ABSTRACT

38Précis: In Chapter One we make use of the new model of dreaming as active, psychologically meaningful, and adaptive: a unique blend of mentation that integrates affective wishes and fears with cognitive concerns, while at the same time creating what we call “deferred action plans”. These plans seem born in dreams where they help simulate what has been identified as potentially dangerous, and are activated later in waking life where they help us explore and reduce the dangers noted.

In Chapter Two we start with the SEEKING system (Panskepp, 1998) and elaborate its relevance for the study of dreaming, especially the effect of the dopamine related neural systems on the creation of predictive error signals, and the assignment of incentive salience (a state of both wanting something, and figuring out at the same time how best to get it) (Hyman, 2005). Along the way we attempt to integrate the contributions to dreaming of memory mechanisms, transcription factors, sleep activation events, reentrant architecture, and a variety of neuroanatomical subsystems and functions. Along with the VMFL and PTOCJ with their emerging importance for dreaming (see Chapter One), the other brain subsystems “of interest” as dream contributors include the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the periaqueductal gray (PAG), the centromedian nucleus of the thalamus (CNT), the cerebellum (CB), hypothalamus (HT), various basal ganglia and upper brainstem structures, and inferotemporal cortex (ITC) (supramarginal gyrus) (Yu, 2001). The amygdala (A) and hippocampus (H) are also important for processing dangerous stimuli perceived in the environment, and for processing or encoding the contextual features of emotional experience (Brendel et al. 2004). For example, the CB is critical for the coordination of thoughts and also actions, as well the prediction of events and assignments of their emotional meanings based upon need assessments (the research of Masao Ito, cited in Levin, 1991, 2003), while the ITC is important for connecting motivational systems and the visual cortex, including the tracking of meaningful objects in space. Because of space limitations, in Chapter Two we concentrate primarily on the ACC and PAG, and leave for later a more detailed consideration of the other brain systems noted.

Along with discussing the SEEKING system, we consider a role for pleasure in anticipation and the effect of dopamine on using perceptual information to motivate behaviors to obtain what we want and/or need (Panksepp, 1998, 2005a, 2005b; Hyman, 2005). We are well aware of the danger of plying our “net” too broadly in attempting to nail down how various brain subsystems 39might influence dreaming. But given the complex underpinnings of dreams it pays to speculate about possible relationships and mechanisms if we are to construct a cogent and comprehensive theory of dreaming.