Dela Vega 1

Christen Junelle Dela Vega

Professor Seligman
Psychology 1
02 October 2014
The Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis of Dreaming
There are various theories about dreams and dreaming. The ACTIVATIONSYNTHESIS HYPOTHESIS OF DREAMING states that dreams are the brains attempt
to make sense of the random firing of brain cells during REM SLEEP (Wood 131). Just
like when were awake and our brain makes sense of all the things around us, our brain
also tries to do that in sleep with our sensations and memories (Wood 131). However, in
sleep our SEROTONIN valve is turned off, bringing about a state of consciousness ruled
by strong emotions and uncanny sensations (Hurd). Therefore, our dreams are random
and often dont make much sense because were trying to make sense of random feelings,
memories, and emotions. Hobson also believed that dreams also have a psychological
significance, because the meaning a person imposes on the random mental activity
reflects that persons experiences, remote memories, associations, drives, and fears
(Wood 131). Hes saying that theres a meaning to all of the random elements that appear
in our dreams. I dream late at night during my deepest sleep, which according to the
CIRCADIAN RHYTHM is after 2 a.m. My dreams support this THEORY because
theres a lot of random things and people in my REM DREAMS that dont make sense to
me.
In my experience, all of my dreams that I have in sleep, which is a form of an
ALTERED STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS, are random and have almost nothing to do

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with current things going on in my life at the moment. For example, I often dream about
people who I hardly know and only met a few times. They usually play a significant part
in my dream. Thats probably my brain trying to make sense of random MEMORIES that
are in my head. One specific dream I remember, was that some people I remember from
my middle school and I were all living together in my grandmothers house. There were
even people there that I never talked to, only saw in class and what not. And this dream
occurred once I was already in high school. I suppose that in this specific dream, my
brain was trying to make sense of all the people that were from my childhood memories.
At first, I believed there was a meaning behind it like maybe I shouldve been friends
with those people and talked to them more or something. But after reading about the
activation-synthesis hypothesis of dreaming, I dont think there was any meaning behind
this dream. My brain was just trying to make sense of my random memories and
experiences.
In some of my dreams, random elements are put together that seem to have
nothing to do with each other. For example, I had this one dream where I was in Las
Vegas with my old best friend from elementary school. We never went to Las Vegas
together so that was really puzzling to me. I myself go to Las Vegas quite often so I have
a lot of memories there. I also have a lot of memories with my old best friend so in that
one dream those memories just got put together to create something. That dream also
caused me to think about how much I missed my elementary school best friend. I was
somewhat sad for the next couple of days after that. The FRONTAL LOBES in the brain
caused me to have this emotional response to my dream. The dream most likely caused
me to impose meaning on it, telling me that I missed her even though I never really

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thought about her for years up until that dream. I believe that my brain just pulled a
random emotion from my past that was associated with the person in my dream. There
was probably no meaning to it, it was just a dream where my brain pulled random
memories and emotions and just stuck them together. Another dream that was really
random and unexpected was when I dreamed that a celebrity, Lucy Hale from Pretty
Little Liars, came to my house. In the dream I wasnt star struck however, because we
were really good friends. This is obviously really random because I dont know Lucy
Hale personally, Ive only seen her on television, magazines, the Internet, etc. However,
for this dream I didnt believe there was any special meaning behind it. I just figured that
I see her a lot and I am a big fan of hers so she just happened to appear in my dream as a
friend of mine. She was pulled from my memories probably from me seeing her on
television, and I have plenty of memories from my home so those random memories and
emotions were put together to create this bizarre dream.
I am guilty of putting meaning into my random dreams. There was this one dream
where I was doing a class presentation and my teacher told me to stop and sit down
because I was doing so bad. This amplified my fear of public speaking and made it grow
ten times bigger. I believed that this was a sign that my public speaking was horrible and
made me even more scared for my upcoming class presentations. The AMYGDALA
plays a role in my fear of public speaking because it helps form vivid memories of
emotional events (Wood 48) so I still recall my fear inducing emotions. I still have a
fear of public speaking, but its not as bad as it was when that dream was still fresh in my
head. Another instance where I impose meaning into my dreams is when I dream of
people who I dont know that well or havent associated with in a while. I feel like its a

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sign or something that I should get closer with that person and become good friends with
them. Now I know that its just my brain making sense of random memories that come to
me during sleep, but sometimes I still feel like theres a meaning behind the people in my
dreams. I also sometimes experience REM REBOUND when I am woken up
unpleasantly and go back to my deep sleep and continue dreaming. On rare occasions, I
want to go back to the dream I was in before I was interrupted and I am actually able to
take myself back there.
Hobson activation-synthesis hypothesis of dreaming states that dreams are
simply the brains attempt to make sense of the random firing of brain cells during REM
sleep (Wood 131). My dreams support this hypothesis because they are all very often
random and contain random and vague memories that are in my brain. These dreams
become significant to me because I impose meaning on them, believing they are a sign
for something.

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Works Cited
Hurd, Ryan. "Allan Hobson and the Neuroscience of Dreams." Dream
Studies Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.
http://dreamstudies.org/2010/01/07/neuroscience-of-dreams/
Wood, Samuel E. et al. The World of Psychology. 7th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2011.
Print.