Two participants were monitored during REM sleep in a quiet, dark sleep laboratory. No images or sounds were presented to them.
| Participant | Recent experience | Neural recording | Dream report after waking |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rina | Made a clay bowl at an art class | Irregular bursts from a small structure in the brainstem | "I was sitting inside a huge bowl when it began to spin." |
| Luke | Replaced a wheel on his bicycle | A similar pattern of irregular bursts from the same brainstem structure | "A bicycle wheel rolled into my classroom and became a clock." |
Using Activation Synthesis Theory, explain why Rina and Luke reported different dreams despite the similar neural recordings.
81 exam-style questions on OCR GCSE Psychology 6.2 Theories/Explanations: The Nature of Dreaming, covering 6.2.1 Freudian dreaming: unconscious and repression, 6.2.2 Freudian dreaming: wish fulfilment and dream content; criticisms, 6.2.3 Freudian Theory research study: Freud (1918), 6.2.4 Activation Synthesis: REM sleep and the brain, 6.2.5 Activation Synthesis: pons, cortex and synthesis; criticisms, and 6.2.6 Activation Synthesis research study: Williams et al. (1992). Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.