A neuropsychodynamic view of dreaming

ABSTRACT Functional neuroimaging and neurophysiological techniques open fascinating new perspectives on the psychodynamic understanding of dreams. The article offers a review of the recent relevant neuroscientific and psychoanalytic literature, including the “inferential brain” model’s recent revolutionary approach. This model proposes a correlation between the neurophysiological and the clinical role of dreaming. A growing framework of animal and human research converge on the concept of the evolutionary role of dreaming in maintaining brain homeostasis. Functional recordings show that the same brain structures and circuits are involved in dreaming as well as waking states, thus proving that dreams are a particular form of consciousness, where the brain’s synaptic architecture is remodeled through memory retrieval and reconsolidation. The partial deactivation of cortical prefrontal regions during dreaming facilitates the emergence of emotional contents belonging to subcortical and limbic structures, allowing emotional self-regulation and a better emotional balance during waking states. According to the inferential brain model, a specific function of dreaming would be to organize and update a virtual reality model which informs both the body and the external world of the organism’s expectations. Moreover, the iconic and metaphorical language of dreams is neither bizarre and meaningless per se, nor does it hide a latent content to be revealed through interpretations. Instead, the manifest content of the dream needs to be “unraveled” into its emotional roots. In conclusion, within a framework which includes psychoanalysis, theoretical and affective neurosciences, dreams represent the via regia not to the unconscious but to self-awareness and emotional self/regulation.