ABSTRACT
While interest in sleeping and dreaming can be considered to 'overlap' in the area of REM sleep, studies of dreaming with their emphasis on the content, function, and interpretation of dream experiences, extend well beyond the EEG laboratory, and well beyond the intended scope of this book. The relationship between REM sleep and the occurrence of dreams has been established through a fairly straightforward experimental procedure. Studies of the dream content in elderly people have mostly been conducted within the framework of psychoanalytical theory which, after the teachings of Freud, draws a distinction between the 'manifest' content of the dream and the latent' content of the dream. In the REM awakening study, Drs Kahn and Fisher found no evidence that the dreams of their elderly volunteers were preoccupied with frustration or loss. Dr Altshuler and his colleagues did find that after consecutive interviews the elderly participants in their study began to report dreams which had included the interviewing psychiatrist.
