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The Mystery of Dreaming

Tom Stoneham

• 25 September 2015
  8.10pm-8.30pm

• King's Manor KG07 (map)

• FREE admission
  No booking required

• No wheelchair access

Event details

Some dreams appear to be precognitions: they incorporate external events, such as loud noises, in a way which seems like the dream was leading up to them. A famous example is Freud’s description of Maury’s dream, but the experience is quite common. Since the 19^th century this phenomenon has been used to challenge the received view that dream reports are recollections of nocturnal experiences, of a hidden inner world. My research develops a theory of dream reporting as prompted confabulation, as false-memory narratives we make up when awake to explain genuine memories of nocturnal experiences such as interoception, proprioception and sensory stimulation. One advantage of this theory is that it also explains why our dreams seem to tell us so much about ourselves: our dream reports are in fact expressions of our creativity.

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