crick and mitchison’s reorganisational theory of dreaming

Question 1

In 1983, Crick and Mitchison famously wrote “We dream in order to forget”. what did they argue?

Answer 1

They argued that the purpose of dreams is reorganisation to improve memory storage. This theory is based on the idea of reverse learning, which suggests we can unlearn during REM sleep. They believed that our dreams are a side effect of this ‘de-cluttering’ process that is occurring in the brain.

Crick and Mitchison argued that the human cortex gets overloaded with information throughout the day and therefore during sleep, any unwanted memories are deleted which keeps neural pathways compact and efficient. This strengthens the memories we have and want to keep and they can be retrieved quickly and easily.

Question 2

The researchers believed there were two types of memories?

Answer 2

Adaptive memories - things that will be useful for us to retain.

Parasitic memories - useless or harmful memories that are wasting resources by storing them.