ABSTRACT
Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley’s theory, building on M. Jouvet’s discovery, was that rapid eye movement sleep was “switched on” by a small group of cells in the pons excreting acetylcholine, the chemical responsible for attention, learning, and memory in the brain. This chapter looks at some of what has been established about dreams and dreaming by dream researchers and neuroscientists. Sleep and dreaming is a peculiar and particular state of mind and consciousness, where the mind–brain is, in fact, quite active. Hobson’s explanation for the bizarreness relies on what he calls the “hyper-associative” nature of dreaming, a concept he borrows from the nineteenth century associationist, David Hartley. G. W. Domhoff, speaking from a cognitive theorist perspective, is critical of both Mark Solms and Hobson and McCarley. Domhoff’s “neuro-cognitive theory of dreams” argues that dreams reflect waking conceptions and emotional preoccupations and are a developmental cognitive achievement that demonstrates, in their content, a significant continuity and repetition of themes.
