- Email: [email protected]
Children's Dreaming and the Development of Consciousness
BOOK REVIEWS
Africa states that “Mental health services can be of tremendous benefit to adolescents, particularly teenagers with emotional difficulties and conduct disorders…mental health care tends to be limited to psychiatric care, while spiritual and emotional well-being are seen as a separate matter, beyond the domain of health care, to be addressed by a cadre of spiritualists” (p. 94). This hardly gives a view of the complexity and diversity of care offered in all Sub-Saharan Africa, where efforts are being made to develop interventions to address the impact of HIV/AIDS, the services needed by orphans from AIDS and war, and the interventions to assist repatriated soldiers. The chapter on China and Japan stresses lowered suicide rates but fails to note the recent trend toward family suicide due to the economic downturn and that prominently includes adolescents. The chapter “Arab Adolescents Facing the Future” presents the most comprehensive and realistic treatment of contemporary mental health problems in a region. It addresses the very real problems of delinquency and substance abuse in a meaningful manner. It is striking that chapters related to India and Russia present material citing problematic areas such as employment and education yet conclude on a bewilderingly optimistic and seemingly unjustified note. Whether by editorial guidance or assent, the chapter authors present relatively little critical thinking and instead serve to report the status quo with either mild commentary or, as in the chapter on Sub-Saharan Africa, with strong opinion. This is useful if the reader has the literacy to raise questions, but otherwise it conveys a disarmingly simplistic notion of the contemporary world of the adolescent, particularly as it relates to the individual. The World’s Youth: Adolescence in Eight Regions of the Globe is comprehensive in its identification of issues related to contemporary adolescent development but falls short in providing the reader interested in mental health concerns with sufficiently detailed knowledge. Myron L. Belfer, M.D., M.P.A. Department of Social Medicine Harvard Medical School Boston, MA DOI: 10.1097/01.chi.0000142194.62763.98
Children’s Dreaming and the Development of Consciousness. By David Foulkes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999, 187 pp., $24.71 (softcover). In reviewing the results of his research about the development of dreaming, David Foulkes proposes a new ap-
proach to study and conceptualize both dreaming and consciousness in childhood and adolescence. His pioneer work in dream research provides the first comprehensive scientific evidence of the phenomenologic nature of dreaming in children as well as dreaming competence as an indicator of the development of consciousness. He has written this book in a nontechnical way and has coherently organized it in eight chapters. He begins by questioning the common view of dreaming as a “given” during childhood and introduces the reader to initial evidence for dreaming to be at least of different quality in children compared with adults. Foulkes then explains the methods of his dream research. He describes the children selected to participate in the studies, the way in which they were interviewed to obtain the data, and the justification of sleep laboratory methods for this kind of research. The third chapter describes the two studies that provided the results that he presents in the following chapters, one longitudinal and another cross-sectional. He goes on to detail the frequency, content, and emotional characteristics of dreams in children aged 3 to 5 years. The sleep laboratory findings suggest that children of these ages dream static images with minimal social interaction. He also introduces the concept of dreaming as an organizing process that puts together pieces of information in a coherent way. In the next chapter, Foulkes presents his findings about the development of dreaming from ages 5 to 9 years. These findings show an association between the appearance of new stages of dreaming and the achievement of certain levels of competence in visuospatial mental skills. It would have been helpful to find a longer discussion about the possible effects of schooling on the reports of children aged 5 to 7 years. The reader is left with the impression that school may be a possible source of bias in dream reporting, with children’s dreams “cross-contaminated” by those of their peers. At this point in the book, Foulkes presents one of his most interesting conclusions. His data suggest that waking selfknowledge and dreaming self-representation may find a common basis, conscious representation, at about 8 years of age. This finding could certainly be a major contribution to our understanding of child development. In fact, he invites the reader to the sleep laboratory to research dreaming as a way to study human development. He goes on to describe dreaming in children aged 9 to 15 years. The author proposes that formal and abstract thinking in adolescence facilitate the appearance of double selfreference (the dreamer seeing himself or herself as the actor in the dream) as a new form of dream narrative realization. The last two chapters are dedicated to explaining the contributions of Foulkes’ findings to our understanding of
J. AM. ACAD. CHILD ADOLESC. PSYCHIATRY, 43:12, DECEMBER 2004
1519
BOOK REVIEWS
dreaming and consciousness. Chapter seven concisely connects the development of dreaming with the author’s explanation of the conditions for and the creativity of dreams. It also includes a discussion of the function of dreaming. In the last chapter, Foulkes presents his hypothesis about the development of consciousness and its relationship with selfidentity. The presence of a narrative and self-representation in dreams of children ages 8 years and older correlates with their ability to integrate “different behavioral selves” to provide a continuing sense of self. The author challenges the approach of just describing the gradual acquisition of adaptive skills in children as lacking an understanding of the development of self-representation. The book closes with an appendix that includes the dream reports of two of the children who participated in the research studies. Reading these after the rest of the book is thought provoking. This section could have been more complete if it had commented on the emotional significance of the reports. One continues wondering about the validity of the psychoanalytic approach to dreams at this point. Can the information about the emotional meaning of dreams contribute to their understanding from a neurophysiologic perspective? To quote Reiser: “Surely it is not unreasonable to expect this kind of information (memory and emotions) to
1520
supplement and complement, rather than conflict with, neurobiologic information” (Reiser, 2001). Foulkes’ book outlines in a highly readable manner the first systematic program of research about the development of dreaming in children and its relationship with waking reflective self-awareness. The concepts introduced by the author are of interest for both researchers and clinicians. They give us a new perspective to look at consciousness as selfreflection and to understand the development of this complex quality of the mind. Mauricio Infante, M.D. Lloyd A. Wells, M.D., Ph.D. Department of Psychiatry and Psychology Mayo Clinic Rochester, MN DOI: 10.1097/01.chi.0000142193.95194.55 Reiser MF (2001), The dream in contemporary psychiatry. Am J Psychiatry 158:351–359
Note to Publishers: Books for review should be sent to Andrés Martin, M.D., M.P.H., Yale Child Study Center, 230 South Frontage Road, P.O. Box 207900, New Haven, CT 06520-7900.
J. AM. ACAD. CHILD ADOLESC. PSYCHIATRY, 43:12, DECEMBER 2004
Africa states that “Mental health services can be of tremendous benefit to adolescents, particularly teenagers with emotional difficulties and conduct disorders…mental health care tends to be limited to psychiatric care, while spiritual and emotional well-being are seen as a separate matter, beyond the domain of health care, to be addressed by a cadre of spiritualists” (p. 94). This hardly gives a view of the complexity and diversity of care offered in all Sub-Saharan Africa, where efforts are being made to develop interventions to address the impact of HIV/AIDS, the services needed by orphans from AIDS and war, and the interventions to assist repatriated soldiers. The chapter on China and Japan stresses lowered suicide rates but fails to note the recent trend toward family suicide due to the economic downturn and that prominently includes adolescents. The chapter “Arab Adolescents Facing the Future” presents the most comprehensive and realistic treatment of contemporary mental health problems in a region. It addresses the very real problems of delinquency and substance abuse in a meaningful manner. It is striking that chapters related to India and Russia present material citing problematic areas such as employment and education yet conclude on a bewilderingly optimistic and seemingly unjustified note. Whether by editorial guidance or assent, the chapter authors present relatively little critical thinking and instead serve to report the status quo with either mild commentary or, as in the chapter on Sub-Saharan Africa, with strong opinion. This is useful if the reader has the literacy to raise questions, but otherwise it conveys a disarmingly simplistic notion of the contemporary world of the adolescent, particularly as it relates to the individual. The World’s Youth: Adolescence in Eight Regions of the Globe is comprehensive in its identification of issues related to contemporary adolescent development but falls short in providing the reader interested in mental health concerns with sufficiently detailed knowledge. Myron L. Belfer, M.D., M.P.A. Department of Social Medicine Harvard Medical School Boston, MA DOI: 10.1097/01.chi.0000142194.62763.98
Children’s Dreaming and the Development of Consciousness. By David Foulkes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999, 187 pp., $24.71 (softcover). In reviewing the results of his research about the development of dreaming, David Foulkes proposes a new ap-
proach to study and conceptualize both dreaming and consciousness in childhood and adolescence. His pioneer work in dream research provides the first comprehensive scientific evidence of the phenomenologic nature of dreaming in children as well as dreaming competence as an indicator of the development of consciousness. He has written this book in a nontechnical way and has coherently organized it in eight chapters. He begins by questioning the common view of dreaming as a “given” during childhood and introduces the reader to initial evidence for dreaming to be at least of different quality in children compared with adults. Foulkes then explains the methods of his dream research. He describes the children selected to participate in the studies, the way in which they were interviewed to obtain the data, and the justification of sleep laboratory methods for this kind of research. The third chapter describes the two studies that provided the results that he presents in the following chapters, one longitudinal and another cross-sectional. He goes on to detail the frequency, content, and emotional characteristics of dreams in children aged 3 to 5 years. The sleep laboratory findings suggest that children of these ages dream static images with minimal social interaction. He also introduces the concept of dreaming as an organizing process that puts together pieces of information in a coherent way. In the next chapter, Foulkes presents his findings about the development of dreaming from ages 5 to 9 years. These findings show an association between the appearance of new stages of dreaming and the achievement of certain levels of competence in visuospatial mental skills. It would have been helpful to find a longer discussion about the possible effects of schooling on the reports of children aged 5 to 7 years. The reader is left with the impression that school may be a possible source of bias in dream reporting, with children’s dreams “cross-contaminated” by those of their peers. At this point in the book, Foulkes presents one of his most interesting conclusions. His data suggest that waking selfknowledge and dreaming self-representation may find a common basis, conscious representation, at about 8 years of age. This finding could certainly be a major contribution to our understanding of child development. In fact, he invites the reader to the sleep laboratory to research dreaming as a way to study human development. He goes on to describe dreaming in children aged 9 to 15 years. The author proposes that formal and abstract thinking in adolescence facilitate the appearance of double selfreference (the dreamer seeing himself or herself as the actor in the dream) as a new form of dream narrative realization. The last two chapters are dedicated to explaining the contributions of Foulkes’ findings to our understanding of
J. AM. ACAD. CHILD ADOLESC. PSYCHIATRY, 43:12, DECEMBER 2004
1519
BOOK REVIEWS
dreaming and consciousness. Chapter seven concisely connects the development of dreaming with the author’s explanation of the conditions for and the creativity of dreams. It also includes a discussion of the function of dreaming. In the last chapter, Foulkes presents his hypothesis about the development of consciousness and its relationship with selfidentity. The presence of a narrative and self-representation in dreams of children ages 8 years and older correlates with their ability to integrate “different behavioral selves” to provide a continuing sense of self. The author challenges the approach of just describing the gradual acquisition of adaptive skills in children as lacking an understanding of the development of self-representation. The book closes with an appendix that includes the dream reports of two of the children who participated in the research studies. Reading these after the rest of the book is thought provoking. This section could have been more complete if it had commented on the emotional significance of the reports. One continues wondering about the validity of the psychoanalytic approach to dreams at this point. Can the information about the emotional meaning of dreams contribute to their understanding from a neurophysiologic perspective? To quote Reiser: “Surely it is not unreasonable to expect this kind of information (memory and emotions) to
1520
supplement and complement, rather than conflict with, neurobiologic information” (Reiser, 2001). Foulkes’ book outlines in a highly readable manner the first systematic program of research about the development of dreaming in children and its relationship with waking reflective self-awareness. The concepts introduced by the author are of interest for both researchers and clinicians. They give us a new perspective to look at consciousness as selfreflection and to understand the development of this complex quality of the mind. Mauricio Infante, M.D. Lloyd A. Wells, M.D., Ph.D. Department of Psychiatry and Psychology Mayo Clinic Rochester, MN DOI: 10.1097/01.chi.0000142193.95194.55 Reiser MF (2001), The dream in contemporary psychiatry. Am J Psychiatry 158:351–359
Note to Publishers: Books for review should be sent to Andrés Martin, M.D., M.P.H., Yale Child Study Center, 230 South Frontage Road, P.O. Box 207900, New Haven, CT 06520-7900.
J. AM. ACAD. CHILD ADOLESC. PSYCHIATRY, 43:12, DECEMBER 2004