Taking this a step further, in portraying an unconscious ideational train that carries the views and word, we might find that daytime anticipations “hop on board” the ideational train when we are asleep. The anticipations can, in turn, “hop off the train” during the following day and influence what we see, feel and interpret during the day. While the original study of images displayed on a movie theater screen influencing decisions amount purchases soft drinks was found to be fraudulent, recent studies of the “priming” effect of subliminally presented images and words have been shown to be quite effective (Kahneman, 2011; Mathews, Cetnarski and Verschure, 2015)
Influence may also operate in the opposite direction. The content residing in our peremptory ideational train may influence our daytime anticipations. While attention is usually directed to the way so-called “day residue” (recent daytime experiences) influences the content of our dreams, we might find that our dreams can influence what we anticipate when awake. The ideational train might be the “carrier” of information (images, words, feelings) that provide the influence when we are awake. Just as the shifts in levels of arousal caused by the circadian cycle influence both our daytime and nighttime operations (we go through cycles both at night and during the day), so the anticipations we hold may reside in both waking and non-waking operations. If briefly projected images can influence subsequent behavior, then why can’t faintly recalled or subliminally retained dream content influence what we anticipate when awake.
Prophecy and Carom Shots
Finally, we can once again bring in the self-fulfilling prophecy. Like a three-carom shot during a game of pool, a self-fulfilling prophecy may be bouncing around. A prophecy is formulated during a dream, resulting from a set of daytime anticipations. The resulting content of the dream influences (subconsciously) the actions of the following day. For instance, we might find that we have experienced a “string-of-good-luck” (or “string-of-bad-luck”) during the day.
By the end of the day, our anticipation of what will occur next is firmly established (“good” or “bad”) as an anticipatory bias in our prefrontal cortex and as a feeling in our amygdala. Several memories representing our good or bad luck might be stored in our hippocampus. We fall asleep with this bias, feeling and set of memories lingering in several neural locations (prefrontal cortex, amygdala and hippocampus). Might these elements coalesce in a dream? Might they also either initiate a new ideational train or become linked to (“hop on board”) and existing ideational train?
If these thoughts, feelings and memories are somehow portrayed in a dream, transported on an ideational train or, at the very least, linger in one’s waking brain, then anticipations formulated during the following waking day might be influenced by the prior-day anticipations of good or bad luck. The self-fulfilling prophecy can become self-sustaining. We actually witness or believe that we have witnessed a string of good luck or bad luck. An external locus of control soon takes hold.
We firmly believe that good fortune is raining down on us or that we have been cursed with bad fortune. In either case, we become dependent on external agency. We become aligned with either untethered and helpless optimism (good fortune) or helpless pessimism (bad fortune) (Seligman, 1991; Seligman, 1992). Neither outcome of self-fulfilling anticipation is desirable. We need to be careful about being caught up in the destructive process of externally oriented self-fulfilling anticipation whether optimistic or pessimistic. We need to anticipate the potential of destructive anticipation. . .
