Consciousness unbound: Social simulation theory of dreaming
Tuominen Jarno
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2022081153891
Tiivistelmä
Every night during sleep we experience an immersive world of dreams, woven together by our sleeping brain unbound by external stimulation. Despite considerable effort the question of why we dream has eluded a conclusive answer. Understanding dreams also arguably makes progress toward answering the broader question of consciousness: why do we experience anything at all? I attempt to illuminate these questions by concentrating on the quintessentially social nature of dreams. First, in Study I a novel theoretical account —the Social Simulation Theory of dreaming (SST)—is proposed, together with the first outlines of a research program for its empirical study. SST suggests the world simulation form of dreams provides clues for its function by preferentially simulating certain kinds of scenariosnamely social interactions. Second, in Studies II and III specific hypotheses derived from the SST in Study I are empirically evaluated. These provide evidence for dreams to contain more social content than corresponding waking life and to remain so even when social interactions are removed from waking life (Sociality Bias). Furthermore, the Strengthening Hypothesis that suggests dreams serve to maintain and/or increase social bonding with close others gains partial support. The Practise and Preparation Hypothesis gained support as dreams simulated positive interactions in one fifth of dream interactions and overall simulate complex social behaviours. The Compensation Hypothesis suggests dreams simulations to increase when waking social contacts are abolished, but this was not supported in the data as dream sociality remained stable despite social seclusion. When excluded from others our dreams reconfigure to decrease simulations of interactions with strangers. However, dreams during normal day-to-day life do not preferentially simulate bond-strengthening interactions with close others. In opposition to previous findings, Study II found no differences in social dream contents between either stage of sleep or time of night. In Study III a short social seclusion showed not only differences in dream content, but also in sleep structure, with an increase in REM sleep. Third, methodological development was undertaken by, both, developing a content analysis method for extracting social episodes in narrative reports (Social Content Scale, SCS; Study II), and by assessing the validity of a novel home sleep monitor device, the Beddit Sleep Tracker (BST). While the SCS proved useful for categorizing the social features in both studies II and III, BST failed to provide accurate sleep data as measured against a polysomnogram. Overall, the development of SST and the initial empirical evidence for some of its hypotheses brings us closer to understanding the twin problems of dreaming and consciousness.
Kokoelmat
- Rinnakkaistallenteet [19207]