Letter to the Editor: Hypothesis for the Neurophysiology of Dreaming
Claude Gottesmann
Laboratoire de Psychophysiologie, Faculté Sciences, Université de
Nice-Sophia
Antipolis, 06108 Nice cedex 2, France
ABSTRACT
During wakefulness, the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for
generating mental activities, is activated by brain stem ascending
influences. This is evidenced by classic electrophysiological field and
unitary activities, gamma range activity and cortical blood flow.
However, aminergic ascending neurons exert mainly diffuse inhibitory
influences. These two kinds of influences together support reflective
and rational psychological activities. During slow wave sleep, both
kinds of ascending influences decrease and the mental content comprises
low-intensity thought-like activities, similar to the waking mode of
functioning, although dreams have been described. During rapid eye
movement sleep, the principal dreaming stage, the cortex is activated
but significantly disinhibited since all aminergic neurons are silent
except the dopaminergic ones. We hypothesize that, in addition to this
unusual state, the persistent release of dopamine associated with the
specific silence of noradrenergic neurons could explain the
characteristics of dream mental activity which are somewhat similar to
psychotic symptoms.