Presenter: Dr Deon van Zyl

 This talk will hint at an answer to a larger question: What are dreams in essence, and what is the purpose of dreaming?

This lecture will look at the neural substrates of dreams and dreaming, including the more recently coined term “default mode network” in the brain and how this fits into a Depth Psychological approach to dreams. In addition, some studies on Threat-Simulation will be considered, and applied to the latest research on pandemic Covid-19 dreams. Taken together, the talk will hint at an answer to a larger question: What are dreams in essence, and what is the purpose of dreaming, if any?

Dr Deon van Zyl has been in private practice for the last 30 years as a clinical psychologist, management consultant, mediator and group facilitator. He is a former Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Pretoria, where he worked for 13 years. He is past chairperson of the South African Institute for Clinical Psychology, and the current African Representative for the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD). He has received two academic awards and a research award from the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), as well as an award for post-doctoral research from the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust for study in the U.S.A. He has published 20 academic papers including a recent book on Amazon’s Kindle, 5 book chapters, over 30 published conference proceedings, book prefaces and popular articles. He has delivered numerous papers at conferences in South Africa, the U.S.A., Europe and Japan.