Current Application of Horney Theory to Dream Interpretation

Almost 35 years have passed since I was first introduced to Horney's method of dream interpretation. During this period, many important discoveries and changes have developed in research on dreaming, yet only slight modification has been required to update her approach to the interpretation of dreams. Before I explain the reasons for this, I would like to differentiate between the psychology-physiology of dreaming and the interpretation of dreams. Most of the research of the past 25 years has taken place in the area of the former. With the discovery by Aserinsky and Kleitman of the role of rapid eye movement (REM),¹ which is associated with dreaming and which is a process that can be monitored, we can now note precisely when and if a person is dreaming. This procedure has given rise to many new theories about REM and its relationship to various planes of sleep as well as to the significance of REM in human beings and even in animals, and finally to the consequences of REM deprivation. Some of these findings have proven to be contradictory.

For example, it was at first believed that REM sleep deprivation produced almost psychotic states that disappeared only when the individual was permitted to sleep sufficiently to compensate for the dreaming of which he or she had been deprived. This discovery challenged Freud's dictum that the dream was the protector of sleep. In the light of some recent research, it seemed that we slept in order to dream. Subsequent research, however, failed to confirm this finding with any consistency.

The electrical activity of the human brain was first recorded by Berger in 1928.² One of the observations that led Berger to believe the rhythms he recorded were of physiological origin was the change that occurred when the subject went to sleep. The obvious implication was that the brain changed state when the mind changed state, in passing from waking to