MARK SOLMS
Freud's Dream Theory Today
Sigmund Freud Lecture 2007
Sunday, May 6, 2007, 6 p.m.
Society of Physicians
Billrothhaus, Frankgasse 8, 1090 Vienna

This lecture will review Freud's dream theory in the light of recent neuroscientific findings, in order to address the question: is this theory, so fundamental to the whole of psychoanalysis, still scientifically tenable today? When Freud first developed his dream theory, there was essentially nothing known about the brain mechanisms involved. This changed dramatically in the 1950s when the physiological state of REM sleep was discovered. By the 1970s the brain mechanisms of REM sleep had been laid bare. This resulted in a near-complete rejection of Freudian dream theory by the scientific community at large. The reason for this rejection was that the brain mechanisms of REM sleep proved to be completely incompatible with Freud's findings and claims. In the late 1990s, however, new discoveries about the relationship between dreaming and REM sleep and about the brain basis of dreaming led to a fundamental re-appraisal of the scientific viability of Freud's classical model. This lecture, presented by a scientist who was centrally involved in the recent research, will outline the new findings and discuss their implications.

Professor Mark Solms holds the Chair of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schurr Hospital (Departments of Psychology and Neurology). His other current positions include: Honorary Lecturer in Neurosurgery at St. Bartholomew's & Royal London School of Medicine, Lecturer in Psychology at University College London, Director of the International Neuro-Psychoanalysis Centre, London, and Director of the Arnold Pfeffer Center for Neuro-Psychoanalysis at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. He founded the International Neuro-Psychoanalysis Society in 2000 and was Founding Editor of the journal Neuro-Psychoanalysis. He has published widely in both neuroscientific and psychoanalytic journals and a number of books: The Neuropsychology of Dreams (1997), Clinical Studies in Neuro-Psychoanalysis (with Karen Kaplan-Solms 2001), The Brain and the Inner World (with Oliver Turnbull 2002), editor of the Complete Neuroscientific Works of Sigmund Freud.

Reception: Inge Scholz-Strasser
Chairwoman of the Sigmund Freud Foundation

Introduction: Giselher Guttmann
Dekan of the Sigmund Freud Privat University

A Lecture of the Sigmund Freud Foundation