Allan Hobson was an American psychiatrist who challenged Freud’s psychoanalysis. As Hobson said in an interview, “Psychoanalysis has become the bible, and I think that’s crazy.” He argued that dreams are not mysterious codes sent by the subconscious but rather the brain’s attempt to make sense of random neuronal firings—a byproduct of chemical reactions.
Hobson was a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center. He left a legacy of over 20 books and many articles. Aside from science, he was passionate about his farm. An article in The New York Times about the scientist’s death in 2021 describes a barn on the farm property that Hobson turned into a small interactive sleep museum and classroom for local students.
Hobson was also involved in lucid dreaming. However, he, along with Ursula Voss, recorded increased activity in the frontal zones at 40 Hz power during lucid dreams and concluded that lucid dreaming is a hybrid state between sleep and wakefulness. In 2022, this hypothesis was refuted by American scientists with the participation of the legendary Stephen LaBerge.
At the same time, Hobson believed that lucid dreams would revolutionize psychology. He also believed that self-suggestion before sleep could help people activate certain areas of the brain and maintain lucidity.
Hobson’s work can be found on his Google Scholar page.
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