15 ongoing discussion of j. allan hobson (vol. 1, no. 2): commentary by lawrence kunstadt (new york)

7/25/2019 15 Ongoing Discussion of J. Allan Hobson (Vol. 1, No. 2): Commentary by Lawrence Kunstadt (New York)

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Ongoing Discussion (Vol. 1,

No 2

In the beginning, analysts, employing the method

of

free association, developed a reputation for ob

taining detailed histories. It would be gratifying

if

sup

port could be found for respective analysts

to

follow

a single patient over a period

of

time, for the purpose

of learning what additional information the use

of

ana

lytic methods might contribute to the affective phe

nomenology of limbic epilepsy.

One might think of such a project in broader per

spective: It is said that colors per

se

do not exist in

the outward universe. They only exist subjectively in

ourselves after being generated by the brain's algo

rithms. Given these considerations, what other nonex

isting products of mind are waiting to be uncovered

by our brain's algorithms?

References

Gibbs, F A., Gibbs, E. L.,

Lennox, W G (1938), Cere

bral dysrhythmias of epilepsy. Arch. Neurol. Psychia-

try 39:298 314.

85

Jones, E. (1953), The Life an d Work Sigmund Freud.

New York: Basic Books.

MacLean,

P

D. (1952), Some psychiatric implications of

physiological studies on the frontotemporal portion of

the limbic system (visceral brain). Clin. Electro-

coencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol. 4:407 418.

(1990),

The Triune Brain Evolution: Role Pa-

leocerebral Functions.

New York: Plenum Press.

Panksepp, J

(1981), The ontogeny

of

play in rats.

Develop.

Psychobiol. 14:327 332.

(1998),

Affective Neuroscience: The foundations

Human and Animal Emotions. New York: Oxford Uni

versity Press.

Papez, J. W. (1937), A proposed mechanism of emotion.

Arch. Neurol. Psychiatry 38:725 743.

National Institute

Mental Health

CBDB Neuropathology Section

Building

36

Room 3A24

35 Convent Drive MSC 4091

Bethesda MD 20892 4091

Ongoing Discussion

of J.

Allan Hobson (Vol. 1,

No 2 :

Commentary by Lawrence Kunstadt

(New

York

This letter has three goals. The first

is

to examine the

physiological evidence related to the Solms-Hobson

debate over whether dreams are caused by wishes or

by brain mechanisms. The second

is

to present an old

theory concerning causality and apply it to this debate.

The third is to specifically answer many

of

the objec

tions Hobson raises against psychoanalysis.

Physiology

The physiological aspect

of

the Solms-Hobson debate

is nominally over whether there

is

a significant multi

or autogenic forebrain contribution to REM sleep

dreaming (Solms) or whether the pontine contribution

to REM sleep dreaming is sufficient alone to cause

dreams (Hobson). The former would be consistent

with the Freudian notion

of

dreams

as

fulfilling wishes

because it is known that the forebrain

is

involved in

Lawrence Kunstadt, Ph.D., is a neurobiologist on the faculty

of

the

New York University Psychoanalytic Institute.

higher order thinking. There being no evidence that the

pons underlies higher order thinking, the latter allows

dreams to be explained away as mere physiology or

epiphenomena, just something the brain does.

While this may seem to be an angels-on-a-pin

head debate, what is at stake

is

the underpinning

of

the psychoanalytic edifice. Make no mistake about it,

this is a case of two world views colliding: psycho

analysis versus reductionism, and an intelligent reduc

tionism at that.

Hobson's challenge to psychoanalysis is bold and

threatening: Because [Freud's] dream theory is so

foundational, its renunciation forces a major reformu

lation upon the whole

field

(p. 158). Insofar

as

psy

choanalysis remains committed to Freud's view

of

dreaming

the new results do not provide the faint

est modicum of support (p. 157). It is therefore, to

use Freud 's apposite phrase, incumbent upon us to

make perspicacious and clear the evidence, as

sumptions, and reasoning underlying these two views.

Each side's argument rests on three components: em

pirical data, interpretation of these data, and conceptu

alizations

of

the issues.


3/18

The animal neurobiological data are not con

tested by Solms. The Solms data, which are primarily

clinical, are contested by Hobson. The problem is that

there are strengths and weaknesses to each approach.

The clinical data are more relevant because they are

human studies. However, they are probably less valid

than Hobson's experimental data because they depend

on accidents

of

nature, such as strokes, which give

widespread and imprecise lesions incapable

of

exact

anatomical resolution, varying from case to case and

having no known connection to specific functional

anatomy (i.e., they cause damage over a widespread

area containing several distinct structures rather than

the pinpoint lesions created experimentally). Animal

lesion studies do not have this problem. On the other

hand, we do not know a priori the precise anatomical

correspondent

of

particular psychological functions

(that is what lesion studies set out to determine) so that

lesions based on anatomical distinctions may, also, be

too small, too large, or otherwise inappropriate. There

is a big difference between asking what the mental

change

is

related to in a given structure and asking

what structures underlie this mental function.

That is to say, there are methodological problems

with both scientific approaches. Furthermore, Solms's

clinical cases utilize analytic listening in contrast to

Hobson's wake-up studies which listen to human

volunteers' reports nonanalytically. These two meth

odologies yield different results. In fact, the type

of

results they yield are to a large extent incommensura

ble, which is a major source

of

the disagreement be

tween Solms and Hobson. PET and other nonlesion

studies are more helpful because the results are self

generated by the brain during the psychological func

tion in question. They may therefore resolve some

of

this dispute but the critical studies, which, as Hobson

notes, would require people to sleep in scanners, have

not been done yet.

The interpretation

of

the data is to some extent

a matter

of

taste, resistant or even refractory to argu

mentation. For instance, Solms considers the 20

of

dreaming that occurs in NREM to conclusively invali

date the pontinogenic origin

of

dreams theory, where

as Hobson considers the 20 to be ared herring.

p

210).

However, it may pay to review and comment on

some

of

the arguments. Hobson's theory

of

dreaming

is sophisticated, complex, and very intelligent, making

it hard to summarize. His emphasis is on the role

of

the pons and the limbic system in dreaming. The for

mer, in his view, initiates dreaming, the latter gives it

its affective flavor. The forebrain's role is to synthe-

awrence unstadt

size the disparate, meaningless stimuli that reach it,

creating the narrative

of

the dream.

What are dreams, according to Hobson?

physiological projection test revealing, rather than

concealing, emotionally salient concerns (p. 157).

There are two types

of

argument for this view. One

is

philosophical, the point

of

view that the mind and

brain are identical.

Our

conscious experience is the

brain-mind's awareness

of

its own physiological

states (p. 158). The other consists

of

a very large

number of physiological studies which form the basis

of

Hobson's first paper in this journal.

A discussion

of

Hobson's philosophical view

of

mind-brain identity would take us far afield. I would

like to focus on where Solms and Hobson differ in

their physiological views. I must note in passing that

while Hobson's work is generally accepted in the field,

there are some criticisms

of

his model from other labs

such s Llinas's (e.g., Llinas and Pare, 1991) and

Mancia's (1995).

Solms does not dispute the assertion that the pons

and limbic system contribute to dreaming. The funda

mental questions underlying the Hobson-Solms de

bate are: (1) whether the pons, in particular, is

necessary for dreaming or whether it is only one

of

several anatomical loci that may stimulate those other

areas necessary for dreams; (2) whether neurophysio

logical stimulation

of

the forebrain alone is enough to

cause a dream or whether such stimulation must in

volve another brain area that catches the attention

of an appetitive fantasy ; and (3) whether dream im

agery is cobbled together merely s a reflection

of

meaningless stimuli or whether the dream's imagery

manifests interpretable wishes. Just to make it clear,

neither side believes that pontine or limbic activity

alone determines dream imagery or action. That is a

cortical function.

Solms adduces several empirical objections to

Hobson's model. The first is that it ignores the small

number

of

patients who have pontine lesions who,

nevertheless, dream. Hobson dismisses this objection

y claiming, Itseems to us that any lesion capable

of destroying the pontine REM sleep generator mecha

nism would have to be so extensive as to eliminate

consciousness altogether (pp. 168-169).

This is an unfair dismissal

of

a critical piece

of

evidence.

If

consciousness were eliminated, how

could the patients have reported their dreams? I think

Solms' objection is serious, though not fatal, and de

serves a much more thorough evaluation by Hobson.

One thing that needs to be done is to look closely at

the postmortem neuroanatomy to see just where the


4/18

Ongoing Discussion (Vol. 1, No.2)

lesions were. Were they restricted to (or did they even

include) the pedunculopontine and laterodorsal teg

mental nuclei that are so important to Hobson s model,

or were they very massive,

s

Hobson suggests they

must be?

While we re

on

the topic, I wonder about some

of Hobson s neuroanatomy. I may be out of date but

I believe the pedunculopontine nucleus receives fibers

from the precentral gyrus (motor cortex) and the glo

bus pallidus, suggesting it is involved in motor output.

Could cortical motor intentions (plan for specific ac

tion) descend to the pons and then ascend up again for

conversion to visual imagery? What is the laterodorsal

nucleus? There are nuclei in the dorsolateral part

of

the pontine tegmentum. Is that what he means? The

Braun model (p. 166) and Hobson s Figure 4 are ex

tremely interesting. I hope Hobson s 2000 paper dis

cusses these in detail. That article

s

not yet available

s

I write this letter (August). What these models sug

gest is (1) that lower brainstem neuroanatomy is in

volved in dream consciousness and (2) that different

aspects of this consciousness are related to simultane

ous (rather than sequential) contributions from differ

ent anatomical loci, a finding that would certainly

draw people s attention. (The latter is entirely consis

tent with Freud s view of the brain.)

The second Solms objection comes from the 20

percent or so of dreams that occur outside REM sleep

but which are indistinguishable from REM dreams.

Solms s inference is that these dreams occur without

the physiological mechanism underlying REM dreams

and therefore the REM-dream mechanism (that is,

Hobson s circuit) is not necessary for dreaming. Hob

son s

counterargument is that recent work demon

strates some REM-like features in non-REM sleep,

making the story a quantitative one rather than an

either-or situation. This

s

in accord with the emphasis

in psychoanalysis on a quantitative factor and should

be considered more carefully by Solms. Apparently

non-REM dreaming has not been studied in great de

tail physiologically, so we do not know which

of

these

alternatives is right. This may be one of those cases

where, as a wag once put it, the horns

of

a dilemma

are attached to the same bull.

The third issue is perhaps the most critical.

If

pontine mechanisms are not necessary for dreaming,

then what does cause dreams? Solms s contention is

that there are two entirely different mechanisms-the

brainstem mechanism of REM sleep and the forebrain

mechanism

of

dreaming. Hobson claims that (nonfore

brain) pontomesencephalic brainstem cholinergic acti

vation inhibits motor output (except oculomotor

87

movement) and also stimulates the forebrain to dream

and is therefore the sole cause of dreams. For Hobson

the dream is composed of information from corollary

discharges from the oculomotor muscles and motor

intentions (originating where?). Solms follows the

Freudian view.

Solms argues that any type of persistent arousal,

not just pontinogenic stimulation, can cause dreams.

He argues this based

on

the cluster

of

dreaming that

occurs during non-REM (nonpontinogenic) sleep at

the onset of sleep and at awakening. He also cites the

case of focal forebrain disrhythmias in complex partial

epilepsy, in which

dreamy

states manifest exclu

sively from frontal and limbic structures. Hobson does

not address this evidence.

Solms also argues that decades of animal research

equate REM sleep with dreaming but ignore the im

possibility of knowing whether the animals actually

dream. This raises the whole issue of what one can

learn from animal studies. I would argue that there

are additional limitations that tarnish the enterprise

of

cognitive neuroscience. For one,

s

the brain evolved

it not only added new tissue it rearranged its intrinsic

anatomy. Structures with the same name (e.g., amyg

dala) have different structure, size, and connections in

different species. What a specific structure does in one

species brain is related to its connections and will be

at least somewhat different from what the same struc

ture does in another species brain. While similarities

may impress us, there are always differences. I call

this the Everybody has a face but everybody s face

is different problem.

Furthermore, it is well known in animal behavior

that the same behavior in different species often

has a different physiological basis. In biology small

differences at one level can lead to very large differ

ences at a different level. The cat s not simply a di

minished human.

There is another fundamental problem with cog

nitive neuroscience. It still uses a

module

model

where something happens to information in a brain

structure then it moves somewhere else where some

thing else happens, rather than a model where each

structure dynamically contributes to whole psycholog

ical functions. I do not think these are either-or mod

els, they may both apply. And there are other models

of brain organization too.

Solms s fourth argument rests on the finding that

there are hundreds of patients reported in the literature

who have ceased dreaming but who continue to exhibit

REM sleep. These patients have lesions only in the

forebrain, and in specific forebrain loci to boot, the


5/18

88

white matter of the ventromedial quadrant of the fron

tal lobes (bilaterally) and the PTa junction (or possi

bly underlying structures such as the insula. If the

insula, this would be historically interesting because

Freud [1891] wrote that the insula creates more than

anywhere else in the nervous system, the impression

of a real centre for certain functions [po 4]). Hob

son s counterarguments rest

on

objections to the ex

perimental methodologies (these were frontal

leucotomy patients) and proposed alternative mecha

nisms such

as

weakened cognitive function or attenua

tion of recall. This is also negative

evidence-if

the

gears (forebrain) don t engage, it does not matter how

much gas (brainstem stimulation) you give the engine.

Solms derives from this set of evidence the idea

that any sustained arousing stimulus can cause a

dream. He then developed a second part to the model.

Borrowing from Freud, Solms also proposes that for

a dream to occur the arousing stimulus must engage

the appetitive interest of the mind. He presents physio

logical evidence for this and links it to Panksepp s

dopaminergic seeking system. To discuss this would

require more time and effort than either I can bear or

than I could expect the reader to endure. Let me say

that while many of Solms s arguments strike me as

persuasive (assuming the data hold up) the dopamine

hypothesis leaves me unconvinced. For one, Pank

sepp s seeking system is a general up-and-at- em seek

ing system whereas Freud s seeking function relates

to a specific memory/wish-based attempt to refind an

experience of satisfaction. Second, my negative tilt

relates to the enormous strength and staying power of

the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia over the

past couple of decades which have recently evaporated

into the mist (Martin Blum, personal communication,

1999). The third is the very complex problem that

while we can label certain fantasies appetitive

based on their peremptory quality, so far as we know

even though neurotransmitters may vary, there is noth

ing in neurophysiology that distinguishes different

qualia from each other. The fourth is the related prob

lem of whether physiological arousal can be equated

with behavioral arousal.

So what are we to make of all this? One thing

is that while further empirical research will certainly

resolve some of the specific points of disagreement it

will not resolve the conceptual disagreements. My

view is that the dispute is not so much over the data

as between the complexity of nature and the desire of

both Hobson and Solms to build idealized abstrac

tions. (I

don t mean

idealized in the psychoanalytic

sense but that may be involved too.) At this stage of

Lawrence

Kunstadt

science, models help but they cannot account for the

complexity of nature. I am most impressed with Hob

son s attempt to bring quantitative factors into his

model.

Solms presents several types of clinical evidence

for forebrain-originated contributions to dreaming.

Hobson has a counterargument for most

of

them, fo

cusing on the quality of the data. I have mentioned

the problems with each side s method and I think this

is the real issue. Solms argues by virtue of the consis

tency and quantity of different types

of

clinical studies,

Hobson by the quality of a more precise approach.

Solms tries to interpret what nature has given him in

clinical material. Hobson has been looking for neuro

physiological and neurochemical systems.

What exactly is Solms saying? There are two

forebrain areas the loss

of

which causes complete ces

sation

of

dreaming without loss of REM sleep: the

parieto-tempero-occipital (PTa) junction and the

white matter of the ventromedial quadrant of the fron

tal lobes. Solms attributes the loss of dreaming in pa

tients with lesions in these areas to a loss of

motivation. This is the crux of his psychological dis

agreement with Hobson. For Solms, a dream must, as

Freud proposed, be motivated. Solms notes that frontal

leucotomy patients who lost the ability to dream were

adynamic, that is, they lost their spontaneous interest

in the world p 190), and he relates this to a circuit

connecting limbic structures with the ventral tegmen

tum below and the ventromedial cortex above.

The idea that the forebrain functions as a nonspe

cific arousal mechanism has a long and interesting his

tory. Following Darwin (Aronson, 1970), the great

neuroanatomists of Freud s time, the Edingers, Elliot

Smith, Ariens Kappers, C. Judson Herrick, Johnston,

Huber, Crosby, and Papez, mapped out forebrain

structures in lower vertebrates. This being the time

before modern staining techniques, they mainly found

massive olfactory input to the forebrain. As Aronson

wrote, Since fibers from the olfactory bulbs pervade

all (or almost all)

of

the forebrain in primitive fishes

and amphibia, the obvious conclusion of the neuroa

natomists was that the forebrain

of lower vertebrates

serves primarily for the reception, dissemination and

intensification of olfactory information. . . . Then in

reptiles, birds and mammals there is a progressive in

crease in the representation of other [sensory] modal

ities. Thus we see the cerebrum of higher vertebrates

as a multi-sensory, integrative mechanism (p. 76).

This theory dominated neuroanatomy for at least

the first half of the 20th century. During the second

half

of

the century the forebrain came to be seen as


6/18

Ongoing Discussion (Vol. 1, No.2

more complex. The olfactory nature

of

the forebrain

was accepted, along with the idea that through evolu

tion the forebrain became more and more emancipated

from olfactory domination and took on the role

of

an

activator and even an integrator. The question became

whether the nonolfactory functions were specific or

nonspecific. Aronson continues:

[D]amage to, or complete removal

of

the forebrain

[in lower vertebrates] results in a quantitative reduc

tion in the frequency of specific behavioral patterns

and sometimes changes in the timing of these events.

Since it is evident that no behavioral sequences (in

cluding those generated by learning experiments) are

completely eliminated by the operation, one must

conclude that the behavior in question is organized

(or the conditioned connection established) in neural

centers below the forebrain. . . . While the forebrain

does not participate directly in the organization of

behavior, it is a nonspecific regulator

of

lower brain

mechanisms. This is known as the arousal hypothesis.

The forebrain of lower vertebrates is considered the

forerunner of the limbic system in mammals [po 86].

Solms s view

of

the forebrain derives from this

heritage. The general idea

is

that the forebrain

of

lower

vertebrates receives olfactory fibers and that the fore

brain itself, as a result, has two functions. One is the

reception

of

olfactory information, the other is a gen

eral arousal function. As a general trend

of

evolution,

the forebrain became more and more emancipated

from its olfactory role and expanded its role

as

an

arousal activator or inhibitor and finally

as

an integ

rator. In addition, it added specific functions. Using

clinical data, Solms argues for the arousal role

of

the

forebrain, which he more-or-Iess equates with motiva

tion.

If

this equation holds, it is a simple step to derive

dreams from forebrain motivational systems.

Hobson argues strongly against this. To equate

brainstem inputs to the forebrain with adventitious ex

ternal stimuli is to argue against fifty years

of

neuro

physiology (p. 217). Hobson argues strongly in favor

of

brainstem control of the forebrain through both the

reticular activating system and through the circuits

he discovered.

My personal view

is

that the forebrain arousal

theory is much too simple, even in lower vertebrates.

I did some research on this in the 1970s and found

that forebrain-extirpated frogs Xenopus had a lower

threshold for responsiveness than normals, but once

stimulated they were hyperexcitable. Damage to the

septal region caused the greatest change. This suggests

89

to me a dynamic interplay between different specific

arousing mechanisms. I do not know whether leuco

tomy patients, when stimulated, showed an exagger

ated response.

The history of human neurology and neuropsy

chology has demonstrated

just

how infrequently one

can find parallel processes between what the mind is

doing and what the brain is doing. Other than some

simple sensory systems the correlation is difficult.

That is why I suspect that while Hobson s model may

be physiologically correct as far as it goes, it is incom

plete both psychologically and conceptually. What I

do not understand is how Hobson can acknowledge

the participation of

some two dozen other structures

and chemical systems (p. 167) but not try to integrate

all the evidence into a comprehensive theory of dream

ing. Maybe that is what his new paper does (Hobson,

Pace-Schott, and Strickland, 2000). The list of how

the various structures contribute to a dream (vermis to

fictive movement, fusiform gyrus to facial recognition,

etc.) is impressive, but what integrates all these ele

ments into a dream? The answer to that question is

what separates Hobson (nonmeaningful synthesis)

from Solms (the dream work). Perhaps a way out is

to develop a theory in which the two levels relate in

other than a simple parallel fashion.

Process-Hierachy Theory (PHT)

In contrast to the data and the interpretat ion of the

data, some progress may be made by an analysis

of

the conceptualizations. The fundamental issue in this

debate, as I read it, is the meaning

of

the term causal-

ity, particularly the question of the relation between

what the brain is doing and what the dream is doing.

Hobson, struggling with the issue

as

does everybody,

uses a variety of phrases to describe the connection

between anatomy-physiology and mentation: candi

date mechanism (p. 158); unity

of

brain and mind

(p. 158); strong and meaningful underpinnings (p.

158); a unified system which we call the mind

brain

(p. 158); separable analytic domains of the

neurophysiology and psychology

p

158); simulta

neous conscious state and brain-state change (p.

158); REM sleep dreams have several distinctive for

mal features which the underlying brain state must

somehow determine (pp. 158-159); Waking and

dreaming are at opposite ends

of

an aminergic-cholin

ergic neuromodulatory continuum (p. 161);

brain

lesions to be correlated with deficits or accentuations

of

dream experience (p. 165);

dream

synthesis by


7/18

90

the forebrain (p. 166);

origin

of dream emotionality

in REM-associated limbic activation and dream-asso

ciated executive deficiencies in REM-associated fron

tal deactivation (p. 169); dreaming is bizarre

because of the distinctive neurophysiology (p. 170);

cortices mediate dream vision (p. 170); anxiety

as the primary product

of

limbic lobe activation (p.

170); dreaming is a state

of

consciousness arising

from the activation

of the brain (p. 171); brainacti

vation which underlies dreaming (p. 171); and

dreaming is epiphenomenal with respect to the most

fundamental biological adaptations of REM sleep (p.

174). This is that old devil himself, the mind-body

problem.

More ink, parchment, and paper have probably

been expended

on

the mind-body problem over the

past 2000 years than about any other single issue. To

my mind the mind-body problem has not been solved,

and it has not been solved for the single reason that

nobody knows what the mind

is

or even if it is any

thing at all. We know a lot about how it works, and

we are starting to know what brain processes occur

during particular mental functions, but we do not know

whether the mind is a thing, a model, a level, a prop

erty, an epiphenomenon or something else. Even to

speak of the

mind

rather than mental processes

is stating an opinion. So when we talk about the rela

tion between physiological processes and mental pro

cesses, we make up terms such as

c use

that

mayor

may not have anything to do with what is really going

on, or, at least, not in ways that we usually mean.

Of great interest along these lines is that both

Solms and Hobson seem to take the same, or very

similar, positions, on the mind-body problem (MBP).

They both consider themselves monists. And they both

take the same position with respect to how the brain

is organized, dynamic localizationism, although

Solms is more of an interactionist than Hobson. Now

this is not the place to argue the strengths and weak

nesses of these positions. The literature on these and

alternative positions is enormous and both Solms and

Hobson have published papers stating their views. I

want to stress that the concepts that Hobson and Solms

raise, though based largely on contemporary findings,

are old. In fact, the specific issue of how a studied

process such

as

brain chemistry or physiology can give

rise to another process that seems to have a completely

different form such as dreams is one that is very famil

iar to another branch of science, and it is to this idea

in that science that I would now like to turn.

Biology has to explain two core processes: evolu

tion and development. Both are characterized by

Lawrence

unstadt

change over time and both are characterized by the

creation of new forms from old. So they both raise

the question, How does something arise out of some

thing quite different? In the case

of

evolution, how

does one species arise from a different species? In the

case of development, how does an adult arise from

an embryo? In our case, how do dreams arise from

neural activity?

Over the past

years, a theory has emerged in

biology that has proven extremely useful in explaining

these two processes, as well as ecological succession

and animal behavior, which have some formal similar

ities to the first two. The theory is not identified with

any individual. It does not have an accepted name. It

has emerged in dozens, perhaps hundreds,

of

papers

written by different people at different times with dif

ferent biological questions as their subject matter. To

my mind, while it is incomplete and still under devel

opment itself, it

is

a cohesive theory that provides a

context for organizing and understanding a wide vari

ety

of

phenomena, including brain and mental pro

cesses, that have

as

central characteristics change and

emergence. I call it process-hierarchy theory (PHT).

On the hierarchy side, the gist of the theory is

very simple, well known, and often used, even by biol

ogists who do not see it as a general theory of nature.

Process-hierarchy recognizes that the natural world is

hierarchically organized. In biology, the hierarchy is

something like this: Simple molecules make up macro

molecules, which, in turn, make up organelles, cells,

tissues, organs, organ systems, organisms, popula

tions, and ecosystems. I say something like

this

because while biologists agree that the natural world

is

hierarchically organized, each biologist seems to

have his or her own idea

of

the hierarchy s composi

tion. But regardless of the content of specific levels,

the idea

is

that levels exist, that each level has proper

ties that other levels do not have, and that there are

regulatory principles governing the way levels in

teract.

The question of what levels exist is related to

what biologists call the problem

of entification, which

asks how an entity comes into being. This question is

similar

to

the philosophical problem of ontology, but

with a temporal dimension. In our case, we still do

not know exactly what level of brain organization

is

required for mental representation. It is certainly

higher than single neurons or even recurrent circuits,

but whether large areas of cortex or interacting sys

tems are required is not yet known. (Recent

work

on

consciousness by Douglas Watt suggests that this

function requires a large interaction

of

systems dip-


8/18


No.2

ping deep into the brainstem and not just the cortex

and thalamus

as

some people previously thought.)

It is important to see that hierarchical levels are

constitutive

of

each other and not simply different in

scale. They are nested. That is, levels are defined by

their organization, not by their size. For instance, a

chicken s egg is a single cell and hence at a lower

level of

organization than an ant, which

is

a whole

organism but much smaller. However, within a given

hierarchy, scale is important. Obviously, a part or con

stituent is smaller than the whole but one cannot gen

eralize the scope

of

scale across hierarchies. (This may

be a good place to mention that biologists recognize

that process-hierarchy theory is an abstraction. In the

real nature of Nature things get very complex.)

The higher level, then, is comprised

of

members

of

the lower level. Muscle cells are organized to com

prise a muscle. The contraction

of

a muscle is not a

simple addition

of

the contractions

of

individual mus

cle fibers. Levels are not levels

as

in an apartment

building, where the fourth floor

is

below the fifth floor.

In biological systems, lower level members are the

constituents of the higher level. Their relation to each

other, their organization,

is

what constitutes the

higher level.

To take a simple nonbiological example,

if

the

legs, seat, and back

of

a chair were lying separately

on the ground, you would not have a chair. If the legs

were sticking out

of

the back and the seat were nailed

to them vertically, you would not have a chair. What

makes a chair is the way its constituent parts are orga

nized. The same is true for biological systems. When

elements at a given level are organized

to

form a

higher level, the higher level will exhibit properties

that the lower level does not have. These are called

emergent properties.

Now much has been made

of

the idea of emer

gence. The idea is that the higher level s properties

are not even predictable from a full knowledge of the

lower level, the implication being that there is some

thing above and beyond what can be gleaned from a

total analysis

of

the lower level. The usual example is

water. One could not predict the property

of wet-

ness even if a full knowledge of the chemistry of

hydrogen and oxygen were available.

This is a bad example because it misses what

hierarchy theory says about organization. When hy

drogen and oxygen combine to form water they do so

by means

of

chemical bonds. Hierarchy theory posits

that it is the

or niz tion of

parts that creates the

higher level, not a chemical bond. Just about anything

in biology

is

a good example because every level

seems to have new (group) properties. A clear example

would be the sex distribution

of

a population. That is a

group property. Other functional systems or structures

with emergent properties are coagulation

of

blood,

capillary anastomoses, cerebellar lobules, and neph

rons in the kidney. At the social level, we say that

nations go to war but soldiers fight. Schools graduate

students but teachers educate them. And so on.

Emergence raises the question (Salthe, 1996, pp.

200-201) whether the emergent property is in some

way intrinsic to preexisting possibilities or whether it

arises out

of

unforeseen or unpredictable events. In

biology, development (embryology)

is

the former be

cause we have some idea from previous observations

that a chick embryo will develop into a chicken and a

frog embryo will develop into a frog, even if we find

it hard to understand the nonlinear transformations

required. Salthe calls this feature inexplicable, rather

than unprecedented (p. 205). Evolution, which pro

duces truly new species, is an example

of

the latter.

There is no way to predict what a new species will

look like. Ultimately we would like to know how spe

cific brain mechanisms generate specific mental

content.

So one issue we are really interested in with re

spect to this debate is whether we should consider the

mind (with its functions such as dreaming) to be an

emergent property of the brain. Another is the ques

tion, how do levels interact with each other? Are there

rules

of

vertical transformation?

The answers to these questions are almost com

pletely theoretically undeveloped and yet they are

probably the most significant problems there are. (Sur

prisingly, philosophers have not yet entered the fray.)

In my opinion, the MBP is a specific case

of

these

fundamental problems. I think the way to solve the

MBP is not to attack it directly (we ve tried for over

2000 years without success) but to ascertain the gen

eral rules

of

organization

of

the natural world and

then apply them to the MBP. There are several other

problems in science where a philosophical solution

would answer centuries-old questions. One such is the

transition from prebiotic molecules to life.

Although the last problem (vertical transforma

tion) is far from being solved, some biologists have

worked on it and we may hesitatingly make some first

hypotheses. answer to the question, what is the role

of the lower level, the answer is that the lower level,

called the initiating level, provides the potential for

outcomes. It gives choices and potentialities, it

creates

and

generates.

A chromosome may have

thousands

of

genes on it, any

of

which may be active


9/18

9

or inactive at a given moment in a very large number

of

potential combinations. Cells may grow in

anyone

of

many ways. People may behave in anyone

of

many

ways. At any moment an entity has many possible

and available outcomes (behaviors). But it will end up

having effectuated only one. Events are specified,

not by natural law per se, but by those laws together

with the initial conditions obtaining during the time

the lawful processes occur (Wigner, 1964, cited in

Salthe, 1985,

p

70). When we speak of us lity we

usually are referring to regularities within a given

level. Causality across levels is

of

a different kind.

What determines which

of

the potentialities

of

the initiating level is actualized or comes into being?

The higher level, which is called the boundary level.

The upper level

chooses, selects,

or deter

mines the outcome (this,

of

course, is a post hoc

observation and no intentionality is implied). The am

bient microenvironment determines just which spe

cific genes are turned on or off at a given moment.

This makes a determining difference in the eventual

phenotype. In some cases the boundary level is merely

permissive, in the sense that it does not select an out

come but provides the conditions for a lower level

process to occur. For a neuron to work it must be

bathed in extracellular fluid

of

the proper ionic compo

sition. A normal ionic composition allows the neu

ron to fire properly.

If

the composition of ions is

changed, the higher level may act directly

on

the neu

ron to determine its behavior. Some biologists con

sider the role

of

the boundary level to be that

of

culling

out possibilities, that is, to eliminate possibilities, as

opposed to actualizing possibilities. This may depend

on

the specific process. In any case, it is impossible

to imagine any process in the natural world occurring

outside a context.

Stan Salthe (1985), an evolutionary biologist,

proposes that the minimal description

of

a process

must include what he calls the basic triadic system:

the initiating level, the focal level (the level

of

inter

est), and the boundary level. The processes of the focal

level are framed by the potentialities

of

the initiating

level and the determining constraints

of

the boundary

level. Although the analogy is inexact, because in a

hierarchy the initiating and boundary levels are nested,

to understand the relation of the focal level to the

boundary and initiating levels, think

of

a piece of iron

suspended between two magnets.

Now the process side is harder to conceptualize.

Time is a harder dimension for us to get our arms

around, but the duration and speed of biological pro

cesses make all the difference in how a system be-

Lawrence Kunstadt

haves. The fundamental principle

of

process in biology

is relativism. That is, processes occur simultaneously

in relation to each other, and to the observer. For in

stance, what we consider objects or entities in biology

are, in fact, temporary instantiations

of

processes.

If

I

see a redwood tree, I would certainly call it an object

because there it is, there it was before I was born, and

there it will be long after I die. But if the observer had

a God s-eye view of time, he would see the seed of

the parent redwood tree fall, the sapling grow, the tree

go through the seasons, die, and disintegrate. The chair

you re sitting on? At some time it was a tree, or ore

in the ground. A hundred years from now, it will be

disintegrated or scrap. The idea being all entities, at

whatever level, are in process. What the observer sees

depends as much

on

his temporal relat ion with the

observed as on his hierarchical level. Just as the scalar

natural world is organized according to nested levels

of

organization, there is also a sense in which time

, windows exist in a nested fashion.

Of

course, the core question for biologists is

change over time. Nothing captures life better than the

notion

of

change. Evolution, development, physiol

ogy, behavior, even homeostasis all involve change.

There

is

a large literature on this topic. Some points

for

us

to note are that natural biological processes have

direction (adults don t turn into embryos), they may

be canalized (proceeding along an optimal direction

within a given changing environment), and that there

is

a type

of

temporal emergence. This last point has

been taken by some biologists to mean that higher

level processes, which are usually

of

longer duration

than lower level processes, cannot interact with them.

There is a technical discourse around the issue

of

lev

els not being able to interact because their time frames

are so different (nontransitivity). I believe there are

ways in which this is not true, but in general it is a

fair principle of

hierarchy theory. The idea is, for in

stance, that an organismic process such as locomoting

is

of

much greater duration than the underlying con

tractions

of

muscles. A gene, the

work

of which is

done in a fraction of a second, cannot determine a

behavior, which takes seconds, minutes, or hours. This

raises the question for us

of

how the brain might

cause dreams over time.

Now this is a very brief overview

of

a highly

complex field. Process-hierarchy theory is not com

pletely satisfying, nor does it answer every question,

but it seems to provide an excellent model

of

the world

that elevates natural science into a whole new realm

and, I hope, for one final time puts Newton back in

his grave. When people speak of causality they are


10/18


usually speaking

of

Newtonian causality, which is far

from the only type of causality. The great genius

of

relativity theory is that it elevated physics from the

Newtonian curse. The reason quantum theory is so

hard to accept is that it does not accord with our quo

tidian Newtonian world. What the life sciences have

done is to say too,

Look,

the biological world is not

Newtonian. Other types of causality determine biolog

ical processes. Karl Pribram has proposed adopting

a view of transformational causality, abandoning the

question of how things cause other things to behave,

and replacing it with the question, how do processes

change into other processes? (It is likely that pro

cess-hierarchy theory may be universal. Lee Smolin

(1997), a physicist, has applied PHT in an attempt to

integrate cosmology with quantum theory.)

What, exactly, does PHT say about the

Solms-Hobson debate? The first thing it says is that

dreams are a process. And their underlying physiologi

cal mechanisms are processes too. One cannot say that

a particular part of the brain uses a particular type

of mentation. What Hobson calls the isomorphism be

tween the brain and mind I would say is not just a

technical error but a fundamentally incorrect reading

of how nature is organized. There is no question that

all mental processes are related to underlying brain

processes (and overlying processes, too, as I will de

scribe). But whatever the mind is, it is not the brain.

(Solms and Hobson are on the same page on this issue.

They both take the same position Spinoza took: that

mind and brain are different aspects of the same funda

mental thing. Hobson states clearly that he believes

the brain-mind is a single isomorphic entity although

he says the two [the one?] are separately ana

lyzable.

)

The critical question in order for

us

to use PHT

to address the MBP in general and dreaming in partic

ular is, what is the mind? While we do not know what

the mind is, it appears to me to have some characteris

tics of a level and someof a property. I hope to develop

this concept formally some day, for now I will just

state it without further development except for one

comment. We normally do not think

of

levels as some

thing immaterial, because PHT requires that a level

be a constituent of its higher level and it is difficult to

see how the brain might be a constituentof the mind.

Furthermore, the termment l pro esses does not even

begin to speak to the complexity of the mind, which

itself is hierarchically organized. But I will show a

way in which the mind might be thoughtof

as

a level.

When Hobson uses the termmind he is referring

to the conscious mind. When Solms uses the term

m n

he is referring to the much more substantial

Freudian notion. For Freud, as Solms (1997) has

pointed out, all mental processes are unconscious.

Consciousness for Freud is something like a sensory

system that can respond to certain unconscious mental

processes in the way that the eye can respond to cer

tain wavelengths of light.

But whatever the mind is,

if

it is the level above

the brain/whole person, this is not so initially. The

mind becomes a level. The newborn baby is embedded

in its environment. The baby s environment consists

of both things and people, but above all, the mother. In

the well-known Freudian formulation (and following

Opatow [1993, 1997]), the baby, hungry again after

the first feed, experiences hunger

as

a pain, which is

represented as a lack, an absence, a want in both

senses

of

the word. In an attempt to satisfy this hunger,

the baby hallucinates, in the prototypical actof dream

ing, the breast. The hallucination is moment rily but

not ultimately satisfying, causing the baby to turn to

reality, with all its consequences for the development

of the mind. In the dream, the hallucinatory quality is

reminiscent of the baby s momentary senseof satisfac

tion. This is what Freud meant by wish fulfillment. To

try to understand Freud s theory of dreaming without

referring to this complex transformation

of

hallucina

tion to reality construction is to miss the fundamen

tal point.

The formal similarity to dreams is twofold: A

desire (or in any case, an action) to reexperience an

experience

of

satisfaction; and the presenceof a mem

ory. In order for the baby to hallucinate the breast (or

as Opatow claims, the breast-as-absent) it must have

a memory

of

the previous experience of satisfaction.

In order for a dream to have content, it must draw

upon memory. This is a simple conclusion that for

whatever reason Hobson does not explore. Dreams

have content. Where does that content originate?

Since it does not originate from external perception

(during sleep), it must come, at least in part, from

memory.

In my view memory, and I mean the mental pro

cess not its physiological underpinnings, serves as a

surrogate level for the real world of perception in the

baby and dreamer alike. In other words, during normal

waking life the level above the individual is his ambi

ent environment. In dreaming and in the baby s hallu

cination, memory takes its place. This is the

fundamental principleof my view: that memory serves

as a

surrogate

level for the perception of the real

world. In waking life it has an indirect role vis-a-vis

consciousness; in dreaming, a direct one. It is com-


11/18

monplace in biology for a new level to be interpolated

between two existing ones. Think of embryology.

So now we have the possibility

of

seeing reduc

tionism and psychoanalysis not

as

being opposed to

each other, but

as different parts of Salthe s Basic

Triadic System (1985, pp. 67-113). Think of brain

processes as the initiating level, dreams as the focal

level, and the external world (mother s breast) as ini

tially being the boundary level. Once the baby has

lived through the prim l experience of satisfaction,

memory becomes the boundary level.

During the day, through processes which are not

well understood, stimuli reach the mind which are not

thoroughly digested. They somehow wake up or

stimulate memories that are brought into conscious

ness, not in the dream itself, but by associating to

dream elements. Whatever the manifest content

of

the

dream itself means, the latent meaning

of

the

dream is discovered mainly through the patient s asso

ciations to the dream elements. (It can also be made

manifest by certain behaviors

of

the patient.) Hob

son s view

of

the (manifest) dream as reflecting affect

and concerns of the dreamer does not in any sense

conflict with or contradict analytic theory except for

its use

as

the exclusive explanation of dreams.

The wish, by definition, is an attempt to reexperi

ence a previous experience of

satisfaction. Hobson

seems to miss the very tight coupling in psychoanaly

sis between wish and memory. Hobson seems to un

derappreciate the nature of the wish for Freud, who

saw it

as

the currency of the mind. Most

of

metapsy

chology

is

an attempt to answer the question, what

is

the wish doing? The way I read Freud s dream book

is that when he came to his famous finding that dreams

are representations of fulfilled wishes, he was not try

ing to explain the meaning of dreams, he was trying

to explain what the wish was doing in dreams. The

emphasis on wishes

as

an explanation for dreaming,

even though this is how Freud stated it, has it back

wards.

It

is

an everyday observation that dreams contain

material from the patient s waking life

of

the day or

two before the dream. This material is manifest in the

dream but the dream s creator (what Freud called the

dream work) does something with this material. Just

as an author rearranges words and concepts, so does

the dream work It is in this rearrangement, as well as

in the patient s associations, that Freud saw evidence

of a latent content.

Using PHT, I would say the brain processes un

derlying dreaming would be seen as presenting possi

bilities, a very large number of specific contents.

Lawrence Kunstadt

Unlike Hobson s model, there must be a reservoir

for these contents, which I equate with memory (more

likely, some dynamic representation, nidus, or kernel

of memories, since memories seem to be constructed

anew each time they are experienced). Then memories

awakened by both the random stimuli from daily life

and important thing s going on in the patient s life, are

represented, in the form of wishes, in the dream.

It is an unsolved question in psychoanalysis why

some wishes or fantasies reach consciousness while

most do not. We do not know the nature of the selec

tion process. Usually analysts talk about an external

stimulus reverberating with an unconscious

thought but this is not fully satisfactory.

So, in summary, PHT may provide a framework

for reconciling reductionism with psychoanalysis.

PHT is neither holistic nor reductionistic alone but

seeks

to

describe all levels and to understand the regu

latory principles of transformation between levels.

The mind in all its complexity may comprise a (or

many) levels between the body and the environment.

The baby s hallucination of the prototypical experi

ence of satisfaction begins the stratification between

outside world and inside world as a surrogate for the

reality of its mother s breast. This would be consistent

with other processes in the natural world and place the

psychoanalytic mind back into the scheme of

nature.

Responses to Hobson s Criticisms of

Psychoanalysis

Referring to Freud s dream theory (p. 218), Hobson

thanks Solms and other analysts for not claiming that

he

is making a caricature of it Since I am not a

clinician I do not have to be so polite as Solms and

his colleagues. There is a fundamental problem with

the way Hobson describes Freud s dream theory and

it is not that he does so incorrectly. It is that he reduces

one of the most profound, influential, comprehensive,

complex, and nuanced theories to a banal algorithm.

Chapter 7

of

Freud s dream book is full

of

derivations

from and implications for philosophy, medicine, and

psychology and it cannot be understood without refer

ence to these fields. (For instance, it borrows deeply

from Kant and it refers, implicitly but repeatedly, to

the debate over localizationism that Freud took up in

n phasia

[1891].) To treat Freud s ideas

as

a simple

mechanical system,

as

scientific critics have done for

a century, without trying to understand their history

and philosophy and how they

fit into his changing

models of the mental apparatus, is akin to panning


12/18


No.2)

Romeo and Juliet as

just

another teenage love story.

Furthermore, in the century since Freud wrote his In-

terpretation

o

Dreams

psychoanalysis has produced

hundreds, perhaps thousands,

of

papers on dream the

ory. To ignore this literature is to claim that nothing

in psychoanalysis has changed or been elaborated

since Freud.

Hobson characterizes dreams according to their

formal properties, but he does not take the step Freud

took which is to see that these properties tell us some

thing about the organization

of

the mind. For instance,

Hobson mentions the hallucinatory quality and dimi

nution or lack

of

self-reflection

of

dreams, what I

would call the immediacy of dreams and what Solms

probably means by the

vivacity

of dreams. Freud

took this quality and asked the question, why do we

experience dreams as immediate, more immediate

even than the echoes we call memories or the waking

reality we experience as

out

there ?

His answer was that it is precisely the phenome

non of subjective immediacy in dreaming that suggests

that the hallucinated percept is indistinguishable from

the mnemic image, for dream content must come from

memory. The immediacy

of

dreaming was an observa

tion, its origin in memory a logical necessity. The theo

retical step he took was to postulate that this

experiential equivalence of mnemic image and percept

is a result of the seeking of a repetition

of

the experi

ence

of

satisfaction. He called this process the wish.

Thus Freud s notion

of

dreams

as

hallucinatory wish

fulfillment

derives

from the nature

of

the wish, not

vice versa.

The so-called disguise-censorship function in

dreaming serves not jus t to prevent unacceptable

thoughts into dream consciousness, but to allow those

thoughts that do reach dream consciousness to be ex

perienced

as

immediate and visual, that is to say, ful

filling. To use another phrase, it allows the dream

work to generate a hallucinated experience of satisfac

tion, which could not occur

if

the dream were experi

enced as either distant memories or external objects

in waking life or thoughts themselves. Opatow (1993)

describes this (hallucination)

as

the difference be

tween being assailed by objects

l

and attributing objects

to memories or percepts, that is, giving them the prop

erty

of

otherness.

If

object representations in dreams

had the characteristic

of

echo or externality rather than

immediacy, then they would be subject

to

the self-

I

Object

in neurobiology refers to the thing in the outside world,

object

representation

to its mental form, which is usually termed the

visual im-

age

In psychoanalysis, the term

object

is used loosely for both; the correct

term for the mental form should be

internalized object

reflection of waking consciousness, which they are

not.

What

Freud is asking by postulating a wish-seek

ing fulfillment is, Why is the dream experienced visu

ally, as real, rather than as a thought?

Here

we have

the most general and the most striking psychological

characteristic

of

the process

of

dreaming: a thought,

and as a rule a thought

of

something that is wished,

is objectified in the dream, is represented as a scene,

or, as i t seems to us, is experienced (p. 534). This is

the core

of

Freud s dream theory. What in waking life

is experienced as a thought or memory or external

reality is, in dreams, experienced

as

visual, real, and

immediate. Analysis theorizes that this is what the

baby experiences at the breast and then in momentary

hallucination.

Of

course what the baby really experi

ences is unknown.

The dream

work s job

is to eliminate the wishful,

optative quality

of

thought, which refers to the future,

the notion

of if

only such and such

woul

happen,

or I want it to happen (in the future), and to replace

it with the experience

of

that thing actually happening

now

or putting the dreamer in a position such that that

thing can happen with just a reflex action.

The

pres

ent tense [of dreams] is the one in which wishes are

represented as fulfilled. , Furthermore, Their

[dreams ] ideational content [is] transformed from

thoughts into sensory images, to which belief is

attached and which appear to be experienced (p.

535). Paraplegics dream

of

running, hungry men

of

the banquet.

Thus, while Hobson s reading

of

Freud is off the

mar k and therefore his criticism not really relevant,

he may have inadvertently led us to a new finding:

the physiological basis

of

immediacy. This would be

supported

if

the same pontine mechanisms he found

in REM sleep were shown to be present in the various

forms

of

nondream hallucinations. With this outline

as

background-and,

considering the volumes and

volumes that have been written

on

these issues, i t is

truly only a

sketch-let

us turn to some of Hobson s

specific criticisms

of

psychoanalysis.

1

Dreaming is the synthesis

of

emotional and

sensorimotor data generated by the distinctive mecha

nisms

of

brain activity in REM sleep

(p. 157)

versus Disguise-censorship as the mechanism

of

dream bizarreness and dreaming affords privileged

access to unconscious motives via the technique of

free association to bizarre dream materiaL

If

you listen to a patient in analysis, whether free

associating to nondream material or describing

dreams, what you hear is what Freud called t he sim-


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96

pIe idea emerging. Different ideas emerge as themes,

whether the patient is aware

of

them or not. The notion

of defenses relates to the inability of the mind to ver

balize these ideas directly and with ease. Freud s idea

of

a manifest and latent dream content relates to the

finding that in free association ideas emerge which are

not easily accessible to the patient s ability to consider.

Hobson will be happy to hear that many people

who call themselves analysts use the manifest content

alone in their clinical work (much to the chagrin of

other people, like me). Freud heard, and analysts hear

today, that each element in the dream leads to associa

tions of its own, which fact, in part, led Freud to postu

late a latent content. These associations lead to a single

thought (or group

of

thoughts) that have a quality un

like that of the manifest content. The quality has to

do with their being forbidden or unacceptable, because

they reveal fantasies about sex, hate, jealousy, fear,

embarrassment, and the like.

A patient reported a dream in which he noticed

a bakery in his neighborhood. He associated to a build

ing across the street from the bakery (in real life)

named La Rochelle. This led to the thought

of

a friend

of

his named Rochelle and then to the fact that she

was writing her doctoral thesis

on

Proust (Made

line-bakery,

get it?). The analyst then prodded,

Wasn t Proust a homosexual?

-which

led to a

flood of homosexual fantasies.

It is this

dist n e

between the manifest content

(bakery) and the embarrassing, painful homosexual

fantasies, which led Freud to postulate a latent content.

The

disguise

refers to the observation that there is

nothing in the notion

of

a bakery (or the building or

friend) that refers to anything homosexual. It seems

to me there is nothing in Hobson s physiological find

ings that contradicts this. Why does he insist that his

findings and Freud s findings are in opposition rather

than explanations at different levels?

The instigation

of

dreaming was, for Freud,

caused by the upsurge

of

unconscious wishes follow

ing suspension of their wake-state repression. We

would now say that dreaming is caused by brain activ

ity during sleep (p. 169). But in what sense are these

opposed to each other? If processes work only at their

own level, mental activity causes mental activity,

physiological activity causes physiological activity. If

we apply PHT, the two are related through upwards

and downwards causation

of

a potential-selective

type. If you say that a person is running because his

leg muscles are alternately contracting and extending,

and I say it is because

he s

late for an appointment,

in what sense is either explanation better? Would Hob-

Lawrence Kunstadt

son reduce a Rembrandt to the chemistry of its paint?

Would he describe a movie, which is in some sense

like a dream, in terms

of

the amount of movement?

3

The bizarre character

of

dreaming was, for

Freud, determined by the disguise and censorship of

the unconscious wishes We would now say that

dreaming is bizarre because

of the distinctive neuro

physiology of REM sleep with its shift from top-down

cortical control in waking to bottom-up phasic autoac

tivation epitomized by the PGO process.

There are three aspects

of

bizarreness. One is

the lack of rational connection between one dream

element and the next, the associative issue. The second

is

the unrealistic character

of

some

of

the objects in

the dream (although most objects are real ). The

third is that dream objects can do things they cannot

do in real life; for example, people fly

Again, I see no discrepancy between Freud s

view and Hobson s view. Dreams contain elements

from daily life, in fact, dream elements are frequently

things that were experienced during the day of the

dream or a day or two before, what Freud called the

day residue. Since there is a time lag between their

appearance in waking perception and the subsequent

night s dream, memory must be involved. In fact,

dream elements are typically common objects, so reg

ular long-term memory must be involved. In analysis,

either the elements themselves or the associated affect

or the associations that come up in relation to the

elements are often identified by the patient as being

from childhood. In fact, Freud proposed that all

dreams derive from activated childhood wishes, stimu

lated by the day s events (internal and external).

So the lack of

rational connection between one

dream element and the next that results in the b i

zarreness

of

dreams is, in Freudian theory, because

there is no story to the dream; the dream is a patch

work

of

associated elements awakened by the day s

events and cobbled together. The real story is in the

latent content. The unrealistic character of some of the

objects in the dream and the ability of objects to do

things they cannot do in real life seem to more directly

reflect the work of wishes and memories. That is, there

is a rationale for the distortions from real life. Freud,

for instance, suggested that the experience of flying in

a dream was derived from a memory

of

being picked

up and thrown about as a little child by a playful uncle.

If Hobson has identified the physiological basis

of

these processes, where is the contradiction?

4 The

visual nature

of

dreams is for activation

synthesis, not defensive as Freud asserted, but rather

the direct result of both bottom-up activation pro-


14/18


cesses (p. 208). The visual nature of dreams with

their immediacy was discussed above.

5.

While

dreaming, we never sit and watch but

are constantly moving through dream space. Thus

dreams are not properly thought of as simply visual

but more accurately as visuomotor. This feature was

not recognized by Freud

A strong implication is

that far from being a feedback regression to the sen

sory side, dream hallucinosis results from a feed-for

ward conveyance of data about motor intentions to the

sensory processors in the upper brain (p. 208).

This is one point of Hobson s that I believe the

analytic community should take to heart. I agree with

Hobson that the psychomotor aspect of dreams needs

to be elaborated and better understood. Freud believed

that the immediate visual nature of dreams was in

opposition to thought, not to motor activity. Thought

is conceived as a developmental advance over visual

imagery, and is seen as

trial

action. Freud s theory

of dreaming emphasized the mind s movement toward

the visual. It is true that today we see perception as

having a motor aspect, something Freud s reliance on

the reflex arc model did not. If the visuomotor compo

nent of dreams is conveying data about motor inten

tions to the sensory processors isn t this exactly what

a wish is, a desire or an intent to perform motor acts

that lead to a repetition

of

an earlier experience

of

sat

isfaction?

I must also point out here Jason Brown s theory

of microgenesis (1988) which proposes that even wak

ing perception is an actualization of memories pro

jected outward into the external space through a series

of

upward transformations beginning in the brainstem

tegmentum. While Brown has severely criticized psy

choanalysis, this aspect of his theory is certainly com

patible with the analytic view

of

dreams.

6. At one point Hobson starts to move into dream

interpretation: Thus in a classic anxiety dream, the

plot may shift from feeling lost, to not having proper

credentials, adequate equipment, or suitable clothing,

to missing a train. These plots all satisfy the driving

emotion-anxiety-while

being only very loosely as

sociated with one another p.

160).

But this

is

exactly

the analytic point, which says there are thoughts inac

cessible to consciousness of a wishlike quality that

hold these plots together. This is exactly the

method of analysis of free associations. In fact, it

seems to me that this is the fundamental assumption

upon which the psychoanalytic method is based and

the edifice on which psychoanalysis was built: that

the seeming unconnectedness

of

patients sequential

conscious thoughts is an illusion; they can actually

97

be understood by inferring a connecting unconscious

thought or thoughts that we call the wish.

For example, a patient said (somewhat para

phrased),

My

father is dying. Did you know that he

is wealthy? The analyst infers that the unconscious

thought connecting the two conscious thoughts is I

want my father to die so that I can inherit his wealth.

And underlying that thought is probably some oedipal

configuration about wanting to kill the father and take

sexual possession of the mother, the father s real

wealth. While this is a very simple almost algebraic

method, in complex form it is what psychoanalysis is

about. For Freud the wish is the currency of the mind.

7. All the qualities of dreams listed by Hobson,

hallucinations, bizarreness, delusion, and so on, are

well known to analysts. They are, as Hobson says,

the formal characteristics of dreams. The question is

whether they mean something or not. When Hobson

writes, Even the sexual identity of dream characters

is fluid, and this ambiguity can be anatomically ex

plicit, not just psychological, he is repeating a com

monplace psychoanalytic observation that Freud took

and elaborated into a detailed theory of sexuality. I

hate to say it, but where s the beef? Listing the formal

characteristics of dreams does nothing unless one does

something with them.

Hobson s description of dreams is like the analy

sis

of

a painting by an art teacher I once had. The

instructor described the position

of

the objects in a

painting, their relat ion to the horizon and to the line

of

sight, their color, all their formal characteristics,

but seemed to miss the fact that the painting told a

story too.

8. Why must incoming stimuli be discharged?

(p. 208 .1 Indeed, why must they? In several places

Freud asked the question, how does a single-celled

organism respond to stimuli? Clearly the mythical pro

tozoan stood for the mind as well

as

the nervous sys

tem and body. Over the course of his career Freud

gave many responses and his changing metapsycho

logical views may be seen as changing answers to

this single question. The entity may be incapable of

responding to the stimuli (stimulus barrier), stimuli

may be discharged (reflex arc, libido theory, specific

action), they may be inhibited (repression theory), or

they may be mastered or utilized to build structure

(ego theory, Eros). Freud s great insight was to ask

what happens to internally generated stimuli, not just

external stimuli.

Questions 8 to 16 are questions Hobson lists on pages 208-209.


15/18

98

9

Hobson asks about the primary process, what

its anatomical basis is, why motor activity would be

automatically engaged at the same time and why motor

atonia shouldn t prevent this motor activity, should it

become engaged, from disrupting sleep (p. 208). No

body knows the anatomical basis

of

any Freudian

mental processes. This is why most analysts feel they

do not have to pay any attention to neurobiology.

Mark Solms has made the investigation of this issue

his life s

work

and this is why this new journal was

brought into being. If Hobson wants to help clarify

the anatomical basis

of

psychoanalytic structures or

processes, even if it were to show they do not exist,

we would all be delighted. As for the questions about

motor activity and atonia, I honestly do not know what

Hobson is referring to.

10.

Why would an experience have to become

verbal in order to be admitted to the system con

scious[?] Phenomenologically Hobson is abso

lutely correct about this; words are not necessary for

an experience to reach consciousness. You can dem

onstrate this by willfully preventing language from

entering consciousness while viewing the world (I

have no idea how we can do this). Freud first formally

introduced the idea

of word presentations in

n

ph -

si

and later intergrated his theory

of

words into his

topographic theory. To discuss this would require an

other paper.

To paraphrase Hobson, why aren t Wer

nicke s and Broca s areas activated during dreaming

when psychoanalytic theory sees word play in dream

representations? I think the simple answer is that word

play is not the same as either word comprehension

(Wernicke s area) or word production (Broca s area).

My guess is that word play, which involves at least

recognition, evaluation, meaning, memory, language,

association, creation, and visual representation, must

require a wide range

of

structures.

12.

If

dreams are constructed from condensed,

displaced, plastic memories, how do we explain

wholly novel dream images?

If

Hobson means how

do we explain novelty neurophysiologically, who

knows? Process-hierarchy accepts novelty (emer

gence), raises it to a privileged level, and sees it as

arising out of increases in organization. But how do

we explain any creative mental act? Psychoanalysis

has a lot to say about this but we do not know about

creativity s neurophysiological correlates. We do not

even know the neurophysiological basis

of

a thought.

But I wonder why he sees a problem deriving a novel

object representation from memory. Even novel ele-

Lawrence Kunstadt

ments in dreams have some bearing to aspects

of

re

ality.

13. The hypothetical censor, which makes fine

distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable

wishes, is imbued by psychoanalysts with powers in

compatible with its hypothesized weakened condition

in sleep. I think Hobson is being a bit too concrete

here, falling under the sway

of

Freud. I m not sure

one can quantify fine distinction versus gross distinc

tions, but dream associations suggest that the latent

content is pretty powerful stuff that rarely sees the

light of day on its own. In waking the defense rises to

meet the strength of the wish; that is, it has a variable

strength of its own. Why should things be different in

dreaming? This also raises the question

of

the notion

of

quantity in psychoanalysis, which is a topic for

another day.

4 If the ubiquitous initiating causes of dreams

are wishes and drives, why are undistorted dreams of

convenience so rare in adults? I m not sure but my

guess is because the somatic stimulation necessary

(e.g., dehydration, full bladder) are not present. The

wish behind a dream is typically stirred up by some

thing that happens during the day. A wish rarely

reaches representation in dreams

on

its own.

5 If awakenings are the result

of

failed

dreams in which an unacceptable wish-drive breaks

through the weakened censor, why are our spontane

ous dreamless awakenings not accompanied by more

disturbing (or exciting) affect than our spontaneous

awakenings? Affects in dreams can be very different,

even opposite, to the unconscious affect of the la

tent content. But more importantly, why does Hobson

think that analytic theory states that dreamless awak

enings are caused by affect-laden wishes? Maybe they

are the result

of

a physiological mechanism, perhaps

an endogenous rhythm.

I m

not aware that analytic

theory has anything to say about dreamless awaken

ings. The point Freud was making was that during

dreaming dreams protect the dreamer from wakening.

He was addressing dreams, not sleep. Why do people

wake up just before the alarm clock goes off? Maybe

classical conditioning. Maybe an intrinsic rhythm be

comes entrained. Maybe people wake up because the

dream is over.

6 These three components appear under the

heading Obstacles to Progress (pp. 174-175).

Three fundamental problems must be overcome if

psychoanalysis wants to counter its rapidly progres

sive marginalization:

15 ongoing discussion of j. allan hobson (vol. 1, no. 2): commentary by lawrence kunstadt (new york)

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