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SLEEP DREAMS, CEREBRAL DOMINANCE AND CREATION: A NEW APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM

Vadim S. Rotenberg

E-mail: vadir@post.tau.ac.il
First Moscow Medical Institute, Department of Psycho physiology and Psychiatry

IN: PAVLOVIAN JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, 1985, 20:53-58.

UNTIL RECENTLY the participation of sleep dreams in creative processes was discussed primarily on the basis of self-observations made by artists and scientists who periodically reported curious cases of creative "brain storms" that had occurred to them in sleep. A classic example is furnished by the discovery of the benzene ring, which Kekule saw in his dream in the image of a snake which bit its own tail. However, serious studies devoted to the influence of REM sleep and dreams on creative processes are relatively scarce. Some authors (Lewin and Glaubman 1975) have demonstrated that the deprivation of REM sleep hampers the solution of problems that require a creative approach but does not interfere with problems of memorization. It has been found (Domino 1976) that in dreams individuals with high creative potential exhibit more pronounced primary processes of thinking (i.e., their nonverbal imagery is more active) than controls with average creative abilities. Individuals with convergent thinking have lower creative potential (Rothenberg 1973) yielding fewer dream recalls than those with divergent thinking (Austin 1971).

These data would appear to support the hypothesis (French and Fro mm 1964) that creative acts take place in dreams themselves because they are dominated by image thinking. By now, researchers have accumulated fairly ample direct evidence of the dominance of right hemisphere activity during REM sleep episodes, especially in the first sleep cycles.

Meanwhile, the role of right hemisphere spatial imagery in creative processes is now held to be indisputable. We will dwell on this question before resuming the discussion of the relationship between dreams and creative productivity. It has been demonstrated that a lesion of the brain's right hemisphere leads to a considerable decrease in creative potential both in a scientist and in an artist. In the case of a lesion of the left hemisphere the artistic abilities of musicians and artists remain practically unaffected. In some instances their works even exhibit a higher level of aesthetic expression (Zenkov 1978).

We assume that the importance of "right- hemispheric" thinking in creative mechanisms is determined by the structural differences in the contextual relationship between words and images (Rotenberg 1979). "Left-hemispheric" verbal thinking organizes any material it uses, whether verbal or not, in such a way that the result is an unambiguous context necessary for social communication. But reality cannot be exhaustively presented in terms of verbal thinking, since the number of potential relationships between multifaceted objects and phenomena, in essence, is infinite. A specific feature of spatial-image-based nonverbal thinking is a simultaneous "grasp" of all such relationships. In this process individual properties, or facets, of images interact on several "semantic planes" at once - the factor behind the multi-valued character of an image (or the word by which it is symbolized) in an appropriate context. Instead of the organizing principle of verbal thinking, image thinking ensures a direct perception of reality, the acceptance of reality as it is.

Tests designed to disclose the presence of creative abilities (e.g., the Guilford test) support concepts emphasizing the role of the image context. Subjects are requested to suggest as many uses for some ordinary household items as they can. Each of such objects has only one traditional designation. The suggestion that a customary object be used in many ways, including the most fantastic, is designed to determine how stable the unambiguous linear associations between objects are in the subject's consciousness and how much they can give way to ambiguous associations, based on the consideration of the greatest number of each object's properties. Most importantly, if these assignments are to be carried out, the subject has to bear in mind the multiformity of the given object's properties. The subject must also be able to bring them in correspondence with those of other objects-create an image-based context. Other methods of estimating creative abilities (Rothenberg 1973) include readiness for a simultaneous grasp of two or more opposite ideas or aspects of a phenomenon.

The underlying basis of any creation (both artistic and scientific) is formed by complementary relationships between two types of thinking. The potential of image thinking permits the perception of reality with all its many facets and their complex relationships-the factor which ensures insight. But if the results of spatial image thinking are to be converted from a "thing in itself" into a "thing for us" they must be analyzed, critically estimated and organized into some system. This stage is impossible without the participation of verbal-logical-thinking. It sets a direction to creative activity and limits its potentially chaotic character, reduces its entropy. The high level of entropy, i.e., the low level of order between relationships, of an image-based context and the anti-entropy of verbal context determine differences between the physiologic activity of the cerebral hemispheres involved in the process of solving problems which require and do not require a creative approach. One of the students of the problem (Martindale 1975) recorded the brain's bioelectric activity in the form of electroencephalograms (EEGs) in subjects with high and low creative potential. Creativity was determined by the Guilford test. Recordings were obtained in a state of rest and in the process of solving problems which required either a creative approach or formal logical operations. Extent of alpha rhythm in the three states was compared. Presumably, there is a reverse relationship between this indicator and the degree of cerebral activation: the greater the activity of the ascending activating reticular formation the less pronounced the alpha rhythm. Martin-dale showed that in a state of rest creative individuals displayed less alpha rhythm in their EEGs than subjects with low or average creative abilities. It follows that in a state of relative rest the brain of a creative individual is more "activated," possibly due to greater sensory openness and greater sensitivity to all outside signals. In part, this sensitivity enables creative people to live a more intense inner life and leaves them more exposed to inner conflicts, which may assume the form of higher cerebral activation aside from creative activity.

However, in the handling of problems that necessitate a creative approach, creative individuals exhibited an intensified alpha rhythm compared to the background. In dealing with problems which required formal logical thinking their alpha rhythm decreased to essentially the same level as it did in individuals with low and average levels of creative abilities when they handled problems of any type. This indicates that individuals with marked creative ability do not need the additional activation of their brain structures in handling creative problems and, furthermore, some drop in this activity compared to the state of calm relaxed waking is expedient. It was confirmed by Martindale in another study. The EEG was recorded in two groups of students each comprised of creative and uncreative subjects. All students were asked to report any histories they could recall but only those of the second, experimental, group were requested to relate the most extraordinary ones they could think of. It was discovered that precisely in this condition, and only in the creative students, who successfully coped with this problem, did alpha rhythm show a significant increase.

There are several approaches to explaining these findings. It can be assumed that because the handling of creative problems represents an optimum form of activity for creative individuals it does not cause them emotional tension, therefore does not result in cerebral activation. However, 'there are arguments against this interpretation. Even if creative activity ensures that individuals with appropriate inclinations achieve maximum psychic comfort, it is difficult to explain why in this case the level of cerebral activation should be lower than in the case of handling other problems and even lower than in a state of calm relaxed waking. After all, creation is an intense form of activity, not just a state of gratification. Furthermore, it is frequently accompanied by an emotional uplift, which conflicts with the hypothesis of a decrease in emotional tension. Finally, if a high alpha index reflects a decrease in emotional tension, it should be evenly distributed in both cerebral hemispheres. Furthermore, there are reasons to believe that creative activity forms a different pattern. Rugg and Venables (1980) recorded the EEGs of both hemispheres in subjects during the process of memorizing abstract and concrete words, the latter marked by a high degree of imagery. Only the study of the latter words produced significantly more suppression of alpha rhythm in the left hemisphere than in the right. In memorizing abstract words that have a low degree of imagery, no interhemispheric differences were identified and both hemispheres were found to be equally drawn into this activity. The researchers assumed that such pronounced activation stemmed from the greater subjective difficulty of learning image-free words. This was confirmed by the subjective accounts of the subjects. However, this explanation is not adequate for understanding why an assignment addressed predominantly to the right hemisphere (such as the learning of image intensive words) should require for successful performance less activation of the right hemisphere. Traditional neuropsychological concepts, according to which the higher the functional load on some specific brain structure the more activated it should be, do not imply such results.

If one were to recognize that functional properties of the right hemisphere include not only imagery but the formation of a specific context which does not stimulate a reduction of entropy, the cited findings would become more understandable. The higher the level of entropy, i.e., the less it is required to order information , (and, consequently, the closer it is to its natural state in the subject's environment) the less energy and physiologic expenditures are required for achieving such organization. As a result, a lower level of additional activation is necessary. It should be borne in mind that not all imagery obeys the laws of organization of a nonverbal context. If the problem is so constructed that it is necessary to discover an unambiguous relationship between images (or if the subject turns any image handling into such a problem) an increase in cerebral activation should be expected. This assumption has found indirect support in research performed by the present author in collaboration with V. V. Arshavsky, F. B. Berezin, and A. I. Laneyev. The subjects of the study were indigenous people of the Soviet Far North (Chukchi) and individuals who had come to these places from the European part of the country. The Chukchi are known for a wealth and relative prevalence of imagery in their thinking. Both groups of subjects were given problems that required logical sign thinking (multiplication of two-digit numbers) and imagery (visual representation of specific pictures, including landscapes). The former assignment led to pronounced activation of the left hemisphere in both groups. The Chukchi also showed a relatively heightened activation of the right hemisphere. The assignment requiring visual representation was performed by the Chukchi at a significantly lower level of activation of the right hemisphere compared with the Europeans.

Interesting parallels are also suggested by psycho-physiological studies of specific states of consciousness (meditation and yogi). It has been demonstrated (Ornstein 1972) that these states are characterized by a relative functional dominance of the right hemisphere. At the same time, on emerging from such states the subject had the feeling of being rested and of reduced tension, exhibiting an enhanced interest in life. The EEG during these states is marked by the dominance of high amplitude alpha activity.

The proposed hypothesis is instrumental in explaining why in creative individuals creative work frequently remains unaccompanied by fatigue, in contrast to routine work and even simply a prolonged break in creative activity. At the same time, people with low creative potential find it preferable to perform any work, even the most tedious, to solving interesting, creative problems. Apparently, these people have to exert major additional efforts in order to overcome their orientation to the rigid orderliness and unambiguousness of relationships between objects and phenomena formed in the course of ontogeny. The shaping of orientations to the logical perception of the world requires intense activity of cerebral systems because in childhood original advantages are on the side of image thinking, which has greater functional maturity at the early stages of ontogeny. But the greater the efforts made in the process of education to obtain the dominance of logical, sign, verbal thinking, the greater the exertion subsequently required in order to overcome its limitations. In individuals with low creative abilities additional cerebral activation is necessary for unfettering imagery.

The main efforts of creative individuals are directed, on the contrary, at control of image thinking. Creative individuals find it easier to advance a multitude of alternative concepts than develop even one such concept. This is what makes them more eager to conceptualize problems than develop them into ready-made creations. It is precisely this that requires their greatest efforts.

Before returning to the problem of relationships created during dreaming, it should be noted that according to my data, abilities for creating an image-based context diminish in cases of neuroses and psychosomatic disorders. It is indicative that in the case of these forms of pathology, creative potential is reduced and an unproductive high level of cerebral activation is maintained. At the same time, one of the major mechanisms which preclude the development of neurotic and somatic disturbances is related to dreams during which imagery becomes so vividly manifest.

The aforesaid at first glance would appear to suggest that a creative act is legitimately accomplished in dreams themselves because they are dominated by imagery. However, this assumption can be countered by a number of arguments.

First, discoveries made during dreams are relatively infrequent, considering that each night each individual experiences at least four to five dreams.

Second, the state of creative ecstasy and maximal productivity is frequently accompanied by a decrease in total sleep duration, including a reduction of REM sleep without any unpleasant subjective sensations. This is possible only in the case of a decrease in the REM sleep requirement. If dreams are directly participating in the creative act, it causes a paradoxical situation: in the case of maximally successful creative activity the state it necessitates becomes reduced. The hypothesis concerning the realization of a creative act in dreams also conflicts with some experimental data. For instance, shortly before sleep subjects were offered a problem that required a creative approach (Bosinelli and Cicogny 1975). This was followed by awakenings in the REM sleep phase and dream recalls were recorded. By a number of criteria the content of dreams was indistinguishable when the problem was solved after sleep and when it was not.

In discussing the concept of French and Fromm it is also vital to consider the results of physiological research that reveal the dominant activation of the right hemisphere during REM sleep, especially in its first cycles (Cohen 1978). Such results largely disagree with the above data on the character of the brain's bioelectric activity in creative individuals when they handle creative problems. During REM sleep the desynchronization of the brain's bioelectric activity is recorded in its first cycles, which are presumably marked by the maximal activity of the right hemisphere. Of course, it can be assumed that this decreases the differences between individuals with high and low creative potentials, since the latter also have the opportunity of achieving creative solutions of problems in dreams. Judging by the results of the study of the waking period (Martindale 1975), hyper-activation of the right hemisphere, in the form of desynchronization, should not contribute to creative processes only in creative individuals. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that in the closing sleep phases, when dreams become particularly distinct, there is a shift in inter-hemispheric asymmetry toward a relative dominance of the left hemisphere. A comparison of all the above data suggests that imagery in dreams performs a slightly different function compared with waking, during which it is directly drawn into the creative act.

This is supported by the following theoretical conceptions.

Imagery indeed plays the determining role during the crystallization of a creative solution and insight. However, at the concluding stage of creation, the decisive factor is synergic interaction between verbal and non verbal thinking, which ensures the orderliness and critical analysis of the products created. Dreams violate the conditions of such interaction. The specific feature of dream-modified consciousness is its specific dissociation. In a psychically healthy individual, a state of waking consciousness ensures the reflection of objective reality, the abstraction of knowledge about this reality from his personality as the subject of learning, and his self-separation from the environment as the subject of learning and as the "subject of personality." The latter circumstance ensures self-perception, self-appraisal, and the identification of the "ego image" playing a major role in the formation of social motives.

During dreams people do not feel that they are seeing dreams, i.e., at this time the reflection of objective reality and the self-identification as the subject of learning are upset. Only self-identification as the subject of personality, self-identification and self-comparison with the ego - image are retained (Rotenberg 1982). The analytical and estimative function of verbal thinking, however, is practically inhibited. Correspondingly, a critical attitude to what is perceived disappears: the sleeper ceases to be surprised by miracles that are enacted in dreams and does not think them impossible and absurd. Consciousness, so to speak, passively registers the products of image thinking.

Because imagery by its nature embraces reality in all its multiformity and wealth of interrelations, during dreams consciousness can be reached by properties of objects and phenomena and their relationships which remain unrealized in waking. In the waking state, consciousness exercises its critic-analytical function which rejects them due to their internal contradictions. The revelations which occur in dreams, more often than not, assume metaphoric rather than direct aspects (a vivid example is furnished by Kekule's dream). This particularly applies to scientific discoveries. Artistic images can have greater directness. At any rate, if the creative process is to be completed, additional efforts of waking consciousness are required. This represents a manifestation of a major regularity: precisely what stimulates insight-the reduction of the critic-analytical function of consciousness-exercises a negative effect at the closing stage of the creative process. This explains why the majority of the many potential discoveries made in dreams remain "things in themselves." It follows that a creative act cannot be classed with the basic functions of a dream. However, REM sleep and dreams retain another channel whereby they can exercise an influence on creation. Some studies of people and animals (Rotenberg and Arshavsky 1979) led to the assumption that the functional designation of REM sleep and dreams is search activity, which compensates for renunciation of search in waking. Meanwhile, the state of renunciation of search, once it emerges in the process of resolving a concrete complex and subjectively meaningful problem (e.g., an attempt to adjust a motivational conflict) can extend to any other activity having a negative effect on creative productivity. For instance, renunciation of search for a solution of an intra-psychic motivational conflict and the ouster of one of the motives from consciousness is a basis for the emergence of neurotic anxiety which interferes with creative activity.

Dreams bring a temporary solution to a motivational conflict. In waking the motivational conflict appears to be insoluble partly because integral behavior is organized on the principle of alternatives: some action or attitude automatically rules out the logically opposite one. Image thinking does not offer such alternatives: attraction does not rule out repulsion. In this sense image thinking is more dialectical. With this in view intensive use is made of the complete potential for image thinking. A major contributing factor is the absence of critical control on the part of verbal thinking and consciousness. The successful functioning of dreams is followed by a decrease in neurotic anxiety and the restoration of search activity, a conditio sine qua non of creativity.

Thus, dreams really provide a setting for a creative act, but they have a definite and therefore limited characteristic, that of compensation for the state of renunciation of search. The solution of a motivational conflict is a form of creative solution . Renunciation of search can also result from unsuccessful attempts to adjust other problems which require a creative approach. In dreams these concrete problems can remain unsolved as well but then dreams offer a setting for compensatory search activity, which is instrumental in overcoming the very state of renunciation (surrender). As a result, after the awakening the potential for search, which contributes to creation, becomes restored.

The aforesaid can also help us understand the above characteristics that distinguish the bioelectric activity of the brain during REM sleep from the bioelectric activity of the brain (especially its right hemisphere) in creative individuals engaged in creative activity. The specific form it assumes in dreams differs from free pleasure-bringing creation in that it is directed at removing the emotionally negative state of renunciation of search, harmful to the organism, and is "ignited" by this state. This is why dreams are marked by emotional tension, a predominance of negative emotions and, correspondingly, the desynchronization of the brain's bioelectric activity. A dream represents a forced creative act, creation of necessity. If it is not adequate enough, for instance, if image thinking fails to find a solution to the motivational conflict the following dynamic pattern is observed: first, dreams become increasingly unpleasant and terrifying, next, they grow fragmentary consisting of loosely connected episodes (as if the search quickly ended in a blind alley and its direction had to be frequently changed), then they fade and, finally, they disappear. Apparently, this is due to the fact that because of the retention of the function of self-identification with the ego image the subject cannot see himself or herself subordinated to unacceptable motives in dreams. Such scenes become ousted from consciousness, as in waking. This corresponds to the state of persistent psychic de-compensation. In the process of recovery (among other things, under the influence of psychotherapy or treatment by tranquilizers) dreams pass through identical stages but in reverse sequence: first, fragmentary terrifying dreams, then more distinct and calm ones.

Healthy sensitive individuals have been found to exhibit a relationship between the imagery, distinctness, uncommonness and emotional intensity of dreams, on the one hand, and their creative productivity, on the other. However, this does not necessarily indicate the presence of direct cause-effect relationships. This interconnection can reflect far more complex relations. Sensitiveness and sensory openness ensure the perception of reality with all its contradictions-a conditio sine qua non of successful creation. But then, in principle, it also forms a prerequisite for the development of inner conflicts and if they resist solution by the mechanisms of psychological defense they can lead to a state of renunciation of search and block creation. One of the crucial mechanisms of psychological defense is REM sleep. The higher the functional potential of image thinking the more successful is the creativity and the richer the dreams. Thus, creative productivity can represent the independent consequences of both sensitivity and the power of image thinking. However, the real relations are still more complex because dreams, by promoting the restoration of search activity and removing neurotic anxiety, indirectly promote creative productivity. Finally, the state of creative uplift can for some time reduce the dream requirement due to a very high level of search activity. In these periods the very creative ecstasy, happy absorption in the favorite occupation, rules out inner conflicts.

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