Neuroscientific Studies into Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreaming is simply the ability to recognise that you are asleep and dreaming i.e. conscious awareness in the dream state. 

We spend around 6 years of our lives dreaming – approximately 2,190 days or 52,560 hours. Although it is possible to be aware of the perceptions and emotions we experience in our dreams, we do not have the same levels of consciousness as in the waking state, which explains why we do not usually recognise that we’re in a dream and often mistake these bizarre narratives and events for reality.

Alternatively, lucid dreamers have the ability to experience awareness during their dreams by ‘re-awakening’ or activating some aspects of their waking consciousness, sometimes with the additional ability to take control and act with intention in the dream world. Dream control is not necessary for lucid dreaming, but it is the one aspect most amateur oneironauts focus on, and is typically viewed as the main attraction for those wishing to learn how to induce lucidity.

Lucid dreaming is still an understudied subject, but recent advances suggest it’s a hybrid state of waking consciousness and sleep. However, a number of recent neuroscientific studies have focused on this phenomenon, in the hope that light can be shed on how lucid dreaming, human consciousness and brain activity are linked.

Lucid dreaming is one of many ‘anomalous’ experiences that can occur during sleep. Sleep paralysis, where you wake up terrified and paralysed while remaining in a state of sleep (sometimes experiencing hallucinations) is another. There are also false awakenings, where you believe you have woken up only to discover that you are in fact dreaming – this phenomenon also coinciding with the experience of sleep paralysis. Along with lucid dreams, all these experiences reflect an increase in subjective awareness while remaining in a state of sleep. 

Approximately 50% of us will experience at least one lucid dream in our lifetime and scientists are starting to accept evidence that lucid dreaming can be intentionally induced through various techniques and methods.

A recent study (Voss et al, ‘Measuring Consciousness in Dreams: the Lucidity & Consciousness in Dreams Scale’ (2013) Consciousness & Cognition, 22(1), 8 – 21) asked subjects to report in detail on their most recent dream. 

Researchers found that lucid (compared to normal, non-lucid) dreams were indeed characterised by far greater insight into the fact that the sleeper was in a dream. Subjects who experienced lucid dreams also said they had greater control over thoughts and actions within the dream; had the ability to think logically, and were even better at accessing and reflecting on real memories of their waking life.

Another study (Dresler et al, ‘Volitional Components of Consciousness Vary Across Wakefulness, Dreaming & Lucid Dreaming’ (2014) Frontiers in Psychology) analysed subjects’ ability to make conscious decisions in waking life as well as during lucid and non-lucid dreams. The study found a significant degree of overlap between waking volitional abilities and those experienced in lucid dreaming. However, researchers found that the ability to plan was considerably worse in lucid dreams compared to wakefulness.

Lucid and non-lucid dreams certainly feel subjectively different, suggesting that these dream states are associated with different patterns of brain activity. However, scientifically confirming this is not as easy as it might seem, as subjects are required to be positioned in a brain scanner overnight and researchers have to decipher when a lucid dream is happening so that they are able to reliably compare brain activity during the lucid dream with that of non-lucid dreaming. 

Many ingenious studies examining this link have devised a communication code between lucid dreaming subjects and researchers (during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, when dreaming typically takes place). Before going to sleep, the subject and the researcher agree on a specific eye movement (i.e. 2 movements left, then 2 movements right) that subjects will make to signal that they are lucid.

Using this approach, studies have found that the shift from non-lucid to lucid REM sleep is associated with an increased activity of the frontal areas of the brain (Voss et al, ‘Lucid Dreaming: A State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking & Non-Lucid Dreaming’ (2009), Sleep, 32(9), 1191 – 1200). 

Significantly, these areas of the brain are associated with ‘higher order’ cognitive functioning, for example, logical reasoning and voluntary behaviour which are typically only observed during waking states. The type of brain activity observed (gamma wave activity), is also known to allow different aspects of our experience; perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and memories to ‘bind’ together into an integrated consciousness. 

A follow-up study (Voss et al, ‘Induction of Self-Awareness in Dreams through Frontal Low Current Stimulation of Gamma Activity’ (2014) Nature Neuroscience, 17, 810 – 812) found that electrically stimulating these areas caused an increase in the degree of lucidity experienced during a dream.

A further study (Dresler et al, ‘Neural correlates of dream lucidity obtained from contrasting lucid versus non-lucid REM sleep: a combined EEG/fMRI case study’ (2012), Sleep, 35(7), 1017 – 1020) was able to more accurately specify the particular brain regions involved in lucid dreams. Researchers found increased activity in regions such as the pre-frontal cortex and the precuneus, these brain areas being associated with higher cognitive abilities such as self-referential processing and a sense of agency. Again, these findings support the view that lucid dreaming is a hybrid state of consciousness.

A recent study, E Filevich et al, 'Metacognitive Mechanisms Underlying Lucid Dreaming' (2015) The Journal of Neuroscience, 35(3), 1082 - 1088 has sought to determine if subjects with high and low dream lucidity also displayed differences in their waking metacognitive skills - i.e. the ability to reflect and report on their mental states.

Subjects completed questionnaires on the frequency, intensity and degree of control in their lucid dreaming experience and also their metacognitive abilities/skills, including self-reflection and self-consciousness. They then underwent brain imaging while performing a thought monitoring task which consisted of two 11 minute during which the subjects had to evaluate every thought which entered their minds on an externally-internally oriented scale. Externally-orientated thoughts related to thoughts influenced by the environment - such as sights/sounds; while internally-orientated thoughts involved those which are not related to the immediate environment, such as memories or abstract ideas. 

The research highlighted that subjects with high/low lucidity were different. Subjects with high lucidity in their dreams had greater grey matter volume in their frontopolar cortex compared to subjects with low lucidity. This region of the brain was shown to have greater levels of activity during thought-monitoring tasks performed by both the high/low lucidity subjects, with stronger increases in the high lucidity group. This enabled the researchers to conclude that lucid dreaming and metacognition share some underlying mechanisms, particularly those related to thought-monitoring. This is unsurprising, and this relationship had been previously suspected, but not tested on a neural level. 

The finding from these studies represent another exciting breakthrough in understanding the science of lucid dreaming, and further steps towards understanding the neuroscience of lucid dreaming and consciousness. 

Theories on the function & meaning of dreaming

Research undertaken by Dr Mark Stokes, cognitive neuroscientist at the Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity has provided support for the theory that dreaming is a necessary function for organisation and making sense of our memories. Dreaming may be a key tool in memory consolidation which influences our future behaviour - a form of overnight therapy. This view is also shared by Dr Robert Stickgold, director of sleep and cognition at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre and associate professor at Harvard Medical School.

Stickgold states that when we dream we tend to do so in colour, with our dreams involving complex stories and strong emotions. Visual imagery predominates over auditory and somatosensory sensations, but there is still no consensus over how dream material is chosen, although we are getting closer to 'decoding' dreams. Japanese researchers have been able to use MRI scans to monitor the brain activity in the visual cortex of dreamers. Based on the dream reports of the participants, the researchers created imagery. It was discovered that the participants displayed similar patterns of brain activity when shown the visual images derived from their dream reports as when they were actually dreaming. This suggests that we can use non-invasive brain imaging methods to infer or decode what happens in the dream state and these new studies explain why dreams seem so real. Stokes says that dreaming activates the same types of brain systems associated with waking experiences, so although there is no visual input into dreams, it feels like you are actually experiencing the visual content of the dream. The patterns of brain activity observed in dreamers may be the mind at work, taking information from the memory, processing and making sense of it. 

Stokes claims that dreaming is a way of making new associations and connections, and formulating new ways of perceiving things, which are stored somewhere in a usable form, even if we do not remember our dreams. This is why dreams appear to be symbolic rather than literal in content. Allan Hobson refers to 'incomplete arrangements' - things which we invest a large amount of mental energy on, but have not reached closure on in our minds. This may explain why our dreams - on average - tend to be more negative than positive and often become more disjointed and unclear as they progress. Stickgold suggests that the dominant emotion is often anxiety as opposed to fear and that the negative content or tone of dreams may stem from the evolutionary nature of dreaming - in our dreams we are forced to confront that which threatens us, because it is biologically and mentally more important than dreaming about something positive, harmless or enjoyable. 

Theories as to why we accept the fantastical altered reality of our dreams are often derived from the work of Freud, who claimed that dreams play out a healing or emotional process, helping us resolve personal issues and conflicts. In order for this experience to be successful and 'real', the dreamer must believe in their dreams and in order for us to trust the dream narrative, the subconscious suppresses critical thinking and doubt. The dreamer is unable to employ logic to question to reality of the dream narrative. We dream in symbols (the 'language of dreams') and our dreams offer us a form of therapy or 'wish fulfilment' which requires belief in order for the healing or learning function to be successful. 

Dreams often include an essential narrative about unresolved issues in the life of the dreamer. Recurrent dreams may indicate that the dreamer has ignored an important message which will be repeated until it is understood and processed by the dreamer. Many anxiety-based dreams will repeat tasks which are incomplete in the dreamer's waking life - such as unresolved relationships or conflicts. These forms of recurrent dreams may repeat until the dreamer confronts and concludes the issue in their waking life, Sometimes, the recurrent anxiety-based dream may continue, even after the dreamer has addressed the issue in their waking life. Dream researchers suggest that recurrent dreams of this nature occur because the dreamer needs to process what is known as 'daily residue'. Although it may be tempting to treat 'daily residue' dreams as unimportant because they are less exciting or stimulating than other forms of dream, they are in fact very useful for the dreamer as they act as a tool for decompressing from daily events or clarifying necessary future behaviour or actions. Through our dreams we are able to rehearse or practice for future events.

In fact, new research conducted by researchers at Sorbonne University and Hopital Pitie-Salpetriere in Paris, France - Isabelle Arnulf et al, 'Will students pass a competitive exam that they failed in their dreams' (2014) Consciousness and Cognition 29, 36 - 47 - suggest that dreaming about failure and anxiety-provoking scenarios may have a positive effect on us. The researchers surveyed 719 medical school applicants on their dreams on the night preceding their entrance exam. It was discovered that 60.4% of students dreamed about the exam and the majority of these dreams were negative. 78% of dreamers dreamt that they were late for the exam or forgot the answers. After the results of the entrance exam were received, the researchers compared the outcome of the dream questionnaire to student performance and found that dreams about the exam on the night prior to taking it were linked to higher performance in the actual exam. Further, multiple dreams about the same exam were correlated with proportionally higher scores. This suggested to the researchers that negative anticipation of a stress-inducing event  is common, but this episodic stimulation leads to cognitive gain. Dr Dennis Rosen suggests that there is a certain logic to dreaming about failure, because the more anxiety you experience about a certain event, the more chance their is that you will prepare yourself to confront or tackle it. 

Arnulf has conducted other intriguing studies into the function of dreaming. In 2009, she published a study, 'Dreamlike mentations during sleepwalking and sleep terrors in adults' (2009) Sleep, which suggested that sleepwalkers may be acting out parts of a bad dream or nightmare. This finding was a surprise because it had previously been thought that dreams could not occur during sleepwalking or night terrors. In 2011, Arnulf et al found that dreams could contain vivid experiences of events the dreamer is unable to experience in waking-life. In 'Walking dreams in congenital and acquired paraplegia' (2011) Conscious Cognition 20(4), 1425 - 1432, the authors suggested that subjects who were born with a paraplegic condition experienced dreams where they could walk, run, dance or play sports. Arnulf explained that 'mirror neurons' which are activated when you watch someone perform an activity may be reactivated during sleep. In a separate study, Arnulf et al, 'Evidence for the re-enactment of a recently learned behaviour during sleepwalking' (2011) PLoS One 6(3), it was discovered that we often re-enact new skills or actions that we have learned during the day in our dreams. This may be so that we can practice and consolidate our learning or apply it to new situations which may confront us in the future.

Dreams help cognitive processes and problem-solving, by giving the dreamer free reign to confront a range of scenarios which may not be available or safe in waking life. The dreamer's mind is able to examine all possible scenarios and everyday barriers are removed so that new ideas and responses can emerge freely. Dreams encourage us to feel and embrace emotions which we may not be able to do in our everyday experiences, because our rationality gets in the way, or to consciously acknowledge them in waking life might be harmful to us. 

Hobson challenges the notion that dreams have a symbolic meaning for the dreamer, instead arguing that dreams are no more than makeshift stories which stem from brain activity - the dreamer attempts to make sense of a collection of random images by putting them into a narrative form, which explains why the results can be nonsensical, illogical or bizarre. Because areas of the brain that sustain working memory are inhibited during the dreaming process, logical reasoning is compromised and the dreamer will accept the dream scenario and shifts in time and space as real. This is a common view of some neuroscientists, who claim that dreams are nothing more than a mish-mash of  the brain's 'machine-code' which we shouldn't try to comprehend; However, these ideas ignore several decades of scientific research which has identified many strong patterns in dream content and providing a relatively clear view as to the meaningful aspects of dreaming. It is therefore intellectually ignorant to suggest that there is no persuasive scientific evidence about the nature of dream content.

For example, David Foulkes identified that, while dreams may be strange and wonderful, they often involve realistic portrayals of familiar people, places and activities, all of which may be quite mundane in nature. Additionally, dreams may often involve honest, accurate reflections of the dreamer's thoughts, waking responses and emotional concerns, with the things we care about most (or spend most time thinking or worrying about) in our everyday lives occurring more frequently in our dreams. This idea is supported by G William Domhoff's 'continuity hypothesis'. Also, the repetitive, graphic content of nightmares experienced by sufferers of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) often change throughout the course of the healing process, evolving into more ordinary nightmares with a diffuse range of dream imagery. 

In Trauma and Dreams (1996), Deirdre Barrett suggest that this is because  as time passes and PTSD symptoms improve, the dream content begins to make the trauma more symbolic and interweaves it with concerns from the dreamer's everyday life. It is not only sufferers of PTSD who experience recurrent nightmares - in fact these experiences may present excellent opportunities for self-reflection and growth, whether or not they have been inspired by trauma or an event in the dreamer's waking life. Indeed, there are ways of using recurrent, disempowering dreams for the health and well-being of the dreamer - enabling them to confront their fear, heal emotional wounds and gain lucidity. 

Therefore, it is safe to say that contemporary dream research has shown that dreams are creatively structured from a network of emotional and cognitive processes which also operate during periods of waking consciousness and have meaningful and evolutionary connections to our health and development. To suggest that there is no meaning behind dreaming demonstrates an abject failure to engage with a rich abundance of empirical and anecdotal evidence gathered during half a century of scientific and psychological dream research.

Foulkes, who dedicated much of his career to the study of childhood dreaming, suggests that dreams represent active stories in which the dreamer is the main actor, with 'true dreaming' of this type first occurring between the ages of 7 - 9 years. He suggested that this relatively late onset of 'true dreaming' coincides with an equally late development of the child's waking self-reflective awareness - i.e. consciousness. Child development psychologist, Jean Piaget describes how a child's acceptance of dreams as completely real gradually fades from total belief in the dream to a realisation that the dream is nothing more than a story inside their mind. It may be that we start life believing that our dreams are real because we are born dreaming. Newborn babies spend approximately 8 hours a day in REM sleep, the state considered most favourable for ordinary dreaming. This means that the dream state is our first seemingly 'real' and natural experience of the world, before we learn to make sense of the waking world around us.

Lucid dreaming & cognitive performance

A recent study by Patrick Bourke and Hannah Shaw of the Psychology Department at the University of Lincoln, entitled 'Lucid Dreaming and Insight' (2014),  and published in the Dreaming journal, has found that those who lucid dream (i.e. those who are consciously aware that they are dreaming) are significantly better at cognitive problem-solving in their waking lives. The research suggests that the insight experienced during the lucid dreaming state may relate to the underlying cognition required in the waking state.

The researchers divided a sample of 68 undergraduate students (aged 18 - 25 years) into three groups based on their self-reported frequency of lucid dreaming - never, occasionally and at least once a month. The participants were then asked to perform compound remote association tasks in which they were shown three apparently unrelated words and then asked to find the word with linked them together. These puzzles show the insight of the participant because they require thinking 'outside the box' and breaking free of certain perceptions which may hinder them from finding the solution. The study found that those who frequently experience lucid dreaming were 25% better at solving the cognitive tasks than those who did not become lucid during their dreams. Although it is not clear why some people are more prone to lucid dreaming that others, the phenomenon is more common in children and young persons. Although lucid dreaming is often spontaneous, it can be induced by the dreamer - or in experimental settings. 

Dr Allan Hobson, a psychiatrist and sleep researcher at Harvard University found that he and his colleagues were able to induce lucidity in dreamers by zapping their brains with 40 Hertz of electrical current for 30 seconds, moments after the participant entered a dream state - with a 77% success rate in inexperienced lucid dreamers. Electrodes were placed on the scalps of 27 participants, with the electrical current stimulating their frontal cortex to produce gamma brain waves. The results of the electrical stimulation were observed by using EEG to monitor brain function. Lower levels of gamma activity were observed when 25 Herz of stimulation were applied, and other frequencies produced no effect on gamma activity or lucid dreaming. The study, Voss et al, 'Induction of self-awareness in dreams through frontal low current stimulation of gamma activity' (2014) Nature Neuroscience 17, 810 - 812, suggests that consciousness is a brain function and gamma brain waves are related to synchronisation of brain activity and an important component of consciousness. and may even be responsible for consciousness. This is an important step in understanding the complex relationship between the brain and mind, an issue which has been debated by philosophers and scientists for centuries and as yet, remains unsolved.

Previous research findings claim that persons possessing certain cognitive abilities may be predisposed to lucid dreaming and there is evidence that lucid dreamers may be better at performing in psychological tests which simulate real-life decision-making.

An Introduction to Dream Speech - Emil Kraepelin & Sigmund Freud

This is an introduction to the phenomenon of dream speech. Dream speech is the verbal or acoustic language of dreams, which most commonly occurs in the form of dialogue between the dreamer and other dream characters. This article focuses specifically on the contributions of psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (1856 - 1926) who produced an impressive opus of dream speech material and analysis of Kraepelin's self-reported dreams using Freudian psychoanalysis. I will be posting a further, more generalised, article on dream speech at a later stage.

Dream speech (or Traumsprache in German) is internal speech within a dream, in which errors of speech may occur. This phenomenon was defined by Emil Kraepelin in On Language Disturbances in Dreams (1906), which analysed various types of dream speech, presenting 286 examples. Dream speech is distinct from 'the language of dreams' which refers to the visual symbols used to represent thoughts in dreams. Kraepelin identified three categories of dream speech, within which there are numerous subdivisions:

1. Disorders of word selection (paraphasias)
2. Disorders of discourse (aggrammatisms)
3. Thought disorders

Kraepelin found that the most common type of dream speech was neologism - the use of words which only have meaning for the person who uses them, independent of their common meaning and not necessarily accepted in mainstream language. Kraepelin studied dream speech because he hoped it would provide him with insight into analogous language disturbances in schizophrenic persons. In 1920 he stated that: 'dream speech in every detail corresponds to schizophrenic speech disorder'. Kraepelin was interested in the psychiatric as well as psychological aspects of dream speech, but modern dream scientists and psychologists are interested in speech production in dreams in relation to cognitive processes in the dreaming mind. Some modern studies have confirmed Kraepelin's earlier findings. Kraepelin is well-known as a pioneer of biological psychiatry and the 'spiritual father' of the DSM classificatory system for psychiatric disorder.

Kraepelin continued to collect examples of dream speech until his death in 1926, from his own personal experiences which he recorded and can be seen in the Archive of the Max Plancke Institute of Psychiatry in Munich. Kraepelin's dream speech specimens were published in 1993 - the second dream corpus had not been censured and is annotated with the date, as Kraepelin (who had been collecting specimens of dream speech for 40 years) approached this exercise with scientific precision. 

Kraepelin's own dream speech began during a period of personal crisis and depression (1882 - 1884). In 1882 Kraepelin was fired from the Leipzig Psychiatry Clinic after only working there for a few weeks and two months later his father died. From the early years of his career Kraepelin had witnessed schizophrenic speech disorder ('schizophasie') in his patients - a condition which can often make it impossible to understand what the schizophrenic patient is trying to express. Using the classic dream-psychosis analogy, Kraepelin attempted to study dream speech, hoping it would shed some light on schizophasie. He recorded his own dreams, but did not use psychoanalysis to analyse them, instead using them for scientific research. He found that he was able to record 'deviant language' from the dream, and also the intended utterance (which was not possible in the case of his schizophrenic patients who cannot cross the boundary between psychosis and reality in order to communicate this distinction). Most neogolisms (the deviant utterance) have a meaning (the intended utterance). 

Kraepelin was able to identify two fundamental disorders in dream speech: a diminished functioning of the Wernicke's area of the brain (cerebral cortex involved in the understanding of spoken and written speech); and diminished functioning of the frontal area which deals with abstract reasoning. Therefore individual ideas, rather than general ideas, are expressed in dreams. Kraepelin included proper nouns (i.e. names such as Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune) in their widest sense within this model.

Kraepelin's dream speech specimens range from simple to intricate and his own analysis is somewhat limited in scope. Below are some examples:

'Vi tafalk!' 

This was an order given to a gravedigger named Vi to bring a coffin for the body during a funeral. 

'Tafalk' is a shortcut for the German 'katafalk' (catafalque' meaning the raised platform on which a coffin sits during a funeral)

'nsens' 

'Nonsence' minus 'one'

'Crap a ace' ('crap' meaning 'rubbish' in English, 'a' being the Greek prefix for 'without' and 'ace' representing 'one)

'Crap a ace' is a derivative from the metathesis of 'carapace'

'Carapace' (dorsal section of an exoskeleton) refers to 'schild' (shield) from 'Firmenschild' (German for 'company logo')

Schild = (1) carapace - (2) crap a ace - (3) nonsense without one - (4) nsens

(1) and (3) are conceptual associations ('code-type' associations in cryptography)

(2) and (4) are word form associations ('cipher-type' associations)

Kraepelin (who did not provide this particular analysis) termed 'nsens' as an example of 'syllable combinations jumbled in a completely arbitrary way' and thought 'nsens' was Russian. According to scholars, this assertion originated from the associative networks of his dreaming brain. The Russian word 'krapkea' means 'firm' which is an association with 'Firmenschild', provoking the transformation to 'carapace'

'Serre'
'Serre' - a word with no meaning in German. Kraepelin associates the word with 'an animal, by appearance, a heavy panther, but in fact a harmless herbivore which cannot turn over again once it is lying on its back and is completely defenceless'.
He includes the word 'turtle' - in German 'schildkrote' ('shield-toad')
'Serre' in French - linked to 'talon' (bird of prey)
French for 'turtle shell' -= 'carapace'
French for 'bird of prey' = 'rapace'
German for turtle = 'krote' (toad)
'Krote' translated in French = 'crapaud'
'Crapaud' associates with the German 'krapfen' and 'hook' - i.e. 'talon'
'Serre' - is linked to 'schildkrote' by 'carapace' and 'crapaud' - which in turn are linked to 'Kraepelin'

'Trafei'

'Trafei' - linked to 'Trafoi'

Implicit critique of Freud's analysis of  'Trafoi' in the 'Signorelli parapraxis' (see my previous article on 'Freudian Slips' for the background to this analysis)

'Trafoi' - 'trofei' (Italian for 'trophy')

'Trofei' - 'Siegeszeichen' (German for 'victory-signs' - 'Signum' (Latin for 'sign') - Sigmund (Freud)

Words such as 'Krapea', 'crap' and 'carapace' are all Kraepelin-words, which seem to associate to the proper noun, Kraepelin and influence/direct associational processes. The key role of the proper noun (or name) can be explained by referring to the 'Cocktail Party Effect', which states that during a cocktail party we tune into our discussion party, neglecting any background noise. However, we notice when someone in the background din mentions our name (or something that sounds like our name). This effect has been replicated in studies using dichotic listening techniques, showing that only proper nouns break through the attentional barrier and can be heard even when our attention is at its lowest. What happens within 'outer speech' during a cocktail party occurs similarly with 'inner speech' whilst dreaming. Code words, which are linked in sound with our proper name will be detected in a set of associations during thinking.  The ongoing thought process will then deviate because code words will act as priming words, influencing the direction in which the associations will go. 

The link between schizophrenia and dream speech was the topic of debate between linguists Victorian Froomkin and Elaine Chaika in the 1970s. Chaika believed that schizophasia was a form of intermittent aphasia, whilst Froomkin stated that schizophasia could occur in non-schizophrenic persons. By 1995, Chaika conceded that schizophasia is not due to aphasias linked to actual brain damage, but is a form of speech error which may be caused by a deficiency in language production or the result of a failed intention. Thus, she adopted a position similar to Kraepelin, who stated that speech errors resembling schizophasia occur in normal individuals during dreams. 

Dream speech appears to play a very marginal role in Dream Theory, although David Foulkes highlights its significance, claiming: 'however visual dreaming may seem, it may be planned and regulated by the human speech production system'. Deirdre Barrett at Harvard University describes examples of dream literature in The Committee of Sleep (2010) where dreamers had dreamed of heard/read words which they later recorded when awake. She observed that most of these literary works tend to be poetry rather than prose or narrative fiction, although the title Vanity Fair appeared to William Makepeace Thackeray in a dream, as did Katherine Mansfield's Sun and Moon. Barrett suggests that poetry fares better in dreams because grammar tends to be well-preserved in dream speech, while meaning suffers and rhyme and rhythm are more prominent than while awake - characteristics which benefits poetry, but not necessarily other literary forms. In another study, Barrett looked at verbatim language in the dream speech of college students and found them similar  in these characteristics to literary examples of dream speech - intact grammar, poor meaning, rhyme and rhythm. She stated that this is evidence that within the two language centres in the brain - the Wernicke's area and the Broca's area, there is a malfunctioning in the former. Dream speech resembles that of persons with Wernicke's aphasia - the same conclusion reached by Kraepelin in 1906. 

Kraepelin's dream speech has been psychoanalysed by others, using Freud's technique. One theory is that Kraepelin's dreams reveal a desire to preserve his uncommon family name. Freud was initially schooled in notions of anatomical localisation of mental functions and the idea that consciousness was an epiphenemenon which was caused by strong cortical stimulation. He later rejected these ideas, favouring those of John Hughlings Jackson, who suggested that neural functioning was hierarchical and dynamic, as opposed to static and localised and often outside the conscious awareness of the individual. In On Aphasia (1891), Freud focused not only on neurology, but also linguistics. leading to his recognition as the first neo-grammarian neurologist (Junggrammatika) and he advanced distinctions between hysterical speech impairments and true organic aphasia. He introduced the idea of 'word presentation' in schizophrenic subjects - that speech is invested with psychic energy and consciousness, with words manipulated by the schizophrenic, as if they were 'things'. He expounded this theory further in The Unconscious (1915). Although Freud's work on dream speech was neurologically orientated, he later turned towards psychoanalysis as an explanation, characterising speech as a 'secondary process' (phylogenetically and ontogenetically advanced) which occurs in normal functioning wakefulness. He contrasted this secondary process with primary processes which occur at an unconscious pre-verbal level - condensation, displacement and symbolisation.

Many of Freud's own dream reports contain complex verbal content - lengthy 'speech' which is grammatically appropriate to the context in which is occurred. Dreams are 'compromise formations' resulting from the interplay between primary and secondary processes - however, the primary processes are far more active in dreams than normal wakefulness and thus, it would be expected that speech - a secondary process - would be subjected to severe disturbances during dreaming. Freud's dream records show that his dream speech was remarkably well-formed. In The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) Freud addressed the theoretical dilemma of secondary process speech occurring within primary process dreaming. He employed 'replay hypothesis' as an explanation, stating that audible/acoustic speech in dreams is a playback of actual speech heard by the dreamer in their waking life. Non-acoustic utterances within dreams had their origin in previous wakeful ideas and thoughts of the dreamer. This material may have undergone 'splicing' or 'editing'. He applied his theory to several of his own dreams, notably, 'The Autodidasker Dream' and 'The Castle by the Sea' dream, both of which demonstrated that dream speech, while perceived as being in the dreamer's native language, may involve links from other foreign languages of which he has some knowledge.

The problem with using the psychoanalytic method to dissect Kraepelin's dreams is that Kraepelin did not free associate upon his own dreams or use psychoanalysis as a tool for exploring their meaning. Thus, any psychoanalytical study of Kraepelin's dreams are third-party analysis - like Freud's inclusion of Hanns Sach's psychoanalytic interpretation of Bismark's dream which was included in The Interpretation of Dreams and focused on infantile sexuality. In doing so, Freud pointed to 'firmly established linguistic usage' - the idea that dream speech may take on a visual, physical representation, rather than presenting in verbal form.

On 5 April 1926, six months prior to his death, Kraepelin recorded a dream. The only information provided is that the phrase 'Ruhrochs gibt es nicht mehr' ('there is no more scrambled ox') was uttered 'in an inn'. The dream utterance has been analysed in the following way:

'Ruhrochs gibt es nicht mehr'

The neologism 'Ruhrochs' = 'scrambled ox'

'Ruhrei' = 'scrambled eggs'

'Ochsenaugen' = 'eggs sunny-side up'

'Ochs' = sounds like English word 'ox'

'Ruhrochs' associated with Latin word 'Praecox' which is linked semantically with 'Ochsenaugen'

'Ochsenaugen' also means 'Apricot cake'

Apricot/aprilkose = 'praecox' - a form of early-ripened peach

'Praecox' translates to the German 'fruhreif' which translates as 'early-ripe'

'Fruhreif' - becomes 'fruhreif'

Latent meaning: 'Dementia praecox is no more' ('Dementia praecox' was Kraepelin's term for what we now call 'schizophrenia')

Bleuler's term 'schizophrenia' had superseded Kraepelin's terminology and become the accepted medical classification, whilst Kraepelin was at the end of his career and near death.

The dream interpretation above can be interpreted as a 'loss of name' - and can be analysed in a similar way to Kraepelin's other dreams, noted above, which also link to his moniker. Thus Kraepelin's family name is key to unravelling the meaning of his dream speech - his anxiety that his name/legacy might become extinguished, or his contribution to medicine may be lost. His dreams seem to display a wish that his name and nomenclature would continue to live on after his death. Additional interpretations of Kraepelin's dream speech suggest that it displays an unconscious motive to demonstrate his intellect and mental complexity, therefore reinforcing his overall claim of historical importance. Validation of the theory that preservation of Kraepelin's unusual family name was of psychological importance to him can be found in biographies (Steinberg (2001) & Burgmair et al (2000) for example). It is suggested that the concern about the loss of his family name and his desire for its endurance may have been idiosyncratic to Kraepelin under the particular circumstances of his personal life. However, analysis of his contributions to dream speech and psychoanalytic interpretation using Freud's techniques may enable a more generalised hypothesis to emerge: in dreams which are almost entirely made up of utterances/dream speech rather than visual representations or imagery, one's proper name - an aspect of their identity - may constitute a remnant of a diminished sense of identity or a 'minimal characteristic of the ego' (Engels et al (2008)) which the dreamer clings to. The deeper roots of the dream may concern childhood fears of elimination or annihilation. These theories can be tested in a psychoanalytic setting, via use of Freud's methods of free association. Certainly, irrespective of whether Freudian interpretations of Kraepelin's dreams are accepted as truth, Kraepelin left a rich legacy of dream material capable of illuminating the intricate nature of speech functions and the unconscious mind. Kraepelin's name endures in this respect and his dream records may be dissected within a linguistic, neurological or psychoanalytical framework, each possibility offering valuable insight into the speech patterns of dreams.

'Freudian Slips' - Theories on illicit slips of the tongue

A 'Freudian slip', also known as a parapraxis, is an error of speech (and memory or physical action in its Wikipedia definition) which Freud stated was a result of interference by an unconscious (dynamically repressed) subdued wish, desire, conflict or train of thought. This dynamic repression occurs because of the regulating influence of the ego and the rules of social behaviour. They are said to reveal 'a source outside the speech' and form part of classical Psychoanalytic Theory. Slips of the tongue (speech) or pen (written text) are typical parapraxes, but Psychoanalytic Theory also refers to mishearings, misreadings, temporary forgetfulness ('motivated forgetting') and the misplacing of objects.

Erdelyi (1981) recounts a humorous and relevant example of a written Freudian slip. The author had previously written a paper on Freudian concepts which was entitled 'Let us not sweep repression under the rug' - a play on words. When citing Erdelyi's article and criticising Freudian theory of repressed memory, Loftus & Loftus (1980) has mis-typed 'let us now sweep repression under the rug' - revealing their motivation. 

Slips of the tongue are inevitable. For every 1,000 words spoken we make one or two errors. The average pace of speech is 150 words per minute and so a slip is likely to happen once every seven minutes of continuous speech, meaning we tend to make between 7 - 22 verbal slips in an average day.

In The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901) Freud analysed a number of bizarre, trivial and nonsensical errors and slips - notably, his own 'Signorelli parapraxis' - where unable to remember the name of the artist, he substituted Botticelli and Boltraffio. Psychoanalysis led him to identify the reason for his substitution - his visit to Trafoi (Northern Italy) where he learnt of the suicide of a patient dealing with sexual problems, linking sex and death as a theme in relation to the word 'Trafoi' prior to the word-finding problem which happened during a conversation Freud had on a train journey through Bosnia-Herzegovina. 'Herr' (from Bosnia-Herzegovina, was mentioned during the conversation)  is the counterpart to 'signor' - an extraction of an Italian word from the forgotten name, Signorelli. 

Freud suggested that most errors were the result of several causes - what he refers to as 'overdetermination of an error'. This resembles the modern understanding of how memory retrieval takes place, through a process of intersecting associations.

The term 'Freudian slip' has made its way into popular culture and common usage, but it is not a name Freud himself would have given the phenomenon. Freud referred to them as Fehlleistungen which means 'faulty actions' or 'faulty functions' or 'misperformances'. They are also known as 'slips of the tongue'.

Freud said of these so-called Fehlleistungen:

'In the same way that psychoanalysis makes use of dream interpretation, it also profits by the study of numerous little slips and mistakes which people make - symptomatic actions, such as they are called...I have pointed out that these phenomena are not accidental, that they require more than physiological explanations, that they have a meaning and can be interpreted, and that one is justified in inferring from them the presence of restrained or repressed impulses or intentions.'

[Freud, An Autobiographical Study (1925)]

Freud also said 'a suppression of a previous intention to say something is the indispensable condition for the occurrence of a slip of the tongue'.

The term Freudian slip had now become debased so that it refers to any accidental slip of the tongue rather than remain true to its strict psychoanalytic definition which centres around dynamic repression rather than a mere wish to leave something unexpressed.

Under Psychoanalytic theory, Freudian slips are the result of unconscious wishes or desires, which are taboo, prohibited or dangerous and therefore articulation or expression of these anxiety-provoking wishes are suppressed. Anything that is suppressed 'always strives to assert itself elsewhere' and therefore lead to 'Freudian slips'. These Freudian slips, like dreams, are the 'royal road to the unconscious' and reveal the desires and impulses which drive us. 

The psychoanalytic technique for interpreting Freudian slips was free association. Freud stated that the 'accidental utterances and fancies of the patient...though striving for concealment, nevertheless intentionally betrays [that which has been suppressed].' By analysing the chains of association which emerge we are able to uncover what is being suppressed from the conscious mind. The careful deconstruction of condensed, disguised references within Freudian slips uncover a nexus of forgotten material and conflict which can be untangled and resolved. Within popular culture, we see a saturation of this vision of human experience where awkwardness and 'faulty actions' or 'misperformances' are characteristic of the sexually-repressed, but suddenly disappear once sexuality is expressed or some form of inner conflict has been resolved through sexual release. 

Howard Shevrin, Professor or Psychology at the University of Michigan performed a recent study which appeared to prove that words relevant to an subconscious conflict are actively inhibited or repressed in anxious patients. In certain psychoanalytic circles, focus on the slippery, fluid nature of language has been overshadowed by emphasis on the relational, signalling a shift from psychoanalysis to psychodynamism. The spotlight is now on what type of relationship is repeated by the patient within the therapeutic setting. 

Freud gave an example of this shift towards the psychodynamic in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. He recalled a young male patient who was criticising the uselessness of his generation and the number of Jewish persons in the Austro-Hungarian empire. The patient attempted to recite a Latin proverb from Virgil ('Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor' - 'Let someone arise as an avenger from my bones') to clinch his argument, but failed to remember one word - aliquis (meaning 'someone' or 'something'). The patient accused Freud of gloating and requested that he analyse the Freudian slip. Freud instructed him to free associate on the missing word, which led to the following sequence of words: a liquid, liquefying, fluidity, fluid, relics, saint's relics, St Simon, St Benedict, St Augustine, St Januarius. The patient identified St Januarius as a calendar saint who performed the 'miracle of the blood' once a year when a phial of his blood was said to magically liquefy. He then half-started a sentence, before cutting himself off. Freud commented on the pause and the patient revealed an anxiety that a certain young woman in Vienna (with whom he had been having sex) had missed a period - she might be pregnant, bringing shame on his family. The Freudian slip had enabled the patient to consciously express a fear he had been trying to repress. The reference to the calendar saints and the notion that blood flow on a certain date. The quotation (of Dido) was also telling, because it is an allusion to descendants who 'rise' from the bones of their predecessor.

Freud recalled a female patient who spoke warmly of a man for whom she had previously expressed indifferent or contempt. The patient said: 'I never really had anything against him. I never gave him the chance to cuptivate my acquaintance.' Freud interrogated the patient and discovered that she had become romantically involved with the man. He concluded that she had intended to say 'cultivate' but unconsciously thought of the word 'captivate', revealing her hidden thoughts about ensnaring the man.

Freud had another example, this time of a physical slip - his friend, Dr Stekel told him of an incident when he was leaving the home of a female patient following a house-call. As he went to shake her hand, he found he was inadvertently untying the bow of her dressing gown instead. Freud suggested that Stekel had subconscious and unprofessional desire for the woman, which manifested itself in his unwitting hand movements.

In contrast to Psychoanalytic Theory, cognitive psychologists argue that Freudian slips are likely to be caused by a sequencing conflict in grammar production, as a result of cognitive underspecification caused by inattention, incomplete sense data or insufficient knowledge. Additionally, they may be due to the existence of some locally appropriate response pattern which is strongly primed by its prior usage, recent activation or emotional change. Critics of Freud suggest that certain sentences are simply susceptible to banalisation - the replacement of outmoded, archaic  or unusual expressions with those in common modern usage. This is known as 'strong habit substitution' or 'conventionalisation'. Thus, Freudian theory is often perceived as outmoded and irrelevant. Cognitive psychologists and linguists argue that language is so complex that mistakes are bound to occur regularly. We generate an intention to relate a particular idea with a word and formulate a pre-verbal message, involving a serious competition between a number of words from which we must select the most appropriate one. We then need to encode or grammatise the words, ordering them in the appropriate form and naturally, our brains use shortcuts, picking words we have used before. This happens through a rapid, preconscious process. Given the complexity of this process, mistakes are likely to happen - cognitive psychologists claim that this is little more than a misfiring of the shortcuts the brain-processing relies upon.

Freud's contemporary, philologist Rudolph Meringer explained Freudian slips as 'banana peels' in the path of a sentence - accidental shifts of linguistic units. Cognitive scientist, Gary Dell, a Professor of Linguistics and Psychology at the University of Illinois contends that Freudian slips are more actually revealing - of an individual's capacity for use of language and its components. Under his model words and sounds are interconnected in three brain networks: the semantic, the lexical and the phonological, with speech arising from their interaction. Occasionally, as a result of 'spreading activation' the networks trip over one another, causing a slip of the tongue. Dell sees this as a positive phenomena, because an error-prone system of linguistics enables the novel production of new words, highlighting the flexibility and dexterity of the human mind and mental processes involved in language.

When an individual wants to express a particular word, the mind activates the semantic network, which represents the meaning and context of thousands of words in the person's vocabulary. In reaching the correct word, the neural nodes that deal with concept are set into motion until the one with the strongest activation (the intended word) is selected and placed in the frame of the sentence. The phonological network then needs to activate all the sounds of the chosen word, avoiding interference from competing neural nodes for sounds which do not appear in the relevant intended word. For the intended word to be grammatically correct within a sentence, the lexical network must also kick in, activating words which represent the parts of speech in the word string - nouns, verbs, adjectives, suffixes, prefixes and tenses etc. Sometimes nodes for a sound which occurs later in the sentence are prematurely activated  and the later sound is substituted for an earlier one. This is known as an anticipation or 'forward-error' - for example 'best and brightest' becomes 'breast'. Spreading activation also explains a different variant of the verbal slip - the perseveration or 'backwards-error' where the node for a sound appearing at an earlier stage in the sentence becomes activated for too long - for example: 'I love you' becomes 'I love loo'. When one node for activation is activated prematurely and another is delayed, we make 'spoonerisms' (named after Reverend William Archibald Spooner) - 'time heals all wounds' becomes 'time wounds all heels' and suchlike.

Activations within and between networks can overlap, with nodes representing thoughts, sounds and syntax crossing and creating confusion about the strongest activation. When a competing node is similar to the correct one, it may gain primary and replace it, leading to malapropisms with similar associations. The more often you say a word, the stronger the activation. Further, when similar sounding nodes compete, their sounds can blend. This suggests that Freudian slips are nothing more than incorrect activation of nodes in the speech network and possess no special meaning. However, some Freudian slips appear to be overwhelmingly revealing as to the speaker's unconscious thoughts. Freud's analysis of his patients' verbal slips was always necessarily ex post facto - after the event - and based on a small sample. Dell suggests that seemingly meaningful slips may be due to the individual's confusion with a word recently said, heard, thought or read, which intrude into speech, due to competition with nodes for the correct, intended word. 

The mind can be primed by timely exposure, which is why sometimes we voice an incorrect word because our senses are stimulated by exposure to something else - sometimes for example, if I am writing whilst listening to the television or music in the background I might substitute a word I have heard for the correct one. This isn't necessarily Freudian because such slips do not necessarily reveal anything about subconscious desires, but they do show how certain stimuli capture our unconscious attention. Daniel Wegner, a Harvard Psychologist, states that the unconscious does play a role in such slips, but not in the way anticipated by Freud. Wegner conducted a study where he asked subjects not to think of a white bear and then asked them to speak about what was on their minds. In the stream of speech which followed, the forbidden white bear intruded into speech about once per minute. Wegner states that the more you forbid a thought, the more likely you will be to verbalise it, because it intrudes into your thoughts often. This is because part of our unconscious mind is always thinking about the worst case scenario. Freud interpreted these dark thoughts as the functioning of the Id - and part of true human nature, which is suppressed by social convention and the Ego's regulatory role. Wegner disagrees, arguing that we are more civilised than Freud gave us credit for. He suggests that the unconscious mind thinks about worst case scenarios in order to guard against them - we imagine it to make sure it does not happen. The problem it, the more the conscious mind (the prefrontal cortex) tries to suppress a thought, the more the unconscious mind has to check we are not thinking about it, causing us to think about it more. More often than not, the conscious mind will win and we are able to maintain control, but sometimes the unconscious mind allows the intrusive thought to sabotage speech.

Michael Motley, Psychologist at the University of Californa, Davis, focuses his research on inducing Freudian slips in a laboratory setting, arguing that intensity and distraction are two important conditions for such slips. Studying slips is incredibly difficult, given that they occur spontaneously, but Motley designed an experiment whereby subjects were greeted by either himself or a provocatively dressed woman, posing as a lab assistant. All the subjects were young, heterosexual males. The woman sat on a stool so that her knees (exposed in a very short skirt) were eye-level with subjects. All subjects were asked to read silently at the rate of one per second word-pairs (back mud, bad mouth, bat much, mad bug) which were designed to induce spoonerisms. A buzzer was periodically sounded, prompting the subjects to read a word-pair aloud. The subjects who were in the room with the sexy woman made significantly more sexual slips ('get laid' rather than 'let gaid' and 'bare shoulders' instead of 'share boulders') than the group who were in the room with the middle-aged Motley. The study was subsequently repeated, using a scale to measure sexual anxiety. The greater the measured sexual anxiety in a subject, the more likely he was to make a sexual slip. This surprised Motley who had predicted that the more sexually anxious subjects would take extra caution and make fewer slips. The presence of the sexy woman did not cause the subjects to make more slips generally - just increase the number of sexual slips. When the sexy woman was replaced by a different kind of arousing stimulus - the threat of electric shock, Motley found that slips related to electricity ('shad bock' became 'bad shock'), but there was no increase in neutral or sexual slips. This shows that the slips were highly specific to the source of the distraction. Motley claims that this is a 'Freudian slip' in the loosest sense - there is an influence from outside the intended speech which causes us to make verbal errors, but they fall short of the deeply repressed motives that Freud himself described. The slips were not voluntary or conscious, but this does not mean that they were deliberately concealed or repressed. The male subjects in Motley's study were very aware of their sexual arousal in the experiment with the sexy woman - apparently some of the men later approached her and asked her out on a date.

Wegner believes that subjects attempted to repress thoughts about sex and electric shocks, but these efforts backfired in the same way he was able to show in his white bear experiment. The more an individual tries not to think about an intrusive thought, the more insuppressible and opportunistic that thought becomes. Adding the stress of the test and words that are capable of being misconstrued as erotic leads to sexual thoughts finding their expression. Therefore, two conditions increase the risk of making a Freudian slip - the thought you wish to suppress and a stressor, distraction, time pressure or competing mental agenda. For instance, mental burden may occupy the conscious mind, leaving the unconscious unchecked and free to release the forbidden thought. This is why slips happen less frequently in stress-free conditions.

Researchers at Ghent University argue that we formulate Freudian slips all the time, but we have a super sensitive internal monitor which usually detects and corrects them before they are articulated verbally - especially the socially unacceptable ones. Studies were conducted where electrodes were placed on the scalps of subjects who were exposed to a test predisposing them towards making X-rated blunders. It was shown that strong bursts of electrical activity occurred when the subject made an X-rated slip, but also when the subject avoided making a slip. The brain seemed to exert energy into sidestepping the illicit slip.

James Pennebaker, Head of Psychology at the University of Texas, claims that slips of the tongue - Freudian slips - are not the only linguistic mistake we make. The subtle filler material in speech can also reveal that which we wish to remain hidden - particularly use of the pronoun 'I'. Jack Schafer, a former FBI Special Agent argues that deception often shows up in the style and form of an individual's speech, by way of 'text-bridges' - words and phrases which occur between truthful speech content which enable the speaker to omit information he does not wish to reveal. Certain words act as markers to locate the withheld information. 

Michael Erard claims that slips occur because our internal monitors are inhibited - from alcohol, exhaustion and ageing. Speaking very rapidly also stimulates slippage. Dell suggests that this makes it more likely that nodes from previous words are still activated and the more interference between nodes, the more likely the individual is to make a verbal slip. Speaking slower may reduce the likelihood of Freudian slips, but risks 'anticipation-error' because the brain has time to cast upstream in a sentence. Multitasking promotes Freudian slips, because it adds to an individual's mental load.

However, Freud had anticipated criticism of his theory by cognitive psychologists and stressed that 'favourable circumstances' such as exhaustion, circulatory disturbances and intoxication make Freudian slips more likely to happen. He called these psycho-physiological factors'. Freud gave an analogy; he stated that identifying these 'favourable circumstances' as the cause of a Freudian slip would be the same as going to a police station and blaming the theft of a purse on the isolated part of the city one found themselves in. For the theft of the purse (the metaphorical 'Freudian slip') there must also be a thief - the dynamically repressed desire which bursts through. Freud did concede that not all slips have some in-depth meaning, although it was highly probable that they did.

The modern approach would look towards the process of transference - the patient's relationship with Freud, the therapist and authority figure. The focus would be on the pattern of relating as opposed to delving into his unconscious associations. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy faces similar limitations to this psychodynamic approach: both risk reducing the patient's internal world to a simplistic template. CBT is often employed to produce similar outcomes for a variety of patients within a short time-frame (unlike psychoanalysis which is a prolonged form of therapy). If the patient's surface symptoms appear to be 'stuck' the therapist attempts to locate the patient's 'core beliefs'; this is a broad-brush approach which ignores the intricate and singular tapestry of the individual mind, which Freudian slips, dream interpretation, and psychoanalysis generally, actually reveal. 

Modern communications technology - such as social networking - make Freudian slips increasingly unforgettable within our contemporary culture - those of celebrities and politicians are now readily accessible via cyberspace.

Language is not merely descriptive, but ultimately constituent of our sense of self - Freudian slips are windows into the flawed, contradictory, intricate idiosyncrasies of our character and history. Freud was a master at describing the phenomenology of the human pysche. He was the first theoretician to acknowledge the phenomenon of  'recurrent blockers' in tip-of-the-tongue states - the process whereby an individual strives to recover the lost word or name and incorrect substitute ones repeatedly enter the conscious, despite the individual knowing them to be wrong. Freud located his explanation for Freudian slips in the unconscious - in fact many processes of the human brain, whether schematic or automatic, take place unconsciously. However, Freud was correct in refusing to divorce cognition from emotion.