AP Psychology › Theories of Sleep and Dreaming
What is the term used to describe the idea that dreams are the result of the cerebral cortex interpreting and organizing random flashes of brain activity?
Activation synthesis
Depth perception
Eidetic
Feature detection
Imprinting
This theory of dreaming was first proposed by Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley in 1977. According to the theory of activation synthesis, circuits in the brain are activated during REM sleep. These brain circuits, in turn, help to activate areas of the limbic system. All of this internal activity is synthesized and interpreted by the brain. The signals are then given meaning via dream states.
Which of the following sleep waves consist of low amplitude and high frequency waves, and becomes progressively higher in amplitude and slower in frequency when transitioning between stage 1 and stage 2 sleep?
Theta waves
Beta waves
Delta waves
Alpha waves
All of these
Theta waves are usually connected to emotions, memories, and other activities in the limbic system. These cognitive processes calm when a person is transition from awake to stage 2 of sleep; therefore, the waves will be less frequent and higher in amplitude.
Which of the following is not a theory on the function of sleep?
Sleep promotes a healthy lifestyle.
Sleep was an adaptive strategy to prevent an animal from being awake when it was most hazardous.
Sleep helps consolidate our memories.
Sleep supports proper growth.
Sleep promotes brain restore and repair.
The term "healthy lifestyle" may be broadly defined from culture to culture. While sleep is healthy and good for the body, too much sleep may also be detrimental, or a sign of severe depression. This answer choice is too broad, and not specific enough in its limitations on sleep, to be accurate.
All the other answers are well known theories about the function of sleep.
Which of the following is not a true characteristic of REM sleep?
Slower brain activity
Rapid eye movement
Slight paralysis
Paradoxical sleep
Elevated brain activity
REM sleep is characterized by all of the listed answer choices except slower brain activity. REM sleep helps us remember more and is the stage of sleep where dreams occur. Our brain activity is actually intensified during this stage.
Who was originally responsible for creating the psychoanalytic approach to dream theory?
Sigmund Freud
Carl Jung
Allan Hobson
Abraham Maslow
Sigmund Freud is the founder of dream theory. He approached dreams from a psychoanalytic perspective, which posits that most of our actions are the result of repressed feelings and desires. Freud thought these feelings and desires came out unrestricted in our dreams.
Which belief was commonly held by ancient or older civilizations in history?
Dreams are portals to an entirely different world we cannot access in waking life
Dreams are unnecessary and frivolous, and should be ignored
Since everyone was widely considered to be possessed by at least a few demons, dreams represented messages from these demons
Dreams represented messages that ancestors wanted to convey to living heirs to help teach life lessons
Many older civilizations believed that dreams were metaphysical experiences wherein the soul was transported from the body to a completely different realm or spiritual plane.
Which of the following is now widely considered to be the most accurate dream theory?
Dreams are the result of random electrical firings in our brains in regions that process memories. The reason dreams seem like stories is that our waking mind tries to make sense of them through a coherent narrative.
Dreams are a collections of our repressed fears, desires, and emotions stemming from our current or past memories. They can represent repressed moments of anger and frustration towards our caregivers, or sexual feelings towards other people.
Dreams should be widely disregarded as random occurrences that have nothing to do with significant emotions or memories. They occur when we get high-quality sleep that results in an abundance of higher mental functionality.
Dreams are a collection of our hopes and fears. They are a place where we can subconsciously act out what it would be like if our greatest hopes and fears came true. For instance, we process our fear of dying through nightmares where we are chased or under threat.
The most pervasive theory of dreaming is that dreams are a result of electrical impulses in our brains that occur only while we sleep. Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley came up with this theory in 1973, and proposed that the reason why dreams have come to garner so much meaning for people is that our waking minds will give them a narrative. In other words, our actual dreams are not stories; they are instead random memories strung together. When we wake up, we try to make them into stories that make sense to us.
Dreams occur in which stage of sleep?
REM sleep
REM rebound
Delta sleep
Sleep spindles
Sleep onset
REM sleep (or Rapid Eye Movement) is the stage in which dreams occur, because even though the body is essentially paralyzed, this stage is accompanied by intense activity in the brain.
One theory for the function of dreaming is that it allows us to file away our memories. It is understood that dreams allow us to review the information gained from the day. They also facilitate or ability to sift and sort through this information and incorporate it into our memories. Which of the following stages of sleep, if interrupted multiple times, would most likely cause that individual to remember less the following morning?
REM sleep
Stage 1 sleep
Stage 2 sleep
Stage 3 sleep
Stage 5 sleep
Dreaming has been observed to predominantly occur during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. A dream may be noted at the beginning of REM sleep. If dreaming is to serve one function of reorganizing information into memory, then as some studies have indicated, uninterrupted REM sleep is most beneficial for integrating new information. Given that no stage 5 sleep has yet been identified, this would be an incorrect answer. Although some studies may counter-argue that interruptions in non-REM stages will yield poor memory integration, it is important to remember that a majority of dreaming does not occur in these stages.
Last night Carla dreamed of drowning in a tidal wave. Which of the following best describes how a psychologist subscribing to the activation-synthesis model of dreaming would interpret Carla's dream?
Carla’s brain is merely trying to make sense out of random neuron firings.
Carla had a close call at swim lessons and is reflecting on that.
Carla is at the beach and heard a loud wave crashing while she slept.
Carla is afraid of being overwhelmed with tasks at work.
The activation-synthesis model of dreaming suggests that during REM sleep, different neurons in different brain areas randomly fire (possibly to keep the brain active and “working”). The brain interprets these random neural signals, which largely come from areas associated with emotion and memories like the limbic system and hippocampus, and attempts to shape them into coherent perceptions of the information being passed by these sensory neurons. We experience this shaping as dreams.