Infantile Dream Reports in Patients with Frontal Deficits

Abstract

The neuropsychological study of dreaming, through the use of the clinical-anatomical method, is based on the observation of people who have modified their way of dreaming following a deficit in a certain area of brain. This approach has proved useful in investigating different aspects of dream processes. Some initial neuropsychological observations have suggested an infantile way of dreaming, i.e. presence of direct wish-fulfilment dreams with absence of “bizarre” elements in dream contents, in patients with frontal deficits. Infantile dreams are typically described in preschool children, and are attributed to the incomplete development of the ego and superego functions. From this perspective, the presence of infantile dreams in patients with frontal deficits has been interpreted as the result of dysfunctions of certain executive functions involved in ego and superego activities (e.g., executive tasks of the ego, adaptation to reality, self-regulation of emotional and social behaviour, inhibition) that may have determined a return to the most “primordial” mode of dreaming. This study supports these interpretations by confirming the presence of infantile dreams in a sample of 10 patients with frontal deficits through the analysis of their dream report transcriptions of the “last dream they remembered to have had”.