ABSTRACT
Steven Ellman suggests that “issues that are brought up in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep mentation are survival issues that usually involve an element of the body-self represented in the dream”. Human dreams are developmentally early adaptive solutions to conflicts invariably generated by wishes. The origin of the dream state in the physical dependence of the human newborn means that the struggles depicted in dreams will be, at least in structural terms, life-death issues. Phasic REM dreams are thus expected to be particularly compelling. Perhaps the procedural learning often linked to REM sleep could represent the internalisation of the relationship pattern between mother and infant. The delayed development of REM would interfere with this switch from internal to external. Lissa Weinstein wonderfully complements Steven Ellman’s magisterial overview of the interplay of infant mental function and the mechanisms of dreaming. Lissa’s focus was on the emergence of the reflective self from the “dreaming relationship” between infant and mother.
