DREAMS

This page is an index for a bibliography and resource list on the interdisciplinary study of dreams.
Below is a list of suggested introductory readings on dreams, and then what's as yet a pretty random selection
of initial online resources and references. There's nothing here about dream symbolism, hardly anything on 
psychoanalysis, little yet on history and culture.

Note early 2010: this list is now pretty out of date, apologies. I'll try to update soon. Meanwhile I hope you all still find it useful.

John Sutton, Philosophy Department, Macquarie University, Sydney.
Email me.
Back to my home page.

This research was initially supported in 2000 by a Macquarie University Research Grant. 

Some related resources:

Philosophy and Cognitive Science Index
Body, Culture, and 
Cognition Index
Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes 
to connectionism
 Memory Index

DREAMS: printed books 
and articles
Online Resources
Online Papers and Texts
DREAMS: printed books and articles
Eric Schwitzgebel, 'Why Did We Think We Dreamed in Black and White?', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 33 (2002),
    649-660. This is one of my favourite philosophical articles of recent years: I use it in teaching from 1st-year to graduate classes, and
    I find new puzzles in it every time I read it.
Domhoff, G. W. (2001). 'A new neurocognitive theory of dreams', Dreaming, 11, 13-33 - highly recommended synthesis.

Some diverse other recommended places to start:
Owen Flanagan, Dreaming Souls: sleep, dreams, and the evolution of the conscious mind
    (Oxford University Press, 2000). Brilliant personal/philosophical/physiological enquiry, leaves lots of questions open.
J. Allan Hobson, Dreaming: an introduction to the science of sleep (Oxford University Press, 2002). Forceful defence
    of Hobson's neurochemical theory of dreams.
A. Alvarez, Night: night life, night language, sleep, and dreams (Jonathan Cape, 1994). Lovely literary-psychological
    evocation of personal, historical, and scientific interest of dreams.
Jonathan Coe, The House of Sleep (Viking, 1997). Brilliant tragicomic English novel about a group of students, gender,
    Lacan, and sleep laboratories.
Kelly Bulkeley, An Introduction to the Psychology of Dreaming (Praeger, 1997). Broad and fair overview, with leads
    to more detailed work.

And the beginnings of ways in to deeper philosophical, psychological, physiological controversies:
Patricia Churchland, 'Reduction and the Neurobiological Basis of Consciousness', in A. Marcel & E. Bisiach (eds.),
    Consciousness in Contemporary Science (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp.273-304, esp. pp.290-301 on sleep
    and dreams.
Dan Dennett, 'Are Dreams Experiences?': Dennett, Brainstorms (Sussex, 1981), ch.8.
G. William Domhoff (2003), The Scientific Study of Dreams: neural networks, cognitive development, and content
    analysis (American Philosophical Association)
Owen Flanagan, 'Deconstructing Dreams: the spandrels of sleep', Journal of Philosophy vol. 92 (XCII), 1995, 5-27
David Foulkes (1990), 'Dreaming and Consciousness', European Journal of Cognitive Psychology 2, 39-55
David Foulkes (1985), Dreaming: a cognitive-psychological analysis (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum)
David Foulkes (1996), 'Dream Research: 1953-1993', Sleep 19, 609-624
David Foulkes (1999), Children's Dreaming and the Development of Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P.)
J. Allan Hobson (1988), The Dreaming Brain (Basic Books). Wide-ranging anti-Freudian historico-scientific survey,
    set out to support Hobson's theory.
Michel Jouvet (1999), The Paradox of Sleep (MIT Press). Series of essays by a pioneer of REM-sleep investigation.
Norman Malcolm (1959), Dreaming (Routledge). Controversial application of Wittgenstein's philosophy of mind.
Antii Revonsuo, (1995) 'Consciousness, dreams, and virtual realities'. Philosophical Psychology 8: 35-58.
Mark Solms (1997), The Neuropsychology of Dreams: a clinico-anatomical study (Erlbaum)

In due course I'll also get up some references to printed material on the history of dreams.

Online Resources
The Association for the Study of Dreams is a remarkable and open organization which runs conferences,
    attracts leading dream scientists as well as those approaching the topic from Very Different Perspectives, and
    also operates the important multidisciplinary journal Dreaming.
Neuro-psychoanalysis: Mark Solms' interdisciplinary journal for psychoanalysis and neurosciences.

Kelly Bulkeley's homepage: dream research, dreams and religion ... very wide-ranging set of interests

G. William Domhoff & team's dreamresearch.net site for the Quantitative Study of Dreams at UCSC.
    Includes Domhoff's short sharp answer to the question do dreams have a 'purpose'? And an index of dream articles.

Psychology of Dreams resources

Fake Barn Country's Dreaming-and-Philosophy blog by Jonathan Ichikawa

Sleep, Dreams, and Wakefulness: a searchable and regularly-updated database for psychological and
    neurobiological research, based at INSERM in Lyons.

Dreamgate, which also has more general bibliographies.

The Dream and the Enlightenment: includes excellent bibliography on 18th-century dreams.

Dreams in Film, a useful list.
Dream Videophile by Deirdre Barratt, a more extensive and annotated survey of dream movies of all kinds.

Sleep Paralysis page by J.A. Cheyne.
The Book Well books on sleep and sleep disorders

Online Papers and Texts
Domhoff, G. W. (2001). A new neurocognitive theory of dreams. Dreaming, 11, 13-33 - highly recommended.
Antti Revonsuo & Katja Valli, Dreaming and Consciousness: Testing the Threat Simulation Theory of the Function of Dreaming
    PSYCHE, 6(8), October 2000
Eric Schwitzgebel, 'Why Did We Think We Dreamed in Black and White?' - highly recommended.
Mark Solms, The Interpretation of Dreams and the Neurosciences
Mark Solms, Psychoanalysis And The Brain
Mary L. Phillips, Review of The Neuropsychology of Dreams, by Mark Solms (Brain, 121, 1998)  
Jonathan Ichikawa, Skepticism and the Imagination Model of Dreaming (2005)
Hobson, J. Allan, Pace-Schott, E. and Stickgold, R. (2000), 'Dreaming and the Brain: Toward a Cognitive
    Neuroscience of Conscious States', Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23 (6): XXX-XXX.
    Part of a special issue of Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2000) on Sleep and Dreaming
[N.B. This is a VERY LONG PAPER ... recommended only if you're already interested in the Hobson school.
    It's an updating and summary of Hobson's whole program, and includes some responses to criticisms by
    Foulkes, Solms, and others ... ]

Other important (and also long) papers in the BBS special issue are
Mark Solms (2000), 'Dreaming and REM Sleep are controlled by different brain mechanisms'
Antii Revonsuo (2000), The Reinterpretation of Dreams: an evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming

The Association for the Study of Dreams has a wide range of articles online here.

Stephen LaBerge,  'Lucid Dreaming: Psychophysiological Studies of Consciousness during REM Sleep' - intro by
    leading scientist studying lucid dreams to recent methods of investigating, and 'physiologically verifying',
    this strange phenomenon.

Mueller, Erik T. and Dyer, Michael G. (1985) Towards a computational theory of human daydreaming. In:
               Proceedings Seventh Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, pages 120-129

Barbara Tedlock, 'The New Anthropology of Dreaming' - anthropologists' shift from objective analysis of local dream
    theories and practices to full participation in dreamtelling rituals.

Aristotle, On Dreams full text.
Galen, On Diagnosis in Dreams, translated by Lee T. Pearcy
Simon Price 2004.  ‘The future of dreams: from Freud to Artemidorus’, in R. Osborne (ed.),
    Studies in Ancient Greek and Roman Society (Cambridge: University Press), 226-59.
Abstracts of the Standard Edition of Freud: very useful summaries.
Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams online at bibliomania.


For further information contact
John Sutton, Philosophy Department, Macquarie University, Sydney.
Email me.
Back to my home page.

Last updated 1 February 2010.