Abstract

The neuropsychological study of dreaming, through the use of the clinical-anatomical method, is based on the observation of people who have modified their way of dreaming. This approach has proved useful in investigating different aspects of dreaming. Some initial neuropsychological observations have suggested an infantile way of dreaming, that is, presence of direct wish-fulfilment dreams with absence of “bizarre” elements in dream content, in patients with frontal deficits. Classically, infantile dreams are described in preschool children and these are attributed to the incomplete development of the ego and of the superego functions. From this perspective, the presence of infantile dreams in patients with frontal deficits has been interpreted as the result of dysfunctions of some executive functions involved in ego and superego activities (e.g., executive tasks of the ego, adaptation to reality, self-regulation of emotional and social behaviour, inhibition) that may have determined a return to the most “primordial” mode of dreaming. The present study supports these interpretations by confirming the presence of infantile dreams in a sample of 10 patients with frontal deficits through the analysis of their dream report transcription of the "last dream they remembered to have had".

Key words: Neuropsychology; Neuropsychoanalysis; Infantile dreams; dreaming processes; Freudian theory of dreams.