The Roles of Control Mastery Theory in a New Model of REM Dreaming

It is possible to understand rapid eye-movement (REM) dreams during sleep as thoroughly rational cognitive expressions, but only if the Control Mastery viewpoint is used to interpret REM dream events. This is what I hope to indicate with this note. My work involves reanalyzing and reinterpreting Freud's dreams from the point of view of dream structure. The examples I offer come from an analysis of the dream entitled "Irma's Injection."

It is easy to accept a REM dream at face value and conclude that it is irrational, yet other animals also dream, and those dreams must have survival value. Therefore, if REM dreams address cognitive issues at all, they must do so in a reality-based manner, one that, if anything, is more perceptive than waking cognitive processes. This, in any case, is the viewpoint taken here. Continually in my interpretations I am forced to say that Freud was more aware of the circumstances of his life while dreaming than he was when awake. This position makes no sense except within the context of Control Mastery Theory.

Adult sleep begins with a non-REM (NREM) period, which starts a sequence of NREM-REM cycles. The cycles are NREM-REM and not REM-NREM because NREM sleep is a preparation for REM sleep. In the REM state, mental content is literally experienced, whereas in NREM sleep it is not. This is the most fundamental distinction between the two modes of sleep.

The NREM-REM cycles are indicative of a problem solving activity directed at reconciling the events of the previous waking period with those held in memory from the past. During NREM sleep, a provisional solution is developed. This solution is then experienced during REM sleep by way of testing its conformity to "reality." That is, the solution is experienced in the real world of the dreamer's memory. Evocations from this real world become new data that the dreamer strives to incorporate in the next dream solution. REM dream solutions thus generally get "better" in the sense of being more in tune with past experience. It is in this way perhaps that childhood memories maintain their hold over adult behavior. One aim of this NREM-REM sleep process is to provide the sleeper with the motives he or she will find available and potentially valuable during the next waking interval.

To indicate more clearly what I mean I will quote from an early paper by Offenkrantz and Rechtschaffen, who interpreted the successive dreams of subjects during nights of sleep using the methods of T.M. French: "Despite the high variability of manifest content, all the dreams of a night were concerned either with the same conflict or with a limited number of different conflicts. Second, we believe the data support the hypothesis, derived from French's approach, that the organization of any particular dream depends at least in part on the consequences of the attempted solution to the conflict in the previous dreams. For example, when the solution of a problem in one dream was relatively gratifying, the dreamer usually would attempt an even bolder gratification of a disturbing wish in the next dream. In turn, reactive motives such as fear of retaliation, fear of loss of love, guilt, or shame were stimulated by the bolder gratification. Thus, an alternation of predominantly gratifying and predominantly disturbing dreams in the same night was not unusual. Third, we believe the data support the hypothesis of a parallel between the sequence of waking behavior and the defensive-adaptive ego activities in the dream sequence." (Archives of General Psychiatry, 8, 1963, 497-508).

The following assumptions underlie the dream interpretative method used here:

1. Dreams are made up of memories. These memories are associated with the various dream elements comprising each dream moment and participate directly in the selection of those elements. This is in contrast to the Freudian concept of how memories give rise to manifest content.

2. One can discover such memories by free-associating to each dream element in turn, much as Freud did.

3. Use of rules 1 and 2 shows that the memories that participate in each dream moment are not linked to dream elements in a helter-skelter fashion, but rather the linked memories belong together in a rational way. That is, the dreamer has brought them together because they are similar to one another. For example, in the Irma dream, the memories associated with the Irma image relate to various women who rejected Freud's therapeutic interpretations. Likewise, associated with the Freud image are memories related to incidents when various men also rejected Freud's interpretations.

4. As Jung suggested, REM dreams seem nonsensical because they represent a superior form of thought. In computer parlance, a dream is an instance of parallel processing.

5. In analyzing a dream for overall content, one sorts among the various memories, looking for memory groupings. Memories that relate to one another will be found to deal with both resolved and unresolved life situations. Memories relating to unresolved situations are the subjects of the dream, while the memories of similar but resolved situations from the relatively distant past are models of how the unresolved situations may turn out if the course of action followed is similar to that taken in the past. This rule has fairly obvious roots in the Control Mastery Theory.

Application of rules 1, 2, and 3 in terms of the above example leads to the curious conclusion that Freud was not only resisting his own therapeutic interpretations, but that he was aware of it, at least at the unconscious level.

That Freud at times withheld belief in his own germinating psychological principles at this period in his life is plainly obvious from the historical record. He routinely submitted himself and his patients to the scrutiny of his friend Wilhelm Fliess and allowed Fliess to prescribe treatments based on medical concepts radically different from Freud's, even though such treatments sometimes had disastrous consequences. Another curious aspect of this behavior is that the maladies Freud ran to Fliess to cure were without exception conditions Freud had successfully treated using his own methods. It is clear that Freud was testing Fliess's credibility as an authority figure. This sort of unconscious testing is part and parcel of the Control Mastery Theory.

Application of rule 5 shows the presence of memories of incidences when following the dictates of authority figures had disastrous consequences. Found also are incidences when courses of action not sanctioned by authority figures led to unexpectedly good results. Found, in addition, are painful memories when lapses in thoroughness on Freud's part led to missed opportunities for great success.

These three memory groupings provide clear motivational direction. They indicate that the path to success possibly lies in being thorough when following a course of action not sanctioned by authority figures. And that is precisely the direction Freud was motivated to take when he awoke. He immediately subjected the Irma dream to "exhaustive" examination. It was the first time he ever systematically applied his dream interpretation method to any dream.

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