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Ongoing Discussion of J. Allan Hobson (Vol. 1, No. 2):Commentary by Lawrence Kunstadt (New York)Lawrence Kunstadt
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To cite this article:Lawrence Kunstadt (2001) Ongoing Discussion of J. Allan Hobson (Vol. 1, No. 2): Commentaryby Lawrence Kunstadt (New York), Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and the
Neurosciences, 3:1, 85-101, DOI: 10.1080/15294145.2001.10773340
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Ongoing Discussion (Vol. 1,
No 2
In the beginning, analysts, employing the method
of
free association, developed a reputation for ob
taining detailed histories. It would be gratifying
if
sup
port could be found for respective analysts
to
follow
a single patient over a period
of
time, for the purpose
of learning what additional information the use
of
ana
lytic methods might contribute to the affective phe
nomenology of limbic epilepsy.
One might think of such a project in broader per
spective: It is said that colors per
se
do not exist in
the outward universe. They only exist subjectively in
ourselves after being generated by the brain's algo
rithms. Given these considerations, what other nonex
isting products of mind are waiting to be uncovered
by our brain's algorithms?
References
Gibbs, F A., Gibbs, E. L.,
Lennox, W G (1938), Cere
bral dysrhythmias of epilepsy. Arch. Neurol. Psychia-
try 39:298 314.
85
Jones, E. (1953), The Life an d Work Sigmund Freud.
New York: Basic Books.
MacLean,
P
D. (1952), Some psychiatric implications of
physiological studies on the frontotemporal portion of
the limbic system (visceral brain). Clin. Electro-
coencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol. 4:407 418.
(1990),
The Triune Brain Evolution: Role Pa-
leocerebral Functions.
New York: Plenum Press.
Panksepp, J
(1981), The ontogeny
of
play in rats.
Develop.
Psychobiol. 14:327 332.
(1998),
Affective Neuroscience: The foundations
Human and Animal Emotions. New York: Oxford Uni
versity Press.
Papez, J. W. (1937), A proposed mechanism of emotion.
Arch. Neurol. Psychiatry 38:725 743.
National Institute
Mental Health
CBDB Neuropathology Section
Building
36
Room 3A24
35 Convent Drive MSC 4091
Bethesda MD 20892 4091
Ongoing Discussion
of J.
Allan Hobson (Vol. 1,
No 2 :
Commentary by Lawrence Kunstadt
(New
York
This letter has three goals. The first
is
to examine the
physiological evidence related to the Solms-Hobson
debate over whether dreams are caused by wishes or
by brain mechanisms. The second
is
to present an old
theory concerning causality and apply it to this debate.
The third is to specifically answer many
of
the objec
tions Hobson raises against psychoanalysis.
Physiology
The physiological aspect
of
the Solms-Hobson debate
is nominally over whether there
is
a significant multi
or autogenic forebrain contribution to REM sleep
dreaming (Solms) or whether the pontine contribution
to REM sleep dreaming is sufficient alone to cause
dreams (Hobson). The former would be consistent
with the Freudian notion
of
dreams
as
fulfilling wishes
because it is known that the forebrain
is
involved in
Lawrence Kunstadt, Ph.D., is a neurobiologist on the faculty
of
the
New York University Psychoanalytic Institute.
higher order thinking. There being no evidence that the
pons underlies higher order thinking, the latter allows
dreams to be explained away as mere physiology or
epiphenomena, just something the brain does.
While this may seem to be an angels-on-a-pin
head debate, what is at stake
is
the underpinning
of
the psychoanalytic edifice. Make no mistake about it,
this is a case of two world views colliding: psycho
analysis versus reductionism, and an intelligent reduc
tionism at that.
Hobson's challenge to psychoanalysis is bold and
threatening: Because [Freud's] dream theory is so
foundational, its renunciation forces a major reformu
lation upon the whole
field
(p. 158). Insofar
as
psy
choanalysis remains committed to Freud's view
of
dreaming
the new results do not provide the faint
est modicum of support (p. 157). It is therefore, to
use Freud 's apposite phrase, incumbent upon us to
make perspicacious and clear the evidence, as
sumptions, and reasoning underlying these two views.
Each side's argument rests on three components: em
pirical data, interpretation of these data, and conceptu
alizations
of
the issues.
7/25/2019 15 Ongoing Discussion of J. Allan Hobson (Vol. 1, No. 2): Commentary by Lawrence Kunstadt (New York)
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The animal neurobiological data are not con
tested by Solms. The Solms data, which are primarily
clinical, are contested by Hobson. The problem is that
there are strengths and weaknesses to each approach.
The clinical data are more relevant because they are
human studies. However, they are probably less valid
than Hobson's experimental data because they depend
on accidents
of
nature, such as strokes, which give
widespread and imprecise lesions incapable
of
exact
anatomical resolution, varying from case to case and
having no known connection to specific functional
anatomy (i.e., they cause damage over a widespread
area containing several distinct structures rather than
the pinpoint lesions created experimentally). Animal
lesion studies do not have this problem. On the other
hand, we do not know a priori the precise anatomical
correspondent
of
particular psychological functions
(that is what lesion studies set out to determine) so that
lesions based on anatomical distinctions may, also, be
too small, too large, or otherwise inappropriate. There
is a big difference between asking what the mental
change
is
related to in a given structure and asking
what structures underlie this mental function.
That is to say, there are methodological problems
with both scientific approaches. Furthermore, Solms's
clinical cases utilize analytic listening in contrast to
Hobson's wake-up studies which listen to human
volunteers' reports nonanalytically. These two meth
odologies yield different results. In fact, the type
of
results they yield are to a large extent incommensura
ble, which is a major source
of
the disagreement be
tween Solms and Hobson. PET and other nonlesion
studies are more helpful because the results are self
generated by the brain during the psychological func
tion in question. They may therefore resolve some
of
this dispute but the critical studies, which, as Hobson
notes, would require people to sleep in scanners, have
not been done yet.
The interpretation
of
the data is to some extent
a matter
of
taste, resistant or even refractory to argu
mentation. For instance, Solms considers the 20
of
dreaming that occurs in NREM to conclusively invali
date the pontinogenic origin
of
dreams theory, where
as Hobson considers the 20 to be ared herring.
p
210).
However, it may pay to review and comment on
some
of
the arguments. Hobson's theory
of
dreaming
is sophisticated, complex, and very intelligent, making
it hard to summarize. His emphasis is on the role
of
the pons and the limbic system in dreaming. The for
mer, in his view, initiates dreaming, the latter gives it
its affective flavor. The forebrain's role is to synthe-
awrence unstadt
size the disparate, meaningless stimuli that reach it,
creating the narrative
of
the dream.
What are dreams, according to Hobson?
physiological projection test revealing, rather than
concealing, emotionally salient concerns (p. 157).
There are two types
of
argument for this view. One
is
philosophical, the point
of
view that the mind and
brain are identical.
Our
conscious experience is the
brain-mind's awareness
of
its own physiological
states (p. 158). The other consists
of
a very large
number of physiological studies which form the basis
of
Hobson's first paper in this journal.
A discussion
of
Hobson's philosophical view
of
mind-brain identity would take us far afield. I would
like to focus on where Solms and Hobson differ in
their physiological views. I must note in passing that
while Hobson's work is generally accepted in the field,
there are some criticisms
of
his model from other labs
such s Llinas's (e.g., Llinas and Pare, 1991) and
Mancia's (1995).
Solms does not dispute the assertion that the pons
and limbic system contribute to dreaming. The funda
mental questions underlying the Hobson-Solms de
bate are: (1) whether the pons, in particular, is
necessary for dreaming or whether it is only one
of
several anatomical loci that may stimulate those other
areas necessary for dreams; (2) whether neurophysio
logical stimulation
of
the forebrain alone is enough to
cause a dream or whether such stimulation must in
volve another brain area that catches the attention
of an appetitive fantasy ; and (3) whether dream im
agery is cobbled together merely s a reflection
of
meaningless stimuli or whether the dream's imagery
manifests interpretable wishes. Just to make it clear,
neither side believes that pontine or limbic activity
alone determines dream imagery or action. That is a
cortical function.
Solms adduces several empirical objections to
Hobson's model. The first is that it ignores the small
number
of
patients who have pontine lesions who,
nevertheless, dream. Hobson dismisses this objection
y claiming, Itseems to us that any lesion capable
of destroying the pontine REM sleep generator mecha
nism would have to be so extensive as to eliminate
consciousness altogether (pp. 168-169).
This is an unfair dismissal
of
a critical piece
of
evidence.
If
consciousness were eliminated, how
could the patients have reported their dreams? I think
Solms' objection is serious, though not fatal, and de
serves a much more thorough evaluation by Hobson.
One thing that needs to be done is to look closely at
the postmortem neuroanatomy to see just where the
7/25/2019 15 Ongoing Discussion of J. Allan Hobson (Vol. 1, No. 2): Commentary by Lawrence Kunstadt (New York)
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Ongoing Discussion (Vol. 1, No.2)
lesions were. Were they restricted to (or did they even
include) the pedunculopontine and laterodorsal teg
mental nuclei that are so important to Hobson s model,
or were they very massive,
s
Hobson suggests they
must be?
While we re
on
the topic, I wonder about some
of Hobson s neuroanatomy. I may be out of date but
I believe the pedunculopontine nucleus receives fibers
from the precentral gyrus (motor cortex) and the glo
bus pallidus, suggesting it is involved in motor output.
Could cortical motor intentions (plan for specific ac
tion) descend to the pons and then ascend up again for
conversion to visual imagery? What is the laterodorsal
nucleus? There are nuclei in the dorsolateral part
of
the pontine tegmentum. Is that what he means? The
Braun model (p. 166) and Hobson s Figure 4 are ex
tremely interesting. I hope Hobson s 2000 paper dis
cusses these in detail. That article
s
not yet available
s
I write this letter (August). What these models sug
gest is (1) that lower brainstem neuroanatomy is in
volved in dream consciousness and (2) that different
aspects of this consciousness are related to simultane
ous (rather than sequential) contributions from differ
ent anatomical loci, a finding that would certainly
draw people s attention. (The latter is entirely consis
tent with Freud s view of the brain.)
The second Solms objection comes from the 20
percent or so of dreams that occur outside REM sleep
but which are indistinguishable from REM dreams.
Solms s inference is that these dreams occur without
the physiological mechanism underlying REM dreams
and therefore the REM-dream mechanism (that is,
Hobson s circuit) is not necessary for dreaming. Hob
son s
counterargument is that recent work demon
strates some REM-like features in non-REM sleep,
making the story a quantitative one rather than an
either-or situation. This
s
in accord with the emphasis
in psychoanalysis on a quantitative factor and should
be considered more carefully by Solms. Apparently
non-REM dreaming has not been studied in great de
tail physiologically, so we do not know which
of
these
alternatives is right. This may be one of those cases
where, as a wag once put it, the horns
of
a dilemma
are attached to the same bull.
The third issue is perhaps the most critical.
If
pontine mechanisms are not necessary for dreaming,
then what does cause dreams? Solms s contention is
that there are two entirely different mechanisms-the
brainstem mechanism of REM sleep and the forebrain
mechanism
of
dreaming. Hobson claims that (nonfore
brain) pontomesencephalic brainstem cholinergic acti
vation inhibits motor output (except oculomotor
87
movement) and also stimulates the forebrain to dream
and is therefore the sole cause of dreams. For Hobson
the dream is composed of information from corollary
discharges from the oculomotor muscles and motor
intentions (originating where?). Solms follows the
Freudian view.
Solms argues that any type of persistent arousal,
not just pontinogenic stimulation, can cause dreams.
He argues this based
on
the cluster
of
dreaming that
occurs during non-REM (nonpontinogenic) sleep at
the onset of sleep and at awakening. He also cites the
case of focal forebrain disrhythmias in complex partial
epilepsy, in which
dreamy
states manifest exclu
sively from frontal and limbic structures. Hobson does
not address this evidence.
Solms also argues that decades of animal research
equate REM sleep with dreaming but ignore the im
possibility of knowing whether the animals actually
dream. This raises the whole issue of what one can
learn from animal studies. I would argue that there
are additional limitations that tarnish the enterprise
of
cognitive neuroscience. For one,
s
the brain evolved
it not only added new tissue it rearranged its intrinsic
anatomy. Structures with the same name (e.g., amyg
dala) have different structure, size, and connections in
different species. What a specific structure does in one
species brain is related to its connections and will be
at least somewhat different from what the same struc
ture does in another species brain. While similarities
may impress us, there are always differences. I call
this the Everybody has a face but everybody s face
is different problem.
Furthermore, it is well known in animal behavior
that the same behavior in different species often
has a different physiological basis. In biology small
differences at one level can lead to very large differ
ences at a different level. The cat s not simply a di
minished human.
There is another fundamental problem with cog
nitive neuroscience. It still uses a
module
model
where something happens to information in a brain
structure then it moves somewhere else where some
thing else happens, rather than a model where each
structure dynamically contributes to whole psycholog
ical functions. I do not think these are either-or mod
els, they may both apply. And there are other models
of brain organization too.
Solms s fourth argument rests on the finding that
there are hundreds of patients reported in the literature
who have ceased dreaming but who continue to exhibit
REM sleep. These patients have lesions only in the
forebrain, and in specific forebrain loci to boot, the
7/25/2019 15 Ongoing Discussion of J. Allan Hobson (Vol. 1, No. 2): Commentary by Lawrence Kunstadt (New York)
5/18
88
white matter of the ventromedial quadrant of the fron
tal lobes (bilaterally) and the PTa junction (or possi
bly underlying structures such as the insula. If the
insula, this would be historically interesting because
Freud [1891] wrote that the insula creates more than
anywhere else in the nervous system, the impression
of a real centre for certain functions [po 4]). Hob
son s counterarguments rest
on
objections to the ex
perimental methodologies (these were frontal
leucotomy patients) and proposed alternative mecha
nisms such
as
weakened cognitive function or attenua
tion of recall. This is also negative
evidence-if
the
gears (forebrain) don t engage, it does not matter how
much gas (brainstem stimulation) you give the engine.
Solms derives from this set of evidence the idea
that any sustained arousing stimulus can cause a
dream. He then developed a second part to the model.
Borrowing from Freud, Solms also proposes that for
a dream to occur the arousing stimulus must engage
the appetitive interest of the mind. He presents physio
logical evidence for this and links it to Panksepp s
dopaminergic seeking system. To discuss this would
require more time and effort than either I can bear or
than I could expect the reader to endure. Let me say
that while many of Solms s arguments strike me as
persuasive (assuming the data hold up) the dopamine
hypothesis leaves me unconvinced. For one, Pank
sepp s seeking system is a general up-and-at- em seek
ing system whereas Freud s seeking function relates
to a specific memory/wish-based attempt to refind an
experience of satisfaction. Second, my negative tilt
relates to the enormous strength and staying power of
the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia over the
past couple of decades which have recently evaporated
into the mist (Martin Blum, personal communication,
1999). The third is the very complex problem that
while we can label certain fantasies appetitive
based on their peremptory quality, so far as we know
even though neurotransmitters may vary, there is noth
ing in neurophysiology that distinguishes different
qualia from each other. The fourth is the related prob
lem of whether physiological arousal can be equated
with behavioral arousal.
So what are we to make of all this? One thing
is that while further empirical research will certainly
resolve some of the specific points of disagreement it
will not resolve the conceptual disagreements. My
view is that the dispute is not so much over the data
as between the complexity of nature and the desire of
both Hobson and Solms to build idealized abstrac
tions. (I
don t mean
idealized in the psychoanalytic
sense but that may be involved too.) At this stage of
Lawrence
Kunstadt
science, models help but they cannot account for the
complexity of nature. I am most impressed with Hob
son s attempt to bring quantitative factors into his
model.
Solms presents several types of clinical evidence
for forebrain-originated contributions to dreaming.
Hobson has a counterargument for most
of
them, fo
cusing on the quality of the data. I have mentioned
the problems with each side s method and I think this
is the real issue. Solms argues by virtue of the consis
tency and quantity of different types
of
clinical studies,
Hobson by the quality of a more precise approach.
Solms tries to interpret what nature has given him in
clinical material. Hobson has been looking for neuro
physiological and neurochemical systems.
What exactly is Solms saying? There are two
forebrain areas the loss
of
which causes complete ces
sation
of
dreaming without loss of REM sleep: the
parieto-tempero-occipital (PTa) junction and the
white matter of the ventromedial quadrant of the fron
tal lobes. Solms attributes the loss of dreaming in pa
tients with lesions in these areas to a loss of
motivation. This is the crux of his psychological dis
agreement with Hobson. For Solms, a dream must, as
Freud proposed, be motivated. Solms notes that frontal
leucotomy patients who lost the ability to dream were
adynamic, that is, they lost their spontaneous interest
in the world p 190), and he relates this to a circuit
connecting limbic structures with the ventral tegmen
tum below and the ventromedial cortex above.
The idea that the forebrain functions as a nonspe
cific arousal mechanism has a long and interesting his
tory. Following Darwin (Aronson, 1970), the great
neuroanatomists of Freud s time, the Edingers, Elliot
Smith, Ariens Kappers, C. Judson Herrick, Johnston,
Huber, Crosby, and Papez, mapped out forebrain
structures in lower vertebrates. This being the time
before modern staining techniques, they mainly found
massive olfactory input to the forebrain. As Aronson
wrote, Since fibers from the olfactory bulbs pervade
all (or almost all)
of
the forebrain in primitive fishes
and amphibia, the obvious conclusion of the neuroa
natomists was that the forebrain
of lower vertebrates
serves primarily for the reception, dissemination and
intensification of olfactory information. . . . Then in
reptiles, birds and mammals there is a progressive in
crease in the representation of other [sensory] modal
ities. Thus we see the cerebrum of higher vertebrates
as a multi-sensory, integrative mechanism (p. 76).
This theory dominated neuroanatomy for at least
the first half of the 20th century. During the second
half
of
the century the forebrain came to be seen as
7/25/2019 15 Ongoing Discussion of J. Allan Hobson (Vol. 1, No. 2): Commentary by Lawrence Kunstadt (New York)
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Ongoing Discussion (Vol. 1, No.2
more complex. The olfactory nature
of
the forebrain
was accepted, along with the idea that through evolu
tion the forebrain became more and more emancipated
from olfactory domination and took on the role
of
an
activator and even an integrator. The question became
whether the nonolfactory functions were specific or
nonspecific. Aronson continues:
[D]amage to, or complete removal
of
the forebrain
[in lower vertebrates] results in a quantitative reduc
tion in the frequency of specific behavioral patterns
and sometimes changes in the timing of these events.
Since it is evident that no behavioral sequences (in
cluding those generated by learning experiments) are
completely eliminated by the operation, one must
conclude that the behavior in question is organized
(or the conditioned connection established) in neural
centers below the forebrain. . . . While the forebrain
does not participate directly in the organization of
behavior, it is a nonspecific regulator
of
lower brain
mechanisms. This is known as the arousal hypothesis.
The forebrain of lower vertebrates is considered the
forerunner of the limbic system in mammals [po 86].
Solms s view
of
the forebrain derives from this
heritage. The general idea
is
that the forebrain
of
lower
vertebrates receives olfactory fibers and that the fore
brain itself, as a result, has two functions. One is the
reception
of
olfactory information, the other is a gen
eral arousal function. As a general trend
of
evolution,
the forebrain became more and more emancipated
from its olfactory role and expanded its role
as
an
arousal activator or inhibitor and finally
as
an integ
rator. In addition, it added specific functions. Using
clinical data, Solms argues for the arousal role
of
the
forebrain, which he more-or-Iess equates with motiva
tion.
If
this equation holds, it is a simple step to derive
dreams from forebrain motivational systems.
Hobson argues strongly against this. To equate
brainstem inputs to the forebrain with adventitious ex
ternal stimuli is to argue against fifty years
of
neuro
physiology (p. 217). Hobson argues strongly in favor
of
brainstem control of the forebrain through both the
reticular activating system and through the circuits
he discovered.
My personal view
is
that the forebrain arousal
theory is much too simple, even in lower vertebrates.
I did some research on this in the 1970s and found
that forebrain-extirpated frogs Xenopus had a lower
threshold for responsiveness than normals, but once
stimulated they were hyperexcitable. Damage to the
septal region caused the greatest change. This suggests
89
to me a dynamic interplay between different specific
arousing mechanisms. I do not know whether leuco
tomy patients, when stimulated, showed an exagger
ated response.
The history of human neurology and neuropsy
chology has demonstrated
just
how infrequently one
can find parallel processes between what the mind is
doing and what the brain is doing. Other than some
simple sensory systems the correlation is difficult.
That is why I suspect that while Hobson s model may
be physiologically correct as far as it goes, it is incom
plete both psychologically and conceptually. What I
do not understand is how Hobson can acknowledge
the participation of
some two dozen other structures
and chemical systems (p. 167) but not try to integrate
all the evidence into a comprehensive theory of dream
ing. Maybe that is what his new paper does (Hobson,
Pace-Schott, and Strickland, 2000). The list of how
the various structures contribute to a dream (vermis to
fictive movement, fusiform gyrus to facial recognition,
etc.) is impressive, but what integrates all these ele
ments into a dream? The answer to that question is
what separates Hobson (nonmeaningful synthesis)
from Solms (the dream work). Perhaps a way out is
to develop a theory in which the two levels relate in
other than a simple parallel fashion.
Process-Hierachy Theory (PHT)
In contrast to the data and the interpretat ion of the
data, some progress may be made by an analysis
of
the conceptualizations. The fundamental issue in this
debate, as I read it, is the meaning
of
the term causal-
ity, particularly the question of the relation between
what the brain is doing and what the dream is doing.
Hobson, struggling with the issue
as
does everybody,
uses a variety of phrases to describe the connection
between anatomy-physiology and mentation: candi
date mechanism (p. 158); unity
of
brain and mind
(p. 158); strong and meaningful underpinnings (p.
158); a unified system which we call the mind
brain
(p. 158); separable analytic domains of the
neurophysiology and psychology
p
158); simulta
neous conscious state and brain-state change (p.
158); REM sleep dreams have several distinctive for
mal features which the underlying brain state must
somehow determine (pp. 158-159); Waking and
dreaming are at opposite ends
of
an aminergic-cholin
ergic neuromodulatory continuum (p. 161);
brain
lesions to be correlated with deficits or accentuations
of
dream experience (p. 165);
dream
synthesis by
7/25/2019 15 Ongoing Discussion of J. Allan Hobson (Vol. 1, No. 2): Commentary by Lawrence Kunstadt (New York)
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90
the forebrain (p. 166);
origin
of dream emotionality
in REM-associated limbic activation and dream-asso
ciated executive deficiencies in REM-associated fron
tal deactivation (p. 169); dreaming is bizarre
because of the distinctive neurophysiology (p. 170);
cortices mediate dream vision (p. 170); anxiety
as the primary product
of
limbic lobe activation (p.
170); dreaming is a state
of
consciousness arising
from the activation
of the brain (p. 171); brainacti
vation which underlies dreaming (p. 171); and
dreaming is epiphenomenal with respect to the most
fundamental biological adaptations of REM sleep (p.
174). This is that old devil himself, the mind-body
problem.
More ink, parchment, and paper have probably
been expended
on
the mind-body problem over the
past 2000 years than about any other single issue. To
my mind the mind-body problem has not been solved,
and it has not been solved for the single reason that
nobody knows what the mind
is
or even if it is any
thing at all. We know a lot about how it works, and
we are starting to know what brain processes occur
during particular mental functions, but we do not know
whether the mind is a thing, a model, a level, a prop
erty, an epiphenomenon or something else. Even to
speak of the
mind
rather than mental processes
is stating an opinion. So when we talk about the rela
tion between physiological processes and mental pro
cesses, we make up terms such as
c use
that
mayor
may not have anything to do with what is really going
on, or, at least, not in ways that we usually mean.
Of great interest along these lines is that both
Solms and Hobson seem to take the same, or very
similar, positions, on the mind-body problem (MBP).
They both consider themselves monists. And they both
take the same position with respect to how the brain
is organized, dynamic localizationism, although
Solms is more of an interactionist than Hobson. Now
this is not the place to argue the strengths and weak
nesses of these positions. The literature on these and
alternative positions is enormous and both Solms and
Hobson have published papers stating their views. I
want to stress that the concepts that Hobson and Solms
raise, though based largely on contemporary findings,
are old. In fact, the specific issue of how a studied
process such
as
brain chemistry or physiology can give
rise to another process that seems to have a completely
different form such as dreams is one that is very famil
iar to another branch of science, and it is to this idea
in that science that I would now like to turn.
Biology has to explain two core processes: evolu
tion and development. Both are characterized by
Lawrence
unstadt
change over time and both are characterized by the
creation of new forms from old. So they both raise
the question, How does something arise out of some
thing quite different? In the case
of
evolution, how
does one species arise from a different species? In the
case of development, how does an adult arise from
an embryo? In our case, how do dreams arise from
neural activity?
Over the past
years, a theory has emerged in
biology that has proven extremely useful in explaining
these two processes, as well as ecological succession
and animal behavior, which have some formal similar
ities to the first two. The theory is not identified with
any individual. It does not have an accepted name. It
has emerged in dozens, perhaps hundreds,
of
papers
written by different people at different times with dif
ferent biological questions as their subject matter. To
my mind, while it is incomplete and still under devel
opment itself, it
is
a cohesive theory that provides a
context for organizing and understanding a wide vari
ety
of
phenomena, including brain and mental pro
cesses, that have
as
central characteristics change and
emergence. I call it process-hierarchy theory (PHT).
On the hierarchy side, the gist of the theory is
very simple, well known, and often used, even by biol
ogists who do not see it as a general theory of nature.
Process-hierarchy recognizes that the natural world is
hierarchically organized. In biology, the hierarchy is
something like this: Simple molecules make up macro
molecules, which, in turn, make up organelles, cells,
tissues, organs, organ systems, organisms, popula
tions, and ecosystems. I say something like
this
because while biologists agree that the natural world
is
hierarchically organized, each biologist seems to
have his or her own idea
of
the hierarchy s composi
tion. But regardless of the content of specific levels,
the idea
is
that levels exist, that each level has proper
ties that other levels do not have, and that there are
regulatory principles governing the way levels in
teract.
The question of what levels exist is related to
what biologists call the problem
of entification, which
asks how an entity comes into being. This question is
similar
to
the philosophical problem of ontology, but
with a temporal dimension. In our case, we still do
not know exactly what level of brain organization
is
required for mental representation. It is certainly
higher than single neurons or even recurrent circuits,
but whether large areas of cortex or interacting sys
tems are required is not yet known. (Recent
work
on
consciousness by Douglas Watt suggests that this
function requires a large interaction
of
systems dip-
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ping deep into the brainstem and not just the cortex
and thalamus
as
some people previously thought.)
It is important to see that hierarchical levels are
constitutive
of
each other and not simply different in
scale. They are nested. That is, levels are defined by
their organization, not by their size. For instance, a
chicken s egg is a single cell and hence at a lower
level of
organization than an ant, which
is
a whole
organism but much smaller. However, within a given
hierarchy, scale is important. Obviously, a part or con
stituent is smaller than the whole but one cannot gen
eralize the scope
of
scale across hierarchies. (This may
be a good place to mention that biologists recognize
that process-hierarchy theory is an abstraction. In the
real nature of Nature things get very complex.)
The higher level, then, is comprised
of
members
of
the lower level. Muscle cells are organized to com
prise a muscle. The contraction
of
a muscle is not a
simple addition
of
the contractions
of
individual mus
cle fibers. Levels are not levels
as
in an apartment
building, where the fourth floor
is
below the fifth floor.
In biological systems, lower level members are the
constituents of the higher level. Their relation to each
other, their organization,
is
what constitutes the
higher level.
To take a simple nonbiological example,
if
the
legs, seat, and back
of
a chair were lying separately
on the ground, you would not have a chair. If the legs
were sticking out
of
the back and the seat were nailed
to them vertically, you would not have a chair. What
makes a chair is the way its constituent parts are orga
nized. The same is true for biological systems. When
elements at a given level are organized
to
form a
higher level, the higher level will exhibit properties
that the lower level does not have. These are called
emergent properties.
Now much has been made
of
the idea of emer
gence. The idea is that the higher level s properties
are not even predictable from a full knowledge of the
lower level, the implication being that there is some
thing above and beyond what can be gleaned from a
total analysis
of
the lower level. The usual example is
water. One could not predict the property
of wet-
ness even if a full knowledge of the chemistry of
hydrogen and oxygen were available.
This is a bad example because it misses what
hierarchy theory says about organization. When hy
drogen and oxygen combine to form water they do so
by means
of
chemical bonds. Hierarchy theory posits
that it is the
or niz tion of
parts that creates the
higher level, not a chemical bond. Just about anything
in biology
is
a good example because every level
seems to have new (group) properties. A clear example
would be the sex distribution
of
a population. That is a
group property. Other functional systems or structures
with emergent properties are coagulation
of
blood,
capillary anastomoses, cerebellar lobules, and neph
rons in the kidney. At the social level, we say that
nations go to war but soldiers fight. Schools graduate
students but teachers educate them. And so on.
Emergence raises the question (Salthe, 1996, pp.
200-201) whether the emergent property is in some
way intrinsic to preexisting possibilities or whether it
arises out
of
unforeseen or unpredictable events. In
biology, development (embryology)
is
the former be
cause we have some idea from previous observations
that a chick embryo will develop into a chicken and a
frog embryo will develop into a frog, even if we find
it hard to understand the nonlinear transformations
required. Salthe calls this feature inexplicable, rather
than unprecedented (p. 205). Evolution, which pro
duces truly new species, is an example
of
the latter.
There is no way to predict what a new species will
look like. Ultimately we would like to know how spe
cific brain mechanisms generate specific mental
content.
So one issue we are really interested in with re
spect to this debate is whether we should consider the
mind (with its functions such as dreaming) to be an
emergent property of the brain. Another is the ques
tion, how do levels interact with each other? Are there
rules
of
vertical transformation?
The answers to these questions are almost com
pletely theoretically undeveloped and yet they are
probably the most significant problems there are. (Sur
prisingly, philosophers have not yet entered the fray.)
In my opinion, the MBP is a specific case
of
these
fundamental problems. I think the way to solve the
MBP is not to attack it directly (we ve tried for over
2000 years without success) but to ascertain the gen
eral rules
of
organization
of
the natural world and
then apply them to the MBP. There are several other
problems in science where a philosophical solution
would answer centuries-old questions. One such is the
transition from prebiotic molecules to life.
Although the last problem (vertical transforma
tion) is far from being solved, some biologists have
worked on it and we may hesitatingly make some first
hypotheses. answer to the question, what is the role
of the lower level, the answer is that the lower level,
called the initiating level, provides the potential for
outcomes. It gives choices and potentialities, it
creates
and
generates.
A chromosome may have
thousands
of
genes on it, any
of
which may be active
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9
or inactive at a given moment in a very large number
of
potential combinations. Cells may grow in
anyone
of
many ways. People may behave in anyone
of
many
ways. At any moment an entity has many possible
and available outcomes (behaviors). But it will end up
having effectuated only one. Events are specified,
not by natural law per se, but by those laws together
with the initial conditions obtaining during the time
the lawful processes occur (Wigner, 1964, cited in
Salthe, 1985,
p
70). When we speak of us lity we
usually are referring to regularities within a given
level. Causality across levels is
of
a different kind.
What determines which
of
the potentialities
of
the initiating level is actualized or comes into being?
The higher level, which is called the boundary level.
The upper level
chooses, selects,
or deter
mines the outcome (this,
of
course, is a post hoc
observation and no intentionality is implied). The am
bient microenvironment determines just which spe
cific genes are turned on or off at a given moment.
This makes a determining difference in the eventual
phenotype. In some cases the boundary level is merely
permissive, in the sense that it does not select an out
come but provides the conditions for a lower level
process to occur. For a neuron to work it must be
bathed in extracellular fluid
of
the proper ionic compo
sition. A normal ionic composition allows the neu
ron to fire properly.
If
the composition of ions is
changed, the higher level may act directly
on
the neu
ron to determine its behavior. Some biologists con
sider the role
of
the boundary level to be that
of
culling
out possibilities, that is, to eliminate possibilities, as
opposed to actualizing possibilities. This may depend
on
the specific process. In any case, it is impossible
to imagine any process in the natural world occurring
outside a context.
Stan Salthe (1985), an evolutionary biologist,
proposes that the minimal description
of
a process
must include what he calls the basic triadic system:
the initiating level, the focal level (the level
of
inter
est), and the boundary level. The processes of the focal
level are framed by the potentialities
of
the initiating
level and the determining constraints
of
the boundary
level. Although the analogy is inexact, because in a
hierarchy the initiating and boundary levels are nested,
to understand the relation of the focal level to the
boundary and initiating levels, think
of
a piece of iron
suspended between two magnets.
Now the process side is harder to conceptualize.
Time is a harder dimension for us to get our arms
around, but the duration and speed of biological pro
cesses make all the difference in how a system be-
Lawrence Kunstadt
haves. The fundamental principle
of
process in biology
is relativism. That is, processes occur simultaneously
in relation to each other, and to the observer. For in
stance, what we consider objects or entities in biology
are, in fact, temporary instantiations
of
processes.
If
I
see a redwood tree, I would certainly call it an object
because there it is, there it was before I was born, and
there it will be long after I die. But if the observer had
a God s-eye view of time, he would see the seed of
the parent redwood tree fall, the sapling grow, the tree
go through the seasons, die, and disintegrate. The chair
you re sitting on? At some time it was a tree, or ore
in the ground. A hundred years from now, it will be
disintegrated or scrap. The idea being all entities, at
whatever level, are in process. What the observer sees
depends as much
on
his temporal relat ion with the
observed as on his hierarchical level. Just as the scalar
natural world is organized according to nested levels
of
organization, there is also a sense in which time
, windows exist in a nested fashion.
Of
course, the core question for biologists is
change over time. Nothing captures life better than the
notion
of
change. Evolution, development, physiol
ogy, behavior, even homeostasis all involve change.
There
is
a large literature on this topic. Some points
for
us
to note are that natural biological processes have
direction (adults don t turn into embryos), they may
be canalized (proceeding along an optimal direction
within a given changing environment), and that there
is
a type
of
temporal emergence. This last point has
been taken by some biologists to mean that higher
level processes, which are usually
of
longer duration
than lower level processes, cannot interact with them.
There is a technical discourse around the issue
of
lev
els not being able to interact because their time frames
are so different (nontransitivity). I believe there are
ways in which this is not true, but in general it is a
fair principle of
hierarchy theory. The idea is, for in
stance, that an organismic process such as locomoting
is
of
much greater duration than the underlying con
tractions
of
muscles. A gene, the
work
of which is
done in a fraction of a second, cannot determine a
behavior, which takes seconds, minutes, or hours. This
raises the question for us
of
how the brain might
cause dreams over time.
Now this is a very brief overview
of
a highly
complex field. Process-hierarchy theory is not com
pletely satisfying, nor does it answer every question,
but it seems to provide an excellent model
of
the world
that elevates natural science into a whole new realm
and, I hope, for one final time puts Newton back in
his grave. When people speak of causality they are
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usually speaking
of
Newtonian causality, which is far
from the only type of causality. The great genius
of
relativity theory is that it elevated physics from the
Newtonian curse. The reason quantum theory is so
hard to accept is that it does not accord with our quo
tidian Newtonian world. What the life sciences have
done is to say too,
Look,
the biological world is not
Newtonian. Other types of causality determine biolog
ical processes. Karl Pribram has proposed adopting
a view of transformational causality, abandoning the
question of how things cause other things to behave,
and replacing it with the question, how do processes
change into other processes? (It is likely that pro
cess-hierarchy theory may be universal. Lee Smolin
(1997), a physicist, has applied PHT in an attempt to
integrate cosmology with quantum theory.)
What, exactly, does PHT say about the
Solms-Hobson debate? The first thing it says is that
dreams are a process. And their underlying physiologi
cal mechanisms are processes too. One cannot say that
a particular part of the brain uses a particular type
of mentation. What Hobson calls the isomorphism be
tween the brain and mind I would say is not just a
technical error but a fundamentally incorrect reading
of how nature is organized. There is no question that
all mental processes are related to underlying brain
processes (and overlying processes, too, as I will de
scribe). But whatever the mind is, it is not the brain.
(Solms and Hobson are on the same page on this issue.
They both take the same position Spinoza took: that
mind and brain are different aspects of the same funda
mental thing. Hobson states clearly that he believes
the brain-mind is a single isomorphic entity although
he says the two [the one?] are separately ana
lyzable.
)
The critical question in order for
us
to use PHT
to address the MBP in general and dreaming in partic
ular is, what is the mind? While we do not know what
the mind is, it appears to me to have some characteris
tics of a level and someof a property. I hope to develop
this concept formally some day, for now I will just
state it without further development except for one
comment. We normally do not think
of
levels as some
thing immaterial, because PHT requires that a level
be a constituent of its higher level and it is difficult to
see how the brain might be a constituentof the mind.
Furthermore, the termment l pro esses does not even
begin to speak to the complexity of the mind, which
itself is hierarchically organized. But I will show a
way in which the mind might be thoughtof
as
a level.
When Hobson uses the termmind he is referring
to the conscious mind. When Solms uses the term
m n
he is referring to the much more substantial
Freudian notion. For Freud, as Solms (1997) has
pointed out, all mental processes are unconscious.
Consciousness for Freud is something like a sensory
system that can respond to certain unconscious mental
processes in the way that the eye can respond to cer
tain wavelengths of light.
But whatever the mind is,
if
it is the level above
the brain/whole person, this is not so initially. The
mind becomes a level. The newborn baby is embedded
in its environment. The baby s environment consists
of both things and people, but above all, the mother. In
the well-known Freudian formulation (and following
Opatow [1993, 1997]), the baby, hungry again after
the first feed, experiences hunger
as
a pain, which is
represented as a lack, an absence, a want in both
senses
of
the word. In an attempt to satisfy this hunger,
the baby hallucinates, in the prototypical actof dream
ing, the breast. The hallucination is moment rily but
not ultimately satisfying, causing the baby to turn to
reality, with all its consequences for the development
of the mind. In the dream, the hallucinatory quality is
reminiscent of the baby s momentary senseof satisfac
tion. This is what Freud meant by wish fulfillment. To
try to understand Freud s theory of dreaming without
referring to this complex transformation
of
hallucina
tion to reality construction is to miss the fundamen
tal point.
The formal similarity to dreams is twofold: A
desire (or in any case, an action) to reexperience an
experience
of
satisfaction; and the presenceof a mem
ory. In order for the baby to hallucinate the breast (or
as Opatow claims, the breast-as-absent) it must have
a memory
of
the previous experience of satisfaction.
In order for a dream to have content, it must draw
upon memory. This is a simple conclusion that for
whatever reason Hobson does not explore. Dreams
have content. Where does that content originate?
Since it does not originate from external perception
(during sleep), it must come, at least in part, from
memory.
In my view memory, and I mean the mental pro
cess not its physiological underpinnings, serves as a
surrogate level for the real world of perception in the
baby and dreamer alike. In other words, during normal
waking life the level above the individual is his ambi
ent environment. In dreaming and in the baby s hallu
cination, memory takes its place. This is the
fundamental principleof my view: that memory serves
as a
surrogate
level for the perception of the real
world. In waking life it has an indirect role vis-a-vis
consciousness; in dreaming, a direct one. It is com-
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monplace in biology for a new level to be interpolated
between two existing ones. Think of embryology.
So now we have the possibility
of
seeing reduc
tionism and psychoanalysis not
as
being opposed to
each other, but
as different parts of Salthe s Basic
Triadic System (1985, pp. 67-113). Think of brain
processes as the initiating level, dreams as the focal
level, and the external world (mother s breast) as ini
tially being the boundary level. Once the baby has
lived through the prim l experience of satisfaction,
memory becomes the boundary level.
During the day, through processes which are not
well understood, stimuli reach the mind which are not
thoroughly digested. They somehow wake up or
stimulate memories that are brought into conscious
ness, not in the dream itself, but by associating to
dream elements. Whatever the manifest content
of
the
dream itself means, the latent meaning
of
the
dream is discovered mainly through the patient s asso
ciations to the dream elements. (It can also be made
manifest by certain behaviors
of
the patient.) Hob
son s view
of
the (manifest) dream as reflecting affect
and concerns of the dreamer does not in any sense
conflict with or contradict analytic theory except for
its use
as
the exclusive explanation of dreams.
The wish, by definition, is an attempt to reexperi
ence a previous experience of
satisfaction. Hobson
seems to miss the very tight coupling in psychoanaly
sis between wish and memory. Hobson seems to un
derappreciate the nature of the wish for Freud, who
saw it
as
the currency of the mind. Most
of
metapsy
chology
is
an attempt to answer the question, what
is
the wish doing? The way I read Freud s dream book
is that when he came to his famous finding that dreams
are representations of fulfilled wishes, he was not try
ing to explain the meaning of dreams, he was trying
to explain what the wish was doing in dreams. The
emphasis on wishes
as
an explanation for dreaming,
even though this is how Freud stated it, has it back
wards.
It
is
an everyday observation that dreams contain
material from the patient s waking life
of
the day or
two before the dream. This material is manifest in the
dream but the dream s creator (what Freud called the
dream work) does something with this material. Just
as an author rearranges words and concepts, so does
the dream work It is in this rearrangement, as well as
in the patient s associations, that Freud saw evidence
of a latent content.
Using PHT, I would say the brain processes un
derlying dreaming would be seen as presenting possi
bilities, a very large number of specific contents.
Lawrence Kunstadt
Unlike Hobson s model, there must be a reservoir
for these contents, which I equate with memory (more
likely, some dynamic representation, nidus, or kernel
of memories, since memories seem to be constructed
anew each time they are experienced). Then memories
awakened by both the random stimuli from daily life
and important thing s going on in the patient s life, are
represented, in the form of wishes, in the dream.
It is an unsolved question in psychoanalysis why
some wishes or fantasies reach consciousness while
most do not. We do not know the nature of the selec
tion process. Usually analysts talk about an external
stimulus reverberating with an unconscious
thought but this is not fully satisfactory.
So, in summary, PHT may provide a framework
for reconciling reductionism with psychoanalysis.
PHT is neither holistic nor reductionistic alone but
seeks
to
describe all levels and to understand the regu
latory principles of transformation between levels.
The mind in all its complexity may comprise a (or
many) levels between the body and the environment.
The baby s hallucination of the prototypical experi
ence of satisfaction begins the stratification between
outside world and inside world as a surrogate for the
reality of its mother s breast. This would be consistent
with other processes in the natural world and place the
psychoanalytic mind back into the scheme of
nature.
Responses to Hobson s Criticisms of
Psychoanalysis
Referring to Freud s dream theory (p. 218), Hobson
thanks Solms and other analysts for not claiming that
he
is making a caricature of it Since I am not a
clinician I do not have to be so polite as Solms and
his colleagues. There is a fundamental problem with
the way Hobson describes Freud s dream theory and
it is not that he does so incorrectly. It is that he reduces
one of the most profound, influential, comprehensive,
complex, and nuanced theories to a banal algorithm.
Chapter 7
of
Freud s dream book is full
of
derivations
from and implications for philosophy, medicine, and
psychology and it cannot be understood without refer
ence to these fields. (For instance, it borrows deeply
from Kant and it refers, implicitly but repeatedly, to
the debate over localizationism that Freud took up in
n phasia
[1891].) To treat Freud s ideas
as
a simple
mechanical system,
as
scientific critics have done for
a century, without trying to understand their history
and philosophy and how they
fit into his changing
models of the mental apparatus, is akin to panning
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Romeo and Juliet as
just
another teenage love story.
Furthermore, in the century since Freud wrote his In-
terpretation
o
Dreams
psychoanalysis has produced
hundreds, perhaps thousands,
of
papers on dream the
ory. To ignore this literature is to claim that nothing
in psychoanalysis has changed or been elaborated
since Freud.
Hobson characterizes dreams according to their
formal properties, but he does not take the step Freud
took which is to see that these properties tell us some
thing about the organization
of
the mind. For instance,
Hobson mentions the hallucinatory quality and dimi
nution or lack
of
self-reflection
of
dreams, what I
would call the immediacy of dreams and what Solms
probably means by the
vivacity
of dreams. Freud
took this quality and asked the question, why do we
experience dreams as immediate, more immediate
even than the echoes we call memories or the waking
reality we experience as
out
there ?
His answer was that it is precisely the phenome
non of subjective immediacy in dreaming that suggests
that the hallucinated percept is indistinguishable from
the mnemic image, for dream content must come from
memory. The immediacy
of
dreaming was an observa
tion, its origin in memory a logical necessity. The theo
retical step he took was to postulate that this
experiential equivalence of mnemic image and percept
is a result of the seeking of a repetition
of
the experi
ence
of
satisfaction. He called this process the wish.
Thus Freud s notion
of
dreams
as
hallucinatory wish
fulfillment
derives
from the nature
of
the wish, not
vice versa.
The so-called disguise-censorship function in
dreaming serves not jus t to prevent unacceptable
thoughts into dream consciousness, but to allow those
thoughts that do reach dream consciousness to be ex
perienced
as
immediate and visual, that is to say, ful
filling. To use another phrase, it allows the dream
work to generate a hallucinated experience of satisfac
tion, which could not occur
if
the dream were experi
enced as either distant memories or external objects
in waking life or thoughts themselves. Opatow (1993)
describes this (hallucination)
as
the difference be
tween being assailed by objects
l
and attributing objects
to memories or percepts, that is, giving them the prop
erty
of
otherness.
If
object representations in dreams
had the characteristic
of
echo or externality rather than
immediacy, then they would be subject
to
the self-
I
Object
in neurobiology refers to the thing in the outside world,
object
representation
to its mental form, which is usually termed the
visual im-
age
In psychoanalysis, the term
object
is used loosely for both; the correct
term for the mental form should be
internalized object
reflection of waking consciousness, which they are
not.
What
Freud is asking by postulating a wish-seek
ing fulfillment is, Why is the dream experienced visu
ally, as real, rather than as a thought?
Here
we have
the most general and the most striking psychological
characteristic
of
the process
of
dreaming: a thought,
and as a rule a thought
of
something that is wished,
is objectified in the dream, is represented as a scene,
or, as i t seems to us, is experienced (p. 534). This is
the core
of
Freud s dream theory. What in waking life
is experienced as a thought or memory or external
reality is, in dreams, experienced
as
visual, real, and
immediate. Analysis theorizes that this is what the
baby experiences at the breast and then in momentary
hallucination.
Of
course what the baby really experi
ences is unknown.
The dream
work s job
is to eliminate the wishful,
optative quality
of
thought, which refers to the future,
the notion
of if
only such and such
woul
happen,
or I want it to happen (in the future), and to replace
it with the experience
of
that thing actually happening
now
or putting the dreamer in a position such that that
thing can happen with just a reflex action.
The
pres
ent tense [of dreams] is the one in which wishes are
represented as fulfilled. , Furthermore, Their
[dreams ] ideational content [is] transformed from
thoughts into sensory images, to which belief is
attached and which appear to be experienced (p.
535). Paraplegics dream
of
running, hungry men
of
the banquet.
Thus, while Hobson s reading
of
Freud is off the
mar k and therefore his criticism not really relevant,
he may have inadvertently led us to a new finding:
the physiological basis
of
immediacy. This would be
supported
if
the same pontine mechanisms he found
in REM sleep were shown to be present in the various
forms
of
nondream hallucinations. With this outline
as
background-and,
considering the volumes and
volumes that have been written
on
these issues, i t is
truly only a
sketch-let
us turn to some of Hobson s
specific criticisms
of
psychoanalysis.
1
Dreaming is the synthesis
of
emotional and
sensorimotor data generated by the distinctive mecha
nisms
of
brain activity in REM sleep
(p. 157)
versus Disguise-censorship as the mechanism
of
dream bizarreness and dreaming affords privileged
access to unconscious motives via the technique of
free association to bizarre dream materiaL
If
you listen to a patient in analysis, whether free
associating to nondream material or describing
dreams, what you hear is what Freud called t he sim-
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96
pIe idea emerging. Different ideas emerge as themes,
whether the patient is aware
of
them or not. The notion
of defenses relates to the inability of the mind to ver
balize these ideas directly and with ease. Freud s idea
of
a manifest and latent dream content relates to the
finding that in free association ideas emerge which are
not easily accessible to the patient s ability to consider.
Hobson will be happy to hear that many people
who call themselves analysts use the manifest content
alone in their clinical work (much to the chagrin of
other people, like me). Freud heard, and analysts hear
today, that each element in the dream leads to associa
tions of its own, which fact, in part, led Freud to postu
late a latent content. These associations lead to a single
thought (or group
of
thoughts) that have a quality un
like that of the manifest content. The quality has to
do with their being forbidden or unacceptable, because
they reveal fantasies about sex, hate, jealousy, fear,
embarrassment, and the like.
A patient reported a dream in which he noticed
a bakery in his neighborhood. He associated to a build
ing across the street from the bakery (in real life)
named La Rochelle. This led to the thought
of
a friend
of
his named Rochelle and then to the fact that she
was writing her doctoral thesis
on
Proust (Made
line-bakery,
get it?). The analyst then prodded,
Wasn t Proust a homosexual?
-which
led to a
flood of homosexual fantasies.
It is this
dist n e
between the manifest content
(bakery) and the embarrassing, painful homosexual
fantasies, which led Freud to postulate a latent content.
The
disguise
refers to the observation that there is
nothing in the notion
of
a bakery (or the building or
friend) that refers to anything homosexual. It seems
to me there is nothing in Hobson s physiological find
ings that contradicts this. Why does he insist that his
findings and Freud s findings are in opposition rather
than explanations at different levels?
The instigation
of
dreaming was, for Freud,
caused by the upsurge
of
unconscious wishes follow
ing suspension of their wake-state repression. We
would now say that dreaming is caused by brain activ
ity during sleep (p. 169). But in what sense are these
opposed to each other? If processes work only at their
own level, mental activity causes mental activity,
physiological activity causes physiological activity. If
we apply PHT, the two are related through upwards
and downwards causation
of
a potential-selective
type. If you say that a person is running because his
leg muscles are alternately contracting and extending,
and I say it is because
he s
late for an appointment,
in what sense is either explanation better? Would Hob-
Lawrence Kunstadt
son reduce a Rembrandt to the chemistry of its paint?
Would he describe a movie, which is in some sense
like a dream, in terms
of
the amount of movement?
3
The bizarre character
of
dreaming was, for
Freud, determined by the disguise and censorship of
the unconscious wishes We would now say that
dreaming is bizarre because
of the distinctive neuro
physiology of REM sleep with its shift from top-down
cortical control in waking to bottom-up phasic autoac
tivation epitomized by the PGO process.
There are three aspects
of
bizarreness. One is
the lack of rational connection between one dream
element and the next, the associative issue. The second
is
the unrealistic character
of
some
of
the objects in
the dream (although most objects are real ). The
third is that dream objects can do things they cannot
do in real life; for example, people fly
Again, I see no discrepancy between Freud s
view and Hobson s view. Dreams contain elements
from daily life, in fact, dream elements are frequently
things that were experienced during the day of the
dream or a day or two before, what Freud called the
day residue. Since there is a time lag between their
appearance in waking perception and the subsequent
night s dream, memory must be involved. In fact,
dream elements are typically common objects, so reg
ular long-term memory must be involved. In analysis,
either the elements themselves or the associated affect
or the associations that come up in relation to the
elements are often identified by the patient as being
from childhood. In fact, Freud proposed that all
dreams derive from activated childhood wishes, stimu
lated by the day s events (internal and external).
So the lack of
rational connection between one
dream element and the next that results in the b i
zarreness
of
dreams is, in Freudian theory, because
there is no story to the dream; the dream is a patch
work
of
associated elements awakened by the day s
events and cobbled together. The real story is in the
latent content. The unrealistic character of some of the
objects in the dream and the ability of objects to do
things they cannot do in real life seem to more directly
reflect the work of wishes and memories. That is, there
is a rationale for the distortions from real life. Freud,
for instance, suggested that the experience of flying in
a dream was derived from a memory
of
being picked
up and thrown about as a little child by a playful uncle.
If Hobson has identified the physiological basis
of
these processes, where is the contradiction?
4 The
visual nature
of
dreams is for activation
synthesis, not defensive as Freud asserted, but rather
the direct result of both bottom-up activation pro-
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Ongoing Discussion (Vol. 1, No.2)
cesses (p. 208). The visual nature of dreams with
their immediacy was discussed above.
5.
While
dreaming, we never sit and watch but
are constantly moving through dream space. Thus
dreams are not properly thought of as simply visual
but more accurately as visuomotor. This feature was
not recognized by Freud
A strong implication is
that far from being a feedback regression to the sen
sory side, dream hallucinosis results from a feed-for
ward conveyance of data about motor intentions to the
sensory processors in the upper brain (p. 208).
This is one point of Hobson s that I believe the
analytic community should take to heart. I agree with
Hobson that the psychomotor aspect of dreams needs
to be elaborated and better understood. Freud believed
that the immediate visual nature of dreams was in
opposition to thought, not to motor activity. Thought
is conceived as a developmental advance over visual
imagery, and is seen as
trial
action. Freud s theory
of dreaming emphasized the mind s movement toward
the visual. It is true that today we see perception as
having a motor aspect, something Freud s reliance on
the reflex arc model did not. If the visuomotor compo
nent of dreams is conveying data about motor inten
tions to the sensory processors isn t this exactly what
a wish is, a desire or an intent to perform motor acts
that lead to a repetition
of
an earlier experience
of
sat
isfaction?
I must also point out here Jason Brown s theory
of microgenesis (1988) which proposes that even wak
ing perception is an actualization of memories pro
jected outward into the external space through a series
of
upward transformations beginning in the brainstem
tegmentum. While Brown has severely criticized psy
choanalysis, this aspect of his theory is certainly com
patible with the analytic view
of
dreams.
6. At one point Hobson starts to move into dream
interpretation: Thus in a classic anxiety dream, the
plot may shift from feeling lost, to not having proper
credentials, adequate equipment, or suitable clothing,
to missing a train. These plots all satisfy the driving
emotion-anxiety-while
being only very loosely as
sociated with one another p.
160).
But this
is
exactly
the analytic point, which says there are thoughts inac
cessible to consciousness of a wishlike quality that
hold these plots together. This is exactly the
method of analysis of free associations. In fact, it
seems to me that this is the fundamental assumption
upon which the psychoanalytic method is based and
the edifice on which psychoanalysis was built: that
the seeming unconnectedness
of
patients sequential
conscious thoughts is an illusion; they can actually
97
be understood by inferring a connecting unconscious
thought or thoughts that we call the wish.
For example, a patient said (somewhat para
phrased),
My
father is dying. Did you know that he
is wealthy? The analyst infers that the unconscious
thought connecting the two conscious thoughts is I
want my father to die so that I can inherit his wealth.
And underlying that thought is probably some oedipal
configuration about wanting to kill the father and take
sexual possession of the mother, the father s real
wealth. While this is a very simple almost algebraic
method, in complex form it is what psychoanalysis is
about. For Freud the wish is the currency of the mind.
7. All the qualities of dreams listed by Hobson,
hallucinations, bizarreness, delusion, and so on, are
well known to analysts. They are, as Hobson says,
the formal characteristics of dreams. The question is
whether they mean something or not. When Hobson
writes, Even the sexual identity of dream characters
is fluid, and this ambiguity can be anatomically ex
plicit, not just psychological, he is repeating a com
monplace psychoanalytic observation that Freud took
and elaborated into a detailed theory of sexuality. I
hate to say it, but where s the beef? Listing the formal
characteristics of dreams does nothing unless one does
something with them.
Hobson s description of dreams is like the analy
sis
of
a painting by an art teacher I once had. The
instructor described the position
of
the objects in a
painting, their relat ion to the horizon and to the line
of
sight, their color, all their formal characteristics,
but seemed to miss the fact that the painting told a
story too.
8. Why must incoming stimuli be discharged?
(p. 208 .1 Indeed, why must they? In several places
Freud asked the question, how does a single-celled
organism respond to stimuli? Clearly the mythical pro
tozoan stood for the mind as well
as
the nervous sys
tem and body. Over the course of his career Freud
gave many responses and his changing metapsycho
logical views may be seen as changing answers to
this single question. The entity may be incapable of
responding to the stimuli (stimulus barrier), stimuli
may be discharged (reflex arc, libido theory, specific
action), they may be inhibited (repression theory), or
they may be mastered or utilized to build structure
(ego theory, Eros). Freud s great insight was to ask
what happens to internally generated stimuli, not just
external stimuli.
Questions 8 to 16 are questions Hobson lists on pages 208-209.
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98
9
Hobson asks about the primary process, what
its anatomical basis is, why motor activity would be
automatically engaged at the same time and why motor
atonia shouldn t prevent this motor activity, should it
become engaged, from disrupting sleep (p. 208). No
body knows the anatomical basis
of
any Freudian
mental processes. This is why most analysts feel they
do not have to pay any attention to neurobiology.
Mark Solms has made the investigation of this issue
his life s
work
and this is why this new journal was
brought into being. If Hobson wants to help clarify
the anatomical basis
of
psychoanalytic structures or
processes, even if it were to show they do not exist,
we would all be delighted. As for the questions about
motor activity and atonia, I honestly do not know what
Hobson is referring to.
10.
Why would an experience have to become
verbal in order to be admitted to the system con
scious[?] Phenomenologically Hobson is abso
lutely correct about this; words are not necessary for
an experience to reach consciousness. You can dem
onstrate this by willfully preventing language from
entering consciousness while viewing the world (I
have no idea how we can do this). Freud first formally
introduced the idea
of word presentations in
n
ph -
si
and later intergrated his theory
of
words into his
topographic theory. To discuss this would require an
other paper.
To paraphrase Hobson, why aren t Wer
nicke s and Broca s areas activated during dreaming
when psychoanalytic theory sees word play in dream
representations? I think the simple answer is that word
play is not the same as either word comprehension
(Wernicke s area) or word production (Broca s area).
My guess is that word play, which involves at least
recognition, evaluation, meaning, memory, language,
association, creation, and visual representation, must
require a wide range
of
structures.
12.
If
dreams are constructed from condensed,
displaced, plastic memories, how do we explain
wholly novel dream images?
If
Hobson means how
do we explain novelty neurophysiologically, who
knows? Process-hierarchy accepts novelty (emer
gence), raises it to a privileged level, and sees it as
arising out of increases in organization. But how do
we explain any creative mental act? Psychoanalysis
has a lot to say about this but we do not know about
creativity s neurophysiological correlates. We do not
even know the neurophysiological basis
of
a thought.
But I wonder why he sees a problem deriving a novel
object representation from memory. Even novel ele-
Lawrence Kunstadt
ments in dreams have some bearing to aspects
of
re
ality.
13. The hypothetical censor, which makes fine
distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable
wishes, is imbued by psychoanalysts with powers in
compatible with its hypothesized weakened condition
in sleep. I think Hobson is being a bit too concrete
here, falling under the sway
of
Freud. I m not sure
one can quantify fine distinction versus gross distinc
tions, but dream associations suggest that the latent
content is pretty powerful stuff that rarely sees the
light of day on its own. In waking the defense rises to
meet the strength of the wish; that is, it has a variable
strength of its own. Why should things be different in
dreaming? This also raises the question
of
the notion
of
quantity in psychoanalysis, which is a topic for
another day.
4 If the ubiquitous initiating causes of dreams
are wishes and drives, why are undistorted dreams of
convenience so rare in adults? I m not sure but my
guess is because the somatic stimulation necessary
(e.g., dehydration, full bladder) are not present. The
wish behind a dream is typically stirred up by some
thing that happens during the day. A wish rarely
reaches representation in dreams
on
its own.
5 If awakenings are the result
of
failed
dreams in which an unacceptable wish-drive breaks
through the weakened censor, why are our spontane
ous dreamless awakenings not accompanied by more
disturbing (or exciting) affect than our spontaneous
awakenings? Affects in dreams can be very different,
even opposite, to the unconscious affect of the la
tent content. But more importantly, why does Hobson
think that analytic theory states that dreamless awak
enings are caused by affect-laden wishes? Maybe they
are the result
of
a physiological mechanism, perhaps
an endogenous rhythm.
I m
not aware that analytic
theory has anything to say about dreamless awaken
ings. The point Freud was making was that during
dreaming dreams protect the dreamer from wakening.
He was addressing dreams, not sleep. Why do people
wake up just before the alarm clock goes off? Maybe
classical conditioning. Maybe an intrinsic rhythm be
comes entrained. Maybe people wake up because the
dream is over.
6 These three components appear under the
heading Obstacles to Progress (pp. 174-175).
Three fundamental problems must be overcome if
psychoanalysis wants to counter its rapidly progres
sive marginalization:
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