Revonsuo’s influential Threat Simulation Theory predicts that people exposed to survival threats will have more threat dreams, and evince enhanced responses to dream threats, compared to those living in relatively safe conditions. Participants in a high crime area differed significantly from participants in a low crime area in having greater recent exposure to a life-threatening event . Contrary to TST’s predictions, the SA participants reported significantly fewer threat dreams , and did not differ from the Welsh participants in responses to (...) dream threats . Overall, the incidence of threat in dreams was extremely low—less than 20% of dreams featured realistic survival threats. Escape from dream threats occurred in less than 2% of dreams. We conclude that this evidence contradicts key aspects of TST. (shrink)

The influential threat simulation theory asserts that dreaming yields adaptive advantage by providing a virtual environment in which threat-avoidance may be safely rehearsed. We have previously found the incidence of biologically threatening dreams to be around 20%, with successful threat avoidance occurring in approximately one-fifth of such dreams. TST asserts that threat avoidance is over-represented relative to other possible dream contents. To begin assessing this issue, we contrasted the incidence of ‘avoidance’ dreams with that of their opposite: ‘approach’ dreams. Because (...) TST states that the threat-avoidance function is only fully activated in ecologically valid contexts, we also performed this contrast for populations living in both high- and low-threat environments. We find that ‘approach’ dreams are significantly more prevalent across both contexts. We suggest these results are more consistent with the view that dreaming is generated by reward-seeking systems than by fear-conditioning systems, although reward-seeking is clearly not the only factor determining the content of dreams. (shrink)

Malcolm-Smith, Solms, Turnbull and Tredoux [Malcolm-Smith, S., Solms, M., Turnbull, O., & Tredoux, C. . Threat in dreams: An adaptation? Consciousness and Cognition, 17, 1281–1291.] conducted a rigorous study that sampled two populations differentially exposed to threat in real life, and found that critical predictions from the Threat Simulation Theory of dreams [Revonsuo, A. . The reinterpretation of dreams: An evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 877-901.; Revonsuo, A. . Did ancestral humans dream for (...) their lives? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 1063–1082.] were not supported. Specifically, we found no evidence of increased realistic threats to physical survival or enhanced threat avoidance in the dreams of those from the exposed population. Revonsuo and Valli’s [Revonsuo, A., & Valli, K. . How to test the threat simulation theory. Consciousness and Cognition, 17, 1292-1296.] commentary on our study argues that the methods we used are so flawed as to render the results meaningless. In this response article, we address the criticisms raised in their commentary. (shrink)