Current views on dreams

McCarley and Hobson: The bizarre nature of dream experiences comes about from simultaneous activation of different cerebral systems, so that the brain receives contradictory information. Dreams as a whole are considered to represent a synthesis of these various elements.

Francis Crick and Graeme Mitchison: We dream in order to forget. Dreams serve reverse learning by which useless information is eliminated from the brain.

W. Robert assumed dreaming to be indispensable for mental health: "A man deprived of the capacity for dreaming would in course of time become mentally deranged, because a great mass of uncompleted, unworked-out thoughts and superficial impressions would accumulate in his brain and would be bound by their bulk to smother the thoughts which should be assimilated into memory as completed wholes."

M. Jouvet: Dreams have a genetic programming function of the brain. They are important during neurogenesis.

M. Jouvet and his books