Article contents
Such stuff as dreams are made on? Elaborative encoding, the ancient art of memory, and the hippocampus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2013
Abstract
This article argues that rapid eye movement (REM) dreaming is elaborative encoding for episodic memories. Elaborative encoding in REM can, at least partially, be understood through ancient art of memory (AAOM) principles: visualization, bizarre association, organization, narration, embodiment, and location. These principles render recent memories more distinctive through novel and meaningful association with emotionally salient, remote memories. The AAOM optimizes memory performance, suggesting that its principles may predict aspects of how episodic memory is configured in the brain. Integration and segregation are fundamental organizing principles in the cerebral cortex. Episodic memory networks interconnect profusely within the cortex, creating omnidirectional “landmark” junctions. Memories may be integrated at junctions but segregated along connecting network paths that meet at junctions. Episodic junctions may be instantiated during non–rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep after hippocampal associational function during REM dreams. Hippocampal association involves relating, binding, and integrating episodic memories into a mnemonic compositional whole. This often bizarre, composite image has not been present to the senses; it is not “real” because it hyperassociates several memories. During REM sleep, on the phenomenological level, this composite image is experienced as a dream scene. A dream scene may be instantiated as omnidirectional neocortical junction and retained by the hippocampus as an index. On episodic memory retrieval, an external stimulus (or an internal representation) is matched by the hippocampus against its indices. One or more indices then reference the relevant neocortical junctions from which episodic memories can be retrieved. Episodic junctions reach a processing (rather than conscious) level during normal wake to enable retrieval. If this hypothesis is correct, the stuff of dreams is the stuff of memory.
- Type
- Target Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013
References
- 47
- Cited by
Target article
Such stuff as dreams are made on? Elaborative encoding, the ancient art of memory, and the hippocampus
Related commentaries (28)
A hippocampal indexing model of memory retrieval based on state trajectory reconstruction
A three-legged stool needs a stronger third leg
Beware of being captured by an analogy: Dreams are like many things
Composition and replay of mnemonic sequences: The contributions of REM and slow-wave sleep to episodic memory
Dissociative symptoms and REM sleep
Don't count your chickens before they're hatched: Elaborative encoding in REM dreaming in face of the physiology of sleep stages
Dream and emotion regulation: Insight from the ancient art of memory
Dreaming is not controlled by hippocampal mechanisms
Dreams are made of memories, but maybe not for memory
Dreams, mnemonics, and tuning for criticality
Elaborative encoding during REM dreaming as prospective emotion regulation
From Freud to acetylcholine: Does the AAOM suffice to construct a dream?
Minding the dream self: Perspectives from the analysis of self-experience in dreams
Mnemonic expertise during wakefulness and sleep
Ontological significance of the dream world
REM sleep and dreaming functions beyond reductionism
REM sleep, hippocampus, and memory processing: Insights from functional neuroimaging studies
Some Renaissance, Baroque, and contemporary cultural elaborations of the art of memory
Studying the relationship between dreaming and sleep-dependent memory processes: Methodological challenges
Such stuff as NREM dreams are made on?
Such stuff as psychoses are made on?
The analogy between dreams and the ancient art of memory is tempting but superficial
The ancient art of memory
The method of loci (MoL) and memory consolidation: Dreaming is not MoL-like
The seahorse, the almond, and the night-mare: Elaborative encoding during sleep-paralysis hallucinations?
The secret is at the crossways: Hodotopic organization and nonlinear dynamics of brain neural networks
The spaces left over between REM sleep, dreaming, hippocampal formation, and episodic autobiographical memory
“They who dream by day”: Parallels between Openness to Experience and dreaming
Author response
Such stuff as REM and NREM dreams are made on? An elaboration