Dreaming And Memory

This thoughtful and original work, which draws on both the traditional psychoanalytic model and research findings from contemporary dream physiology, describes and illustrates what promises to be the most significant new theory of dream construction since Freud’s “The Interpretation of Dreams.” Dreaming, according to Dr. Palombo, is part of the “memory cycle,” the process through which new experiential information is introduced into appropriate associative locations in the long-term memory. Dreams serve an information-processing function by matching present and past experience in determining what information will be filtered through for storage in permanent memory. Dr. Palombo offers convincing confirmation of his new theory in a remarkable sequence of recorded psychoanalytic hours and dream reports from the sleep laboratory. In this sequence, the cumulative adaptive functioning of the memory cycle and the variety of obstacles presented to it by the dream censorship are demonstrated in rich detail, with a precision not previously possible in the analysis of dreams. The final chapters explore the implications of the new dream theory for a general psychology based on the traditional psychoanalytic model of the psychic apparatus.