In his Interpretation of Dreams in 1900, Sigmund Freud called for research that would provide a new basis for mental events such as dreams. Le Livre noir de la psychanalyse. Vivre, penser et aller mieux sans Freud (The Black Book of Psychoanalysis. Living, thinking and getting better without Freud), a collective work published in September 2005 under the direction of Catherine Meyer, seemed to have relegated Freud’s wish to oblivion by denouncing the pseudoscientific aspects of the therapeutic approach to psychoanalysis. Recent work seems to be reopening the issue, laying the foundations for a scientific study of consciousness. In particular, the phenomenology of dreams needs to be linked to neurophysiological data and functional brain imaging in order to understand whether and how the dream experiences that take place during sleep can be linked to the brain activities recorded during the waking state. Can a new neuropsychoanalysis emerge from neurophysiological research and new scientific studies on sleep?
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
2:00 – 5:00 pm: Maison Neuve conference room (Iméra)
What happens in our brains when we sleep?
Doctoral seminar and training based on the work of Peter Simor, led by Antoni Rodriguez Fornells, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Barcelona (Iméra resident), Gabriella Crocco (Iméra), Florence Boulc’h and Olivier Morizot (IRES, amU).
The aim of this doctoral training session in the Inter-disciplines seminar is to prepare our collective understanding of the discourse to be developed the following day by Peter Simor. It will focus on the analysis of Yuval Nir and Giulio Tononi’s article ‘Dreaming and the brain: from phenomenology to neurophysiology’. Through this guided reading, our aim will be to prepare for Peter Simor’s questioning of the nature of dreams. Are they simple epiphenomena or are they inherent aspects of the sleeping brain? Do they reflect random neuronal activations or do they convey personally significant information?
Thursday, May 22, 2025
4:30 – 6:30 pm: Maison des Astronomes conference room (Iméra)
Peter Simor’s public lecture: Between the shores of sleep and wakefulness: from sleep-wake regulation to subjective experiences
Despite its apparently quiet nature and homogeneous nature, sleep is a markedly heterogeneous state with respect to biological functions, neurophysiological properties, information processing and mental experiences. The sleeping brain is constantly monitoring the balance between the internal homeostatic demands and the need to monitor the external environment in order to detect potential threats or relevant information. Far from passive, the sleeping brain continually negotiates between internal homeostatic needs and the imperative to remain attuned to the external world, in case of threats or salient stimuli. In doing so, it oscillates along a dynamic continuum between deeper, disconnected states and lighter phases marked by heightened information processing.
Oneiric (dream) experiences seem to take part in this process and reflect the underlying cyclic patterns of sleep and wake regulation. Are dreams simply epiphenomena or inherent aspects of the sleeping brain? Do they reflect random neural activations or convey personally meaningful information?
In this talk, Peter Simor will explore these questions through the lens of contemporary dream science and cognitive neuroscience, integrating insights from interdisciplinary fields such as neuropsychoanalysis and consciousness research
Peter Simor is a cognitive neuropsychologist and current director of the Sleep and Cognition Laboratory at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. He mainly uses sleep EEG, in addition to cognitive tests and psychometric measures to study the complex nature of sleep and its role in daytime functions.
Peter Simor holds the Language, communication and the brain – ILCB/Iméra Chair for 2024-2025 as part of the Interdisciplinary Explorations research programme.
Yuval Nir and Giulio Tononi: “Dreaming and the brain: from phenomenology to neurophysiology“ Trends in Cognitive Science 14(2), 2009.
doi:10.1016/j.tics.2009.12.001
