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Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journal

for Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences
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J. Allan Hobson and Edward Pace-Schotts Response:

Commentary by Margaret Gilmore and Edward
Nersessian (New York)
a

Margaret M. Gilmore M.D. & Edward Nersessian M.D.

a

120 East 75th Street, New York, NY 10021

72 East 91st Street, New York, NY 10128, e-mail:

Published online: 09 Jan 2014.

To cite this article: Margaret M. Gilmore M.D. & Edward Nersessian M.D. (2000) J. Allan Hobson and Edward Pace-Schotts
Response: Commentary by Margaret Gilmore and Edward Nersessian (New York), Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary
Journal for Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences, 2:2, 202-211, DOI: 10.1080/15294145.2000.10773306
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Gilmore-Nersessian

202

J. Allan Hobson and Edward Pace-Schott's Response

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Commentary by Margaret Gilmore and Edward Nersessian (New York)

For the second issue of Neuro-Psychoanalysis, Dr. J.

Allan Hobson provided the target paper on the neuroregulation and neurophysiological processes of sleep
and dreams. This target paper was followed by formal
commentaries on the target paper prepared by three
experts in the field of sleep and dreaming, Drs. M.
Solms, A. Braun, and M. Reiser. As Hobson's paper
and those respondent papers dealt not only with neurophysiological findings but also with aspects of Freud's
psychological theory of dreams, the editors of the journal decided that a brief summary of Freud's dream
theory would help orient those readers of the journal
who might be less familiar with psychoanalytic concepts to the discussion. Therefore, they asked us to
write a brief and somewhat simplified synopsis of
Freud's psychoanalytic theory of dreams. The editors
planned to place the synopsis as the first paper in the
journal so that it could serve as a general orientation
for the reader. However, at the urging of Dr. Hobson,
who was concerned that readers might misread the
summary as a target paper, the editors elected to place
it at the end of the interchange, as an appendix.
We, the authors of the brief synopsis, were astonished that Hobson and Pace-Schott chose to give such
prominence to our little summary in their response to
the commentaries. Our surprise was partly the result
of the fact that our summary was not prepared as a
response to the commentary on Hobson's target paper,

but only as an outline of Freud's theory. We are

pleased that Hobson chose to address our summary in
such detail, and in his "hold no punches" style, as he
has given us the opportunity to respond to his target
paper and his commentary. It is our hope that our
response will further the discussion between neurophysiologists and psychoanalysts.

Contributions to the Neurophysiology of Sleep

and Proposals for a Model of Dream
Formation
We appreciate Hobson's careful neurophysiological
and neurochemical research establishing the reciprocal
Margaret M. Gilmore, M.D., is an Assistant Course Instructor in
Psychoanalysis, the New York Psychoanalytic Institute; Assistant Clinical
Professor of Psychiatry, Cornell Medical Center, New York.
Edward Nersessian, M.D., is Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst,

interaction between acetylcholine stimulation and serotonergic and noradrenergic inhibition in the pons in
REM sleep generation (Hobson and McCarley, 1977;
Hobson, 1999). We also recognize his courage in proposing his activation-synthesis model for dream formation based upon those findings (Hobson and
McCarley, 1977; Hobson, 1999). In addition we admire the flexibility in model building that Hobson has
demonstrated by amending his original activation-synthesis hypothesis to incorporate new data
from neurochemical studies of transmitters, brain imaging, and brain lesion studies. We applaud his willingness to acknowledge an "unexpectedly prominent
role of the limbic system" (Hobson, 1999, p. 157)
during sleep following instigation of REM, as well as
his willingness to address data indicating that lesions
of the deep frontal lobes impair dreaming (Hobson
and Pace-Schott, 1999).
However, we are deeply dismayed at Dr. Hobson's refusal to openly acknowledge the major change
in his dream model from his original activation-synthesis model in which he viewed dream content as
"vacuous" (Braun, 1999) to his present model in
which he suggests that "salient memories and emotions serve as the primary shaper of dream plots,
rather than playing a secondary role" (Braun, 1999,
p. 196). As Braun notes, in his new model Hobson
acknowledges an active participation of forebrain
mechanisms in dream generation-not simply a secondary senseless response to chaotic brainstem
events" (Braun, 1999, p. 196).
What happened to Hobson's original activation-synthesis hypothesis in which the forebrain passively synthesized images in response to the activity
of the oculomotor system or vestibular system which
had been activated by the automatic firing of the brainstem? Let us compare the two models of dream formation: In the original activation-synthesis model the
cortex was passively receiving information from the
eye movements and then synthesizing the visual imagery appropriate to them. "An hypothesis is that the
oculomotor activity is generated at the brainstem level
and that the cortex is then provided with feed-forward
New York Psychoanalytic Institute; Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Cornell University Medical College, New York.

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Ongoing Discussion: Hobson and Pace-Schott

information about the eye movements" (Hobson and

McCarley, 1977, p. 1338).
Hobson proposed that two other examples of such
passive forebrain synthesis of dream content occurred
when the forebrain responded to the activity of the
vestibular system, which had been activated by the
brainstem firing, and when the forebrain responded to
the motor atonia of sleep, which had also resulted from
brainstem activation. This model of dream content formation, a model based upon strict biological determinism, led Hobson to propose that such typical dream
contents as that in which a person experiences motor
inhibition (the person as a whole cannot move or cannot move some part of his body), or in which the
person experiences himself as flying, occur as a result
of the forebrain's providing content in response to the
activation of motor paralysis or to the activation of
the vestibular system during REM sleep (Hobson and
McCarley, 1977).
First, we would like to point out that Hobson
seemed unaware in proposing his model for motor inhibition in dream content that Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) had made the same suggestion
with regard to manifest dream content in which motor
inhibition occurred; that is, in dreams with motor inhibition content perhaps the mind was using its awareness of the motor paralysis of sleep to create manifest
dream content. However, Freud went on to ask the
next logical question-If this is so, why does not every
dream represent some motor paralysis since there is
almost always motor paralysis during sleep? Does not
the fact that this paralysis occurs in only some dreams
represent that some selection has occurred in what
will be represented in the dream (Freud, 1900)! Why
does Hobson's sleeper not dream of flying or motor
inhibition in every dream? Freud answered this question by suggesting that during dreaming, the psychological mind selected only those perceptions of brain
or body functioning during sleep that were useful to
the expression of psychological states. Whether Freud
was right or wrong in his proposed answer to the question of why motor inhibition appeared only in some
dreams, the point is, the question must be asked and
Hobson did not ask it. It is our argument that if Hobson
had asked the question, and he still wanted to maintain
his biological determinism, then the question would
have led him to search for more complex brain functioning during dreaming.
In their 1999 activation-synthesis model of
dream content, Hobson and Pace-Schott claim: "We
have always emphasized our own clinical interest in
dreams as the transparent syntheses of current con-

203

cerns, past conflicts and cognitive-emotional style"

(p. 206). In addition, they state "what the brainstem
does is set the forebrain stage for dreaming" (p. 218).
We quote these statements for two reasons: first to
point out Hobson's refusal to openly acknowledge his
rejection of his first activation-synthesis model of
dream formation, which regarded dream content as
random, as wrong (see below); and second to emphasize that this new activation-synthesis model, which
attributes a much more active role for the limbic system and forebrain in the shaping of dream plots, opens
the door to the possible importance of psychological
(including emotional and thinking) influences upon
dream formation. As for the first point of Hobson's
refusal to admit his error and his rewriting of the history of his belief in the importance of dream content
in "revealing current psychological concerns and past
emotional conflicts," we would like to remind Hobson
and Pace-Schott of their statement that "if we are to
have a scientifically respectful dialogue we expect our
psychoanalytic colleagues to be able to say that, of
course Freud was probably wrong about most, if not
all, of his dream theory" (Hobson and Pace-Schott,
1999, p. 218). We respectfully suggest that Hobson
apply this requirement to admit to errors in his own
research and theories! But we have a more important
reason for making our comparison between the earlier
and later activation-synthesis models of dream formation. The second activation-synthesis model, which
includes the activation of the brainstem and, in addition, the activation of the limbic, paralimbic, and basal
areas of the forebrain, and a relative deactivation of
prefrontal areas during REM, provides a much more
complex portrait of brain functioning during REM
than did the first activation-synthesis model. While
this complex portrait does not preclude Hobson's insistence on biological determinism, the activation of
the limbic, paralimbic, and basal forebrain areas would
also not be inconsistent with a theory of dream formation that includes contributions from psychological input (emotions, memories, thoughts) into the causation
of dream content. In this way, the second model of
brain functioning during REM differs sharply and importantly from the first model. In the first model, there
was no possibility for any areas of the brain other than
the brainstem to contribute to the activation of other
brain areas. Thus, Hobson argued that since there
could be no psychological mind in the brainstem, then
there could be no psychological mind that contributed
to instigation of dream content. However, in the second model of the brain functioning during REM sleep,
the existence of activation in the limbic, paralimbic,

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204
and basal forebrain areas raises the possibility that
psychological events might make contributions to
dream formation.
In summary, we find Hobson and Pace-Schott to
be very careful neurophysiological researchers and
their neurophysiological results regarding brainstem
activation during REM sleep to be compelling evidence for the importance of the brainstem activation
of REM sleep. We appreciate Hobson's masterly overview of the state of information on brain functioning
during sleep and welcome these findings, which advance our understanding of sleep and dreaming. However, we object strenuously when they extrapolate
from these neurophysiological results to propose a
model of dream formation (a psychobiological phenomenon) that is based on the apriori assumption that
only neurophysiological events can be causative in
dream formation. We object to their scientific methodology when they select only their own interpretation
of the neurophysiological data (that if certain brain
areas are activated during dreaming then this activation must cause the dream content). They then exclude
alternative hypotheses; for example, if certain brain
areas are active during dreaming this may reflect not
only the impact of brain activation on dream content
but also the possibility that some of these areas of
brain activation reflect psychological functioning during sleep, which may, in turn, influence which areas
of brain are activated during dreaming sleep. Furthermore, we object to their biased stance in their treatment of psychological data gathered from patients'
dream reports and the relevance of this data to understanding the emotional salience of dreams. While Hobson and Pace-Schott accept the psychological data that
they have, a priori, decided to be relevant-the patient's conscious dream report and some associations-they reject as "unscientific" all psychological
data gathered by the psychoanalytic method (see below for discussion of biological reductionism).

Scientific Differences with Hobson and Hobson

and Pace-Schott
As scientists, we have four major disagreements with
Hobson's form of biological reductionism and its ramifications in his data gathering and theory building.
First, in his model of the mind-brain, causation is a
one-way street from brain to mind: brain functioning
determines psychological phenomena and psychological phenomena cannot determine brain functioning.
Second, the dream model relies upon an unsubstanti-

Gilmore-Nersessian
ated assumption that there is no unconscious goaldirected mental functioning during sleep. Third, Hobson deprives mental (psychological) data other than
that which confirms his thesis (conscious dream reports and sometimes even those associations are ignored-see below), and in particular psychoanalytic
data, of any scientific status. Fourth, Hobson ignores
the scientific principle that the data observed depend
upon the method of observation when he claims that
psychoanalytic data are invalid because he does not
observe them in psychotherapy.
We wish to be quite clear here that we are not
objecting to Hobson's data or theorizing on the
grounds that the biological and the psychological represent two different domains of study that require two
different sets of data and theory-a model of parallel
dualism (Reiser, 1999). Rather, we maintain the position that there is mind-brain, that while these are two
different domains with two different requirements for
data, these domains interact. This model involves
mind-brain interaction (Sperry, 1983) in which the
mind may direct brain functioning and the brain may
direct mind functioning. In this interactionist model,
there is a possibility of finding correlations between
brain activity and mental activity. We wish to distinguish this mind-brain model from Hobson's biological
reductionism in which the dreaming mind is an epiphenomenon of brain activity.
As to the first point, Hobson's model for dream
formation claims that all the psychological phenomena of dreaming are determined by biological events.
For example, Hobson (1999) states, "The loss of orientational stability (which is at the cognitive root of
dream bizarreness) and the loss of self reflective
awareness (which is the basis of the delusion that we
are awake in our dreams) are two related deficits
which could be caused by the aminergic demodulation
of the brain in sleep" (p. 160). Note also his model
for dream amnesia, "Without the aminergic neuromodulators norepinephrine and serotonin, the mnemonically weak dream trace cannot be converted into
dream recall" (Hobson and Pace-Schott, 1999, p.
212). Dream amnesia is the result of a weak dream
trace due to a shift in neuromodulation. If this is so,
why do we ever recall dreams or why is there variation
in the clarity with which we recall individual dreams
at different points in time? But more importantly, this
form of biological reductionism is disputed by studies
indicating that psychological states and thoughts can
influence brain functioning. For example, in studies
using positron emission tomography (PET), Pardo,
Pardo, and Raichle (1993) measured cerebral blood

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Ongoing Discussion: Hobson and Pace-Schott

flow in subjects at rest and again as the subjects imagined or recalled sad situations. The investigators found
that there were significant differences in regional
blood flow between the two states (Gabbard, 1994).
Gabbard concludes that one implication of these preliminary findings is that psychological influences can
cause neurophysiological changes in the brain (1994,
p. 4); Gabbard extends this reasoning to his summary
of Kandel's experiments on the marine snail indicating
that "synaptic connections can be strengthened and
permanently altered through the regulation of gene
expression connected with learning from the environment" (p. 4). Gabbard (1994) quotes Kandel in his
statement that "it is only insofar as our words produce
changes in each other's brains that psychotherapeutic
intervention produces changes in patients' minds"
(Kandel, 1979).
Our second problem with Hobson's model is that
his biological reductionism eliminates psychological
data as scientific data in the study of the mind or the
brain. We attribute Hobson's statements, such as that
"we find Freud's theory to be scientifically unfounded" (Hobson and Pace-Schott, 1999) to reflect
Hobson's refusal to accept Freud's psychological data
from patient associations in analysis as valid information useful to describing dreams and dream mentation.
We ask Hobson: How does he account for Freud's
accurate description of aspects of dream mentation
such as the importance of long-term memory, vivid
visualization, condensation, displacement, plastic representation, affectively driven plots, regression with
loss of reality testing, and delusional belief in the
dream and dream amnesia? Did Freud make up this
description out of whole cloth or did he derive these
descriptions and models from his psychoanalytic data
garnered from dream analyses? How does Hobson explain Freud's suggestion that there exists two methods
by which the mind can process thoughts, memories,
impulses, and emotions: the primary and secondary
process with the primary process most characteristically observed during dreaming and the secondary process most characteristically observed in waking
thought?
Third, we argue that Hobson's form of biological
reductionism leads him to the assumption that during
sleep there is no unconscious mental functioning that
could impact the brain states. Hobson makes this assumption despite evidence of thinking during sleep
derived from sleep laboratory studies in which patients
were awakened during NREM sleep and reported
thoughts. Also, is Hobson unaware that Freud also
proposed that there were thoughts during nondreaming

205

sleep and that dreams represented only one form of

thinking during sleep? Our point here is that even
when faced with data indicating that thoughts occur
during sleep, Hobson is not considering the possibility
of thoughts during sleep as impacting brain functioning. He is asserting that brain states determine psychological states. If the only data that Hobson will accept
as scientific is the biological data, then how can there
be any place in his model of the dream (a psychobiological phenomenon) for psychological data or determinants? We argue that this is circular reasoning.
For our fourth disagreement with Hobson's scientific approach, we would like to remind him of the
principle that the data observed depend very much on
the method of observation. Let us look at this principle
as it applies in regard to his claims about the transparency of dreams. To most psychoanalysts, many aspects
of the reported dream are as transparent as we assume
they are to Hobson. However, the psychoanalyst uses
the psychoanalytic method of observation (distinct
from psychotherapy) for data collection: the patient's
free associations to elements of his or her dream content are considered valid psychological data about the
dream elements. The psychoanalyst listens to the patient's free associations, as one of us did to the
"green" dream, and finds that other associations to
particular dream events pour forth. For example, in
the "green" dream the patient's associations to the
reported dream point to the connection between the
patient's present sexual longings (his memory of wishing to call J.) and his present sexual prohibition by
his own conscience (neither mother nor wife actually
prohibit his phone call: they only prohibit his phone
call in the patient's mind), and the memories from
childhood of gratified incestuous sexual activities prohibited by mother. None of these associations is present in the reported dream. These thoughts and feelings
are all derived from the patient's associations to the
recalled dream. In the reported dream, all the patient
does is experience danger as he sees himself in a green
room with an unidentified woman. Only in his associations does he link the green room to the upstairs apartment, which in childhood was the site of his satisfied
sexual curiosity and longings. If the psychotherapist
does not listen to the patient's associations and assumes he, the psychotherapist, understands the transparent emotional meaning of the dream, then naturally
that is the understanding at which the psychotherapist
and investigator will remain. We argue that there is a
scientific error involved in this approach to the data.
There is a refusal to acknowledge the principle that
the data that are observed are determined by the

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206

method of observation. This is the same error that a

man observing a cow with his naked eye makes when
he asserts that only the gross anatomical cow that he
observes exists and that the cow is not made up of
cells. When another man observes parts of the cow
with a microscope and proclaims the existence of cells,
the first man denies the existence of cells because he
cannot observe them with his naked eye and refuses
to use a microscope.
At this point we would like to continue to address
the scientific standing of Hobson and Pace-Schott's
approach to the "green" dream. "For us the anxiety
(or terror) is primary, not secondary, and the object
or quality with which it was associated can be almost
anything" (Hobson and Pace-Schott, 1999, p. 207;
emphasis added). We would like to point out to Hobson and Pace-Schott that it is the patient who had the
dream and not them. Thus the psychological data, just
as the biological data on brain state, to be considered
must come from the patient, not from them. According
to the psychoanalytic method of observation, it is not
to their (Hobson, Pace-Schott, or the analyst's) associations that the analyst looks in an attempt to understand the meaning to the patient of his dream but to the
patient's associations. The patient does not mention
terror: whose association is this? Whose dream is it
anyway? The patient says nothing about terror, but he
does give multiple associations to the events of the
previous day, to his present and past sexual excitements, to his memories of childhood sexual play and
the places in which it took place, to his mother, to his
associations of green to his mother and to his mother's
angry prohibitions of incestuous sexual activities. It is
our argument that, in this instance, Hobson and PaceSchott's claim that "the object or quality with which
it [this anxiety] was asociated can be almost anything"
represents their refusal to accept the patient's associations to his dream as the scientific data in the realm
ofpsychology to which the scientist must account. The
scientist is not free to disregard the patient's associations (after all it is the patient who has had the dream)
and assert by biological data that the object or quality
with which the anxiety can be associated can be almost anything.
We think this example represents in a nutshell
Hobson's refusal to use psychoanalytic data as important information in trying to understand the meaning of the psychobiological event of the dream to the
patient. Furthermore, this is a good example of Hobson's refusal to acknowledge the importance of the
method of observation in the determination of the data
to be employed in theory building. Hobson and Pace-

Gilmore-Nersessian
Schott refuse to use the patient's free associations or
the analytic method (microscope) of observation.
We would like to add here that Hobson's claim
that psychoanalysts think all dreams must be transference dreams is a creation of Hobson's. This claim is
not a finding of Freudian analysis. By the way, was
such a claim made about the "green" dream?
Hobson and Pace-Schott asked us (p. 207) why
the patient would need to disguise or symbolize his
mother's disapproval of his temptations or would we
think that if the patient simply dreamt that he was
talking to his mother and she explained concern about
his impulsiveness that he would awaken. Our answer
is that now it is not his mother's disapproval or his
own internal disapproval that must be disguised. What
the patient must disguise is his satisfaction of his sexuallongings: the patient defies his mother and his conscience in his dream and returns to the scene in
childhood in which he defied the prohibitions and
gained sexual satisfaction. The dream protects the patient's sleep only to the degree to which the dream
represents the patient's present sexual longings as satisfied in a sufficiently disguised form. Sexual excitements left over from the previous day are making
demands on the sleeper's mind that he find satisfaction
for them. These demands leave the sleeping patient in
the situation of either having to awaken to find sexual
satisfaction in the present or, if Freud were right, to
maintain sleep by dreaming of sexual satisfaction and
thus trying to delude himself that these demands have
been satisfied. As we said in our report, we agree
with Hobson and Pace-Schott, this dream fails and the
patient awakens. His sleep is not protected.
For another example of Hobson and PaceSchott's unscientific approach to building models for
dream formation, let us focus on their reaction to the
issue of the dream as guardian of sleep. Despite Hobson and Pace-Schott's assertion that psychoanalysts
do not question their theory, Mark Solms (1999) correctly reported that this psychoanalytic proposition
has never been tested and suggested clinicopathological studies. Hobson's argument for his disagreement
with the thesis that the dream might act as the guardian
of sleep underscores the non-data-driven assertions
that he makes. He and Pace-Schott state, "We have
grave doubts about (i) the philosophical assumptions
of the hypothesis (how can a dream, which is a psychological experience, serve a physiological function?), (ii) its intrinsic validity (dreaming might have
many other functions or even be an epiphenomenon),
and (iii) its testability" (p. 220). Is it beyond Hobson
and Pace-Schott's consideration that a psychological

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Ongoing Discussion: Hobson and Pace-Schott

event (a dream) could influence a neurophysiological
event such as brain functioning during sleep? Could it
be that a psychological phenomenon (dreaming) could
have an impact on the neurophysiology? (See above
for a more detailed description and critique of Hobson's specific form of biological reductionism.) Or is
questioning the intrinsic validity of something the
same as asserting that it is true, without testing it?
Is psychological data by its nature unscientific and
inadmissable?
Let us look at another example of Hobson and
Pace-Schott's lack of scientific approach to data as it
occurs in their discussion of dream amnesia (Hobson
and Pace-Schott, 1999). Allen Braun (1999) raises
doubts about their strictly biological model for dream
amnesia by noting the observable fact that dream amnesia is atypical and variable. In response, Hobson
offers the frequency of his own waking recall of
dreams (a study with a sample size of one, no controls,
and which disregards data from other sleepers!) as
proof that dream amnesia must be only biologically
determined and that the psychological model of repression has been disproved!

Hobson and Pace-Schott as Psychotherapists

Let us address our reactions to Hobson and PaceSchott as psychotherapists. Hobson and Pace-Schott
assert (p. 207) that as psychotherapists they have two
principles in regard to work with dreams: one, that
dreams are characterized by transparent emotional salience, and two, that all dreams are hyperassociative.
Well, we could not agree more and are pleased that
dreams are no longer the meaningless epiphenomena
of the activation-synthesis model of Hobson and
McCarley (1977). However, we feel compelled to tell
Hobson, if he has certain principles that he applies to
the clinical work and case reports of others, then he
should also apply them to himself. When he makes
assertions about how he understands dreams as a psychotherapist, why not offer the reader one of his cases
with all the requirements for an unedited clinical report, controls, and an alternative explanatory model
that he demands of us in a brief synopsis? Where is
his clinical data to support his assertions?
In this same section of comments, Hobson and
Pace-Schott then claim to be not only psychotherapists
but psychodynamic psychotherapists. What do Hobson
and Pace-Schott mean by dynamic-conflict but only
conscious conflict? If they are psychodynamic psychotherapists, why don't they understand the patient's

reasons for disguising from himself the connection between his present sexual longings and the gratified
but prohibited (then by mother, and now by his own
conscience) incestuous activities of childhood? Perhaps Drs. Hobson and Pace-Schott assume Freud's
ideas to be mythology because they refuse to consider
the possibility of unconscious mental processes affecting conscious experience?

Hobson and Pace-Schott's Questions to

Gilmore and Nersessian
We find it necessary to begin this section by offering
a more detailed description of the Freudian model of
dream formation. We hope this more detailed summary will clarify some of the answers that we offer
to the questions Hobson and Pace-Schott have posed
for us. As will become evident, we think that some of
the questions Hobson and Pace-Schott ask are derived
from a misunderstanding of Freud's theory of the mind
and dreaming.
Freud proposed the psychological construct of the
mind, or what he called the mental apparatus, as the
mental functions that developed to serve the function
of satisfying bodily and emotional demands in such a
manner as to be both gratifying of the person's needs
and consistent with the offerings and limitations of the
external environment. The mental apparatus received
input from the external world through sensory perceptions and input from the internal bodily world from
the internal bodily perceptions and emotions. Freud
proposed that the mind had two processes available
for handling these internal and external perceptions
and their demands for mental work: the primary and
secondary process. The dreaming mind employed the
more archaic primary process. The primary process
handled a demand by rapidly recalling prior experiences of gratification (memories) and presenting them
to the mind as present experiences (i.e., as hallucinated
present realities). The primary process was characterized by visual memory processing, lack of verbal representation of the perception or demand, lack of
rational thought and logic, and lack of reality testing.
The awake mind employed the more advanced secondary process. The secondary process was characterized
by putting the demands into verbal form, associating
these verbal symbols with memories for prior relevant
experience, categorizing these memories and putting
them into verbal thoughts, which could then be treated
with logic, and searching the data from incoming sen-

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208
sory perceptions for possibilities for satisfaction available in the external world.
In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud asserted
that the mind continued throughout sleep to respond
to demands placed upon it by the body and its internal
perceptions and also by some weakened perceptions
received from the external world. He proposed that
while this mental processing took place throughout
sleep, that at some points there was an upsurge in
some appetitive demands from within the body. This
upsurge in appetitive demands from the sleeping body
made upon the sleeping mind coincided with a weakness in the mental apparatus characterized by severely
decreased executive functions of the mind (secondary
process functions) and severely decreased reception
of sensory information from the external world to the
mind (blocking of sensory input from the external
world). He also stated that this appetitive upsurge and
weakening of the executive functions of the mental
apparatus was usually accompanied by a motor paralysis. Freud proposed that manifest dreams were the result of the mental apparatus responding to these
demands by processing them with primary process
mechanisms.
From the data he gathered from dream analyses
on adults, Freud hypothesized that frustrated appetitive longings from the previous day, when they were
reenforced by earlier, more primitive, and unsatisfied
appetitive demands, made demands of sufficient intensity to require that the mental apparatus respond with
some gratification. In order that the sleeping mind attempt to satisfy these demands in the awake mind's
usual secondary process manner, including rational
thoughts leading to rational motor actions in reality,
the mind would have to awaken its executive mental
functions, its executive control over motor actions, and
its conscious perception of sensory information from
the external world. Thus, in order to try to satisfy the
demand by processing it in its usual adult secondary
process manner, the sleeping mind would have to
awaken.
Again, from the data he gathered from the patient's associations to dreams, Freud hypothesized the
following process for the formation of a dream. During sleep, the mental apparatus registered the upsurge
of an intense appetitive demand in a verbal secondary
process manner. Freud suggested that the intense appetitive demand was capable of obtaining verbal representation from the executive function of the mind
during sleep because although the executive functions
were severely weakened during sleep, there was still
some weak executive functioning available. Actually,

Gilmore-Nersessian
he suggested that the amount of available executive
mental functioning probably varied throughout the
sleep cycle according to the varying level of consciousness of the patient. Freud further suggested that
the weakened executive function of the secondary process also had the capacity to reject this now verbal
demand as unacceptable for psychological reasons for
further representation and treatment by the secondary
process. He labeled the executive function responsible
for this rejection the censor. Next, the sleeping mind,
in response to the blocked access to secondary process, treated this now verbal appetitive demand
through a different, more archaic and primitive mode
of handling demands. Freud labeled this archaic mode
the primary process, and it handled a demand by rapidly recalling prior experiences of gratification (memories) and presenting them to the mind as present
experiences; that is, as hallucinated present realities.
Thus, the sleeping mind employing primary process
tried to convince the dreamer that his appetitive demand was being satisfied and thus there was no need
to awaken.
Freud suggested that the primary process was
characterized by affective-driven motivation; visual
rather than verbal memory representation; and rapid
recall of multiple different memories of experiences
of gratification. These memories could be associated
easily on the basis of one shared characteristic or affective tone (displacement) and could easily be combined into one image or one composite image
(condensation), and be presented as a present experience in which the dreamer believed delusionally (loss
of reality testing). The primary process lacked the verbal encoding, categorization of memories, verbal
thinking in thoughts, and logical treatment of thoughts
that characterize the secondary process. Freud claimed
that the primary process treated words and thoughts,
not as symbolic representations with specific meanings, but as concrete objects that could be chopped up
and associated with one another, like any other concrete object such as a chair or a person on the basis
of a single characteristic such as their accompanying
sound. Thus the word nun could be substituted by the
associated word none, not on the basis of shared definition of the symbolic meaning of the word but only
on the basis of the sound of the word. Or the word
nun could be associated by sound to none and then
represented in plastic visual manner by an empty container (none). Thus, the words expressing the appetitive demand, when subjected to treatment by the
primary process during dream formation, would be

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Ongoing Discussion: Hobson and Pace-Schott

chopped up or associated on the basis of similar sound

or represented in plastic forms in the dream content.
Another point to be emphasized is the fact that
in Freud's model of dream formation the motivation
for censorship derived from the censor (the weakened
executive function of the secondary process) but the
mode of censorship derived from the manner of processing the demand or from the primary process treatment of the demand (primitive archaic function). Thus
the motivation for censorship is correlated with the
censor and secondary process but the mode of censorship is the result of primary process nonverbal functioning. We wish to emphasize this point because
whether Freud was right or wrong, Hobson is frequently confused in his understanding of this point in
the theory. Hobson assumes that the censor (an executive function of the mind and thus secondary process
in Freud's model) is responsible for creating the bizarreness of the dream mentation and then questions
how this can be possible if the forebrain (the seat of
executive mental functions) is relatively deactivated
during REM sleep and dreaming. In Freudian dream
theory, the dream bizarreness is a product of the primary process mode of treatment of the appetitive demand. The secondary process censor is responsible
only for lending the demand verbal representation and
then blocking the demand's access to further secondary process treatment by the sleeping mind.
As an aside we would like to mention here that
Freud described all of these bizarre characteristics of
dream mentation (vivid visualization, condensation,
displacement, concrete treatment of words, regression
to delusional experiencing, and lack of reality testing)
in The Interpretation of Dreams. We are puzzled why
Hobson when making the same descriptions of dream
mentation never cites Freud's descriptions (Hobson
and McCarley, 1977; Hobson, 1999). Perhaps this
lapse in recall or reading can explain Hobson and
Pace-Schott's claim that "the problem, as Solms must
recognize, is that if disguise-censorship is explicitly
renounced (as we think it should be), there is really
nothing left to the Freudian dream theory" (Hobson
and Pace-Schott, 1999). What has happened to Freud's
elegant descriptions of primary process dream mentation (including vivid visualization, affective motivation, condensation, displacement, lack of reality
testing and delusional belief in the dream) and of secondary process mentation as characteristic of awake
mind functioning? What has happened to Freud's
claim for the emotional salience of dreams; and to his
claim for the importance of early memories to dream
content; and to his proposition that the sleeping mind

209

continues to think throughout the night but only sometimes does this "thinking" take the form of a dream?
Were these observations and proposals, which are all
part of Freud's dream theory, complete mythology so
that if dream censorship is disproved then nothing is
left of Freudian dream theory?
To continue with Freud's model of dream formation. Freud proposed that mind continued to make
modifications to dream material throughout its awakening from sleep and often throughout the following
day. He based this hypothesis on his observation that
patients continued to make changes in their reported
dreams when asked to repeat them or when they spontaneously repeated them. Freud suggested that as the
mental apparatus awakened and gained access to more
secondary process functions, the awakening or awake
patient added secondary process comments such as
"This is only a dream" or rearranged dream content
in more narrative sequential order-secondary revision-in order, if necessary, to further disguise the
gratified but prohibited dream event. Freud pointed
out that in these instances, the awakening or awake
mind employs the secondary process in a defensive
manner (as contrasted with the primary process contributions to dream formation that result in more bizarre
dream content). Now the awake or awakening patient
can employ his increasingly available secondary process functions, including repression (forgetting or the
ability to ignore unacceptable mental content), to defend the awake patient from recognition of his having
satisfied the prohibited appetitive demand during
dreaming sleep. If successful in his secondary process
defense, the patient will repress his awareness of the
appetitive demand and forget his dream. Thus, Freud
explains dream amnesia by the ability of the secondary
process executive functions of the awake mind to ignore the unacceptable appetitive demands.
Finally, we wish to emphasize that Freud's model
of dream formation includes a dynamic balance between the appetitive drive and its prohibition and dynamic balance between primary and secondary
process treatment of this appetitive demand. Freud
proposed that the sleeper passed through different levels of consciousness throughout the night (and daytime
also for that matter), and that perhaps the primary and
secondary processes corresponded to different levels
of sleep-wakefulness.
Now for Hobson's and Pace-Schott's questions.
As for their first question regarding stimulus discharge, our definition of psychic stimuli as the appetitive demand should help to clarify the confusion raised
by our use of the word stimulus in our previous synop-

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210
sis. We are referring to a psychological stimulus and
not to an electrical neurochemical stimulus. Their
question is simply why do we need psychological solutions to psychological stimuli? Why can't we have a
purely physiological sleep maintenance model? Our
answer is that there probably is a physiological sleep
maintenance function, but the evidence from analytic
dream interpretations is that there is also a psychological sleep maintenance function that comes into play
when psychobiological demands arising during sleep
threaten to prematurely disrupt sleep. In these instances, dreams help maintain sleep by misleading the
sleeper into believing that these demands have been
satisfied, at least temporarily.
As for the answer to their second question regarding the biological correlates in brain functioning for
the mental phenomena of primary process, we think
Drs. Hobson and Pace-Schott are in a much better
position as expert neurophysiologists and researchers
to answer the question about possible brain activity
site correlations. However, perhaps the limbic lobe
regional activation and posterolateral cortical activation in combination with the relative defrontalization
of REM sleep, to which Hobson and Pace-Schott
(1999) attribute dream bizarreness, are correlates?
Question number three about the reason an experience must become verbal in order to be in the system
conscious, is a question of definition of the characteristics of the system conscious or secondary process
functioning as described by Freud. He spawned these
confusions by his inconsistent use of the words conscious and unconscious. Freud's original use of the
labels conscious and unconscious were as purely descriptive of whether the person was consciously aware
or not of the particular psychological phenomena or
perception. However, in The Interpretation ofDreams,
Freud used the term the system conscious to denote
the secondary process system of treating appetitive
demands and the system unconscious to denote the
characteristics of the primary process treatment of appetitive demands. A characteristic of secondary process treatment by the mental apparatus was that the
demand be represented by a verbal symbol that would
allow the demand to be specifically categorized, and
thought about logically. Freud claimed that some feelings, thoughts, and impulses were treated by the secondary process or system conscious but that the
process could take place in a descriptively unconscious
or preconscious state of awareness. Thus, a person
could process thoughts with the system conscious, using secondary process mental function but do so in a
descriptively unconscious state of awareness; that is,

Gilmore-Nersessian
be consciously unaware of his thinking. Thus some of
Hobson's premonitions and intuitions may be the result of descriptively unconscious thoughts that are
nevertheless processed by the system conscious and
to which the person only has some feeling awareness.
In question number four, Hobson and PaceSchott point out that cortical areas known to be involved in verbal processing and expression are relatively deactivated in REM and NREM sleep and they
ask how could this neurophysiological data correlate
with the Freudian claim that associations to manifest
dream reports reveal that word play and plastic representation of words contribute to manifest dream content? This word play and plastic representation are
consistent with Freud's model of the dreaming mind
as employing the nonverbal primary process in which
words are treated as concrete things (see explanation
above). The point is that the words are not treated as
symbolic representations of their specific referents but
rather as objects characterized by their sound or implied shapes. Thus the Freudian model would predict
a relative deactivation of brain areas correlated with
verbal and executive functions (frontal lobes?) and an
increased activation of brain areas that might correlate
with more primitive primary process functioning in
which words would be treated as things.
Could Freud's hypothesis that there are two
methods by which the mind may treat appetitive demands, the archaic primary process and the newer secondary process, be correlated with relative shifts in
activity level in older and newer brain areas? Could
not Freud's hypothesis be correlated with Hobson and
Pace-Schott's physiological claims that the biological
brain in sleep is characterized by "a brain state in
which there is selective activation in the pontine brainstem, the deep mediobasal subcortex, the limbic system, the paralymbic cortices, unimodal associative
cortices, and the parieto-tempero-occipital-junction"
and by "selective deactivation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex" (Hobson and Pace-Schott, 1999), p.
219.
The answer to Hobson's question as to why
dreams of convenience are rare in adults is that Freud
concluded from analyzing the dreams of adults that
only when the minor appetitive demands arising during the night (hunger, thirst, etc.) could gain force by
linking up with more forceful, primitive demands that
remained unsatisfied in daily life due to their prohibition in the civilized person, would the minor appetitive
demand reach sufficient intensity to require some satisfaction through dream formation. Otherwise, even
the weakened adult mental apparatus of sleep was ca-

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Ongoing Discussion: Hobson and Pace-Schott

pable of ignoring minor appetitive demands. Freud

suggested that dreams of convenience may be more
common in young children who have less developed
secondary process mental capacities and thus when
those processes are further weakened during sleep, minor appetitive demands may be sufficient to demand
satisfaction with a dream of convenience.

and which reject the scientific validity of psychoanalytic data and dismiss the possibility that mental processes, both conscious and unconscious, may dictate
brain functioning. However, these neurophysiological
explorations are challenging and expand our knowledge of brain processes during sleep and dreaming and
we hope these fruitful discussions continue.

Conclusion

References

We would like to conclude this commentary by thanking Drs. Hobson and Pace-Schott for providing us with
such a thorough review of the present neurophysiological information on sleep and dreaming. More especially, we would like to thank them for their trenchant
critique of Freudian dream theory, because this critique stimulated our thinking about mind-brain models
based upon either assumptions about mind-brain interaction or mind-brain biological reductionism. This increased our curiosity about the results of more recent
PET studies on the brains of people that image them
in different psychological situations or when they are
recalling particular types of memories. Hobson and
Pace-Schott's tough questions challenged us to clarify
our description of Freudian dream theory.
Finally, as Dr. Braun (1999) stated, we recognized that neurophysiologists and psychoanalysts now
agree on many aspects of dream investigation: the
emotional salience of dreams; the importance of early
memories in dreams; the descriptions of characteristics of manifest dream mentation; the descriptions of
the differences in the form of mentation in dreaming
and waking thought; and the forgetting of dreams. The
neurophysiological findings on the dreaming brain
raise interesting correlations between Freud's model
of dream formation and the neurophysiologist's model
of brain functioning during REM sleep. However,
there are also important disagreements between the
psychoanalysts and some of the neurophysiologists.
We object to theories that rely strictly upon unproven
and contradicted models of biological reductionism

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Reiser, M. F. (1999), Commentary on J. Allan Hobson. This

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Columbia University Press.
Margaret M. Gilmore, M.D.
120 East 75th Street
New York, NY 10021
Edward Nersessian, M.D.
72 East 91 st Street
New York, NY 10128
e-mail: enerss@worldnet.att.net