R E V I S I T I N G D R E A M S : I N T E R D I S C I P L I N A R Y P E R S P E C T I V E S O N D R E A M R E S E A R C H A N D S C I E N C E š tev i lka /number 109/110 • letnik / volume 28, 2023 UREDILA / EDITED BY MAJA GUTMAN MUŠIČ KELLY BULKELEY P O L I G R A F I Revija Društva za primerjalno religiologijo (Koper, Slovenija) / A journal of the Society for Comparative Religion (Koper, Slovenija) ISSN 1318-8828, ISSN (spletna izd./online ed.) 2232-5174 Glavna urednika / Editors-in-Chief: Helena Motoh (ZRS Koper), Lenart Škof (ZRS Koper) Uredniški odbor / Editorial Board: Nadja Furlan Štante (ZRS Koper), Miha Pintarič (University of Ljubljana), Rok Svetlič (ZRS Koper), Igor Škamperle (University of Ljubljana), Mojca Terčelj (University of Primorska), Anja Zalta (University of Ljubljana) Pisarna uredništva / Editorial Office: Znanstveno-raziskovalno središče Koper / Science and Research Centre Koper, Inštitut za filozofske in religijske študije / Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies, Garibaldijeva 1, SI-6000 Koper, Slovenija Telefon: +386 5 6637 700, Fax: + 386 5 6637 710, E-mail: helena.motoh@zrs-kp.si http://ojs.zrs-kp.si/index.php/poligrafi/index številka/number 109/110, letnik/volume 28 (2023) R E V I S I T I N G D R E A M S : I N T E R D I S C I P L I N A R Y P E R S P E C T I V E S O N D R E A M R E S E A R C H A N D S C I E N C E Uredila / Edited by: Maja Gutman Mušič, Kelly Bulkeley Mednarodni uredniški odbor / International Editorial Board: Tahir Abbas (Leiden University), Gorazd Andrejč (University of Groningen), Jadranka Rebeka Anić (Institut društvenih znanosti Ivo Pilar), Purushottama Bilimoria (Graduate Theological Union), Martha Frederiks (Utrecht University), Carool Kersten (King’s College), David M. Kleinberg-Levin (Northwestern University), Esteban Krotz (UADY- Univesrsidad Autónoma de Yucartan, Unidad de Ciencias Sociales, Mexico), Ali Mostfa (Université catholique de Lyon), Jeffrey Robbins (Lebanon Valley College), Sashinungla (Jadavpur University), Clemens Sedmak (University of Notre Dame), Nicolas Standaert (KU Leuven), Klaus von Stosch (Universität Paderborn), Marko Uršič (University of Ljubljana), Noëlle Vahanian (Lebanon Valley College), Danial Yusof (International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization) Oblikovanje / Design: Peter Skalar Prelom / Layout: Alenka Obid Tehnične urednice / Technical editors: Alenka Obid, Barbara Bradaš Premrl, Barbara Pandev Fotografija na naslovnici / Cover photograph: Shutterstock/Christos Georghiou Lektoriranje / Proofreading: Jezikovna zadruga Soglasnik (an.) Prevod / Translation: Petra Berlot Kužner (sl/en, en/sl) Tisk / Print: Grafika 3000 d.o.o. Naklada / Circulation: 250 izvodov / copies Založnik / Publishing house – Naročila / Orders – Copyright©: Znanstveno-raziskovalno središče Koper, Annales ZRS, Garibaldijeva 1, 6000 Koper, Slovenija Za založnika / For the publisher: Rado Pišot Telefon: +386 5 663 77 00, Fax: +386 5 663 77 10, E-mail: zalozba-annales@zrs-kp.si Revija je vključena v naslednje mednarodne baze / The journal Poligrafi is indexed in: Scopus, The Philosopher’s Index, Cobiss Dvojna številka / Double issue: € 20,00 Poligrafi so izdani s sofinanciranjem Javne agencije za znanstvenoraziskovalno in inovacijsko dejavnost Republike Slovenije / Poligrafi is published with the support of the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency number 109/110 • vo lume 28, 2023 R E V I S I T I N G D R E A M S : I N T E R D I S C I P L I N A R Y P E R S P E C T I V E S O N D R E A M R E S E A R C H A N D S C I E N C E Kelly Bulkeley, Maja Gutman Mušič: Revisiting Dreams: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Dream Research and Science 1 Nina Petek: In that very body, within that very dream: Soteriological dreaming technique in the tradition of Buddhist yogis 5 Victor J. Krebs: Dreaming in the Digital Age: Thoughts on the Technological Pharmakon 59 Laura J. Vollmer: Toward a Historiography of Dreams: A Discursive Perspective 83 Carmela Mento, Maria Catena Silvestri, Amelia Rizzo, Clara Lombardo, Hadipour Lakmesani Abed, Ferdinando Testa, Kelly Bulkeley, Toshio Kawai: Dreams, Sleep Quality, and Collective Trauma: An Investigation of the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic 105 Mary C. Walsh: An Ancient Disease in a Modern World: Epilepsy and Dream Research 127 Sheldon Juncker: Dreaming with AI 159 Kelly Bulkeley: New Approaches in the Empirical Study of Dreams 197 Maja Gutman Mušič: The Last Sanctum of Archetypes: Rethinking Dreams in the Light of Ancient Knowledge and Artificial Intelligence 223 Abstracts / Povzetki 243 About the authors / O avtoricah in avtorjih 255 1 R E V I S I T I N G D R E A M S : I N T E R D I S C I P L I N A R Y P E R S P E C T I V E S O N D R E A M R E S E A R C H A N D S C I E N C E  Introduction Throughout human history, dreams have occupied a prominent role within cultures worldwide, often serving as a portal to mythical and re- ligious realms. Due to their extraordinary ability to reveal the workings of the unconscious mind, dreams continue to fascinate scholars, practi- tioners, and innovators. How have dreams been perceived throughout history, and how do we understand them in contemporary society and the digital age? How significant are dreams in our broader comprehen- sion of spirituality, waking reality, and culture? How can we understand the nature of dreams within current scientific and technological para- digms? What is the future of dreaming? This special double issue of Poligrafi focuses on an interdisciplinary understanding of dreams, with an eye toward the most exciting hori- zons for research in the coming years. This issue began with the intent to gather contemporary philosophical, religious, and empirical perspec- tives on dreaming. Additionally, it aims to inspire readers to delve into the extensive and diverse historical knowledge related to dreams and dreaming to gain a deeper understanding of the current and future situ- ation in the field. Like other fields in the humanities, dream studies have been shaped by the cultural information space due to the rapid growth of digital technology. This has led to the emergence of novel, computationally driven methodologies in data analysis. The process of the mass digi- talization of dream data is currently underway, facilitated by the rapid advancement of processing power. As a result, many researchers have already started to map patterns within extensive collections of dream reports. We estimate that this trend will continue as the large digital re- positories of dreams continue to expand. These predictions necessitate P O L I G R A F I 2 novel epistemological, ethical, and philosophical investigations that are likely to transcend binary distinctions and promote a cooperative ap- proach and constructive discourse across the fields of data science and (digital) humanities. The aspiration is for the area of dream studies to serve as a model discipline in which the aforementioned symbiotic rela- tionship is not only feasible but also essential in advancing a more com- prehensive, methodical, and integrative approach to one of the most enigmatic phenomena that has perplexed humanity for thousands of years. The contributions to this special issue represent the work of leading scholars from diverse fields, including psychology, data science, the his- tory of religions, and cultural studies. Taken as a whole, the eight articles illustrate the high quality of scholarship in the field and its methodologi- cal diversity. Of course, many topics are not covered in this collection. It is not an encyclopedia or an introductory survey. Instead, the focus here is on the newest, most important, controversial, and/or under-studied topics in the study of dreams. Each article addresses an area of dream research with special urgency and contemporary significance. Nina Petek provides an elegant review of a lineage of classic Bud- dhist teachings about dreams, consciousness, and salvation. In addition to illuminating the role of dreams in this religious tradition, she raises vital questions for all forms of dream research regarding basic concep- tions of mind, truth, suffering, and salvation. Victor Krebs reflects on the fate of dreaming in an increasingly tech- nology-saturated society. He draws on the theories of Bernard Stiegler and Wildred Bion to warn of digitally-mediated threats to dreaming, threats with both personal and collective implications. Laura Vollmer addresses the fundamental question of how concep- tions of dreams relate to differing cultural and historical contexts, and to the regimes of power embedded in those contexts. Her article takes an inspiring and important step toward a true historiography of dreaming. Carla Mento and colleagues report on the statistical analysis of a demographic survey among Italian adults regarding sleep, dreams, and the COVID-19 pandemic. This study adds a new perspective to the growing literature of research on dreams in relation to collective events like the pandemic. I N T R O D U C T I O N 3 Mary Walsh investigates clinical and experimental research on the interactions between dreams, sleep, and seizure disorders like epilep- sy. Treatment methods for seizure disorders rarely take any notice of dreams, yet Walsh finds the frequency and contents of dreams can be useful information in diagnosing and caring for people with epilepsy. Sheldon Juncker presents a pioneering study of dream research and artificial intelligence (AI). He explains how AI systems, if properly un- derstood and deployed, can function as a valuable tool in the study of dreams. Kelly Bulkeley describes new advances in the empirical study of dreams, with the development of powerful tools for analyzing the fre- quency of word usage in dream reports. He shows how simple methods of analysis can yield a host of accurate insights about the underlying patterns in a set of dreams. Maja Gutman Mušič connects historical and cross-cultural perspec- tives on the nature of dreaming with contemporary advances in artifi- cial intelligence, as a way of mapping a more fruitful future for the field. She outlines an approach to data-driven inquiry that remains grounded in both traditional epistemologies and archetypal psychology. These eight articles may be read in any order, but the arrangement we have chosen aims to provide a gentle framing and contextualizing of intellectual themes. Thus, the first article introduces the earliest roots of dream research in ancient religious belief and practice, followed by two articles taking a more broadly philosophical and historical approach. Next come three articles addressing contemporary psychological and therapeutic issues using objective methodologies. The final two articles seek to integrate dream research with new developments in artificial intelligence, drawing on the benefits of this revolutionary technology while avoiding or minimizing its dangers. For readers interested in learning more, we encourage you to go be- yond the texts and seek connections with other researchers who study dreams. As these eight articles indicate, dream research is an interna- tional pursuit in which brilliant investigators and scholarly communi- ties are actively working all over the world. The interdisciplinary nature of dream research means that people from many different academic and cultural backgrounds can make valuable contributions. The future P O L I G R A F I 4 prosperity of the field depends on expanding and enriching the net- works of people studying dreams from all angles and perspectives. We hope you can be part of this process! Kelly Bulkeley and Maja Gutman Mušič 5 I N T H A T V E R Y B O D Y , W I T H I N T H A T V E R Y D R E A M : S O T E R I O L O G I C A L D R E A M I N G T E C H N I Q U E I N T H E T R A D I T I O N O F B U D D H I S T Y O G I S N i n a P e t e k Exploring the dreamscapes of Buddhism: a brief introduction The birth of Buddhism out of a dream In Buddhism, dreams play an essential role as they symbolize pil- lars of dynamic continuity within the entire tradition and its spiritual framework, simultaneously crafting an alternative history of Buddhism, running parallel to the official recorded facts found in history books. More precisely, the documented history of Buddhism actually finds its origin in dreams. Dreams could thus be defined as a catalyst for the tradition. Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, was “conceived” in the dream of his mother, Queen Māyā, and his immedi- ate family members also experienced prophetic dreams that foreshad- owed significant turning points in his life, from birth to nirvāṇa. In these dreams, the fulfilment of what had been foretold in his mother’s dream gradually unfolded. Thus, numerous dreams in Buddha’s life https://doi.org/10.35469/poligrafi.2023.403 Poligrafi, no. 109/110, vol. 28, 2023, pp. 5–57 * The paper is a result of the work undertaken within the research programme “Philosophi- cal Investigations” (P6-0252), and the research project “Buddhism in the Himalayan Deserts: the Tradition of Yogis and Yoginis in Ladakh” (J6-50211), both financed by ARiS, the Slove- nian Research and Innovation Agency. P O L I G R A F I 6 served as an integral link in his quest for and attainment of the highest philosophical insights. In early Theravāda Buddhism, prophetic dreams held a position of unquestionable authenticity and reality, as they were seen as reflections of inevitable future events, whether near or distant. This tradition of prophetic dreams has persisted throughout the history of Buddhism, revealing a universal pattern with unique expressions adapted to various cultural environments. For instance, in Tibet, this pattern continued to shape the life stories of Buddhist masters, from their conception to nirvāṇa.1 Dream visions, initially confirmed for relevance by brāhmaṇa priests and later by Buddhist monks through skilled dream interpre- 1 Prophetic dreams have played a significant role in legitimizing religious authorities and have consequently exerted a profound influence on broader society, culture, and spiritual tradition. Figure 1: The Dream of Queen Maya (the Buddha’s Conception); Pakistan (ancient region of Gandhara), c. 2nd century (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; public domain) I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 7 tation, were considered as glimpses into the future. This definition of dream visions aligns with the term itself, which has evolved in Buddhism to become a general term for dreaming. In both Buddhist and Hindu texts, the term svapna, derived from the Sanskrit verb root svap- mean- ing “to sleep”, was conjoined with the noun darśana, originating from the verb root dṛś- meaning “to see”, “to look at”, “to observe”. This com- bination resulted in the phrase “to see a dream”, which came to signify the concept of dreaming.2 In Theravāda Buddhism, the majority of dreams, excluding pro- phetic dreams, were regarded as an illusory amalgamation of remnants of the day, i.e. impressions and images from waking life, past mental content, karma and one’s character. This distorted composition creates a false representation of the self and the world, entangling individu- als in ignorance and leading to suffering. For this reason, monks have diligently pursued meditation techniques to attain a state of conscious- ness in which all mental content, including dreams, becomes absent. During the early Buddhist period, Theravāda nuns unveiled entirely new perspectives on dreams, capturing the impermanent nature of the phenomenal world through their poetic expressions. Their verses, com- piled in the collection known as Therīgāthā, eloquently drew parallels between the transience of all aspects of reality and the ephemeral na- ture of dreams. New formulations, such as supinanteva (Pal.3 “as in a dream”) and supinopamā (Pal. “as a dream”), which are also commonly found in later Mahāyāna Buddhist texts, became integral components of the Buddhist dream vocabulary. The role of dreams was thus reas- sessed, particularly in the context of the Mahāyāna doctrine of empti- ness (Skrt. śūnyatā), emphasizing the ontological sameness of all living beings, devoid of immutable essences, and thereby sharing an identi- 2 This formulation is already found in the Pali texts (Pal. supina passati), e.g. in the Mil- indapañha (“Seventy-fifth Question – Dream” (4.75.33-37)). In the Vedic context, the phrase “seeing dreams” denoted the perspective of regarding dreams as occurrences external to the dreamer. Dreams were interpreted as the outcomes of external forces, be they gods, demons or spirits, over which the dreamer possessed no influence, rendering them mere passive observers (refer to Kelly Bulkeley, Dreaming in the World’s Religions (New York, London: New York Uni- versity Press, 2008), 24–25, 36, for instance). 3 Throughout the text, abbreviations are used to indicate the language in which particular term appears, namely in Tibetan (Tib.), Sanskrit (Skrt.) and Pali (Pal.). P O L I G R A F I 8 cal nature of transience. In a manner similar to the Theravāda nuns’ approach, the impermanent nature of all phenomena was depicted through diverse metaphors, including dreams, described as svapnopama (Skrt. “resembling a dream” or “dream-like”). In the realm of ordinary experience, the world was deemed an illusion (Skrt. māyā), and dreams served as a convenient metaphor to depict the nature of the world and our distorted perceptions of it. As a result, dreams found their place in the Mahāyāna philosophical “experiment” with illusion.4 Creation, de- picted as a magical illusion, akin to a dream (Skrt. svapnamāyopamā),5 emerged as a novel approach to describe the world within the Mahāyāna tradition. In this context, dreams transcended their role as mere meta- phors and took on multifaceted significance. They became an indicator of the dreamer’s spiritual progress, a realm of revelation for profound teachings and a meeting ground for various sages. The phrase “to see a dream” gained new dimensions, as sages met one another in dreams, received and assimilated essential teachings, and brought them back to the waking state, illuminating those entangled in ignorance. Dreams became integral components of the life narratives of the awakened in- dividuals, imparting insights that, when transposed into the realm of wakefulness, enrich the comprehension of its diverse dimensions. Waking up a dream In this manner, Mahāyāna Buddhism departs from the realm of wakefulness, with its conventional and rigid perspectives, and turns to- wards dreams for insights. Through the mindful exploration of their 4 Skrt. māyopama. Vajrayāna Buddhism showcases numerous instances of illusions within its texts, encompassing phenomena such as magic (Tib. sgyu ma), dreams (Tib. rmi lam), a mirage (Tib. smig rgyu), a reflection in a mirror (Tib. gzugs brnyan), lightning (Tib. glog), an echo (Tib. brag cha), a rainbow (Tib. ‘ja ‘tshon), the moon in the water (Tib. chu zla), a city of gandharvas (Tib. dri za’i grong khyer), water bubbles (Tib. chu bur can), visual distortions (Tib. mig yor), clouds (Tib. sprin), miraculous apparitions (Tib. sprul pa), etc. See also the discussion on the twelve illusions in Buddhism: Jan Westerhoff, Twelve Examples of Illusion (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). 5 See, for example, Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra, Parashuram Lakshman Vaidya, ed., Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā (Darbhanga: The Mithila Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Reaserach in Sanskrit Learning, 1960), Chapter II. I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 9 content, dreams can serve as a path to spiritual progress. This progres- sion reaches its zenith in the Tibetan branch of Buddhism, Vajrayāna, where dreams assume a central role as a fundamental soteriological technique guiding practitioners toward nirvāṇa. This perspective tran- scends the Theravāda view of dreams as distorted mental fragments that ensnare individuals in ignorance, perpetuating their involvement in saṃsāra, the cycle of birth and death. Especially within the tradi- tion of Vajrayāna Buddhism’s eremitic school, the practice of engaging with dreams is referred to as dream yoga. This technique can be seen as a form of dream meditation where the dreamer maintains awareness throughout the dream experience, enabling them to discern all dream images as constructs of the conscious mind. Thus, within Vajrayāna Buddhism, the dream metaphor of Mahāyāna Buddhism is transmut- ed into a distinctive practical methodology that enables individuals to directly encounter its significance. Simultaneously, the Sanskrit term svapnadarśana, signifying “to see a dream”, assumes further layers of meaning. In the Hindu tradition, the term swiftly transcends the realm of nightly demon spectacles and ventures into the domain of philoso- phy. In fact, the term darśana has come to designate six distinct Hindu schools of philosophy, encompassing the notions of philosophical in- sight, the pursuit of truth and the discernment of the genuine nature of reality. The roots of this definition trace back to the revelation of the Vedas, sacred texts of the Hindu tradition unveiled to humanity by ṛṣis, visionary seers who engaged in darśana – the apprehension of timeless philosophical truths. However, this understanding does not stem from a linear thought process; rather, it emerges from a loftier wisdom that transcends the conceptual realm. This wisdom is characterized by intui- tive insight and non-contemplative experience. In this context, darśana also elucidates the nature of the dream meditation practiced by Tibetan masters. By experiencing the visions within a dream, individuals gain profound insights into the essence of dream phenomena. They then seamlessly transpose these insights into their waking experiences. Just as dream images perpetually shift and evolve, so do all other aspects of reality. However, in the state of ordinary, unaware waking conscious- ness, where true wakefulness is absent, these elements appear as un- changing and self-contained. Thus, the encounters concealed behind P O L I G R A F I 10 closed eyes shape a comprehension of the world, lending expression to a truth that often eludes wakefulness amid the commotion of robust yet brittle convictions. By practicing dream yoga, the sages ultimately dissolve the distinctions between wakefulness and dreams, culminat- ing in the liberating realization of impermanence (Skrt. anitya, Tib. mi rtag pa) and emptiness (Skrt. śūnyatā, Tib. stong pa nyid). Thus, the conventional notion that wakefulness equals true awareness has been upended. True wakefulness is found within dreams, serving as a direct pathway to the verge of genuine enlightenment, guiding the transi- tion from ignorance to wisdom. This form of conscious, wakeful dream practice was predominantly undertaken by Vajrayāna Buddhist male and female hermits, commonly known as yogis and yoginīs (Skrt.; Tib. rnal ‘byor pa, mtshams pa, also ri khrod pa), living in caves or small huts high in the Himalayan mountains, whose lives were intimately inter- linked with the essence of dreams. This is substantiated by countless Tibetan hagiographies, which not only depict Buddhist cartography of dream realms but also trace the path of spiritual advancement, often aligning with the waking dream paradigm of early Buddhism, thus nar- rating a tale of spiritual growth. Furthermore, within the lives of yogis, there exists a distinctive phenomenon known as a “conception dream”. They were not merely conceived within the dreams of their biological parents; rather, they were conceptually envisioned within the dreams of their teachers.6 This occurrence took place during a phase when these yogis were relinquishing their past lives and readying themselves to em- bark on their spiritual journey. In a sequence of varied dreams, they envisioned each other, converged within dreamscapes, and effortlessly 6 Many Buddhist masters, including Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha, were therefore conceived in their parents’ dreams, known also as prophetic. Queen Māyā’s dream of the Buddha’s conception is described in many texts, such as the Mahāvastu, the Nidānakathā and the Lalitavistarasūtra. The “conception dream” and thus the new “spiritual” birth of the yogis is attested in various hagiographies. The most famous such dreams are the so-called parallel dreams of yogi Marpa and his wife Dagmena, which are described in the fourth chapter of Milarepa’s hagiography, The Life of Milarepa (Tib. rje btsun mi la ras pa’i rnam thar) (Tsang Nyön Heruka, The Life of Milarepa, trans. Andrew Qintman (New York: Penguin Books, 2010)). The couple’s dream indirectly, through various dream events, foreshadowed the arrival of Marpa’s disciple, and even if Milarepa himself did not directly appear in the dream, it predicted his new “spiritual” birth, i.e. his arrival at Marpa and thus his own initiation into the secret Tantric teachings. I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 11 transcended the borders separating them. These dreams transported them into the dream realms of masters long since departed, where they encountered the dreams of awakened predecessors, and also glimpsed into the dreams of all past and future dreamers. Even in the present day, yogis and yoginīs uphold within their dreams an imperceptible, unheard, often overlooked, yet indomitable thread of Buddhism. This thread has woven its way through countless epochs since ancient times, all the while laying the foundation for aspiring dreamers to journey towards the attainment of nirvāṇa. Beyond wakefulness and dreams Yogis developed a complex soteriological technique of dreaming, i.e. active, conscious participation in the process of dreaming, based on the recognition of dreams, the attentive observation of dream images, the assumption of power over the dream images, the influence over their content, and the maintenance of the awareness that they are all just dreams, through which the dreamer comes to deeply and directly expe- rience the illusory nature of all dream appearances. Yogis thus acquired insights into the nature of dream phenomena, and these insights have been transferred to objects in waking life – such as dream images, con- stantly changing are also all other things, which in the ordinary state of ignorant, not really awake consciousness, are perceived as permanent and independent. Thus, experiences behind “eyes wide shut” frame their understanding of the world, giving voice to a truth that does not come out in wakefulness amidst the ordinary beliefs. In this way, yogis, through the technique of dreaming, have finally blurred the boundaries between wakefulness and dreaming, and arrived at the liberating ex- perience of emptiness and impermanence. They have re-evaluated the common belief that we are awake in wakefulness – we can only be truly awake in dreams, which lead directly to the threshold of true awaken- ing, from ignorance to wisdom. The soteriological dream technique invites us to a place where su- preme truths are revealed behind closed eyes, to the threshold of awak- ening that steadily slips from under our feet in wakefulness; to dreams that pour light from their worlds into the secret, darkest recesses of our P O L I G R A F I 12 waking lives, revealing what cannot be seen in the light of day. Moreo- ver, the soteriological techniques of dreams are also important from the broader perspective of the relevance of the doctrines of dreams in the various religious traditions because, long before the development of the sciences dealing with dreams, “religiously minded people all over the globe were studying, experimenting with and theorizing about the workings of the dreaming mind. This is where the study of dreams begins.”7 Segments of the ancient soteriological dream technique in the tradition of Buddhist yogis are now being integrated into the study of dreams in the fields of psychology, psychoanalysis and neuroscience, shedding light on many overlooked aspects of Western science and giv- ing new meaning to their findings. While not entering into a dialogue with any of these fields, instead remaining within the framework of Buddhism, the present paper seeks to introduce the immense value of dreams for human life, something that is still nurtured in the Buddhist eremitic tradition today and which I have had the precious opportu- nity to experience for myself. Namely, a significant part of this paper is based on findings derived from my own field research on the tradition of Buddhist yogis and yoginīs conducted within the Ladakh federal ter- ritory in the Indian Himalayas, who are, as they themselves state, first and foremost, dreamers. Forgotten “marginal” frontiers of philosophy: madmen, the body and dreams Starting from the 8th century, the vibrant inception of Buddhism in Tibet was influenced, on one hand, by organized official visits to es- teemed Indian monks and, on the other hand, by informal journeys to the realm of Buddhist Tantric masters. It was from these masters’ teach- ings that the lineage of Buddhist eremitism gradually emerged. Tantric Buddhist hermits and hermitesses, i.e. yogis and yoginīs – also referred to as mahāsiddhas (Skrt., Tib. grub thob chen po) – engage in solitary meditation within remote hermitages, perched high in the Himalayan mountains. Due to their unorthodox way of life and their mastery of in- 7 Bulkeley, Dreaming in the World’s Religions, 4. I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 13 tricate psychophysical methods, they have earned the moniker of “mad- men” (Tib. smyon pa).8 From its inception to the contemporary era, the lineage of autonomous Buddhist Tantric yogis9 has forged its distinct trajectory, transcending societal and monastic hierarchies. This spirit of independence is also mirrored in their spiritual pursuits, which differ from those of monks and nuns constrained by institutional structures and rigid curricula. The endeavours of Tantric yogis are marked by crea- 8 The term was introduced by Tsangnyön Heruka, a yogi and Tibetan hagiography writer who emerged from the ranks of the “madmen”. However, the quintessential embodiment of a madman in this tradition is Milarepa. Milarepa exemplified the core essence of eremitism by pushing it to the extreme – a departure from conventional existence, a defiance of societal and monastic norms, and an unwavering dedication to Tantra’s hidden practices, all away from the distractions of the worldly sphere. 9 In the rest of the paper, the masculine form, i.e. yogi, is used for both genders in cases of more general references. Figure 2: Yogi in his hut up in the Himalayan mountains near the Sakti village; Ladakh, India (Photo: Nina Petek) P O L I G R A F I 14 tivity and unrestrained freedom.10 From this perspective, the eremitism bears resemblance to Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of “nomadic sci- ence”. Like the latter, eremitism defies easy categorization, as it em- bodies heterogeneity and perpetual transformation. It stands as a form of resistance against institutional constraints, continuously shaping its identity from its unique singularity, disregarding conventional criteria and norms.11 Differing from the monk, the hermit, akin to a nomad, dwells within the realm of the unpredictable, boundless expanse of the desert,12 in contrast to the structured and enclosed environment of the monastery. Consequently, contemporary yogis predominantly residing in the Himalayas continue to engage in the meditation techniques hand- ed down by their forebears. These practices, drawn in part from the Hindu Tantric lineage, have intertwined with Buddhist philosophy, giving rise to a distinct form of Tantra known as Buddhist Tantra. Much like certain Hindu Tantric systems, Tantric Buddhism not only seeks to surpass institutionalized and normative expressions of reli- gion and established philosophical perspectives but also draws forth and reintegrates from the periphery into the heart of religious and philosophical discourse that which has been relegated, within the es- tablished spiritual context, as utterly inconsequential, confining and “marginal” to spiritual progress – encompassing aspects such as the body and dreams. The ascent of a non-dualistic metaphysical frame- work within Hindu Tantric systems, founded on the negation of a dualistic view of reality, marked a pivotal transformation. This transi- tion was underpinned by an altered perception of the body, which, in turn, played a role in the development of a novel manifestation of 10 Nina Petek, “Sopotja zgodnjega puščavništva v Egiptu in Indiji [Counterparts of Ear- ly Eremitism in Egypt and India],” in Egiptovsko puščavništvo [Egyptian Eremitism], eds. Jan Ciglenečki, Franci Zore and Nena Bobovnik, 179–203 (Ljubljana: Znanstvena založba Filozof- ske fakultete [Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts], 2021), 179. 11 See, e.g. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Nomadology: The War Machine (Seattle: Worm- wood Distribution, 2010), 17. See also Geoffrey Samuel, Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Ti- betan Societies (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Pres, 1993), 373, 572–573. 12 Petek, “Sopotja”, 179–180. Desert is a collective term for places defined by the absence of the hustle and bustle of the mundane, be they sandy deserts, forests or rocky Himalayan wastelands. I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 15 Tantric Buddhism. In contrast to earlier orthodox systems rooted in the Vedic spiritual realm, such as sāṃkhya and the affiliated Patañjali aṣṭāṅgayoga tradition, Tantra envisions the body in a distinct light. Rather than viewing it merely as an aggregate of gross matter, discon- nected from intricate mental processes, Tantra perceives the body as a hub of refined energies. These energies, when nurtured appropriately, hold immense potential for catalysing a profound spiritual metamor- phosis. Even within the context of Hindu Tantric tradition, the idea of “divinization of the body” emerges.13 In Tantra, matter is not per- ceived as a lower form of spirit, as earlier orthodox systems suggested. Rather, it recognizes that matter encompasses subtle layers, including energy centres (cakras) and channels (nāḍīs). This composition allows for its transformation from the mundane to the divine through di- verse practices. This notion of “divinization of the body” is indeed inherent to the philosophy of Tantra. Hence, the body becomes an active participant in elevated spiritual endeavours, playing a role in attaining profound insights and liberation. This insight leads us to the realization that, within Tantric systems, philosophy is engendered not solely through the mind, but also through the body itself. And so are dreams. Just as in the early Hindu philosophical systems, the body was perceived in early Theravāda Buddhism as a dwelling for old age and mortality (e.g. Dhammapada XI.5). It did not hold a significant, ac- tive role in the meditative pursuits that culminate in nirvāṇa. How- ever, this perspective undergoes a dramatic transformation within the context of Tantric Buddhism. A distinct perception of the body with- in Tantra is intricately connected to a fundamental re-evaluation of the significance of dreams. Disordered dream content emerges from the consciousness (vijñāna), and dreams, particularly those that the dreamer is acutely conscious of and that lead to profound revelations, manifest solely through the engaged involvement of the body, which exerts an influence on the cognitive processes. As the body and its latent capacities become awakened, so do dreams – simultaneously, as the body assumes a central role in philosophical discussions and prac- 13 See Gavin Flood, The Tantric Body (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2005). P O L I G R A F I 16 tical methodologies, the dreaming of transformative dreams guiding toward nirvāṇa emerges. This process also brings forth the potential for comprehending these dreams. The “restoration” of the body and its inherent potentials within both the theoretical and practical realms of philosophical discourse, along with the simultaneous recognition of the remarkable capacities of dreams, has prompted a reassessment of the very notion of nirvāṇa. In contrast to the teachings of Theravāda Buddhism, which propose a gradual journey towards perfection over multiple lifetimes as the pathway to attaining the ultimate state of being, Tantric Buddhism presents an alternative perspective. Accord- ing to Tantric teachings, this supreme state can be realized within a single lifetime, irrespective of past karma. This notion was eloquently conveyed by the yogi Milarepa: it can be achieved in this very body, in the present life.14 Hence, Tantric systems have been recognized as an expedited, yet simultaneously more precarious route, to nirvāṇa. This is because they unveil the latent mental and physical potentials within humans, possessing the profound ability to eliminate the negative re- percussions of previous actions and attain the loftiest philosophical insights. Tantric meditation practices within Buddhist eremitic tradition: the six dharmas This preliminary notion of the body and liberation, which first ger- minated within the Hindu Tantric systems, found a wholly unique manifestation within the spiritual landscapes of Buddhism through the endeavours of the Bengali mahāsiddha Tilopa (988–1069). Recog- nized within Buddhism as the first yogi to catalyse the tradition of ac- complished Tantric Buddhist masters achieving nirvāṇa within a single lifetime, Tilopa reimagined and implemented this concept. Drawing inspiration from early Theravāda, Mahāyāna and select Hindu Tantric doctrines, he established a framework of soteriological practices that continue to be embraced by yogis to this day, encompassing methods 14 This idea is expressed in several places in Milarepas hagiography (Heruka, The Life of Mi- larepa, especially in the tenth chapter). I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 17 such as the practice of lucid dreaming. The methods, referred to as the six dharmas or six yogas (Skrt. ṣaḍdharma, Tib. chos drug), were imparted to Tilopa by enigmatic Tantric masters.15 He meticulously structured these techniques into a comprehensive system, subsequently unveiling them to his disciple Naropa (1016–1100), who undertook the responsibility of transmitting them. Given that Tilopa’s teachings, akin to all Tantric doctrines, were regarded as clandestine wisdom, ac- cessible solely to a chosen few due to their intricate nature and the ear- lier mentioned exploration of uncharted psychophysical abilities that necessitated skilled mentorship for their proficient development, these teachings were safeguarded within the lineage of the original Buddhist yogis through oral transmission (Tib. snyan brgyud) from teacher to dis- ciple.16 The entirety of this tradition continues to rely on this pattern of transmission in the present day. Consequently, the original teach- ings of Tilopa have endured in mere fragments, collectively known as Ṣaḍdharmopadeśa (“Instruction on the Six Teachings”). These frag- ments hold the esteemed status of being an authentic source within the lineage of Tantric techniques pursued by the mahāsiddhas. Naropa’s exposition on the six dharmas, slightly more extensive than Tilopa’s fragments, has also been preserved. Within the tradition, these teach- ings are recognized as the “Six Dharmas of Naropa” (Tib. na ro’i chos drug).17 These texts have been the focus of extensive commentaries by Tantric masters, who have offered thorough interpretations of the 15 In most discussions of the meditation system, the term “six yogas” has been adopted. Both terms are used in this paper, with the term “dharma” referring to the teachings related to fragments and commentaries, and “yoga” referring to descriptions of the practical aspects of a particular technique. 16 The very nature of the doctrine is extremely complex and, as such, incomprehensible to most people; however, this method of preservation has also protected it from misinterpretation and distorted understanding. Applying theory to practice and verifying what one has learned within their own experience is the most important method of progressing towards liberation, since it is impossible to acquire ultimate insight through discursive knowledge conveyed in language alone. 17 It is noteworthy that while lesser-known than the renowned male figures, yoginī Niguma played a significant role in their propagation as well. Niguma is believed to have studied Tantric practices alongside Naropa. Some accounts even suggest that she might have been his sister or ex-wife (for further details, refer to Nina Petek, Na pragu prebujenja. Svetovi sanj v budizmu [On the Threshold of Awakening: Worlds of Dreams in Buddhism] (Ljubljana: Beletrina, 2022), 273). P O L I G R A F I 18 meditation techniques within the framework of Buddhist philosophy. They have also furnished these teachings with meticulous practical instructions. Naropa and the yoginī Niguma transmitted dharmas to their disciple Marpa Lotsawa (1012–1097), who became the initial Ti- betan proponent of the tradition. Marpa subsequently imparted these teachings to Milarepa (1052–1135), who, in turn, recognized Gam- popa (1079–1153) as the most fitting successor. Gampopa authored comprehensive commentaries on the six dharmas, which were initially compiled and published in 1520 as Dags po’i bka’ ‘bum (The Manifold Sayings of Dags po)18 in xylograph print format. Furthermore, Gampopa skilfully amalgamated teachings and Tantric practices into the monastic framework of the bka’ gdams pa (transliterated as kadam) lineage. This integration, in turn, shaped the monastic order of bka’ brgyud (translit- erated as kagyu), which absorbed the practices of the earlier yogis into its structure. Simultaneously, running alongside the monastic order, the tradition of self-contained eremitism persisted and remain vibrant even today in the Himalayan regions. Incorporating an unfettered form of eremitism within the monastic order has facilitated the conservation of the ancient secret practices of yogis. These practices were originally transmitted orally but eventually led to the creation of an array of com- mentaries and practical guidance for successive generations of yogis. In addition to the existing fragments of yogis’ writings and discourse on their practices, a wealth of hagiographies (Tib. rnam thar) exists. These hagiographies are composed of factual depictions of the lives, teach- ings and practices of hermits, offering invaluable insights into the con- cealed realms of this esoteric tradition. This genre of literature presents a unique perspective, akin to a portrait, capturing the spiritual evolu- tion within the life of a yogi who aspires toward nirvāṇa. Occasionally, the hagiographies resemble records of dream diaries, as they encompass a treasure trove of dream-related content encompassing diverse dream 18 The book is named after Gampopa, whose middle name was also Dakpö Lhaje (Ulrich Timme Kragh, Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism. A Textual Study of the Yogas of Nāropa and Medita- tion Mahāmudrā in the Medieval Tradition of Dags po (Tokyo: The International Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2015). I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 19 encounters, techniques and experiences among yogis.19 Namely the pur- suit for a guru was often shrouded in mystery – prior to disciples actu- ally encountering their teacher, they were often guided within the realm of dreams, ultimately leading them to the master. In their dreams, they also encountered significant teachers from the past, who imparted vital teachings to them. Therefore, the subsequent segment focusing on the conscious dreaming technique entails an examination of Tilopa’s fragments compiled as Ṣaḍdharmopadeśa,20 along with chosen commentaries from Gampopa’s Dags po’i bka’ ‘bum, specifically the chapter Dags lha sgam po (abbreviated hereafter as DK.A.),21 and findings derived from my own field research conducted within the Ladakh federal territory in the Indian Himalayas. This research was underpinned by various methods, including extensive and in-depth interviews with Ladakhi yogis and yoginīs. The six dharmas, encompassing an array of meditative psycho- physical practices, consist of the subsequent techniques: inner mys- tic heat (Skrt. cāṇḍālī, Tib. gtum mo), illusory body (Skrt. māyākāya, māyādeha, Tib. sgyu lus), dreams (Skrt. svapna, Tib. rmi lam), radiant light (Skrt. prabhāsvara, ābhāsvara Tib. ‘od gsal), intermediate state (Skrt. antarābhava, Tib. bar do) and transference (of consciousness) (Skrt. saṁkrānti, Tib. ‘pho ba). Each of these techniques embodies a dynamic synthesis of various Tantric elements, rooted in the concept of an intrinsic link between the body and the mind. Within each of these techniques, the subtle body, comprising the cakras and energy channels known as nāḍīs, which facilitate the flow of energies, assumes a highly significant role. Additionally, the incorporation of breathing techniques 19 See also Bulkeley, Dreaming in the World’s Religions, 100–107, and hagiographies of yogis: Tsang Nyön Heruka, The Life of Marpa the Translator. Seeing Accomplishes All, trans. the Na- landa Translation Committee under the direction of Chögyam Trungpa (Boulder: Prajñā Press, 1982), Fabrizio Torricelli and Ācārya Sangye T. Naga, trans., The Life of the Mahāsiddha Tilopa (New Delhi, Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 2003) and Jampa Macken- zie, Stewart, trans., The Life of Gampopa. The Incomparable Dharma Lord of Tibet (Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 1995). 20 The paper draws upon a compilation of fragments as presented in Fabrizio Torricelli, “The Tibetan Text on Tilopa’s Ṣaḍdharmopadeśa,” East and West 46, no. 1/2 (1996): 145–166. 21 The paper is based on Gampopa’s comments collected in Kragh, Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism. P O L I G R A F I 20 Figure 3: Hermitage, where Ladakhi yogis practice various meditation techniques; the Leh area, Ladakh, India (Photo: Nina Petek) (prāṇāyāma), guru-dedicated prayers, visualizations and a spectrum of psychophysical methods are integral. These techniques find their ori- gins in the Hindu Tantric tradition and bear relation to the practices of haṭhayoga. The practices undertaken by yogis and yoginīs in solitude, following rigorous preliminary techniques and guided by their teachers, are structured hierarchically. This signifies that mastery of each succes- sive technique is contingent upon complete proficiency in the preced- ing one. Furthermore, familiarity with the other practices becomes in- dispensable for a comprehensive grasp of a particular technique. Thus, I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 21 prior to examining the soteriological technique of dreaming, a concise overview will be provided for the two preceding practices: inner mystic heat (gtum mo) and illusory body (sgyu lus). Before dreaming: the techniques of inner heat and illusory body a) Yoga of mystic heat and other preliminary practices The practice of inner mystic heat serves to arouse the energies of the subtle body within the realm of the so-called gross physical body. The very essence of the practice is encapsulated in its name, gtum mo. Here, gtum conveys the notion of “heat”, while mo signifies “mother”. “Heat” symbolizes the fervour, the flame, the potency of ascetic endeavour that incinerates obstacles to enlightenment, such as patterns of wandering thoughts. “Mother” aptly portrays the role of this technique as the cor- Figure 4: Meditation cave in Saspol; Ladakh, India (Photo: Nina Petek) P O L I G R A F I 22 nerstone, the quintessence, from which all ensuing practices emanate. Fervour and flame also symbolize the illuminating radiance that dispels darkness – namely, ignorance – ushering in enlightenment. Beyond the symbolic connotation, this practice effectively generates bodily heat within the yogi, a tangible manifestation of its impact.22 Prior to com- mencing the inner mystic heat technique, the yogi should have received training in guruyoga (Skrt., Tib. bla ma’i rnal ‘byor) – the practice of venerating the guru – wherein one directs all thoughts towards their teacher. Additionally, proficiency in mahāmudrā, which entails medita- tion on emptiness, is also crucial. Some sources also mention deity yoga (Skrt. devatayoga, Tib. yid kyi dam tshig, contr. yidam), a practice akin to guruyoga, albeit centring on a specific deity. In this practice, medita- tion is paired with diverse visualizations of the chosen deity, aiming for a profound identification between the yogi and the deity. By immersing themselves in a visualization of the selected deity, the meditator establishes a deep connection, gradually adopting the deity’s identity and consequently, harnessing its associated powers. However, the practice of deity yoga requires prior initiation by a knowledgeable teacher or guru. During the initiation process, as observed in Hindu Tantra, the teacher embeds the deity within the individual’s body through mantra recitations. This significant act lends a sacred quality to the meditator’s physical form. In the ritual of initiation, mere approval from the teacher is insufficient; confirmation of initiation by the deity themselves is also required, often occurring within a dream. Instances have arisen where a deity, appearing in a dream, declines to initiate a disciple, signalling that his readiness for the process has not yet fully matured. Hence, dreams play an integral role within the initiation pro- cess, serving as either a fundamental component or the ultimate af- 22 In this manner, the technique’s spiritual objectives align with practical outcomes, a revela- tion I encountered through the yogis of Ladakh. In the contemporary tradition of Ladakhi her- mits, gtum mo belongs to the category of so-called winter techniques, meaning that it is prac- tised mostly in winter, as the production of heat in the body enables them to survive the harsh Himalayan winters. Simultaneously, the yogis’ practice is also collectively conducted within the parent gompa Hemis, the central monastery of the Drukpa Kagyu school in Ladakh. During winter, accompanied by the head yoga teacher, guru, and head lama of Hemis, they embark on a journey to Tso Moriri Lake in the bitterly cold eastern Ladakh region of Changthang, where temperatures plummet to as low as –25 degrees Celsius. I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 23 firmation, marking the true commencement of the disciple’s spiritual journey. Within the realm of preliminary practices, the method of thought analysis holds significance. Here, the yogi engages in analysing the es- sence of thoughts, striving to perceive them in their authentic, bare state and devoid of any sense of permanence. Immediately prior to engaging in gtum mo, the yogi is required to undertake a sequence of preliminary physical exercises. Notably, within this sequence, the practice of breath- ing techniques (prāṇāyāma) and the visualization of sacred mantras, cakras, and nāḍīs assume vital roles (Tilopa [gtum mo 6–8]). The gtum mo technique is linked to the navel cakra, facilitating the equilibrium and flow of vital energies throughout the body (Tilopa [gtum mo 9]). This serves as the foundational cornerstone for all subsequent psycho- physical practices.23 Consequently, the body becomes infused with the dynamic engage- ment of consciousness through visualization, eliciting responsive reac- 23 The technique is also related to karmamudrāyoga (Skrt., Tib. las kyi phyagrgya), which is based on sexual union with a partner or simply on the visualisation of this union, which stimu- lates the awakening of energies in the body and a feeling of bliss. Figure 5: Visualisation of Buddhist deities, a mural in the secret temple of Lukhang, Tibet, 17th century (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) P O L I G R A F I 24 tions to these mental images and giving rise to a generation of inner warmth. The method of invigorating energy and warmth circulation within the body facilitates a revitalization of its latent potentials, con- currently serving to neutralize adverse karmic imprints like animosity, instincts, physical cravings and attachments. This paves the way for the emergence of a sensation of joy and compassion towards all sentient be- ings (Skrt. karuṇā, Tib. snying rje). Consequently, the outcome of the inner mystic heat technique is also referred to as the experience of bliss- ful warmth (Tib. bde drod). As per various sources, once the yogi attains complete mastery over the practice, they encounter shimmering effects before their eyes. Visions encompass smoke, flames, unclouded skies, radiant sun and moon beams, the harmonious convergence of the sun and moon, and even rainbows.24 Following a fruitful technique session, 24 Herbert V. Guenther, trans., The Life and Teaching of Naropa (Massachusetts: Shambala 1999), 60. Figure 6: Yogis practising various meditation techniques; Milarepa (bottom left) practising gtu mo and the transference of consciousness; mural in the secret temple of Lukhang, Tibet, 17th century (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 25 the yogi engages once more in the practices of guruyoga and mahāmudrā. Mastery of the inner mystic heat yoga serves as a strong foundation for commencing the practice of the illusory body (Tib. sgyu lus). b) Illusory body yoga and meditation on the impermanence of phe- nomena Before embarking on the second phase of the Tantric soteriological system, the yogi is required to engage in supplementary preliminary practices rooted in Theravāda Buddhism. These practices include medi- tations on impermanence and mortality (such as maraṇasati and asu- bha bhāvana). This deepens the yogi’s grasp of the theoretical doctrine concerning the impermanent nature of all phenomena, highlighting that notions of autonomy and enduring permanence are but illusions stemming from the misperceptions of an unenlightened consciousness confined within dualistic thought patterns. This technique shares a pro- found connection with the Mahāyāna doctrine that underscores the illusory essence of both external phenomena and one’s individual exist- ence. It further aligns with the illusory quality attributed to dreams and the surreal nature of the bar do experience. In certain commentaries, the practice of dreaming is even recognized as an integral facet of the illusory body technique, for it serves to profoundly enhance the realiza- tion of the fleeting essence inherent in one’s psychophysical continuum and all phenomena within the world. Prior to engaging in this practice, the yogi assumes a meditation pos- ture and situates an object before them, one that serves as a reminder of their own body or reflects it, much like a mirror. Subsequently, the yogi begins audibly critiquing himself while attentively observing whether feelings of sorrow or ease arise. The objective of this practice is to attain a state of equanimity. Therefore, it should be diligently pursued until all emotions have ceased to exist. In doing so, the practitioner acknowl- edges the illusory nature of all emotions and proceeds to delve into the examination of other objects. In this process, the practitioner con- templates and engages in meditation on the dreamlike, illusory qual- ity of objects as they manifest in everyday perception (Tilopa [sgyu lus 16–18]). Furthermore, he focuses on exploring the nature of the twelve examples of illusion (Tilopa [sgyu lus 22]), which may involve scruti- P O L I G R A F I 26 nizing phenomena like the structure of an echo or one’s own reflection in a mirror.25 Consequently, by acknowledging the authentic essence of external phenomena, the yogi shifts his focus to his own body, com- prehending its composition along with the sensations of pleasure and discomforts that course through it. This realization leads to an under- standing of the impermanent nature that underpins all facets of his existence. Subsequently, the yogi initiates the visualization of his body transforming into the likeness of the selected deity’s form. This mental transformation is further intensified by positioning an image of the de- ity before him or aligning it in a manner that allows its reflection to ap- pear in the mirror placed in front. The latter practice embodies a form of deity yoga, wherein the yogi offers praises to the reflected image in the mirror and attentively monitors for any arising emotions. The absence of emotions signifies the attainment of practice’s perfection, as the yogi recognizes the emptiness inherent in all things, including his own body and the bodies of the deities. This marks the realization of the genuine essence underlying all illusory manifestations, namely the Buddha-na- ture or śūnyatā, while simultaneously initiating the profound explora- tion of the Mahāyāna Buddhist concept of the equivalence between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. The practice culminates with the recontemplation of illusions (Tib. sgyu ma maya) while in a seated meditation posture.26 25 This technique, as evidenced in the Tilopa fragments (Tilopa [sgyu lus 19–20]) (Torricelli, “The Tibetan Text on Tilopa’s Ṣaḍdharmopadeśa.”), is performed using a mirror and the image of the deity Vajrasattva. It is practiced in this way by Ladakhi yogis even today, using a bowl of water and placing the image of Vajrasattva so that it is projected onto the surface of the water in the bowl through a mirror. Then yogi begins to meditate on the image in the water until he realises that the nature of this image is identical with all that has been created, through which he identifies with it. 26 Yoga of the illusory body is extremely important for all subsequent practices, including bar do and yoga of the transmission of consciousness, because it enables yogis to direct conscious- ness towards enlightenment, nirvāṇa, and thus to escape rebirth in saṃsāra. Moreover, at the time of death, the separation of the subtle body from the gross body is easily accomplished due to training in the practice of the illusory body, while during the lifetime of yogis, the latter separation is deepened in dreams. I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 27 The soteriological method of dreaming: awakening the veiled waking consciousness within the realm of dreams The intricate soteriological technique of dreaming (Tib. rmi lam), involving purposeful and conscious engagement within the dream state, relies on the method of identifying dreams as dreams. This involves closely observing dream images, exerting influence over their narrative, and sustaining the awareness that they are mere manifestations of the dream realm. Through this process, the dreamer gains profound and immediate insight into the illusory essence of all dream phenomena. This understanding is then carried over to the state of wakefulness upon awakening.27 In conjunction with the succinctly introduced role of the body, which, when appropriately nurtured, impacts the dynamics of conscious dreaming, the theoretical, philosophical and practical dimen- sions of the dreaming technique are rooted in the teachings of a promi- nent Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition. Specifically, these principles draw upon the philosophical framework of the yogācāra school, particularly Vasubandhu’s elucidation of the nature of consciousness (vijñāna). Cer- tain concepts from this school will be introduced as we delve into the analysis of the four stages encompassing the lucid dreaming process. The progression of dreaming encompasses three distinct phases: (1) slumber (Skrt. nidrā, Tib. gnyid), (2) dream (Skrt. svapna, Tib. rmi lam), and meditative immersion within the dream (Skrt. samāpatti, Tib. snyoms ‘jug), comprising four stages, and ultimately, (3) awaken- ing from the dream (Skrt. prākrta, Tib. tha mal). The onset of lucid dreaming and the capacity to introspect within dreams, as highlighted earlier, necessitate sufficient sleep and the establishment of conducive conditions for it. This, in turn, demands a rigorous and unavoidable preliminary regimen. Consequently, prior to delving into the examina- tion of the four phases of the dreaming technique, a concise overview of the “pre-dreaming training” is presented. 27 Even in regular dreaming, it is often the case that we suddenly experience a flash of lucidity at the centre of a dream, i.e. we become aware that we are dreaming, but this is not a matter of being trained in the control of our own dreams; the practice of lucid dreaming is an extremely complex technique, linked to other meditation techniques. P O L I G R A F I 28 Adequate sleep and preliminary “dream training” The notion of surpassing chaotic dreams, leading to the emergence of lucid dreams, as underscored in fragments attributed to Naropa, was subsequently continued in the evolution of the tradition. This develop- ment was accompanied by a series of guidelines outlining the prepara- tions for sleep.28 The importance of preparing for sleep has been em- phasized in Gampopa’s writings and numerous other commentaries. Provided below is a succinct summary of certain instructions sourced from Gampopa’s commentaries (Tib. Dags po’i bka’ ‘bum) as well as insights shared by Ladakhi yogis who persistently adhere to these guide- lines in the contemporary era. a) Waking up a subtle body before dreaming Prior to commencing the lucid dreaming technique, ensuring a rest- ful night’s sleep holds paramount importance. The duration of sleep should not be excessively prolonged; instead, it is advisable to incor- porate several shorter intervals of slumber. A significant portion of the discourse surrounding this topic also delves into the inquiry of which segment of the night is most conducive for facilitating a fruitful dream process. If a yogi does not experience issues related to fatigue or sleep troubles, he has the flexibility to engage in the practice at any point during the night. However, if such challenges are present, the optimal time is during the period between dawn and sunrise. This interval is characterized by a well-rested body, a clear mind, and complete diges- tion of consumed food. Yogis are advised to opt for a tranquil and iso- lated sleeping environment. Aside from considering the external factors of timing and location, the crux of a prosperous dreaming technique lies in the preparations for dreaming. These preparations are most ef- fectively conducted during the daytime or in the moments preceding sleep. Before going to sleep, yogis ought to strengthen their devotion to their teacher, avoid heavy meals, embrace solitude and maintain a keen 28 In his commentary, Tsongkhapa calls the preparation for sleep “the clear light of sleep yoga”; see Glenn H. Mullin, The Practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa (Ithaca, New York: Shambala Publications, Snow Lion Publications, 2006), 138. I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 29 awareness of all sensations and thoughts. This involves meticulously ob- serving everything perceived in the waking state, encompassing sights, sounds, sensations and scents. Such attentiveness augments the likeli- hood of being able to discern dream images more distinctly during the night. This underscores the continuity between perceiving images in the waking state and within dreams. Subsequently, they ready themselves for slumber by reclining on their right side and reaffirming the purpose of the impending sleep: to endeavour to discern the dream with utmost clarity during the dream process. Following that, they envision a five- petaled lotus within the throat cakra region, centring their attention on these five petals containing the sacred syllables of a luminous mantra. They gradually shift their focus from one syllable to the next in a de- liberate manner. During the visualization practice, they concurrently engage in breathing techniques (prāṇāyāma), sourced from the Hindu haṭhayoga tradition, focusing in particular on holding the breath for as long as possible. By means of controlled breathing, they direct the body’s energies towards the throat cakra, thereby establishing a stable foundation for the practice of lucid dreaming. Dreams are intricately tied to the throat cakra, and the dream experience materializes through the skilful manipulation of energy, a technique interwoven with the concept of the subtle body as mentioned earlier. As they transition into slumber, yogis envision a sphere of white light (Tib. thig le) positioned between their eyebrows.29 This concluding practice at the threshold of wakefulness facilitates a gentle descent into light sleep and aids in the evolution of typical dreams into lucid dreams – those in which they possess a distinct awareness of the dream nature. Upon entering sleep, they remain poised for dreams to unfold, and as the dreams commence, they meticulously acknowledge each and every image that materializes. If yogis encounter difficulties with this technique, they are advised to thoroughly analyse the underlying reasons while awake. Subsequently, they can either reattempt the process, or engage in additional prepara- tion for the practice. Various challenges and hindrances (Tib. bar chad, Skrt. antarāya) often manifest for adept yogis engaged in diverse prac- tices, originating from a multitude of factors. 29 Segment DK.A.Tsa.4, in: Kragh, Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism, 383. P O L I G R A F I 30 b) A few more obstacles in the dreaming process Outlined below are succinct descriptions of some of the more preva- lent hindrances. Fatigue results in profound, unbroken sleep, impairing dream recall, while the lack of drowsiness poses an even more preva- lent challenge. In such instances, yogis can choose to visualize either a luminous red oṃ syllable, radiating throughout the expansive throat cakra region, or a gentle, softly glowing white sphere, approximately the size of a thumb, positioned between their eyebrows within the crown cakra area. Through this approach, yogis induce a state of drowsiness, causing their consciousness to blend with the luminosity, and gradu- ally descend into the realm of dreams. While doing so, the emphasis on the luminosity should not be overly intense, as it could potentially divert their attention away from slumber. When faced with challenges in recollecting dreams, they should maintain wakefulness by closely ob- serving their immediate surroundings. They should envision that all the elements of their surroundings are akin to those in a dream. Afterward, they can endeavour to return to sleep. Another frequent issue is the lack of dreams, for which the same techniques as those suggested for difficulties with sleep and absence of drowsiness are recommended. If, despite practicing the exercises, a yogi still cannot recall the dream or fails to distinctly recognize the dream images, he should retreat into profound solitude. Engaging in activities such as jumping, dancing or running while exclaiming “This is a dream, this is a dream!” at the high- est volume possible can also be employed as an approach.30 The yogi can also venture to a place that invokes fear or danger, such as the brink of a precipice, gaze into the abyss and affirm to himself that everything before him is merely a dream. As he prepares for sleep, he should emphatically affirm that this time he will achieve success, expe- riencing lucid dreams wherein he recognizes every detail of the content. Even for those who, despite undergoing such additional training, strug- gle to identify the dream, there remains a remedy. They should cultivate a sense of humility.31 Moreover, a solution exists even for those facing such challenges: they should devote themselves to daily prayers direct- 30 Segment DK.A.Tsha.9, in: Kragh, Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism, 394. 31 Segment DK.A.Tsha.9, in: Kragh, Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism, 394. I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 31 ed towards their teacher and the Buddha. Following this, within the throat cakra region, they can visualize sharp blades slicing their body into fragments. Subsequently, in their mind, they offer these pieces as a sacrifice to the Buddha and all sentient beings. This is followed by the mahāmudrā practice. Additional instances of challenges are also detailed in the com- mentaries. For example, if a yogi experiences bliss within lucid dreams but becomes entangled in attachment, giving rise to emotions, this situation can turn “the whole practice into a saṃsāric affair”.32 In this context, failure arises as he is unable to achieve an experience of emptiness due to his emotional entwinement. When confronted with such challenges, the yogi should place both hands over their eyes and gently turn them upward, while simultaneously easing the mind’s tur- moil by directing attention towards the heart cakra. This technique is meant to induce a robust sensation of both bliss and emptiness on a physical level. When merged with the concurrent practice of the illu- sory body technique, it culminates in a heightened comprehension of 32 Segment DKA.Tsha.9, in: Kragh, Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism, 395. Figure 7: Yogi jumps and screams: “This is a dream, this is a dream!”; mural in the secret temple of Lukhang, Tibet, 17th century (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) P O L I G R A F I 32 all phenomena as manifestations akin to dreams, originating from con- sciousness (vijñāna), as frequently elucidated in Vasubandhu’s teach- ings concerning consciousness (e.g. Vimśatikāvijñaptimātratāsiddhi 16, 17). Through this process, the yogi also transcends various forms of at- tachment and fear, encompassing even the apprehensions of practice failure and the consequent cycle of rebirth in saṃsāra. To further dispel this type of fear, he should repeatedly remind himself of the concept of the equivalence between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, a theme found in numer- ous Mahāyāna Buddhist sūtras, and frequently emphasized within the madhyamaka school (as seen in Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, XXV. Nirvāṇaparīkṣā).33 Nirvāṇa is equal to saṃsāra as perceived by Siddhārtha Gautama and innumerable other buddhas. Insight into their equality is a redemptive revelation and a novel mode of existence within saṃsāra. Hence, within the perspective of the enlightened, the world assumes a different guise. What is regarded as fiction by ordinary 33 The doctrine of emptiness in Mahāyāna Buddhism had implications for the very concept of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, nirvāṇa does not mean ontological transcen- dence as it was conceived in Theravāda Buddhism, namely as the thirty-second stage of reality, which is absolutely beyond all saṃsāric realms (although it was neither spatially nor tempo- rally defined, but was defined as beyond). There is no ontological difference between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, because nirvāṇa is not a transcendence, a supreme state beyond saṃsāra, but an infinite linearity, an immanence, without any trace of anything metaphysical. All the transcen- dence we are so diligently seeking is already here, in front of us. The radical transformation of ways of perceiving the world has also had consequences for the validity of metaphysical truths; metaphysics thus becomes a fictional, delusional construct. With Buddhis Mahāyāna nirvāṇa thus “loses” its transcendent character and becomes immanent. It is present in everything, om- nipresent in saṃsāra as a latent potential; we all carry within us our potential nirvāṇa, which is only awakened at the moment of enlightenment. The shift from saṃsāra to nirvāṇa is therefore merely an epistemological shift, not an ontological one; it is a shift in the way the world is perceived, an awakening to emptiness. Everything is actually the same, remaining as it was, but at the same time so radically different – through the glasses of emptiness. Nirvāṇa is simply the realisation that saṃsāra is empty, accompanied by a feeling of bliss. The difference between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, from the conventional, empirical point of view (saṃvṛtisatya), is merely this: to be in saṃsāra, i.e. to be involved in the mechanism of rebirth and death, is to see the world as a collection of separate and autonomous entities that are solid, unchanging, whereas to be in nirvāṇa is to see things as impermanent and empty. When an individual perceives the emptiness of saṃsāra instead of its fullness (in the sense of substantiality, solidity, imperma- nence), saṃsāra, in this sense the whole phenomenal world, is transformed into nirvāṇa, which in turn also takes the individual out of saṃsāra as a cycle of birth and death, fuelled by igno- rance, in which both the epistemological and the ontological aspects are intimately intertwined (Petek, Na pragu prebujenja, 164). I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 33 individuals takes on the mantle of reality, while the reality perceived through conventional modes of cognition assumes the semblance of fiction. Conversely, this has also impacted the preconceived under- standing of the connection between dreams and wakefulness. The il- lusory frameworks that shape both states are fashioned by the same, as Vasubandhu terms it, a “magic wand of consciousness” (as evidenced in his treatise the Trisvabhāvanirdeśa). This explains why wakefulness does not inherently possess a superior epistemological status compared to dreams. Within the eremitic tradition of Buddhism, this correlation is elevated to the point where dreams, due to their heightened ability to dissolve discursive thought patterns compared to wakefulness, are ascribed a greater soteriological significance than mental processes oc- curring in the awakened state. The internalization of the concept of the ontological equivalence between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa holds paramount importance in surmounting the fear of death, a fear that is further at- tenuated through the practice of conscious dreaming. An issue frequently highlighted by commentators and yogis them- selves is the occurrence of premature awakening from dreams. The yogi might wake up just as they commence observing the dream images. For instance, if awakened during the night, they should re- frain from opening their eyes. Instead, with unwavering resolve, they should re-enter their dream realm, resolute that on the next occasion, they will not abruptly awaken from their dreams. When waking up in the morning, they should look closely at the reasons why they woke up too early – which can include external circumstances such as noise, heat or cold, too heavy clothes, etc. – and do their best to eliminate them the next time they go to sleep. With every awaken- ing, it is essential for them to contemplate the essence of their dreams and whether they have effectively recognized them. Throughout the day, they should fortify their conscious intent to distinctly identify the images within their dreams. Additional concerns pertain to the manifestation of fragmented and disorderly dream images, stemming from the aggregation of distorted mental contents engendered by consciousness during wakefulness. The yogi overcomes these by en- gaging in breathing exercises and maintaining a resolute commitment to lucid dreaming. P O L I G R A F I 34 Apart from the resolute conscious determination, the practice of the yoga of radiant light plays a vital role in fostering the occurrence of lucid dreams. While described in the Tilopa and Naropa fragments as a practice conducted subsequent to the dreaming technique, the no- tion of its utility as a prelude to the actual dream practice is also indi- cated in numerous commentaries. Prior to contemplating the dream during wakefulness, yogis should exert themselves to “seize the radi- ance” (Tib. ‘od gsal zin par bya),34 subsequently directing their atten- tion towards visualizing the five syllables within the heart cakra. This method is also recognized as the “mahāmudrā practice for the dream state” (Tib. phyag rgya chen po rmi lam du bsgom pa).35 Hence, it is typically practiced before sleep, often while lying down. During this time, yogis centre their focus on envisioning the sacred syllable hūṃ within the heart cakra. This syllable radiates a powerful light, and they shift their attention sequentially from one syllable to the next. Through 34 Segment DK.A.Pa.8, in: Kragh, Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism, 353. 35 Segment DK.A.Pa.8, in: Kragh, Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism, 353. Figure 8: A yogi practising breathing techniques; mural in the secret temple of Lukhang, Tibet, 17th century (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 35 the consistent application of this technique, yogis are poised to swiftly transition into a dream state. The practice of radiant light yoga aids in intensifying the clarity within dreams and concurrently sustains a heightened awareness even during profound sleep. Furthermore, upon waking, their thoughts remain impeccably lucid. If they awake during the darkness, their surroundings become vividly apparent, and the rec- ollection of their dreams remains distinct. The four stages of dream yoga The efficacy of the lucid dreaming technique is hence contingent upon the preliminary groundwork delineated earlier. The actual prac- tice of lucid dreaming encompasses four distinct stages. The initial stage involves recognizing the dream, often termed as “capturing, seizing the dream” (Tib. rmi lam bzung ba). In this phase, yogis be- come aware that they are within a dream and maintain consciousness throughout the dream sequence. The second stage encompasses the creation of dream images and the acknowledgment of their illusory essence (Tib. rmi lam yongs su sbyang ba). The third stage pertains to comprehending the illusory character of dreams (Tib. rmi lam sgyu mar shes par bya ba), while the fourth stage involves contemplating the authentic nature of dreams (Tib. rmi lam gyi de kho na nyid bsgom pa). The concluding stage entails awakening into wakefulness, where- in the yogis, leveraging a sophisticated dream technique, perceive this state through an entirely distinct lens, viewing it “with the glasses of the emptiness” experienced within the dream. a) Capturing the dream The initial stage of the dream process involves the distinct recogni- tion of the dream as being just a dream. Yogis immerse themselves with- in their own dream realm, akin to veiling dream images like images on a screen. Through this process, they come to recognize themselves as both the dream’s creator, originating from their consciousness (vijñāna), and as an observer of the dream’s contents simultaneously. This aspect is also mirrored in the fragments attributed to Tilopa: P O L I G R A F I 36 When you recognize dreams as dreams, you always attend (bhāvanā) to [their] deep sense. Tilopa [rmi lam 25–26]36 The following part of the fragment already alludes to the second stage of the technique, which involves attentively deciphering the sig- nificance of dreams and delving into their contents. b) Mastery in recognising the illusory nature of dreams This stage of deepening lucid dreaming is also referred to as dream purification, as its essence lies in intensifying the recognition that all dream images are indeed illusory. To grasp this technique, it is worth- while at this point to briefly delve into the doctrine of consciousness, the origin of all mental contents in both wakefulness and dreams, as well as the birthplace of liberation. - The nature of (dream) consciousness Vasubandhu (320–380), one of the main exponents of the yogācāra school, specifically dedicated his efforts to deliberations concerning the diverse manifestations of consciousness (vijñāna). The fundamental philosophical foundation of the school is the doctrine of “consciousness only” (vijñaptimātratā), signifying that everything we perceive, wheth- er in the external realm or within our own inner self, originates from consciousness and its cognitive processes. Hence, there exists solely the reality of consciousness, and objects outside of consciousness lack in- dependent existence from it. It is essential to underscore that the doc- trine of consciousness alone does not negate the presence of the external world; rather, it implies that the encounter with objects in daily experi- ence is essentially a creation of consciousness. This concept emphasizes that the phenomenal world does not exist in the manner it perceives itself. The apprehension of conscious phenomena hinges upon the cir- cumstances of its “storehouse consciousness” (ālayavijñāna), a reservoir of imprints amassed across all preceding lifetimes. These imprints carry forward into subsequent existences and, under specific circumstances, 36 All translations of the Tilopa fragments from Tibetan into English are given in Torricelli, “The Tibetan Text on Tilopa’s Ṣaḍdharmopadeśa,” 145–166. I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 37 mature or trigger in the subsequent life, shaping mental contents. This establishes a connection between the past, present, and future within the realm of human experience. Serving as the foundation for mental processes, it holds the residues of the past that influence the present, thus shaping the future. Concurrently, it acts as the repository of con- sciousness and the birthplace of dreams. Vasubandhu characterizes the objects within the phenomenal world, as perceived by consciousness, as illusions (Vimśatikāvijñaptimātratā- siddhi 1). He further elucidates the origin of all mental representations that arise in both waking and dreaming states through the doctrine of the evolution of consciousness known as vijñānapariṇāma. The term pariṇāma signifies progression and transformation, denoting a de- parture from the prior state. It pertains to the inherent character of consciousness, a concept discernible within Abhidhamma Buddhism, wherein consciousness is conceived as an array of fleeting occurrences that shift from one moment to the next. Consciousness is not a static and immutable entity; rather, it emerges anew in every moment and si- multaneously varies in each instance, carrying latent imprints from its preceding states. This unceasing stream of transformation embodies its essential ontological essence through interaction with the senses and the external world, consciousness constructs representations that en- compass dream content. This content emerges from karmic imprints stored within the storehouse consciousness, interwoven with the im- pressions from waking experiences, all amassed within the same store- house.37 Vasubandhu elucidates the essence of consciousness by draw- ing upon the trisvabhāva doctrine, which outlines the three facets of consciousness’ nature. In its typical, unillumined state, consciousness embodies conceptualization (parikalpitasvabhāva), denoting an ima- ginative quality. This conceptualization serves as the foundation for 37 The storehouse of consciousness could be compared to Carl Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious, a place where various memory traces and archetypes are stored, but ālayavijñāna only includes the personal unconscious, as it is merely a collection of one’s past karmic history and varies from person to person. What is universal, according to the teachings of Buddhism, is that which arises from the accumulated traces in the storehouse of consciousness, i.e. ignorance, which causes suffering; therefore, the main technique of human meditation efforts is to purify the storehouse of past impressions. P O L I G R A F I 38 its dualistic thought patterns, fostering a divide between itself and the external realm. Consequently, consciousness perceives objects as au- tonomously real, while concurrently sensing its own distinctness from the rest of existence. The second alteration in consciousness, known as paratantrasvabhāva, surpasses the deceptive notions of objects existing autonomously. It emerges from perceiving the interconnectedness of phenomena that unfold within consciousness. This understanding ac- knowledges the causal relationships between mental constructs and also recognizes the seamless continuum between mental experiences in both wakefulness and the dream state. In the same manner that waking consciousness engages with the world based on its karmic potentials and the stored predispositions within the storehouse consciousness, dream consciousness follows suit, as there exists a seamless connection between these two states. Negative karma also extends its reach into dreams, mirroring the ethical condi- tion of the dreamer. These adverse effects are encapsulated by the term upaghātava, which can also be understood as a seminal outpouring within a dream triggered by encountering an unreal dream image. In line with Buddhist philosophy, encountering such an occurrence within a dream is construed as a manifestation of negative moral disposition, characterized by intense emotions, and carried over from the waking life into the realm of dreams. Suffering is engendered by conscious- ness itself through its representations, and it is in alignment with this process that individuals make choices, consequently finding themselves situated within a particular realm of reality. Vasubandhu asserts that the perception of an object can emerge even in the absence of an actual external object (Vimśatikāvijñaptimātratāsiddhi 16). He draws a com- parison to dreams – just as in dreams, a phenomenon materializes be- fore us for a brief moment and then vanishes, similarly, such transience can occur with an object in the waking state. The fleeting essence of the object causes its dissolution, yet its imprint persists within conscious- ness. Even amidst diverse circumstances, an individual can continue to envision its presence. Instances of perception without actual objects encompass a range of dream visions, encounters, and journeys. The third transformation of consciousness, pariniṣpannasvabhāva (“perfected nature”), represents a state of consciousness that unveils its I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 39 inherent dynamics, beholding both the world and itself in their genu- ine form – emptiness. When dissecting the dynamic framework of consciousness, Vasu- bandhu employs several analogies that draw parallels between wake- fulness and dreams, as well as the objects we perceive within each of these states. In its typical condition, consciousness engages in percep- tion through the lens of impressions and memory, unaware that these do not truly reflect reality; much like a dreamer in an ordinary dream remains oblivious to the fact that the images witnessed are mere illusions (Vimśatikāvijñaptimātratāsiddhi 17). One comes to recognize this upon awakening, drawing an analogy between two forms of enlightenment – just as a dreamer emerges from slumber and comprehends that the images were mere phantasms, born of their dream-consciousness, similarly, in wakefulness, by engaging in meditative practice, they awaken from their misconceptions and apprehend that all representations are simply products of their consciousness. According to the teachings of Tantric Buddhism, however, consciousness can solely attain its ultimate and genuine modifi- cation (pariniṣpannasvabhāva), namely its emptiness, within dreams, sub- sequently transferring these insights into the realm of wakefulness. - The creative activity of consciousness Prior to reaching the ultimate stage, which involves the conclusive transformation of consciousness and the subsequent transference of insights into wakefulness, yogis assess the potency of their boundless consciousness through testing within dreams.38 Through the diligent practice of inner heat and illusory body techniques, they attain com- plete mastery over their consciousness, preventing them from generat- ing dream images based on accumulated impressions. The latter could be defined as a technique of managing or controlling one’s own dream process. Ordinary dreamers, or those who remain in the first, clouded modification of their own consciousness, cannot choose what to dream about or change the content of their dreams, but merely indulge in 38 Vasubandhu illustrates the potent power of consciousness with the example of the story from Rāmāyaṇa about ṛṣi, the seer who burnt down a forest by sheer force of his conscious- ness (GRETIL, “Viṃśatikākārikā,” accessed July 22, 2023, http://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ gretil/corpustei/transformations/html/sa_viMzatikAkArikA.htm, 20). P O L I G R A F I 40 watching what is conjured up on the night-screen, with no possibility of getting up, turning off the screen and leaving the “bad film” behind, while yogis’ training in Tantric techniques enables them to do extreme things in their dreams that are not possible in the waking state. As an il- lustration, if a yogi dreams of water, he possesses the capacity to wilfully transmute it into fire; if his dream entails something diminutive, he can morph it into something substantial, or even replicate a single entity into an infinite multitude. This technique relies on delving into the dynamic framework of consciousness that gives rise to dream imagery and the associated emotions. It entails a meticulous examination of the emergence and dissipation of dream constructs, allowing yogis to per- ceive that all dream manifestations are illusory and devoid of inherent substance. Consequently, this practice helps yogis transcend attachment to these manifestations. This technique is also known as “illusory dream actions” and, as yogis of Ladakh taught me, encompasses two categories: mundane and supra- mundane acts. In the mundane aspect, yogis are capable of engaging in ordinary tasks, visiting commonplace locations or executing actions within a dream that remain beyond reach in waking life. For instance, they can journey to revered terrains or transfigure diverse entities, includ- ing themselves, into different forms. This practice facilitates the insight that the constituents of the dream realm lack autonomous existence, as they are intricately interwoven, each imbued with the quality of empti- ness. The technique of controlling one’s dream process encompasses the act of imbuing dreams with a specific reality from within the dream itself. This entails a deliberate choice within the dream to embark on journeys to uncharted domains – traversing detailed landscapes, such as a voyage around the world or venturing into celestial realms. In these ethereal expanses, one engages in conversations with deities, absorbing their teachings and counsel, while experiencing an overflow of bliss and an ecstatic quiver throughout the body. Moreover, they have the ability to journey to diverse Buddha’s realms, where the dream- er frequently assumes the guise of a Buddha.39 Gampopa’s commentary, 39 Projection of dreams into the realms of celestial or Buddha’s realities is a common tech- nique used by many yogis as well as lamas; for example, Lama Wonton Kyergangwa projected I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 41 along with the accounts of Ladakhi yogis, narrates dream voyages to Amitābha’s Pure Land. Here, trees bedecked in gold grace the land- scape, rivers exude intoxicating fragrances as they flow, and a cascade of himself in a dream into the reality of Guru Padmasambhava, where he received the teachings of Hayagrīvatantra (Skrt., Tib. tam drin). Figure 9: Yogi Darikapa (9th century) flying in his dream (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) P O L I G R A F I 42 flowers and lotuses shower down, radiating exquisite luminance. With- in this realm, the dreamer offers homage and attunes to the Buddha’s prayers. Within such dreams, it is imperative for the yogi to recognize that all these celestial dimensions are akin to illusions, akin to rainbows or the moon’s reflection upon water. This recognition further reinforces the concept of the equanimity between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. Another significant method employed for what are often referred to as dream journeys and encounters with Buddhas is the practice of visualization. Prior to engaging in the actual gtum mo technique, yogis undergo training in the following visualization approach: The seed-syllables (bīja) of the five families (pañcatathāgatagotra), are [taken as visualisation] supports (ālambana). Then, [in sleep] the buddha-fields (buddhakṣetra) and the buddhas will be seen. Tilopa [rmi lam 28–30] Yet another prevalent method involves the metamorphosis of yogis into maṇḍala deities, characterized by distinct body hues and numer- ous limbs. This practice is preceded by preliminary visualizations of a maṇḍala that portrays the entire universe, centred on Mount Meru. Consequently, within a dream, through deliberate intent and con- scious manipulation, yogis have the ability to transmute themselves into various forms: a bird, a lion, a king, a house, a mountain, even a Buddha, altering the scale of these images. They can soar through the sky, bound onto the moon or sun, or plunge into a profound abyss without sustaining harm. They can summon the sun or the moon to the earth with a single step, traverse through flames unscathed, explore profound depths and expand their presence across the entire expanse of the universe. - Illusory body yoga and dream body The effectiveness of mastering the technique of executing illusory actions within dreams is shaped not solely by visualization, but also by the practice of the illusory body yoga. This facet involves altering one’s own dream body, thereby enhancing the perception of the transient nature of the psychophysical continuum, alongside recognition of the impermanence inherent in all phenomena. For instance, this practice I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 43 entails the ability to purposefully transform external objects, like trans- muting water into fire, earth into the moon, or even converting a bird into a tiger. The yoga of the illusory body constitutes an essential com- ponent within this overall practice. The practice of acknowledging the ever-changing nature of both entities and oneself, the perpetual process of emergence and transformation, holds significance not only during life but also during the dying process and the intermediate state of bar do.40 Hence, the illusory body technique and dream practice comple- ment one another, synergistically guiding towards the transcendence of discursive thinking and dispelling the myriad of illusions that stem from it. The capacity to embark on these journeys is intertwined with the unique and refined dream body that yogis assume, effectively disen- gaging from the gross physical form. In this context, the physical tech- niques for awakening dormant energies hold a significant role, aiding in this separation process. It is important to highlight the distinction between typical dreams originating in the unawaken, “gross” body of an ordinary dreamer, and those stemming from the deliberate manipu- lation of energies within the subtle body. In the latter case, the subtle body undergoes transformation within the dream itself, resulting in a nuanced dream experience. The subtle dream body similarly becomes evident in the bar do state, drawing parallels to the shamanistic con- cept of a dream soul disentangling itself from the material realm to manifest remarkable phenomena. This notion finds resonance, for in- stance, in the Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad (4.3.11), emphasizing that during a dream, an individual momentarily departs the physical form to adopt the dream body, enabling the soul to forge a dream realm distinct from the material entities within the phenomenal world. The cultivation of diverse supernatural abilities and the prac- tice of dream journeys serve to fortify the recognition of dreams’ il- lusory essence. Ultimately, these endeavours aim to culminate in their cessation, ushering in the dissolution of all conceptual con- structs. This transformative process leads to the transition of con- 40 The recognition of the four emptinesses is also crucial, whereupon the consciousness of the fourth emptiness projects the illusory body into the maṇḍala, after which there is the disappear- ance of both the dreamer, the Buddha, and the maṇḍala. P O L I G R A F I 44 ceptual modification parikalpitasvabhāva into vijñāna’s pristine state (pariniṣpannasvabhāva),41 marking the culmination of the dreaming journey. c) Awareness of the illusory nature of dreams Upon mastering the aforementioned techniques, yogis advance to the third stage of acknowledging and deepening the understanding of the illusory nature of dreams. This phase encompasses meditation that perceives all phenomena as enchanting illusions and dreams (Skrt. svapnamāyopamā, Tib. rmi lam sgyu ma lta bu). This practice is also called training in māyā (Skrt., Tib. bslab pa), i.e. illusion, the most im- portant part of which is the practice of overcoming any kind of fear.42 A method to further enhance this practice involves the induction of unsettling dreams, wherein yogis must discern the dream’s true nature 41 See for instance »Vasubandhu: Trisvabhāvanirdeśa« (GRETIL, accessed July 22, 2023, https://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil/corpustei/transformations/html/sa_vasubandhu- trisvabhAvanirdeza.htm). 42 It is therefore also referred to as the recognition of illusion and the overcoming of fear (Tib. sgyu mar bying gyis brlab cing yang ba spang ba), Segment DK.A.Pa.9, in: Kragh, Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism, 354. Figure 10: A subtle, illusory and dream body; mural in the secret temple of Lukhang, Tibet, 17th century (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 45 as a mere illusion. This process serves to intensify the realization of the dream’s illusory essence. This method primarily revolves around gen- erating deliberate actions within the dream to assess one’s adeptness in surmounting fear. For instance, deliberately engaging in unsettling acts within the dream, confronting formidable entities, walking into flames or descending into an abyss, all while maintaining the awareness that these events have not genuinely transpired. Through this process, yogis arrive at the realization that dreams remain mere illusions, dispelling the necessity for fear, as everything within them is a product of imagi- nation. Whenever a thought emerges within the dream, suggesting that the dream’s authenticity might be plausible – such as when fear takes hold of a yogi – he should promptly examine the fear’s essence within the dream context itself. This process leads them to reaffirm that the cause of the fear is completely void of reality, rendering all apprehen- sions redundant. Hence, yogis maintain a distinct awareness within the dream itself, acknowledging that they cannot be scorched by the fire, carried away by a flood or torn apart by a dog.43 This form of dream- guidance, underscoring the illusory essence of both dreams and waking experiences, ultimately fosters an understanding of the inherent non- existence of the substantial nature within all existence. Yogis compre- hend that dreams constitute nothing more than a deceptive and illusory manifestation of consciousness (parikalpitasvabhāva). The entirety of the phenomenal realm reveals emptiness, and consciousness itself bears resemblance to a dream-like image. Saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, akin to the unreal mirage enticing a thirst-driven deer (Skrt. mṛgatṛṣṇā, lit. “deer- thirst”),44 are recognized as unreal appearances. Consequently, nothing is genuinely bounded, thus, there exists naught to liberate. In this manner, yogis employ a form of vigilant contemplation of dream images, akin to the meditation sati, a detached observation of thoughts within Theravāda Buddhism. However, in this instance, the 43 Segment DK.A.Pa.9, in: Kragh, Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism, 354. 44 Mṛgatṛṣṇā is the name given to a Fata Morgana, an optical phenomenon in the atmo- sphere. The term was coined on the basis of the specific situation in which the phenomenon mostly occurs, namely in a vast desert where the sun mercilessly scorches the sand beneath it, creating the illusion of water, which drives the thirsty deer to make an hour-long run to get some refreshment. P O L I G R A F I 46 practice unfolds within the dream state itself. Through this practice, yogis unveil the illusory essence of these images, surmount the imagina- tive transformation of consciousness and consequently eradicate nega- tive karmic imprints even within the dreaming process. However, it is important to emphasize that at this stage, they have not yet attained the ability to directly perceive emptiness as the foundational essence of all phenomena. They remain within the domain of what could be called the conceptual dream universe. This parallel can also be drawn to expe- riences in the waking state – when we observe a reflection in a mirror, we recognize its illusory nature, yet we are still incapable of grasping its true nature directly, free from any conceptual blending. d) Contemplation on the true nature of dreams In the ultimate phase of dream yoga, having achieved proficiency in deciphering the authentic essence of dream images, eradicating emo- tions within the dream and concurrently surpassing all attachments, a state of non-dualistic awareness is reached. This entails a non-conceptu- al understanding (Tib. rigpa), where consciousness undergoes a meta- morphosis into its fundamental and pure state (pariniṣpannasvabhāva). Figure 11: Yogis observe dreams and discover their creative potentials; mural in the secret temple of Lukhang, Tibet, 17th century (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 47 Consequently, yogis perceive solely the serene and unblemished lumi- nance of consciousness – the primal Buddha nature – characterized by emptiness, devoid of dream narratives and without the presence of the dreamer. This state is precipitated by a preceding examination of the yogis’ dream consciousness, culminating in the revelation that all exists within a consciousness that is uncreated and boundless, akin to an un- fathomable ocean or an endless cosmos. Thus, a shift occurs from a con- sciousness comprised of conceptual frameworks (parikalpitasvabhāva) to a consciousness which understands the interconnectedness of mental phenomena (paratantrasvabhāva) and finally to a consciousness devoid of any mental constructs (pariniṣpannasvabhāva), akin to the vacant expanse of the sky. At this stage, the dream progression undergoes a metamorphosis into a non-conceptual contemplation, specifically a meditation on suchness – the genuine essence of the dream. This practice concurrently fosters an awareness of the suchness inherent in wakefulness (Tib. chos nyid, Skt. tathātā, also dharmatā). The obscured conceptual consciousness (Tib. kunzhi namshe) inherently generates duality and engages in the play of dualism. In truth, the foundational element of consciousness is the boundless interplay of dualistic per- ceptions of the world. This incessant interplay consistently generates novel experiences, meticulously storing them within the repository of consciousness known as ālayavijñāna. In the final stage of dream yoga, ālayavijñāna undergoes complete purification, allowing yogis not only to comprehend the mechanism of consciousness but also to perceive it in its true form – as empty. The emergence of non-dual awareness with- in the dream realm signifies a manifestation of enlightenment within the dream itself. This awakening not only unveils the emptiness inher- ent in all things but also reveals the Buddha-nature – the fundamental essence of all phenomena. At the end of the dream: journeying towards waking consciousness and the end-of-life dream In the final phase, yogis extend these dream revelations into wakeful- ness, where they perceive all phenomena and encounters as devoid of inherent substance, possessing the illusory quality akin to dream im- P O L I G R A F I 48 ages. They perceive the entirety as a dream and dreams themselves as nothing but dreams.45 Consequently, dreams guide yogis towards the realization of the “dream-like” nature inherent in everyday existence and lead to authentic awakening. This journey encompasses a transi- tion from illusory wakefulness and ignorance to a comprehension of wakefulness’s mechanisms and thought processes. This progression ul- timately surpasses ordinary experiences, bringing forth the recognition that there exists no absolute separation between dreams and wakeful- ness. The reason being, the inherent nature of objects as perceived in our ordinary consciousness during wakefulness aligns with the nature of objects within dreams, as they both stem from the same conscious- ness. In this manner, the correlation between wakefulness and dreams mirrors the ontological unity, the absence of any differentiation, which aligns with the Mahāyāna Buddhist perspective that characterizes all phenomena. Both states, like all else, bear the profound imprint of emptiness, the great seal that defines them. The practice of dream yoga is intricately intertwined with the doctrine of emptiness, representing a means of deepening one’s experiential understanding of emptiness, which is an enduring supreme wisdom. a) Dreams and bar do Through scrutinizing dreams as inherently dream-like, illusory, and transient, yogis discern not only the character of mental states and phe- nomena in wakeful existence but also those that emerge within the in- termediate state between death and rebirth (bar do). In addition to its impact on the final technique, dream yoga also assumes a pivotal role in the subsequent practice known as radiant light yoga. Notably, this prac- tice is engaged prior to dream yoga, and concurrently, the proficiency gained in dream yoga augments the adeptness in training for radiant light yoga. Both techniques, dream yoga and radiant light yoga, hold immense significance during the process of dying. They empower yogis to sustain awareness and identify the illusory character of conscious- ness-generated images even in the moments of dying or the subsequent post-death phase, specifically within the intermediate state between 45 Segment DK.A.Ki.5, in: Kragh, Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism, 524. I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 49 death and rebirth (bar do). Within the Vajrayāna Buddhist tradition, six distinct intermediate states are recognized: firstly, the bar do during the transition between death and rebirth; secondly, the bar do to the lu- minous phase that promptly ensues death; thirdly, the bar do of becom- ing, encompassing the journey towards rebirth; fourthly, the bar do of birth and death, signifying existence within a reality contingent upon one’s karma; fifthly, the bar do of dreaming, encapsulating the states of slumber and awakening; and finally, the bar do of meditation. Within the framework of the six dharmas, the term bar do denotes the distinct practice associated with the interval between life and rebirth,46 epito- mizing yogis’ accomplishment in spiritual pursuit and proficiency in the six yogas during their lifetime. Hence, the consciousness experienced in wakefulness, dreams and death remains identical – the very conscious- ness that engenders illusions. The yogis’ task lies in further cultivating this understanding, even within the intermediate state. Discussions concerning the six dharmas and the Bardo Thödol (Liber- ation in the Intermediate State Through Hearing, more commonly known as The Tibetan Book of the Dead) encompass elaborate depictions of the process of dying and the encounters within the dying phase. Death and the act of dying are frequently likened to the condition of dreaming. However, it is important to note that this comparison is more than just a metaphor. In truth, the very essence of the dying process mirrors the efficacy of the dream practice itself. Throughout their lifetime, before nearing the threshold of death, yogis can, through the potency of their consciousness, even access the state of bar do within their dreams. En- tering bar do through dreams during life further deepens their terminal lucidity. The discussions centred around the six dharmas also encom- pass the delineation of associated techniques practiced by yogis within dreams. These include recognizing all images as illusory dream manifes- tations, cultivating extraordinary capacities like telepathy, envisioning potential future incarnations, embarking on diverse dream expeditions to both familiar and unfamiliar realms. In these journeys, yogis engage with individuals and entities unable to perceive or hear them, initially evoking a sense of trepidation. However, they swiftly discern that they 46 This bar do occurs seven weeks before a new birth. P O L I G R A F I 50 exist within an intermediate state, realizing that everything they en- counter stems solely from their own consciousness. Within Gampopa’s writings, the notion is conveyed that those with the capability ought to engage in the practice of mahāmudrā. This is because the efficacy of mahāmudrā within the bar do state is equivalent to a hundred years of meditation conducted throughout one’s lifetime.47 The transitions between death and new life or liberation, depending on the success of the bar do and training in other yogas, are also de- scribed. During the process of dying, yogis retain a physical form, with the initial stage being the observation of the dissolution of this corpo- real body. Through the practice of deity yoga, a subtle body emerges, akin to the dream body, comprising alterations within consciousness (Tib. yid kyi lus, Skt. manodeha, also referred to as manomanakāya).48 In this state, the perception of deities manifests, which yogis, akin to the practice of dream yoga, acknowledge as manifestations of an illusory nature, all the while sustaining the awareness of their own demise.49 As the dissolution of the dream body, or manomanakāya, commences, it transforms into saṃbhogakāya. Following the dissolution of the latter, it merges with radiant light, culminating in the emergence of dharmakāya – the embodiment of the Dharma, also referred to as the body of bliss (Tib. de ba chen po’i sku, Skrt. mahāsukhakāya). This signifies the attain- ment of Buddhahood, i.e. nirvāṇa. The sequence of elemental dissolution during the dying process is likened to the progression of descending into slumber. Similar to how yogis progressively “relinquish” their physical form and adopt the termed body of consciousness or dream body, they then encounter these bod- ies – manifestations of consciousness – within dreams, taking shape as dream images. The dissolution that unfolds during the moment of death comprises two distinct processes: the disintegration of the gross elements and subsequently, the disintegration of the subtler elements. Thus, the dissolution of the bodies is analogous to the dissolution of con- ceptual systems of consciousness (paratantrasvabhāva). In the end, all 47 Segment DK.A.Pa.13, in: Kragh, Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism, 360. 48 Manomanakāya is actually a kind of dream nirmāṇakāya, a body of transformation. 49 Torricelli, The Tibetan Text on Tilopa’s Ṣaḍdharmopadeśa, 155. I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 51 that is left is the subtle state of pure awareness (pariniṣpannasvabhāva), the “radiant light”, in which yogis have been trained in the course of their life. Pure light represents the purity of yogis’ consciousness and the absence of mental impurities. Individuals approaching death without prior meditation training do not perceive this light; instead, they lapse into a state of unconsciousness where their amassed karma unexpect- edly triggers a succession of dream-like hallucinations in the interme- diate state. Consequently, the individual once more succumbs to the “sleep of ignorance”, takes residence in the womb, and awakens in a subsequent life in a different embodiment. On the contrary, adept yogis, through the discernment of unblemished light, sustain this condition and liberate themselves from the cycle of rebirth. In the pursuit of the intermediate state practice, it is imperative for yogis to maintain aware- ness of being within this state. Achieving this awareness is contingent upon the prior practice of dreaming. Dreams essentially serve as a pre- paratory arena for death and the ensuing liberation. Those who have undergone dream yoga training, who have consistently remained con- scious during dreams and identified dream images as illusory and void, will carry this awareness into the intermediate state. There they will recognize the state for what it is – as illusory as everything else – as the ultimate perspective dismantles rigid divisions between life and death. b) Overcoming emotions through dream yoga Nevertheless, the proficiency acquired through dream yoga training is equally vital for regulating emotions and discerning their illusory es- sence within the intermediate state. Throughout the process of dying, yogis transcend the array of emotions classified as the three mental poi- sons (Skrt. triviṣa). This capability is honed through their involvement in dream yoga practice, allowing them to discern these emotions as illusory. This awareness triggers a shift toward non-conceptual contem- plation (Tib. mi rtog pa, Skrt. nirvikalpa), ultimately culminating in an embrace of emptiness. The consciousness of individuals approaching death who have not undergone dream yoga training grapples with a diverse range of sensations. The dominance of one of these sensations, categorized under the three poisons, determines the realm of their sub- sequent rebirth. For instance, greed and avarice result in the birth of P O L I G R A F I 52 hungry demons (Tib. yi dags, Skrt. preta), while anger leads to the ex- perience of hellish realms (Tib. dmyal ba, Skrt. naraka), and delusion (Tib. gti mug, Skrt. moha) leads to birth within the animal realm (Tib. byol song, Skrt. tiryañc). In this context, the discussions on the six dhar- mas emphasize that yogis must exercise caution against becoming at- tached to the bliss derived from transforming all images and emotions into emptiness. Failing to do so might hinder the attainment of nirvāṇa and instead lead to a return to the cycle of saṃsāra. During the process of dying, the practitioner also gains proficiency in the sexual practices of karmamudrā,50 which serve as a means for yogis to transcend anger, carnal desires and sexual frustration. For instance, during this phase, vi- sions of the father and mother engaged in sexual intercourse may arise. In these visions, an ordinary individual or an untrained dreamer might encounter intense anger and jealousy towards their father and a yearn- ing for their mother.51 Such emotions could be seen as a latent Oedipus complex even preceding birth, while a contrary emotion could lead to rebirth within a female body. Driven by anger, the person in the process of dying enters his father’s body through the anus, thus undergoing a cycle of saṃsāric rebirth. Due to his training in the six yogas, skilled yogis successfully overcome, the temptations of such visions, remain- ing calm and unemotional at the vision of his future parents, who will not become that because of his perfection. A less skilled yogi might be confronted with a latent desire, for example, for his mother, and strug- gle with the elimination of that feeling; as a guideline, texts suggest that one should imagine the mother as his Tantric partner, thus trans- forming sexual desire into sensual and spiritual devotion. If he fails, he can try imagining his father and mother as two deities, and if he is still unable to dispel the otherwise not-so-strong emotion, he is advised to contemplate what he has seen as an image from his dream, and to deepen the idea that it is merely a projection of his consciousness. In the event of repeated failure, other tips are added, including visualis- ing oneself as a deity and meditating on light and emptiness until the yogi has banished all emotion and thought. These techniques are also 50 Segment DK.A.Khi.16, in: Kragh, Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism, 571. 51 Segment DK.A.Pa.13, in: Kragh, Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism, 360. I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 53 called “closing the womb door”, because if they are successful, the yogi prevents his saṃsāric rebirth. c) The transference of consciousness Bar do is followed by a transmission of consciousness, which, de- pending on the level of spiritual progress, leads either to a rebirth or liberation. Similar to the bar do, this practice is further enriched by yogis throughout their life and even within the context of dream yoga. Preparations are equally important for this technique, and alongside mahāmudrā, the visualization of the syllable hūṃ within the heart cakra is advised. Following this, a luminous image emerges, radiating from within to the external world. Subsequently, yogis perceive celestial realms and divine beings, all of which are eventually integrated into the syllable hūṃ. As an alternative, yogis can engage in the practice of consciousness transference within a dream, envisioning their consciousness journey- ing to higher realms, like the celestial realm of Buddha Vajradhara. Here, they can engage in the practice of mahāmudrā even within their dreams. It is important that they see the celestial realm clearly, which is why they need to imagine this kind of journey continuously during the day, leading to a clear vision in their dreams.52 In dreams, yogis can utilize visualizations to contemplate the dissolution of both the physical and subtle body elements that occur at the time of death. By envisioning the elements of the subtle body and incorporating sacred syllables, this practice can be further enriched through various breath- ing techniques. In their dreams, they may try they hand at transferring their consciousness to one of the celestial realms, where they appear in the disembodied, completely empty form of one of the chosen deities, much like a reflection in a mirror. Hence, yogis can undergo the trans- ference of consciousness into the realm of Buddhahood even within the realm of dreams. During the practice of prāṇāyāma techniques, they envision the process of death and visualize the heart cakra syllable mov- ing between their mind and dreams, symbolizing the transference of consciousness to an elevated state. At this point, breath becomes in- 52 Segment DK.A.Pa.11, in: Kragh, Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism, 356. P O L I G R A F I 54 tertwined with light, signifying the fusion of consciousness with the utmost state. Gampopa’s commentaries also allude to a technique remi- niscent of Hindu haṭhayoga, as evident from its meaning, i.e. “strong, forceful transference” (Tib. btsan thabs kyi ‘pho ba). The Tibetan term btsan thabs corresponds to the Sanskrit term haṭha, signifying “power” and “force”. Yogis can also engage in these practices with a dying per- son. There have also been techniques involving the visualization of con- sciousness transfer to another body within one of the saṃsāric realms. These methods are primarily employed by those who are less adept and may not achieve Buddhahood upon death. However, mastery of the six yogas leads to the unconditioned state, rendering such practices unnec- essary. Fragments of Tilopa’s teaching also describe the practice of en- tering a new body after death, whereby yogis direct their consciousness from their body into another body (Tilopa, [‘pho ba 61]). This practice of transference can be undertaken during one’s lifetime by directing consciousness towards a recently deceased individual, whose body is still in a fresh state. Figure 12: Visualisation of sacred syllables; mural in the secret temple of Lukhang, Tibet, 17th century (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 55 d) Dreams on the way to nirvāṇa The connection between dreams and death is apparent in various early Hindu and Buddhist texts, where comparisons between deep sleep and dying are frequently drawn. In both deep sleep and death, indi- viduals encounter a state of darkness devoid of mental activity. Within the context of the Tantric tradition of Buddhist hermits, the process of dying is likened to an enchanting dream realm. This dream world, adorned with forests of illusory images, serves as a final test of the dy- ing person’s spiritual preparation, ultimately guiding them towards the realm of the unconditional. Death itself is thus replete with dream-like images, and the efficacy of this process hinges on proficiency in the art of dreaming. As elucidated in the preceding sections, dreaming serves as a crucial foundation not only for itself but also as a pivotal “training ground” for other techniques like bar do and the transference of con- sciousness. In contrast to early Hindu and Buddhist texts where dreams were associated with leading to death, within the Tantric eremitic tradition, dreams lead beyond death. A proficient dreamer, even in the intermedi- ate state, can unveil the illusory character of all manifestations, guiding them towards the unconditioned state beyond the realms of life and death – nirvāṇa. Dream yoga, a practice that purifies consciousness to such a degree that it sustains lucidity even in the intermediate state, can be seen as the ultimate method of salvation, guiding individuals towards a supreme and unconditional state of existence. In accordance with the Mahāyāna Buddhist teachings and the practices of Tantric yo- gis, nirvāṇa is inherently present within us all, existing in a dormant state. This latent state reveals the paradoxical nature of our true essence, its immediate presence that is simultaneously the most intricate spirit- ual realization. The potential to achieve this state perpetually lies ahead of us, offering the opportunity for its attainment. Indeed, in this con- text, Milarepa’s resounding exhortation carries profound significance. In that very body, within that very dream – when, if not now? P O L I G R A F I 56 B i b l i o g r a p h y Bulkeley, Kelly. Dreaming in the World’s Religion. A Comparative History. New York and London: New York University Press, 2008. Carter, Ross, trans. Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. Nomadology: The War Machine. Seattle: Wormwood Distribution, 2010. Flood, Gavin. The Tantric Body. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2005. 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The Practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa. Ithaca, New York: Shambala Publications, Snow Lion Publications, 2006. Petek, Nina. “Sopotja zgodnjega puščavništva v Egiptu in Indiji [Counter- parts of Early Eremitism in Egypt and India].” In Egiptovsko puščavništvo [Egyp- tian Eremitism], edited by Jan Ciglenečki, Franci Zore, and Nena Bobovnik, 179–203. Ljubljana: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete [Ljubljana Univer- sity Press, Faculty of Arts], 2021. Petek, Nina. Na pragu prebujenja. Svetovi sanj v budizmu [On the Threshold of Awakening: Worlds of Dreams in Buddhism]. Ljubljana: Beletrina, 2022. Samuel, Geoffrey. Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies. Wash- ington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993. Stewart, Jampa Mackenzie, trans. The Life of Gampopa. The Incomparable Dharma Lord of Tibet. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 1995. I N T H AT V E R Y B O D Y, W I T H I N T H AT V E R Y D R E A M 57 Torricelli, Fabrizio. “The Tibetan Text on Tilopa’s Ṣaḍdharmopadeśa.” East and West 46, no. 1/2 (1996): 145–166. Torricelli, Fabrizio and Ācārya Sangye T. Naga, trans. The Life of the Mahāsiddha Tilopa. New Delhi, Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 2003. Vaidya, Parashuram Lakshman, ed. Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā. Darb- hanga: The Mithila Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Reaserach in Sanskrit Learning, 1960. Westerhoff, Jan. Twelve Examples of Illusion. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 59 D R E A M I N G I N T H E D I G I T A L A G E : T H O U G H T S O N T H E T E C H N O L O G I C A L P H A R M A K O N V i c t o r J . K r e b s Technological evolution The artefact is the mainspring of hominization, its condition, and its fate. (Bernard Stiegler) Prelude Whether it be in paintings, the written word, or cinematic images, through microscopes, telescopes, telephones, or televisions, technology has always been the means by which we articulate and give form to real- ity. Digital technology is the most recent way of modulating and mak- ing sense of what we experience, and it has brought, in its tow, the vir- tual world, an unprecedented aesthetic and existential dimension that subverts our ways of seeing and perceiving and, hence, of what we con- ceive as real and important. Moreover, the increasing intertwinement of natural and digital environments, the inexorable flow between virtual and real that we are experiencing in our present day-to-day, is literally transforming our human form of life and raising deep and urgent ethi- cal, aesthetic, and religious questions for our posthuman condition. Now, as the Greek myth tells us, it is an archetypal feature of tech- nology to possess us with the unconscious recklessness and irreverence of the titans. But it is also archetypal of technology to inspire us to po- https://doi.org/10.35469/poligrafi.2023.404 Poligrafi, no. 109/110, vol. 28, 2023, pp. 59–82 P O L I G R A F I 60 etic reverie, to dream beyond our limits, providing thus, also, the crea- tive impetus that has sustained our engagement in the vital flow of the cosmos. Technology is a remedy to our original precariousness, but it is also a poison. As Bernard Stiegler puts it, “it is at once a human power [pouissance] and the power for humanity to destroy itself ”.1 The Greeks named this paradoxical condition the pharmakon.2 Pharmacology and disavowal At the very heart of human being resides the technological phar- makon. It is perhaps our greatest power, though it also involves the risks and perils of its pharmacological nature. We are burdened by an impulse that can be both creative and self-destructive, but instead of acknowledging the paradox at the center of our being, and dealing with its complexity – especially when it shows its poisonous aspect – we nat- urally tend to disavow and to polarize. As Stiegler points out, when the pharmakon reveals its toxicity, we immediately look for a pharmakos, a scapegoat, rather than collectively change our relationship towards the pharmakon.3 We are blessed with the theoretical capacity of reason but also bur- dened by its dissociative power, and so, perennially haunted by its di- chotomizing. We have learned to see (and can’t help seeing) everything in polarities: black or white, good or bad, male or female, homosexual 1 Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus (Stanford: Stanford Uni- versity Press, 1998), 85. 2 Pharmakon (φάρμακον) referred for the Greeks to what was both a poison and a remedy. In Plato’s Dialogue on Phaedrus, Pharmakon is described as a drug containing both the power of the poison and the power of the remedy. Also, Pharmakos was a scapegoat, a slave, or a criminal, sometimes a foreigner, who was chosen to be expelled from the city and apparently beaten, stoned, or even executed in a sacrificial ritual to purify the city and protect it from any misfortune such as invasion, famine, war, or plague. In the 20th century, Jacques Derrida rein- stated the double meaning of Pharmakon, which had tended to be polarized and separated in the tradition, in his idea of the binary oppositions that underpin the Western way of thinking. Bernard Stiegler makes the pharmakon central to his reflection on technology, advocating a pharmacological attitude whose main point is to hold the tension and realize that in consider- ing technology we must keep in mind its irreducible ambivalence and paradoxical character. 3 Bernard Stiegler, What Makes Life Worth Living: On Pharmacology (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013). D R E A M I N G I N T H E D I G I T A L A G E 61 or heterosexual, biological or cultural, human or machine? And when it comes to technology and nature, we are binary as well: it is either nature or technology, so we defend nature and scapegoat technology, or vice versa, ignoring that they are merely two inseparable aspects of the same phenomenon. For us humans, there is no nature preceding tech- nology, and no technology that’s not already natural. As Daniel Ross writes, “history cannot be thought according to the idea that humanity is the ‘subject’ of this history and technology simply the object. When it comes to the relation between the human and the technical, the ‘who’ and the ‘what’ are in an undecidable relation”.4 We must deliberately begin to think of the relation between nature and technology as a complex and dynamic unity about which we need to acquire perspective, acknowledging the intrinsic relation of technol- ogy, its nature, use, and purpose, with (our own) nature. This means, however, also acknowledging the fact that not only our ideals and as- pirations but also our shadows are all projected on technology, so that unraveling its complexity is dealing with our own. Criticizing those that think of technology as an external tool aimed at garnering power and control, Walter Benjamin contended that “tech- nology is not [for] the mastery of nature, but of the relation between nature and man”.5 If technology is to be mastery over anything, [I]t would have to be over our relation to the world, over how to manage or live with the new nature that [technology] opens around us. [...] We should learn to see [...] technology as an event of life that speaks to (and from) the deepest levels of human consciousness. Understood in this way, any event in the world [...] insofar as it involves our technological presence in the world, becomes a sign from which to learn.6 The polarization of technology and nature into which the world drifts more and more as we advance into this century – some trium- 4 Daniel Ross, “A Summary of Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus,” Academia, August 23, 2019, https://www.academia.edu/20136235/A_Sum- mary_of_Bernard_Stiegler_Technics_and_Time_1. 5 Walter Benjamin, One Way Street and Other Writings (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1979), 104. 6 Richard Frankel and Victor J. Krebs, Human Virtuality and Digital Life: Philosophical and Psychoanalytic Investigations (London & New York: Routledge, 2022), 17. P O L I G R A F I 62 phantly hailing technology, others gloomily warning about the ap- proaching doomsday – ignores the pharmacological facts and makes us victims of our own (in this case, digital) unconscious. What we need is rather to be awake and take these facts on. We need to learn to think pharmacologically and avow the underlying paradox. That, of course, requires a radical change in attitude. We need to col- lectively change our relation to the technological pharmakon. We must begin to see it not as something outside us, not as a tool external to us, but as something that grows out of the human psyche and demands, therefore, not just intellectual but also psychological acuity. Indeed, it demands a deliberate introversion and careful introspection. The mat- ter is of fundamental import, for, “[A]t this moment when humanity’s power increases in an unprecedented and incalculable way, the world appears to be becoming more dehumanized, destructive, and denatu- ralized [...] the question becomes, once again: What is the human?”7 Beyond binaries Not so much a special type of animal, as a deficient god. (Daniel Ross) Outside the familiar polarizing dualism, we might more accurately characterize the relationship between technology and nature as one not of interaction but of “intra-action”, adopting Karen Barad’s coinage. Whereas in “interaction” there are separate individual agencies that precede their encounter, “the notion of intra-action recognizes that dis- tinct agencies do not precede, but rather emerge through, their intra- action.”8 Technology9 emerges simultaneously with human conscious- 7 Ross, “A Summary of Bernard Stiegler.” 8 Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007), Kindle. 9 I am using ‘technics’ and ‘technology’ as synonyms here, though it is important to keep in mind that ‘technology’ refers to the “specific amalgamation of technics and the sciences in the modern period” (Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1, 280–81), while Stiegler uses ‘technics’ to refer to what he calls “organized inorganic matter.” For him, it is the preservation of epigenetic experience (epiphylogenesis) in technical objects, that marks the break with genetic evolution. As he puts it, as a ‘process of exteriorization,’ technics “is the pursuit of life by means other than life” (Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1, 17). D R E A M I N G I N T H E D I G I T A L A G E 63 ness. According to Leroi-Gourhan, “it is the tool, that is tekhnē, that invents the human, not the human who invents the technical [...] the human invents himself in the technical by inventing the tool, by be- coming exteriorized techno-logically”:10 Interior and exterior are consequently constituted in a movement that in- vents both one and the other: a moment in which they invent each other re- spectively, as if there were a technological maieutic of what is called humanity [... that] produces the illusion of succession.11 Without technology, Stiegler adds, “there could be no mind, no recall, no memory of a past that one has not personally lived, no culture”.12 Technology, we could say, is the prosthesis of human con- sciousness that externalizes and objectifies it, making us self-conscious and accessible to other consciousnesses. All technical or technological artifices have served from the beginning of human history as traces that help us construct a collective memory, an artificial past that is not one’s own but that must become one’s own, must be “inherited” as one’s own history. Whether those traces are tools, works of engineering, words written on tablets, creations of architecture and art, cinematic images, etc., these traces (of whatever nature they may be) serve our technical evolution. They function as material supports, mnemotechnics, upon which human consciousness and memory are extended beyond indi- vidual experience. These mnemo-technical traces, or tertiary retentions (as Stiegler calls them, alluding to Husserl’s phenomenological analysis of temporal consciousness), include more than just technical artifacts. Stiegler thinks of them as an “associated milieu”,13 which comprises the entire human habitat, all the structures and dimensions that constitute our forms of life and provide human beings with the external organs needed for survival and evolution. As Sebastian Olma explains, we are talking of an “‘organological’ infrastructure”, of objects, artifices, tools, 10 Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1, 141. 11 Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1, 141. 12 Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time, 3: Cinematic Time and the Question of Malaise (Stan- ford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 39. 13 Couze Venn, Roy Boyne, John W. P. Phillips, and Ryan Bishop, “Technics, Media, Te- leology: Interview with Bernard Stiegler,” Theory, Culture & Society 24, no. 7–8 (2007): 335, https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276407086403. P O L I G R A F I 64 but also social institutions through which human beings relate to them- selves, each other and the world, thus making us who we are in the most basic sense.14 The technical form of life, as Stiegler points out: [B]reaks with evolution as Darwin had taught us to understand it, for it changes the conditions in which life evolved prior to the rise of humankind, this promethean race. The moment the first tertiary retention was invented, be that a tool to carve stones or a brush to paint, a spear or the wheel, evolu- tion no longer followed merely natural causality.15 This vision of the place of technology in human consciousness tears down the wall that splits technology and nature and stresses instead the original hybridity of our species. It stresses technology’s emergence from our very being, constituting it and everything that surrounds us. Our evolution is not only biological but also technical, not just genetic but also memetic. It is the unfolding of a form of life “that is no longer just the endosomatic evolution of the biological life of the biosphere, but rather technical life, which produces organs that extend outside the body of the organism, without which the organism cannot survive.”16 Exosomatic evolution is the process whereby external technologies – such as writing tools, and digital media – become extensions of human cognition and memory, means by which we come to apprehend and constitute our world. Technological artifacts and systems become inte- gral parts of our cognitive processes and affect how we experience and understand the world around us. They modulate our perceptions, shape our modes of thinking, and contribute to the formation of our identi- ties. By storing and transmitting cultural and cognitive content across generations, they spatialize temporal consciousness, transforming the temporality of our memories and expectations into the spatiality of the 14 Sebastian Olma, In Defence of Serendipity: For a Radical Politics of Innovation (New York: Random House, 2016), 115. 15 Bernard Stiegler, The Age of Disruption: Technology and Madness in Computational Capi- talism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2019), 159. 16 Daniel Ross, Psychopolitical Anaphylaxis: Steps towards a Metacosmos (London: Open Humanities Press, 2021), 10. D R E A M I N G I N T H E D I G I T A L A G E 65 intersubjective, which enables their repetition and exteriorization”,17 and the formation of collective experience and memory. But in that new freedom we are confronted with the paradoxical na- ture of technology that condemns us to the perennial risk of self-anni- hilation epitomized by what Stiegler has called the Fault of Epimetheus: a radical obliviousness at the core of our technological being, the cursed seed Prometheus planted in our hearts, that always comes to haunt us.18 Therein lies the pharmacological danger, whereby our evolution may turn against itself. Indeed, as Karen Barad observes, “the recent convergence of biotechnologies, information technologies, and nano- technologies reconfigures the human and its others so rapidly that it is already overloading the circuits of the human imagination.”19 Dreaming This world is but a canvas to our imagination. (Thoreau) How the world is constituted and becomes an object of conscious- ness and judgment is a fundamental problem that has occupied the human intellect from its origins. It must indeed be a mysterious power of the mind that is able to assemble, out of the perplexing array of sen- sible stimuli, a meaningful unity before our awareness. For our whole philosophical tradition, since at least Aristotle, the imagination is at the root or base of all cognition. Kant (1787/1965) called that power the transcendental schematism or synthesis of the imagination, and described it as “an art, hidden in the depths of the human soul, whose true modes of action we shall only with difficulty discover and unveil”.20 How- ever, in its tendency to over-intellectualize, Kant and the philosophi- cal tradition disembody and subordinate the imagination to reason, demoting it to a lower kind of knowledge; hence, aesthetics is tradi- 17 Stiegler, The Age of Disruption, 159. 18 Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1. 19 Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway, location 716. 20 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: Mac- Millan, 1965), B180–B181. P O L I G R A F I 66 tionally seen as secondary to epistemology.21 But psychoanalysis rather delves into those hidden depths by introducing the unconscious and hence the body into the equation. Wilfred Bion’s theories of dreaming broaden the epistemological perspective and turn it around.22 Rather than making it derivative, Bion makes the imagination fundamental. And whereas for Kant, the imagination mediated between pure reason and sensible impressions (what he called intuitions), for Bion, the mat- ter also involves the imaginative articulation of affect and emotion; in other words, not just of sense-perception and the understanding, but also the unconscious. Kant disavowed the emotional and unconscious dimension of experience, except perhaps to name it and then disinherit it as the noumena – the unknowable things-in-themselves. Bion ascribes the task of Kant’s transcendental imagination to what he calls the alpha function (or dream work alpha), which is not merely a symbolic processing – as one might expect from the work of the un- derstanding – but an emotional and material metabolization. The al- pha-function works on the raw (unmetabolized emotional) materials of experience (Bion’s ‘beta’ elements) by dreaming them. The alpha func- tion constitutes what we could call with Stephen Asma “an embodied improvising imagination”,23 that transforms emotional experiences into assimilable (Bion’s ‘alpha’) elements, accessible to recall and synthesis, and capable of generating dream thoughts and/or unconscious phan- tasies. Strung together and articulated, they become the precursors of memory, feelings, and thoughts-about-thoughts (cf. Grotstein).24 In bringing in dreaming, Bion provides psychoanalytic depth to the epistemological and transcendental understanding of experience articu- 21 It is, of course, not the entire philosophical tradition that falls into this category. One sometimes overemphasizes in order to bring out something that is otherwise taken for granted. It is fair, however, to take the main thrust of Western thought to have assumed the transcendental critique of knowledge developed by Kant; our generalized prejudice in favor of scientific rationalism resulting from it has had the effect we are outlining in what follows. 22 Wilfred Bion, Learning from Experience (London: Karnac Books, 1984). 23 Stephen Asma, The Evolution of Imagination (Chicago and London: University of Chi- cago Press, 2017), 6. 24 James S. Grotstein, “Dreaming as a ‘curtain of illusion’: Revisiting the ‘royal road’ with Bion as our guide,” The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 90, no. 4 (2009): 733–752, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-8315.2009.00155.x. D R E A M I N G I N T H E D I G I T A L A G E 67 lated in Kant’s schematism, acknowledging the psychic complexity of the constitution of experience and highlighting the impact of uncon- scious processes upon it. To dream is to work via the alpha function, from the formlessness of impressions, i.e., beta elements waiting for metabolization, to alpha elements. For Bion, dreaming happens not only during sleep but also while awake.25 Alpha elements cohere as they proliferate to form what Bion calls the contact-barrier, which serves as an ‘active and living filter’26, continuously in process of formation, that keeps reality separate from fantasy, consciousness from the unconscious, while at the same time connected, so that fantasy continues to nurture consciousness. We dream, not just to protect sleep, but to be able to create a contact bar- rier between the realms of consciousness and the unconscious. Further, we dream – by day and by night – in order to transform (process) the moment- to-moment flow of our experiences of ourselves and others. [...D]reaming is the obligatory beginning of thinking.27 The alpha function contains in the unconscious those affective as- pects of our experience that would interfere with our ability to distin- guish reality from fantasy, grounding us thus in the actuality of the world (cf. Bion).28 But, at the same time that it guarantees their sepa- rateness, it maintains the flowing interchange of consciousness and the unconscious, alphabetizing beta elements, from which it is then able to project and materialize the dreams out of which we construct reality. Like Hermes, the alpha function is a creator of new spaces; it gives form to the inchoateness of sensibility and draws a boundary between the formlessness of vital life and the new order of consciousness. While we sleep, dreaming performs an internal depth-processing of our dai- ly experience, where the raw affective material is contained and then 25 Wilfred Bion, Cogitations (London: Karnac Books, 1992), 43. 26 Paulo Sandler, The Language of Bion: A Dictionary of Concepts (New York and London: Routledge, 2010), 158. 27 James S. Grotstein, “‘We Are Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On’– Annotations on Dreams and Dreaming in Bion’s Works,” in Dreams in Group Psychotherapy: Theory and Technique, eds. Claudio Neri, Malcolm Pines, and Robi Friedman (London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2002), 111. 28 Bion, Learning from Experience, 15–16. P O L I G R A F I 68 transformed into dream contents, into psychic events from which we are able then to construct the world. Dreaming thus lays down the ground for the constitution of external reality – not just its form but also its content, not just its epistemological structure, but also its psy- chological texture. It therefore constitutes reality from a logic that is not only causal but also ludic and serendipitous, a logic that regulates the flow behind the spontaneity and surprise that allows for creativity to happen. An organology of dreams Bion’s alpha function, then, propels what Stiegler conceives as the exosomatic extension of human being, transforming the raw data of sensory experience into elements that are fit for thought. But, as we have seen, it is the technological artifacts, acting as tertiary retentions, that enable the transformation of the temporality of subjectivity into a public space of memories and expectations. It is the tertiary retentions that make possible the projection and adoption of collective dreams. In a general way, all technical production of the technical form of life, by the desiring and dreaming beings that we are, constitutes such a spatialization of experience and thereby also enables its inter-generational transmission.29 Just as in Bion, with Stiegler we construct the world through our own projections and based on the memories of what we have previ- ously perceived and processed, which alter, enrich, and deepen our perception with every new experience. But Stiegler stresses the fact that we cannot think of the process that is going on in the psyche un- less we have already constructed an external prosthesis, which makes that thought possible. In the perception of any temporal object, it can never be purely or simply constituted by primary and secondary reten- tions alone, but only through a process of imaginative selection made possible by an external memory (a tertiary retention). In other words, without the intervention of the imagination through a tertiary (exter- nal) retention, we could not talk of primary and secondary retentions 29 Bernard Stiegler, The Neganthropocene (London: Open Humanities Press, 2018), 159. D R E A M I N G I N T H E D I G I T A L A G E 69 because “it is not perception which makes possible memory and the ar- tefact but the artefact that makes possible both primary and secondary retention.”30 In the flow of sensible perception, we notice something because we have retained previous impressions that now become the criteria by which we discriminate what we perceive. For example, when a background melody that has been playing without our barely notic- ing it suddenly becomes more sharply noticeable because of a familiar melody, our attention has been called by our memory of that previous experience, which serves as criteria for selection (and determines our greater sensitivity) of the new experiences. Technological extensions, acting as tertiary retentions, analogously provide criteria whereby we constitute publicly shared experiences. We find here something very similar to what Bion is after with dream-work alpha, although in a different register. In dreaming, as we have seen, we extract from the unconscious to create a narrative in our perception; beta elements are alphabetized in the unconscious and then released as the precursors of thoughts and feelings in consciousness, in terms of which we can categorize and then recognize what we per- ceive. Bion supplements psychoanalytically our understanding of how the mind constitutes reality; Stiegler adds a technological dimension also absent from Kant and modern philosophers: the conception of technology as a necessary condition and extension of our cognitive ap- paratus. Those technological extensions become “the vector of fantasies, hallucinations, collective retentions and pretensions of every kind,”31 which end up constituting every epoch according to its particular technologi- cal advances. Perception is always imaginative projection, and tertiary retentions feed Bion’s alpha function like the images of the day feed the dream upon which, subsequently, imagination can work. Whether they help strengthen or weaken the contact barrier will determine whether the technological pharmakon is therapeutic or toxic. 30 Ben Roberts, “Cinema as Mnemotechnics: Bernard Stiegler and the Industrialisation of Memory,” Angelaki 11, no. 1 (2006): 55–63, https://doi.org/10.1080/09697250600797864. 31 Stiegler, The Neganthropocene, 137. P O L I G R A F I 70 Arche-cinema Just as Derrida coined the term “arche-writing” to refer to a funda- mental, originary form of writing that precedes and underlies any spe- cific written or spoken language and encompasses the broader notion of trace, inscription, and the dissemination of meaning, Stiegler coins the concept of “arche-cinema” to refer to the foundational, primordial gesture of audiovisual inscription that constitutes the human mind. In fact, dreaming is, for Stiegler, the arche-cinema of the unconscious, so the structure of consciousness has always been engaged in cinema without knowing it. [C]onsciousness is already cinematographic in its principles of selection for primary memories, a selection that relies on criteria furnished by the play of secondary memory and associated tertiary elements, the combination forming a montage through which a unified flux is constructed (as “stream of consciousness”), but which is identical in form to the cinematic flux of an actual film, as a temporal object and as the result of a constructed montage.32 Temporal and perceptual flows of all kinds are rendered discrete and reproducible through being spatialized (what Stiegler calls ‘grammati- zation’), so we can take the history of human consciousness as a his- tory conditioned by the sequence of tertiary retentions through the centuries. In fact, grammatization extends back in time to the ‘arche- cinematic’ productions of “rupestral mnemo-technical supports, cave paintings, which constitute tertiary retentions that initiate a process by which the mental temporal flows experienced by the psychic individual are recorded, reproduced, discretized and spatialized”33. Starting with “the grammatization of the manual gestures of the worker or the crafts- man that are spatialized in being programmed into the machinery of the industrial revolution, and finally to what is unfolding right now: the grammatization of ‘everything’ made possible by the inscription of binary code into central processing units composed of silicon.”34 32 Stiegler, Technics and Time, 3, 17–18. 33 Stiegler, The Neganthropocene, 154. 34 Stiegler, The Neganthropocene, 21. D R E A M I N G I N T H E D I G I T A L A G E 71 With the appearance of each tertiary retention, new regimes of in- dividuation and new modes of collective consciousness result, leading to new attentional forms. With every fresh piece of experience, we add to the sum of the experiences we have had. These may be experiences that conform to our expectations and so reinforce them, adding to the sense of an individual’s and the collective’s stability. But there may be experiences that defy established expectations and therefore require that they be worked on. These experiences – that Bion considers beta ele- ments – will be contained in the unconscious to be worked on by the alpha function, to eventually be projected as dreams and incorporated into consciousness. Stiegler calls the experiences that conform to our expectations “stere- otypical”, and those that defy established expectations – and must first be contained in the unconscious to be metabolized and made useful for thinking – “traumatypical” experiences: Traumatypical experiences are diachronic rather than synchronic, inaugu- rating an individuating movement rather than reinforcing apparent stability, and amount to the possibility of the experience of significance. The difference between the stereotypical and the traumatypical is the difference between ex- perience of the same and experience of the other.35 It is only insofar as tertiary retentions leave or open room for, rather than block, the traumatypes and their disruptions, that dreaming, and the transcendental imagination can operate to generate novelty and new life. In other words, the tertiary retentions can become therapeutic rather than toxic by leaving open the possibility of new ways of seeing, instead of perpetuating the sedimented concepts and expectations that numb the imagination and lead us into a zombie-like repetition of the same. 35 Daniel Ross, “Politics, Terror and Traumatypical Imagery,” in Trauma, History, Phi- losophy, ed. Matthew Sharpe, Murray Noonan, and Jason Freddi (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007), 234. P O L I G R A F I 72 Technological disruption Digital Dreaming We are asleep. Our life is a dream. But we wake up, sometimes, just enough to know that we are dreaming. (Ludwig Wittgenstein) Stiegler’s conception of exosomatic evolution and the role of tertiary retentions highlights the significant role of external technologies in the constitution of reality and hence, in the processes of individuation, per- ception, cognition, and meaning making. It also raises important ques- tions about the potential impact of technological mediation – especially considering its pharmacological nature – on our ability to distinguish reality from fantasy, truth from illusion, etc. Freed from the safe causal- ity of Darwinian evolution, our organological evolution opens us to the Pandora’s box of the technological pharmakon, which threatens us with titanic excess. Barad talks of the “overloading [of ] the circuits of the human imagination”,36 which is perhaps what may be seen behind the many sorts of social madness we are witnessing globally nowadays. The organological perspective considers how the arrangements of psy- chic collective memories and expectations (retentions and protentions) generate specific future possibilities made possible by the artificial mne- motechnical organs of each epoch – writing, analog media, digital im- aging, etc. In other words, it can help us understand the constitution of the collective dreams (and nightmares) generated by the technological (tertiary) retentions. In particular, it helps us analyze and understand the paradigmatic forms of seeing, the horizons of expectation which mold the wills and desires of the culture in each new technological period. All tertiary retentions are memories of recorded experience, and they are part of the history of consciousness. They define the criteria by which consciousness assimilates and transindividuates in each era. We can trace the history of tertiary retentions, then, as the history of the collective dreams we construct in our exosomatic evolution, where 36 Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway, 28. D R E A M I N G I N T H E D I G I T A L A G E 73 each new technological development inaugurates new ways of seeing, “new attentional forms”, “new empathic possibilities”,37 in other words: new realizations of our dreams. But that history of tertiary retentions advances also through crises, broken paradigms and periods of gen- eralized confusion. The danger is that the traumatypical will not be allowed, and so will not give the alpha function the work it needs to do to construct the contact barrier that holds the distinction between illusion and reality. That danger becomes marked by the technology of cinema and its digitalization. The structure of consciousness is, Stiegler (2011) argues, thoroughly cinematographic, for “it unfolds through a montage of temporal objects, objects constituted through their movement”.38 The cinematic image, because it so sharply reproduces the phenomenology of the human mind, manages to fuse our experiences with its techni- cal register, our real memories with its virtual stories and memories, in ways that end up diffusing the boundary between real and imaginary, making the contact barrier that separates consciousness from the un- conscious too porous, and so confusing the distinctions of fantasy and reality, confusing real desire with digital-virtual wishing, generating the whole post-truth phenomenon, fudging not only truth and falsehood, but also virtual and empirical temporality, dreams, and actual (or vir- tual) experiences. The danger is found where the alphabetization of the beta elements (the projection of our dreams) is realized no longer by the alpha func- tion, by the human (embodied and improvising) imagination, but di- rectly by the technological tertiary retention operating in the form, for instance, of algorithmic automatization. When the schematization of the imagination is performed by algorithms and not by the spontane- ous imagination of human agents, the understanding (as an analytical formalism) is split from reason (as the capacity for interpretation) (cf. Stiegler).39 In other words, reason finds itself degraded, turned into au- tomation by calculation, and, finally, into its destruction as a synthetic 37 Stiegler, The Age of Disruption, 156. 38 Stiegler, Technics and Time, 3, 26. 39 Bernard Stiegler, Automatic Society, Volume 1: The Future of Work (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016), Kindle, 53. P O L I G R A F I 74 function (cf. Stiegler).40 And in the destruction of reason as a synthetic function, we may identify the symptoms of a compromised contact barrier, for it is in its preservation that the balance is kept that allows us to distinguish dream from fantasy and madness from sanity. Dreaming Madness When it is no longer the spontaneity coming from the unconscious (in the alphabetized beta elements) but from the data provided by the algorithm – already tied to specific interests that are stereotypical – the process of transindividuation and interiorization is short-circuited and, I would like to suggest, the contact barrier is compromised. Because of its ability to turn fantasies so easily into realities, especially due to its cinematic character, the digital easily smudges the line that separates them. Just think of how often we are no longer sure whether we have dreamt something, lived it empirically, or experienced it virtually. Stiegler imagines consciousness as a “post-production center”: A control room assembling the montage, the staging, the realization, and the direction, of the flow of primary, secondary, and tertiary retentions, of which the unconscious, full of potential possibilities (including the specula- tive), would be the producer. “Post-production” occurs when the “rushes” and the montage are out of sync: this is the phenomenon of the dream. Direct control occurs when consciousness “builds” such that it is “captured”: This is the waking state. Cinema is of the order of the dream.41 Cinema is taking over the function of the dream. Instead of generat- ing the contact barrier we are allowing it to be imposed from outside, by algorithms and cinematic representations that dissolve the separa- tion between their productions and reality. Artificial dreams, in other words, are taking over and seeping into reality as unconscious beta ele- ments. What Stiegler calls “the phenomenon of the dream” is what happens when the raw data of experience is out of sync with the “montage”, which is exactly what happens when the alpha function contains and 40 Stiegler, The Age of Disruption, 249. 41 Stiegler, Technics and Time, 3, 28. D R E A M I N G I N T H E D I G I T A L A G E 75 alphabetizes the beta elements, which are indeed raw data that are affec- tively problematic and out of sync with the established in consciousness. The alpha function is what allows us to function in normal waking life, while at the same keeping contact with the “madness” of dreams – what Stiegler refers to as “the potential possibilities of the unconscious”42 – that generates creativity in their eventual exteriorization. The soundness of the digital depends on the preservation of the dreaming function, and hence in finding ways to generate the space where automatization is blocked and radical bifurcation can appear, where spontaneity irrupts and takes things in novel directions. The al- gorithm makes all repetition repetition of the same, so leads to entropy. What we need is that repetition be a repetition of difference, which al- ways involves an element of novelty, the radical bifurcation that makes it possible. Dreaming madness is involved where automatization takes over and any deviance from the (automatic) norm is blocked. Sponta- neity dies, and the repetition of the same becomes our daily bread while the dreaming function wanes. To the extent that the virtual world enters into an intense dynamic with empirical experience, we begin to dream more on our screens than psychically, more according to the images forwarded automatically by the algorithm than from our own experience. Digital dreaming, thus sequestered, does away with the hermetic play between consciousness and the unconscious where creativity and novelty may happen. Instead of the dream function piloted by the inner needs of individuals in their constitution with others of a human society, it is more and more over- ridden by the algorithms that weave experience together into meaning- ful bits according to values and interests that may come in tension with the collective welfare. We have always been surrounded by screens upon which we screen our projections (in the totem, the transitional object). As we have said, we constitute the world by projecting from the dream-work that arises from the spontaneity of the unconscious. But algorithms drastically affect our ability to distinguish reality from fantasy, truth from lies, madness from sanity, thus leading us into the labyrinths of post-truth, 42 Stiegler, Technics and Time, 3, 28. P O L I G R A F I 76 conspiracy theories and, in general, the crises of conscience that we experience everywhere and at all levels in today’s world. Rather than metabolization, what we witness is psychic evacuation in the form of hallucinations, excessive projective identifications, manic defenses, and paranoid delusions. Words, too, become vehicles of evacuation rather than conveyers of meaning, as in bullying and trolling. It is because one cannot suffer one’s experience, that the resulting unmetabolized (beta) elements can only be dealt with by violent action toward the world and social madness. As Daniel Ross observes, it is “the negative pharma- cological automatisms of the screen itself ”,43 which contribute signifi- cantly to the feelings of generational abandonment, global negligence, and the impending, catastrophic ecological apocalypse that constitutes our present global social madness. Short-circuit Adorno and Horkheimer argued that an era of barbarism had be- gun when the culture industries took over the power of schematization that Kant had ascribed to the transcendental imagination. For them, the industrialization of the imagination constitutes a reification or “an alienating ‘thingification’ of knowing consciousness”44 (Stiegler (2016), p. 68). But, as we have seen, Stiegler argues that individual conscious- ness is formed in and by circuits of intersubjectivity that already in- clude the externalization of memory. Consciousness, in other words, is always already exteriorized into its technical supports. So, Adorno and Horkheimer failed to take into account that Kant’s syntheses presup- pose what Stiegler calls the technological synthesis of the imagination, in other words, the tertiary retention.45 But this means that the tran- scendental schematism of the imagination has always involved the tech- nical, so not all exteriorization can be harmful. In fact, Stiegler argues, 43 Daniel Ross, “For a Neganthropology of the Cinematic,” Academia, August 19, 2015, https://www.academia.edu/15142703/For_a_Neganthropology_of_the_Cinematic_2015/. 44 Stiegler, Automatic Society, 68. 45 Stiegler, The Neganthropocene, 158. D R E A M I N G I N T H E D I G I T A L A G E 77 [T]hat the schematism, as projection by the transcendental imagination […] presupposes schemas that are themselves constituted through tertiary re- tention – and on the basis of sensorimotor schemas. The consequence of this point of view is that so-called ‘transcendental’ imagination presupposes a pri- mordial exteriorization of memory and therefore of the imagination itself, that is, of anticipation and temporalization, such that, passing through artefactual schemas configured by technical organs as tertiary retention, it is supported by a spatialization.46 If the intersubjective constitution of individuals – through their in- teractions with others, the collective processes, and their environment – arrives at a dynamic equilibrium, the tertiary retentions become a form of therapeutics rather than a poison. But the fact is that the tertiary retentions are now dominated by interests that tend to short-circuit that equilibrium: The very heart of the issue of the culture industries is that they comprise an industrial, and thus systematic, implementation of new, technological tertiary retentions and through them, criteria of selection of a new kind, which are, as it happens, totally subjected to the logic of the marketplace, and thus to shareholders.47 The bogeyman, we could say, is not the digital technologies but the capitalism that controls them, which subjects the synthetic function of the imagination to the stupefying effect of homogenization, “radically alienating what should be the freely reasoning subject whom it subju- gates – by de-subjectifying”.48 The channelling of the drives through the application of mathematical algorithms to automatized social control can do nothing but push these drives to a highly dangerous level, by dis-integrating them [...] With the advent of re- ticular reading and writing via networks made accessible to everyone through [...] the technologies of the world wide web, digital technologies have led hyper-industrial societies towards [...] the hyper-industrial age [that] becomes the era of systemic stupidity, which can also be called functional stupidity.49 46 Stiegler, The Neganthropocene, 159. 47 Stiegler, Technics and Time, 3, 39. 48 Stiegler, Technics and Time, 3, 37. 49 Stiegler, Automatic Society, 23. P O L I G R A F I 78 The issue is therefore more complicated than envisaged by Adorno and Horkheimer. They failed to see that the problem “is not exteriori- zation, which has always already begun, but rather the short-circuit in that process of individuation that inevitably results from the hegem- ony of de-symbolizing, disindividuating, and imagination-destroying cultural consumerism, because it reinforces stereotypes and represses traumatypes”.50 It is not so much that dreams have become more ho- mogenized in their content due to the short-circuit phenomenon, but rather that the dreaming function as a whole is being affected in its metabolizing role, and hence affecting the capacity of human thought to occasion the radical bifurcation necessary for creativity. As Stiegler stresses, [A]s noetic individuals we are, in the first place, knowing beings, and there is no form of knowledge that is reducible to the computational treatment of information (which is only an extension of the analytical faculty of under- standing without reason).51 The algorithm, which gains more and more ground every day in constituting our reality, reinforces the synchronic stereotypes, especially through the audiovisual media that flood our digital consciousness and so mute the traumatypes that guarantee the continuous counterflow that makes change possible. Sequestered by the logic of the market and the imperialism of the algorithm, matters are certainly worsened in the digital era. These cognitive technologies (from the television to the telephone, includ- ing the computer and GPS guidance systems) to which we confide a greater and greater part of our memory, cause us to lose an ever-greater part of our knowledge. [...O]ne must ask if the industrial and massive development of mnemotechnologies does not represent a structural loss of memory, or, more precisely, a displacement of this memory: a displacement whereby it can be- come the object of a control of knowledge.52 50 Stiegler, The Neganthropocene, 168. 51 Stiegler, Automatic Society, 146. 52 Bernard Stiegler, “Anamnesis and Hypomnesis,” Ars Industrialis, accessed October 16, 2023, https://arsindustrialis.org/anamnesis-and-hypomnesis. D R E A M I N G I N T H E D I G I T A L A G E 79 Equilibrium, sanity, depends on how the relevant technologies are assumed and practiced. Tertiary retentions (writing, analogue, and digi- tal audiovisuals) and their exteriorizations can also open positive phar- macological possibilities, capable of generating new attentional forms. The cinematic pharmakon as art, for example, is what makes it possible to struggle against the cinema as toxic pharmakon, which short-circuits the play of traumatypical secondary retentions and protentions by rein- forcing their stereotypical secondary retentions and protentions.53 Coda When Prometheus stole the fire of the gods for human beings, he planted a cyborg seed in our hearts that germinates in the virtuality of the mind and gives substance to the technological pharmakon, with which we are always in existential struggle. Though technology elevates us and puts us one foot on Olympus, we nonetheless live divided with- in ourselves: half of us titans disavowing death and half of us mortal bodies hauling towards it. It is precisely around that struggle, watchful of its field of force, that we must guard against the perils of technology. The virtual flow taken over by algorithmic clones is spectacularized. In the instantaneity and non-dilatory nature of the digital, there is no transitional state, no potential space where dreaming can do its task of weaving together the stash of yet unprocessed affections. It becomes nearly impossible today to distinguish – as the source of psychologi- cal animation and meaning in our lives – the psyche from the digital. So, the digital becomes our sole source of psychic vitality, singularly generating novel pathways of spontaneity, passion, and meaning. But what feels so enlivening and exciting can suddenly mutate into psychic claustrophobia and deadness. While dreams function psychically to define the boundary between reality and fantasy, the digital – with what we may call its virtual dreams – is intervening at that boundary and affecting our ability to distinguish reality from fantasy. We open our computer and see images of war, hor- ror, degrading sexual acts, etc. Their sheer volume and intensity clog up 53 Stiegler, The Neganthropocene, 158. P O L I G R A F I 80 the dreaming function, clog up the process of selection. We can go to sleep and ‘dream’, but no psychic work is happening, there is no pos- sibility for mental renewal. In the breakdown of the digital, dreaming fails in its function of offering something regenerative space. Whereas with dreaming there is a replenishing cycle of falling asleep, dreaming, and then waking, that replenishment is foreign to the digital. And a person who cannot dream is unable to generate differentiable conscious and unconscious experience and, consequently, lives in a state of stupor and automatization, a psychic state where perceiving and hallucinat- ing, external reality and internal reality are indistiguishable, where, in a sense, they cannot fall asleep nor wake up (cf. Ogden54). In the digital era, we could conclude, Hermes is in danger of losing his wings. B i b l i o g r a p h y Asma, Stephen. The Evolution of Imagination. Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 2017. Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway. Quantum Physics and the Entan- glement of Matter and Meaning. Duke University Press, 2007. Kindle. Benjamin, Walter. One Way Street and other Writings. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1979. Bion, Wilfred. Learning from Experience. London: Karnac Books, 1984. Bion, Wilfred. Cogitations. London: Karnac Books, 1992. Frankel, Richard, and Victor J. Krebs. Human Virtuality and Digital Life. Philosophical and Psychoanalytic Investigations. London & New York: Routledge, 2022. Grotstein, James S. “‘We Are Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On’– Annota- tions on Dreams and Dreaming in Bion’s Works”, in: Dreams in Group Psycho- therapy. Theory and Technique, edited by Claudio Neri, Malcolm Pines and Robi Friedman, 110–146. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2002. 54 Thomas Ogden, “This Art of Psychoanalysis: Dreaming Undreamt Dreams and Inter- rupted Cries,” International Journal of Psychoanalysis 85, no. 4 (2004): 859, https://doi. org/10.4324/9780203970010. D R E A M I N G I N T H E D I G I T A L A G E 81 Grotstein, James. “Dreaming as a ‘curtain of illusion’: Revisiting the ‘royal road’ with Bion as our guide.” The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 90, no. 4 (2009): 733–752. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-8315.2009.00155.x. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Norman Kemp Smith. New York: MacMillan, 1965. Ogden, Thomas. “This art of Psychoanalysis. Dreaming Undreamt Dreams and Interrupted Cries.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis 85, no. 4 (2004): 857–877. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203970010. Olma, Sebastian. In Defence of Serendipity. For a Radical Politics of Innova- tion. New York: Random House, 2016. Roberts, Ben. “Cinema as mnemotechnics: Bernard Stiegler and the in- dustrialisation of memory.” Angelaki 11, no. 1 (2006): 55–63, https://doi. org/10.1080/09697250600797864. Ross, Daniel. “Politics, Terror and Traumatypical Imagery”, In Trauma, His- tory, Philosophy, edited by Matthew Sharpe, Murray Noonan, and Jason Freddi, 230–46. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. Ross, Daniel. “For a Neganthropology of the Cinematic.” Academia. August 19, 2015. https://www.academia.edu/15142703/For_a_Neganthropology_of_the_ Cinematic_2015/. Ross, Daniel. “A Summary of Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus.” Academia. August 23, 2019. https://www.academia. edu/20136235/A_Summary_of_Bernard_Stiegler_Technics_and_Time_1. Ross, Daniel. Psychopolitical Anaphylaxis: Steps towards a Metacosmos. Lon- don: Open Humanities Press, 2021. Sandler, Paulo. The Language of Bion: A Dictionary of Concepts. New York and London: Routledge, 2010. Stiegler, Bernard. Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus. Translated by Richard Beardsworth and George Collins. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. Stiegler, Bernard. Technics and Time, 3. Cinematic Time and the Question of Malaise. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011. Stiegler, Bernard. What Makes Life Worth Living. On Pharmacology. Cam- bridge: Polity Press, 2013. Stiegler, Bernard. Automatic Society, Volume 1. The Future of Work. Cam- bridge: Polity Press, 2016. Kindle. Stiegler, Bernard. The Neganthropocene. London: Open Humanities Press, 2018. Stiegler, Bernard. The Age of Disruption. Technology and Madness in Computa- tional Capitalism. Cambridge, Polity Press, 2019. Stiegler, Bernard “Anamnesis and Hypomnesis.” Ars Industrialis. Accessed October 16, 2023. https://arsindustrialis.org/anamnesis-and-hypomnesis. P O L I G R A F I 82 Venn, Couze, Roy Boyne, John W.P. Phillips, and Ryan Bishop, “Technics, Media, Teleology: Interview with Bernard Stiegler,” Theory, Culture & Society 24, no. 7–8 (2007): 335. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276407086403. 83 T O W A R D A H I S T O R I O G R A P H Y O F D R E A M S : A D I S C U R S I V E P E R S P E C T I V E L a u r a J . V o l l m e r The State of the Art and a New Direction Historical overviews of dreams beyond religious or natural scientific perspectives are rare and limited to specific issues, time periods, and geographical areas with the exception of a few works that discuss a more nuanced history of dream theory and the evolution of dream studies in different fields.1 As restricted as the history of dreams is, the historiogra- phy of dreams is even worse off. Astonishingly, Google Scholar searches for “historiography of dreams” and “historiography of dreaming” only give fourteen total results!2 There are many key historiographic changes 1 Such as the edited volume Dreams and History by Daniel Pick and Lyndal Roper (London: Routledge, 2004). 2 Both accessed September 6, 2023, from the United States. The total number of results was the amount of hits minus duplicate results (different authors from the same edited volume were considered one result) and minus non-English results (which only “hit” because of refer- ences to these other results). The best treatment of the historiography of dreams that I have found is the volume edited by Giorgia Morgese, Giovanni Pietro Lombardo, and Hendrika Vande Kemp entitled Histories of Dreams and Dreaming (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), but with a narrow focus on the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries and the science of dreaming. And others with any significant degree of discussion (which is still very limited), three edited volumes, are restricted to the ancient and early modern periods and to the locales of the Byzantine and the Atlantic world. These include Ann Marie Plane and Leslie Tuttle’s Dreams, Dreamers, and Visions: The Early Modern Atlantic World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013); George T. Calofonos’s Dreaming in Byzantium and Beyond (Lon- don: Routledge, 2014), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315578064; and Bronwen Neil and Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides’s Dreams, Memory and Imagination in Byzantium (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2018). https://doi.org/10.35469/poligrafi.2023.414 Poligrafi, no. 109/110, vol. 28, 2023, pp. 83–104 P O L I G R A F I 84 that have yet to be addressed in the study of dreams that are worthy of consideration as they reflect wider intellectual developments underly- ing academic thought that often appear as tacit knowledge. It is our premodern to post-postmodern epistemes3 that have impacted the his- tory of dream research via the varying constructs of the “dream” that I will mainly discuss here in a primarily exploratory way to suggest how a historiography of dreams might develop. In order to create a more self- reflective history, these epistemes should be brought to the fore. Following the thought of Michel Foucault, I examine discourses through a “genealogy” of dream research, which demonstrates domi- nant epistemes underlying shifts in intellectual thought. “Genealogy” is defined by Foucault as “a form of history which reports on the constitu- tion of knowledge, discourses, fields of objects, etc., without having to relate to a subject which transcends the field of events and occupies it with its hollow identity throughout history,” which has been systemati- cally applied in the field of discourse analysis.4 Therefore, I will not be defining the term “dream,” which might convey a misleading red thread in history, but rather I will look at how the concept has been histori- cally discursively constructed in dream history and research. Discourses “are to be treated as practices which systematically form the object of which they speak.”5 This emphasizes the role of language, which, in this article, is English and its historical context in the Western world. Epistemes, according to Foucault, refer to that which “defines the con- ditions of possibility of all knowledge.”6 Epistemes are the implicit rules of what counts as legitimate knowledge, such as the dictate of natural- ism in order to be considered scientific, which change through time. Of course, there have been different narratives within dream history. However, here, I am concerned with dominant discourses in historical perspective, which should be kept in mind when I speak in some gener- alities. And though more complex approaches have developed in dream 3 The periodizations of intellectual history are mainly heuristic, of course. The premodern through post-postmodern epistemes simultaneously exist in past and present discourse. 4 Quoted in translation in Siegfried Jäger, “Discourse and Knowledge,” in Methods of Criti- cal Discourse Analysis, eds. Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer (London: Sage, 2001), 37–38. 5 Foucault quoted in translation in Jäger, “Discourse and Knowledge,” 39. 6 Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), 168. T O W A R D A H I S T O R I O G R A P H Y O F D R E A M S 85 studies than those outlined here, these discourses still impact a lot of research today. The line of inquiry is: How has the “dream” as an ob- ject of study been constructed in the history of dream research? What are some important dominant epistemes that have impacted these dis- courses? The Localization of Dreams: Internal/External and Subjective/Objective The ascription or denial of the significance of dreams appears in many historical discussions and primary material. This is closely related to whether dreams are constructed as stemming from external or in- ternal sources and whether those sources are fashioned as objective or subjective forms of knowledge. The external/internal in terms of (meta) physical space (relative to the self ) is not consistently mapped onto the objective/subjective in terms of epistemological status, so these things must be considered separately. The localization of dreams and how this is connected to legitimation discourses is the first historiographical as- pect that I will explore. Among the primary ways that dreams have been constructed in his- torical accounts is in terms of external supernatural causes. This is be- cause, from ancient to contemporary times, people have often framed dreams as prophetic, carriers of omens, or as messages from supernatu- ral beings. In these contexts, a dream was “received” rather than “had.” Dreams were taken as legitimate sources of knowledge precisely be- cause there was thought to be some external force beyond the self that was operative in their manifestation that gave them a privileged place as knowledge. This is evidenced by the fact that most societies have differentiated between their own, unimportant dreams and significant dreams originating outside the self.7 Like externalizing dreams, localizing dreams in the internal is a dis- course found throughout time. In modern Western discourse, inter- nalization occurred via localizing dreams first primarily in the mind, associated with the subjective, and then in the body as the objective, 7 Patrick McNamara, Dreams and Visions (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2016), 41. P O L I G R A F I 86 which fed the delegitimation of dreams as religiously significant. This is intimately related to wider discourses on legitimate knowledge and the modern construction of “science” in the nineteenth century and the establishment of the scientific episteme, placed in a cosmic order of natural, material, and objective knowledge.8 And this, in turn, was part of a larger process of the secularization of society, which has historically been understood as a separation from religion.9 As religion and science first became conceptually differentiated, between approximately 1620 and 1830, they were discursively assigned the realms of the subjective and objective, respectively (even though, historically, this is not always so clear cut). This was by no means a given; it was part of a purpose- ful and self-aware movement to carve out intellectual, political, social, and cultural space for science in a world dominated by religion. And methodological objectivity “became generalized, not only as science, but as fact and truth and reason,” while religion was placed in the con- ceptual space of internal subjectivity, falsehood, and irrationality, that is, as epistemologically insignificant.10 Dreams were first internalized in the psyche, which involved an em- phasis on the subjective mind over the objective body on the part of early psychologists. Meanwhile, the physical world was increasingly as- sociated with the “real world,” which was rhetorically situated as the sole domain of science at this time, while the mental portion became not only metaphysically but also epistemologically subjectivized, in- creasingly thought to have tenuous connections to reality. The rhetori- cal and discursive reaction on the part of early psychologists was to frame psychology as more scientific, to use more rigorous empirical study, and to objectify the mind localized within the physical world of causal laws (meaning, at this point, that the internal/external division 8 For a discussion on how the “cosmic order” or “symbolic universe” serves legitimation, see Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (New York: Anchor Books, 1967), 92–128. 9 Giorgia Morgese and Giovanni Pietro Lombardo, “History of Dream Research,” in Histo- ries of Dreams and Dreaming, eds. Giorgia Morgese, Giovanni Pietro Lombardo, and Hendrika Vande Kemp (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 3–4. 10 Raymond Williams, Keywords (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 235. Emphasis original. For an extensive discussion, see Laura J. Vollmer, [working title] The Relational Struc- ture of Discourse: The Case of Religion and Science (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming), chap. 2. T O W A R D A H I S T O R I O G R A P H Y O F D R E A M S 87 was muddied, and subjectivity/objectivity became the more operative discourse).11 Dreams were localized in the physical spaces of the brain, the overall nervous system, and sleep posture, for example.12 The lo- calization of dreams in physical space became particularly salient with Sigmund Freud’s publication The Interpretation of Dreams, appearing in English in 1913. “Freud’s revolution may be viewed as the discovery of a way of locating in the mind objective entities which can be studied like physical things.”13 That said, this was part of the earlier, broader nineteenth-century movement mapping all mental processes onto neu- ral or other physical processes. And demarcating the physical processes of dreams (and other mental phenomena) as mutually exclusive with religious understandings helped the field of psychology gain objectivity and respectability.14 This is because scientific advances in the nineteenth century were largely communicated as negations of religious beliefs in order to frame science as authoritative, reacting to the premodern religious episteme.15 As for dreams, a considerable amount of scientific research has its ori- gins in translating psychological states to physical ones in a direct at- tempt at refuting “superstitious” and “popular” beliefs,16 labeling that stigmatizes and delegitimizes religious notions. Correlations between internal, often physical, understandings of dreams and a negation of religious notions (though not always religion in total) can be found in Walter C. Dendy’s On the Phenomena of Dreams and Other Transient Illusions (1832) and Robert Macnish’s The Philosophy of Sleep (1834), for instance. In another example, W. Newnham, in Essay on Supersti- tion (1830), states that dreams (and other “morbid states”) “consist not in variety of spiritual essence, but of the material medium through which 11 Doris Kaufmann, “Dreams and Self-Consciousness,” in Biographies of Scientific Objects, ed. Lorraine Daston, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 70; Vollmer, The Relational Structure, chap. 3. 12 Kaufmann, “Dreams,” 75, 80, and passim. 13 Lawrence Friedman, “Reasons for the Freudian Revolution,” Psychoanalytic Quarterly 46, no. 4 (1977): 623, https://doi.org/10.1080/21674086.1977.11926818. 14 On dreams as such, see, e.g., Morgese and Lombardo, “History,” 248. On religion and science conceptualized in this way, see Vollmer, The Relational Structure, chap. 3. 15 Vollmer, The Relational Structure, chap. 2. 16 Morgese and Lombardo, “History,” 248. P O L I G R A F I 88 its manifestations are made.”17 These correlations continued through the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth until religious explana- tions of dreams did not feature in general scientific discussion so often. Freud, for example, explained his view on dreams in specific contrast to “pre-scientific” concepts of dreams in terms of the supernatural and spiritual.18 Ian Hacking notes that “dreams are made ‘objective’ (…) by embed- ding them in place,” and via this discursive construction, “dreams are ruthlessly excluded from real life, and cease to be signifiers at all.”19 Of course, the premodern religious episteme and religious takes on dreams did not disappear from mainstream society overnight, and books on revelatory and other spiritual dreams—like Mrs. Blair’s Dreams and Dreaming (1843)—appeared alongside scientific ones. Situated in this tension between a declining religious episteme and a rising scientific one, nineteenth-century people “considered dreams to be meaningless and meaningful, mere physiological artifacts and messages from the great beyond.”20 By the twentieth century, psychological factors were largely regarded as “explaining away” religion and dreams as “illusions”; Freud positioned both as forms of wish fulfillment, for example.21 As the naturalist, objective paradigm came to dominate interpretation, dreams were denied the religious import that they had previously en- joyed. The scientific episteme set the rules for what counted as legiti- mate knowledge, guiding the historical construction of the “dream” in a particular direction: localized in internal processes, associated with the natural, objective, and physical, and communicated as a refutation of religious understandings. This discourse systematically formed the object labeled “dream.” 17 William Newnham, Essay on Superstition (London: J. Hatchard and Son, 1830), 146. Emphasis original. 18 E.g., Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (London: Allen and Unwin, 1931), 5. 19 Ian Hacking, Historical Ontology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 228 and 254. 20 Jonathan C. Glance, “Revelation, Nonsense or Dyspepsia,” Mercer University, April 29, 2001, http://faculty.mercer.edu/glance_jc/files/academic_work/victorian_dream_theories.htm. 21 On religion as wish fulfillment, see Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1961), 30–31, 35, 42–43, 52; on dreams, see Freud, The Interpreta- tion, passim. T O W A R D A H I S T O R I O G R A P H Y O F D R E A M S 89 The Imagined Spaces of Dreams: Communication Models and Social Realms The objectification of dreams places dreams in an impersonal so- cial and communicative space, and this and other imagined spaces of dreams make up another evolving discourse that has shaped the “dream.” Hendrika Vande Kemp, for instance, notes particular histori- cal phases of dream studies based on the spaces of the “transpersonal/ superpersonal,” placing the cause of dreams as supernatural; the “inter- personal/extrapersonal,” in which dreams are thought to originate with others who are sending a message; the “impersonal/nonpersonal,” with dreams constructed as an epiphenomenon reducible to physiological and objective factors; and the “intrapersonal,” with the dream under- stood as a message from the self.22 We can consider these imagined spaces as they relate to source/cause and “communication forms” (as in the field of communication studies), similar to what Vande Kemp does, but also as metaphysical, epistemological, and/or social spaces. As I have already discussed the philosophical spaces of the internal/ex- ternal and objective/subjective above, I am primarily thinking of these dimensions as social here, which are sometimes communicative and sometimes simply thought to “occupy” social realms or other imagined spaces. I use “imagined space” to refer to a discursive representation of space experienced through the world of ideation, a subjective de- marcation, such as in Benedict Anderson’s “imagined communities” or Edward Said’s “imagined geographies.”23 The imagined space of dreams is the perceived place they occupy, such as the communicative space of the impersonal when scientists “distance” themselves from the object of study or the social realm of religion or the religious world as such where the transpersonal dream is sometimes located. 22 Hendrika Vande Kemp, “The Dream in Periodical Literature,” Journal of the His- tory of the Behavioral Sciences 17, no. 1 (1981): 88–113, https://doi.org/10.1002/1520- 6696(198101)17:1%3C88::AID-JHBS2300170111%3E3.0.CO;2-W. I discuss Vande Kemp’s more recent research in the conclusion. 23 There are many, varying uses of the term “imagined space” and related ideas, typically drawing upon Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1992) and/ or Edward W. Soja’s Thirdspace (Cambridge, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 1996). P O L I G R A F I 90 The transpersonal space of dreams involving the spiritual or super- natural realms evident in religious reflections has, as already mentioned, occupied a lot of historical accounts of dreams. The impersonal space has also received disproportionate attention in the history of dream studies as it relates to natural scientific studies. As we have seen, the religious and scientific epistemes dominated how the dream was con- structed in terms of metaphysical and epistemological space, and the same can be said of these social and communicative spaces. However, psychoanalysts also ascribed significance to dreams because they offered internal insight, an intrapersonal exchange between the conscious and unconscious mind. Even though psychology distanced itself from ideas of religious significance, as discussed above, the notion of intrapersonal dreams was enthusiastically taken up in the New Age and is a theme that still appears in many new religious movements. The importance placed on the intrapersonal space of dreams could be read as a reflection of the rise of “spirituality” as an alternative discursive form of “subjective religiosity,” and New Age religion certainly exhibits this tendency to relocate the sacred at the individual level, often invok- ing discourse on “spirituality,” as well as positioning dreams as sources of intuition.24 “Spirituality,” as a term, has historically emphasized inte- rior and experiential knowledge to situate it in a world that rationalized and naturalized religion, as seen in Romanticism and Transcendental- ism and continuing as an important discursive strand in contemporary religion. We might interpret the spiritual turn to constitute an episteme of its own in the sense that it has its own rules for what is considered legitimate knowledge, an “epistemological mode” that attributes mean- ing to life and finds personal significance when scientific epistemology fails, as some have argued.25 In this way, placing dreams in an intrap- ersonal, spiritual space serves to relegitimate dreaming in the form of 24 Stef Aupers and Dick Houtman, eds., Religions of Modernity (Leiden: Brill, 2010); Wouter J. Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture (New York: SUNY, 1998). 25 See Simone Schröder, The Nature Essay (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 111 for the quote and 111– 73 for a discussion; and Michal Izak, “Spiritual Episteme,” Journal of Organizational Change Management 25, no. 1 (2021): 24–47, https://doi.org/10.1108/09534811211199583. Spiritu- ality is also increasingly considered an important discourse in the post-postmodern episteme, also positioned as a reaction to scientific materialism. Alan Kirby, Digimodernism (New York: Continuum, 2009), 25. T O W A R D A H I S T O R I O G R A P H Y O F D R E A M S 91 self-knowledge as distinct from universal scientific knowledge, which is in line with New Age emphasis on antiauthoritarianism and its critique of reductive epistemology found in the sciences.26 This discursive read- ing is supported by the many popular publications exhibiting this New Age vibe that position dreams in terms of personal and spiritual growth while drawing upon the natural sciences but ultimately challenging the hegemony of their materialist philosophy, such as Andrew Holecek’s The Lucid Dreaming Workbook (2020), Julie Loar’s Symbol and Synchro- nicity (2021), and Athena Laz’s The Alchemy of Your Dreams (2021), to name but a few from recent years. Some other imagined spaces that deserve historiographical consid- eration relate to “dream engineering” (techniques that alter dreams). Dream engineering—through drug use or lucid-dream-induction tech- niques, for instance—has been around since antiquity or earlier and can involve various communicative spaces. In contemporary times, this has taken a novel, interpersonal direction in oneirology. In this context, dream engineering sometimes occupies interpersonal space not only because of an exchange between the scientist inducing the state in the dreamer but also because it is used as a tool for social change via crea- tive production, healing, and even advertising. Regarding drugs, there is active research in medicine and quantitative science on the effect of various pharmaceuticals on dreaming.27 And marketing specialists are testing the modification of purchasing behavior through “target- ed dream incubation” and other dream hacking, such as Xbox’s Made from Dreams project aimed at inducing dreams about video games.28 Dream engineering is a relatively new natural scientific approach to 26 Stef Aupers and Dick Houtman, “Silicon Valley New Age,” in Religions of Modernity, eds. Aupers and Houtman (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 165; Aupers and Houtman, Religions of Modernity, passim. 27 E.g., Alain Nicolas and Perrine M. Ruby, “Dreams, Sleep, and Psychotropic Drugs,” Fron- tiers in Neurology 11 (2020), https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2020.507495; and Kamalanand Krishnamurthy and Mannar Jawahar Ponnuswamy, “A Mathematical Exploration into Ma- nipulation and Control of a Bifurcative Dreaming Process,” International Journal of Dream Research 6, no. 2 (2013): 110–13, https://doi.org/10.11588/ijodr.2013.2.9977. For the history of dream-related drug use, see Gianluca Toro and Benjamin Thomas, Drugs of the Dreaming (Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 2007). 28 Dustin Marlan, “Branding Dreams,” Bill of Health, Harvard Law, October 4, 2022, https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/10/04/branding-dreams/. P O L I G R A F I 92 dream studies, which can be seen, in part, as a product of the techno- logical epistemic turn, constituting a technology itself in the sense of applied knowledge. In this context, the historical object “dream” is not “received” nor “had” but “made.” Current directions in intrapersonal dream engineering also display a technologizing turn. The MIT Media Lab has developed a device called a Dormio to not only induce dreams but direct them according to words or images selected by the dreamer “to augment human creativ- ity,” displaying the personal-growth trope.29 In this intrapersonal con- text, the dream is democratized by placing the power of its making in the hands of the individual. While dream engineering has been around for a long time in general history, in the scientific study of dreams, these new developments constitute a shift from a focus on theory and analy- sis to application that involves reshaping the historical scientific object “dream” from impersonal to interpersonal and sometimes intrapersonal spaces. Another interpersonal aspect contributing to the “dream” construct is dream sharing, used for self-assertion, building a persona, and forming social connections.30 This has displayed a technologizing turn as well with dream sharing occurring in a new imagined space—cyberspace—which provides further opportunities for such individual and group transfor- mation.31 Joseph B. Walther’s research on virtual space led him to devel- op a new communication model, referred to as the “hyperpersonal.”32 This is characterized as strategic development and editing for optimiz- 29 MIT, “Dormio,” accessed September 21, 2023, https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/ sleep-creativity/overview/. 30 Ann Marie Plane and Leslie Tuttle, “Introduction,” in Dreams, Dreamers, and Visions, eds. Plane and Tuttle (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 8; Jacques Le Goff, The Medieval Imagination (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 229. 31 E.g., see Shulamit Geller et al., “Dreams Shared on Social Networks During the CO- VID-19 Pandemic,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 20, no. 4 (2023): 3534, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20043534. 32 Joseph B. Walther, “Computer-Mediated Communication,” Communication Research 23, no. 1 (1996): 3–43, https://doi.org/10.1177/009365096023001001. The hyperpersonal is con- sidered a form of interpersonal communication here, but given that reciprocal communica- tion may be delayed or removed altogether (as not every electronic communication receives a response) in addition to the fact that there is the intrapersonal aspect of identity building, it might be considered its own communicative mode. T O W A R D A H I S T O R I O G R A P H Y O F D R E A M S 93 ing self-presentation, specifically enabled by computer-mediated com- munication. Research is scarce, however the hyperpersonal has assur- edly constructed the dream in a new way, the potential for revision and selective presentation making the hyperpersonal dream specifically mutable, destructible, and biased. That is, a dream shared online can be edited, deleted, or censored for the purposes of self-image, self-pro- motion, or other self-serving motives that skew presentation, making for a dream that is largely unique to electronic communication. Indeed, online dream sharing has been shown to fulfill such individual goals as bonding, coping, and belonging, with the motives—among other things—of emotional relief, entertainment, to “make oneself more in- teresting,” or self-expression and the tone of the shared dream reflecting the motives for sharing it, suggestive of the hyperpersonal dream.33 The multiple authorship and instability of the narrative along with the decentering and decontextualization of the self in cyberspace may also contribute to another communication model: what might be called the “metapersonal,” by which I mean that it is beyond the bounds of the personal with no single individual or group determin- ing the course of the communication though all can contribute. For instance, Shulamit Geller et al. approach dreams as “both individual creations and group property.”34 We might ask what a metapersonal dream might look like. Because discourse also features a simultane- ously individual and collective communicative mode, we could say the metapersonal dream is the discursive dream, that is, specifically constructed in its variety (as done here). Typically, when we examine a given text, the discourse surrounding a word like “dream” is (at least somewhat) internally coherent. Approaching the internet as text, though, we instead get encyclopedic incoherence (think a Wikipedia entry outlining the various understandings of the “dream”). This col- lective, incoherent, and remarkably democratic discursive perspective 33 For the quote, see Daniel Graf, Michael Schredl, Anja S. Göritz, “Frequency and Mo- tives of Sharing Dreams,” Personality and Individual Differences 175 (2021), https://doi. org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.110699. See also Geller et al., “Dreams.” The former study does not focus on what is off- or online, but rather general motivations for dream sharing; the latter is specifically regarding dream sharing on social media. 34 Geller et al., “Dreams.” P O L I G R A F I 94 is itself discursively constructing the object. And with the technologi- cal turn and the explosion of discourse in cyberspace, the metaper- sonal dream has become ubiquitous. Theoretical Paradigms of Dreams: Essentialism and Contextualism Another historiographical consideration is the different theoreti- cal paradigms applied to the nature of dreams, including essentialism and contextualism, respectively situated in modern and postmodern epistemes, which, like in the other cases, are sometimes connected to discourses of authority and power. The discussion on the contextualism and essentialism of dreams, as noted by Daniel Pick and Lyndal Roper, is part of a wider historiographical debate on these paradigms as they relate to human nature more broadly.35 But it is even bigger than that. Essentialism is an ancient philosophy, and it has been a defining feature of the modern episteme, of Western histories, and even of the forma- tion of academic subjects, making theoretical paradigms a key histo- riographical consideration in the history of dreams and dream studies. An essentialist paradigm persisted in the academic study of religion for some time in that religion was treated as something sui generis, such as put forth by Mircea Eliade. As Russell McCutcheon explains: “A dominant aspect of the modern discourse on religion is (…) estab- lished and maintained by such ideological and rhetorical strategies as dehistoricization, universalization, and decontextualization.”36 Essen- tialist accounts of religion bled into analyses of dreams. For example, as Eliade puts it, “it has been found that dreams (…) may present (…) a ‘religious aura’ (…) homologous with the experience of the sacred.”37 Edward Burnett Tylor similarly presented “dreams” and “religion” in essentialist terms, universalized across cultures when he suggested the former was the source of the latter. Andreas Nordin and Pär Bjälke- 35 Daniel Pick and Lyndal Roper, “Introduction,” in Dreams and History, eds. Daniel Pick and Lyndal Roper (London: Routledge, 2004), 15. 36 Russell T. McCutcheon, Manufacturing Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 28. 37 Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960), 17. T O W A R D A H I S T O R I O G R A P H Y O F D R E A M S 95 bring challenge this predominant historical narrative of dreams, instead emphasizing how “religion” is not a monistic, universalized thing but rather made up of heterogenous parts—exemplifying the contextualist turn—and, as such, argue “religious dreaming” should be approached as “fractioned,” “comprising a range of phenomena.”38 This theoretical transition can be seen across the humanities. In an- thropology, the overemphasis on cultural continuity eventually gave way to increasing concern of cultural contingency, agency, individual- ity, and counterculture in an approach to dreams as cultural artifacts.39 Bernard Lahire’s The Sociological Interpretation of Dreams (2020) con- textualizes dreams in individuals’ social environments. And while early histories of dreams overwhelmingly focused on scientific or religious perspectives, as noted, historians have recently been more careful to present dreams as highly contextualized in time and place (see note 2). However, contextualism is so paradigmatically “academic” that we seem to forget the context of our contextualism as product—and producer— of postmodernism, meaning its antifoundationalist, antiessentialist, and destructuralist tendencies have tacitly structured our approach to the material and framed contextualism as a prime indicator of legiti- mate knowledge. We see a similar move from essentialism to contextualism in the sci- ences. Freud essentialized the nature of dreams as illusory, the function as wish fulfilment, and the content as symbolic. Though Carl Jung, as well as Freud in some regards, emphasized individual circumstances, he also argued for the universality of archetypes based in the collec- tive unconscious, which is another essentializing notion, an innate and uniting factor across all humanity.40 This was taken up by many in an 38 Andreas Nordin and Pär Bjälkebring, “The Counterintuitiveness of Supernatural Dreams and Religiosity,” Journal of Cognition and Culture 21, no. 3–4 (2021): 309–30, https://doi. org/10.1163/15685373-12340114. 39 Plane and Tuttle, “Introduction,” 20. For a discussion of the history of the anthropology of dreaming, see Robin E. Sheriff, “The Anthropology of Dreaming in Historical Perspective,” in New Directions in the Anthropology of Dreaming, eds. Jeannette Mageo and Robin E. Sheriff (Oxford: Routledge, 2021), 23–49. 40 Carl Jung, Dreams (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 77, describes the univer- sality of archetypes and situates the psyche as both personal and collective, though elsewhere he notes some contextual considerations for archetypes as well. E.g., Jung, Dreams, 106–9. P O L I G R A F I 96 essentialist fashion, particularly in dictionaries of dream symbolism. Universality is epitomized in such “keys to dreams,” which make up a lot of popular publications on dreams to this day, often invoking Jung’s name despite his opposition to this approach.41 Though essentialized dreams remain the dominant trope in popular publications, essential- ism in science eventually gave way to the idea of a contextualized nature of dreams, and increasingly, specific variables have been targeted for analysis, especially in the hard sciences. Sometimes, contextualism is so narrowly applied that dreams are entirely individualized, ultimately situated in each person’s given circumstances. This approach already appeared by the late nineteenth century, such as in the case of psycholo- gist Sante De Sanctis, for example, who argued that the “whole person,” including the dreamer’s life experiences, character, habits, passions, and health conditions, plays into dream content, which cannot be interpre- tated based on specific symbology.42 Essentialism helped breed authority. Religious studies was “con- structed, initially legitimized, and finally authorized” as a field of study through essentialist “exclusionary claims.”43 Similarly, in the sciences, framing dreams as essentially and reducibly natural (the paradigm of legitimate knowledge, as we’ve seen) places authority in the hands of scientists. The postmodern shift to contextualism, though, fed an al- ternative current in discourses of authority over dreams. Alongside dis- courses on authority within the scientific episteme, value was placed on self-analysis.44 From the perspective of an individual nature of dream symbolism, one must become familiar with their own patterns and as- sociations in their dreams in order to understand them, situating exper- tise in the self. Contextualized interpretation nourished the democra- 41 On “keys to dreams,” see Jacqueline Carroy, “A History of Dreams and the Science of Dreams,” in Histories of Dreams and Dreaming, eds. Giorgia Morgese, Giovanni Pietro Lom- bardo, and Hendrika Vande Kemp (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 21. Regarding Jung’s views, see Jung, Dreams, 72–73. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for directing me to this passage. 42 Morgese and Lombardo, “History,” 264, which provides several references to De Sanctis’s work. 43 McCutcheon, Manufacturing Religion, 28. 44 E.g., Carroy, “A History,” 26, notes that the importance placed on self-analysis by contem- poraries was even picked up by Freud in a small way. T O W A R D A H I S T O R I O G R A P H Y O F D R E A M S 97 tization of dream interpretation in this way (even though universalist notions persist). In current discourse, we see this trend with empha- sis on build-your-own dream dictionaries and learning your personal dream language, such as in Richard Nongard’s Panoramic Dream Analy- sis (2023), Joanne Hedger’s Dream Interpretation for Better Sleep (2022), and Robert J. Hoss’s Dream Language (2015). Conclusion: Dream Research Today and the Post-Postmodern Episteme What is a dream? Not so shockingly, experts disagree on how to de- fine a “dream.” We have seen how the dream as an object has been vari- ously constructed throughout history as constituting different physical, metaphysical, epistemological, and social spaces, forms of communica- tion, and theoretical paradigms, as a religious experience, cultural arti- fact, social expression, historical object, and discursive construct. What has historically been attributed to the object “dream” has varied wildly through time, reflecting dominant discourses guided by overarching epistemes. Despite all these proposed answers, the question of defini- tion is one thing that virtually all present-day research shares. And this question is itself a product of the postmodern episteme and even more paradigmatic of the academic cultural environment than contextualism itself: a doubting, a skepticism of metanarrative that has thrown our central terms of inquiry into chaos. And what I have seemingly done here is provide a painfully postmodern skeptical view of the metanar- ratives applied to “dreams” variously constructed. But the story needn’t end here. Instead of focusing on a highly contextualized and contingent “dream,” plurality is increasingly emphasized in scholarship. This per- spective on the nature of academic objects of study is, too, historically situated, a reflection of post-postmodernism. There is no consensus nor even a generally accepted notion of “post-postmodernism.” But as with any period in intellectual history, it is helpful to position it in conversa- tion with previous eras. As such, we can think of post-postmodernism as situated in the debates between modernism and postmodernism on foundationalism/antifoundationalism, structuralism/deconstructionism, P O L I G R A F I 98 objectivity/relativism, and essentialism/contextualism. Post-postmod- ernism, according to cultural theorists Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van der Akker, “negotiates between [and “beyond”] the modern and the postmodern (…) both here and there and nowhere.”45 They em- phasize oscillation over balance, arguing the post-postmodern appears as a “‘both-neither’ dynamic” toward the modern and postmodern. Though they are speaking of a turn in art, architecture, etc., I argue elsewhere that this reflects an increasingly prevalent discourse on recon- ciling dichotomies—including the modern-postmodern binaries listed above—that speak to the larger epistemological condition without a reductive identity between the “opposites.”46 In fact, it is a rejection of such dichotomies as necessarily oppositional. While postmodernism emphasizes the contingency of knowledge in the sense of epistemologi- cal skepticism, post-postmodernism sees the multiplicity of narratives as epistemologically enlarging, a diversification of understanding the human condition. For example, a post-postmodernist might take the dichotomy of essentialism and contextualism not as mutually exclu- sive but as mutually inclusive, existing in a fundamentally relational mode of “other” referentiality and equally important parts of the story, which historiography at large—with its emphasis on eliminating essen- tialism—could benefit from taking into account. In terms of how the theoretical paradigms shape the object, the modern essentialist dream was one thing; the postmodern contextualist dream was nothing; the post-postmodernist plural dream is everything. In the case of dreams, the post-postmodern turn can be seen, for example, in the recent positioning of dreams in terms of ontological multiplicity. For instance, in the natural scientific study of dreams, the object “dream” was originally restricted to REM-sleep mental activity but now includes the hypnagogic and hypnopompic stages. This has led to further pluralization of the object: the construction of the dream not as a static entity but as something that lies on a continuum from focused waking to daydreaming to dreaming (hence the “object” is not 45 Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van der Akker, “Notes on Metamodernism,” Journal of Aesthetics and Culture 2 (2010): 6, https://doi.org/10.3402/jac.v2i0.5677, and for “beyond,” 4. 46 Vollmer, The Relational Structure, chap. 8. T O W A R D A H I S T O R I O G R A P H Y O F D R E A M S 99 monadic), as put forth by dream researcher Ernest Hartmann in The Nature and Functions of Dreams (2011), for example. We can also see a post-postmodern turn in the historiographical considerations discussed in this article. Recently, the internal-external division of dreams has been disputed. Phyllis Mack, for instance, argues this binary is a bit forced, as many premodern dreams were regarded as both internal and representing transcendent truth, and the same is true for many people today.47 The internal and external are not neces- sarily mutually exclusive even though that discourse certainly exists, and multiple constructs are thus simultaneously upheld. Speaking to the contingency of the internal-external divide, Ann Marie Plane and Leslie Tuttle argue a historiography of dreams should take note of the teleology of externalization to internalization,48 which is part of a larger teleology evident in the modern worldview of moving from a more “primitive” or religious understanding to scientific ones. In a self-re- flexive way, historiographers should also note that the awareness of this teleology is itself constructing new historical objects, such as the plural dream, reflecting a new, post-postmodern discursive phase in this tele- ological evolution of which we “conquer teleology.” Regarding the conversation on the imagined spaces of dreams, we can also detect traces of post-postmodernism. Vande Kemp, in her later work, revised her earlier statement on the historical phases to be more on the point of dimensions of dreams rather than eras. She does not think of the spaces of dreams as mutually exclusive, though some en- joyed popularity at different times. Instead, there is a “scope” of dreams evidenced in the given interdisciplinary research, and she notes the con- tingency of “truth” and “facts” on these various dimensions but does not dip into relativism.49 Instead, she argues, “scholars are studying dreams in ways that reflect all four dimensions of human existence.”50 In other words, the various imagined spaces of dreaming are all “true” (as reflec- 47 Phyllis Mack, “The Unbounded Self,” in Dreams, Dreamers, and Visions, eds. Ann Marie Plane and Leslie Tuttle (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 207–25. 48 Plane and Tuttle, “Introduction,” 8. 49 Hendrika Vande Kemp, “Epilogue,” in Histories of Dreams and Dreaming, eds. Giorgia Mor- gese, Gionvanni Pietro Lombardo, and Vande Kemp (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 277. 50 Vande Kemp, “Epilogue,” 280. P O L I G R A F I 100 tions of the data) even when their individual “truths” may vary, a very post-postmodern view of inclusivity. Further, though theories abound regarding what characterizes the post-postmodern episteme, technol- ogy features as a central, defining discourse.51 And we saw the impact of this as regards the inter- and intrapersonal space of dream engineering and in the construction of the “dream” in cyberspace, with the discur- sive dream particularly exemplary of post-postmodern pluralism. As for the essentialism-contextualism debate, in psychoanalysis, an- thropology, and the history of dreams today, paradigms of archetypes, cultural unity, and universalization exist alongside disparateness and contextualism at the levels of society and the individual. Furthermore, dreams are constructed as simultaneously individual and communal (in terms of psychology, culture, society, etc.): dreaming is a “collec- tive phenomenon,” “shaped by social and cultural forces,” as argued by Jacques Le Goff, for instance.52 In a similarly pluralistic ontologiz- ing, Kelly Bulkeley and Maja Gutman’s 2020 Dream Project analyzes dreams as part of “collective experience” relating to real-life historical events, another example of a continuum but, this time, among one’s own dreams and others.53 Similar approaches can be found in the I Dream of COVID project and collections of dreams related to the his- torical events of 9/11, the atomic bomb, and Nazism, which “calls for a framework that can hold a space for dreams that emerge between minds,” as Adelais Mills argues.54 This paper has but brushed the surface of possible historiographi- cal considerations taken from changes in intellectual history related to discourses on the boundaries and legitimacy of different forms of knowledge. Other possible directions for future research include: dis- cursive links between dreaming and psychosis (potentially a reflection of legitimation discourses of rationality/irrationality); changes to what is considered the function of dreams (divination, healing, contempla- 51 Vermeulen and van der Akker, “Notes,” 3. 52 Le Goff, Medieval Imagination, 229. 53 Kelly Bulkeley and Maja Gutman, “The 2020 Dreams Project,” accessed September 24, 2023, https://tiger-grape-astm.squarespace.com. 54 Adelais Mills, “Pandemic Dreaming,” in Lockdown Cultures, eds. Stella Bruzzi and Mau- rice Biriotti (London: UCL Press, 2022), 244. T O W A R D A H I S T O R I O G R A P H Y O F D R E A M S 101 tion, creativity, memory consolidation) and how the “function” es- tablishes/reinforces power structures; the types of dreams considered within the boundaries and worthy of scientific study (from lucid to eve- ryday dreams to “big dreams”); other localizations of dreams in physi- cal places to imagined spaces ranging from temples, Freudian couches, individual beds, virtual reality, and sleep laboratories55 to waking life (e.g., as in research on how dreams impact the day’s mood); the many, many other social realms of dreams that shape the historical object, such as art and film (e.g., as a theme or as an aesthetic but also in terms of narrative instability—a possible postmodern decentering of the self ); and the power of dream interpreters throughout history and its impact on social structures of gender and sexuality. Further research should pay attention to countercurrents as well since the ways of constructing dreams discussed here are more a reflec- tion of the discursive power of dominant epistemes than the reality of the variety of “dreams” in lived experience. The reality is even more diverse. Moreover, the dichotomies drawn upon in this reconstruction of historical discourse, such as internal/external, subjective/objective, supernatural/natural, and others, have never been completely accepted, and challenges to them constitute a substantial discourse throughout history. Returning to the question of how to define the “dream,” to con- clude in a post-postmodern way, instead of taking the contingencies of the “dream” as indicative of the relativism of knowledge, we might say that these different constructs are suggestive of ontological multi- plicity or, meta-analytically, that the ontologically multiple construct is self-reflexively suggestive of post-postmodernism. 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New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. 105 D R E A M S , S L E E P Q U A L I T Y , A N D C O L L E C T I V E T R A U M A : A N I N V E S T I G A T I O N O F T H E I M P A C T O F T H E C O V I D - 1 9 P A N D E M I C C a r m e l a M e n t o , M a r i a C a t e n a S i l v e s t r i , A m e l i a R i z z o , C l a r a L o m b a r d o , H a d i p o u r L a k m e s a n i A b e d , F e r d i n a n d o T e s t a , K e l l y B u l k e l e y , T o s h i o K a w a i Introduction The phenomenon of dreaming is the consequence of the brain’s ability to generate a whole new world of experience based on previous knowledge, regardless of the surroundings.1 Studies on brain injuries, functional imaging, and neurophysiology have provided evidence re- garding the neural correlates of sleep and dreams. Sleep is the moment when the normal physiological condition of awareness disappears. In a recent study,2 almost 30% of the subjects who were mostly awakened early at night, report not to have realised anything. Although dreams have always fascinated human beings, their strictly scientific study has only recently begun.3 1 Stefano Bolognini, ed., Il sogno cento anni dopo (Milano: Mimesis Edizioni, 2016). 2 Francesca Siclari, et al., “The neural correlates of dreaming,” Nature neuroscience 20, no. 6 (2017): 872–878, https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4545. 3 Allan J.Hobson, “REM sleep and dreaming: towards a theory of protoconsciousness,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 10, no. 11 (2009): 803–813, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nrn2716. https://doi.org/10.35469/poligrafi.2023.402 Poligrafi, no. 109/110, vol. 28, 2023, pp. 105–125 P O L I G R A F I 106 In The Interpretation of Dreams,4 Freud predicted the research for an explanation of the organic basis for the mental event. Robust scientific investigations of dreams are complex endeavours since dreams are solely accessible through self-reports rather than direct observations, so it is difficult, if not impossible, to experimentally manipulate and observe dream content through exposure to stimuli before and during sleep.5 Dreams represent brain organisation and functions and can, in some ways, be conceptualised as a brain-mind interaction. The evolutionary success of the human species has largely depended on our extraordi- nary cognitive capacities, and these abilities are based on a brain-mind system that functions non-stop, during both sleep and wakefulness.6 Dreams are highly visual, colourful, rich in shapes, and full of move- ment. They incorporate categories that are common in the moments we are awake, such as people, faces, objects, and animals.7 Dreams also contain sounds (including words and conversations) and, most rarely, tactile perceptions, smells, and tastes, as well as feelings of pleasure and pain. While dreaming, there is a considerable reduction in the voluntary control of actions and thoughts. Dreams can reflect one’s own interests and personality, like one’s mental activity when awake. Similar to peo- ple’s personalities, dreams are generally rather stable over time during adulthood and share many similar characteristics among cultures and ages, i.e. the adolescent8 population. Some dreams are characterised by a high level of emotional involvement, among which are joy, surprise, 4 Sigmund Freud and James Strachey, The complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 22 (London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-analysis, 1953). 5 David Foulkes and Allan Rechtschaffen, “Presleep determinants of dream content: Effects of two films,” Perceptual and Motor Skills 19, no. 3 (1964): 983–1005, https://doi.org/10.2466/ pms.1964.19.3.983; David Foulkes, Dreaming: A cognitive-psychological perspective (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum 1985); Morton F Reiser, Memory in mind and brain: What dream imag- ery reveals (Yale University Press, 1994). 6 Kelly Bulkeley, Big Dreams: the science of dreaming and the origins of religion (Oxford Uni- versity Press, 2016). 7 Yuval Nir and Giulio Tononi, “Dreaming and the brain: from phenomenology to neuro- physiology,” Trends in cognitive sciences 14, no. 2 (2010): 88–100, https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj. tics.2009.12.001. 8 Calvin Hall and Robert Van de Castle, The content analysis of dreams (University of Michi- gan: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966); Ana Guerrero-Gomez et al., “Dreaming in adolescents during the COVID-19 health crisis: survey among a sample of European school students,” Fron- tiers in psychology 12 (2021): 652627, https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.652627. D R E A M S , S L E E P Q U A L I T Y , A N D C O L L E C T I V E T R A U M A 107 anger, fear, and anxiety. Interestingly, sadness, guilt, and depression are rare in dreams. This is in line with Freud’s suggestion that dreams have their origin in perceived threats or conflicts. According to Foulkes,9 dreams are an attempt of the sleeping mind to organise information, starting with the unconscious activation of memory units that takes place when sleeping. Dream awareness consists of a single fact: we are not contextually aware of where we are (in bed) or what we are do- ing (sleeping and dreaming). However, there is a strong10 coherence in thoughts and images that are experienced while dreaming (uniformity). Since the quarantine period due to COVID-19, the quality of sleep has changed. Lockdowns have had a strong impact on our daily rou- tines, emotional experiences, and sleep. A variety of studies have shown a high prevalence of sleep problems among teenagers and young adults, as well as difficulties in remembering dreams. Zhou and colleagues11 have studied symptoms of insomnia among Chinese teenagers and young adults and found that the prevalence of symptoms of insomnia was 23.2%. In this context, an interesting phenomenon has been ob- served—a strong change in dream activity, such as a decrease in dream recall frequency and increased dream vividness, oddity, and emotional intensity. This condition12 suggests an impact of potentially traumatic collective experiences on dreams. An Italian13 study surveyed 796 par- ticipants about their dream content using a questionnaire and reports of their most recent dream. The author found that women, compared to men, tend to recall dreams more frequently and that at least 20% of dreams containing aspects such as emotionality, intensity, and negative 9 Foulkes, Dreaming. 10 Allan Rechtschaffen, “The single-mindedness and isolation of dreams,” in The mythoma- nias: The nature of deception and self-deception, ed. Michael S. Myslobodsky (Mahwah: Law- rence Erlbaum Associates, 1997) 203. 11 Shuo Zhou et al., “DREAM-in-CDM approach and identification of a new generation of anti-inflammatory drugs targeting mPGES-1,” Scientific reports 10, no. 1 (2020): 10187, https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fs41598-020-67283-0. 12 Maurizio Gorgoni et al., “Pandemic dreams: quantitative and qualitative features of the oneiric activity during the lockdown due to COVID-19 in Italy,” Sleep medicine 81 (2021): 20–32, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2021.02.006. 13 Ilaria Iorio, Massimiliano Sommantico, and Santa Parrello, “Dreaming in the time of COVID-19: A quali-quantitative Italian study,” Dreaming 30, no. 3 (2020): 199, https://doi. org/10.1037/drm0000142. P O L I G R A F I 108 emotions were related to COVID-19. The aim of this work is to investi- gate the quality of sleep and the content of dreams reported during the COVID-19 pandemic by means of an interview and textual analysis of the contents of dreams. Procedure The data was collected via the Google Forms platform between July 2020 and December 2020 and included the informed consent form. The survey, which took around 15 minutes, was conducted with full respect for anonymity and privacy in accordance with the standards of ethical conduct. The data was analysed to test the hypotheses in ques- tion. Research Instruments 1) The TKYDQ questionnaire (Dreaming and the COVID-19 Pandemic): This questionnaire, originally designed by Bulkeley,14 was translated into Italian by a native English speaker after obtaining the authors’ permission. Subsequently, the questionnaire was back-translat- ed to check correspondence with the original items and, where neces- sary, culturally adapted. The final Italian version included seven ques- tions addressing dreaming and the COVID-19 pandemic. The list of items in this questionnaire can be found in the appendix. 2) The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI): The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI)15 is a self-report questionnaire that takes 5–10 minutes to complete. This tool, which assesses the quality of sleep, consists of 19 items based on which a total score and 7 sub-scores are calculated. The PSQI is intended to be an easy-to-use standardised sleep questionnaire for clinicians and researchers and it can be used for a range of clinical and healthy populations, including the diagno- sis of sleep disorders. Clinical studies have found the PSQI to be reli- 14 Bulkeley, Big Dreams. 15 Carole Smyth, “The Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI),” Journal of gerontological nurs- ing 25, no. 12 (1999): 10–1, https://doi.org/10.3928/0098-9134-19991201-10. D R E A M S , S L E E P Q U A L I T Y , A N D C O L L E C T I V E T R A U M A 109 able and valid in the assessment of sleep problems to some degree, but in particular with self-reported sleep problems and depression-related symptoms. This questionnaire yields seven components formed by combining specific items: subjective sleep quality (Component 1); the combination of the amount of time that each respondent needed to fall asleep during the past month and how often—on a weekly basis—they could not fall asleep within 30 minutes (Component 2); sleep duration (Component 3); the habitual effectiveness of sleep representing a qual- ity index of night rest, which is the proportion between the hours slept versus the hours in bed (Component 4); sleep disturbances character- ised by problems while sleeping such as nightmares, breathing issues, etc. (Component 5); the use of sleep medication (Component 6); and a combination of the frequency and severity of daily functions, such as problems staying motivated when performing daily activities or the ability to stay awake while driving, eating, or engaging in social activi- ties (Component 7). Sample Participants were recruited online using the convenience sampling method and online advertisements. The inclusion criteria were: a) ac- quisition of informed consent; b) being older than 18 years of age; c) adequate understanding of Italian; d) filling in all the sections of the questionnaire; e) enough knowledge of basic computer functions to complete the form on a PC, tablet, or smartphone. In total, 402 people aged between 18 and 71 (mean age=33.08; Standard Devia- tion=11.47) participated in the survey, out of which 301 were females (mean age=32.6, Standard Deviation=11.03) and the rest were males (mean age=34.51, Standard Deviation=12.65). Among all the partici- pants, 68.8% had a university education, 34.4% declared themselves single and 4% divorced at the time of completing the survey. Moreover, 38.9% of the participants reported that they were unemployed and 5% reported being in retirement. P O L I G R A F I 110 Results The following variables were used in a logistic regression analysis to investigate their predictive value regarding having bad dreams, dream recall, and dream content: sex; age; Covid-related dream; problems with insomnia; being personally affected by Covid; the time needed to go to sleep; duration of sleep; number of times without falling asleep in less than 30 minutes; getting up in the middle of the night or early in the morning; not being able to breathe satisfactorily; global judgement of sleep quality; use of medicine to help falling asleep; problems stay- ing awake while driving, eating, or while engaging in social activities; being enthusiastic enough to do things properly; and having a partner (i.e., not being single at the time of answering the questionnaire). The pattern of responses is presented in Table 1. The occurrence of bad dreams could be predicted by how partici- pants judged their sleep quality (p<0.0001; odds ratio[aOR], 0.183; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.096 – 0.347), how enthusiastic they were when performing their routine activities properly (p=0.006; aOR, 0.319; CI, 0.142 – 0.716), and the number of times they experienced breathing issues during sleep (p=0.008; aOR, 0.472; CI, 0.271 – 0.721). The way participants judged their sleep quality (p<0.0001; aOR, 0.199; CI, 0.108 – 0.365) and the level of enthusiasm they expressed during their routine activities (p=0.004; aOR, 0.345; CI, 0.166 – 0.714) could predict the positivity/negativity of their dreams. No predictors were found after applying the FDR correction for dream recall. In addition to the questions in the PSQI, the survey included the fol- lowing items: 1) how frequently the respondents recalled their dreams’ content within the last month; 2) whether they had a dream related to the COVID-19 epidemic or not; 3) whether they have noticed any differences in the quality of emotions in their dreams; 4) the extent to which they have experienced insomnia/sleep disturbances; 5) how they have been personally affected by the pandemic; and 6) whether they agreed with the government’s policies regarding the management of the pandemic. The results of the survey can be seen in Table 1. Comparisons between men and women yielded significant dif- ferences considering a Bonferroni corrected p-value (0.0166), in C4, D R E A M S , S L E E P Q U A L I T Y , A N D C O L L E C T I V E T R A U M A 111 TABLE 1: Specifics of the responses of participants (n=403). Degree and direction of change Percentage Remembering dreams The same 54.09 Slight increase 22.58 Significant increase 5.21 Slight decrease 12.9 Yes/No COVID-related dream Yes 10.92 Degree and direction of change Differences in quality of emotions No difference 64.02 A little more negative 29.28 Much more negative 3.23 A little more positive 2.48 Much more positive 0.99 Number of days Difficulties in sleeping/insomnia 0 22.33 1 21.34 2 17.12 3 16.13 4 7.69 5 7.44 6 3.72 7 4.22 Aspects of problems faced In what way have they been person- ally affected by the pandemic Holidays and meeting 34.99 New mental health problems 25.31 No impact 18.36 Work related problems 13.9 Financial difficulties 4.71 Physical health problems 2.73 Agree/Disagree If they agree with the policies of the government regarding covid Agree 50.12 Disagree 25.81 Degree and direction Judgement of sleep quality Very good 10.4 Fairly good 54.6 Fairly bad 30.5 Very bad 4.5 Number of hours Sleep duration > 7 hours 33.7 6/7 hours 31.3 5/6 hours 27.8 <5 hours 7.2 Frequency of use Use of sleep medication Not during the past month 86.4 Less than once a week 6.5 Once or twice a week 3.2 Three or more times a week 4 P O L I G R A F I 112 t(400)=3.271, p=0.001 and the global index t(399)=2.902, p=0.004 of the PSQI, with women having higher scores in both components, mean- ing that women on average reported more relaxed night sleep. Subjects who were personally affected by Covid differed significantly from non- affected individuals in C1, t(400) =3.776, p<0.001, C2, t(399) =3.055, p=0.002, C5, t(400)=2.787, p=0.006, C7, t(400)=4.321, p<0.001 and the global index of PSQI, t(399) =3.575, p<0.001 in such a way that all the affected people had a higher score in all of these components. This highlights the fact that those who were directly affected by COVID-19 exhibit sleep disturbances in different indexes of sleep quality. Finally, subjects with partners had higher scores in C5 t(400) =3.111, p=0.002, which represents a higher range of bad dreams and breathing problems compared to those without a partner. Qualitative Analysis of the COVID-19 Related Dreams Respondents were asked to share a recent COVID-19-related dream with as many details as possible, including the scenario, characters, thoughts, actions, and emotions. In total, 41 dreams have been col- lected and analysed. The reported dreams can be subdivided into dif- ferent macro-categories. The most representative ones are those with a phobic content of contamination, fear of suffocating, fear of dying, feelings of panic, and negative emotionality. Phobia, moreover, was ex- tended to the facemask but also to situations when the mask was ab- sent, generating anxiety. Text analysis shows the fear of being positive with COVID-19, based on the repetition of words and phrases such as “infect”, “having been infected”, “having contracted it”, and experienc- ing respiratory symptoms and needing to be resuscitated. Other times, the person was asymptomatic and became the source of infection for the family. All this can be traced back to anxious and distressing feelings connected to the aggressiveness of the virus that “exterminates billions of lives” and where the only possibility to fight against it is a vaccine, even though it “has exorbitant prices”. Another category is represented by the fear of being infected, with persecutory content, or of being infected on purpose. D R E A M S , S L E E P Q U A L I T Y , A N D C O L L E C T I V E T R A U M A 113 Dreams of parties or scenes of the “old normal days”, as an expres- sion of the desire to get free from restrictions, were another theme rep- resented by phrases such as “being able to gather together with friends”, “going back to having a walk without wearing a facemask”, and to “give a hug” because the pandemic has ended. A map of the recurring words in the reported dreams and descriptions of some of the dreams are pre- sented in Figure 1 and Table 2, respectively. Figure 1: Word cloud of dreams reported by the participants P O L I G R A F I 114 Table 2: Example Contents of some of the reported dreams I dreamt everything was back to normal and epi- demic was a nightmare. When it was not possible to go out, I dreamt of be- ing able to meet friends. Confused and fragmentary memory of me and people whose identity I don’t re- member having approaches opposed to prevention, as nothing had ever happened. Being in a very narrow space with many people without their face mask on. I dreamt prices to buy vaccine were exorbitant and that every fam- ily could buy up to 3, therefore my parents renounced having it to the benefit of my two sisters and me. A landscape of hills, you can see the beach, my house on the hills with my fam- ily, it’s sunny. A tsunami, the sea floods everything, and leaves my husband and my sons submerged in front of the house. I find myself with a lot of people I don’t know among debris, everything is grey and we look for shelter in a house, holding our hands, we try to get out again and I hear a dirge, like a voice music but produced by many people crying. Seeing my family and not being able to give them a hug and a kiss. I was walking along the seaside. There were many people without facemask not respecting social dis- tance. My first thought was they were all reckless and this made me afraid. My grandmother had a shop and we risked getting infected, I was crying in floods, we couldn’t say goodbye. I was visiting my Ameri- can grandfather, who was still working in his company, which actually had become a shop, I found him in his office producing facemasks against covid, with the Italian flag drawn on them. D R E A M S , S L E E P Q U A L I T Y , A N D C O L L E C T I V E T R A U M A 115 I dreamt several times of meeting my parents outdoors in a green area and of being worried. My concern came from the possibility of infecting them, as they are part of the risk category and I am “asymptomatic”. I dreamt for up to 2 nights of getting infected... I was alone in the hospital and I cried because nobody came to look after me. Everybody was wearing facemask in the middle of lava. I look out of a window and I see that in the neighbours’ courtyard there is a party; I go there aware and therefore wor- ried of not having face- mask. Several unicorns arrive flying and they land on the neighbours’ courtyard... I wonder how this is possible as unicorns are fantastic animals. I find myself climbing the stairs of a building to reach the terrace because there was something in the street (like a demonstra- tion) and from the top I was able to see better; but there were too many people in the terrace and I decide not to get close to them because of Coronavirus, I come back, I go down the stairs and I find myself in a shabby room, as an ancient abandoned chapel, with the statue of Our Lady of Medjugorie who was also dirty and ruined. My father who told me he would stay until covid had disappeared. He died five years ago. I dreamt of meeting a person I knew and I said hello with a kiss, and I remembered I made a mistake about doing it because there was covid. A friend of mine at the bar affected by Corona got close to me to get me infected on purpose. I was wandering in my neighbourhood and everybody was free and I didn’t understand why they were free to do everything without their masks on. P O L I G R A F I 116 Discussion This research is in line with a variety of studies16 conducted over the last year and a half, which have demonstrated the central role of nightmares in people’s dream experiences. An analysis of dreams can be considered from the Jungian theory of compensation. According to Jung, most dreams obey the law of compensation, through which the unconscious compensates the unilateral attitude of consciousness by integrating opposites.17 According to the literature,18 this condition is similar to trauma because people perceived the COVID-19 outbreak as potentially dangerous to their own lives. During this period, people’s dreams changed, and there was a massive presence of dream content concerning fear of COVID-19. In particular, this study highlighted that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the sleep quality of individuals in society has been negatively affected at various levels. In this study, it was observed that the sleep quality of the individuals was poor. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, insomnia was rampant, causing a negative change in individuals’ sleep quality. These results support our study. In our research, we evaluated sleep quality during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the impact of the Coronavirus on dream content. Moreover, dreams can be analysed as an attempt of the unconscious to induce the dreamer to take note of real danger rather than putting up mechanisms of repression or denial.19 Therefore, it functions as an invi- tation for dreamers to give the right value to the emotions experienced during a pandemic outbreak. In fact, the results have shown – as in pre- vious studies – that most dreams had a pandemic topic, such as phobic content, including fear of contamination, fear of suffocation, fear of 16 Serena Scarpelli et al., “Pandemic nightmares: Effects on dream activity of the COVID‐19 lockdown in Italy,” Journal of Sleep Research 30, no. 5 (2021): e13300, https://doi.org/10.1111/ jsr.13300. 17 Marie-Louise Von Franz, Sguardo sul Sogno (Torino: Raffaele Cortina Editore, 1989). 18 Yeliz Akkuş et al., “Determination of the factors affecting sleep quality in the general popu- lation during the early phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Journal of Turkish Sleep Medicine 8, no. 2 (2021): 142–150, http://dx.doi.org/10.4274/jtsm.galenos.2021.93063. 19 Carl Gustav Jung, “Il significato della psicologia per i tempi moderni,” in Opere vol. 10/1: Civiltà in transizione: il periodo fra le due guerre (Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1998): 201–224. D R E A M S , S L E E P Q U A L I T Y , A N D C O L L E C T I V E T R A U M A 117 dying, panic sensations, and negative emotionality. Another category, conversely, was represented by the fear of being purposefully contami- nated, which suggests a paranoid thought process. The results showed that a considerable portion of the subjects experienced an increased capacity to remember dreams and therefore a greater access to their unconscious, which is in line with similar studies on dreams during the pandemic. Barrett20 asked more than 2800 participants to describe their dreams (those that were still clear) before and during the pandemic. After collecting information from a total of 9,000 dreams and analys- ing them with text analysis software, the author classified them into positive and negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety, sadness, health, or death. The study highlighted changes in dream content before and during the pandemic. As during the pandemic, the dream content was concentrated on Covid-19. All over the world,21 researchers studying dreams have reported an increase in the frequency of vivid dreams and, in certain cases, nightmares during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, in a survey22 comparing COVID-19-related dreams to those before the pandemic, the results suggest that the frequency of vivid dreams during self-isolation and quarantine has increased signifi- cantly. As far as the quantitative aspect of sleep is concerned, the seven main components of Pittsburgh’s scale have been explored in the pre- sent study. In the sample of more than 400 healthy subjects, a signifi- cant portion reported difficulty falling asleep. Moreover, some reported not being able to totally enjoy the hours they spent in bed and not having really restful sleep. Some participants scored in the moderate 20 Deirdre Barrett, “Dreams about COVID-19 versus normative dreams: Trends by gender,” Dreaming 30, no. 3 (2020): 216, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/drm0000149. 21 Michael Schredl and Kelly Bulkeley, “Dreaming and the COVID-19 pandemic: A survey in a US sample,” Dreaming 30, no. 3 (2020): 189–198, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/drm0000146; Natália Bezerra Mota et al., “Dreaming during the Covid-19 pandemic: Computational as- sessment of dream reports reveals mental suffering related to fear of contagion,” PloS One 15, no. 11 (2020): e0242903, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242903; Jiaxi Wang et al., “Does COVID-19 impact the frequency of threatening events in dreams? An exploration of pandemic dreaming in light of contemporary dream theories,” Consciousness and cognition 87 (2021): 103051, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2020.103051. 22 Elizaveta Solomonova et al., “Stuck in a lockdown: Dreams, bad dreams, nightmares, and their relationship to stress, depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic,” PLoS One 16, no. 11 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259040. P O L I G R A F I 118 clinical range of sleep disorders and a smaller percentage in the severe range, in which case they resorted to the use of drugs to sleep. They also reported at least one or two daily inconveniences per week due to dif- ficulties getting restful sleep. Many people reported being more restless and, therefore, sleeping less than usual. Our routine has undoubtedly suffered from extensive alterations, which has had consequences for our sleep patterns.23 According to some investigators, such as Barrett (2020), having more vivid dreams can be a result of a change in sleep times. During21 the lockdown period, people seem to have slept more than usual. Dreams occur during the REM stage, where a transition from lighter to deeper sleep takes place. During this phase of sleep, our brain shows a higher level of activity, resulting in more vivid dreams. As the longest REM phase takes place only during the last hours of sleep, for most people, the REM phase can be disrupted if they do not get enough sleep. This result is similar to our research findings. Moreover, we showed, in line with the findings of McNamara and colleagues,24 that our dream patterns have been influenced by the fear and anxiety related to the pandemic. This study highlights how the REM dream system appears to be specialised in managing a wide range of types of imagery, memory, and cognitive elements. According to many researchers, dream vividness can be attributed to the emo- tional and physical chaos in which many people are living. The theory of dream continuity suggests that our dreams are influenced by our thoughts and actions during wakefulness. As a consequence, if we feel a certain level of stress as a result of the pandemic, work, or family, then the same patterns will also probably emerge in our dreams. It has been shown that the limbic system, which is involved in behavioural and emotional regulation, is activated during the most bizarre or sensitive dreams.25 It is for this reason that some researchers believe that dreams have a functional aim: to help dreamers prepare for the difficult and chal- 23 Solomonova et al., “Stuck in a lockdown.” 24 Patrick McNamara et al., “A neurocomputational theory of nightmares: the role of for- mal properties of nightmare images,” Sleep Advances 2, no. 1 (2021), zpab009, https://doi. org/10.1093/sleepadvances/zpab009. 25 McNamara et al., “A neurocomputational theory of nightmares.” D R E A M S , S L E E P Q U A L I T Y , A N D C O L L E C T I V E T R A U M A 119 lenging situations that they will have to deal with when they are awake. When something extraordinary happens, such as a pandemic, the brain can process it through dreams. What is transposed into dreams26 are our recent experiences, oftentimes emotional and negative. Therefore, dreaming modulates emotional disorders, regulating the most problem- atic ones. Dreams can be considered a way to regulate the emotional components of our experiences, which does not always happen over just one night, but may need a longer period.27 Dreams are also connected to memory. The results of a study by Marzano et al.28 on the relation- ship between dreams and memories suggest that the neurophysiological mechanisms we use while we sleep and when we remember dreams are the same that are activated when we create and recover memories. In another study,29 it was found out that vivid, bizarre, and emotionally intense dreams—dreams that we are usually able to remember—are connected to specific parts of the brain, i.e., the amygdala and the hip- pocampus. While the amygdala plays a fundamental role in elaborating emotional reactions, the hippocampus is involved in important func- tions of memory, such as consolidating information through short- and long-term memory. Another hypothesis is that dreaming more vividly is a traumatic reaction to stress or isolation. Stress factors related to long quarantines, contagion-related fears, frustration, feelings of boredom, lack of information, and fake news have been identified. It has been suggested that self-isolation and pandemic-related stress can increase the risk of developing PTSD.30 This could partly explain the parallel phenomenon of alteration in dreams’ content, as nightmares and dis- rupted sleep are important characteristics of PTSD. People suffering 26 Akkuş et al., “Determination of the factors affecting sleep quality.” 27 Anu-Katriina Pesonen, et al., “Pandemic dreams: network analysis of dream content dur- ing the COVID-19 lockdown,” Frontiers in psychology 11 (2020): 573961, https://doi.org/10.3 389%2Ffpsyg.2020.573961. 28 Cristina Marzano, et al., “Recalling and forgetting dreams: theta and alpha oscillations dur- ing sleep predict subsequent dream recall,” Journal of Neuroscience 31, no. 18 (2011): 6674–6683, https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0412-11.2011. 29 Samantha K. Brooks et al., “The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence,” The Lancet 395, no. 10227 (2020): 912–920, https://doi. org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30460-8. 30 Akkuş et al., “Determination of the factors affecting sleep quality.” P O L I G R A F I 120 from this pathology often have frequent and recurrent nightmares and intense flashbacks connected to intrusive traumatic memories.31 In the Jungian vision of dreams, the presence of dreams with nightmares and traumas can be read as indications that the collective unconscious sends to the dreamer’s consciousness, anticipating traumatic events that may arise later.32 Several people have had anticipatory dreams related to pan- demic events, coming from the collective unconscious. These dreams invite dreamers to prepare for unpredictable events by providing them with tools to acquire greater awareness. Conclusions In conclusion, the pandemic seems to have fully entered our collec- tive subconscious, not only through symbols but also by processing di- rect images and scenes from common experience and the rapid change in daily social interactions. Dreams reflect the predominant thoughts we have when we are awake; they are necessary to build memories, allow an outlet for an- guish and preoccupations, and help to process and emotionally face difficult situations in real life. Dreams can lead us to new insights and solutions to problems and can be powerful therapeutic tools. The analy- sis of problems connected to sleep and dreams can be considered an early predictor of other pathologies, as it often represents a risk factor for the development of anxious and depressive syndromes that, over the last year—aside from PTSD—have exponentially increased. This evalu- ation, therefore, requires clinical attention, early and timely interven- tions in the general population, and adequate early and wide-ranging psychological intervention. Hence, it is necessary to pay attention to the need for strengthening psychological support services and encour- aging the narration and collection of dreams. Although the subjectivity 31 Madhulika A. Gupta, “Spontaneous reporting of onset of disturbing dreams and night- mares related to early life traumatic experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic by patients with posttraumatic stress disorder in remission,” Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine 16, no. 8 (2020): 1419–1420, https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.8562. 32 Ferdinando Testa, La clinica delle immagini Sogno e psicopatologia (Bergamo: Moretti e Vitali, 2019). D R E A M S , S L E E P Q U A L I T Y , A N D C O L L E C T I V E T R A U M A 121 and self-reporting nature of dreams are hard to capture in a quantita- tive manner, for all the purposes mentioned above, the use of statistical inference, where possible, can help provide a more reliable and valid interpretation of this human experience. Understanding and interpret- ing this phenomenon can hugely benefit from both quantitative and qualitative analyses and thus more investigations taking advantage of both methodologies are essential and recommended. Last but not least, the findings of this study can be useful for mental health professionals and emphasises the importance of psychological assessments of trau- matic events. Limitations Although our study highlighted an important theme aligned with previous studies on dream content—which is the association between dream content and the fear of COVID-19—it also comes with limita- tions such as the small sample size, which was not demographically representative. Considering this and other potential limitations of the study, cautious interpretation of the results is recommended. Contributor Statements M.C. and T.F. conceptualised and designed the study; M.C., M.C.S., and B.K. designed the data collection instruments; A.R., C.L., and A.H.L. carried out the observations and statistical analyses and drafted the initial manuscript; C.M., T.F., and T.K. coordinated, su- pervised, and revised the manuscript. All the authors approved the final manuscript as submitted. Acknowledgements The authors thank all the participants of this study, as well as all the students, trainees, and staff of the Psychiatry Units at the University Hospital of Messina in Italy, for their recruitment for the data collec- tion. P O L I G R A F I 122 Funding Sources This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agen- cies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. Declaration of Interest The authors report no conflicts of interest. B i b l i o g r a p h y Akkuş, Yeliz, Süleyman Şahin, Yalçın Kanbay, and Mustafa Erbaş. “Determi- nation of the factors affecting sleep quality in the general population during the early phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Journal of Turkish Sleep Medicine 8, no. 2 (2021): 142–150. https://doi.org/10.4274/jtsm.galenos.2021.93063. Barrett, Deirdre. “Dreams about COVID-19 versus normative dreams: Trends by gender.” Dreaming 30, no. 3 (2020): 216. https://doi.org/10.1037/ drm0000149. 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Postle, and Giulio Tononi. “The neural correlates of dreaming.” Nature neuroscience 20, no. 6 (2017): 872–878. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4545. Smyth, Carole. “The Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI).” Journal of gerontological nursing 25, no. 12 (1999): 10–1, https://doi.org/10.3928/0098-9134- 19991201-10. Solomonova, Elizaveta, Claudia Picard-Deland, Iris L. Rapoport, Marie- Hélène Pennestri, Mysa Saad, Tetyana Kendzerska, Samuel Paul Louis Veissiere, Roger Godbout, Jodi D. Edwards, Lena Quilty, and Rebecca Robillard. “Stuck in a lockdown: Dreams, bad dreams, nightmares, and their relationship to stress, depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic.” PLoS One 16, no. 11 (2021): e0259040. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259040. Testa Ferdinando. La clinica delle immagini Sogno e psicopatologia. Bergamo: Moretti e Vitali, 2019. D R E A M S , S L E E P Q U A L I T Y , A N D C O L L E C T I V E T R A U M A 125 Von Franz, Marie-Louise. Sguardo sul Sogno. Torino: Raffaele Cortina, 1989. Wang, Jiaxi, Steve Eliezer Zemmelman, Danping Hong, Xiaoling Feng, and Heyong Shen. “Does COVID-19 impact the frequency of threatening events in dreams? An exploration of pandemic dreaming in light of contemporary dream theories.” Consciousness and cognition 87 (Jan. 2021): 103051. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.concog.2020.103051. Zhou, Shuo, Ziyuan Zhou, Kai Ding, Yaxia Yuan, Charles Loftin, Fang Zheng, and Chang-Guo Zhan. “DREAM-in-CDM approach and identification of a new generation of anti-inflammatory drugs targeting mPGES-1.” Scientific reports 10, no. 1 (2020): 10187.9. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67283-0. Appendix Italian translation of the TKYDQ questionnaire (Dreaming and the COVID-19 Pandemic) WSC_Q1- required: In che misura la frequenza con cui ti svegli ricordandoti un sogno è aumentata o diminuita nell’ultimo mese (ad esempio, dagli inizi di Aprile 2020)? WSC_Q2- required: Hai mai avuto un sogno collegato all’epidemia di Coronavirus (COVID-19), o i problemi sociali/economici causati dall’ epidemia? WSC_Q3- required: Quante notti in media alla settimana soffri di insonnia o hai difficoltà a dormire? Se non sei sicuro, per favore dai la tua stima migliore. WSC_Q4- required: Dall’inizio dell’epidemia di Coronavirus (CO- VID-19), le emozioni nei tuoi sogni sono diventate più positive, nega- tive, o le stesse di prima? WSC_Q5- required: Sei stato personalmente influenzato dall’epi- demia Coronavirus (COVID-19) in uno qualsiasi di questi modi? Per favore seleziona tutto ciò che può essere applicato. WSC_Q6- required: Su un diverso argomento, approvi o disapprovi il modo in cui Donald Trump sta svolgendo il suo ruolo come presi- dente? 127 A N A N C I E N T D I S E A S E I N A M O D E R N W O R L D : E P I L E P S Y A N D D R E A M R E S E A R C H M a r y C . W a l s h Epilepsy is an ancient and universal disease that has inspired fear, reverence and curiosity for centuries. The World Health Organization estimates that around 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, mak- ing it one of the most common neurological diseases globally.1 There is, as yet, little research into the dreams of epileptics. The research we have, however, provides knowledge about epilepsy, suggests ways to improve epileptic care, and offers insight into the experience of people with epi- lepsy. Epilepsy is treatable and societal knowledge of epilepsy directly correlates with successful treatment; however, misunderstanding and lack of knowledge about the condition perpetuates stigma and under- mines epileptic healthcare.2 This article provides an overview of current research into dreams and epilepsy, explores the challenges epileptics face in the modern world, and suggests possible implications for epileptic care and future research. Recent findings shed light on the protective role of REM sleep against seizures, the impact of epilepsy on dreaming and spiritual experience, and the needs of vulnerable populations (such as children and the elderly). While the focus of this article is on recent findings, a brief look at the history of epilepsy and the use of dreams in 1 WHO, “Epilepsy,” World Health Organization, last modified October 19, 2023, https:// www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/epilepsy. 2 Kritika Gosain and Tannistha Samanta, “Understanding the Role of Stigma and Mis- conceptions in the Experience of Epilepsy in India: Findings From a Mixed-Methods Study,” Frontiers in Sociology 7 (May 13, 2022): 790145, https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.790145; Christian M. Kaculini, Amelia J. Tate-Looney, and Ali Seifi, “The History of Epilepsy: From Ancient Mystery to Modern Misconception,” Cureus 13, no. 3 (2021): 1, https://doi. org/10.7759/cureus.13953. https://doi.org/10.35469/poligrafi.2023.417 Poligrafi, no. 109/110, vol. 28, 2023, pp. 127–157 P O L I G R A F I 128 the treatment of epileptics affords insight into ancient misconceptions that continue to impact epileptics. For centuries and across cultures people have tried to understand and treat epilepsy. Written descriptions of epilepsy are found in ancient texts from Egypt (circa 1700 BCE), India (400 BCE), Babylonia (1067 BCE), and China (770–221 BCE). Many of these texts attribute epilep- sy to the supernatural. Others explore the physiological characteristics of the disease. Known as the “Sacred Disease” in ancient Greece, epi- lepsy was attributed to the gods and demonic possession. Exorcism of epileptics was practiced in biblical times, throughout the Middle Ages, and is still performed on epileptics in Africa, Saudi Arabia, among Brit- ish Muslims, 3 and in modern Western societies.4 Epilepsy has also been linked historically to ecstatic healing, prophesy, and the initiatory call of shamanic healers.5 Stanley Krippner notes that Shamans are called to their professions in a number of ways, including through seizures and lucid and vivid dreams.6 While association with the supernatural dominates much of history, early medical texts demonstrate interest in and knowledge of epilepsy as a physiological condition. Ancient Ayurvedic texts, for example, pro- vide a remarkably accurate description of epilepsy while prescribing a holistic course of treatment.7 As early as 1700 BCE, Egyptians con- sidered epilepsy to be caused by cortical disruption. In the 5th century BCE, Hippocrates hypothesized that epilepsy was not a sacred disease but a brain disorder.8 3 Ian Bone and Simon Dein, “Religion, Spirituality, and Epilepsy,” Epilepsy and Behavior 122 (Sept. 2021): 108219, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2021.108219. 4 Ruta Mameniskiene, Eglė Sakalauskaite-Juodeikiene, and Valmantas Budrys, “People with Epilepsy Lack Knowledge about Their Disease,” Epilepsy and Behavior 46 (2015): 192, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2015.03.002. 5 Jeanne Achterberg, Imagery in Healing (Boulder, Col: Shambhala Publications, 1985), 21. 6 Stanley Krippner, “Psychoneurological Dimensions of Anomalous Experience in Relation to Religious Belief and Spiritual Practices,” in Soul, Psyche, Brain, ed. Kelly Bulkeley (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 77. 7 M. Tripathi et al., “Ayurvedic Medicine and Epilepsy,” Neurological Journal of Southeast Asia 5 (2000): 1, 3. 8 Kaculini, Tate-Looney, and Seifi, “The History of Epilepsy,” 2–3. A N A N C I E N T D I S E A S E I N A M O D E R N W O R L D 129 Throughout this long history, dreams have played a role in heal- ing traditions worldwide. In ancient Ayurvedic tradition, dreams were used in clinical practice to facilitate diagnosis, prognosis, and health maintenance.9 The practice of dream healing during sleep and the use of dreams to diagnose illness was prominent in ancient Egypt and in ancient Greece.10 One Greek account records the cure of an epileptic through a dream at the sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus.11 Dreams continue to be used globally by Shamans and traditional healers. The advent of modern neurology in the mid-19th century marks the beginning of our current understanding of epilepsy. Epilepsy, as de- fined by The International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE), is a chronic brain disorder characterized by a tendency to have recurrent, unpro- voked seizures. A seizure is a sudden, temporary burst of activity in brain cells, which alters a person’s movement, behavior, awareness, sen- sations and/or feelings.12 Seizures are classified as focal, generalized or unknown.13 A focal seizure occurs in one area of the brain. A general- ized seizure begins in both hemispheres of the brain. When the location of seizure cannot be identified it is classified as unknown. The nature of the seizure and the symptoms the epileptic experiences can vary greatly depending on where the seizure occurs in the brain. Generalized sei- zures may have non-motor symptoms (such as staring spells) or mus- cle movement: jerking (clonic), limp (atonic), tense or rigid (tonic), or twitching (myoclonus). Focal seizures may also involve muscle move- ment as well as non-motor symptoms. Non-motor symptoms include 9 Kanchan Chowdhury, Satish B. Patil, and Nilanjan Datta, “Concept of Swapna (Dream),” Scholars Journal of Applied Medical Sciences 2, no. 1 (2014): 494. 10 Helen Askitopoulou, “Sleep and Dreams: From Myth to Medicine in Ancient Greece,” Journal of Anesthesia History 1, no. 3 (2015): 70, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janh.2015.03.001. 11 Michael Zellmann-Rohrer, “Hippocratic Diagnosis, Solomonic Therapy, Roman Amulets: Epilepsy, Exorcism, and the Diffusion of a Jewish Tradition in the Roman World,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 36, no. 5 (2021): 14, https://doi.org/10.1163/15700631- bja10033. 12 Robert S. Fisher et al., “ILAE Official Report: A Practical Clinical Definition of Epi- lepsy,” Epilepsia 55, no. 4 (2014): 475, https://doi.org/10.1111/epi.12550. 13 Puja Patel and Solomon L. Moshé, “The Evolution of the Concepts of Seizures and Epilepsy: What’s in a Name?,” Epilepsia Open 5, no. 1 (2020): 22, https://doi.org/10.1002/ epi4.12375. P O L I G R A F I 130 changes in sensation, emotion, cognition, and aphasia (the inability to speak or understand language). The development of anti-seizure medications (ASMs) in the early 20th century was a watershed event in epilepsy treatment. The World Health Organization estimates that 70% of epileptics could be seizure free with the use of ASMs. In low-income countries however, only 25% of epileptics receive treatment.14 While modern neuroscience has radically altered both our under- standing and treatment of seizures, epilepsy’s long and complicated history spills into the present. Stigma, isolation, and discrimination impact both quality of life and quality of care. As recently as the mid- 20th century in the USA, for example, epileptics were not allowed to marry and sterilization was encouraged.15 In their study of people with epilepsy (PWE) in India, Gosain and Samanta found that epi- leptics in the study used concealment of their condition as “a domi- nant coping strategy” to mitigate “social alienation and rejection as- sociated with epilepsy.”16 Even successful treatment and the cessation of seizures, however critical, cannot assure quality of life for epileptics who continue to combat stigma, discrimination, and stress-related disorders. For this we need multi-disciplinary and culturally sensitive research and treatment. Epilepsy, Sleep, Dreaming, and the Protective Role of REM Sleep plays a critical role in the health and wellbeing of epileptics. Sleep issues can impact dream recall (DR) and trigger seizures in epi- leptics. Epilepsy has been found to effect sleep-related cognitive activ- ity such as memory consolidation and the cognitive processes at work during dreaming.17 Studies in adults with epilepsy have shown that sleep disturbances were twice as prevalent in people with epilepsy as 14 WHO, “Epilepsy.” 15 Kaculini, Tate-Looney, and Seifi, “The History of Epilepsy,” 2–3. 16 Gosain and Samanta. “Understanding the Role.” 17 Aurélien de la Chapelle et al., “Relationship Between Epilepsy and Dreaming,” Frontiers in Neuroscience, 15 (2021): 1-2, https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.717078. A N A N C I E N T D I S E A S E I N A M O D E R N W O R L D 131 in healthy controls, while sleep disturbance significantly increases the risk of seizures.18 Epileptics are more likely than non-epileptics to suffer from parasomnias, nightmare disorder, and night terrors.19 Recent research has found that REM sleep appears to protect against seizures. In fact, reduced REM is suggested as a biomarker for epilep- sy.20 While some seizures occur almost exclusively during sleep, espe- cially NREM sleep, it is rare for epileptic seizures to be observed during REM. REM has been found to inhibit seizure activity during a seizure but also impedes the spikes of electrophysiological activity epileptics experience between seizures.21 Each sleep stage provides a different level of neural connectivity. Brain connectivity describes both the interactions within each brain system and the interactions between brain systems. During NREM sleep there are higher levels of within system integration (greater in- tegration within the limbic system, for example) but lower levels of between system integration (less integration between the prefrontal cortex, limbic system, and brain stem). In contrast to NREM, there is increased interaction between major brain systems during REM.22 Seizures involve excessive synchronization in the brain that inter- rupts the connections between brain systems and disrupts the brain’s normal functioning. A seizure is like a storm in the brain that takes out the power lines and floods the roads. It disables both communica- tion within the epileptic’s brain and between the epileptic and others. Researchers hypothesize that the influence of REM sleep on seizures is 18 Therese Gutter et al., “Prevalence of Sleep Disturbances in People with Epilepsy and the Impact on Quality of Life,” Seizure 69 (July, 2019): 298, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. seizure.2019.04.019. 19 de la Chapelle et al., “Relationship,” 4–5. 20 Ufuk Sadak et al., “Reduced REM Sleep: A Potential Biomarker for Epilepsy – a Ret- rospective Case-Control Study,” Seizure 98 (May 1, 2022): 27, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sei- zure.2022.03.022. 21 Sadak et al., “Reduced REM Sleep,” 4–5. 22 Ho Ming Chow et al., “Rhythmic Alternating Patterns of Brain Activity Distinguish Rapid Eye Movement Sleep from Other States of Consciousness,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110, no. 25 (2013): 10300, https://doi. org/10.1073/pnas.1217691110. P O L I G R A F I 132 due to a desynchronized EEG pattern during REM.23 The connectivity of REM may be reflected in dream content. Dream reports sampled after REM awakenings show more connectedness and higher levels of dream complexity.24 While these are recent findings, they suggest that improving sleep generally and REM in particular, may be helpful in reducing seizure frequency in epileptics. Dream recall and dream com- plexity could be indicators of increased REM connectivity and subse- quent lower seizure threshold. Challenges to Research: Dream Recall, Differences in Epilepsies, and ASMs Several issues confront the researcher interested in studying the dreams of epileptics: dream recall, differences in seizures, the impact of anti-seizure medications (ASMs), and co-occurring disorders. Leaving aside co-occurring disorders for the moment, let’s begin with the issues posed by dream recall (DR), ASMs, and types of seizures. It is difficult to study dreams if people do not remember their dreams. While DR is decreased in epileptics, decreases in DR vary by epilepsy type. People with complex partial seizures, for example, have approximately twice the DR of those with generalized seizures.25 De- crease in DR is also associated with sleep disruption, certain medica- tions, and cognitive impairment.26 There is some evidence that seizure symptoms may be incorporated into dream content.27 This suggests seizures may directly or indirectly interfere with dreaming. Dream re- call frequency has been associated with curiosity about and attention 23 Marcus Ng and Milena Pavlova, “Why Are Seizures Rare in Rapid Eye Movement Sleep? Review of the Frequency of Seizures in Different Sleep Stages,” Epilepsy Research and Treat- ment (June, 2013): 1, https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/932790. 24 Joshua M. Martin et al., “Structural Differences between REM and Non-REM Sleep Reports Assessed by Graph Analysis,” PLoS One 15, no. 7 (2020): e0228903, https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228903. 25 Enrica Bonanni et al., “Dream Recall Frequency in Patients with Partial and Gen- eralized Seizures,” Epilepsia 43, no. 8 (2022): 888, https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1528- 1157.2002.48101.x. 26 de la Chapelle et al., “Relationship,” 1. 27 de la Chapelle et al., “Relationship,” 4. A N A N C I E N T D I S E A S E I N A M O D E R N W O R L D 133 to dreams,28 experiential openness,29 creativity,30 thin boundaries,31 and a predisposition to become immersed in mental imagery and sensory experience.32 In some studies dream recall has been found to correlate with health and a sense of wellbeing.33 Studies assessing the use of DR strategies (such as dream journaling) with epileptics may help us better understand poor DR in epileptics and the value of DR strategies. ASMs present another confounding factor in epileptic dream re- search. Little is known about the impact of ASMs on dreaming but some studies have found that ASMs can have a negative influence on sleep. Both seizure activity and ASM withdrawal have been associated with deficits in REM.34 Although the relationship between sleep and seizure activity is well known, current epilepsy management guidelines fail to account for the impact of ASMs on sleep.35 The effect of epilepsy on dreaming can vary with the type of seizures. These differences may influence subject selection for a dream research study. Nocturnal seizures, for example, are more likely to be incorporat- ed into dream content.36 Higher DR, has been found in epileptics with left vs. right temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Higher levels of aggression, 28 Michael Schredl and Anja S. Göritz, “Dream Recall Frequency, Attitude toward Dreams, and the Big Five Personality Factors,” Dreaming 27 (2017): 49–58, https://doi.org/10.1037/ drm0000046. 29 Michael Schredl et al., “Factors of Home Dream Recall,” Journal of Sleep Research 12 (2003): 133–141, https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2869.2003.00344.x; Schredl and Göritz, “Dream Recall Frequency.” 30 Serge Brand et al., “Dream Recall and its Relationship to Sleep, Perceived Stress, and Creativity among Adolescents,” Journal of Adolescent Health, 49 (2011): 525–531, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2011.04.004. 31 Ernest Hartmann, “Boundaries of Dreams, Boundaries of Dreamers,” Psychiatric Journal of the University of Ottawa, 14 (1989): 557–560, https://doi.org/10.2190/HK76-038K- 407M-8670; Schredl et al., “Factors of home dream recall.” 32 Schredl et al., “Factors of home dream recall.” 33 de la Chapelle et al., “Relationship,” 7. 34 J. Layne Moore et al., “Sleep and Epilepsy: A Focused Review of Pathophysiology, Clinical Syndromes, Co-Morbidities, and Therapy,” Neurotherapeutics 18, no. 1 (2021): 170, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13311-021-01021-w. 35 Lino Nobili et al., “Expert Opinion,” Epilepsy and Behavior 124 (November 2021): 108341, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2021.108341. 36 de la Chapelle et al., “Relationship,” 7. P O L I G R A F I 134 fewer animals, and more self-negative expressions have been found in the dream content of epileptics with left vs. right TLE.37 Epilepsy and Dream Content Studies have found differences in the dreams of epileptics when compared to dreams of non-epileptics. The dream reports of epileptics are shorter compared to non-epileptics. Dream content is more vivid and emotional. There are more familiar characters and settings, fewer dreams of success and more negative dream content. The dreams of epileptics also reflect subjective feelings associated with seizures.38 Dreams have been found to reflect waking life experi- ence and especially recent and/or emotional events.39 The dreams of epileptics, therefore, may provide insight into the experience and emo- tional impact of epilepsy. A deeper understanding of this experience may help de-mystify the disease and facilitate de-stigmatization. A number of studies examine the possible incorporation of seizures into dream content. While seizures are rare during REM sleep, dreams can occur during light NREM, a stage of sleep associated with seizure activity.40 Some epileptics, notably those with TLE, report having sei- zures in their dreams and there is some evidence to suggest the possible incorporation of seizure symptoms into dream content.41 This appears to be an area of particular interest to epileptics. In numerous posts on the Epilepsy Foundation Forum, for example, epileptics question whether certain dreams are actually seizures. Research that helps epilep- tics discern the difference between seizures and dreams could be helpful in an epileptic’s self-understanding, as well as in medication manage- ment. Different types of seizures can have varying effects not only on DR but also on dream content and the emotional valence of dreams. People with TLE, for example, are more likely to have recurring, intense, and 37 de la Chapelle et al., “Relationship,” 7. 38 de la Chapelle et al., “Relationship,” 6. 39 de la Chapelle et al., “Relationship,” 6. 40 de la Chapelle et al., “Relationship,” 4. 41 de la Chapelle et al., “Relationship,” 4. A N A N C I E N T D I S E A S E I N A M O D E R N W O R L D 135 frightening dreams. People with TLE are also more likely to experi- ence déjà-rêvé (the sensation you dreamed about something before it happened).42 Dreams of Children with Epilepsy The onset of epilepsy occurs most frequently in children and the elderly.43 Sleep problems are common in children with epilepsy. Fatigue and sleep deprivation can trigger seizures.44 Children are particularly vulnerable because epilepsy can impact brain development and chil- dren have not yet developed coping skills to deal with either the stress that can trigger seizures or the emotions living with seizures can evoke. When epilepsy interferes with memory consolidation, a child will strug- gle to integrate new information at a critical time for learning.45 When epilepsy interferes with emotion regulation, it can lead to issues with behavior and mood. Research suggests that dreams may play a role both in memory consolidation and emotion regulation.46 As yet we know lit- tle about the impact of epilepsy on dreaming in children or the possible impact of sleep and dream deficits in cognitive development, memory consolidation, and emotion regulation in these children. Children with epilepsy are at greater risk for developing depression, anxiety, ADHD, and behavioral issues. While few studies examine the dreams of these children, the available research is compelling. One study examining symbolic function in children with epilepsy found that the dream content of children showed “a high presence of psychi- cal suffering, unprocessed or impossible to process.”47 42 Jonathan Curot et al., “Déjà-Rêvé,” Brain Stimulation 11, no. 4 (July 1, 2018): 875, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2018.02.016. 43 Ettore Beghi, “The Epidemiology of Epilepsy,” Neuroepidemiology 54, no. 2 (2020): 185, https://doi.org/10.1159/000503831. 44 Angelika A. Schlarb et al., “Sleep and Dreaming in Children and Adolescents with Epi- lepsy,” Somnologie 20, no. 4 (2016): 242, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11818-016-0077-1. 45 Ana Filipa Lopes et al., “Memory Functioning in Children with Epilepsy,” Behavioural Neurology (2014): 1, https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/218637. 46 de la Chapelle et al., “Relationship,” 1. 47 Sabina La Grutta et al., “Symbolic Function Explored in Children with Epilepsy and Headache,” Minerva Pediatrica 59, no. 6 (2007): 745. P O L I G R A F I 136 Talking with children about their dreams may help parents and car- egivers better understand the emotional challenges of children with epi- lepsy. The experience of epilepsy is frightening, isolating, and difficult to describe. Dream sharing may help children talk about these experi- ences and process the powerful emotions seizures evoke. Such sharing may help alleviate fear and isolation.48 Dreams, Epilepsy, and Aging While epilepsy is most often diagnosed in childhood, approximately 25 per cent of new-onset seizures occur after the age of sixty-five.49 It can be difficult to diagnose epilepsy in the elderly as many symptoms of seizure may be attributed to aging (confusion, loss of awareness, falling, anxiety). As yet, there is little research into the dreams of this popula- tion. Research does indicate a decrease in DR in the elderly, possibly linked to a reduction in REM sleep, however this research is not specific to epileptics. Understanding the impact of aging on REM sleep is important both for epileptics who are aging and for those who develop epilepsy late in life. Elderly people tend to sleep less, sleep less efficiently, have reduced REM sleep and awaken more often during REM. In addition, dream recall tends to decline with age.50 As REM appears to be protective against seizures, it is possible that decreased REM in the elderly is a risk factor for late-onset epilepsy. Memory consolidation critical for children is also significant for el- derly epileptics. Itzhak Fried, a neurosurgeon specializing in intracta- ble seizure disorders, writes: “There is what I call a cognitive tsunami coming to us. Millions and millions of patients, the aging population, 48 Alan Siegel and Kelly Bulkeley, Dreamcatching: Every Parent’s Guide to Exploring and Understanding Children’s Dreams and Nightmares (Pennsylvania State Univesity: Three Rivers Press, 1998) provides an accessible resource for parents who want to understand and help their children talk about their dreams. 49 Shasha Liu, Weihua Yu, and Yang Lü, “The Causes of New-Onset Seizures in the Elderly,” Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment 17 (June 2016): 25, https://doi. org/10.2147%2FNDT.S107905. 50 Anastasia Mangiaruga et al., “Spotlight on dream recall,” Nature and Science of Sleep 10 (2018): 1, https://doi.org/10.2147/NSS.S135762. A N A N C I E N T D I S E A S E I N A M O D E R N W O R L D 137 are going to have initially mild memory deficiencies and later develop Alzheimer’s and other disorders, and, presently, we really have no phar- macological treatment.”51 Much of the available research on dreaming in older epileptics ex- amines rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD). This con- dition predominantly affects older adults and can co-occur in epilep- tics.52 People with this disorder, lacking the body’s natural inhibition of muscle movement during dreaming, appear to enact their dreams while asleep. Behaviors can be violent when there is violent dream con- tent. RBD is associated with higher risk for Parkinson’s disease and dementia53 and has also been linked to PTSD, depression, anxiety, and alcohol use.54 Given that epileptics have increased risk for PTSD and depression, early treatment of trauma and depression in epileptics may decrease vulnerability to RBD. Epilepsy and Co-Occurring Disorders RBD is a good example of the complex relationship between epilep- sy and physical and mental health. Depression is the most common dis- order co-occurring with epilepsy and the most prevalent mental health disorder afflicting epileptics globally.55 The relationship between epi- lepsy and depression is bi-directional. Recent studies have found that a history of depression increases the risk of developing epilepsy, while epilepsy increases the risk of depression. Suicide rates among epileptics are ten times higher than the general population.56 Despite the preva- 51 UCLA Health, “Finding a Way to Halt Memory Loss,” January 31, 2023, https://www. uclahealth.org/news/finding-way-halt-memory-loss. 52 Raffaele Manni and Michele Terzaghi, “Comorbidity between Epilepsy and Sleep Disor- ders,” Epilepsy Research 90, no. 3 (2010): 171, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eplepsyres.2010.05.006. 53 Amber Roguski et al., “A Neurologist’s Guide to REM Sleep Behavior Disorder,” Fron- tiers in Neurology 11 (2020): 610, https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2020.00610. 54 Chun Yao et al., “Risk Factors for Possible Rem Sleep Behavior Disorder,” Neurology 92, no. 5 (January 29, 2019): E475, https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000006849. 55 Claudia Espinosa-Garcia, Helena Zeleke, and Asheebo Rojas, “Impact of Stress on Epilepsy,” International Journal of Molecular Science 22, no. 8 (2021): 4061, https://doi. org/10.3390%2Fijms22084061. 56 Andres M. Kanner, “Depression in Epilepsy,” Biological Psychiatry 54, no. 3 (2003): 388, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0006-3223(03)00469-4. P O L I G R A F I 138 lence of depression in epileptics, mood disorders often go undiagnosed and untreated.57 The diagnosis of depression in epileptics can be more difficult because the clinical picture of depression in epileptics does not correspond to diagnostic classification systems.58 Further, the stigma associated with epilepsy can cause epileptics to hide depression and iso- late rather than obtain help. We have research on the dreams of people with depression, but not, to my knowledge, on the dreams of epileptics with depression com- pared with epileptics without depression. Negative dream content is found in both the dream reports of epileptics and those of people with depression, with depressed subjects having “fewer characters in their dreams and especially fewer strangers.”59 Research into the differences between depressed and non-depressed epileptics might facilitate early intervention and treatment of depression in epileptics. Epilepsy is also linked to PTSD. There is increased prevalence of PTSD among epileptics while traumatic experience increases the risk of epileptic seizures.60 Some people develop PTSD and psychiatric symptoms following epileptic seizures. Both people with epilepsy and people with PTSD experience significant sleep disturbance, increased nightmares, and negative dream content. While there is considerable research on trauma and dreams, there is little research on the dreams of traumatized epileptics. Stress and stress disorders can play a critical role in the health of epileptics. 57 Christian Prueter and Christine Norra, “Mood Disorders and their Treatment in Patients with Epilepsy,” The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 17, no. 1 (2005): 20, https://doi.org/10.1176/jnp.17.1.20. 58 Eva Bølling-Ladegaard et al., “Directionality of the Association Between Epilepsy and Depression: A Nationwide Register-Based Cohort Study,” Neurology 100, no. 9 (2023): E932, https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000201542. 59 Deirdre Barrett and Michael Loeffler, “Comparison of Dream Content of Depressed vs Nondepressed Dreamers,” Psychological Reports 70, no. 2 (1992): 403, https://doi. org/10.2466/pr0.1992.70.2.403. 60 Harriet J. Rosenberg et al., “A Comparative Study of Trauma and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Prevalence in Epilepsy Patients and Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizure Patients,” Epi- lepsia 41, no. 4 (April 1, 2000): 447, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1528-1157.2000.tb00187.x. A N A N C I E N T D I S E A S E I N A M O D E R N W O R L D 139 Stress has been found to trigger seizures in both children and adults.61 One study found COVID-19 infection significantly increased vivid dreams and nightmares in patients with daytime (diurnal) seizures. The researchers observed “significant deterioration in general health in pa- tients with active epilepsy during the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of COVID-19 disease.”62 Nightmares and intense or vivid dream con- tent may signal a need for stress reduction interventions in epileptics. Co-occurring disorders can complicate epilepsy treatment, challeng- ing us to understand the complexity of the disease. While as yet we know little about the dreams of epileptics with co-occurring disorders, a greater understanding of and attention to epileptic dreaming might facilitate treatment. Increased negative dreams in epileptics may signal a need for treatment of depression. Severity of PTSD symptoms cor- relates with difficulty in identifying internal feelings and emotions.63 Therapeutic work with dreams may help epileptics identify and process emotion. Clara Hill’s Cognitive-Experiential-Dream Model, for exam- ple, facilitates exploration of dreams to gain insight. Might Hill’s Model help increase insight into feelings and lessen the severity of post seizure symptoms? Nightmares and Epilepsy Nightmares are intense, frightening or distressing dreams. While nightmares are a normal part of healthy dreaming, they can undermine health and wellbeing when they recur with frequency and intensity. They can also be an indicator of physical and psychological distress and illness. Nightmares have been found to negatively impact sleep quality, 61 Maeike Zijlmans, Jolien S. Van Campen, and Al De Weerd, “Post Traumatic Stress-Sen- sitive Epilepsy,” Seizure: European Journal of Epilepsy 52 (2017): 20, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. seizure.2017.09.010. 62 Jana Slonkova et al., “The Effects of COVID-19 on Sleep and General Health of Czech Patients with Epilepsy,” Heliyon 9, no. 2 (2023): e13413, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heli- yon.2023.e13413. 63 Man Cheung Chung, Rachel D. Allen, and Ian Dennis, “The impact of self-efficacy, alexithymia and multiple traumas on posttraumatic stress disorder and psychiatric co-mor- bidity following epileptic seizures,” Psychiatry Research 210, no. 3 (2013): 1043, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.psychres.2013.07.041. P O L I G R A F I 140 and increase anxiety before sleep.64 This makes nightmares problematic for epileptics as poor sleep quality can increase seizure activity.65 Several factors have complicated research into epileptic nightmares. Zadra suggests that nightmare research has suffered from “inconsist- ent definitions.” Hartman (1984), for example, defines a nightmare as a frightening dream that awakens the dreamer, other researchers have not used the waking criteria, and still others have let study participants determine whether their dream is a nightmare.66 Research has found nightmares to be more prevalent in certain types of epilepsy. Silvestri and Bromfield, for example, have found recurrent nightmares in peo- ple with TLE.67 To further complicate study of epileptic nightmares, nocturnal seizures, particularly complex partial seizures, may appear to be nightmares. These “nightmares” are more likely to occur during NREM.68 The relationship between sleep and emotion regulation is well doc- umented.69 Sleep helps us regulate emotions. Poor sleep quality can result in emotion dysregulation. Nightmares may help us process nega- tive and frightening experiences; but chronic or traumatic nightmares can interfere with sleep. Sleep disruption, in turn, can trigger seizures in epileptics. Epileptics who experience nightmares may benefit from interventions that help process the distress associated with nightmares. There are a number of models for helping people deal with nightmares. These include self-help models a parent might use with an epileptic 64 Franc Paul, Michael Schredl, and Georg W. Alpers, “Nightmares Affect the Experience of Sleep Quality but Not Sleep Architecture,” Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation 2, no. 3 (2015): 1, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40479-014-0023-4. 65 de Chapelle et al., “Relationship,” 7. 66 Antonio Zadra and Don C. Donderi, “Nightmares and Bad Dreams,” Journal of Abnor- mal Psychology 109, no. 2 (2000): 273, https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.109.2.273. 67 Rosalia Silvestri and Edward Bromfield, “Recurrent Nightmares and Disorders of Arousal in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy,” Brain Research Bulletin 63, no. 5 (2004): 369, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.brainresbull.2003.12.009. 68 Mark Solms, “Neurobiology and the Neurological Basis of Dreaming” in Handbook of Clinical Neurology Part 2, Vol. 98, eds. Pasquale Montagna and Sudhansu Chokroverty, (Else- vier, 2011): 519, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-52006-7.00034-4. 69 Marie Vandekerckhove and Yu-lin Wang, “Emotion, Emotion Regulation and Sleep: An Intimate Relationship,” AIMS Neuroscience 5, no. 1 (2018): 1, https://doi.org/10.3934/Neu- roscience.2018.1.1. A N A N C I E N T D I S E A S E I N A M O D E R N W O R L D 141 child such as Alan Siegel’s Nightmare Remedies. Siegel’s model is a four-step process for “transforming nightmares” that can be used by children and adults.70 They also include interventions a therapist might use with an epileptic client suffering from PTSD, such as imagery re- hearsal therapy.71 This is a cognitive-imagery approach that has been used successfully to treat nightmares in trauma survivors. Epilepsy, Dreams, and Spiritual Experience Recent decades have witnessed a sea change in our understanding of the relationship between epilepsy and spirituality. Forces driving this change include greater awareness of multi-cultural influences, new di- agnostic paradigms of epileptic spiritual experience, and a growing in- terest in spirituality in modern healthcare. Spirituality has been found to have a significant impact on physical, mental, and social health,72 yet is often inadequately addressed in medical practice.73 While epilepsy has long been associated with the supernatural, there appear to be few studies on spiritual content in the dreams of epileptics. Recent research suggests correlations between seizure related spiritual experience in epileptics and the spiritual experiences of non-epileptics. Neurological studies, for example, have found that epileptic (ecstatic) spiritual experiences affect the activity of the insula while stimulation of the insula produces spiritual experience in non-epileptics.74 De la Chapelle et al. note that dreams commonly found in the general popu- 70 Alan B. Siegel, Dream Wisdom: Uncovering Life’s Answers in Your Dreams (San Mateo, CA: Celestial Arts, 2002). 71 Barry Krakow and Antonio Zadra, “Clinical Management of Chronic Nightmares: Imagery Rehearsal Therapy,” Behavioral Sleep Medicine 4, no. 1 (2006): 45, https://doi. org/10.1207/s15402010bsm0401_4. 72 Zachary Zimmer et al., “Spirituality, Religiosity, Aging and Health in Global Perspec- tive,” SSM - Population Health 2 (2016): 373, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2016.04.009. 73 Darpan Kaur Mohinder Singh and Shaunak Ajinkya, “Spirituality and Religion in Mod- ern Medicine,” Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine 34, no. 4 (2012): 399, https://doi. org/10.4103/0253-7176.108234. 74 Markus Gschwind and Fabienne Picard, “Ecstatic Epileptic Seizures,” Frontiers in Behav- ioral Neuroscience 10, no. 21 (2016): 1, https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2016.00021. P O L I G R A F I 142 lation can be very similar to epileptic auras, “suggesting the involve- ment of common brain networks in the two phenomena.”75 There are several types of epileptic experience associated with spir- ituality that may be reflected in dream content: ecstatic seizures, pro- phetic or precognitive dreams, spiritual auras, and post-ictal religious experience. Ecstatic epilepsy may help to explain epilepsy’s long associa- tion with the spiritual. This is a type of focal epilepsy in which the aura (the beginning of the seizure) consists of profoundly positive feelings. Gschwind and Picard write: “ecstatic auras provoke feelings of well- being, intense serenity, bliss, and ‘enhanced self-awareness. They are associated with the impression of time dilation, and can be described as a mystic experience by some patients.’”76 Dostoevsky wrote the first detailed description of ecstatic seizures in his novel The Idiot. Research suggests these seizures occur in only a small percentage of epileptics; however, they may be underreported. Ecstatic seizures share many qual- ities of impactful or “big” dreams. Prophetic and precognitive dreams have long played a role in reli- gion and have been associated with spiritual experiences. Research has found psi-related experience to be correlated with TLE. However, lim- bic temporal lobe psi phenomena have also been found during dream- ing of non-epileptics. Seizure-related spiritual experiences occur most often in people with TLE77 and may be incorporated into epileptic dreams.78 Temporal lobe discharge associated with epileptic “religiosity” has also been found in the altered states of consciousness of shamanic healers.79 While ecstatic auras occur at the onset of seizures, epilepsy-related conversion experi- ences occur most often in TLE following seizures (post-ictal).80 This suggests that an epileptic spiritual experience can have a lasting impact 75 de Chapelle et al., “Relationship,” 6. 76 Gschwind and Picard, “Ecstatic,” 1. 77 Orrin Devinsky and George Lai, “Spirituality and Religion in Epilepsy,” Epilepsy and Behavior (May 2008): 636, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2007.11.011. 78 de la Chapelle et al., “Relationship.” 79 Michael Winkelman, “Shamanism, Psychedelics, and the Alteration of Consciousness,” in Stanley Krippner: A Life of Dreams, Myths and Visions, eds. Jeannine Davies and Daniel Pitchford (Colorado Springs, CO: University Professors Press 2015): 77. 80 Devinsky and Lai, “Spirituality,” 636. A N A N C I E N T D I S E A S E I N A M O D E R N W O R L D 143 on the spirituality of epileptics. Research has found improved quality of life is significantly predicted in epileptics by spirituality scores in Awe and Transcendence (World Heath Organization QOL, WHOQOL 100).81 Seizure-related spiritual experiences are poorly understood. Future dream research into the spiritual content of epileptic dreams could help us better understand these experiences, their relationship to the dreams of non-epileptics, and their impact on the spirituality and quality of life of people with epilepsy. Western medicine has focused on epileptic spiritual experience as symptomatic of pathology. According to Spiers, “The Medical Model has historically characterized epileptic spiritual experience as delusional or hallucinatory ‘hyper-religiosity.’”82 The term “hyper-religiosity” is used in Western medicine to describe epileptic behavior changes con- sidered extreme or out of balance compared to norms. While it is im- portant for healers to identify unbalanced behaviors that interfere with healthy function, the term “hyper-religiosity” is problematic as both the concepts of religiosity and balance are subject to significant cultural variation. Spiritual experiences are shaped by cultural perceptions, religious traditions, and subjective differences. One culture’s shaman is anoth- er culture’s psychotic. Devinsky notes: “Normal function is cultur- ally defined and varies radically.”83 He asserts that neuropsychiatry in Western medicine, “focuses almost exclusively on hyper-function, al- though hypo-function is probably of equal interest and importance, but is unrecognized.”84 Thus “hyper-religiosity” would be considered pathological, but a lack of interest in or experience of religion or spir- ituality would be considered normal. In contrast, many cultures em- ploy spiritual practices that foster intense spiritual experiences (such 81 Anna R. Giovagnoli, Rute F. Meneses, and Antonio Martins da Silva, “The Contribution of Spirituality to Quality of Life in Focal Epilepsy,” Epilepsy and Behavior 9, no. 1 (August 2006): 133, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2006.04.002. 82 Louise Spiers, “Dreamy States and Cosmic Wanderings: An Autoethnographic Narra- tive of Spiritual Experiences in Epilepsy,” Departures in Critical Qualitative Research 10, no. 1 (2021): 50, https://doi.org/10.1525/dcqr.2021.10.1.50. 83 Devinsky and Lai, “Spirituality,” 637. 84 Devinsky and Lai, “Spirituality,” 637. P O L I G R A F I 144 as sweat lodges, fasting, prolonged isolation, and the ceremonial use of hallucinogens).85 In these cultures an epileptic with intense religious experience (including spiritual dreams) might be considered normal, or even gifted. As important, cultures that embrace intense religious states are likely to provide containers for these experiences. These containers might include religious narratives, communal gatherings, rituals, dream interpretation, methods for spiritual discernment, spiritual vocations, spiritual dire pctors, guides, and healers. Containers can help the in- dividual connect their experience with the larger communal narrative. A failure to take these cultural and personal differences into ac- count can have negative consequences.86 New paradigms for “hyper- religiosity” have been suggested. Based on the results of their research, Dolgoff-Kaspar et al. suggest that the spirituality of epileptics with fre- quent numinous auras is “an experiential, personalized, and atypical form, which may be distinct from traditional, culturally based religios- ity” and is “better described by the term cosmic spirituality than hyper- religiosity.”87 Spiers suggests an autoethnographic narrative to describe and analyze the spiritual experiences of epileptics from a nonmedical perspective.88 An Ancient Disease in a Modern World: Technology, Epilepsy, and Dreams The modern world presents both unprecedented challenges and op- portunities for epileptics at a time when epilepsy cases are rising. The United States reports significant incidence increases in both children 85 Devinsky and Lai, “Spirituality,” 637. 86 The book by Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012) provides a powerful account of how a cultural clash can impact epileptics and their families. 87 Rima Dolgoff-Kaspar et al., “Numinous Like Auras and Spirituality in People with Partial Seizures,” Epilepsia 52, no. 3 (2011): 640, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1528- 1167.2010.02957.x. 88 Spiers, “Dreamy States,” 50. A N A N C I E N T D I S E A S E I N A M O D E R N W O R L D 145 and adults,89 and Korea is seeing an increase in epilepsy among the el- derly.90 There has also been a significant rise in epilepsy mortality rates in the USA (98.8% between 1999 and 2017) at a time when deaths due to any cause declined 16.4%.91 These increases are troubling given the significant treatment gap in epileptic care globally. Over 50 mil- lion people worldwide have epilepsy. Over 80% of these people live in low- and middle-income countries where people have limited access to ASMs or surgical treatment. There are also considerable disparities in epilepsy treatment in high-income countries.92 A consistent finding across regions is that the most vulnerable people have the least access to treatment. In light of the increasing numbers of epileptics and the significant treatment gap in epileptic care, we face a dual challenge. On the one hand, we need to bridge the treatment gap and expand care options. Technology provides numerous resources to help with this. On the oth- er hand, we need to make our world more epilepsy friendly. To do this we need to understand the challenges epileptics face in a modern world. Our Changing Relationship with Light: technology, sleep, and dreams Change in our light environment is one of the most significant en- vironmental factors impacting sleep, dreaming, and epilepsy. Modern technology has radically altered the way we experience light. A. Fisk et al. write: “Extended periods of abnormal light exposure can result in circadian disruption, which has been implicated in changes in metabo- 89 Christopher M. Degiorgio et al., “Why Are Epilepsy Mortality Rates Rising in the United States? A Population-Based Multiple Cause-of-Death Study,” BMJ Open 10, no. 8 (2020): 35767, https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-035767. 90 Ji Ye Jeon et al., “Increasing Trends in the Incidence and Prevalence of Epilepsy in Korea,” Journal of Clinical Neurology (Korea) 17, no. 3 (2021): 393, https://doi.org/10.3988/ jcn.2021.17.3.393. 91 Degiorgio et al., “Why Are Epilepsy,” 35767. 92 Jacob Pellinen, “Treatment Gaps in Epilepsy,” Frontiers in Epidemiology 2 (August 2022): 976039, https://doi.org/10.3389/fepid.2022.976039. P O L I G R A F I 146 lism, sleep, and cognition.”93 Anything that negatively impacts sleep can influence dreaming and increase seizure activity in epileptics. Electronic devices emitting blue light (cell phones, tablets, lap- tops) can significantly affect melatonin and circadian rhythms.94 These changes have some impact on everyone; but can be particularly prob- lematic for epileptics. Circadian rhythm influences both the timing and severity of seizures. Curiously, it can also affect the efficacy of ASMs. Studies have found that the time when an ASM is taken (morning, evening) can improve seizure control.95 Circadian-driven fluctuations also impact dreaming and have been found to correlate with changes in the central characteristics of dream reports.96 The prevalence of flickering light is another change in our light en- vironment that is problematic for people with photosensitive epilepsy. This is a type of epilepsy in which seizures are triggered by flashing or flickering lights (usually at high intensity) or contrasting light and dark patterns. Photosensitive epilepsy is most common in children and youth. Electronic devises prevalent in modern life can provoke seizures in epileptics. TVs, computer games, electronic instruments with flick- ering displays, strobe lighting and faulty fluorescent lighting are all common triggers.97 While photosensitive epilepsy makes up only 5% of epileptics, re- cent research suggests flickering light may have a broader impact.98 R. 93 Angus S. Fisk et al., “Light and Cognition: Roles for Circadian Rhythms, Sleep, and Arousal,” Frontiers in Neurology 9 (2018): 1, https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2018.00056. 94 Eric Suni and Abhinav Singh, “Light & Sleep: Effects on Sleep Quality,” Sleep Founda- tion, accessed November 8, 2023, https://www.sleepfoundation.org/bedroom-environment/ light-and-sleep. 95 Bo Jin et al., “Epilepsy and Its Interaction with Sleep and Circadian Rhythm,” Frontiers in Neurology 11 (May 8, 2020): 330, https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2020.00327. 96 Erin J. Wamsley et al., “Circadian and Ultradian Influences on Dreaming,” Brain Research Bulletin 71, no. 4 (January 9, 2007): 347, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres- bull.2006.09.021. 97 The Epilepsy Foundation has specific recommendations for the frequency, intensity and types of patterns that are safe for photosensitive epileptics (Epilepsy Foundation, “Shedding Light on Photosensitivity, One of Epilepsy’s Most Complex Conditions,” accessed November 10, 2023, https://www.epilepsy.com/stories/shedding-light-photosensitivity-one-epilepsys- most-complex-conditions-0). 98 Antonio Martins da Silva and Bárbara Leal, “Photosensitivity and Epilepsy,” Seizure 27 (2017): 209, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seizure.2017.04.001. A N A N C I E N T D I S E A S E I N A M O D E R N W O R L D 147 Inger et al. report: “flickering light has been shown to have detrimental effects in humans and other species.”99 Animal studies have found light flicker influences “behavioural and movement patterns, visual systems and levels of stress.”100 Research that helps us to understand the impact of artificial light sources on epileptic sleep and dreaming may help us adapt technology to the health needs of individuals, and the wellbeing of our own and other species. Stigma and fear of seizure onset can lead to social isolation and in- crease the risk of depression in epileptics.101 Changes in our light envi- ronment can increase social isolation for people with epilepsy. Epilep- tics may need to avoid light environments (theater and social events with strobe lights, stores with faulty fluorescents) and activities (such as video games) that can trigger seizures. The dream content of epileptics reflects this experience of isolation. Bentes writes: “Social isolation, ab- sence of future perspectives, and quality of life seem to be reflected in the dream content of patients with TLE.”102 The trend toward higher familiarity in characters found in epileptic dream content may also re- flect social isolation.103 Dream sharing may help forge social connec- tions and reduce isolation. The dreams of a person with epilepsy carries the emotional weight of their experience of seizures but will also reflect the daily concerns, emotional valence, and search for meaning present in the dreams of non-epileptics. Dream sharing may potentially provide common ground and a space to heal internalized stigma. 99 Richard Inger et al., “Potential Biological and Ecological Effects of Flickering Artifi- cial Light,” PLoS ONE 9, no. 5 (May 29, 2014): 98631, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0098631. 100 Inger et al., “Potential Biological.” 101 Chrysanthi Papoutsi et al., “Interrogating the Promise of Technology in Epilepsy Care,” Sociology of Health and Illness 11 (2021): 929, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13266. 102 Carla Bentes et al., “Dream Recall Frequency and Content in Patients with Tempo- ral Lobe Epilepsy,” Epilepsia 52, 11 (2011): 2022–27, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1528- 1167.2011.03290.x. 103 Bentes et al., “Dream Recall,” 2022. P O L I G R A F I 148 The Promise of Technology Technology presents challenges for epileptics but also promises re- sources. Technological advances in neurosurgery are particularly excit- ing. Implantable antiepileptic devices promise to benefit the 25% of epileptics whose seizures cannot be controlled by ASMs.104 Researchers are currently developing devices that can be implanted in patients with memory disorders.105 The robotic insertion of electrodes, and the use of computer programs to analyze surgical outcomes and predict treatment strategies can improve surgery outcomes.106 There are a number of apps that may help improve sleep and dream recall, including apps designed to reduce sleep problems and night- mare disorder, anxiety reduction apps, and apps that facilitate dream journaling. There are numerous apps and wearable devices that can help epileptics track sleep, seizures, and set reminders for taking medication. Wearable seizure detection devices, monitors, and alerts are a rapidly expanding area of research and production.107 Digital seizure diaries can be helpful in tracking and sharing information about seizures, triggers, medications, and appointments. Telemedicine makes both medical and therapeutic care more avail- able to epileptics, can facilitate medication adherence, and communica- tion with healthcare providers. 108 This is of particular importance for epileptics who live in areas without public transit, or rural areas lacking access to physicians and therapists. Currently, disparities in access to technology limit the use of telemedicine for many who might benefit. 104 William C. Stacey and Brian Litt, “Technology Insight: Neuroengineering and Epilepsy – Designing Devices for Seizure Control,” Nature Clinical Practice Neurology 4, no. 4 (2008): 190, https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpneuro0750. 105 UCLA Health. “Finding a Way.” 106 Mauricio Medina-Pizarro, Dennis D. Spencer, and Eyiyemisi C. Damisah, “Recent Ad- vances in Epilepsy Surgery,” Current Opinion in Neurology 36, no. 2 (2023): 95, https://doi. org/10.1097/WCO.0000000000001134. 107 Guidelines for using seizure detection devices can be found at Epilepsy Foundation, “Role of Seizure Alerts,” accessed November 10, 2023, https://www.epilepsy.com/complica- tions-risks/early-death-sudep/role-seizure-alerts. 108 Francesco Brigo et al., “Telemedicine and the Challenge of Epilepsy Management at the Time of COVID-19 Pandemic,” Epilepsy and Behavior (2020): 1, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. yebeh.2020.107164. A N A N C I E N T D I S E A S E I N A M O D E R N W O R L D 149 There are a number of ways in which technology can help research- ers interested in studying epileptic dreams. Wearable devices that de- tect seizures and sleep stages, and digital seizure diaries when combined with dream journaling could help researchers correlate dream content with seizure activity. Technological resources such as DreamSAT, which facilitates automated data entry and statistical analysis, and the Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb), which provides an archive of dream re- ports as well as a word search tool, make dream research more accessible to both researchers and healthcare providers. Conclusion This article has, admittedly, covered a lot of ground. A survey of recent studies on sleep, epilepsy, and dreams affords insight into the protective role of REM, and the impact of circadian fluctuations on seizures and dreaming. Research on epileptic dream content sheds light on the vivid, intense, nightmarish and, at times, sublime inner experi- ence of people with epilepsy. While providing an overview of recent studies, this article has also examined the concerns of epileptics in the modern world for which as yet we have little research. I believe that dream research has the potential to facilitate diagnosis, decrease stigma, improve understanding of epilepsy among healthcare providers, and increase epileptics’ own self-understanding of their disease, their spir- ituality, and their place in the world. In conclusion I would like to share an excerpt from an epileptic’s dream. The dreamer is a woman with photosensitive TLE. She writes: “I dream I’m on top of a mountain. I’m confused and going into a seizure. I need someplace safe to hide. I run to the very edge of the mountain. By now I’m numb and can’t talk. Suddenly I’m thirsty. I see a beautiful faceted crystal goblet with light flashing from it. I drink the light. Now I’m drunk but there’s nowhere to lie down. I want someone to help me but no one sees me. I have no words. I’m light-headed. Then my head is empty. 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For example, few of us would see the books on our shelves as advanced technology, but from a historical perspective, and given the relatively short period of human culture, they are nothing less. Printed media allowed the efficient dissemination of information, reliable sources of truth, and a method of inexpensive and therefore accessible education. This revolutionized the world, and many argue that this technology is what allowed for the predominance of linear thought and large, organ- ized, and uniform populaces.2 Understandably then, these new technologies have always been ac- companied by both enthusiasm for their potential to elevate and suspi- cion about their ability to disrupt and degrade the human experience. Many people were worried that the introduction of the printing press 1 Antonio Cartelli, Luisa Miglio, and Marco Palma, “New Technologies and New Paradigms in Historical Research,” Informing Science: The International Journal of an Emerging Transdisci- pline 4 (2001): 61–62, https://doi.org/10.28945/559. 2 Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962). https://doi.org/10.35469/poligrafi.2023.418 Poligrafi, no. 109/110, vol. 28, 2023, pp. 159–194 P O L I G R A F I 160 and the corresponding ability for anyone to publish their own literature would lower the quality of available information and would end in the degradation of human cognitive faculties. This has been a repeated concern with many other technological advancements, including radio, film, and television.3 Though these are all undeniably beneficial, the questions remain: Who will get to use these technologies? How will they be abused? How will we be affected by them? In this realm of continual technological progress, the electronic age, marked by the Internet and digital innovations, has brought about fur- ther dramatic and unprecedented changes. From the introduction of the Internet to social media, to online dating, we as a species have been inundated in a short time with technological changes that have been a challenge to adapt to. Having barely had a chance to take a breath, we find ourselves standing once again at the threshold of another techno- logical revolution: we face the beginning of the age of Artificial Intel- ligence (AI). And while not everyone realizes it, the fingerprints of AI are already visible everywhere. They determine the videos we watch, the songs we listen to, the stocks we invest in, and even the vehicles we drive—or, in the case of self-driving cars, the vehicles in which we are chauffeured.4 With the rise of AI-enabled creative tools, the lines between human and machine are blurred even further. Any individual with a minimal amount of technological skill can, with the aid of AI image genera- tion systems, produce artistic pieces that would have been considered masterpieces by previous generations. The same is true with the works produced by AI systems using generative text models, which can pro- duce text that is in many cases indistinguishable from that authored by humans. They have transformed the digital landscape, acting as our programming partners, academic allies, and creative collaborators. 3 Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin Books, 2006). 4 Ed Newton-Rex, “59 Impressive Things Artificial Intelligence Can Do Today,” Business Insider, March 7, 2017, https://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/2017/03/27/59- impressive-things-artificial-intelligence-can-do-today-7-other-items-re-artificial-intelligence- machine-learning-deep-learning/. D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 161 With such impressive credentials, one wonders where the limita- tions of these AI systems are. Many of these domains have always been thought to require human intelligence, intuition, and creativity, but time and time again, AI has demonstrated its ability to rival even the most competent humans in a variety of situations. To further determine the ability of AI systems, we decided to explore an area that has been largely unaddressed in the context of AI research—an area that we be- lieve is less concerned with the replacement or mimicry of human activ- ity, and more to do with deepening our understanding of what it means to be human in such a technology-focused era. We wondered: To what extent could AI help us understand our own psyches? Could it help us live more fully in a world of complex, personal symbology? Could it provide us with new insights about our lives and relationships? In short, we asked the question of whether AI, with all its automated algorithms and vast neural networks, could help us delve into the mysterious and mystical world of our dreams. Just as humans have always had an intricate relationship with tech- nology, we share an equally profound connection with our dreams. From time immemorial, dreams have captivated the human psyche, their innate, nightly ritual sparking curiosity and introspection, driving us to seek and create meaning and significance. Throughout history, dreams have been perceived as windows into other realms. They have offered us glimpses into our psyches, served as pathways to commune with higher beings, and provided insights into the enigmatic and sym- bolic world we all inhabit. Whether viewed as prophetic foretellings of future events, wellsprings of artistic inspiration, or compasses guid- ing pivotal life decisions, dreams have played a central role in shaping personal and collective narratives. For some, dreaming transcends mere nocturnal visions and is itself a spiritual practice. The aspirations to reach lucidity, journey through astral realms, or connect to a higher self to attain enlightenment illustrate the profound depths of our engage- ment with this phenomenon.5 5 Kelly Bulkeley, Dreaming in the World’s Religions: A Comparative History (New York: New York University Press, 2008), 3–4. P O L I G R A F I 162 In their quest to decipher dreams, cultures have always turned to various texts and interpreters. These individuals, along with their writ- ings, became sources of wisdom, offering explanations and insights into phenomena that are otherwise often seen as nothing more than the random and meaningless byproducts of the sleeping mind or brain. Over the centuries, these collective insights and the oral and written records that they produced have led to the development of numerous traditions surrounding dreams and dream interpretation.6 From sha- manic traditions focused on communion with ancestors and the spirit world, dream interpretation practices have evolved into modern ap- proaches rooted in psychoanalytical theory. Notable among these are the symbolic frameworks proffered by Freudian and Jungian practices of interpretation.7 The most common way that dreams are interpreted in these frameworks is in the process of individual psychoanalysis in which clients share dreams with trained professionals—or analysts—so that they can be explored and understood in the context of the client’s life situation and personal development. However, in our technologically advanced era, many people are turning instead to apps and software to aid in the interpretation of their dreams. Examples abound with countless online websites and commu- nities dedicated to dream symbols and interpretation. Coming full cir- cle back to artificial intelligence, even more recently, there are many mobile apps such as Elsewhere, Oniri, and Dream App, all of which are providing their users with insightful AI-based dream interpretations.8 Even though these AI-driven analyses are becoming increasingly com- mon, a formal examination of the integration of AI with dream analy- sis remains largely unexplored, to our knowledge. To rectify this, we decided to perform a variety of experiments or explorations into the capacity of AI systems to both interpret individual dream reports and 6 Bulkeley, Dreaming in the World’s Religions. 7 Kelly Bulkeley, An Introduction to the Psychology of Dreaming (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), 3. 8 Sheldon Juncker, Daniel Kennedy, and Gez Quinn, Elsewhere, Version 3.7.5, Google Play Store, released November 16, 2023; . Oniri Inc., Oniri - Explore your dreams, Version 1.26, Google Play Store, released November 9, 2023; DreamApp Ltd., DreamApp: Journal & Diction- ary, Version 5.37.13, Google Play Store, released November 8, 2023. D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 163 to analyze the symbols and relationships found within lengthy series of dreams found in dream journals. These analyses will be explored in detail in the following section. Moving beyond just the capabilities of AI, we will also touch upon the broader implications of AI, with a spe- cific focus on the impact on the world of our dreams. This intersection between AI and dream analysis brings with it a unique set of ethical and philosophical challenges. We aim to address these concerns, pondering the consequences of merging AI with our most personal and intimate thoughts, while also offering what we hope is a positive vision for the future. By the end, we hope that you will not only grasp what AI can achieve in the domain of dream analysis but that you will also understand the underlying tools and technologies. Moreover, we wish to lay a founda- tion of theoretical and ethical considerations, equipping those inter- ested in make their own informed explorations and contributions. We hope that in doing so, we have made a positive contribution to the long and complex history of mankind’s relationship with their technology and their dreams. Explorations To determine the ability of AI systems to help us interpret and un- derstand our dreams, we have crafted a set of six explorations or experi- ments, each emphasizing a different aspect of our dreams and the ca- pabilities of artificial intelligence. The first three analyses will start with a simple and generic dream interpretation and then move to dream interpretations within the two interpretive schools mentioned in the previous section. The next three analyses will focus on patterns detected within one of our own dream journals, where we will be looking at the dreamer’s personal symbology, character relationships, and changes to relationships across time. To facilitate these analyses, we decided to use the GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 generative text models underlying OpenAI’s ChatGPT systems. These models have been trained on vast amounts of human knowledge, use high-quality and up-to-date information, and have shown the ca- pacity to produce content that is difficult for humans to distinguish P O L I G R A F I 164 from human-generated text.9 They are also efficient, highly affordable, and accessible, allowing anyone to explore them, even if they have a minimal technological background. They provide limited free tools, advanced paid-for features, and developer playgrounds and APIs for easy testing and exploration. These were of particular interest to us: as both researchers and software engineers, we wanted to maintain an em- phasis on practicality and reproducibility. Our goal was to make each exploration user-friendly and straightforward so that any interested reader could reproduce our experiments and gain insights into their own dreams. To aid in this, we have included references to the specific technologies and configurations used in each exploration. Exploration 1: A Dream Interpretation In this exploration, we start with a dream report of 105 words, which is roughly the average for a written report, and show the process by which we can generate an interpretation using AI systems.10 We use OpenAI’s GPT-4 model, as is the case with all of our individual dream interpretation examples. For this exercise, we chose a contemporary dream from one of our own private dream journals to ensure that the dream text could not have been included in the AI’s training set and thus affect the results. The dream report was written as follows: I was in a large building with Dad that also happened to be a train car, taking us somewhere. The issue was that the building was flying and so it was no longer possible to get out halfway through the journey. You could only get out at the end where it touched down on the ground. I had been watching a red bar on a screen indicating the progress it was making. All of a sudden, it jumped to the end where it and the sign above the door showed yellow. I rushed to grab all of my things before the train took off again. August 2023 9 Tom B. Brown et al., “Language Models are Few-Shot Learners,” ArXiv:2005.14165 Com- puter Science (June 2020): 46, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2005.14165. 10 Kelly Bulkeley, “Baseline Survey,” Sleep and Dream Database, accessed November 24, 2023, https://sleepanddreamdatabase.org/search_results/%7B%22surveyIds%22:[%224bd8d2cd-d69d- 4b4a-b225-81d6f2a80a69%22],%22surveyNames%22:[%22Baseline%20Survey%22]%7D. D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 165 We used the OpenAI playground environment, which allows devel- opers and other technology enthusiasts to test the capabilities of various OpenAI models in different scenarios. We ran our test with the settings outlined in Config 1.11 Using these settings, we received the following dream interpretation: This dream could symbolize a journey or process you are going through in your life, possibly with the guidance or influence of your father. The large building being a train car could represent the structure and direction of this journey, while it flying could indicate that it’s a journey you can’t easily es- cape or change the course of. The red bar on the screen could symbolize your awareness of the progress you’re making in this journey or process. The sud- den jump to the end could indicate a sudden advancement or change in your situation. The rush to grab your things before the train takes off again could suggest a fear of being unprepared or left behind. The colors red and yellow could symbolize caution and urgency. This interpretation is quite insightful and illustrates how advanced these technologies are in that they can easily and quickly generate meaningful dream interpretations with a minimum of guidance and instruction. We will highlight three features of this interpretation. 1. Connects with the Dreamer’s Waking-Life Relationships and Situations One of the standout features of this dream interpretation is its ability to make connections to the dreamer’s possible waking-life relationships and situations. For example, when the dream mentions the presence of the dreamer’s father, the interpretation suggests that it might revolve around a situation where there is guidance or influence from the father. This shows an understanding of how dreams can often reflect our real- world relationships, especially those with a significant emotional impact. By drawing parallels between the elements of the dream and potential real-life scenarios, the interpretation provides the dreamer with a bridge to connect their subconscious mind to their everyday experiences, there- 11 Under the “Supporting AI Configurations” section, see pp. 191–192. P O L I G R A F I 166 by enabling a more profound introspection and understanding of their emotions and situations. 2. Analyzes Various Symbols and Their Potential Meanings Another remarkable feature of the interpretation is the depth of symbol analysis. From the large building being a train car symbolizing the journey’s structure to the red bar on the screen symbolizing the awareness of progress, each element is carefully dissected to unearth its potential meaning. The colors red and yellow being associated with cau- tion and urgency further illustrates the keen attention to detail and un- derstanding of symbolic representation. This analysis not only provides the dreamer with a comprehensive breakdown of each dream element but also presents a cohesive narrative that ties these symbols together, offering a broader perspective on the dream’s possible significance. 3. Uses Ambiguous Language and Doesn’t Provide Definitive Answers The interpretation helpfully employs ambiguous language, such as “could indicate” and “could symbolize,” demonstrating a respectful, non-intrusive approach to dream analysis. Instead of imposing defini- tive meanings or interpretations, it provides possibilities and allows the dreamer the freedom to resonate with what feels most accurate to their personal experience. This approach recognizes that dreams are deep- ly personal and subjective, and that their meanings can vary widely among individuals. By providing options rather than certainties, the interpretation empowers the dreamer to connect the dots in a way that feels most authentic to them. It showcases an understanding that, while AI can provide insight and guidance, the ultimate interpretation and meaning of a dream resides with the dreamer. Overall, this is a high-quality attempt at interpreting the dream and would rival that of any human interpreter if asked to provide a possible interpretation of the dream while being placed under the same limita- tions regarding word count and lack of additional context about the dream and dreamer. D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 167 Exploration 2: A Freudian Analysis Since AI was clearly up to the task of generating a general dream in- terpretation, we wanted to push the limits of its capabilities and ask it to provide interpretations within specific schools of dream interpretation theory. Since the text models underlying ChatGPT have been trained using high-quality data from the Internet, it stands to reason that they should be familiar with many different systems of thought for inter- preting dreams. To test this, we started by re-framing our prompt to request an expressly Freudian interpretation, without giving any hints or expectations as to what we meant by this. Freudian dream analysis often focuses on the hidden meaning of symbols, repressed emotions, and fears and anxieties related to waking-life situations, and in all of these primarily seeing the dream functioning as wish fulfillment.12 We wanted to see which of these themes of Freudian analysis the AI system would pick up on by itself. We used the same AI settings as before but have extended the permitted output from 256 tokens to 400 tokens as the longer response will prove illustrative (See Config 2).13 This is the result that ChatGPT provided in response to our request for a Freudian dream interpretation: In a Freudian framework, dreams are seen as a reflection of repressed de- sires, thoughts, and experiences. The dreamer’s journey in the large flying train car could represent their unconscious desire for structure and guidance, pos- sibly from a paternal figure. The train’s flight could symbolize the dreamer’s feelings of being trapped or unable to control their life’s direction, reflecting a sense of helplessness or lack of control. The red bar on the screen could represent the dreamer’s suppressed aware- ness of their progress or achievements, possibly due to a fear of failure or criticism. The sudden jump to the end could symbolize a repressed desire for quick success or change, reflecting impatience or anxiety about the future. The rush to grab things before the train takes off again could indicate a fear of abandonment or being left behind, possibly stemming from past experi- 12 Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, trans. A. A. Brill (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1918). 13 Under the “Supporting AI Configurations” section, see p. 192. P O L I G R A F I 168 ences or insecurities. This could also reflect the dreamer’s anxiety about being unprepared or not having enough resources to face life’s challenges. The colors red and yellow, in Freudian symbolism, often represent intense emotions. Red can symbolize passion, anger, or danger, while yellow can sym- bolize caution, cowardice, or deceit. In this dream, these colors could reflect the dreamer’s repressed emotions or fears related to their life journey. This interpretation has many elements in common with the earlier general interpretation, but given the expanded output limit and addi- tional prompting, it expands upon and adds to those features in a dis- cernibly Freudian way. The following highlights several of the uniquely Freudian features of this analysis and how they differ from the general interpretation. 1. Focuses More on the Symbolic Significance and Less on Waking- Life Situations While the general interpretation tends to directly relate the dream’s contents to the dreamer’s waking-life relationships and situations, the Freudian analysis leans heavily into symbolic significance. For instance, rather than drawing a direct connection to the dreamer’s father, the Freudian interpretation suggests that the train car and its journey might symbolize the dreamer’s unconscious desire for a kind of authoritarian or paternal structure and guidance. This approach aligns with Freud’s belief that dreams are often coded messages from the unconscious, filled with symbols that require deciphering to understand the underly- ing desires and emotions. 2. Emphasizes Feelings of Fear and Anxiety Freudian interpretation places a more pronounced emphasis on un- derlying feelings of fear and anxiety. For instance, the dream’s elements, such as the train’s flight and the rush to grab belongings before it de- parts, are viewed through the lens of feelings of helplessness, abandon- ment, and lack of control. These are interpreted as indicators of the dreamer’s deeper insecurities and anxieties, which are potentially rooted in past experiences. Such a focus is characteristic of Freud’s belief that D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 169 many of our unconscious thoughts and feelings manifest as anxieties and fears in our dreams, reflecting unresolved internal conflicts. 3. Highlights Possible Repressed and Suppressed Emotions A distinct feature of Freudian analysis is its attention to repressed and suppressed emotions. The red bar on the screen, for example, is not merely a symbol of progress awareness but is seen as a representation of the suppressed acknowledgment of one’s achievements, potentially due to a fear of failure. The colors red and yellow are not just symbolic of caution and urgency; they delve deeper into the realm of intense emo- tions such as passion, anger, deceit, and cowardice. This underscores Freud’s theory that dreams are a playground for our repressed desires, emotions, and experiences, providing a window into our unconscious mind. 4. Suggests Wish Fulfillment One of the cornerstones of Freudian dream interpretation is the concept of wish fulfillment. Dreams, in this view, often represent un- satisfied desires or unfulfilled wishes. In the provided interpretation, the sudden jump to the end of the journey might be seen as a repressed desire for rapid success or an abrupt change, showcasing the dreamer’s impatience or anxiety about what the future holds. This nuanced un- derstanding differs from the general interpretation, which could merely view the “jump” as a change in circumstance or situation. It’s a clear nod to Freud’s theory that dreams serve as a space where our unmet desires play out. It is pertinent to note, however, that while the interpretation is closely aligned with Freudian theory, there are aspects, like the color yellow, where the AI might be projecting plausible interpretations that are not explicitly mentioned in Freudian literature. Despite this, once again, the AI text-completion model shows its ability to not only pro- vide an insightful and plausible dream interpretation but to incorporate the theories of a specific school of thought. P O L I G R A F I 170 Exploration 3: A Jungian Interpretation Seeing that the AI was able to provide a more than passable Freud- ian-style analysis, we were further curious to see if it would perform as well when providing an analysis using the less well-known and more depth-based Jungian approach. While Jung was, for a time, the student of Freud, and their theories agree on many points, there are some key differences that are worth highlighting here. In Jungian depth psychol- ogy, dreams are not primarily symbolically obscured wish fulfillment, but are instead a clear and direct message from the unconscious to the conscious mind, accurately and honestly exposing the underlying psy- chic state.14 In Jungian psychology, dream symbolism and metaphor is often connected to archetypes found in the collective unconscious and are meant to be understood and integrated in the pursuit of the organ- ism’s health and individuation. Specifically in that endeavor, dreams are seen as providing both compensatory and prospective functions, help- ing to maintain psychic equilibrium and providing hints at possible future outcomes. To test whether the AI system was capable of provid- ing this style of interpretation, we once again re-framed the original prompt, this time giving it a Jungian bent (see Config 3).15 This resulted in the following Jungian-style interpretation: In a Jungian framework, dreams are seen as a way for the unconscious mind to communicate with the conscious mind, often using symbols and metaphors. The large building that is also a train car could represent the dreamer’s life journey or a specific phase of life. The fact that it’s also a building might sug- gest that this journey or phase is a significant one, involving personal growth or development. The presence of the dreamer’s father could symbolize author- ity, tradition, or the influence of the past on this journey. The flying building/train car could symbolize a feeling of being out of con- trol or being carried along by circumstances. The inability to get out halfway 14 Marlon Xavier, “Dream Interpretation In Jung’s Theory A Comparative Analysis,” The Jung Page, October 27, 2013, https://jungpage.org/learn/articles/analytical-psychology/107- dream-interpretation-in-jungs-theory-a-comparative-analysis. 15 Under the “Supporting AI Configurations” section, see p. 192. D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 171 through the journey might suggest a feeling of commitment or inevitability about this journey or phase of life. The red bar on the screen could represent the dreamer’s awareness of the progress they’re making in this journey or phase of life. The sudden jump to the end might suggest a sudden realization or change in perspective. The color yellow is often associated with caution or warning in Western cultures. The sign turning yellow as the dreamer rushes to gather their things could symbolize a warning or sense of urgency about the need to prepare for the next phase of the journey or life. Overall, this dream might be interpreted as a message from the dreamer’s unconscious about a significant journey or phase of life they’re currently un- dergoing. It might suggest feelings of being carried along by circumstances, a sudden realization or change in perspective, and a sense of urgency about preparing for what’s next. This interpretation is again similar to the previous two but diverges from the Freudian approach in several ways by centering around the broad life path and individuation process of the dreamer. Through the Jungian lens, the dream is seen as a representation of the dreamer’s psyche, evoking a more holistic and integrative perspective. It focuses on the symbols as being parts of the dreamer’s psyche and as being con- nected to processes of growth along a life path. Again, we will highlight a few of the Jungian features of this interpretation. 1. A Focus on Symbols and Metaphors Related to the Dreamer’s Life The Jungian interpretation underscores the dream’s symbols and metaphors as they relate directly to the dreamer’s life journey and per- sonal growth. For instance, the large building that doubles as a train car is not merely an object of transportation or even a specific symbol but is rather a metaphor for the dreamer’s ongoing life journey or a particu- lar significant phase in life. This emphasis on symbolic resonance with life stages and personal development is in line with Jung’s belief that dreams serve as a window into the individual’s internal processes and unconscious perspective. Instead of just pointing to repressed desires or direct connections to waking-life situations, the Jungian approach in- terprets these symbols as deep-seated elements of the dreamer’s psyche that reveal new information about their life path. P O L I G R A F I 172 2. Shows a More Holistic Process of Growth and Individuation Another salient feature of the Jungian analysis is its representation of the dream as a comprehensive story of growth and individuation. The dream is not viewed as a disjointed collection of symbols but as an in- terconnected narrative highlighting the dreamer’s process of becoming a whole individual. The presence of the dreamer’s father, for example, not only signifies authority or past influences but indicates the dreamer’s relationship with tradition, authority, and the influence of the past as they navigate their life journey. The flying train car and the inability to exit it, rather than just pointing to feelings of being out of control, sug- gest a more profound sense of commitment or inevitability tied to this life phase. Jung’s concept of individuation, the journey to becoming a unique individual by integrating different parts of the unconscious into consciousness, is encapsulated in this holistic interpretation. 3. Focuses Less on Repressed Emotions or Fears and Anxieties Unlike the Freudian perspective, which delved deeply into repressed desires and underlying anxieties, the Jungian interpretation steers away from a predominant focus on these aspects. Instead, it acknowledges emotions and sensations, while centering more on the developmental journey and the messages the unconscious is trying to convey for the individuation of the dreamer. For instance, the color yellow and the rush to gather belongings are not primarily seen as repressed fears or anxieties but are interpreted as symbolic warnings or a sense of urgency related to the dreamer’s personal development and life journey. This distinction showcases the tendency of the Jungian approach to view dreams as more direct messages from the unconscious, aiming to guide and inform the conscious self, rather than as coded expressions of re- pressed feelings or desires. While still clearly interpreting the same dream and using many of the same themes, this interpretation provides a distinctly Jungian bent and includes features that would not have been brought to light in the other approaches. D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 173 Based on these examples, the overall capability of AI in dream in- terpretation is more than evident. The interpretations it produces argu- ably rival those of many amateur interpreters and even some profes- sional analysts—again with the need to emphasize that this is only the case under the limitations of context and brevity under which the AI system was placed. With the ability to mold its analysis based on dif- ferent psychological frameworks, the potential of AI in this domain is vast. Further, these examples are startlingly simple and there are many avenues of future exploration and improvement in the process of AI- based dream interpretation. That said, since AI has demonstrated exceptional competence in an- alyzing individual dreams through several interpretive frameworks, we wanted to continue our explorations of AI’s capabilities to understand dreams and broaden our focus from isolated dreams to comprehensive dream journals. The goal was to see whether AI would prove useful in quickly and efficiently processing a large number of dreams and being able to pick out interesting patterns that could be used to help indi- viduals learn more about their dreaming—and even waking—lives. Exploration 4: The “Cat” Symbol Analysis Because of the importance of symbolic associations in the major- ity of schools of thought in dream interpretation, understanding the interpretation of symbols within these dream journals was central to our exploration.16 We aimed to uncover how AI might illuminate the intricate dynamics between the dreamer and their symbols, ultimately assisting individuals in decoding their distinct symbolic lexicon. We decided to test this by analyzing the symbol “Cat” in a series of dreams from one of our own dream journals. The symbol was chosen primarily for three reasons: its frequent occurrence in dreams, its rich interpretative background, and admittedly, the author’s personal affin- ity for cats. This presented an opportunity to discern whether the AI could identify the dreamer’s distinctive relationship with the symbol or merely default to its preexisting general knowledge of dream symbols. 16 Bulkeley, An Introduction, 18, 32, 45–53. P O L I G R A F I 174 The choice of dream journal was made so that we would be able to verify the results without taking the painstaking time to read through thousands of dream reports and provide our own in-depth analysis. Al- ready having a basis for understanding our own symbolic dream world, using one of our own dream journals made the most sense in terms of being able to fact-check the results of the AI system. The journal in question contains 1,990 dreams spanning from late 2016 to early 2023, though it also includes several childhood dreams from the late 1990s and early 2000s. The average word count is 250. The dreamer is male, and at the time of this writing, in his late twenties. The first analysis was performed using the following system. First, all of the dreams with references to “Cats” were collected, looking for words such as “cat,” “cats,” “kitten,” “tabby,” etc. Larger cats, such as lions and tigers were excluded as they are understood to have their own unique representation in symbolic space. Some 67 dreams were found, but due to the limitations of the AI systems, we randomly selected 50 of these. At the time of this writing, these limitations are no longer in place and a significantly larger number could be used for future analyses. All of the dreams were ordered from oldest to newest and were each given separately to the AI system, which was asked to interpret the sym- bolic meaning of the “Cat” in the dream. This was meant to provide us with a brief interpretation containing no more than a few sentences and capturing the gist of the meaning of the symbol within the dream. The settings used for these symbol interpretations are outlined in Config 4.17 Once all of these individual symbol interpretations were collected, they were again ordered by the dream dates from earliest to latest and were fed back into the AI system, this time requesting the AI to take all of the individual interpretations and synthesize them into a holistic picture of the dreamer’s relationship with that symbol. The settings for that request are outlined in Config 5.18 The resulting synthesis from this experiment was as follows: Based on the series of short summaries, it seems that the dreamer has a complex and multifaceted relationship with the symbol of the cat. The cat 17 Under the “Supporting AI Configurations” section, see pp.192–193. 18 Under the “Supporting AI Configurations” section, see p. 193. D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 175 often represents a desire for comfort, affection, and companionship. The dreamer may have a strong attachment to their pet or may long for a sense of security and relaxation. However, the cat also symbolizes independence, self-sufficiency, and a need for personal space. The dreamer may value their freedom and autonomy, and may have a curious and playful nature. In some dreams, the cat represents the dreamer’s nurturing and caring side, as they take care of kittens or show concern for the cat’s well-being. This suggests that the dreamer has a natural instinct to protect and provide for others. On the other hand, the cat can also symbolize the dreamer’s own need for nurturing and care, as they seek comfort from the cat or desire affection. The cat’s behavior in the dreams can vary, from being tame and content to being skittish or aggressive. This reflects the dreamer’s own emotions and experiences. The dreamer may feel overwhelmed or outnumbered by small but persistent problems or obstacles, which they try to address with newfound abilities or tools. There may be a sense of fear or anxiety that the dreamer is trying to conquer or fend off. Overall, the cat symbol in the dreamer’s dreams represents a complex blend of emotions, desires, and experiences. It reflects the dreamer’s longing for comfort and affection, their need for independence and self-sufficiency, and their nurturing and protective instincts. The cat symbolizes the dreamer’s relationships with others, as well as their own inner world and sense of self. The AI’s interpretation of the cat symbol, as seen in the dreams, is both intricate and expansive, encompassing a broad spectrum of characteristics and associations related to the symbol. One particu- larly notable observation made by the AI is the dreamer’s ownership of a pet cat. While skeptics might dismiss this as a mere projection or fortunate guess, it showcases the depth of understanding embed- ded within the AI’s analysis. It is evident that while some features of the cat symbol interpretation are ingrained in the AI’s fundamental understanding, a significant portion is tailor-made, derived specifi- cally from the dreamer’s unique relationship with and perception of cats. For instance, when one requests ChatGPT to provide general information on the symbolic meaning of cats in dreams, the model would highlight elements of femininity, mystery, magic, intuition, emotion, independence, sensuality, and omens. Of these character- istics, attributes like independence, instinct, and emotion resonate with the dreamer’s specific interpretation. However, the AI astutely identified other traits directly linked to the dreamer’s experiences as P O L I G R A F I 176 reflected in the dreams, including playfulness, curiosity, nurture, and relationship to self/other. These attributes were discerned and presented by the AI in an im- pressively short period of time (under 2 minutes of total processing time), underscoring its efficiency. The analysis is not only rich in de- tail but is also presented in a coherent and reader-friendly format. By synthesizing a myriad of data points, the AI creates a comprehensive narrative that offers both clarity and depth. Most importantly, this AI- driven interpretation was found to be both enlightening and accurate, providing useful insights into the dreamer’s self-understanding. Exploration 5: Relationship Analysis Having seen the successful outcomes of this symbol analysis, we were eager to test the AI’s capability in decoding the dreamer’s interactions and affiliations with the characters populating their dreams. A key point to consider here is the continuity hypothesis, which suggests that dreams are a natural reflection of the most recurring and significant elements of our waking lives.19 Accordingly, many of the characters in our dreams will represent real-life individuals, typically, people we are closest to and therefore the ones with whom we are most likely to want insight and un- derstanding. Thus, comprehending these dream-character relationships might offer a gateway to better understanding the dreamer’s real-world relationships and interactions, helping them make appropriate changes and take positive action. It is also often the case in dreams that the dis- tinction between self and other is blurred, and if the AI analysis can help an individual identify these aspects, that understanding, in turn, could serve as a valuable tool for self-reflection and personal growth as they more clearly see which elements of their relationships are projections and which are coming from the environment. For this analysis, we used the same dream journal and foundational framework that was applied during the symbol analysis, but our fo- 19 Maja Gutman Mušič et al., “Theoretical Foundations,” In Maja Gutman Mušič et al., 2020 Dreams: Toward a New Understanding of the Dreaming-Waking Continuum (Stanford, CA: Stan- ford University Press, 2023), https://2020dreams.supdigital.org/2d/theoretical-foundations. D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 177 cus shifted to the dreamer’s interactions with one of their friends and colleagues—an individual they had been acquainted with for approxi- mately three years and with whom they had developed a close relation- ship. This dream-character, who we will refer to as “James,” appeared in a total of 50 dreams in the journal. This provided us with a complete dataset without necessitating any truncation or selection. The meth- odological approach remained consistent with the symbol analysis, though minor modifications were made to the two prompts to cater to the change in subject matter, as shown in Configs 6–7.20 This resulted in OpenAI’s systems producing the following character synthesis: The dreamer’s relationship with their friend James appears to be complex and multifaceted, with different emotions and dynamics at play depending on the dream and situation. In some dreams, the dreamer may feel disconnected or left out of James’s life, while in others they may feel a strong bond of friend- ship and trust. The dreamer may also perceive James as someone who is fun and adventurous but may have concerns about his behavior or safety at times. One recurring theme in the dreams is a sense of responsibility toward James’s well-being, with the dreamer often expressing concern for his safety or worrying about his behavior. This may suggest that the dreamer sees them- selves as a protector or caretaker in their relationship with James, and may feel a sense of obligation to look out for him. Another theme that emerges in the dreams is a desire for deeper connec- tion and understanding with James. The dreamer may feel uncertain about whether James shares their interests or values, or may feel frustrated in their attempts to keep up with his intellectual pursuits. However, there are also mo- ments of camaraderie and comfort between the two, suggesting that they do share a strong bond of friendship. Throughout the dreams, there are also indications of a power dynamic at play in the dreamer’s relationship with James. The dreamer may see themselves as a natural leader when they are with James, but may also feel a desire to explore and assert their independence. This tension between leadership and independence may reflect the dreamer’s desire for a more equal and balanced relationship with James. Overall, the dreamer’s relationship with James appears to be a mix of posi- tive and negative emotions, with moments of connection and support as well as moments of frustration and disconnection. The dreamer may need to re- 20 Under the “Supporting AI Configurations” section, see pp. 193–194. P O L I G R A F I 178 flect on their own desires and needs in the relationship, and communicate openly with James about their feelings in order to strengthen their bond and achieve a more fulfilling relationship. In this analysis, what stands out is the AI system’s ability to un- derstand character relationships without any foundational knowledge about the dreamer or their friend, James. While analyzing the “cat” symbol, the AI could at least draw from its training based on numerous dream symbol dictionaries. In contrast, when interpreting the dynamic with James, it could only rely on the features of the text included in the dream reports. The resulting interpretation is nothing short of remark- able. It not only captures the salient features of the dreamer’s relation- ship with the dream-character, James, but also mirrors the dreamer’s real-world interactions with the actual person. Several features of this analysis are worth noting. 1. The AI’s Determination that James is a “Friend” The AI is easily able to determine that James is primarily a “friend” in the dreamer’s life, which, though apparent from reading the texts, is still worth noting given the limited context provided in the dream reports. While there are hints about their professional interaction as colleagues—inferred from notions of leadership dynamics—the system still correctly identifies their bond primarily as friendship. This ability of the AI to discern and emphasize the primary nature of relationships in dream analysis allows the dreamer to approach the interpretation from a more personal and emotional perspective, facilitating deeper introspection. 2. The Diverse Range of Emotions Connected to James is Brought to the Forefront Another standout feature of this analysis is the AI’s aptitude in high- lighting a wide range of emotions associated with James. From feelings of disconnection or being left out, to strong sentiments of trust, friend- ship, and camaraderie, the AI paints a comprehensive emotional por- trait of the dreamer’s relationship with him. By doing so, it acknowl- D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 179 edges the multifaceted and dynamic nature of human relationships and helps the dreamer grasp the depth, complexities, and intricacies of their specific relationship with James. 3. It Serves as an Amplification of Elements Previously Unexamined When the dreamer reviewed this analysis, they found it so insightful that they highlighted several connections that it made to their waking- life relationship with James, finding that it had revealed several aspects of that relationship of which they had previously been unaware. The AI system facilitated this by amplifying specific aspects of the dreamer’s relationship with James that had gone unexamined in their waking-life introspection. By highlighting emotions related to exclusion and the recurring sense of responsibility and concern for James’s well-being, the AI provided a magnified view of potential underlying emotions and patterns. By shedding light on these elements, the AI aided the dreamer in distinguishing between features of their waking-life relationship with James and the internal symbolic representation of him in their psy- che. The dreamer felt that these insights facilitated both a deeper and healthier relationship with their friend. The significance of AI’s capability in generating this kind of analysis should not be understated. Not only can this AI system quickly inter- pret characters within an individual’s dreams, it can also offer tangi- ble and actionable insights that the individual can integrate into their day-to-day life. Such deep insights traditionally emerge only after pro- longed periods of introspection, meditation, or through the therapeu- tic process. Yet, here, the AI accomplishes this in short order despite the dream narratives being largely descriptive, focusing more on dream events than introspective musings or interpretations. Exploration 6: Relationships Across Time In our final exploration of the depth and breadth of insights AI might provide from a singular dream journal, we sought to discern whether it could adeptly map the evolution of a relationship over time. Given AI’s ability to perform an in-depth analysis of a dreamer’s over- P O L I G R A F I 180 all relationship with a character, we wondered if AI could also help identify the elements (if any) that had changed as the relationship de- veloped. Our assumption was that the features related to uncertainty and disconnection would primarily be found early on and that the feel- ings of closeness and security would increase as time passed. To inves- tigate this transformation, we leveraged the same dataset of 50 dreams where James featured prominently. To facilitate a chronological analy- sis, we devised a simple system in which we segmented these dreams into two distinct subsets: the initial 25 dreams constituted the first set, representing the early stages of their relationship, while the subsequent 25 dreams formed the second set, capturing the most recent interac- tions. Our objective was to direct the AI to compare and contrast the two sets, discerning the nuanced changes in the relationship dynamics over time. To begin, individual analyses were crafted for both sets using the character-specific settings delineated earlier. After this, both analy- ses were presented to the AI system, guided by the prompt outlined in Config 8.21 This resulted in the following output: The two dream relationship analyses for the dreamer’s friend James share some similarities but also have some notable differences. Both analyses de- scribe a complex and multifaceted relationship between the dreamer and James, with the dreamer valuing James’s support and guidance. However, there are some differences in how the dreamer’s relationship with James has evolved over time. In the first analysis, the dreamer feels a sense of disconnection and uncer- tainty in their relationship with James. While they value his reliability and helpfulness, they also feel left out of his life, particularly in regards to his professional activities. The dreamer also feels unsure about whether or not James shares their interests and passions, and may feel hesitant to share those interests with him. Additionally, the dreamer may need to reassess their in- volvement in certain projects to improve their relationship with James. In contrast, the second analysis suggests that the dreamer has a closer and more intimate relationship with James. They value his advice and support, and see him as a guiding figure in their life. However, there may be some ten- sion between the dreamer and James, which makes the dreamer feel vulner- able and uncomfortable. The dreamer also feels a level of discomfort or unease 21 Under the “Supporting AI Configurations” section, see p. 194. D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 181 around James’s loved ones, indicating a feeling of unfamiliarity or discomfort in their relationship with them. Overall, the two dream relationship analyses suggest that the dreamer’s rela- tionship with James has become more complex and intimate over time. While the dreamer still values James’s support and guidance, they may also feel a sense of disconnection or discomfort in certain aspects of their relationship. Once again, we are presented with a compelling demonstration of the power of generative AI text models. This analysis elucidates the evolution of a relationship over time, relying solely on the narratives provided in dream reports. The progression is noteworthy: the rela- tionship, initially characterized by hesitancy and uncertainty, gradu- ally transforms into one that is steadfast and intimate. Following our previous findings and theorizing, this closely aligns with the real-world dynamics of the relationship and raises interesting questions about the kinds of patterns that can be found in dreams, what dreams can tell us about our waking lives, and what kinds of unique characteristics could be found by performing these analyses on larger datasets includ- ing many different dream journals. Our research underscores the profound capabilities of AI in the realm of dream interpretation. AI’s proficiency extends beyond just in- terpreting individual dreams; it is adept at conducting intricate analyses across comprehensive dream journals. This allows for a deep dive into symbols, the relationships they forge within dreams, and the evolving patterns that manifest over time. Remarkably, AI’s insights seem to be on a par with those of human readers, and in some instances, it offers fresh perspectives that shed new light on the dreamer’s waking-life ex- periences and emotions. In our continued explorations, we crafted additional tests to delve into a dreamer’s connection with religion and spirituality, aiming to chart its growth and shifts over time. These analyses employed the foun- dational framework outlined earlier. While the results were enlighten- ing, a detailed discussion of these findings falls outside the purview of this particular article. However, there is still much to be explored and, along with others, we hope to continue using these new and powerful tools to uncover more of the uncharted territory of technology and our dreams. In moving toward that goal, we thought that it would P O L I G R A F I 182 be helpful to conclude by outlining some of our own ethical consid- erations and philosophies when it comes to working with technologies and dreams, and finally to provide a positive, hopeful vision of a future relationship between artificial intelligence, humanity, and the collective world of our dreams. Ethical Considerations Given the increasing insightfulness and accessibility of powerful AI systems, there is a growing and understandable concern among many people regarding the potential negative impact of artificial intelligence, especially when it comes to its capability to replace humans.22 As we have seen, this is not limited to purely technical and scientific fields, but extends even to areas as nuanced as analyzing the subconscious content found in our dreams and connecting them to our waking lives. In the preceding sections of our discussion, we delved into this recently dis- covered capacity of AI systems. In each of those instances, what stood out is the efficiency of the AI systems. They operate swiftly and can generate results that are insightful and of a quality that closely mirrors human expertise. Even though it is still in its infancy as far as technolo- gies go, AI has demonstrated time and time again that it can undertake much of what we once believed required the unique touch of a human hand. So, what are the larger implications of these observations and findings? To better understand the potential ripple effects, we will focus on three significant areas: the potential ramifications in our daily lives and routines, the concern about human replacement by AI, and the role of AI as an ethical analyst and interpreter of dreams. 1. Impact on Day-to-Day Life In the past, securing reliable and insightful dream interpretations has been a challenging endeavor. While there is some knowledge about 22 Marieke M. M. Peeters et al., “Hybrid Collective Intelligence in a Human–AI Society,” AI & SOCIETY 36, no. 1 (1 March 2021): 217–220, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-020- 01005-y. D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 183 dream interpretation and analysis in the general public, it is limited and many are unaware of the insights that can be gained from dreams and how to access them. Since professional dream interpretation has tradi- tionally been performed as part of the psychotherapeutic process, there are many practical and emotional barriers to access, with the most com- mon being concerns about financial cost.23 Even for those who do pos- sess such knowledge and means, there can be additional barriers, often stemming from the same societal stigmas that prevent so many from seeking psychotherapy.24 However, this is all changing with the rise of advanced AI systems and an array of accessible dream-related digital platforms—including software, websites, and apps. Today, virtually anyone who is interested can receive immediate and insightful analyses of their dreams with either no or little cost and without facing any of the previously existing barriers or possible discrimination for doing so. At this time, such developments in dream-related technology mainly benefit those who have a keen interest in these subjects and who keep up-to-date with the latest technological advancements, but given the pace at which AI is progressing and becoming integrated into our daily lives, this scenario may shift rapidly. Studies have also shown a general trend toward spirituality with stable beliefs in psychological and para- normal phenomena.25 These findings corroborate our perception of an increased cultural interest in all things psychological and spiritual, as evidenced by a proliferation of pop psychology books, new-age phi- losophies, and even a new wave of openness to and research on psych- edelics.26 These trends are naturally being extended to dreams, which is something that we have seen both as researchers and through the 23 David C. Mohr et al., “Barriers to Psychotherapy among Depressed and Nondepressed Primary Care Patients,” Annals of Behavioral Medicine 32, no. 3 (December 1, 2006): 254–258, https://doi.org/10.1207/s15324796abm3203_12. 24 Patrick Corrigan, “How Stigma Interferes with Mental Health Care,” American Psycholo- gist (US: American Psychological Association, 2004), 315–318, https://doi.org/10.1037/0003- 066X.59.7.614. 25 Jeffrey M. Jones, “In U.S., 47% Identify as Religious, 33% as Spiritual,” Gallup, Septem- ber 22, 2023, https://news.gallup.com/poll/511133/identify-religious-spiritual.aspx; David W. Moore, “Three in Four Americans Believe in Paranormal,” Gallup, June 16, 2005, https://news. gallup.com/poll/16915/three-four-americans-believe-paranormal.aspx. 26 Michael J Winkelman, and Ben Sessa, eds., Advances in Psychedelic Medicine: State-of-the- Art Therapeutic Applications (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2019), https://www.researchgate.net/pub- P O L I G R A F I 184 proliferation of media and technology focused on dreams and the many ways that our relationship with them can bring meaning to our lives. Given this trajectory and the profound influence that AI already exerts on various facets of our daily lives, it becomes imperative for us to grasp the potential, boundaries, and ethical aspects of AI, especially as they pertain to its interplay with the world of our dreams. 2. Human Replacement by AI The concern regarding whether—and potentially when—artificial intelligence will overshadow most human professions remains a pre- vailing topic of debate and discussion for many.27 It is undeniable that AI is already making significant inroads in various sectors, and as time progresses, it is likely to dominate even more. Fields such as writing, coding, and artistic creation emerge as evident and, to some, unsettling instances of this transformation. Our observations, especially with the current generation of generative AI text models, have confirmed that these systems possess remarkable capability. Their efficiency in provid- ing insightful interpretations and analyses of dreams and dream jour- nals is noteworthy. In many ways, their output mimics the insights that human interpreters can provide, generally surpassing the expertise the average person would have access to. So, does this trajectory suggest that AI will soon eclipse human dream interpreters and analysts? Our answer is both yes and no. On one hand, there is no doubt that certain individuals will prefer and embrace AI-generated content, without feeling the need to consult human professionals for further analysis. When people are provided with inexpensive, easy-to-use, and accessible technologies, we believe that they will tend to prefer them even if it means that more in-depth and previously existing options will be passed over. Take the example of Wikipedia: When Wikipedia was introduced, there was concern about whether or not a free, open, and accessible repository of encyclopedic lication/331321003_Advances_in_Psychedelic_Medicine_STATE-OF-THE-ART_THERA- PEUTIC_APPLICATIONS. 27 Peeters et al., “Hybrid Collective Intelligence,” 217. D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 185 knowledge could ever rival the accuracy of other more expensive and closed sources of knowledge. Even to this day, many universities do not allow their students to reference Wikipedia as they do not consider it a reliable source. Despite this, it has been the case for more than a decade that the accuracy and breadth of knowledge on Wikipedia rivals, and in some areas even surpasses, that of traditional encyclopedias and text- books.28 This serves to show that it is often the widely accessible and af- fordable technologies that receive the most focus and improvements as time goes on. We believe that the same can be true of AI systems, which even today rival the accuracy and knowledge of many human experts. If this is the case even in their infancy, what will the AI-human relation- ship look like in just a few years? It is almost impossible to imagine a world in which more and more people do not begin to rely on these AI systems, and we see no reason to believe that this will not extend to the analysis of dreams among other aspects of our psychology. On the other hand, we do not believe that the situation is as dire as some make it out to be. We would argue that most of the individuals who will come to rely on these AI systems would not have been seek- ing out specialized, and possibly costlier, human expertise in the first place. Going back to the example of Wikipedia, there are many people who rely on it almost solely as their source of information, very few of whom would have been interested in seeking out more in-depth and costlier journal articles and encyclopedias in its absence. Further, we assess that the general population’s grasp of dream interpretation and the recognition of dreams’ significance remains relatively elementary. Thus, the primary role of the current AI systems, in our opinion, will not be to replace human expertise but rather to highlight and amplify the significance of the symbolic world of our dreams. Finally, we assert that many individuals drawn to dream-related topics are often seeking 28 Nicola J Reavley et al., “Quality of Information Sources About Mental Disorders: A Compar- ison of Wikipedia With Centrally Controlled Web and Printed Sources,” Psychological Medicine 42, no. 8 (2012): 1753–62, https://doi.org/10.1017/S003329171100287X; Jim Giles, “Internet Encyclopaedias Go Head to Head,” Nature 438, no. 7070 (December 1, 2005): 900–901, https:// doi.org/10.1038/438900a; Jona Kräenbring et al., “Accuracy and Completeness of Drug Infor- mation in Wikipedia: A Comparison with Standard Textbooks of Pharmacology,” PloS One 9, no. 9 (September 2014): e106930, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0106930. P O L I G R A F I 186 a human touch and connection as much as personal insights. Human connection and relationships have always been an essential feature of the psychotherapeutic context in which dreams are most often ana- lyzed, and this is something that AI in its current form is inherently unable to replace. It is essential to note that despite their prowess, in our experience, AI systems still fall short of mirroring the profound depth of human understanding and intuition, as well as bringing to light the context of the dreamer’s life in a way that can only happen in the human relationships that are intrinsic to the process of traditional dream analysis. In our hopeful vision, the advent and popularization of AI in dream analysis could serve as a catalyst by elevating the collective appreciation and understanding of dreams. Consequently, this heightened awareness may increase the demand for the depth of insight and relational con- nections that can only be offered by human interpreters and analysts, even if a section of the audience will always prefer exclusively AI-driven insights. 3. Ethics in Dream Analysis Dreams, with their unique nature, necessitate particular ethical at- tention. Serving as unfiltered portals into our unconscious minds, they often reveal facets of our psyches that had previously remained elusive. When laid bare before an insightful analyst, these deep-seat- ed, concealed portions of our minds can be easily interpreted and un- derstood, often giving away far more about ourselves than we might wish. This gives rise to some pertinent concerns, primarily about what AI systems might be able to discern about an individual and the po- tential misuse of such information. Not only is there a concern that this information could be abused by being shared with third parties, the very act of sharing this information with the dreamer could lead to discomfort and confusion. Because dreams can bring to the surface deeply personal, and at times negative, content, there is a potential risk of revealing information to the actual dreamer. These revelations might relate to repressed memories or even past traumas that, when revealed, significantly affect the well-being of the dreamer. A further D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 187 and related aspect of these concerns is the nature of dream interpreta- tion itself. Analyzing dreams often involves projecting certain mean- ings or interpretations onto the dreamer. Whether these projections are from a human or an AI, they can sometimes serve to confuse and mislead the dreamer. This leads to the risk of dreamers placing undue trust in the interpretations offered, treating them as absolute truths about their personal lives when in reality they can be wrong or reflective more of the inner world of the interpreter than that of the dreamer. In light of these considerations, we believe it is imperative to take several precautions into account. Firstly, we advocate the utmost discre- tion when handling any data related to a person’s dreams. Such data is deeply personal, private, and revealing. Any use or analysis of this data should prioritize the dreamer’s well-being and always take place with their informed consent. Dreamers should always be aware of the way their dreams are being used and analyzed and whether or not any third parties, even if they are AI systems, might be using or sharing such content. Sharing this data with such third parties, unless requi- site for transient processing needs and with the dreamer’s consent, is a breach of this trust. Secondly, we believe that dreamers interacting with AI-based dream analyses should be forewarned about the potential depths of information that might be revealed. Thus, dreamers interact- ing with AI-driven systems that mimic human intuition and insight should approach the experience with the same kind of caution that they would a more traditional psychoanalytical approach. Finally, to mitigate potential misinterpretations, projections, and undue trust in the AI-generated output, we recommend prefacing AI-generated dream interpretations and analyses with disclaimers and clarifying statements. Phrases such as “If this were my dream…” or “This dream might sug- gest…” emphasize the interpretative nature of the content and dissuade dreamers from considering it as definitive truth or advice. It goes with- out saying that it should always be clear which content is generated by humans and which by AI. Our articulation here not only encapsulates a philosophical stance but also delineates a professional approach. Whether engaged in dream research or the development of software applications providing insights P O L I G R A F I 188 into dreams, we ardently hope that we will witness a similar ethos adopted across the board by others in this domain. Conclusion Congratulations on completing what has, even in writing, felt like a wild ride through the uncharted worlds of technology and dreams! We hope that you walk away from this with a deeper understanding of both the capabilities of AI systems and the symbolic and meaningful world of our dreams. Today, as we have seen, AI systems can provide us with new insights not only into our own dreams but into dreaming as a whole, and in ways that could have a profound impact on our self- understanding and relationships. We are truly in the midst of a techno- logical—and maybe even spiritual—revolution and we are as excited as you are to see what the future holds. One possible future we envision is a world where every person who is so inclined will be able to have a personal AI assistant that can analyze their dreams and the patterns within them, tracking changes across time, and formulating all of these into helpful and digestible insights. These in- sights would help people to better understand the depth and complexity of their dreaming world, but would also show the profound and practical connections to their waking lives, making sense of their life journeys and relationships. These insights would not be definitive answers but would be formulated as thoughts, questions, and impressions. They would be starting points for further thought and discussion and would ideally be- come the basis of an ongoing dialogue with this AI system, but more importantly, with other people whether friends and partners, or thera- pists and analysts. If such a system is implemented well, it could serve to further the human endeavor and provide people with more meaning, insight, and ways to grow and connect with the people in their lives. At the same time, we also share many of your ethical concerns around the ingression of AI into our daily lives and the serious implica- tions that this has for so many of us. While the human-AI relationship is most often productive and beneficial, we admit that it can also be harmful and that there will always be the potential for such systems to be abused. This has been the case with the development of every new D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 189 technology, but we do not believe that these concerns should prevent us from moving forward. 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Appendix: Supporting AI Configurations Config 1 – Basic dream interpretation Prompt: Interpret the following dream. {dream text} --- Mode=Chat Model=GPT-4 Max Tokens=256 Temperature=0 Top N=1 Stop sequences=N/A Frequency Penalty=0 Presence Penalty=0 A quick breakdown of these settings is as follows: 1. Mode: The Chat mode allows one to use the fine-tuned and more conversational ChatGPT models. These are the preferred models for question-and-answer style conversations and can also be faster and more cost-effective. 2. Model: We used the GPT-4 model, which was the most recent at the time of this writing. The GPT-3.5 model is, however, much faster, more cost-effective, and entirely adequate. 3. Temperature: We set the temperature to 0 in all tests so that they would be reproducible as this setting eliminates random- ness from the resulting output. P O L I G R A F I 192 4. Top N/Penalties: These were all left at their default values as these are generally only relevant when working with the non- chat modes when generative AI is more likely to suffer from issues around repetition. Config 2 – Freudian dream interpretation Prompt: Interpret the following dream using a Freudian framework of dream analysis. {dream text} --- Max Tokens=400 Config 3 – Jungian dream interpretation Prompt: Interpret the following dream using a Jungian framework of dream analysis. Config 4 – Symbol interpretation (individual dream) Prompt: Interpret the symbol “Cat” in the following dream. Dream: {dream text} --- Model=gpt-3.5 Max Tokens=100 Temperature=0.5 Top N=1 Stop sequences=N/A Frequency Penalty=0 Presence Penalty=0 D R E A M I N G W I T H A I 193 Config 5 – Symbol interpretation (across journal) Prompt: Synthesize the following symbol interpretations for “Cat” into a cohe- sive picture of the dreamer’s relationship with the symbol. 01/01/2000 - The cat in the dream symbolizes the dreamer’s innate sense of freedom and creative expression. 03/07/2016 - The cat in this dream could represent the dreamer’s rela- tionship with his or herself and their fears relating to independence. --- Model=gpt-3.5 Max Tokens=600 Temperature=0.7 Top N=1 Stop sequences=N/A Frequency Penalty=0 Presence Penalty=0 Config 6 – Relationship analysis (individual dream) Prompt: What can you tell me about the above character “James” from my below dream? {dream text} Config 7 – Relationship analysis (across journal) Prompt: Synthesize the following character interpretations for “James” into a cohesive picture of the dreamer’s relationship with the character. 05/15/2022 - I was walking to the park when I saw James… 03/07/2021 - James and I met at the cafe, but they wouldn’t serve me a coffee saying that they were closing early... P O L I G R A F I 194 Config 8 – Relationship changes over time Prompt: Compare the two analyses below and write a summary noting the differences and similarities. Focus a bit more on the differences and help the reader understand what has changed. System: The assistant compares two analyses generated from a user’s dreams and helps them to understand how their dreams have changed over time. The analyses might be about various topics such as religious experiences, relationships to people in the dreamer’s life, or the dreamer’s emotions toward a person or place. Type: Relationship Analysis 1: {analysis text} Analysis 2: {analysis text} 195 N E W A P P R O A C H E S I N T H E E M P I R I C A L S T U D Y O F D R E A M S K e l l y B u l k e l e y Introduction Since the beginning of recorded history, humans have been seeking to understand the empirical patterns of meaning in their dreams. By “empirical,” we are speaking here of patterns that can be observed and identified in evidence that is available to everyone for review. There are many possible dimensions of meaning in dreams, but not all of them are available to everyone in this empirical sense. Some of these dimen- sions can only be accessed by the dreamer. Some only emerge from theoretical frameworks. And some require a detailed knowledge of the dreamer’s cultural and historical context to fully understand. There may be valid and valuable insights gained from each of these approaches, but they each have the drawback of being difficult to communicate, test, and verify. The task is finding a way to convey the basic findings of modern dream research to people who might know nothing about it, and indeed who might be skeptical that dreams have any actual sig- nificance at all. How can we provide clear, easily accessible empirical evidence in favor of the meaningfulness of dreaming? Answering this question is a central challenge for dream researchers in the twenty-first century. This paper offers one possible answer to that question, in the form of a new technological resource, the Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb) and its suite of tools for pursuing a genuinely empirical study of the meaningful patterns of dreaming. The paper will show how using the https://doi.org/10.35469/poligrafi.2023.412 Poligrafi, no. 109/110, vol. 28, 2023, pp. 195–220 P O L I G R A F I 196 tools of the SDDb, specifically the survey analysis and word search functions, can provide anyone with the resources to explore large col- lections of dreams, analyze them in different ways, and develop one’s own ideas and interpretations that can easily be tested, refined, and shared with others. To be clear, even more sophisticated dream analysis systems exist now and will be developed in the future. The goal of this paper is not to treat the SDDb as a singular phenomenon, but rather to use its tools as a means of providing readers with an initial orienta- tion to the new world of dream discovery that has opened up thanks to these kinds of technologies. The paper will close with reflections on the interplay of dreaming and technology. Background Several other researchers have been working in this direction for more than a century and the present paper builds on their methods, findings, and insights. Perhaps the earliest empirical dream researcher in the modern sense was Mary Whiton Calkins, whose 1893 paper “Statistics of Dreams” provided a detailed analysis of the most easily observable features of two dream series, one from herself and the other from one of her colleagues.1 Others who pursued the analysis of large collections of systematically gathered dreams include the anthropolo- gist Dorothy Eggan, who studied the dreams of the Hopi native people of the American Southwest;2 the psychologist Calvin Hall, who along with Robert Van de Castle created a widely-used coding system for the quantitative analysis of dreaming;3 and the social psychologist G. Wil- liam Domhoff, who with his colleague Adam Schneider, have carried Hall’s work into the digital resource of Dreambank.net.4 The SDDb 1 Mary Calkins, “Statistics of Dreams,” The American Journal of Psychology 5 (1893): 311–343. 2 Dorothy Eggan, “The Manifest Content of Dreams: A Challenge to Social Science,” Amer- ican Anthropologist 54 (1952): 469–485, https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1952.54.4.02a00020; Dorothy Eggan, “Dream Analysis,” in Studying Personality Cross-Culturally, ed. Bert Kaplan (Evanston: Row, Peterson and Co., 1961), 551–557. 3 Calvin Hall and Robert Van de Castle, The Content Analysis of Dreams (New York: Apple- ton-Century-Crofts, 1966). 4 George William Domhoff, Finding Meaning in Dreams: A Quantitative Approach (New York: Plenum, 1996); Inge Strauch and Barbara Meir, The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural N E W A P P R O A C H E S I N T H E E M P I R I C A L S T U D Y O F D R E A M S 197 derives much of its inspiration and guidance from the efforts of Dom- hoff and Schneider with the Dreambank. Also deserving mention in this realm are Inge Strauch and Barbara Meir, Ernest Hartmann, Har- ry Hunt, Rosalind Cartwright, Michael Schredl, James Pagel, Sophie Schwartz and Pierre Maquet, and Han and colleagues, all of whom have developed innovative methods of identifying empirical patterns and themes in dreams.5 Not high on this list are Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, the two giants of modern dream psychology.6 Freud did not dismiss empirical dream research per se (in the Interpretation of Dreams, he refers favora- bly to Calkins), but he built his ideas primarily on the foundations of clinical and cultural research data. Jung actively affirmed the value of studying dreams in a series to highlight the recurrent images, conflicts, and motifs. However, other than his examination of the dream series of Wolfgang Pauli, a famous physicist who came to him for treatment, Jung did not pursue this insight about the empirical patterns of dream content in any active way. And even in his study of Pauli’s dreams, Jung focuses on the exploration of archetypal symbolism, which can be compelling but does not include any quantitative analyses that might help to ground and clarify the qualitative interpretations. Freud and Networks, Cognitive Development, and Content Analysis (Washington: American Psychological Association, 2003). 5 Han et. al., “The cognitive social network in dreams: Transitivity, assortativity, and giant component proportion are monotonic,” Cognitive Science 40, no. 3 (2016): 671–696, https:// doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12244; Ernest Hartmann, Dreams and Nightmares: The Origin and Meaning of Dreams (New York: Basic Books, 2000); Harry Hunt, The Multiplicity of Dreams: Memory, Imagination, and Consciousness (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989); James Pagel, The Limits of Dream: A Scientific Exploration of the Mind/Brain Interface (New York: Academic Press, 2010); Michael Schredl, “Dream Recall: Models and Empirical Data,” in The New Science of Dreaming, Vol. II, eds. Patrick McNamara and Deirdre Barrett (Westport: Praeger, 2007), 79–114; Sophie Schwartz and Pierre Maquet, “Sleep imaging and the neuro-psychological as- sessment of dreams,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 6, no. 1 (January 2002): 23–30, https://doi. org/10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01818-0; Inge Strauch and Barbara Meir, In Search of Dreams: Results of Experimental Dream Research (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1996); Rosalind Cartwright, The 24-Hour Mind: The Role of Sleep and Dreaming in Our Emo- tional Lives (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). 6 Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, trans. James Strachey (New York: Avon Books, 1965); Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams: Notes from the Seminar Given in 1936–1940, trans. Ernst Falzeder and Tony Woolfson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). P O L I G R A F I 198 Jung’s general theories of dreaming are always worth keeping in mind, and perhaps in future developments of the technologies discussed here, it will be possible to integrate their ideas into a kind of hybrid or “cen- taur” model of dream interpretation. We will return to this topic in the conclusion. Overview of the SDDb The Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb) is a digital archive designed to promote an empirical, hands-on approach to dream research. The SDDb enables users to apply the basic tools of data analysis to identify meaningful dimensions of dreaming experience. The goal of the SDDb is not to replace other modes of dream interpretation, but rather to complement and enrich them with new insights into the recurrent pat- terns of dream content. Anyone who studies dreams, from whatever perspective and for whatever purpose, can benefit from knowing more about these basic patterns. As noted above, the SDDb is not the only online resource for this kind of approach to the study of dreams. The Dreambank.net website run by G. William Domhoff and Adam Sch- neider also has a large online collection of dream reports gathered by various researchers that can be searched and analyzed in many ways. The future will likely witness the development of many other online databases with valuable collections of dream material. The focus here is on the SDDb, but the following discussion highlights important methodological principles that apply to all forms of digitally-enhanced dream research. The SDDb currently contains more than 30,000 dream reports of various types from a wide range of people. Some of the reports come from individuals who have kept a dream journal for many years. Some of the reports come from participants in surveys and questionnaires. Some come from studies by other researchers who have generously shared their data with me. The SDDb also includes dream reports from anthropological studies, historical texts, literary sources, and media in- terviews. (The database does not, however, contain dream reports that users have entered directly through an online portal. That feature awaits future development.) N E W A P P R O A C H E S I N T H E E M P I R I C A L S T U D Y O F D R E A M S 199 In addition to dream reports, the SDDb also includes the answers given by survey participants to a variety of questions about their sleep and dreaming, for example how often they remember their dreams, how often they experience insomnia, have they ever had a dream of fly- ing or lucid dreaming, etc. The data also includes people’s responses to various demographic questions about their gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, religious practices, political beliefs, etc. This combination of a large number of narrative dream reports plus a large amount of quantitative survey data makes the SDDb an espe- cially deep and varied resource for the study of dreaming. The SDDb offers two basic functions for exploring this material. One, “Survey Analysis,” enables you to compare answers to questions posed on a survey or questionnaire. For example, you can create a sta- tistical table to compare the dream recall frequencies of people from different age groups, or the insomnia frequencies of people with differ- ent political views, or the occurrence of lucid dreams among men and women. The other function, “Word Searching,” enables you to sift through large numbers of dreams for particular words and phrases. You can search the dreams by choosing your own word strings, or you can use the built-in word search templates to search for typical categories of dream content. This function allows you, for example, to search a set of dreams for all references to water, or colors, or emotions, or the names of famous people or places. Methodology The development of the SDDb began in the early 2000s in consul- tation with G. William Domhoff and Adam Schneider, who helped me understand how to use their Dreambank.net website. With their encouragement, I started designing a new, complementary database that would 1) include both dream reports and survey data, 2) allow for the easy use of built-in word search templates, and 3) have enough flexibility to enable a wide range of searches and analyses. In 2009 I worked with Kurt Bollacker, a software designer and engineer from San Francisco with expertise in digital archiving practices, to build the P O L I G R A F I 200 first version of the database. In 2014, I began working with Graybox, a web technology company in Portland, to expand the scope of the SDDb and improve its user interface. A major upgrade of the database was completed by Graybox in the spring of 2020. Since then, the team behind the Elsewhere.to dream journaling app has been managing the database and helping to prepare for another upgrade, which is sched- uled to come online in early 2024. The word search function of the SDDb has many advantages as a mode of dream research: speed, transparency, replicability, flexibility, and the power to analyze very large quantities of material. The process is fairly easy to learn and sites like the SDDb and Dreambank.net pro- vide free and open access for users to engage in their own study projects aided by these new digital tools. This approach has several disadvantages, too. They include deem- phasizing the qualitative aspects of dreaming, overemphasizing the measurability of dream content, and leaving open the key question of how to connect the numerical frequencies of word usage to the waking life concerns of the dreamer. These disadvantages can be diminished by using quantitative anal- ysis as one method among others in a multidisciplinary approach to dreams. There is no reason in principle why word search methods can- not work in coordination with other methods using qualitative insights and evaluations. Indeed, I would argue the future prosperity of dream research depends on developing better interdisciplinary models for in- tegrating the results of multiple methods of study. The users of the SDDb can help make progress in creating these models. To address the challenge of how to connect the word usage frequen- cies with relevant aspects of the dreamer’s life, two principles should be kept in mind. These principles suggest paths for exploring the poten- tially meaningful connections between the dream and the individual’s waking situation. One principle is the continuity hypothesis: the relative frequency with which something appears in a person’s dream could be a reflection of its importance as a meaningful concern in the person’s waking life. In other words, the more often something (a character, setting, or activ- ity) shows up in dreams, the more emotionally important it’s likely to N E W A P P R O A C H E S I N T H E E M P I R I C A L S T U D Y O F D R E A M S 201 be in waking life. To be clear, the continuity does not need to be literal or physical; it’s more what people care and think about in their waking lives. As an example, one of the dream series in the SDDb comes from “Bea,” a young woman whose anxious, sad dreams were continuous not with her actual life, which was quite safe at the time, but with her wor- ries about possible bad things that might happen to her family or to the students in her care as a dormitory resident assistant. The other principle is the discontinuity hypothesis: infrequent and anomalous elements of dream content can be spontaneous expressions of playful imagination, occurring at any point in life but especially in times of crisis, change, or transition. Something that appears very rarely and is dramatically discontinuous with typical patterns of dream con- tent can reflect the mind’s concerted effort to go beyond what is to imagine what might be. A Closer Look: Survey Analysis The Survey Analysis function allows you to compare the answers that different groups of people give to questions about their sleep and dreams. This tool lets you create statistical tables that focus on whatever demographic variables you want to study. The SDDb currently includes results from twelve different surveys that I designed and commissioned to study sleep and dream patterns among contemporary Americans. (The number of surveys in the SDDb and the layout of the menus will likely change in the future, but the ba- sic analytical process will remain the same for users.) The field research for these surveys was conducted by a number of different opinion re- search companies (Zogby Interactive, Harris Interactive, and YouGov), all but one of which administered the surveys online (one, via Quinlan Greenberg Rosner, was performed by random-digit telephone dialing). More surveys will be added to the database, but this initial collection includes responses from more than 30,000 participants. All of the sur- veys include responses to questions about demographics (age, gender, region of residence, etc.) along with questions about sleep and dreams (the frequency of insomnia, dream recall, sharing dreams with others, etc.). Most of the surveys also include questions asking for a narrative P O L I G R A F I 202 report of a dream (e.g., a lucid dream, a nightmare, or a highly memo- rable dream), and many of the surveys include demographic questions about religion and politics. Here is an example of the kind of inquiry that can be easily per- formed using the SDDb. (Note: future upgrades of the database may change some of the labels and analytic sequences described in this paper, but the basic processes will remain the same.) Let’s start with the two most important variables that have been studied in relation to dream recall, namely gender and age. How do a person’s gender and age correlate with the frequency of their dream recall? We can gain helpful empirical insights into that question through the following analyses. First, we choose one of the surveys available for study in the Survey Analysis page’s menu. Several surveys could serve as examples; let’s look at the 2015 Demographic Survey, which includes responses from 2,303 participants. Then we choose the questions of comparison. If we make a table comparing people’s answers to questions of gender and dream recall, we find that women remember slightly more dreams than men. Summariz- ing the results and rounding to the nearest whole number, 56% of the women remembered a dream once a week or more often, compared to 52% of the men who remembered their dreams this often. Next, we will try a new analysis with the same survey, comparing people’s age to their dream recall. For this analysis, we use the variable “Age Group D,” which divides the participants into three age groupings (18-34, 35-54, and 55+). The results show that younger people remem- ber dreams much more frequently than older people. For the youngest age group, 64% reported remembering their dreams once a week or more, while 54% of the middle age group and 49% of the oldest age group said they remembered their dreams this often. The SDDb enables users to pursue the analysis further than this. We might wonder whether men and women remember their dreams with similar frequencies at the same ages? Do young men remember more dreams than old men, and young women more than old women? This kind of analysis can be performed by using the constraints fea- ture. After choosing to make a table comparing the questions for Age N E W A P P R O A C H E S I N T H E E M P I R I C A L S T U D Y O F D R E A M S 203 Group D and dream recall, we can add a constraint by selecting the gender question and choosing either male or female participants. By doing this, we filter the analysis so we only see the results for that spe- cific subset of participants. Starting with the males as a constraint, we find that the 18-34 group does not have significantly more dream recall than the 55+ group (55% vs. 51%). But when we use the females as a constraint, the results differ more dramatically, with 69% of the 18-34 group remembering their dreams once a week or more, while only 47% of the 55+ remembered their dreams that often. These results can be taken as evidence that men’s dream recall fre- quency is more consistent over the life span, and women’s recall fre- quency is more variable, with an especially high rate in early life and a considerable drop-off thereafter. This example has shown that with nothing more than a few com- puter clicks, we are able to identify an intriguing pattern in dream recall frequencies among men and women of different ages. We have to be careful, however, because even though a sizable number of people par- ticipated in this survey, their answers may not be representative of all of humankind, so we should not overgeneralize about the significance of such results. I believe it is vital to remain humble in this kind of research, in recognition of the wide variability of dreaming experience among the general human population. To determine whether this pattern is only true of the participants in this survey or applies to other people as well, we could try a similar search process using other surveys in the SDDb. We could also look at age and gender variations in relation to other demographic categories like race/ethnicity, education, income, religious activities, and political views. There may be other variables at play that need to be considered before reaching any settled conclusions. The Survey Analysis function can be applied to the study of a wide range of topics, with the capacity for even more finely-grained inves- tigations. For example, if you wanted to compare the dream recall fre- quencies of younger versus older women, all of whom who graduated from four-year colleges, describe themselves as politically conservative, and live in the American south, you could create a table using those var- iables and constraints and learn that 67% of the younger women with P O L I G R A F I 204 all these attributes remember their dreams once a week or more, while only 14% of the older women remember their dreams that frequently. Of course, using more constraints in an analysis leads to a smaller number of participants who fit the criteria, making the statistical fre- quencies of the results shakier and more subject to chance. (In the com- parison above, there were only 6 women in the younger group and 7 in the older group.) Here, as elsewhere, caution and modesty are advised when drawing appropriate conclusions from the results of your analyses. A Closer Look: Word Searching The Word Searching function has even greater range and flexibil- ity than the Survey Analysis function. This function enables you to sift through large numbers of dream reports for particular words and phrases. The SDDb automatically calculates the percentage of dreams in which the selected word or phrase appears at least once. This percent- age allows users to compare patterns of word usage in various kinds of dreams from various kinds of people. The Word Searching process begins with the selection of a source of dream reports. The SDDb contains reports from many different sources, including personal journals, questionnaires, psychology experi- ments, anthropological studies, and media interviews, among others. The first choice to make when using this function is which dreams to explore. As a simple introductory demonstration, let’s just select “All Surveys,” which will draw on all the sources in the SDDb. Next we choose a filter, which is optional but allows for more focused results. Again, to keep it simple, we can choose “males” from the filter menu for the “gender” question. Next is a choice of the type of dream report to be searched. The dreams in the SDDb have been provided in response to several kinds of questions. Examples include: What is your most recent dream? What is your most memorable dream? What is your worst nightmare? Have you ever had a visitation dream (in which someone who is dead appears as if alive)? Each different type of dream has special qualities and is worthy of detailed study, which the SDDb makes relatively easy to do. For this N E W A P P R O A C H E S I N T H E E M P I R I C A L S T U D Y O F D R E A M S 205 initial search, we can select “Most Recent Dream” as the type of dream text. The next step is an important one, regarding the length of the dream reports to be searched. The SDDb allows users to set a minimum and maximum word length for the dream reports to be searched. For most kinds of study, this feature is highly recommended. Some of the re- sponses in the SDDb are not dreams per se – they may be people saying “I don’t know,” or “Can’t remember,” or sometimes colorful rebukes for my audacity in asking the question! Rather than removing those responses, I usually screen them out by choosing a minimum word length, usually 10 or 25 words. This means the search will not include many genuine dream reports of shorter length. For some studies, that might be a drawback; not in ours, which I’m setting at a minimum length of 25 words and a maximum of 300 words. Then comes the last step, choosing the word or words to search for in the set of dreams we have just defined. The easiest way to get inter- esting results is to use the SDDb templates for word searching. The 2.0 version has 40 categories of content grouped into eight classes of dream content: - Perception - Vision - Hearing - Touch - Smell/Taste - Colors - Emotion - Fear - Anger - Sadness - Wonder/Confusion - Happiness - Cognition - Thought - Speech - Reading & Writing - Natural Elements P O L I G R A F I 206 - Fire - Air - Water - Earth - Movement - Walking & Running - Flying - Falling - Death - Characters - Family - Animals - Fantastic Beings - Male References - Female References - Social Interactions - Friendliness - Physical Aggression - Sexual - Culture - Architecture - Food & Drink - Clothing - Work & Money - Technology & Science - School - Transportation - Sports - Religion - Art - Weapons Each of the 40 categories comprises dozens of words relating to that topic. These categories are not drawn from a generic coding scheme unrelated to dream research, but have been developed over time as a direct continuation of the system of the empirical study of dream con- tent devised by Calvin Hall and Robert Van de Castle and refined by N E W A P P R O A C H E S I N T H E E M P I R I C A L S T U D Y O F D R E A M S 207 G. William Domhoff and Adam Schneider.7 In this way, the SDDb templates provide an approach to digital dream research that is back- ward-compatible with pre-digital methods of study. I believe this is a key methodological principle: as we move into the technologically en- hanced future of studying dreams, we should make sure we can inte- grate new findings with the hard-won knowledge of the past. An Illustration: The Emotion of Fear From the 2.0 template menu, let’s select one of the emotions, the category “Fear,” and hit the “Search” button. In the version of the da- tabase available as I write, the results page shows 1,667 dream reports that fit the search criteria (from males in all sources, in the most recent dream texts of 25–300 words in length), of which 266 have at least one reference to a word in the “Fear” category, a total of 16%. The left column on the Results page shows the frequency of usage for each of the words in the category. In this case, the four most used words in these dreams were scared, afraid, fear, and frightened. In the right column are the dream reports themselves, with the word(s) from the selected category highlighted. To be clear, these results show every use of the words in the selected category. The results may include references to fear that have nothing to do with the dreamer’s emotional state. The results may include uses of the term that are metaphorical, or fictional, or incidental. (If desired, users can perform an additional screening process to remove dream re- ports from the search that are judged to be irrelevant to the primary search.) For a general inquiry like this one, we can take the unfiltered results as a rough measure of the incidence of fear in men’s dreams. To take the process a step further, we can perform the same search while changing the filter from “male” to “female.” Here, the results page shows that out 7 Hall and Van de Castle, The Content Analysis of Dreams; George William Domhoff and Adam Schneider, “Studying Dream Content Using the Archive and Search Engine on Dream- Bank.net,” Consciousness and Cognition 17 (2008): 1238–1247, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.con- cog.2008.06.010. P O L I G R A F I 208 of the 1,984 dream reports that fit the search criteria (from females in all sources, in the most recent dream texts of 25–300 words in length), 437 have at least one reference to a word in the “Fear” category, a to- tal of 22%. The four most used words from the category were scared, afraid, upset, and fear. These findings can be taken as evidence suggesting that women’s dreams have considerably more references to fear than men’s dreams. However, as with all studies using the tools of the SDDb, care is needed in the interpretation of the results of any given word search. Many more studies would have to be performed, and other research findings con- sulted, before making a firm statement about a broad topic like fear in men’s and women’s dreams. The findings of one search often lead to new questions requiring new searches. For instance, we can extend this line of inquiry by asking if the gender difference in fear references also appears in children’s dreams. The SDDb includes a set of dreams gathered from children aged 8 to 18 via an online survey administered by Harris Interactive in 2011. The participants were asked to describe their “most memorable” dreams, which are different from the most recent dreams in favoring unusual and emotionally intense types of dream content. The comparison is not perfect, but in this inquiry, we are exploring a general trend and we can refine the analysis at later stages if desired. Using the same search parameters (reports of 25–300 words in length), the results show that for the boys, 37 of the 205 dream reports, or 18%, contained at least one reference to fear, with the four most used words being scared, nervous, afraid, and scare. For the girls, 80 of the 372 dreams, or 22%, contained at least one reference to fear, with the four most used words being scared, terrified, afraid, and fear. This is still a difference, though not as big as with the most recent adult dreams. An Illustration: Nan’s Journal This line of investigation could continue from this point in any of several different directions. But let’s turn to a different kind of word search strategy, one that can yield more personally relevant kinds of insights. The SDDb includes several lengthy series of dreams from in- N E W A P P R O A C H E S I N T H E E M P I R I C A L S T U D Y O F D R E A M S 209 dividuals who recorded their dreams on a regular basis for an extended period of time, in some cases covering many years. The study of the patterns in these dream reports can often lead to the discovery (guided by the continuity and discontinuity hypotheses) of meaningful con- nections between the dreams and the individual’s waking life concerns. To illustrate how this kind of search process works, let’s select “Nan Journal 2001–2002” from the menu. Clicking the search button at this point will show all 26 dream reports in her series, which range in length from 12 to 397 words, with a median length of 116 (meaning that half the dreams are longer than, and half the dreams are shorter than, 116 words). This is one of the shortest series in the SDDb, but it is a good one for quickly illustrating what can be learned using word search methods. Nan (not her real name) kept a journal of her dreams for the six months she spent in a hospital following a near-fatal car crash. You would not know this from the dreams themselves, which never refer directly to the crash. This highlights a crucial finding of dream research: the patterns of dream content reflect people’s waking concerns, not nec- essarily their waking activities or behavior. She did not dream about the car crash, but about the emotional and interpersonal implications of the crash. In Nan’s case, her dreams indicate that she definitely did feel strong concerns at this time, in a mostly negative direction. Of her 26 dreams, 8 of them (31%) have at least one reference to fear. There are also five references to death (19%), six to physical aggression (23%), and none to happiness. These frequencies accurately reflect the frightened and vulnerable quality of Nan’s feelings in waking life. Looking more closely at the characters in her dreams, a man named Phil appears in 6 of the dreams (23%), more than any other character in the series. Following the continuity hypothesis, we can infer that Phil is a person of great concern to her, and this turns out to be true. Phil is Nan’s ex-husband. She divorced him ten years earlier, after which she started an independent career as an art teacher. After the accident, she recuperated in a hospital ward with several other women, all much older than her and all of whom had severe mobility problems. The sad plight of these women stoked Nan’s fears and raised the darkest concern P O L I G R A F I 210 in her life: she might have to return to Phil and become reliant on him again. Her dreams accurately reflected her strongly negative feelings about the possibility of Phil becoming more of a presence in her wak- ing life again. Nan’s waking life interests in art are also reflected in her dreams, and one dream in particular had an especially strong psychological impact on her. This dream features a magical paintbrush painting a beautiful rainbow pattern on the walls of her childhood home. It is the only dream in the series with so many colors, the only one with a magical object, and one of only two dreams in which something is described as “beautiful.” Following the discontinuity hypothesis, we can infer that an unusually creative and playful dream like this would prompt Nan to think beyond what is to imagine what might be, and that does seem to have been the case. She told me that she regarded this dream as a reas- suring sign of hope and healing in her long, dark road to physical and mental recovery. Like the first green shoots of spring, Nan’s “bizarre” dream of the magical paintbrush heralded the eventual return of color, beauty, and creative vitality to her waking life. Other series in the SDDb have many more dreams covering much longer periods of time. As a general principle, the longer the series of dreams, the stronger the results of analyzing those dreams. Although even a short series like Nan’s can yield valuable findings, the potential for meaningful insights and discoveries is greatest with a long series of dreams. The Role of Baselines Regardless of the length of the series, the analysis will be limited to the given individual’s dreams. For example, in Nan’s dreams discussed above, five of her twenty-six dreams, or 19%, included a reference to death. In light of her recent and nearly fatal automobile accident, it makes psychological sense that Nan’s dreams would include references to death. But what can we say about that figure of 19%? Among people in general, is that a high or a low frequency of references to death in dreams, or about average? N E W A P P R O A C H E S I N T H E E M P I R I C A L S T U D Y O F D R E A M S 211 If we only have the individual’s dreams to analyze, there is no way to answer such a question. What is required is a means of comparison with other people’s dreams that have also been analyzed in the exact same manner. For many years, dream researchers have used the Hall and Van de Castle (HVDC) Norm Dreams in this way, as a tool for comparing the empirical patterns of content in one person’s dreams with the patterns of a large group of people. In recent years, the SDDb has provided a set of Baseline Dreams that include the HVDC Norm Dreams plus several thousand additional dreams from a wider and more diverse range of peo- ple. The SDDb provides the ability to compare the word search results of any set of dreams with the Baselines. Thus, we can quickly determine that Nan’s frequency of death-related dreams, 19%, is indeed unusually high, as only 6% of the Baseline Dreams include at least one reference to death. As this example suggests, the findings of word search analyses can often be prefigured by close reading and qualitative analysis. The claim here is not that word search methods reveal radically new dimensions of dreaming (although that may be the case someday). Rather, the claim in this paper is that word search methods, in tandem with a compara- tive resource like the Baselines, can provide results that are fast, reliable, easily shared, and easily verified. If properly used, this approach can support and enhance other methods of dream research by giving them a stronger empirical foundation than they would otherwise have. Return- ing to Nan’s case once more, we can recognize the prominence of death by reading through the texts of her dreams, but the word search results, enhanced by the comparison with the Baselines, make that unusual feature of her dreams more distinct for others to observe and appreci- ate. You can now confidently assert that Nan’s dreams have an unusu- ally high proportion of dreams referring to death, not just because you personally read the dreams and believe this, but because an empirical method of dream analysis found it to be true. Nobody needs to take your word for it. If anyone doubts your claims, you can show them how to perform the same word search analysis in the SDDb, which will lead them to the same results. The current version of the SDDb Baseline Dreams includes more than five thousand dreams, gathered by researchers using systematic methods. The dreamers do not represent a perfect sample of human- P O L I G R A F I 212 ity, but they do reflect various kinds of diversity, including age, gender, nationality, educational background, and time of dreaming (from the 1940s to 2000s). Future versions of the Baselines will continue to ex- pand in size and diversity, and it can be expected that other measuring systems will emerge, too. This will be a positive development as long as the new systems maintain a capacity for “backward compatibility,” meaning a relationship with previous approaches to the empirical study of dreams. The SDDb Baselines, for example, are designed in such a way that many of the findings can easily be compared with the results of older, pre-digital-era research studies. In this way, the valuable findings of previous researchers are not lost in the rush of new technologies. By combining the best findings of the past with the best empirical research tools of the present, we will stimulate the greatest advances in the future understanding of human dreaming. Notable Findings Even at this stage of the research, several basic findings can be shared. Future research will surely revise these propositions, but the empirical evidence so far points strongly in the following directions. - Perception: Vision is the most frequently mentioned sense in dreams; hearing and touch are mentioned much less often, and smell and taste are relatively rare. - Color: White, black, and red are the most frequently mentioned colors. - Gravity: Falling dreams outnumber flying dreams. - Emotions: Fear is the most frequently mentioned emotion, more than happiness, sadness, or anger. - Friendly social interactions are more frequent than physically ag- gressive social interactions. - Gender: Male characters and pronouns are mentioned more fre- quently than female characters and pronouns. - Women’s dreams: Compared to men, women’s dreams have more references to fear, family, and friendliness. - Men’s dreams: Compared to women, men’s dreams have more ref- erences to physical aggression, transportation, and money/work. N E W A P P R O A C H E S I N T H E E M P I R I C A L S T U D Y O F D R E A M S 213 These findings derive from the SDDb Baselines and their use with numerous collections of dreams. There are exceptions to all of the above findings, but the overall trends seem quite strong and widespread across diverse populations. To be clear, this approach does not directly answer the question of whether these tendencies of dream content reflect innate features of the human brain/mind system or if they stem from the social and cultural influences of a specific historical moment. We do not know if nature or nurture plays a bigger role in shaping these oneiric patterns. Both factors clearly have an impact on dreaming, and yet we cannot say for sure how they interact in the context of particular dreams. Blind Analysis This may seem like a boundary situation for digital dream research, which thrives on the analysis of large collections but becomes unwieldy when applied to individual dreams. However, what appears as a limi- tation actually marks one of the greatest opportunities for innovative research in this field. The word search method, enhanced by the Base- lines, provides an unprecedented ability to identify the most common themes and patterns in a set of dreams. By the same token, this method also provides the ability to identify the most unusual dreams in the set, the dreams that most dramatically deviate from the average con- tents of the other dreams. The ability to measure in precise terms what makes extraordinary dreams so extraordinary is a boon for qualitative research on anomalies and singularities in dreaming, e.g. using Jung’s concept of “big dreams.” Here again, the word search method adds a high degree of empirical support and statistical precision to findings that may have been originally generated through close reading or clini- cal practice. Back to Nan: she identified one of her dreams as having special meaning and healing power for her, a dream she titled “Ziggy Paints My Room.” Interestingly, a word search analysis shows that this dream is unique in her series in having chromatic colors, positive emo- tions, and a magical object. This illustrates the larger point about the two different but complementary ways in which word search results can be used: to identify large-scale patterns, and to observe unusual and unique phenomena. P O L I G R A F I 214 A series of experiments I conducted with G. William Domhoff ex- plored these twin uses of the word search method. The experiments involved what we called “blind analysis,” meaning an analysis that pro- ceeded purely on the basis of statistical patterns in the dream reports, without any additional input from the dreamer and without even read- ing the narrative texts of the dreams. The process generally had the fol- lowing steps. Domhoff would approach me with a new series of dreams from someone unknown to me. After establishing a mutual agreement with the dreamer, Domhoff sent me the dream reports, which I im- mediately uploaded into the SDDb. Once there, I performed a word search analysis using a template of forty categories of content and com- pared the results to the Baselines. In this way, I was able to identify several kinds of recurrent patterns and themes. I could also identify several specific, measurable ways in which the dreams differed from the Baselines. Drawing these observations together, I prepared a list of inferences about the dreamer’s waking life concerns and activities. For example, if the person had an unusually high frequency of animals in their dreams, I would infer that animals are important in their waking life. If their dreams had no references to school, I would infer that they are not currently a student or teacher. After compiling this list, I sent the inferences to Domhoff, who forwarded them to the dreamer. The dreamer was then invited to respond to the inferences, confirming or disconfirming them and adding any relevant context. Domhoff sent me the responses, and at this point the veil of anonymity was lifted and we had an open discussion about the dreams, their empirical patterns of meaning, and the accuracy of the inferences. Recently I reviewed the results of fifteen of these blind analysis ex- periments, conducted over several years, not all of which have been published yet. A more complete meta-analysis of the results will be forthcoming, but at this stage, it can be reported that a total of 167 inferences were made in the fifteen studies, and the dreamers con- firmed 143 (86%) of them as accurate, 11 (7%) as partly accurate, and 13 (8%) as inaccurate. Several points can be noted about these results. One, the high accuracy rate is not due to my personal skill as a dream interpreter, but to the empirical patterns revealed by the word search analysis. All I did was translate the most significant statistical results N E W A P P R O A C H E S I N T H E E M P I R I C A L S T U D Y O F D R E A M S 215 into specific inferences. Two, in many of the studies, it was the incor- rect inferences that provided the most helpful insights about improving the word search method. Learning which inferences failed in one study enabled us to avoid making similar mistakes in subsequent studies. And three, in light of the value of incorrect inferences, the high accuracy rate should perhaps not be seen as a badge of honor but as a sign that the inferences are insufficiently bold and innovative. Making more mistakes might be the best way to tease out new dimensions of meaning. Strongest Signals of Meaning Several of the inferences revolved around specific areas of the dream- er’s waking life, some of which are obvious in their relevance, while others are more subtle in how they relate to the individual’s daily con- cerns and activities. The relatively high accuracy of these inferences jus- tifies an attempt to provide a more generalized framework in which to categorize and interpret these findings. This provisional framework inevitably includes my own qualitative reflections on the dreams, which means that it will be shaped according to my personal and professional biases. However, the framework can still be grounded in empirical re- search and revisable in the light of new findings, so these factors need not become insurmountable obstacles to objective knowledge. If, using a metaphor from data science, we think of dream content in terms of a varying ratio of signal and noise, the following are the three strongest signals of meaning as revealed by the blind analysis studies: The Self, Relationships, and Culture. The category of Self, as I am using it here, includes the accurate inferences involving gender (male or female; little research has been done on people with non-binary gender identities); professional or public identity, such as student, musician, or journalist; concerns about health, both physical and mental; personality characteristics such as so- ciability and emotional expressiveness; and concerns about death and dying. These self-oriented dream themes can be interpreted as elements of the individual’s basic psychological nature and ongoing experience. The category of Relationships includes some of the strongest signals of meaning yet identified using the blind analysis method. In other P O L I G R A F I 216 words, the word search results combined with the Baselines enable an especially clear view of the dreamer’s most important relationships in waking life. References in dreams to family members and friends can be remarkably accurate indicators of their personal significance for the dreamer. To be clear, the relationship can be positive or negative, and the person can be present or far away; what matters is their emotional connection. The same is true of animals. To put it crudely but accu- rately, cat people tend to dream more of cats, and dog people tend to dream more of dogs. The category of Culture includes a broad array of references to the collective world. The aspects of culture that seem to make the most discernible impact on dream content are reading and writing, school, sports, artistic interests, and religious/spiritual interests. For each of these topics, the Baseline frequencies are relatively low. It seems that among the general population, people do not often dream of art, for example, or reading and writing. This is helpful for empirically-minded researchers, because it suggests that when a dream series has a relatively high frequency on one of these cultural topics, there is likely to be a genuine connection with something important and meaningful in the dreamer’s waking life. Hence the accuracy of many of the inferences in my blind analysis studies that focused on the dreamer’s cultural con- cerns and activities. Future Horizons The future for research in this realm will be limited only by the in- vestigators’ imaginations—and by the consensus on ethical guidelines for digitally-enhanced dream research, which does not yet exist but must be developed soon. Some of the applications of these technolo- gies could be turned toward abusive ends, and at a minimum, the re- search community should state its shared principles about the ethical issues at stake in this area of rapidly advancing knowledge. The goal is not to impose a top-down regime of morality, but rather to heighten everyone’s awareness of both the benefits and the dangers emerging here. Anything that can reveal so much accurate psychological infor- mation about a person is worthy of a) great excitement and further N E W A P P R O A C H E S I N T H E E M P I R I C A L S T U D Y O F D R E A M S 217 exploration, and also b) great caution and attention to personal pri- vacy and dignity. With this heightened ethical sensitivity in mind, the following top- ics for future research can be offered as having especially great potential for new insight and understanding. All of these involve the application of currently available resources toward a focused area of inquiry. 1. The general categories of Self, Relationships, and Culture can each be studied in more detail, with larger and more diverse groups of dreamers. The blind analysis experiments described above are suggestive but not exhaustive. There are certainly more, and perhaps many more, signals of empirical meaning in dreams. Tools of big data analysis are making it more feasible than ever to identify these signals. Especially if we can develop our analytical technologies with truly cross-cultural capacities, our empirical knowledge about the nature and functions of dreaming will become much stronger. 2. An especially promising area for new research involves the prac- tical application of these technologies in the treatment of peo- ple with various kinds of mental and physical maladies. As a resource in caregiving and healing practice, dreams have several advantages: they are free, plentiful, universally accessible, and now quite easy to analyze for useful psychological information. New technologies of dream analysis can be developed into thera- peutic allies, providing fast and accurate insights that are directly related to the client’s unique experiences and emotional con- cerns. 3. The strong signals involving religion and spirituality are espe- cially suggestive. For many people, religion and spirituality refer to a realm of special meaning, truth, and existential self-under- standing. This adds significance to the empirical finding that dream content accurately reflects people’s concerns in this area. Further research can build on this finding by exploring a) the types of dream content that seem most associated with religion and spirituality, b) the types of dreamers who seem most likely to experience such dreams, and c) the cultural/historical con- texts in which such dreams seem most likely to occur. P O L I G R A F I 218 4. All of the studies mentioned above will be enhanced by the de- velopment of new Baselines with an even larger and more di- verse collection of systematically gathered dreams. The current Baselines available in the SDDb are useful, but new research will be able to determine the basic frequencies of common types of dream content with even more precision. Looking ahead, we can anticipate that, once a certain number of dreams have been gath- ered—let’s call them the Ultra-Baselines—the same stable set of basic frequencies will always appear, and adding more dreams to the analysis will not change the frequencies. For instance, if the number of dreams required for a stable set of Baselines turns out to be 10,000, it means that for all numbers higher than this, the basic frequencies of dream content will remain the same. This is an empirical question that new research will presumably be able to answer. 5. In the realm of art and entertainment, the empirical findings presented here could provide the deep architectural blueprint for the development of a virtual reality (VR) dream world. The frequencies of dream content from the Baselines can be seen as constituting a detailed portrait of what an “average” dream space might look and feel like. Such a portrait could be a valuable resource for developers and engineers interested in creating VR simulations of dreaming. The value could be both positive and negative, suggesting elements to include to make a VR dream space feel more authentically dream-like (e.g., more family and friends, falling, and friendliness) and elements to avoid because they tend not to be qualities of genuine dreaming experience (e.g., bright colors, magical creatures). Conclusion Those of us who study dreams are fortunate to be working in the field today. All the elements are coming together to create a prosperous future for empirically-grounded dream research. These elements include the increasing availability of powerful tools of analysis, large collections of dream data, and a century’s worth of psychological theorizing to pro- N E W A P P R O A C H E S I N T H E E M P I R I C A L S T U D Y O F D R E A M S 219 vide testable hypotheses. The tools will surely become stronger and the dream collections larger, but a challenge will be expanding the range of hypotheses beyond modern Western psychology to include ideas about dreams from other cultures and periods of history. This might seem to lead in non-empirical, non-scientific directions, but the opposite is ac- tually the case. I would emphasize the cardinal fact, supported by both historical and scientific research, that dreaming is a pan-species experi- ence of humankind. We are a dreaming species. As such, an empirical approach to the study of dreaming can hardly limit itself a priori to the ideas of one culture during one period of history. The future study of dreaming will grow more vigorously to the extent that it seeks detailed empirical testing of all conceptions of how dreams are formed, what functions they serve, and how to interpret their meanings. B i b l i o g r a p h y Calkins, Mary. “Statistics of Dreams.” The American Journal of Psychology 5 (1893): 311–343. Cartwright, Rosalind. The 24-Hour Mind: The Role of Sleep and Dreaming in Our Emotional Lives. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Domhoff, George William, and Adam Schneider. “Studying Dream Content Using the Archive and Search Engine on DreamBank.net.” Consciousness and Cognition 17 (2008): 1238–1247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2008.06.010. Domhoff, G. William. Finding Meaning in Dreams: A Quantitative Approach. New York: Plenum, 1996. Eggan, Dorothy. “Dream Analysis.” In Studying Personality Cross-Culturally, edited by Bert Kaplan, 551–557. Evanston: Row, Peterson and Co., 1961. Eggan, Dorothy. “The Manifest Content of Dreams: A Challenge to Social Science.” American Anthropologist 54 (1952): 469–485. https://doi.org/10.1525/ aa.1952.54.4.02a00020. Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Translated by James Strachey. New York: Avon Books, 1965. Hall, Calvin, and Robert Van de Castle. The Content Analysis of Dreams. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966. Han, Hye Joo, Richard Schweickert, Zhuangzhuang Xi, and Charles Viau‐ Quesnel. “The cognitive social network in dreams: Transitivity, assortativity, and P O L I G R A F I 220 giant component proportion are monotonic.” Cognitive Science 40, no. 3 (2016): 671–696. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12244. Hartmann, Ernest. Dreams and Nightmares: The Origin and Meaning of Dreams. New York: Basic Books, 2000. Hunt, Harry. The Multiplicity of Dreams: Memory, Imagination, and Con- sciousness. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. Jung, Carl. Children’s Dreams: Notes from the Seminar Given in 1936–1940. Translated by Ernst Falzeder and Tony Woolfson. Princeton: Princeton Univer- sity Press, 2008. Pagel, James. The Limits of Dream: A Scientific Exploration of the Mind/Brain Interface. New York: Academic Press, 2010. Schredl, Michael. “Dream Recall: Models and Empirical Data.” In The New Science of Dreaming, Vol. II, edited by Patrick McNamara and Deirdre Barrett, 79–114. Westport: Praeger, 2007. Schwartz, Sophie, and Pierre Maquet. “Sleep imaging and the neuro-psycho- logical assessment of dreams.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 6, no. 1 (Jan. 2002): 23–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01818-0. Strauch, Inge, and Barbara Meir. In Search of Dreams: Results of Experimental Dream Research. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1996. Strauch, Inge, and Barbara Meir. The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural Networks, Cognitive Development, and Content Analysis. Washington: American Psychological Association, 2003. 221 T H E L A S T S A N C T U M O F A R C H E T Y P E S : R E T H I N K I N G D R E A M S I N T H E L I G H T O F A N C I E N T K N O W L E D G E A N D A R T I F I C I A L I N T E L L I G E N C E M a j a G u t m a n M u š i č This is the secret of dreams – that we do not dream, but rather are dreamt. We are the object of the dream, not its maker.1 Introduction In parallel with various disciplines within the humanities, the do- main of dream studies has undergone significant transformation under the influence of the cultural information space, propelled by the rapid evolution of digital technology. As a result, many researchers have initi- ated the examination of patterns embedded within extensive compen- dia of dream reports – a quest that was impossible before the advent of computational processing. Projections indicate that this trajectory will continue as the large digital repositories of dreams continue to expand. Such a shift, however, requires novel or revised epistemological, ethical, and philosophical perspectives, transcending conventional dichotomies and fostering a collaborative approach and constructive dialogue within the realms of conceptual frameworks, data science and the (digital) hu- manities. Thus, the aim of this paper is to offer a brief examination of ancient knowledge on dreams and dreaming and understand its deep 1 Carl Gustav Jung, Children’s Dreams: Notes from the Seminar Given in 1936–1940 (Princ- eton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 159. https://doi.org/10.35469/poligrafi.2023.411 Poligrafi, no. 109/110, vol. 28, 2023, pp. 221–239 P O L I G R A F I 222 epistemological foundations that will build the digitally-driven future of dream research. Ancient Dreaming It should be noted at the outset that dreams have not always been considered a peripheral activity of the human mind. For instance, Hughes2 observes that dreams in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt had a prominent role in private and public daily life. Moreover, the exist- ence of professional dream interpreters, priests, and priestesses had far- reaching effects on dream practices such as ritualistic cleansing after a malevolent dream. On some occasions, the bad dream could be dis- solved with clay and water or transferred to a reed, only to be burned afterwards.3 Another vital practice included sleep incubation, which usually took place in a temple. The dreamers would visit temples to gain an insightful oracular or healing dream.4 As a large body of historical and anthropological evidence suggests, dreams were not abstracted from the waking consciousness but rather provided important insights that were otherwise unreachable through wakefulness. The ancient cultures considered both dreaming and wak- ing minds mutually dependent and equal. Despite being ephemeral, elusive, and mysterious, dream content was not dismissed as a periph- eral derivate of human consciousness, but quite the opposite: waking life decisions were often based on meticulous interpretations of noctur- nal experiences. The ancient Greek approach was no different in that perspective, as it honored previous civilizations’ knowledge and traditional practices. Hughes describes how dream interpreters (oneirokritai) of both genders were regularly consulted by people from all walks of life: The Greeks respected their dreams, believing that they were messages from the gods, that they foretold the future, that they were means of curing ill- 2 J. Donald Hughes, “Dream Interpretation in Ancient Civilizations,” Dreaming 10, no. 1 (2000): 7, https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1023/A:1009447606158. 3 Hughes, “Dream Interpretation,” 9. 4 Hughes, “Dream Interpretation,” 10. T H E L A S T S A N C T U M O F A R C H E T Y P E S 223 nesses, and that they enabled one to speak with the dead and witness events at great distances. These beliefs were also typical of neighboring societies, but the Greeks, more consistently than others, tried to give a rational account of dreams and dream interpretation.5 Dream oracles were common in Ancient Greece, and the practice of co-sleeping with the healer was considered an integral part of physical and spiritual well-being: A statue of Oneiros, god of dreams, appropriately stood in the sanctuary of Asclepius, god of healing. Dreams were used to restore physical and mental health at centers such as Epidaurus. Each shrine had healer-seers who guided pilgrims and interpreted their dreams. They could check on the genuineness of a patient’s dream by watching their own, since an important dream would occur to both patient and priest on the same night, a coincidence called symp- toma (root of English ‘symptom’).6 The functions of dreaming in ancient civilizations, such as Mesopo- tamian, Greek, and Roman, were relatively straightforward: guiding, healing, encountering the divine, and—in the case of anticipatory or pre-cognitive dreams—forecasting the individual or collective future. Here, it is worth mentioning that Socrates had a dream predicting his death, while the notable example of Constantine’s dreams reminds us of their predictive nature with more far-reaching implications that marked the critical historical and collective moment in ancient Europe and Christianity. Plane and Tuttle further illustrate that in 1500, a plethora of dream theories were available to European intellectuals, mostly spanning dis- ciplines like theology, medicine, and the ars divinatoria.7 Another profoundly mystical, if not genesic account of dreams and dreaming can be traced in the writings of Glaskin, who observes that Australian Aboriginal cosmologies draw from the idea of a creative pe- riod, 5 Hughes, “Dream Interpretation,” 11. 6 Hughes, “Dream Interpretation,” 13. 7 Ann Marie Plane and Leslie Tuttle, “Dreams and Dreaming in the Early Modern World,” Renaissance Quarterly 67, no. 3 (2014): 921, https://doi.org/10.1086/678778. P O L I G R A F I 224 [i]n which ancestral beings performed various deeds that shaped the coun- try, imbuing the landscape with their presence, inscribing it with narratives of their activities, and giving humans laws to follow. This creative epoch is now widely known to English-speakers in and beyond Australia as ‘the Dreaming’ or ‘Dreamtime …8 The Aboriginal idea of dreaming may be seen as a paradigm that provides a contrasting perspective on reality compared to our contem- porary understanding. In this framework, the logical and coherent or- der that we often associate with wakefulness and storytelling is believed to have originated from a primordial realm characterized by dream-like states. Further examination of the concepts surrounding dreaming will reveal that the fundamental principles of Western medicine were closely interconnected with rigorous observations and study of dreams. Revisiting Hippocrates To further understand the relevance of dreaming, it is worth ex- amining the Hippocratic account of the body-soul principle. The di- chotomy seems to be best encapsulated in the following observation: “But when the body is at rest, the soul, being set in motion and awake, administers her own household, and of herself performs all the acts of the body.”9 According to Hippocratic writings, the dynamic interplay between body and soul is at the core of the principal understanding of human diseases, in which dreams hold a perennial role. Moreover, the dream content can be ascribed to symptomatic indications that serve as a diagnostic tool. This is particularly evident in types of dreams that thematically diverge from everyday experiences, such as disturbing nightmares: “But when dreams are contrary to the acts of the day, and there occurs about them some struggle or triumph, a disturbance in the body is indicated, a violent struggle meaning a violent mischief, a feeble struggle a less serious mischief. As to whether the act should be averted 8 Katie Glaskin, “Dreams, Memory, and the Ancestors: Creativity, Culture, and the Sci- ence of Sleep,” Journal of the Royan Anthropological Institute 17, no. 1 (2011): 45, https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2010.01668.x. 9 Hippocrates, On Dreams, trans. W. H. S. Jones, Vol. IV (Cambridge: Harvard University Press , 1934), 421. T H E L A S T S A N C T U M O F A R C H E T Y P E S 225 or not I do not decide, but I do advise treatment of the body.”10 More- over, Hippocrates holds the view that the severity of dream content is directly proportional to illness, implying that extremely disturbing nightmares are indicative of more severe ailments, while gentle dreams may signify a state of good health.11 In contrast to later psychoanalytical interpretations of dreams, which drew intensely on a metaphorical understanding of dreams and their latent meanings,12 the Hippocratic prognosis of disease is based on analogies between waking and dreaming elements or situations. To illustrate this further, we should consider the following example: “To see the earth flooded by water or sea signifies a disease, as there is much moisture in the body. What is necessary is to take emetics, to avoid luncheon, to exercise and to adopt a dry diet.”13 It is worth pointing out, however, that the interpretation of such analogies is contingent upon the patient’s health conditions. Hippocrates thus concludes: “If the dreamer thinks that he is diving in a lake, in the sea, or in a river, it is not a good sign, for it indicates excess of moisture. In this case also benefit comes from a drying regimen and increased exercises. But for a fever patient these dreams are a good sign, for the heat is being sup- pressed by the moisture.”14 The spiritual component of dreams continued to play an essential role throughout history and cultures and, as many subsequent exam- ples will demonstrate, served as a focal point between the earthly, the mundane, the corporeal, if willing, and the divine. In this context, the spiritual facet of dreaming can be compared to Ficino’s philosophical concept of the soul, described as copula mundi, or “bond of the world”, because it connects the earth and the heaven, immanence and tran- scendence, time and eternity.”15 10 Hippocrates, On Dreams, 425. 11 Hippocrates, On Dreams, 427. 12 Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (New York: Basic Books, 2010). 13 Hippocrates, On Dreams, 441. 14 Hippocrates, On Dreams, 441. 15 Marko Uršič, “The Gaze of the Soul and of the Angel in the Renaissance Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino,” Ars & Humanitas 9, no. 1 (2015): 58, https://doi.org/10.4312/ah.9.1.58-75. P O L I G R A F I 226 Dreaming as a Spiritual and Knowledge-Transferring Experience Multiple cross-cultural findings suggest that dreams frequently con- tain spiritual, mythical, and religious elements.16 These components span a range of elements, including supernatural and fantasy entities, as well as the dreamer’s capacity to wield metaphysical abilities. One prevalent set of instances is the ability to fly and levitate, to breathe un- derwater, or to manipulate items or the four fundamental elements. A close-reading examination of spiritual and religious dreams reveals that the fantastical entities not only exhibit a wide range of appearances, but more significantly, there is a prevalent recognition of these supernatural creatures as cognizant, sentient, and intentional. Therefore, it is not un- expected that the heightened intensity experienced in spiritual dreams leads the dreamer to infer the existence of a reality beyond ordinary wakefulness. Dreams continuously function as a passage between im- mediate and infinite reality. According to McNamara and Bulkeley, it is observed that: “Dreams were considered proof of the gods and a spirit realm since dreams were involuntary and emotionally vivid experiences that involved the dreamer’s soul encountering other beings includ- ing long deceased relatives and so on. Dreams have therefore played a major role in the historical evolution of religions.”17 After presenting many cross-cultural examples, the authors conclude that “dreams act as a source for religious cognitions. First, for many people dreams present direct evidence of a spirit realm and of disembodied spirits.”18 An additional observation should be included in this context. The engagement with spiritual entities and divine beings can occur beyond 16 Amira Mittermaier, Dreams That Matter: Egyptian Landscapes of the Imagination (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2010); Barbara Tedlock, ed., Dreaming: Anthropological and Psychological Interpretations (New Mexico: School of America Research Press,1992); Charles D. Laughlin and Adam J. Rock, “What Can We Learn from Shamans’ Dreaming? A Cross- Cultural Exploration;” Dreaming 24, no. 4 (2014), https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038437; Barbara Tedlock, “The Poetics and Spirituality of Dreaming: A Native American Enactive Theory,” Dreaming 14, no. 2–3 (2004), https://doi.org/10.1037/1053-0797.14.2-3.183. 17 Patrick McNamara and Kelly Bulkeley, “Dreams as a Source of Supernatural Agent Con- cepts,” Frontiers in Psychology 6 (2015): 3, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00283. 18 McNamara and Bulkeley, “Dreams as a Source,” 4. T H E L A S T S A N C T U M O F A R C H E T Y P E S 227 transitory encounters. A wealth of historical evidence suggests that such encounters have consistently offered humans deep insights, guidance, and wisdom. Referring back to Glaskin’s work, it becomes apparent that Aboriginal dreamers rely on spiritual beings and ancestral figures in their dream encounters as a mechanism to protect and transmit their artistic expressions through ceremonial traditions. In essence, the act of knowledge transfer extends beyond the limitations of waking human existence, while the creative aspects of rituals have their origins in the realm of dreams. As Glaskin describes: “Another Bardi man said that ‘you dream about ingarda [a spirit being] or an ancestor that had passed away that comes to you and brings you this ilma and show(s) you the song and dances, how to dance and sing.”19 Similarly, Getsinger observes that: “We also know that American In- dians of the plains and the Southwest believed that dreams gave special knowledge and power leading to growth and maturity on the part of the dreamer.”20 Another example can be drawn from Cunningham, who observes that: “The Navajo placed great importance on dreams. It is possible that the entire understanding of divinity (spirits) as well as their methods of contacting them (religious ritual) were originally culled from dreams.”21 Even a preliminary examination of diverse anthropological literature pertaining to dreaming suggests that dreams had a significant role in the realm of spirituality. This observation prompts an inquiry into the specific juncture at which a notable departure from the spiritual aspects of dreaming became evident. Such a major conceptual transformation can be primarily traced to the Cartesian paradigm and the rise of secu- larization throughout the 17th century. In addition, it is important to acknowledge that this profound division has shown long-lasting and extensive ramifications that are just now being comprehended. For instance, Getsinger extends his observations to the primarily illogi- cal (post)modern conception of dreams. The interpretation of such a stance, he contends, originates from a broader lack of awe and mystery 19 Glaskin, “Dreams, Memory,” 47. 20 Getsinger, “Dreaming, Religion, and Health,” Journal of Religion and Health 17, no. 3 (1978): 199, https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01597272. 21 Cunningham, Dreaming the Divine (Los Angeles, CA: Llewellyn Pubblications, 2016), 280. P O L I G R A F I 228 – traits typically closely associated with fundamental human curios- ity – suggesting that our dream life, similar to religious experience, has lost its longstanding meaning. He concludes that: “Although there is a tendency in contemporary religion and psychology to move away from the mystical and the illogical, it is my belief that unless we meet the mysterious and move through it, we will remain fragmented at the very core of our being.”22 In this view, Getsinger acknowledges the existence of the permeable boundary within the waking-dreaming continuum, where the exchange of knowledge and creativity is in a constant state of flux. Nevertheless, Getisnger is not the only scholar to share this perspec- tive. The sense of wonder was closely associated with spirituality and intellectual pursuits. For example, Lee Irwin asserts in his examination of Native American Plains dreams that dreaming holds significant im- portance within Native American cultural settings since it functions as a means of acquiring knowledge.23 He further asserts that the transmis- sion of knowledge occurs through modes that diverge from those com- monly employed in Western knowledge-sharing practices. The explana- tion, as Irwin suggests, can be found in neuroscience. The author shares valuable insights into the significance and distinctions between the left and right brain hemispheres and their respective roles in the process of dreaming. In the case of the Plain, it has been observed that the right hemisphere has a crucial role in facilitating imagistic dreaming: [t]he actual developmental pattern of a majority of Euroamericans appears to be emphatically left-hemisphere dominant. If we consider the centrality of dreaming imagistic experience within the Plains religious world view, it seems that Native American cultures have a strong right-hemispheric emphasis their epistemic base. Cultures outside the mainstream of Western intellectual tradi- tion have been recognized as placing more emphasis on visual-spatial orien- tation and to be more emphatically imagistic and mythic in an interpretive context.24 22 Cunningham, Dreaming the Divine, 200. 23 Lee Irwin, “Dreams, Theory, and Culture: The Plains Vision Quest Paradigm,” American Indian Quarterly 18, no. 2 (1994): 238, https://doi.org/10.2307/1185248. 24 Irwin, “Dreams, Theory, and Culture,” 234–235. T H E L A S T S A N C T U M O F A R C H E T Y P E S 229 The observations above, which draw upon anthropological research and cognitive neuroscience, as well as Getsinger’s comparative ap- proach, not only serve as a demonstration of the academic inclination to reevaluate dreams as copula mundi but also to acknowledge the presence of both spiritual and intellectual aspects inside the realm of dreaming. This reassessment involves integrating philosophical perspectives on dreaming with contemporary findings in neuroscience. The willingness to incorporate a multidisciplinary approach to dream research and science is even more critical in the digital age. It seems that the future trajectory toward achieving a comprehensive and systematic understanding of dreams is contingent upon the rapid ex- pansion of cultural digital repositories, such as extensive online collec- tions of dream reports and the advancement of computational power, particularly natural language processing tools. Contemporary Approaches to Dreams and Dreaming – What has Changed? With the advent of cognitive psychology and neuroscience, dream research shifted its focus from the content of dreams to the neurophysi- ological process of dreaming. One factor contributing to this significant transformation can be ascribed to the remarkable discovery of REM sleep,25 which led to a significant transition from philosophical, reli- gious, and spiritual discourse to the scientific study of sleep and its neu- rological mechanisms. Dreaming and dream interpretation, it seems, descended from im- mortal and divine realms to the physiological stratum of existence. In the line of such carnal and immediate reasoning, the approach to dreams became redefined and, consequently, confined to neural fir- ings across various parts of the human brain. With the newly acquired ability to map the occurrence of neural activities during different sleep phases, the scientific validity of dreams has been further called into 25 Eugene Aserinsky and Nathaniel Kleitman, “Regularly Occurring Periods of Eye Motil- ity, and Concomitant Phenomena, During Sleep,” Science 118 (Sep 1953): 273, https://doi. org/10.1126/science.118.3062.273. P O L I G R A F I 230 question. The leading neurophysiologists argued that such firings are merely random hallucinations,26 further reducing dream content to a series of irrelevant and elusive fragments with no or, at best, speculative scientific value. While such a relocated interest added a much-needed empirical validation to the cognitive and emotional processes during dreaming, it also repositioned dream research away from traditional theological, philosophical, and psychological complexity toward scien- tific reductionism. This shift is perhaps most eloquently described by Haskell as “[a] reductionism of the methodological kind, which abstracts out of data only those characteristics that are amenable to the parameters of the method, resulting in a skewed set of findings which may be factual enough, but unfortunately artifactual.”27 It is worth pondering both approaches to gain a more precise over- view of the field and its underlying paradigms. At first glance, the stark chasm between a phenomenological and empirical understanding of dreams most likely stems from the prevalent tacit assumption among scientific communities that prioritizes the study of waking conscious- ness over its altered states, including dreams. This gap also implies that waking and dreaming are distinct, diametrically opposed states of consciousness. While such a clear dividing line provides unambigu- ous starting points for two conceptually distinct lines of research, it also deviates from the collaborative interdisciplinary approach and its capacity to effectively address dreaming as a complex phenomenon. Numerous studies conducted in the fields of anthropology, philosophy, religious studies, and cognitive science, for instance, suggest that despite the inherent qualitative differences between waking consciousness and altered states such as dreaming, these two states exhibit a complementary 26 J. Allan Hobson and Robert W. McCarley, “The Brain as a Dream State Generator: An Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis of the Dream Process,” The American Journal of Psychiatry 134, no. 12 (1977): 1335–48, https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.134.12.1335; David Kahn and J. Allan Hobson, “Self-Organization Theory of Dreaming,” Dreaming 3 (1993): 151, https://doi. org/10.1037/h0094378. 27 Robert E. Haskell, “Cognitive Psychology and Dream Research: Historical, Conceptual, and Epistemological Considerations,” The Journal of Mind and Behavior 7, no. 2/3 (1986): 133, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43853212. T H E L A S T S A N C T U M O F A R C H E T Y P E S 231 relationship, ultimately giving rise to the notion of a dreaming-waking continuum.28 Similarly, Irwin observes that the “[p]opular notion is to regard dreaming and waking as two distinct types of awareness, the former be- ing largely ignored or having its import reduced to that of a primarily pathological index.”29 Moreover, according to Irwin’s observation of tra- ditional Plains people, “[d]reaming (…), is given a strong ontological priority and is regarded as a primary source of knowledge and power.”30 From the opposing viewpoint, the neuroscientific approach can also be considered a serious scientific effort to expand our understanding of dreaming, a phenomenon that we knew relatively little about prior to the invention of the electroencephalogram (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Both techniques implicitly argue against the view that dream reports could serve as a dependable primary source of scientific data. As verbal or written exhibits from the noctur- nal realm, dream reports are nevertheless purely subjective experiences that have been further scrutinized under stringent scientific criteria due to their unreliability (low recall rate) and unpredictability (dreams are unverifiable and cannot be replicated under identical or similar condi- tions). The fact that the dreams can only be experienced by the dreamer and are thus directly unobservable by a third person has earned them the derogatory designation of secondary expressions. Hence, it is un- surprising that empirical science has largely disregarded dream reports or, at most, incorporated them as supplementary evidence. Conversely, dream research focused on dream content has introduced novel statisti- cal methodologies to examine dream reports on a larger scale, such as Hall van de Castle’s quantitative coding system of dream elements.31 With the emergence of online cultural data (the Sleep and Dream Da- tabase, Dreamjournal and DreamBank) and state-of-the-art natural 28 Irwin, “Dreams, Theory, and Culture”; Ernest Hartmann, “The Waking-to-Dreaming Continuum and the Effects of Emotion,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23, no. 6 (2000), https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x00474029”; Evan Thompson, Waking, Dreaming, Being (Columbia University Press, 2015). 29 Irwin, “Dreams, Theory, and Culture,” 236. 30 Irwin, “Dreams, Theory, and Culture,” 236. 31 Calvin S. Hall and Robert L.Van de Castle, The Content Analysis of Dreams (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966). P O L I G R A F I 232 language processing tools, the statistical examination of recurring pat- terns in dreams has become significantly more advanced and feasible. It could be argued, of course, that the divergences observed in an- thropological, philosophical, and empirical approaches to dreams and dreaming outlined above contribute to the intricacy of the field. How- ever, they also speak of immense human curiosity and a rather dynamic history of research into the fundamental nature of dreams, which has continued to be pertinent to the present day. What we dream about and why are among the twenty most profound scientific questions that have perplexed philosophers, scholars, scientists, spiritual practitioners, and religious figures for generations. As an essentially universal experience, dreaming is fundamental to our individual and collective experience. The latter creates an additional captivating dichotomy, wherein dreams are perceived as personal and intimately connected to our unique wak- ing experiences in the present and past, as well as archetypal and linked to universal motifs, such as flying, falling, and being pursued, among others.32 Again, the field appears to be at a crossroads; a large corpus of anthropological research indicates that dreams cannot be separated from their cultural domain: dreams are as much a part of the cultural and collective fiber of life as they are of the individual’s. The act of for- cibly segregating these domains will ultimately lead to the development of simpler and potentially distorted conceptual models that are most applicable within a single discipline but always at the cost of excluding others. In light of the considerations mentioned above, the epistemologi- cal inquiry into dreaming should stretch beyond the current scientific reasoning and pursue a more inclusive, non-pathological, and integra- tive model of dream analysis. To cite Irwin once more: “[t]o epitomize reason as expressive of the highest or best in human functioning is a culturally defined bias—one that demonstrates a loss of the instinctive vitality and relatedness that are necessary for crossing over into the visionary realm through empa- thy and human-heartedness. Reason, in both its synthetic and its ana- lytic sense, represents only one epistemic ground and is limited by its 32 Patricia Garfield, The Universal Dream Key (New York: Harper Collins, 2007). T H E L A S T S A N C T U M O F A R C H E T Y P E S 233 frequent usurpation of other vital epistemic means, such as aesthetics, dreaming, myth-making, and visionary experience.”33 It also seems pertinent to position dream research in the broader context of the philosophy of science, which would shed light on the field’s many interdisciplinary challenges. It could be argued that the dif- ficulty in comprehending patterned or archetypical dreams in accord- ance with the fundamental principles of scientific inquiry is indicative of limitations within the current scientific paradigm, rather than inher- ent shortcomings in dream data. In a similar vein, Haskell posits that the underlying issues stem from the methods employed rather than the data itself: “[i]f dreams are “irrational” they still exist as a valid cognitive experience that theoretically could be studied, just as the “irrational” quantum phenomena are in physics. On this basis, the impossible lim- its of dream data are not reached, but rather it is the limits of an inad- equate framework in cognitive psychology which are reached.”34 The Ancient knowledge and Artificial Intelligence: a Spatiotemporal Approach to Dreaming Putting aside the more extravagant claims that have been made on behalf of the dream, it is now possible within the language and models of main- stream cognitive psychology to suggest that dream data may hold the poten- tial for initiating an epistemological paradigm shift in the Kuhnian sense of a scientific revolution.35 Despite being written nearly four decades ago, Haskell’s insight re- mains highly pertinent in today’s context. This is particularly evident due to the rapid advancement of disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence, the proliferation of extensive dream report repositories from individuals worldwide, as well as the increasing cultural phenom- enon of dream journaling that has already densely populated the digital space. How can dream research benefit from newly emergent cultural 33 Irwin, “Dreams, Theory, and Culture,” 237. 34 Haskell, “Cognitive Psychology and Dream Research,” 134. 35 Haskell, “Cognitive Psychology and Dream Research,” 143. P O L I G R A F I 234 data and automated tools specifically designed to detect and categorize patterns in large quantities of cultural expressions, such as dreams? In light of these epochal cultural and technological shifts, it is rea- sonable to formulate a new approach that integrates established theo- retical frameworks derived from cultural, religious, spiritual, mytho- logical, anthropological, and psychological perspectives on dreaming with contemporary advancements in data analysis, ultimately resulting in new insights on global dream patterns. Such an approach is by no means straightforward, and the abun- dance of multidisciplinary components renders it resistant to methodo- logical consistency. However, it considers the many perennial dimen- sions of human dreaming necessary for a comprehensive and systematic understanding of dreams, especially their archetypal structures, which, by definition, already transcend spatiotemporal boundaries. From a data science perspective, dreams may be seen as a form of psychological data that encapsulates the most introspective, private, and unfiltered contents of the human mind. As stated previously, it is not surprising that dream studies have drawn significant interest from various academic disciplines. Furthermore, with the rise of the Internet, new digitally-driven approaches to cultural data have emerged and the empirical approach to dreams has gained momentum. Dreams have become digitized, accessible, and abundant. Suddenly, these noctur- nal inner workings of individual and collective sensations, emotions, thoughts, and concerns, along with other types of psychological data that we leave through our daily pursuits in the digital spheres, have also become externalized, thus becoming an integral part of the current global digital ecosystem. Such behavioral exposure, coupled with sub- stantial privacy concerns, suggests that dream reports are amenable to empirical examination through the algorithmic lenses of data science. For the first time in the history of dream research, scholars and scien- tists have the opportunity to examine dream patterns longitudinally, cross-culturally, and on a population-wide scale. It is important to note, however, that the concept of examining a vast compilation of dreams to identify archetypal patterns is not a re- cent development. Jung’s close-reading experience, which draws from the patient’s background knowledge and a plethora of humanistic dis- T H E L A S T S A N C T U M O F A R C H E T Y P E S 235 ciplines, demonstrates that dream reports can be thoroughly examined through the complex multidisciplinary prism. After personally investi- gating some 1500-2000 dream reports per year, the founder of analyti- cal psychology observed discernable structures in his patients’ dreams, thus concluding that he “[c]an assert that typical dreams do exist”36, and that “[t]he dream uses collective figures because it has to express an eternal human problem that repeats itself endlessly and not just distur- bance of personal balance.”37 Various archetypical elements can be identified in dreams, and the example of Spiritual Agents serves as one of many archetypical features of dreaming. Using state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) tools, researchers can already use algorithmic frameworks to search ex- tensive collections of dreams for spiritual and religious references that extend beyond the traditional conception of religious figures. It can be hypothesized that spiritual entities have not entirely disappeared from our dreams; instead, they have probably undergone transformations that correspond with present-day cultural references. For instance, modern supernatural entities can be observed in nightmares about con- scious, purposeful AI machines with metaphysical powers, according to the following dream from the Sleep and Dream Database: […] Then the dream shifts. I’m observing and a bit disembodied. I see an AI - a robot. He’s on a planet and his spaceship has crashed. His AI pet is going to run off and has gotten really wild. This AI pet can morph like a transformer. It can be really huge or really tiny. It can be all kinds of things. He’s trying to retain his AI pet, but also trying to fix his spaceship which has crashed on the side of a mountain. The topography is all sand and sand dunes and rocks. There is one episode where he is trying to talk to his AI pet and it’s huge - it has transformed into a huge transformer size. I’m somehow part- nered with him and he’s fighting his pet. […] 38 The sample of dreams suggests that the presence of supernatural entities is culturally dependent and highly contextual. Furthermore, 36 Jung, Dreams, 33. 37 Jung, Dreams, 78. 38 “Rose journal 2020,” Sleep and Dream Database, December 21, 2019, https://sleepand- dreamdatabase.org/response_sets/754e5dfe-73b6-4d1a-a1c8-ca40ed047b43/7be91eea-466d- 40e2-93e9-999124f1656b. P O L I G R A F I 236 it may be inferred that, in order to analyze spatiotemporal constants and variables in typical (archetypal) dreams, AI-driven analysis must incorporate various historical, mythological, religious, and cultural ele- ments. This implies that the integration of extensive historical archives of dreams, including Ancient Egyptian dream books, dreams recorded by Aristotle and Plato, and the medieval dream diary of Swiss physician and alchemist Paracelsus, as well as ethnographic collections from vari- ous Indigenous cultures in North and South America, African dream traditions, Aboriginal Australian cultures, and Asian cultures, alongside extensive contemporary digital repositories, has the potential to provide a novel opportunity to obtain a structured, patterned, and systematic understanding of collective dreaming across cultures and time. The proposed methodological approach, which is unavoidably dependent on high computer processing power, aims to evaluate the existence of cross-cultural dream patterns empirically. Such a goal would be achieved by augmenting the archetypal model with additional layers, where the core of the typical dream (such as typical fight or flight dreams) and its culture-dependent variables would be more discernible.39 The potential for dream research to go beyond the pathological treatment of dreamed material is a further and equally important point that should be included here. Even a cursory examination of dream reports frequently implies that dreaming extends beyond the rehearsal of threatening situations. Dreams, as many researchers compellingly demonstrate,40 often introduce us to creative and adaptive methods of problem-solving. Consequently, dreams may be examined within the framework of positive psychology. 39 Maja Gutman Music, Pavan Holur, and Kelly Bulkeley, “Mapping Dreams in a Computa- tional Space: A Phrase-Level Model for Analyzing Fight/Flight and Other Typical Situations in Dream Reports,” Consciousness and Cognition 106 (2022): 103428, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. concog.2022.103428. 40 Deirdre Barrett, “Dreams and Creative Problem-Solving,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1406, no. 1 (2017), https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13412; Katie Glaskin, “Dreams, Per- ception, and Creative Realization,” Topics in Cognitive Science 7, no. 4 (2015): 664–76. https://doi. org/10.1111/tops.12157; Mihael Schredl, “Creativity and Dream Recall,” Journal of Creative Be- havior 29, no. 1 (1995), https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.1995.tb01420.x; Michael Schredl and Daniel Erlacher, “Self-Reported Effects of Dreams on Waking-Life Creativity: An Empirical Study,” The Journal of Psychology 141, no. 1 (2007), https://doi.org/10.3200/jrlp.141.1.35-46. T H E L A S T S A N C T U M O F A R C H E T Y P E S 237 Conclusion The ancient perspectives on dreams, spanning Mesopotamian divi- nation practices to Greek oracles, emphasize the integral role of dream- ing in guiding, healing, and connecting with the divine, but also with the inner self. These ancient frameworks, rooted in a holistic under- standing of consciousness, challenge the contemporary tendency to compartmentalize dreaming as a mere neuro-physiological phenom- enon. The transition from ancient to modern interpretations of dreams, particularly with the advent of cognitive psychology and neuroscience, has witnessed a notable shift away from spiritual and symbolic analyses to a focus on neurophysiological processes. While this shift has contrib- uted empirical rigor to dream research, it has also obscured the broader cultural and archetypal dimensions inherent in dreaming. The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and advanced data analysis tools presents a transformative opportunity for dream research. The digitization of dream reports and the computational capacity to analyze large datasets from various sources offer unprecedented insights into cross-cultural and longitudinal patterns. However, the challenge lies in reconciling the multidisciplinary nature of dreams with the methodological consistency required for scientific inquiry. The pro- posed spatiotemporal approach, leveraging AI to assess cross-cultural dream patterns, seeks to bridge this gap by integrating historical ar- chives, ethnographic collections, and contemporary digital repositories. The aim of this paper was to highlight an inclusive and non-patho- logical epistemological model for dream research, transcending the lim- itations imposed by traditional scientific paradigms. By embracing the interplay of ancient wisdom, contemporary scientific methodologies, and state-of-the-art technologies, it is possible to unlock the profound potential of the most elusive phenomenon that has captivated human inquiry for millennia, contributing not only to scientific knowledge but also to the enhancement of individual and collective mental well-being and self-awareness. P O L I G R A F I 238 B i b l i o g r a p h y Aserinsky, Eugene, and Nathaniel Kleitman. “Regularly Occurring Periods of Eye Motility, and Concomitant Phenomena, During Sleep.” Science 118 (1953): 273–74. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.118.3062.273. Barrett, Deirdre. “Dreams and Creative Problem-Solving.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1406 (1): 64–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13412. Bulkeley, Kelly. n.d. “Sleep and Dream Database.” SDDb. Accessed Sep- tember 27, 2023. https://sleepanddreamdatabase.org/. Cunningham, Scott. Dreaming the Divine. Los Angeles: Llewellyn Pubblica- tions, 2016. Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Basic Books, 2010. Garfield, Patricia. The Universal Dream Key. New York: Harper Collins, 2007. Getsinger, Stephen H. “Dreaming, Religion, and Health.” Journal of Religion and Health 17, no. 3 (1978): 199–209. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01597272. Glaskin, Katie. “Dreams, Memory, and the Ancestors: Creativity, Culture, and the Science of Sleep.” Journal of the Royan Anthropological Institute 17, no. 1 (2011): 44–62. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2010.01668.x. Glaskin, Katie. “Dreams, Perception, and Creative Realization.” Topics in Cognitive Science 7, no. 4 (2015): 664–76. https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12157. Gutman Music, Maja, Pavan Holur, and Kelly Bulkeley. “Mapping Dreams in a Computational Space: A Phrase-Level Model for Analyzing Fight/Flight and Other Typical Situations in Dream Reports.” Consciousness and Cognition 106 (2022): 103428. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2022.103428. Hall, Calvin S., and Robert L. Van de Castle. The Content Analysis of Dreams. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966. Hartmann, Ernest. “The Waking-to-Dreaming Continuum and the Effects of Emotion.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23, no. 6 (2000): 947–50. https://doi. org/10.1017/s0140525x00474029. Haskell, Robert E. “Cognitive Psychology and Dream Research: Histori- cal, Conceptual, and Epistemological Considerations.” The Journal of Mind and Behavior 7, no. 2/3 (1986): 131–59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43853212. Hippocrates. On Dreams. Translated by W. H. S. Jones. Vol. IV. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library, 1931. Hobson, J. Allan, and Robert W. McCarley. “The Brain as a Dream State Generator: An Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis of the Dream Process.” The American Journal of Psychiatry 134, no. 12 (1977): 1335–48. https://doi.org/10.1176/ ajp.134.12.1335. Hughes, J. Donald. “Dream Interpretation in Ancient Civilizations.” Dream- ing 10, no. 1 (2000): 7–18. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1009447606158. T H E L A S T S A N C T U M O F A R C H E T Y P E S 239 Irwin, Lee. “Dreams, Theory, and Culture: The Plains Vision Quest Paradigm.” American Indian Quarterly 18, no. 2 (1994): 229–45. https://doi. org/10.2307/1185248. Jung, Carl Gustav. Dreams. Bollingen Series. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974. Jung, Carl Gustav. Children’s Dreams: Notes from the Seminar Given in 1936- 1940. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. Kahn, David, and J. Allan Hobson. “Self-Organization Theory of Dream- ing.” Dreaming 3, no. 3 (1993): 151–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0094378. Laughlin, Charles D., and Adam J. Rock. “What Can We Learn from Shamans’ Dreaming? A Cross-Cultural Exploration.” Dreaming 24, no. 4 (2014): 233–52. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038437. McNamara, Patrick, and Kelly Bulkeley. “Dreams as a Source of Supernatu- ral Agent Concepts.” Frontiers in Psychology 6 (2015). https://doi.org/10.3389/ fpsyg.2015.00283. Mittermaier, Amira. Dreams That Matter: Egyptian Landscapes of the Imagina- tion. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2010. Plane, Ann Marie, and Tuttle, Leslie. “Dreams and Dreaming in the Early Modern World.” Renaissance Quarterly 67, no. 3 (Fall 2014): 917–31. https:// www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/678778. Schredl, Michael. “Creativity and Dream Recall.” Journal of Creative Behav- ior 29, no. 1 (1995): 16–24. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.1995.tb01420.x. Schredl, Michael, and Daniel Erlacher. “Self-Reported Effects of Dreams on Waking-Life Creativity: An Empirical Study.” The Journal of Psychology 141, no. 1 (2007): 35–46. https://doi.org/10.3200/jrlp.141.1.35-46. Sleep and Dream Database. “Rose journal 2020.” December 21, 2019. https://sleepanddreamdatabase.org/response_sets/754e5dfe-73b6-4d1a-a1c8- ca40ed047b43/7be91eea-466d-40e2-93e9-999124f1656b. Tedlock, Barbara, ed. Dreaming: Anthropological and Psychological Interpreta- tions. New Mexico, NM: School of America Research Press, 1992. Tedlock, Barbara. “The Poetics and Spirituality of Dreaming: A Native American Enactive Theory.” Dreaming 14, no. 2–3 (2004): 183–89. https://doi. org/10.1037/1053-0797.14.2-3.183. Thompson, Evan. Waking, Dreaming, Being. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. Uršič, Marko. “The Gaze of the Soul and of the Angel in the Renaissance Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino.” Ars & Humanitas 9, no. 1 (2015): 58–75. https:// doi.org/10.4312/ah.9.1.58-75. 241 A B S T R A C T S Nina Petek In that very body, within that very dream: Soteriological dreaming technique in the tradition of Buddhist yogis The first part of the paper briefly outlines the role of dreams in early Budd- hism and their importance in establishing the continuity of the whole tradition, before presenting in the second part entirely new aspects of dreams in the Budd- hist eremitic tradition, influenced by the Tantric spiritual horizon, in particular by a transformed concept of the body. The central part of the paper follows an analysis of the soteriological technique of dreaming (Tib. rmi lam) in the tradi- tion of Buddhist yogis and yoginīs, based on the fragments of mahāsiddha Tilopa (Ṣaḍdharmopadeśa), Gampopa’s commentaries, collected in the treatise Dags po'i bka' 'bum, and findings from studies on Buddhist eremitic tradition in Ladakh in the region of the Indian Himalayas. The four stages of dream yoga are also hi- ghlighted in relation to other psychophysical soteriological techniques (the six dharmas, Skrt. ṣaḍdharma, Tib. chos drug). The philosophical and soteriological foundations of dream yoga are presented on the basis of the doctrine of consciou- sness in the yogācāra school, highlighting in particular the three modifications of consciousness presented by Vasubandhu. The last part the paper outlines the si- gnificance of training in the dreaming technique in the very process of dying that leads to the unconditioned state beyond life and death, nirvāṇa. Keywords: dreams in Buddhism, Buddhist yogis and yoginīs, six dharmas, dream yoga, yogācāra, vijñāna, nirvāṇa Victor J. Krebs Dreaming in the Digital Age: Thoughts on the Technological Pharmakon This article explores one way of understanding how digital media are affecting our ability to distinguish reality from fantasy, by reading Bernard Stiegler’s diagno- sis of our current cultural crisis, alongside Wilfred Bion’s dream theory. The cen- tral claim of the paper is that we can understand the technological pharmakon, its both poisonous and therapeutic nature, in terms of Bion’s definition of dreaming, as the commerce between consciousness and the unconscious negotiated by the P O L I G R A F I 242 “alpha function”. Understanding how the digital impacts our capacity to dream provides us with a tool to counteract its toxicity and to combat the thanatic im- pulse triggered by technological power. From a binocular point of view – both from Stiegler’s perspective of our tech- nical or “organological” evolution and from Bion’s perspective on the constitution of reality in dreaming – we can begin to see more clearly how to modulate our technological drive, in order to prevent the pharmakon from short-circuiting the very psychic function necessary to distinguish between reality and illusion. The paper ends with a discussion of the algorithmic effects on the living imagination in support of this contention. Keywords: Digital Age, dreaming, Bion, Stiegler, pharmakon, philosophy, psychoanalysis Laura J. Vollmer Toward a Historiography of Dreams: A Discursive Perspective The historiography of dreams has yet to emerge as a distinct field, and key changes in dream research are worthy of consideration to reflect on tacit knowled- ge in academia. Gesturing toward such a historiography, the historical construc- tion of the “dream” is examined from a discursive perspective via localization in the internal/external and subjective/objective, communicative and social imagined spaces of dreams, as well as the theoretical paradigms of essentialism and contextu- alism. Premodern to post-postmodern epistemes are considered as shaping forces in these discourses, involving power and authority in determining what counts as legitimate or significant knowledge. The discussion concludes with reflections on the current state of dream research from a post-postmodern perspective, suggesting the ontological multiplicity of the “dream.” Keywords: historiography of dreams, history of dreams, discourse, epistemes, intellectual history, post-postmodernism A B S T R A C T S / P O V Z E T K I 243 Carmela Mento, Maria Catena Silvestri, Amelia Rizzo, Clara Lombardo, Hadipour Lakmesani Abed, Ferdinando Testa, Kelly Bulkeley, Toshio Kawai Dreams, Sleep Quality, and Collective Trauma: An Investigation of the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic The aim of the current study was to explore the impact of the COVID-19 out- break on the dreams of a group of Italian participants. A total of 403 individuals were recruited online through a cross-sectional survey on Moodle. The qualitati- ve content of their dreams was analysed using the Dream Interview (TKYDQ), a tool created by Bulkeley. In addition, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used to assess the quantitative aspects of dreams. From the results of our stu- dy, three macro-categories of content in the participants' dreams were identified: 1) dreams with phobic content; 2) dreams with a persecutory theme and 3) “old normal” dreams. Moreover, some sleep-related difficulties such as problems falling asleep and mild clinical sleep disorders were identified in the sample. The pro- longed quarantine and the lifestyle adopted during the pandemic have intensely influenced our dream activities, and it seems that COVID-19 has already entered our collective unconscious in a symbolic way and through the processing of images and scenes related to the epidemic. The study, therefore, aims to explore how cata- strophic events affect mental health, specifically sleep quality and dream content. Keywords: dreams, sleep, collective trauma, COVID-19, pandemic Mary C. Walsh An Ancient Disease in a Modern World: Epilepsy and Dream Research For thousands of years people have attempted to understand epilepsy. Thro- ughout our long history, healing traditions have incorporated dreams into both epilepsy diagnosis and treatment. Recent studies provide new information on the impact of epilepsy on sleep and dreaming, while research into epileptic dream content offers insight into the emotional and spiritual experience of people with epilepsy. Modern neurological research has increased our knowledge and improved treatment of this ancient disease, yet the stigma and misconceptions that have per- colated for millennia continue to impact epileptic care and quality of life globally. While modern technologies afford better treatment, they can also impact sleep, dreaming, and seizure frequency in epileptics. This article provides an overview of current research into dreams and epilepsy and explores implications of this rese- P O L I G R A F I 244 arch for epileptic care in a modern world. Research surveyed includes recent stu- dies into the protective role of REM sleep on seizures, epileptic dream content, the impact of epilepsy on specific populations and emerging paradigms for under- standing epileptic spiritual experience. Studies suggest the need for a multi-disci- plinary and multi-cultural approach to epilepsy. Implications for therapeutic and medical care, and avenues for future research are discussed. Keywords: dreams, epilepsy, sleep, technology, spirituality Sheldon Juncker Dreaming with AI Our goal is to highlight the capabilities of modern, generative AI systems using the widely used and accessible ChatGPT text completion models from OpenAI, focusing on how they can be used for the analysis of dreams and dream journals. We start with a brief overview of the nature of dreams, methods of dream inter- pretation, and the importance of the human-dream relationship. We explore the ways that technology, specifically AI, fits into this space and examine the ways in which AI can be used to help us understand our dreams. We progress from simple dream interpretations, to interpretations according to different schools of thought, to interpreting symbols within individual dreams, and finally to analyzing pat- terns in individual dream journals. We conclude with a discussion of the ethical concerns surrounding AI and dreams, providing insights from past technological revolutions and how they have both helped and hindered the human endeavor. We finally outline what we believe to be a practical, realistic, and hopeful vision of how we see this field progressing based on the experiments and methodologies that were explored in this paper. Keywords: dreams, dream interpretation, artificial intelligence, generative AI, psychoanalysis, ethics Kelly Bulkeley New Approaches in the Empirical Study of Dreams Dream research is entering a new era of accelerating insights and discoveries, thanks to the rise of powerful digital analysis tools that are enabling important A B S T R A C T S / P O V Z E T K I 245 advances in the empirical study of dreams. This paper illustrates the use of these tools, drawing on the resources of the Sleep and Dream Database, a free online archive of information about sleep and dreaming. These tools include statistical analyses of survey responses, systematic word searches of large collections of dream reports, and a well-grounded set of baseline frequencies to help with comparative measurement. The goal of this paper is to provide readers with an initial orienta- tion to the new world of dream discovery that has opened up because of tools like these. Several basic empirical findings are presented regarding clearly observable patterns of perception, emotion, and social interaction in dreaming. The paper will close with reflections on the emerging interplay of dreaming and technology. Keywords: dreams, word searching, content analysis, continuity hypothesis Maja Gutman Mušič The Last Sanctum of Archetypes: Rethinking Dreams in the Light of Ancient Knowledge and Artificial Intelligence Despite numerous attempts to integrate dream research into a vast array of sci- entific disciplines, there appears to be no consensus on why and how we dream. This millennia-old universal human phenomenon appears to be too elusive to be thoroughly understood by a single scientific discipline and too complex and data- -rich to be studied only theoretically. However, another dimension to dreams and dreaming could promise an integrative approach: the culture-historical compo- nent that merges with recent advances in Artificial Intelligence. This paper briefly examines conceptual understandings of dreams before the dawn of modern science – specifically, the Native American, Mesopotamian, ancient Greek, and Hippocra- tic principles of dream practices and knowledge – in an attempt to understand the contemporary dream research field better and to outline future avenues for a data-driven approach while remaining grounded in its epistemological foundation. Keywords: ancient dreaming, archetypes, artificial intelligence, dream data, cross- cultural dream analysis 247 P O V Z E T K I Nina Petek Prav v tem telesu, prav v teh sanjah: soteriološka tehnika sanjanja v tradiciji budističnih jogijev V prvem delu prispevka je na kratko orisana vloga sanj v zgodnjem budizmu in njihov pomen pri vzpostavljanju kontinuitete celotne tradicije. V drugem delu so predstavljeni povsem novi vidiki sanj v budističnem puščavništvu, na katere- ga je vplivalo tantrično duhovno obzorje, še zlasti predrugačen koncept telesa. V osrednjem delu prispevka sledi analiza soteriološke tehnike sanjanja (tib. rmi lam) v tradiciji budističnih jogijev (skrt. yogi) in jogini (skrt. yoginī), ki temelji na fra- gmentih mahasiddhe (skrt. mahāsiddha) Tilope, poznanih pod skupnim imenom Ṣaḍdharmopadeśa, na Gampopovih komentarjih, zbranih v razpravi Dags po'i bka' 'bum, ter na izsledkih raziskav budističnega puščavništva v pokrajini Ladakh na območju indijske Himalaje. Štiri stopnje joge sanj so predstavljene tudi v poveza- vi z drugimi psihofizičnimi soteriološkimi tehnikami (tj. šestimi dharmami, skrt. ṣaḍdharma, tib. chos drug). Avtorica predstavi filozofske in soteriološke temelje joge sanj na podlagi nauka o treh zavestih šole jogačara (skrt. yogācāra), pri čemer izpostavi zlasti tri modifikacije zavesti pri Vasubandhuju. V zadnjem delu je orisan pomen urjenja v tehniki sanjanja za sam proces umiranja, ki vodi v brezpogojno stanje onkraj življenja in smrti, v nirvano (skrt. nirvāṇa). Ključne besede: sanje v budizmu, budistični jogiji in jogini, šest dharm, joga sanj, yogācāra, vijñāna, nirvāṇa Victor J. Krebs Sanjanje v digitalni dobi: razmišljanje o tehnološkem pharmakonu Avtor v članku raziskuje enega od načinov razumevanja, kako digitalni mediji vplivajo na človekovo sposobnost razlikovanja med resničnostjo in domišljijo, in sicer skozi interpretacijo diagnoze aktualne kulturne krize, ki jo je postavil Bernard Stiegler, ter z obravnavo teorije sanj Wilfreda Biona. Osrednja premisa članka je, da tehnološki pharmakon, njegovo hkratno škodljivo in terapevtsko naravo (kon- kretno v digitaliziranem avdiovizualnem komuniciranju) lahko razumemo v smi- slu Bionove definicije sanjanja, tj. kot trgovanja med zavestjo in nezavednim (ki P O L I G R A F I 248 je odgovorno za spontanost, inventivnost in ustroj pomena), ki ga ureja »funkcija alfa«. Razumevanje, kako digitalno vpliva na našo sposobnost sanjanja, je orožje, s katerim lahko izničimo njegovo škodljivost in premagamo tanatični vzgib, ki ga v nas sproži moč tehnologije. Binokularna perspektiva ‒ ki hkrati zajema Stiglerjev pogled na človeško teh- nološko ali »organološko« evolucijo in Bionov pogled na ustroj resničnosti v sanjah ‒ nam omogoča jasneje videti, kako bi morali prilagoditi svoje tehnološke težnje v izogib temu, da bi nam pharmakon pokvaril psihično funkcijo, ki jo potrebujemo za ločevanje iluzije od stvarnosti. V zagovor svoje trditve avtor v sklepnem delu prispevka ponudi razlago o algoritemskih učinkih na živo domišljijo. Ključne besede: digitalna doba, sanjanje, Bion, Stiegler, pharmakon, filozofija, psihoanaliza Laura J. Vollmer K zgodovinopisju sanj: pogled z diskurzivnega vidika Čeprav se zgodovinopisje sanj še ni uveljavilo kot samostojno področje, so ključne spremembe v raziskovanju sanj vredne razmisleka o implicitnem znanju o njem v akademski sferi. V prispevku je zgodovinska konstrukcija »sanj«, ki napo- veduje oblikovanje tovrstne historiografije, obravnavana z vidika diskurza preko lokalizacije v notranjih/zunanjih, subjektivnih/objektivnih, komunikacijskih in družbeno zamišljenih prostorih sanj, kot tudi skozi teoretični paradigmi esencia- lizma in kontekstualizma. Predmodernistični do post-postmodernistični sistemi znanja ali episteme v teh diskurzih so formativne sile, ki določajo pravo oziroma pomembno védenje. Razpravo zaokroži razmislek o aktualnem stanju raziskav o sanjah s stališča post-postmodernizma, ki nakazuje ontološko večplastnost »sanj«. Ključne besede: zgodovinopisje sanj, zgodovina sanj, diskurz, episteme, intelektualna zgodovina, post-postmodernizem A B S T R A C T S / P O V Z E T K I 249 Carmela Mento, Maria Catena Silvestri, Amelia Rizzo, Clara Lombardo, Hadipour Lakmesani Abed, Ferdinando Testa, Kelly Bulkeley, Toshio Kawai Sanje, kakovost spanja in kolektivna travma: raziskava o vplivih pandemije covida-19 Cilj naše raziskave je bil preučiti vpliv izbruha covida-19 na sanje pri skupini italijanskih izpraševancev. Preko spleta smo s pomočjo presečne raziskave v učnem okolju Moodle za raziskavo pridobili 403 posameznike. Kakovost njihovih sanj smo analizirali s pomočjo intervjuja o sanjah (TKYDQ), orodja, ki ga je razvil Kel- ly Bulkeley, za ocenjevanje količinskih vidikov sanj pa smo uporabljali pittsburški merilnik kakovosti spanja (PSQI). Na podlagi rezultatov smo pri udeležencih v raziskavi prepoznali tri makrokategorije sanj: 1) sanje s fobično vsebino; 2) sanje s preganjalno tematiko; in 3) »stare, normalne« sanje. V vzorcu smo med drugim odkrili tudi težave z uspavanjem in blažje klinične motnje spanja. Dolgotrajna karantena in način življenja med pandemijo sta močno vplivala na sanjanje in zdi se, da se je COVID-19 na simboličen način ter s predelavo podob in prizorov, po- vezanih s pandemijo, že vtkal v naše kolektivno nezavedno. Študija tako raziskuje vpliv katastrofičnih dogodkov na duševno zdravje, predvsem na kakovost spanja in vsebino sanj. Ključne besede: sanje, spanec, kolektivna travma, COVID-19, pandemija Mary C. Walsh Starodavna bolezen v sodobnem svetu: raziskave o epilepsiji in sanjah Ljudje že tisočletja poskušajo razumeti epilepsijo, pri čemer tradicije zdravlje- nja te bolezni že vseskozi vključujejo sanje tako v njeno diagnosticiranje kot tera- pijo. Nedavne študije so prinesle nove informacije o vplivu epilepsije na spanje in sanjanje, raziskave o vsebini epileptičnih sanj pa vpogled v čustveno doživljanje in duhovne izkušnje epileptikov. Čeprav se je s sodobnimi nevrološkimi raziskavami naše znanje o tej starodavni bolezni poglobilo, njeno zdravljenje pa izboljšalo, ti- sočletja razširjene zmotne predstave in stigmatizacija še vedno zaznamujejo skrb za osebe z epilepsijo in njihovo kakovost življenja po vsem svetu. Sodobne tera- pije sicer omogočajo boljše zdravljenje epileptikov, vendar lahko po drugi strani vplivajo na njihovo spanje, sanjanje in pogostost napadov. Članek ponuja pregled novejših raziskav o sanjah in epilepsiji ter preučuje, kako njihovi izsledki vpliva- jo na oskrbo epileptikov v sodobnem svetu. Pregled vključuje nedavne študije o P O L I G R A F I 250 REM-fazi spanja kot varovalnem dejavniku pri pojavnosti napadov, o vsebini sanj pri epileptikih, o vplivih epilepsije na določene populacije ter o novih paradigmah razumevanja duhovnih izkušenj pri epilepsiji. Študije kažejo na potrebo po mul- tidisciplinarnem in večkulturnem pristopu k preučevanju epilepsije. Avtorica v članku razpravlja o pomenu takega pristopa za terapevtsko in zdravstveno oskrbo ter predstavi poti za nadaljnje raziskave. Ključne besede: sanje, epilepsija, spanje, tehnologija, duhovnost Sheldon Juncker Sanjanje z UI Avtor osvetljuje zmožnosti sodobnih sistemov generativne umetne inteligence (UI) na primeru splošno razširjenih in dostopnih modelov ChatGPT za izpopol- njevanje besedil podjetja OpenAI, pri čemer se osredotoča na vprašanje, kako bi tovrstne modele lahko uporabili za analiziranje in beleženje sanj. Začne s kratkim pregledom narave sanj, metod interpretiranja sanj ter pomena odnosa med člove- kom in sanjami, nato raziskuje, kako se tehnologija, zlasti UI, umešča v ta prostor in kako nam lahko pomaga razumeti sanje. Od preprostih razlag sanj napreduje do interpretacij po različnih filozofskih šolah, nadaljuje z razlago simbolov v okviru posameznih sanj in zaključi z analizo vzorcev v posameznih dnevnikih sanj. Članek zaokroži z razpravo o etičnih vprašanjih, povezanih z UI in sanjami, ter ponudi vpoglede v pretekle tehnološke revolucije, tako v njihove pozitivne kot negativne vplive na človeška prizadevanja. V zaključku predstavi praktično, stvarno in opti- mistično vizijo bodočega napredka tega področja, utemeljeno v eksperimentih in metodologijah, raziskanih v pričujočem članku. Ključne besede: sanje, razlaga sanj, umetna inteligenca, generativna umetna inteligenca, psihoanaliza, etika Kelly Bulkeley Novi pristopi v empiričnem preučevanju sanj Raziskovanje sanj vstopa v novo dobo pospešenega pridobivanja spoznanj in odkritij, predvsem zahvaljujoč razvoju visokozmogljivih digitalnih analitičnih oro- dij, ki omogočajo velik napredek v empiričnem preučevanju sanj. Prispevek pred- stavlja rabo tovrstnih orodij na podlagi virov iz brezplačno dostopnega spletnega A B S T R A C T S / P O V Z E T K I 251 arhiva podatkov o spanju in sanjah (Sleep and Dream Database). Orodja vključu- jejo statistične analize odgovorov na anketna vprašanja, sistematično iskanje be- sed po obsežnih zbirkah poročil o sanjah in strokovno utemeljen niz izhodiščnih pogostosti, ki pomagajo pri primerjalnem merjenju. Cilj prispevka je orientirati bralce v novem svetu odkrivanja sanj, ki se je odprl z razvojem tovrstnih orodij. Podanih je tudi nekaj osnovnih empiričnih ugotovitev glede jasno vidnih vzorcev zaznavanja, čustvovanja in družbene interakcije v sanjah. Prispevek se zaključi z razmislekom o naraščajočem medsebojnem vplivu sanj in tehnologije. Ključne besede: sanje, iskanje besed, analiza vsebine, teorija kontinuitete Maja Gutman Mušič Zadnje svetišče arhetipov: ponoven razmislek o sanjah v luči starodavnega znanja in umetne inteligence Navkljub številnim poskusom, da bi sanje vključili v najrazličnejše znanstvene discipline, med strokovnjaki še vedno ni enotnega mnenja o tem, zakaj in kako sanjamo. Zdi se, da je ta tisočletja star občečloveški pojav preveč izmuzljiv, da bi ga lahko v celoti pojasnila ena sama znanstvena disciplina, ter preveč zapleten in podatkovno bogat, da bi ga preučevali zgolj teoretično. Vendar obstaja razsežnost sanj in sanjanja, ki bi lahko omogočila celostni pristop, in sicer kulturnozgodo- vinska komponenta v kombinaciji z najnovejšimi dosežki na področju umetne inteligence. Avtorica v članku na kratko pregleda in predstavi konceptualna razu- mevanja sanj pred razvojem sodobne znanosti ‒ zlasti ameriška staroselska, me- zopotamska, starogrška in hipokratska načela sanjskih praks ter vedenje o sanjah ‒, da bi omogočila boljše razumevanje področja sodobnega raziskovanja sanj in začrtala bodoče možnosti za podatkovno voden pristop, ki pa bi še vedno ohranjal epistemološko podlago. Ključne besede: starodavno sanjanje, arhetipi, umetna inteligenca, podatki o sanjah, medkulturna analiza sanj 253 A B O U T T H E A U T H O R S / O A V T O R I C A H I N A V T O R J I H NINA PETEK Nina Petek, PhD, is Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, where she teaches courses on Asian phi- losophical and religious traditions, with a special focus on the philosophical tra- ditions and religions of India. Her research interests involve ontology and epi- stemology in Hindu and Buddhist philosophical schools and Buddhist eremitic tradition in the Himalayas. She translates from Sanskrit into Slovene. She is also the Director of the Institute for Monastic Studies and Contemplative Sciences. Dr. Nina Petek je docentka na Oddelku za filozofijo Filozofske fakultete Uni- verze v Ljubljani, kjer predava azijske filozofije, religije in kulture s poudarkom na indijskih filozofsko-religijskih tradicijah. Njena raziskovalna področja so onto- logija in epistemologija v hindujskih in budističnih filozofskih šolah ter tradicija budističnega puščavništva v Himalaji. Prevaja iz sanskrta v slovenski jezik. Je di- rektorica Inštituta za študije meništva in kontemplativne znanosti. VICTOR J. KREBS Victor J. Krebs (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, USA). He is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities at the Pontifical Catholic Univer- sity of Peru (PUCP). His current research revolves around psychoanalysis and the digital revolution. Author of Of Soul and Art (Editorial Arte: Caracas, 1998), The Recovery of Meaning (Equinoccio: Caracas, 2007), The Pornographic Imagination (Lápix: Lima, 2017), and (with Richard Frankel) of Human Virtuality and Digital Life. Philosophical and Psychoanalytic Investigations (Routledge: London and New York, 2022) (Gradiva Book Prize from the NAPP (2022), and Courage to Dream Book Prize from the APSA (2023)). He is a philosophical curator, founder of the Jungian Circle of Peru, coordinator of the Latinamerican Posthuman Network and of Hermes, a research group of the Center of Philosophical Studies at PUCP. Dr. Victor J. Krebs, doktorant Univerze Notre Dame v ZDA, je redni profe- sor filozofije na Oddelku za humanistiko na Papeški katoliški univerzi v Peruju (PUCP). Njegovo raziskovalno delo je trenutno osredinjeno na psihoanalizo in P O L I G R A F I 254 digitalno revolucijo. Je avtor del Of Soul and Art (Editorial Arte: Caracas, 1998), The Recovery of Meaning (Equinoccio: Caracas, 2007) in The Pornographic Ima- gination (Lápix: Lima, 2017), poleg tega je v soavtorstvu z Richardom Franklom izdal knjigo Human Virtuality and Digital Life. Philosophical and Psychoanalytic Investigations (Routledge: London in New York, 2022), ki ji je Ameriško združe- nje za razvoj psihoanalize (NAAP) leta 2022 podelilo nagrado Gradiva, Ameriško združenje psihoanalitikov (APsA) pa leta 2023 nagrado Courage to Dream. Krebs je filozofski kurator, ustanovitelj Perujskega jungovskega društva ter koordinator Latinskoameriške posthumanistične mreže in raziskovalne skupine Hermes, ki deluje na Centru za filozofske študije na PUCP. LAURA J. VOLLMER Laura J. Vollmer is an independent scholar and a prolific writer on a varie- ty of topics related to religion, science, culture, health, and politics. She wrote a monograph on the relational structure of discourse, applying an innovative theory and method to the study of religion and science (Brill, forthcoming). Dr. Vollmer has been a freelance academic and general nonfiction editor for over eleven years, independently contracted by the University Press of Mis- sissippi, McFarland, the Journal of Religion in Europe, and others, as well as by numerous scholars publishing with a multitude of journals and academic presses, such Brill and De Gruyter. In the past, she has worked as an instructor at Washington University in St. Louis in the Department of Religious Studies. Laura J. Vollmer je neodvisna raziskovalka in plodovita pisateljica o različnih temah, povezanih z religijo, znanostjo, kulturo, zdravstvom in politiko. Je avtorica monografije o relacijski strukturi diskurza, v kateri uporablja inovativno teorijo in metodo preučevanja religije in znanosti (v pripravi na objavo pri nizozemski založbi Brill). Dr. Vollmer je že več kot enajst let zunanja urednica akademske in splošne stvarne literature pri Univerzitetni založbi Univerze v Misisipiju, založbi McFarland, reviji Journal of Religion in Europe in drugod, sodeluje pa tudi s števil- nimi znanstveniki in raziskovalci, ki objavljajo v različnih strokovnih revijah in pri akademskih založbah, kot sta Brill in De Gruyter. Delala je tudi kot predavateljica na Oddelku za religiologijo Washingtonske univerze v St. Louisu. A B O U T T H E A U T H O R S / O A V T O R I C A H I N A V T O R J I H 255 CARMELA MENTO Carmela Mento is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Univer- sity of Messina, Italy. She is also Analytical Psychologist, Consultant and Supervi- sor in Medical Settings in Psychiatric Unit of the Policlinico University Hospital in Messina. Carmela Mento je izredna profesorica klinične psihologije na Univerzi v Me- sini v Italiji. Je tudi specialistka analitične psihologije, svetovalka in zdravstvena supervizorka na Enoti za psihiatrijo Univerzitetne poliklinike v Mesini. MARIA CATENA SILVESTRI Maria Catena Silvestri is a Psychologist, Psychotherapist and PhD in Cognitive Sciences. Her areas of interest are mental health in adolescence and psychological rehabilitation. She is the co-author of articles published in international journals. Maria Catena Silvestri je psihologinja, psihoterapevtka in doktorica kognitiv- nih znanosti. Deluje na področju duševnega zdravja mladostnikov in psihološke rehabilitacije. V soavtorstvu je objavila več člankov v mednarodnih strokovnih revijah. AMELIA RIZZO Amelia Rizzo is a Psychologist and Cognitive Psychotherapist, as well as a tea- cher at the University of Messina Italy. Amelia Rizzo je psihologinja in kognitivna psihoterapevtka ter predavateljica na Univerzi v Mesini. CLARA LOMBARDO Clara Lombardo is a Psychologist and Group analytic Psychotherapist, Psychi- atric Unit Policlinico Hospital Messina, Italy. Clara Lombardo je psihologinja in specialistka za skupinsko analitično psiho- terapijo na Enoti za psihiatrijo Univerzitetne poliklinike v Mesini. P O L I G R A F I 256 HADIPOUR LAKMESANI ABED Hadipour Lakmesani Abed is a PhD Student in Cognitive Sciences at the Uni- versity of Messina, Italy. Hadipour Lakmesani Abed je doktorand kognitivnih znanosti na Univerzi v Mesini. FERDINANDO TESTA Ferdinando Testa is an Analytical Psychologist at the Italian Centre of Analyti- cal Psychology CIPA and an Italian member of the International Association of Analytical Psychology, IAAP. Ferdinando Testa je specialist analitične psihologije pri Italijanskem središču za analitično psihologijo (CIPA) in član Mednarodnega združenja za analitično psihologijo (IAAP). TOSHIO KAWAI Toshio Kawai is a full Professor of Psychology at the Kyoto University, Kokoro Research Centre, Japan. Toshio Kawai je redni profesor psihologije in direktor Raziskovalnega središča Kokoro Univerze v Kjotu na Japonskem. MARY C. WALSH Mary C. Walsh, D. Min., LMFT is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, consultant, biofeedback trainer, dream researcher, and writer in private practice in Berkeley and Vallejo, CA. She has Master’s degrees in Marriage and Family Therapy, Theology, and English Language and Literature, and a Doctorate in Mi- nistry. Her doctoral dissertation studied the role of imagination and the neuro- -physiology of trauma in the recovery of traumatized adolescents. Mary C. Walsh has taught as an adjunct professor in the graduate Certificate in Traumatology and Treatment Program at Holy Names University, Oakland, CA. She has co-founded and designed hospital and school-based treatment programs for traumatized and substance abusing adolescents. She has presented at numerous national and inter- national conferences and workshops on dream research, dual diagnosis adolescent treatment, spirituality, healing, and trauma. A B O U T T H E A U T H O R S / O A V T O R I C A H I N A V T O R J I H 257 Mary C. Walsh je doktorica teologije, zakonska in družinska terapevtka z licen- co, svetovalka, biofeedback terapevtka, raziskovalka sanj ter pisateljica z zasebno prakso v Berkeleyju in Valleju, v Kaliforniji. Magistrirala je na področjih zakonske in družinske terapije ter angleškega jezika in književnosti, doktorski naziv pa pri- dobila z disertacijo o vlogi domišljije ter nevrofiziologiji travme pri mladostnikih s posledicami travme. Walsh je poučevala kot začasna profesorica v podiplomskem programu za pridobitev certifikata s področja travmatologije in terapije na Univer- zi Svetih imen v Oaklandu, v Kaliforniji. Je soustanoviteljica in oblikovalka bol- nišničnih in šolskih programov za zdravljenje mladostnikov s posledicami travme in težavami z zasvojenostjo. Na številnih državnih in mednarodnih konferencah in delavnicah je sodelovala s prispevki o raziskavah sanj, zdravljenju mladostnikov s težavami z zasvojenostjo in pridruženimi duševnimi motnjami, o duhovnosti, okrevanju in travmi. SHELDON JUNCKER Sheldon Juncker, B.Sc. Computer Science, is a software engineer who works in the fields of dream research, data analysis, and artificial intelligence. He is a co- -founder of Elsewhere, a company that pioneers the intersection of AI and dream research, both with their innovative dream journaling app and through associa- ted research endeavors. He also provides AI and data analysis services for other research projects, including the development and maintenance of the Sleep and Dream Database. He lives in Portland, Oregon, where he spends his free time writing music, hiking, reading, and playing the occasional game of Dungeons and Dragons. Sheldon Juncker je diplomiral iz računalništva in dela kot programer na podro- čju raziskav sanj, analize podatkov in umetne inteligence. Je soustanovitelj podjetja Elsewhere, ki je kot prvo povezalo področji umetne inteligence in raziskovanje sanj v inovativni aplikaciji za beleženje sanj, nato pa še v drugih sorodnih raziskoval- nih prizadevanjih. Storitve UI in analize podatkov zagotavlja tudi v zunanjih raz- iskovalnih projektih, med drugim sodeluje pri razvoju in vzdrževanju digitalnega arhiva The Sleep and Dream Database. Živi v Portlandu v ZDA, kjer v prostem času ustvarja glasbo, planinari, bere in občasno odigra kakšno partijo družabne igre Dungeons and Dragons. P O L I G R A F I 258 KELLY BULKELEY Kelly Bulkeley, Ph.D., is a dream researcher and author with a background in the psychology of religion. He is director of the Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb), a Senior Editor of the APA journal Dreaming, and a former President of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. He earned a B.A. at Stanford University, an M.T.S. at Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is author and editor of several bo- oks, including The Wilderness of Dreams (1994), An Introduction to the Psychology of Dreaming (1997), Dreaming Beyond Death (2006), American Dreamers (2008), Dreaming in the World’s Religions (2008), Lucid Dreaming (2014), Big Dreams: The Science of Dreaming and the Origins of Religion (2016), Lucrecia the Dreamer (2018), The Scribes of Sleep: Insights from the Most Important Dream Journals in History (2023), 2020 Dreams (2023), and The Spirituality of Dreaming (2023). He lives in Estacada, Oregon. Dr. Kelly Bulkeley je raziskovalec sanj, pisec in strokovnjak s področja psiho- logije religije. Je direktor digitalnega arhiva Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb), eden od glavnih urednikov revije Dreaming Ameriškega psihološkega združe- nja (APA) in nekdanji predsednik Mednarodnega združenja za preučevanje sanj (IASD). Diplomiral je na Univerzi Stanford, naziv magistra teologije pridobil na Teološki fakulteti Univerze Harvard, doktoriral pa na Teološki fakulteti Univer- ze v Chicagu. Napisal in uredil je več knjig, med njimi The Wilderness of Dreams (1994), An Introduction to the Psychology of Dreaming (1997), Dreaming beyond De- ath (2006), American Dreamers (2008), Dreaming in the World’s Religions (2008), Lucid Dreaming (2014), Big Dreams: The Science of Dreaming and the Origins of Religion (2016), Lucrecia the Dreamer (2018), The Scribes of Sleep: Insights from the Most Important Dream Journals in History (2023), 2020 Dreams (2023) in The Spi- rituality of Dreaming (2023). Živi v Estacadi v Oregonu, ZDA. MAJA GUTMAN MUŠIČ Maja Gutman Mušič is a research scholar whose work incorporates Anthropo- logy, Philosophy of Mind, Media Studies, and Science and Technology studies to advance a fundamental understanding of two themes: the human-machine relati- onship and the psychological dynamics of dreams. Maja was a Fulbright Visiting Scientist at the Anthropology Department of the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2021, focusing on the automated recognition of archetypal patterns in an extensive collection of dream reports using Natural Language Processing tools. In 2023, she co-authored her first digital monograph called 2020 Dreams: Toward A B O U T T H E A U T H O R S / O A V T O R I C A H I N A V T O R J I H 259 a New Understanding of the Dreaming-Waking Continuum, published by Stanford University Press. Maja is a researcher at the Institute of Philosophical and Religious Studies at the Science and Research Centre Koper and a lecturer in Media Studies and Humanities at Alma Mater Europaea, Slovenia. Maja Gutman Mušič je raziskovalka, ki preučuje antropologijo, filozofijo uma, medijske študije ter študije znanosti in tehnologije ter skuša s povezovanjem spo- znanj s teh področij razvijati temeljno razumevanje dveh tem: odnosa med člove- kom in strojem ter psihološke dinamike sanj. Leta 2021 je kot prejemnica Fulbri- ghtove štipendije gostovala na Oddelku za antropologijo Univerze v Kaliforniji v Los Angelesu, kjer se je posvečala avtomatiziranemu prepoznavanju arhetipskih vzorcev s pomočjo orodij za procesiranje besedil v naravnem jeziku, ki ga je preu- čevala na primeru obsežne zbirke poročil o sanjah. Leta 2023 je v soavtorstvu na- pisala svojo prvo digitalno monografijo z naslovom 2020 Dreams: Toward a New Understanding of the Dreaming-Waking Continuum, ki je izšla pri založbi Stanford University Press. Gutman Mušič je raziskovalka na Inštitutu za filozofske in religij- ske študije Znanstveno-raziskovalnega središča Koper in predavateljica medijskih študij in humanistike na fakulteti Alma Mater Europaea v Sloveniji. P O L I G R A F I doslej izšlo / previous issues: Hermetizem • Religija in psihologija – Carl Custav Jung Mislec neskončnosti Giordano Bruno • Logos in kozmos Panteizem O Božjem bivanju • 2000 po Kristusu • Mesijanska zgodovina Sebstvo in meditacija • Religija in umetnost podobe Protestantizem • Nikolaj Kuzanski Renesančne mitologije • Ples življenja, ples smrti Ars magna • Antični mit in literatura O ljubezni • Ameriška filozofija religije Poetika in simbolika prostora • Mistika in literatura Solidarity and interculturality • Šamanizem Ženske in religija • On community Mediterranean lectures in philosophy • Svoboda in demokracija Človekove pravice Ethical gestures • Krogotok rojstva in smrti Natural history • Modeli sveta Bodily proximity • Država in moralnost Living with consequences • Mistika in misel Duhovnost žensk na Slovenskem • Poesis of Peace Čuječnost: tradicija in sodobni pristopi • Trpljenje Identiteta Evrope • “borders/debordering” Islam and democracy • Religions and Dialogue Religija in družbena pravičnost • Ontologies of Asylum Meeting East Asia • Ženske v medreligijski izgradnji miru Krščanstvo in marksizem • Contemporary Muslim-Christian Encounters Understanding Ethnic, Religious and Cultural Minorities in Turkey • Religija in narava / Religion and Nature Transplanted Buddhism in and from Southeast Asia • Religijska in mitološka simbolika v vzhodnoazijski umetnosti R E V I S I T I N G D R E A M S : I N T E R D I S C I P L I N A R Y P E R S P E C T I V E S O N D R E A M R E S E A R C H A N D S C I E N C E Kelly Bulkeley, Maja Gutman Mušič: Revisiting Dreams: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Dream Research and Science Nina Petek: In that very body, within that very dream: Soteriological dreaming technique in the tradition of Buddhist yogis Victor J. Krebs: Dreaming in the Digital Age: Thoughts on the Technological Pharmakon Laura J. Vollmer: Toward a Historiography of Dreams: A Discursive Perspective Carmela Mento, Maria Catena Silvestri, Amelia Rizzo, Clara Lombardo, Hadipour Lakmesani Abed, Ferdinando Testa, Kelly Bulkeley, Toshio Kawai: Dreams, Sleep Quality, and Collective Trauma: An Investigation of the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic Mary C. Walsh: An Ancient Disease in a Modern World: Epilepsy and Dream Research Sheldon Juncker: Dreaming with AI Kelly Bulkeley: New Approaches in the Empirical Study of Dreams Maja Gutman Mušič: The Last Sanctum of Archetypes: Rethinking Dreams in the Light of Ancient Knowledge and Artificial Intelligence