ABSTRACT
One way to downgrade apparently high level of linguistic performance evidenced by recalled dream speech would be to strike at heart of Chomskyan linguistic creativity. Allowing for linguistic creativity in Chomskyan sense in dreams also permits, in principle, nocturnal creativity in the sense of literary originality. In the presumed general absence of intention in most dreams, the possible explanations for the apparent general increase in nocturnal literary creativity evidenced by utterances recalled from dreams would seem to allow the following possibilities. The curious nature of its semantic content may have been encouraged by a general reduction in feedback and critical thought. Research has shown that sleeptalking episodes are distributed more or less randomly throughout the night, and that, consequently, only about one in five occurs during a Rapid Eye Movement period. Resemblances have been remarked upon by Kraepelin between some of his specimens and the speech characteristic of some types of schizophrenia.
