Daydreams are the source of dreams; a theory

What is it about?

Dreams and daydreams are as beguiling as they are intangible (Barrett, 2018). Both share many features, from neurobiology to the sensed experience. Nevertheless, the specific narrative relationship between both, if any, remains uncertain. Theories of dream origins are many: from the psychodynamic royal road, (Freud, 1913) to biological theories, including Hebbian based memory consolidation (Voss & Klimke,, 2017), and a unified quantum brain theory that extends to waking and dreaming alike (Globus, 2017). Both the ephemeral nature of dreams, and an inability to simultaneously study their content and biology, renders them difficult to research from a conventional biomedical perspective. This leaves agreement on the fundamental properties of dreams as ambiguous, and even the state of consciousness enjoyed during sleep is contested (Freud, 1913). What is known is that the qualia and neurophysiological signature of dreams and daydreaming share many features (Domhoff, 20115). We propose further, from a subjective experientialist position, that dream content is specifically derived from daydreams or mindful wandering (subserved by the default mode network [DMN]). If substantiated, this concept offers a new insight into the origin of dreams.

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Why is it important?

Dreams and daydreams are something we spend much of our lives indulging often without knowing it. What if they are not so separate in content after all? If daydream content directly informs dream content then this is may result in a porosity between the waking and dreaming state of thought. What we know if that dreams and daydreams can be powerful agents for change and perhaps this finding is less than coincidental.

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