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Re: Fwd: Auditory hallucinations

Dear List,

I passed the email at the end from Al Bregman on to Freud scholar Simon
Boag, who replied as follows.

        Harvey Holmes
__________________

The mentioned hypothesis is an old one and to some extent is a cornerstone
of Freud's thought. More recently, Hobson, who is anti-Freud, has expressed
similar ideas. You'll find a summary of his views in:

Hobson, J. A. (2004). A model for madness? Dream consciousness: Our
understanding of the neurobiology of sleep offers insight into
abnormalities in the waking brain. Nature, 430, 21.

Cheers,
Simon

Date:         Wed, 13 Jul 2005 17:16:39 -0400
Reply-To: Al Bregman <al.bregman@xxxxxxxxx>
From: Al Bregman <bregman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject:      Auditory hallucinations
To: AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dear Sukhi,

I think there are two reasonably close analogs of schizophrenic
hallucinations:
1.  Dreaming during normal sleep.
2.  The hallucinations that one can induce in awake people via
        (a) long periods of sensory deprivation
        (b) depriving normal people of the opportunity to dream during
sleep
              by waking them up whenever they start to dream.

For some time, I have entertained the idea that the hallucinations in
schizophrenics were a disorder of the normal dreaming mechanism.  Why don't
we dream during the day?  Some mechanism must suppress it.  Maybe this
suppression mechanism is defective in schizophrenics, or requires that
external events engage a much higher level of interest (or arousal) before
it kicks in.

Best wishes,

Al

---------------------------------------------
Albert S. Bregman,
Emeritus Professor
Psychology Dept., McGill University
1205 Docteur Penfield Avenue
Montreal, Quebec
Canada  H3A 1B1

Office:
     Voice: +1 (514) 398-6103
     Fax:     +1 (514) 398-4896
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