Plans and Scattered Notions in Dream Reports, Science, and History

Citation

Sutton J (2026) Plans and Scattered Notions in Dream Reports, Science, and History. In: Bernini M & Alderson-Day B (eds.) Dreams, Narrative, & Liminal Cognition: an interdisciplinary framework. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 168-177. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198878117.001.0001

Abstract
Working outwards from one dream report in the Threshold Worlds database, this essay examines three aspects of permeability or 'cognitive transit' in dream experience. relating to perspective, planning, and precision. Reports of seeing oneself in the dreamed scene are common, and don't require us to postulate an extra 'self'. A plan formulated in the dream escapes, finding a life of its own. If the reported dream is a 'world simulation', its contents are more scattered than precise, as elucidated in the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs' striking account of dreams. Dreaming is an active, cognitively-permeated experience which must be learned as part of the slow manufacture of the developing mind. This approach promises integration between historical and cognitive scientific frameworks, and the essay concludes with reflections on two-way traffic between dynamic brains and changing cultures.

Keywords
dreaming; dream reports; perspective; Maurice Halbwachs; memory; history of dreams; anachronism; history of science; cognitive gadget

• Plans and Scattered Notions in Dream Reports, Science, and History