CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 676Sleep and Wakefulness ResearchSleep and related disordersPsychoanalysis and Psychopathology Research

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 1,405 of the 1,410 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The reinterpretation of dreams: An evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming

Revonsuo, Antti·2000·Behavioral and Brain Sciences
DOI 10.1017/s0140525x00004015
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Several theories claim that dreaming is a random by-product of REM sleep physiology and that it does not serve any natural function. Phenomenal dream content, however, is not as disorganized as such views imply. The form and content of dreams is not random but organized and selective: during dreaming, the brain constructs a complex model of the world in which certain types of elements, when compared to waking life, are underrepresented whereas others are over represented. Furthermore, dream content is consistently and powerfully modulated by certain types of waking experiences. On the basis of this evidence, I put forward the hypothesis that the biological function of dreaming is to simulate threatening events, and to rehearse threat perception and threat avoidance. To evaluate this hypothesis, we need to consider the original evolutionary context of dreaming and the possible traces it has left in the dream content of the present human population. In the ancestral environment human life was short and full of threats. Any behavioral advantage in dealing with highly dangerous events would have increased the probability of reproductive success. A dream-production mechanism that tends to select threatening waking events and simulate them over and over again in various combinations would have been valuable for the development and maintenance of threat-avoidance skills. Empirical evidence from normative dream content, children's dreams, recurrent dreams, nightmares, post traumatic dreams, and the dreams of hunter-gatherers indicates that our dream-production mechanisms are in fact specialized in the simulation of threatening events, and thus provides support to the threat simulation hypothesis of the function of dreaming.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1017/s0140525x00004015

Cites

1405 of 1405 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Show all 1,410 references

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 601–675 of 675

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Revonsuo, A.
Affiliations
University of Turku (FI)
Corresponding author
Revonsuo, Antti
ORCID
Revonsuo, Antti
Venue
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
2000-12
Volume
23
Issue
6
Pages
877-901
ISSN
  • 0140-525X (ISSN-L)
  • 1469-1825
DOI
10.1017/s0140525x00004015
OpenAlex
W2110375253
Cited by
676
References
1,410
Citations by year
2026: 22 · 2025: 55 · 2024: 34 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 46 · 2021: 49 · 2020: 37 · 2019: 43 · 2018: 28 · 2017: 38 · 2016: 26 · 2015: 25 · 2014: 25 · 2013: 31 · 2012: 20
FWCI
3.19
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified, 294 d)
Locations
  • Behavioral and Brain Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and related disorders
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychoanalysis and Psychopathology Research
Keywords
evolutionary hypothesis, REM sleep, dream content, threat avoidance, threat perception, nightmares, children's dreams
MeSH terms
Animals, Arousal, Brain, Dreams, Biological Evolution, Fear, Humans, Learning, Problem Solving, Psychophysiology, Wakefulness

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review