ABSTRACT

Dreaming is a fascinating and underexamined phenomenon. While the scientific study of dreams is still nascent, some insights from the literature have emerged. In this talk, we will discuss the processes and limitations within scientific approaches to understanding dreams. We will also discuss several prominent theoretical perspectives on dreams, including continuity, problem-solving, and social bonding theories of dreams. We will also look at a handful of studies that examine dreams through a social-personality perspective (including attachment theory), as a way to understand the day-to-day associations between dreams and waking life. Results from these studies indicate that people dream about significant others in ways that mirror those relationship processes while awake, albeit with some room for change and fluctuation in how people think, feel, and behave with their significant others. We will end with a brief summary of more recent studies on dreaming and some ideas for future research.

About the Speaker:

Dylan Selterman is a social/personality psychologist and an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Selterman studies romantic attraction/dating, patterns of dreaming, well-being, morals, ethics, and political psychology. Dr. Selterman has published original research in journals such as Social Psychological and Personality Science, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Personality and Individual Differences, and International Journal of Dream Research. He teaches courses including Introductory Psychology, Social Attraction, and The Psychology of Happiness. Dylan is a TEDx speaker and has written for The Washington Post, National Geographic, The Conversation, and Psychology Today. Dylan's monthly column is called The Resistance Hypothesis and co-hosts a podcast with Manuel Galvan called A Bit More Complicated.