What is activation synthesis theory

Electrical brain impulses pull random thoughts and imagery from our memories. Most mobile operators use from radiofrequency waves in the range up MHz to 3 GHz that can be harmful for human health 1.

Fortunately, there are things you can do from the comfort of your own home to strengthen desirable brain waves and help with stress, sleep, and productivity. Regular meditation has been shown to increase alpha waves — your relaxation brain waves — and reduce beta waves — the brain waves of active thought and learning. Brain waves are relevant to mental health, as abnormalities in brain functioning can influence the development of certain conditions.

For example, when certain areas of the brain are over-aroused, an individual may experience anxiety, nightmares or other sleep problems, impulsivity, and aggression. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Social studies What is activation synthesis theory in psychology? What is the main idea of the activation-synthesis theory? What is the main idea of the activation-synthesis hypothesis? What is the activation theory?

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What is dreams for survival theory? Hobson d , p. Hobson further believes that this position is justified based on quantum theory and the like:. Critics of the activation-synthesis hypothesis are troubled by the notion of chaos and are completely undone by the idea of randomness.

For the strict Newtonian determinist and Freud was certainly one of them , there is no such thing as an undetermined or chaotic event. Now, over years later, quantum physics, chaos theory and the uncertainty principle are all enshrined as basic tenets of physics and chance is seen as an essential ingredient of all natural processes Hobson, d , p. The brain is a physical object of such enormous complexity as to boggle the mind.

Here it suffices to say that the unpredictability that goes hand in hand with chaos, is the friend of creativity and novelty; it is also bail money for release from the otherwise inescapable jail of the repetition compulsion Hobson, d , p. Furthermore, there is a distinction between chaos and unpredictability Boag, b.

Not being able to presently predict dream content does not necessitate an underlying chaotic process. There are presumably many orderly processes whose outcomes we are currently unable to predict, but nevertheless hope to do so in the future.

Even infinite complexity does not rule out orderly causal relations occurring within systems; it simply makes prediction in any given instance more difficult, so that what may initially look chaotic may turn out to be orderly after all. Hobson, however, believes that randomness is a virtue of his position, and one that has functional justification.

Similarly, Hobson b , p. But the idea becomes more attractive when we recognize that a random process guarantees a more thorough check on the contents of memory than an overly determined mechanism would allow.

If dream content selection was literally random, then all and any content would have equal chance of finding depiction in dreams. However, this is by no means the case: dreams are coherent more often than not Domhoff, , and certain themes find expression more than others Schredl et al.

Moreover, recurring dreams should not occur under chaotic conditions when clearly they do cf. Murkar et al. Furthermore, the frequency of drug dreams occurring during states of withdrawal also underscores the non-random nature of dream content, which, as discussed earlier, is explicable within a drive-motivational account see Colace, for review.

If so, then some elements of dreaming are adaptive and orderly. Hobson and Friston , p. Nevertheless, in justifying the lawlessness of the dream process, Hobson d , p. The brain-mind is not a plodding and repetitive automaton destined, forever, to loop around safe but uninteresting cerebral and ideational circuits. What we may need to navigate our waking world is an infinite set of charts from which we may draw the one best suited to an equally infinite set of real-life possibilities Hobson, , p.

Hobson, d , p. Ignoring for the moment the impossibility of drawing literally from an infinite set of possibilities, without an orderly selection process, then the organism would be guided by non-sense rather than sense. A more expedient position would be to link motivation and cognition, which provides a more compelling picture of how motivation contributes to the character of dreams. To summarize, in the Freudian account, there is an orderly connection between motivational states and the content of dreams.

According to Hobson, however, there is both something akin to an orderly relation between motivation contributing to dreams, but also the claim that the content of dreams is determined by chaotic processes unconnected to motivation. Freudian theory provides an internally consistent general motivational account and proposes that motivation is the general key for explaining why someone dreams of x while ignoring y even if other factors may be implicated. While there may, of course, be alternative dream theories and explanations of the role of dopamine and motivation in dreaming, the findings suggest, if nothing else, that Freud was in the right direction, and it is up to future research to determine exactly how far his interpretation of dreams can be followed.

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and approved it for publication. The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. A version of this paper was presented at the Australian Conference on Personality and Individual Differences held in Melbourne, November , Alcaro, A.

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