Current Ideas about REM Sleep, Dreams and Dreaming: Confirmations of Psychoanalytic Ideas about DreamsSwiss doctors, writing in the Annals of Neurology, describe the case of a 73-year-old woman who suffered a stroke to the occipital lobe of her brain. This region is responsible for the processing of visual information and, unsurprisingly, the stroke impaired the patient's sight. A few days later she regained her sight, but a new problem emerged which astonished the doctors: the patient stopped dreaming.
Echoing your "dropped on your head" "confession"We have reviewed the function of dreaming and the causes for dreaming. What about the mechanism of dreaming? Is there a connection between Freud's ideas and neuroscientific evidence?
Yes, in regression where dreaming reverses the normal sequence of perceptual events. When awake we perceive something from the outside and then process the information in the cortex. In dreams, there are internally generated images, which are fed backwards as if coming from the outside and abstract thoughts are converted into concrete perceptions. That is why there is a cessation of dreaming when there is damage to the gray cortex at the back of the brain (occipito-temporo-parietal junction) which is where the brain performs the highest level of processing of perceptual information.
heh, --A, I experienced an event while "downhill sledding" as a 6 yr old. We were on a hill in the neighborhood in the winter "slidin'" as we called it, and there was a large solid brick building at the bottom to the left somewhat of our bottom of the hill target: a "jump" we built up to fly over into the parking lot at the end of the run. About 8 of us piled on top of each other in a stack on one sled, and prepared to "blast off", heh. I was on the bottom! 
Well, we started off okay, but halfway down, the sled veered sharply to the left, straight at the brick building! I was trapped on the bottom, frozen with fear, and by the time anybody could react, we slammed right into that wall at about 10 mph or more, me FACE FIRST. . I still see that wall coming at me to this day. "Anxiety", heh. My forehead was slightly flat for about a month or two, with a little "brick impression", and I remember my face and coat were soaked with some kinda "liquid". I think this was "sinal fluids", and my nose was broken in that process. I ran home screaming, and back then there wasn't any "catscans" or "MRI" in the common vocabulary, so my mom assumed if I was still walking and talking okay, everything would be OK. She did monitor me for concussions and wouldn't let me sleep for quite awhile later that night, tho, and monitored my behavior quite closely after that for any "symptoms". I have always "fancied" this "brain trauma" and "social betrayal" (trusting a group for my welfare) to have affected my "social skills" somehow, and has contributed to my "difficulty communicating" with others,
and relating to a "common group" as a member. 
I always have some weird angle on things, and usually outpace a conversation by a few steps talking "about the end" when the rest of the crowd was "still in the middle" of a topical conversation. Analytical machine, processing - processing - processing. I have always enjoyed this seperation ultimately, but not always, heh, not many "enjoy" being an outsider, but are forced to comply with the inherent judgement of ones peers, because this has allowed me to pursue a resolute path of curiosity, discovery, and supposition about the nature and structure of life itself, unencumbered by "social demands". Tailor made for a "disciple" of Don Juan and Carlos, the core principle in their practices being dreaming and perception, who I absolutely admire and trust more than those who seek Jesus, Buddha or that Zen guy, heh.
In other words, the trauma was a necessary and vital factor in my development and critical to it's path and progress. Maybe, heh. But I am incredibly visual, and dream quite frequently, randomly, and uncontrollably. "Lucid Dreaming" is something that I have quite forgotten about by the time I am "going to sleep", and sleeping itself is almost like crack to me. I could somtimes just sleep and sleep, and have remained in bed for entire weekends sometimes, gettin up only for "necessities", heh.
Enough for now, and ur-bane, that dying deal must have been super freaky, heh. wow.
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