An Evolutionary Theory of Dreaming

Thinking about thinking is hard, and thinking about dreaming is harder. Believe it or not, there is only one evolutionary theory of dreaming seriously at work these days in academia. Indeed, a theory supporting the biological function of dreams has a steep hill to climb, as we don’t really have a complete theory for the biological function of sleep. So dreaming is still an unknown within an unknown.

But that hasn’t stopped Antti Revonsuo, a Finnish philosopher who teaches at the University of Turku. At the 2008 IASD conference last month, researcher Katja Valli discussed the newest findings of the Revonsuo’s team in regards to their Threat Simulation Theory for dreams.

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The Trouble with Dream Studies

This essay introduces a series of articles about the difficulties facing dream studies as a field of knowledge. These difficulties emerge at every level of participation with dreaming, from third-person gathering of dream reports to first-person remembered experience. How do we know what we know? What is the spectrum of possibility for human consciousness? What is real?

In science, these values are usually not transparent. However, in the study of dreams our personal beliefs influence our perception so much that we literally experience different realities. That’s why dream interpretation is dismissed by hard scientists, and also why Freudians dream about their mothers and Jungians dream about Germanic mythological creatures.

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Media Watch: Dreams article in Parade Magazine

I was pleasantly surprised to see a new article about the value of dreaming in the Oct 28, 2007 edition of Parade Magazine. In this piece, author Robert Moss discusses the role of dreams in creativity, problem-solving, emotional intelligence, and possibly human evolution.

Moss writes:

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Ancient humans were slackers

Nature is about to publish a fantastic archaeological discovery. A cave site in South Africa has been excavated by archaeologists, revealing an ancient human encampment complete with cooked mussel shells, small stone tools, and some red ocre.

What makes this ensemble so incredible is that it has been dated to @ 160,000 years ago – roughly 40,000 years “too early” by yesterday’s history textbooks. If the dates are not contested, this has some powerful new implications for the way human evolution is seen to occur.

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