00:21:21.319 can't work with what they don't know. 347 00:21:21.799 --> 00:21:25.319 So you have this particular report, like the one I 348 00:21:25.480 --> 00:21:28.480 just gave, and then we sit down and we have 349 00:21:28.599 --> 00:21:31.079 it on a piece of paper typed out, and then 350 00:21:31.119 --> 00:21:34.720 we say, oh, there's a character, there's an animal, there's 351 00:21:34.720 --> 00:21:38.960 a social interaction, there's a setting. So you combine those 352 00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:44.359 two and we could be scientific. Now you have to 353 00:21:44.440 --> 00:21:48.039 understand that psychologists used to have in those days what 354 00:21:48.079 --> 00:21:52.880 we called physics envy, and that is that we want 355 00:21:52.920 --> 00:21:55.160 to be scientists just like you. We want you to 356 00:21:55.200 --> 00:21:59.279 recognize that we're scientists just like you, So we have 357 00:21:59.359 --> 00:22:05.160 to be serios. And suddenly we have a situation where 358 00:22:05.200 --> 00:22:09.039 we have people in a sleep lab with this big 359 00:22:09.160 --> 00:22:12.720 clunky In those days of EEG was enormous. It was 360 00:22:12.759 --> 00:22:17.240 this big, clunky, clunky machine, and that made us look 361 00:22:17.279 --> 00:22:21.359 pretty scientific. And we've collected a dream during a rem period, 362 00:22:21.400 --> 00:22:25.559 which is supposedly only when we dreamt, and then we 363 00:22:26.359 --> 00:22:30.359 get the verbal report and we quantify it. So the 364 00:22:30.480 --> 00:22:34.039 title of my dissertation was this is sort of like, 365 00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:37.599 please notice we are scientists, but it's set in a 366 00:22:37.640 --> 00:22:41.440 pretty assertive manner. So the title of my dissertation was 367 00:22:41.759 --> 00:22:47.720 a quantitative study of dream content using an objective indicator 368 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:52.880 of dreaming, like, wow, how could you get more scientific 369 00:22:52.920 --> 00:22:53.319 than that? 370 00:22:53.680 --> 00:22:54.400 Very lab coat? 371 00:22:57.839 --> 00:23:01.119 And furthermore, we would say this is the only known 372 00:23:01.440 --> 00:23:05.920 one to one relationship between a physiological event and a 373 00:23:05.960 --> 00:23:11.480 psychological event. In other words, remsleep equals dreaming. That it 374 00:23:11.640 --> 00:23:15.640 was called the rem dream equation. So how could I 375 00:23:15.720 --> 00:23:18.759 not go into dream research as a person that was 376 00:23:18.799 --> 00:23:24.559 interested in human motivation? Why we do the silly things 377 00:23:24.559 --> 00:23:27.880 we do, the things we know we shouldn't do. That 378 00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:33.319 we watch absurdities unfold every day, you know, in the culture, 379 00:23:33.720 --> 00:23:36.640 in what we're doing, in whatever realm of life that 380 00:23:36.680 --> 00:23:40.359 we're in. The other hooker was you got to understand 381 00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:44.519 in the fifties, in the early sixties, Freud and jung 382 00:23:44.640 --> 00:23:48.440 and the neo Freudians were the sort of they were 383 00:23:48.480 --> 00:23:52.559 in the atmosphere. And even though psychologists shied away from 384 00:23:52.559 --> 00:23:56.400 all three, and there were very few Freudians, no Jungens, 385 00:23:56.759 --> 00:24:01.759 still their metaphors, their images prevailed their ideas, and we 386 00:24:01.880 --> 00:24:05.920 had the expectations that you know, they we were testing 387 00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:09.119 there some of their ideas, no question. But the point 388 00:24:09.160 --> 00:24:13.039 is Freud had that right metaphor, the kind of metaphor 389 00:24:13.480 --> 00:24:18.319 that works. And Freud's phrase was dreams are the royal 390 00:24:18.599 --> 00:24:23.319 road to the unconscious, a royal road. Today we know 391 00:24:23.400 --> 00:24:29.480 they're a bumpy, little, unpaved road to the mundane, I 392 00:24:29.519 --> 00:24:32.480 would say, except for a few very interesting kind of 393 00:24:32.559 --> 00:24:34.519 dreams that we can talk about. 394 00:24:34.440 --> 00:24:37.880 And just a quick context. So Sigmund Freud was a 395 00:24:37.920 --> 00:24:41.960 pioneer in psychoanalysis, and Carl Jung thought that the symbols 396 00:24:42.240 --> 00:24:45.359 and the meanings of things that happen in dreams really 397 00:24:45.400 --> 00:24:47.839 depend on the context of those events or objects to 398 00:24:47.880 --> 00:24:50.960 the dreamer, and that dreaming can be used as kind 399 00:24:50.960 --> 00:24:53.920 of a creative tool to solve problems. For it was like, no, 400 00:24:54.359 --> 00:24:57.359 if you dream of corn dogs, you're a secret little 401 00:24:57.400 --> 00:24:59.880