ABSTRACT
Shortly after A. Freud's death, the study of dreaming from the perspective of neuroscience began in earnest. Initially, these studies yielded results that were difficult to reconcile with the psychological conclusions set out in his great book, The Interpretation of Dreams. The discoveries generated great excitement in the neuroscientific field: for the first time it appeared to have in its grasp an objective, physical manifestation of dreaming, one of the most subjective of all mental states. Neuroscientific research into the mechanism of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep continued along these lines, using a wide variety of methods, and by 1975 a detailed picture of the anatomy and physiology of "dreaming sleep" had emerged. The only reliable difference between REM dream reports, sleep-onset reports, and certain other classes of non-REM dream report is that the REM reports are longer.
