Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:904-912
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
REM sleep dreams and the activation-synthesis hypothesis
RW McCarley and E Hoffman
The authors studied 104 dreams obtained from 14 subjects and quantified the
formal aspects of the subjects' dream experiences by the following
categories: movement in dreams, sensation, affect, dream bizarreness, and
dream lucidity. Their results are compared with the predictions of the
activation-synthesis hypothesis, which postulates that the characteristic
formal aspects of dreams correspond to characteristic aspects of
physiological activation during REM sleep. Although further experimental
work is needed, the authors show that their results are consistent with and
supportive of the activation-synthesis hypothesis.
