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Greenberg, R., Katz, H., Schwartz, W., Pearlman, C. (1992). A Research-Based Reconsideration of the Psychoanalytic Theory of Dreaming.
(1992). Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 40:531-550
A Research-Based Reconsideration of the Psychoanalytic Theory of

Dreaming
Ramon Greenberg, M.D. , Howard Katz, M.D. , Wynn Schwartz, Ph.D. and Chester Pearlman, M.D.
ABSTRACT
We present a brief review of sleep research which, when combined with psychoanalytic experience, has led to the
hypothesis that REM sleep and dreaming serve the function of adaptation by the process of integration of
information. We then report the results of a study of dreams, based on this hypothesis. We studied dreams and their
relation to waking mental activity and found a correlation between problems in manifest dreams and those in pre-
and postsleep waking life. Dreams can be understood on the basis of problems that appear in them. We also found
evidence for a relation between the solution of problems in dreams and the fate of those problems the next day. We
discuss these findings in relation to some of the controversies about dreaming, and then present suggestions for
future research.
THE APPARENT CHAOS OF THE DREAM has led to two contrasting interpretations of the nature of dreaming. Some
researchers suggest that since the physiology of REM sleep may be dominated by centers in the pons, the activity in the cortex is
purely reactive (Hobson and McCarley, 1977). In their view the dream itself, if meaningful at all, is at best a reaction to random
nervous system activity, in effect an attempt to create order out of chaos. In contrast to this, classical psychoanalytic thinking tried to
make sense out of the seeming chaos or meaninglessness of the dream by suggesting that it was a disguised representation of a
childhood wish (Freud, 1900). Many recent
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Drs. Greenberg, Katz, and Schwartz are from the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Pearlman is from the Department of
Psychiatry, Tufts Medical School.
Presented at the Fall Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association, December 15, 1989. Accepted for publication February 14, 1991.
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discussions of dreaming are polarized between a defense of drive-oriented psychoanalytic dream theory and an attempt to use
physiologic studies to dismiss psychoanalytic theory altogether (Hobson, 1988); (Crick and Mitchison, 1983). The traditional
psychoanalytic idea (Freud, 1900) that dreams represent disguised childhood wishes has been set up as a straw man against which
certain physiologic formulations have been directed, with the goal of the effort being to discredit all psychoanalytic thinking about
dreams. Neither the classical psychoanalytic approach nor the physiologic attacks on it have been, in our opinion, able to explain fully
the purpose or function of dreaming. We shall present a brief review of the relevant sleep research in order to provide the reader with
the basis for our approach to dreams, then present the results of our recent study of dreams collected in the laboratory, and finally offer
a view of dreaming consistent with both the psychodynamic and physiologic data. We shall demonstrate that important mental activity
is going on in the dream and that this activity is an attempt to adapt to the demands of living. Others, such as Breger (1967),
Cartwright (1986), Dewan (1970), Palombo (1984), Hawkins (1966), and Winson (1985), have come to similar conclusions about the
implications of the sleep research. Also, analysts such as Maeder (1916), French and Fromm (1964), Bonime and Bonime (1982), and
Fosshage (1987) have suggested modifications of analytic theory which are consistent with the conclusions suggested by our data. We
shall not reduce psychology to physiology or attempt to negate the physiologic data.
Review
Our review of sleep research includes the results of studies of the function of REM sleep in both animals and humans. Animal
experiments are included because the physiology of REM sleep is quite similar in all mammals. Only people can tell us about
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dreams, but the animal work gives us a large quantity of information that is pertinent to the elucidation of REM function. Extensive
reviews of both the human (Greenberg, 1981) and animal studies (Pearlman, 1979) are available elsewhere, so we shall provide only
an outline of the results and their implications.
We must also justify the use of REM sleep studies in a discussion of dreaming. The early work on REM sleep suggested that
dreaming was limited to the REM phase of sleep because of the high correlation between REM sleep awakenings and dream reports.
Later studies raised questions about this, as awakenings from nonREM sleep were followed by reports of mental activity. However,
closer examination suggests that dreaming is an integral part of the activity of the nervous system during REM sleep. The mental
activity from nonREM awakenings is thoughtlike and can be distinguished from the perceptual, storylike, and sometimes bizarre
content that occurs during REM sleep. The only familiar exception is in the hypnagogic imagery at sleep onset (Foulkes and Vogel,
1965). Furthermore, some studies have shown a relation between the physiologic phenomena of REM sleep and dream content. Eye
movements, small muscle activity, and middle ear muscle potentials (Roffwarg et al., 1962), (1975) have all been shown to correlate
with the activities and imagery of the dream. Since we assume that dreaming involves activity of the visual cortex, it is also
noteworthy that damage to visual association areas leads to change in the eye movements of REM sleep (Greenberg, 1966);
(Jeannerod et al., 1965).
Therefore, we consider that experiments that contribute to an understanding of the role of REM sleep will also contribute to an
understanding of the role of dreaming. Although many hypothetical functions of REM sleep have been proposed, studies providing
experimental data have supported the general hypothesis that REM sleep is involved in a kind of information processing. REM
function was first studied by examining the effects of REM deprivation (REMD). In animals this was
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accomplished by several means. The most interesting took advantage of the loss of muscle tone which occurs during the REM phase of
sleep. Animals placed on small platforms in the middle of a pail of water would dip into the water at the beginning of REM sleep and
awaken. Animals on larger platforms were used as controls. In order to control for certain stresses inherent in this method, other REM-
depriving approaches, such as REM-suppressing drugs, were also used. The common denominator of the effects of REMD with these
varied procedures led to a clearer understanding of the role of REM sleep. Animals that were REM-deprived by any method showed
deficits in certain kinds of learning. These can be characterized as tasks requiring mastery of situations or utilization of responses
outside of the animals' usual experience or behavioral repertoire. Thus two-way shuttlebox shock avoidance, complex discriminations,
cooperative learning, and development of socialization in animals reared in isolation were all impaired in rodents when REMD
followed training sessions (Pearlman, 1979). On the other hand, simpler tasks such as one-way avoidance of shock or a T-maze
learning task were not affected.
Comparable results were obtained in REMD studies on humans. REMD was usually produced by awakening subjects at the first
signs of REM sleep on the EEG. Controls were awakened a comparable number of times from nonREM sleep. The effects were
congruent with those in animals. Simple word tasks such as learning lists of words or paired word associates were unimpaired by
REMD (Greenberg et al., 1970). On the other hand, when evidence of mastery of complicated situations was examined, REMD
caused a change. This was seen in changes in the Rorshach (Greenberg et al., 1970); (Cartwright and Ratzel, 1972), in creative
thinking tasks such as the Guilford brick test (Glaubman et al., 1978), in the production of affective or dilemma-laden content
(Greenberg et al., 1983), and in the ability to solve anagrams under stress (Grieser et al., 1972). Here, as in the animals, tasks
requiring the organization
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of new or emotionally significant information were impaired by REMD.

Having demonstrated the effects of REMD, researchers then studied how REM responded to a demand for such information
organization. They found that, when an animal was in the process of learning a complicated task, REM sleep increased until the task
was mastered (Hennevin and Leconte, 1977). Humans who were in a state of emotional disequilibrium (Greenberg and Pearlman,
1975) or were learning a foreign language (DeKonnick et al., 1977) also showed increased pressure for REM sleep.
These results, which are presented in much greater detail by Pearlman (1982), led to the hypothesis that REM sleep is necessary
for the integration of new and complicated information into the procedural memory systems of mammals. Guided by this idea, we have
developed a new way to study dreams and their meaning.
The Present Study

We approached this study of dreams with specific ideas stemming from the earlier research. The central idea is that, for humans,
the integration of information is in the service of solving problems or dilemmas which are part of current waking experience, and this
should be reflected in the dream. If this is the case, then we might expect a basic unit for understanding the dream will be the problem,
either solved or unsolved, and that such problems will be meaningfully related to waking problems. We defined a problem as any
expression of negative feeling or any situation evoking such feelings or requiring some change or adaptation. A sense of disequilibrium
is inherent in the concept.
We scored dream reports collected in the sleep laboratory for the presence of identifiable problems, and related these to the
independently scored problems found in the pre- and postsleep waking material. After we identified problems, we
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determined whether they showed evidence of being successfully or unsuccessfully resolved in the dream or in the waking material
after the dream. The nature of these assessments will become clear as we present the data. We approached the material with the basic
assumption that the manifest dream is meaningful in itself and is not essentially deceptive, and that difficulties in understanding the
dream come from its being in a perceptual language rather than the waking verbal language with which we are more familiar
(Greenberg and Pearlman, 1980). This approach differs from Freud's (1900) idea that the manifest dream "… is in any case of no
importance" (p. 517). Thus we scored dreams with the idea that they mean what they say and require translating from one language to
another rather than interpretation of underlying and presumably hidden meaning.
Methods and Subjects

We shall describe the examination and scoring of dream material collected in the sleep laboratory from two subjects about whom
there was also a great deal known regarding their waking mental activity.1 Subject one was a patient in psychoanalysis, and transcripts
of his analytic hours before and after the night in the laboratory were available. The second was a student volunteer who, with the use
of a structured set of questions, was interviewed in detail about his waking thoughts and activities before and after each night in the
laboratory.2 Twelve nights of dreams were collected for each subject. The analytic patient's dreams were collected on alternate weeks
every other month, while the student's were collected once a week over a three-month period. A total of 69 dreams were collected, 39
from the analytic patient and 30 from the student.
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1 The large number of dreams and the extensive waking material distinguishes this study from reports of selected material from patients.
2 We wish to thank Dr. David Foulkes for providing this rich and valuable material.
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As a guide for finding connections between dreams and pre- and postsleep mentation, we attempted to define measurable
characteristics of dreams and waking material which could be compared. Our scoring took place in separate steps. First, each night's
dreams were examined independently by two to four scorers. Each scorer was asked to list all problems (as defined above) in each
manifest dream. After scoring the dreams of a particular night, we met to compile a list of the problems for each dream. Only problems
identified by at least two scorers were included in our final lists. By including only problems scored by at least two scorers' agreement,
reliability was always between 67% and 100%, thus avoiding having only the interpretation of just one observer. We also restricted
ourselves to scoring overt problems and not those that might involve interpretation based on psychoanalytic hypotheses. Although this
may appear simplistic, it was necessary in order to examine the idea that the manifest dream is intrinsically meaningful.
We then tried to determine whether each dream and all of the night's dreams were successful in coping with the problems that had
been found in those dreams. That is, if there was a problem, was any solution attempted and how successful was that solution. Our
assessment of the success of a dream involved two considerations. The first way we assessed the success of the dream was by
determining whether the dream story contained not only a problem, but some solution to that problem. The second measure of success
was derived from the idea that successful dreaming involves integration of different sets of memories, and we used a scale involving a
spectrum ranging from literal to metaphoric depiction in order to capture this concept. Our assumption was that a literal portrayal, in
the dream, of a problem would represent a failure to integrate, while a metaphor would suggest more integration. This is in line with
Klein's (1976) observation: "… since metaphor involves a choice of words which have control as well as an expressive function, a
metaphor is a way of handling simultaneous trains of thought"
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(p. 69). When applied to dreams, our hypothesis is that metaphor is an indication that the dreamer has formed a connection between
current problems and other life experiences.
The second step consisted of identification of problems (using the same definition of problem as in the dreams) in the pre- and
postsleep material. The transcripts were again scored independently, and the two to four scorers were blind to the dreams associated
with the waking material. Again we included in our final lists only problems identified by more than one scorer, and therefore our
agreement was always more than 67%.
The next step was the comparison of the problem lists for each set of dreams and the waking material for the days surrounding
that night. Here we worked as a group, requiring consensus about whether a problem in a dream was the same as in the pre- or
postsleep material for that night. Usually the wording was so similar that there was no question. This was not always the case, but we
tried to limit our acceptance of similarity to quite obvious congruence. The nature of these decisions will be seen in the examples
provided below. Again, agreement by more than one scorer was necessary for inclusion.
From these assessments, we tried to answer the following questions: 1. Did the problems before sleep appear in the dreams? 2.
Did they show any change or modification in the dreams, even if they were similar to those before sleep? 3. Did the presleep problems
appear in the postsleep material? 4. If so, was there modification and was this related to the nature of the solutions in the dreams?
Results
The results for the two subjects are presented separately. For the analytic patient, the most striking finding was how clearly the
problems in the presleep hour could be seen in the dreams. For every night, problems in the dreams corresponded to those found in the
presleep material. The dream was not a mysterious
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(as some nonanalysts claim) or disguised product, but rather an obvious continuation of the struggles of waking life. Twenty-five of 39
collected dreams showed problems, and the raters failed to find a problem that corresponded to one in the waking material in only four
out of these 25 dreams. Thus, while not every dream showed a problem, 21 of 25 dreams with problems contained a problem from the
preceding day's experiences. Some examples will illustrate the nature of this portrayal.
During one presleep hour, problems identified from the transcript revealed the patient's struggle with feelings about his dead father
and his attempt to contain the intensity of his sadness, because of his fear of seeming weak. In the first dream of the night he began as a
prisoner of two men. They had to transfer his father's possessions out of a refrigerator. In the course of the dream, he and his captors
became an efficient assembly line and worked together to move the possessions from one refrigerator to another. He felt very good
about the efficiency of this operation. The problem in the hour, which was seen as his discomfort with his sadness about father, is
clearly represented in this dream both by the need to deal with his father's possessions and by his helplessness, as expressed by his
being a prisoner. Also quite clear are the solutions he found: for his sense of helplessness in the dream, the development of an efficient
assembly line consisting of him and his captors; and for his feelings about father, the disposition of father's effects by keeping them in
cold storage. We see this as a metaphor for the containment of his own unacceptable feelings of sadness,3 and it is a good example of
our attempt to use the idea of metaphor in the assessment of the success of dreams.
In another presleep hour, the patient expressed his concern about his sexual adequacy (the problem) by continually raising
questions about his sexual functioning and what might
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3To clarify our distinction between literal and metaphoric representation, we note that if he had dreamed about crying about his father's death
and feeling ashamed of himself, we would have scored that as literal with no solution.
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interfere with it. In one dream that night, he was in a "lovemaking" situation with a young woman. A yapping dog kept interrupting
them, and he kept shooing it away. During the hour, whenever he raised some concern about what might interfere with his sexual
activity, he would dismiss it by saying it would not really be a problem. The continuation of his concern is obvious in the dream. In
contrast to the refrigerator dream, the solution is the same as during the hour, literally shooing away the dog as he had shooed away,
during his analytic hour, his concerns about his sexual activity.
TABLE 1
THE APPEARANCE OF PRESLEEP PROBLEMS IN DREAMS
Night Dreams with presleep problems/total dreams
1 2/3
2 1/1
3 2/4
4 1/1
5 2/2
6 3/3
7 2/2
8 2/2
9 1/1
10 1/2
11 3/3
12 1/1
As shown in Table 1, we found repeated examples of the continuing manifestation of the presleep problems in the dreams. Not all
dreams showed problems, but as can be seen, at least one of every night's dreams contained problems from the presleep hour,
sometimes (as illustrated in the above examples) with literal portrayal, and sometimes in a metaphoric form which was a clear
representative of the presleep problem. Varying indications of more or less successful resolution were seen. On some nights all that
appeared was the problem, with no solution. Sometimes the first dream would show a solution to one problem and then subsequent
dreams would show new, unresolved problems. By looking at the handling of the presleep problems in each dream, we made an
assessment of the
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success of each night's dreams. We scored seven sets of dreams as successful and five as less successful.
The examples, without going into full detail, show how we approached the identification of the problems and their relation to
presleep issues. The next step was the exploration of the relation of the success in the dreams to what then happened in the postsleep
waking life. We compared the scoring of the problems in the postsleep hours with those in the presleep hour. We, in group discussions,
made a qualitative assessment of whether problems had moved in a positive or negative direction after the night's sleep and dreaming.
This was done without knowledge of the dreams. Evidence of positive movement was present when the postsleep hour showed more
effective defenses in relation to the problems, showed no sign of the problems, or showed a deepening of the patient's ability to deal
with these problems. We ranked five pairs of hours as moving in a positive direction, and five in a negative one. The other two were
too equivocal to make a clear assessment. Four of the five positive pairs were associated with nights in which we had found successful
dreaming, and four of the five negative pairs of hours were accompanied by unsuccessful dreams.
Because the material from the student volunteer was in a different form, we modified our approach for the scoring of the pre- and
postsleep material. These data were a compilation of the answers to discrete questions about the events and thoughts the subject had
experienced during the day. It lacked the thematic focus of the analytic situation, so that instead of scoring for such themes, we
approached the student's material by making a list of all problems he mentioned in response to the different questions. Our definition of
problem remained the same. We then scored the material by looking for matches between the problems on the presleep lists, the
dreams, and the postsleep lists. Again, we made the matches independently and included only those for which there was agreement by
more than two scorers. The nature of the problems we found included such things as worry about grades, being upset about
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a roommate's behavior, concern about his father's illness, and similar aspects of student life. When we compared the presleep lists with
the dreams, we again found that every night's dreams showed some problems from the previous day. A total of 77 out of 186 problems
found in the presleep interviews appeared in the 30 dreams. Twenty-four of these dreams contained scorable problems. Thus, as with
the analytic patient, we found presleep problems clearly represented in a majority of the student's dreams.
The nature of the material from the student and our assessment of it is illustrated in the following example from the first night. He
had a dream in which he was in a drugstore, back in his home town, looking at a Playboy magazine. He had just come into the store
and was looking at the cover and thinking of buying it. It was supposed to have a review of all the Bunnies. He was debating with
himself whether or not to buy it and was thinking that since he had a place of his own he might as well buy it (he would not have to
hide it from his mother). We saw the problem in the dream as his wondering whether it was safe to buy the sexually stimulating
magazine, and we saw his thought that he had a place of his own as the solution to concern about mother finding it. In the presleep
interview the following problems had been listed and seemed related to this dream problem. He complained about a problem in having
sexual fantasies, brought up a memory of hiding "booze," and was upset in the interview about discussing masturbation.
Table 2 shows, for each night in the laboratory, the proportion of presleep problems seen in dreams, the proportion of postsleep
problems that had been in the dreams, and the proportion of presleep problems that were seen the next day in the postsleep interview. It
also shows our separate assessments of the success of each night's dreams.
We examined these data to assess the relation of the success of the dream to the appearance of problems in the postsleep interview.
We found that sometimes none of the problems in
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the postsleep material were found in the dreams, and sometimes all were. The fate of the presleep and dream problems, as reflected in
postsleep, was clearly related to the success or failure of the dreams. On those occasions where only a small proportion of the problems
in the postsleep period were from either the dreams or from the presleep list, successful dreams had been found (nights 1, 3, 11). Night
10 was the only exception, perhaps because, while a number of presleep problems appeared in the postsleep material, the only two
presleep problems that were in the dreams were not seen postsleep. On the other hand, when postsleep problems were clearly the same
as
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those seen either in the dreams or presleep, the dreams had been scored as unsuccessful. This pattern was clear on nine of the nights
scored and questionable on only two of them (although we started with 12 nights, one sample was lost and our scoring is for 11). In
terms of the dreams, we found seven nights to have unsuccessful dreams, three successful, and one questionable. The dream example
we have provided for this subject is illustrative. We saw the dreams of this night as successful, with the dream cited providing him
with reassurance that he would not be discovered. On that night only one of the presleep problems appeared in the postsleep interview.
TABLE 2
PROBLEMS IN STUDENTS DREAMS AND PRE- AND POSTSLEEP AND DREAM SUCCESS RATINGS
Night Dream from Presleep Postsleep/to Dream Carryover Pre- to Postsleep
Proportions
1 7/12 0/8 1/12
Moderately successful
dreams
2 6/17 5/20 12/17
Dreams show
continuing problems
3 4/5 1/21 1/5
Successful dreams
4 16/16 8/8 16/16
Not successful — same
through night — no
resolution
5 3/17 2/4 9/17
Not successful dreams
6 12/20 12/14 11/20
Attempts at solutions do
not work
7 7/26 17/27 20/26
Not successful — do
not develop or integrate
problems
9 6/19 6/8 10/19
Unsuccessful dreams
10 2/10 2/16 6/10
Relatively successful
dreams
11 7/10 5/11 5/10
Dreams mildly effective
— denial and
minimizing/no clear
integration
12 6/16 2/2 6/16
Dreams show no
resolution
Discussion
This study of dreaming is based on a theory of dreams drawn both from psychoanalytic experience and from laboratory studies of
REM sleep and dreaming. This theory suggests the idea that dreaming serves the process of information management or memory
organization (Palombo, 1984) by the representation of problems that require some form of adaptation. Our hypothesis was that the
dream would reflect this process, if it were really a meaningful one. Having two subjects provided a large sample of dreams. Since one
was a student volunteer, we suggest that our findings relate to dreaming in general and not just to the clinical situation. We approached
dreams, looking for representations of real-life problems and for indications that these problems could be related to some
disequilibrium requiring adaptation in waking life. We also determined whether the dreams would show evidence of solutions or
attempts at mastery of these problems, and finally whether this would be related to subsequent waking experience. Our results suggest
that basic functions of waking cognition, such as recognition, representation, and trial solutions of dilemmas, are seen in sleep as well
as wakefulness and that there is a continuity to this process across states of consciousness.
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Let us summarize the findings and then explain our claims. We studied two sets of waking material and dreams which shared the
common factor of laboratory dream collection, but which were otherwise very different. One was from a patient in analysis, providing
waking material with all the richness of the analytic situation, but subject to questioning whether the dream material was unique to the
clinical situation or to the subject's particular psychodynamics. While this may be an often overworked reason to reject attempts to
generalize from analytic data, we felt fortunate to have available a second subject's material which had no relation to
psychotherapeutic issues. Rather, except for the experience of sleeping in a laboratory, it represents what one might call average
expectable living and dreaming activity. Also, while we have only two subjects, we have a large number of dreams from each of them.
In these samples, we found clear evidence for our suggestion that manifest dreams deal with issues that are problematic for the
dreamer. We found problems in most of the dreams, and these problems were those the dreamer had been concerned about before
going to sleep. That not all dreams show problems, deserves some comment. We were very strict in our criteria for scoring a problem.
The problem was not scorable if it was only implicit, no matter how obvious. For example, one dream contained a bodyguard. There
was no overt danger, so that we scored no problem even though a bodyguard might imply the need for protection. Another dream was
of a dimly perceived rowboat in which one person was higher than another. Again we scored no problem. Thus dreams might show no
problems for reasons such as incomplete recall, incomplete representation, all that is represented or remembered is the solution, or
perhaps because not all dreams deal with problems. However, we did find a large proportion of the dreams showing problems which
were expressed in the imagistic language of the dream, without apparent disguise, and which were clearly translatable when a
sufficient sample of salient waking concerns provided the personal meaning of the symbols and imagery. The dreams
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also showed variably effective efforts to solve the problems. We were able to score a night's dreams as more or less successful, and
found that the success or failure of the dreams was related to how much the presleep problems persisted into the next day.
The following conclusions might be drawn from the results. First, the manifest dream can frequently be understood as showing
direct and meaningful representations of waking problems currently requiring attention by the dreamer. This is in contrast to the idea
that the dream is a meaningless production, either an attempt to impose meaning on random neuronal activity (Hobson, 1988) or a
compilation of memory trash to be discarded (Crick and Mitchison, 1983). It also suggests the possibility that, when one knows
enough about the waking life of the dreamer, the dream content is understandable without requiring interpretation because of the need
to disguise. While our data are neutral in regard to the question of whether these problems could also be seen as a disguised expression
of hidden drives or wishes, in the interest of furthering discussion and future research, we suggest the following ideas as an addition to
the classical psychoanalytic search for latent meaning. Could it be that "associations" to a dream provide two different kinds of
information? One is about the current issues—the so-called day residue. In this study we have detailed "associations" in the form of
waking interviews, and find the day residues to be significant problems. The second type of association usually obtained involves
information that relates to the dreamer's past. We are suggesting that the material from the past may be understood as information
about why the current problems are problems. The memories from the past might be what we have called unconscious, but may or may
not be drive- or wish-related. We should also comment on the appearance of defenses in dreams. We agree that defenses appear in
dreams. For example, in the prisoner dream, the development of an efficient assembly line was seen as typical of this patient's
characteristic defense. We suggest the possibility that defenses might be seen as a kind of solution rather than as an attempt to hide
meaning. Expressing
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the contribution of associations, the appearance of defenses and the relation of the dream to the past in this manner should make it
clear that this approach maintains an understanding of the contribution of past emotionally significant issues to current concerns. This
study has provided reason to think that the dream is representing and coping with problems. Indeed, when dreams are scored for
problems, the meaning of the dreams and their relation to waking issues can be readily grasped. Perhaps what often makes the dream
seem mysterious has been the unavailability of the appropriate information about its sources, both in the present and in the past.
Now one might ask whether this speaks only to the understanding of the dream and does not necessarily mean there is any relation
to the REM process or to the function of REM sleep or dreaming. Here we would point out the importance of our second finding. What
happened in the dream was reflected in the postsleep mental activity. Effective dreams, that is dreams with some solution to the
problems, were followed by a waking state in which the impact of the problems was diminished, while ineffective dreams were
followed by a persistence of the problems. This finding regarding dreams is analogous to the research from the sleep laboratories
which shows that REM sleep plays a role in a shift in adaptive state of the organism. It is also clearly related to the hypothesis
proposed by Rotenberg (1984) that REM sleep serves the purpose of restoring search activity. From his perspective, the attempted
solutions to problems that are found in dreams represent a manifestation of the process of search activity and, when this is effective,
predict a decrease of problems following sleep.
Conclusion
The dream can be seen as a meaningful production and an indication of emotionally important issues. Perhaps alongside or
perhaps in place of the view that the dream is trying to hide significant content, is the idea that a dream is a direct expression
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of what is troublesome and of efforts to cope with those issues. This is a psychodynamic approach, although not one in which drive
discharge and disguise are necessarily central. It places the dream in a central position as a participant in our everongoing efforts to
make sense out of the world and of the impact of events on us. Without dreaming, we might have greater difficulty in emotionally
integrating new experiences, and consequently would be much more fixed in our behavior (see Winson, 1985). One can infer in two
directions from this perspective. First, what requires adaptation will be in the dream, if we are to adapt, and second, what is in the
dream is what is important to us.
We suggest, however, that these ideas are not a final answer, but rather point toward research yet to be done. There are questions
still waiting to be answered.
1. What are the sources of the problems that appear in the dreams? Are they ever only from the present, or are they always
related to past, unresolved emotional issues? What makes the past important; for example, drive, affect, or trauma? This
question might bear on the idea that dream function is intimately connected with memory organization. Can purely
practical or creative waking tasks be the source of the problems, and can their solutions be found in the dreams?
2. What makes effective dreaming possible? Does this have to do with the nature of the problem, with the waking adaptive
capacities of the dreamer, or a combination of both? Does the existence of repetitive dreams and nightmares, as
compared to dreams that show solutions, give some clues?
3. Can one relate the relative success of dreams to waking adaptive function? Is this specific to particular problems, or is it, as
Rotenberg (personal communication) suggests, only necessary to have some solutions appear in the dreams for postsleep
function in general to improve?
These are some of the questions that only future work in this area can answer.
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Article Citation [Who Cited This?]
Greenberg, R., Katz, H., Schwartz, W. and Pearlman, C. (1992). A Research-Based Reconsideration of the Psychoanalytic Theory
of Dreaming. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 40:531-550
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(1992). Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 40:531-550

A Research-Based Reconsideration of the Psychoanalytic Theory of

of new or emotionally significant information were impaired by REMD.

The Present Study

Methods and Subjects

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