Talk:Allan Hobson

Employment removed
I have removed the following listing. This infor can be placed back, but in a written form and into the biography section. - Mdd (talk) 14:20, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Dr. Hobson has worked in professional hospital environments as well as Academic appointments. The following is a complete list:


 * Research Associate, Department of Physiology, 1964-67 and Assistant in Psychiatry, 1965-66, both at Harvard Medical School (HMS), Boston
 * Senior Psychiatrist, Massachusetts Mental Health Center (MMHC), Boston, 1965-67
 * Instructor in Psychiatry, 1966-67 (HMS)
 * Associate in Psychiatry, 1967-69 (HMS)
 * Director of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology, 1967 to present (HMS)
 * Principal Psychiatrist, 1967 (MMHC)
 * Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, 1969-74 (HMS)
 * Lecturer in Psychiatry, Brown University, Providence, RI, 1972-74
 * Director, Group Psychotherapy Training Program, 1972 (MMHC)
 * Associate Professor of Psychiatry, 1974 (HMS)
 * Professor of Psychiatry, 1978 to present (HMS)
 * Director of Behavioral Science Teaching Program, 1980-86 (HMS)

Random energy?
In the section which summarizes Dr. Hobson's theory of dreaming, the term "random energy" is used which has no definition or linked article. Could someone define this idea? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.193.239.117 (talk) 02:02, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Random Energy... I think this refers to "entropy" or "free energy". In Neurological systems, this means the excess computational capacity created by unnecessary/excessive synaptic connections, created through waking life and experience and mediating the learning experience. Dreaming is theorised by Hobson to remove or optimise these synaptic connections, to essentially keep the lessons learned through waking experience but through more efficient pathways, less likely to generate signal error/surprise.


 * This capacity for signal error, surprise, entropy or free-energy (in this context, different aspects of the same phenomenon) is thus a byproduct of waking learning that is removed or minimised through dreaming. Hobson would probably infer that too much waking learning, combined with insufficient REM dreaming, would result in an individual who would invariably display increasing signs of neuroticism, agitation, and possibly hypervigilance and paranoia, due to the excessive entropy in their neurological computational systems.
 * Hope that sums it up :D
 * Hope that sums it up :D


 * Hayaku (talk) 06:47, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

"Synaptic pruning" -- not Hobson's idea
Allan Hobson informs me that the bit about synaptic pruning is not his idea. An outside source should probably be cited if the relevant paragraph is to be retained. He has however collaborated with Karl J. Friston on the idea of complexity reduction (which involves synaptic pruning) and free-energy minimization) as a function which is served by the dreaming process.


 * metonyme —Preceding undated comment added 02:24, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Recent Changes in Hobson's Theory
In recent works Hobson has changed his view of the content of dreams: he now holds that dreams do indeed contain personal experiences and that the random firing is just a transitional phase between dream segments.

Hobson changed his views after his personal experiences of losing the ability to dream for the duration of several weeks after a stroke in February 2001, which caused him to experience "terrible hallucinations". After 38 days he started to dream again and at the same time regained his ability to walk, a synchronicity he believes is not coincidental.

Today, Hobson believes that without dreams there would be no consciousness.

Die Zeit (German weekly newspaper), No. 32 (August 4th) 2001, p. 27f. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.165.63.222 (talk) 20:37, 6 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Don't worry, I have re-written much of the "Dream Theories" section to reflect this, in addition to contents explored in his 2009 and 2012 academic publications. It seems Dr.Hobson is quite the dream advocate now. His most recent article, "Waking and Dream Consciousness" practically reads like a mind map for the script of Inception ;P Seriously, I have not read such an esoteric neuroscience article in my life. Highly recommend. I'm not exactly sure if he now "backs" the notion of Psychoanalytic dream interpretation, though he is certainly a lot more open to the idea that subconscious content can be inferred from observation of the dream state, I'd say.


 * Hayaku (talk) 11:03, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Allan Hobson. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070818145259/http://www.nysgs.org:80/oldsite/October%20Newsletter.htm to http://www.nysgs.org/oldsite/October%20Newsletter.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 02:35, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Allan Hobson. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070228181821/http://www.mindscience.org/research/index.html to http://www.mindscience.org/research/index.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 17:40, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Dream Consciousness
Hello. There is an article with multiple issues Dream consciousness including being an Orphan. It is about Dr Hobson's theory and I had made a couple of edits. It seems most of it is duplicated here so I wondered whether an editor might take a look and see if it should be perhaps merged or deleted. Thelisteninghand (talk) 20:09, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Have inserted link.Thelisteninghand (talk) 16:59, 30 April 2022 (UTC)