ABSTRACT
The knowledge gained in the previous three chapters can now be integrated with the theoretical formulations advanced in chapter 15. The mechanism of nonvisual dreaming was relatively self-evident. The dream imagery deficits were regularly accompanied by exactly analogous deficits of waking visual imagery. It was therefore possible to conclude with some confidence that these patients were unable to visualize in their dreams because they were unable to visualize in general. Global nondreamers do not present clinically with a corresponding (global) deficit of waking thought. Nevertheless, an analysis of the syndrome of cessation of dreaming should provide a working definition of the particular aspect of cognition that is lost in nondreaming patients. This definition should in turn make it possible to isolate one of the most essential factors in dream mentation, for the loss of this factor leads to a complete cessation of dreaming as a whole. In fact, there should be two (or three) such factors, corresponding to the two (or three) anatomical regions that we have associated with global cessation of dreaming.
