These “pacemakers” were called “poltergeists” by Jean-Pierre CHANGEUX in “Neuronal Man” in 1983. This supposed “prowess” is not without risk because it would generate, according to our work, the risk of sudden and unexplained death of the infant who sleeps three quarters of the time in the “paradoxical” and agitated sleep phase. This subject, only mentioned, will have to be clarified later, during our health promotion actions, in particular at CILAOS.
Inspired by the work of JOUVET, according to our hypothesis developed in 2000 (3), a teleosemantic imaging drive would periodically express itself during sleep and would be responsible for what we call “dream”. Our purpose suggests considering this imaging function as an expressive vestige ancestrally selected by evolution, particularly in mammals. The latter indeed, like us human beings, present substantially the same encephalographic tracings.
It is our ability to put words to so-called “dreamlike” images that will have differentiated us from mammals at the risk of misleading us in interpreting our dreams. We had, for our part, noted the relevance of the work of the psychoanalyst Carl Gustav JUNG (1875-1961). He identified functions in dreams, not only by proceeding to their biological inscription but also by recognizing in them functions of “compensatory” or “transcendent” transformation of the psyche (4). These functions would guarantee the individuation which could be pathogenic beyond the epigenetic constraints of adaptation of the organisms. This last dimension of oneself is carried by the genome and its “during” the epigenome, during “dreams”. The teleo-semantic imaging realities would then supplant, by successive touches, the psychic brakes, the inhibitions of action as elucidated by Professor Henri LABORIT, the neuroses and psychic dissociations, etc.
Let’s go back to Michel JOUVET’s trial and error. We establish with this great researcher a filiation which will have to be subjected to rituals of “dispute” between researchers on this subject of the dreams. Our hypothesis seems to meet his reflection when he declares: “Why not conceive that certain genetic programs cannot be reinforced periodically (iterative programming) in order to establish and maintain functional the synaptic circuits responsible for psychological heredity? », quote taken from the book, (5): « Sleep and dreams », 1992, page 174.
We refer to this vision, even if the notion of “heredity can be articulated and give us a theoretical representation closer to a certain “hybrid” reality of the psyche, by the vector of dream images selected by evolution well before the appearance of spoken and articulated language.
For our questioning, we can put forward the following hypothesis: the potentialities of the organism awaiting activation, not being consciously recognized, would only be partially solicited, or even “restricted” due to an environment unfavorable to the development of organisms.
They would be specified in part by the vector of dreams. Homo before Loquens had to be more receptive to his imaging potentialities before the appearance of language. One could imagine that genetic potentialities are inhibited, or latent or still awaiting activation and manifest themselves in motor images during dreams. JOUVET said, around the age of forty: “In a life of forty years interspersed with several thousand episodes during which the sleeper assists or participates almost paralyzed (because of the role of the locus coeruleus, it is I who add the information , see the bibliographical references) to the unfolding of the dreamlike spectacle”…, How did he say, “could a man explain to himself that he was running or flying during a dream when all the witnesses assured him that his sleeping body lay motionless? », p 125, 1977, (2).
Let us take as an example the controversial thesis on the innateness or otherwise of altruistic behavior. This choice allows a hypothetical illustration. We could have chosen the example of the innateness of violence or aggressiveness, their expressions are also found in dreams. However, we do not claim that there is a gene for altruism or violence. We are not there yet from the point of view of deciphering the genome.
CG JUNG advances a clinical response. Very often dream scenarios would present, according to the vision of this psychoanalyst, the occulted face of the personality by compensation. An egoist would be confronted with dreams with an altruistic connotation encouraging him to integrate into his personality a way of being more generous towards others. An excessively clean person would tend to be confronted with dreams in which waste, excrement or detritus appear.
All the acquired influences having left memorized traces in various epigenetic conditionings, one of the functions of the “dream” would be to reestablish (gradually) a new bio-cultural order within these conditionings, “deprogramming – reprogramming” the psyche in a more consistent with phylogenetic individuation.
This new order would be determined in a sort of compromise between the genetic potentialities awaiting activation and the evolution of the dreamer’s psychology. The “two” innate and acquired individuations would tend to integrate through dreams, conveying a feeling of psychic unity.
It is very often observed during psychotherapy that the patient who claimed not to remember his dreams at the start of the analysis nevertheless manages to do so. The analysis would trigger a function of integration of these “two” dimensions of individuation. Dreams very often seem to activate many dynamisms… conflicts… various oppositions through different characters and animals, and that naturally. Thus the whole of the personality is energized, the psyche being considered as a whole. The dream experiences according to our hypothesis would give us indications on a possible naturally regulated biopsychological individuation.