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Mental activity occurring automatically and below awareness lies in the unconscious domain. One task of unconscious mental activity is the organization and maintenance of categories. A category is defined as a class or grouping of associated items. This paper will attempt to show, through clinical example and introspection, that categories are developed and maintained by dreams; that categories have a neural substrate and an accompanying neural energy; and that, like all neural events, category activity is subject to inhibitory-excitatory pressures with consequent potential for dysregulation.
Immediate recent waking events (the day residue) become integral components of a night's dream. The dream image may be identical to the waking person or object or may be unequivocally associated (Epstein, 1985). The dream image is recognized as unequivocally associated if it shares an attribute—is in the same category—as the waking person or object.
In a self-introspective study of 50 dreams, 18 images were unequivocally associated (Epstein, 1988). For example, while awake a blond woman is seen; the dream image is a different blond woman. The category is blondness, women, or blond women. Or, while awake a man is seen with an amputation below the knee. The dream image is a woman with a bifid leg below the knee. Here, although there may be more complex categories, the simplest shared attribute is a leg deformity.
The following are three of the six dreams Freud (Freud 1900/1955) reported to show dream dependence on waking events.