Converging theories on dreaming: Between Freud, predictive processing, and psychedelic research
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience February 16, 2023 Michael Koslowski, Max-Pelgrom de Haas, Tamara Fischmann 14 citations
Dreaming arises from the same hierarchical predictive processing that governs waking cognition, but with key modifications: lack of sensory and motor input and a predominance of associative, non-rational primary process thinking. Emotional needs guide behavior via a value system generating pleasure and unpleasure, and the brain constantly updates its predictions to minimize prediction error. Repressed priors—mental events that cannot be reconsolidated despite ongoing error signals—correspond to conflictual complexes and may become accessible in symbolic form during dreams and psychedelic states. Evidence from neuroimaging supports this framework, and an ongoing trial with stroke patients who lost the ability to dream tests whether dreaming is necessary for intact sleep architecture and memory consolidation.