The Dream-Protein Hypothesis

Recent studies of learning and memory indicate that new experience is encoded by means of protein synthesis in brain tissue. The author reviews the literature on diet, nutrition, dreams, and REM sleep and finds support for the hypothesis that dreaming is a process of psychophysiological growth that involves the synthesis or modification of protein structures in the brain and that serves as the organic basis for new developments in the personality. The author outlines a series of experiments to further test the validity of this hypothesis. The implications of this research for a "growth" or "psychosynthetic" orientation in psychotherapy are discussed.