Allan Hobson
Encyclopedia
John Allan Hobson, M.D. is an American psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...

 and dream
Dream
Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...

 researcher.
He is known for his research on Rapid eye movement sleep. He is Professor of Psychiatry, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School,
and Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Biography

Hobson grew up in Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...

. In 1955 he obtained his A.B. degree from Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...

. Four years later he earned his MD degree at Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....

 in 1959.

For the following two years he interned at Bellevue Hospital Center
Bellevue Hospital Center
Bellevue Hospital Center, most often referred to as "Bellevue", was founded on March 31, 1736 and is the oldest public hospital in the United States. Located on First Avenue in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, Bellevue is famous from many literary, film and television...

, New York. Then in 1960 he was a resident in Psychiatry at Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston for a year. Dr. Hobson then traveled to France where he was a Special Fellow of the National Institute of Mental Health for the Department of Physiology at the University of Lyon.

Upon returning to the United States, he went back to the Psychiatry at Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston until 1966.

He worked in numerous hospitals and research laboratories over the years and is currently the Director of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center.

Dr. Hobson has received four awards for his work:
  • Admission to the Boylston Medical Society
  • The Benjamin Rush Gold Medal for Best Scientific Exhibit
  • Honorary member of the American Psychiatric Association since 1978.
  • Recipient of the 1998 Distinguished Scientist Award of the Sleep Research Society

Dream theories

Dr. Hobson's research specialty is quantifying mental events and correlating them with quantified brain events, with special reference to waking, sleeping and dreaming. Following the activation-synthesis hypothesis
Activation-synthesis hypothesis
The activation-synthesis hypothesis, proposed by Harvard University psychiatrists John Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley, is a neurobiological theory of dreams first published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in December 1977...

, he believes that dreams are created when random energy signals reach the brain's cortex during REM sleep. The cortex attempts to make sense of the random inputs it is receiving, which causes dreams. Dr. Hobson clearly dismisses the idea that there are deep, nonphysiological, or hidden meanings in dreams. He calls such notions "the mystique of fortune cookie
Fortune cookie
A fortune cookie is a crisp cookie usually made from flour, sugar, vanilla, and oil with a "fortune" wrapped inside. A "fortune" is a piece of paper with words of faux wisdom or a vague prophecy...

dream interpretation." For years he has proven his theories through lab testing with mice and human subjects.

In addition to his many paid appointments, Dr. Hobson is actively involved with four groups relating to his neurological sleep research: the Society Memberships, the Society for Neuroscience, the Society for Sleep Research, the AAAS, and the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD), for which he used to be president.

Books

Dr. Hobson has published six books that relate to his mental health and dream research. The following is a complete list:
  • 1989, Abnormal States of Brain and Mind
  • 1989, Dreaming Brain
  • 1989, Sleep
  • 1992, Sleep and Dreams
  • 1996, The Chemistry of Conscious States: How The Brain Changes Its Mind
  • 2000, Dreaming As Delirium: How the Brain Goes Out of Its Mind
  • 2002, Dream Drugstore: Chemically Altered States of Consciousness
  • 2002, Dreaming: An Introduction to the Science of Sleep
  • 2002, Out of Its Mind: Psychiatry in Crisis, a Call for Reform
  • 2005, 13 Dreams Freud Never Had
  • 2011, Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction

External links

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