| John Allan Hobson | |
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John Allan Hobson in Göttingen, 2010 |
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| Born | June 3, 1933 |
| Citizenship | American |
| Fields | Psychiatry and dream research |
| Alma mater | Wesleyan University, Harvard Medical School |
| Known for | Research on Rapid eye movement sleep, Activation-synthesis hypothesis |
John Allan Hobson, M.D. (born June 3, 1933) is an American psychiatrist and dream researcher. He is known for his research on Rapid eye movement sleep. He is Professor of Psychiatry, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School, and Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
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Hobson grew up in Hartford, Connecticut.[1] In 1955 he obtained his A.B. degree from Wesleyan University. Four years later he earned his MD degree at Harvard Medical School in 1959.
For the following two years he interned at Bellevue Hospital Center, New York. Then in 1960 he was a resident in Psychiatry at Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston for a year. Dr. Hobson then traveled to France where he was a Special Fellow of the National Institute of Mental Health for the Department of Physiology at the University of Lyon.
Upon returning to the United States, he went back to the Psychiatry at Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston until 1966.
He worked in numerous hospitals and research laboratories over the years and is currently the Director of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center.[2]
Dr. Hobson has received four awards for his work:[1]
Dr. Hobson's research specialty is quantifying mental events and correlating them with quantified brain events, with special reference to waking, sleeping and dreaming. Following the activation-synthesis hypothesis, he believes that dreams are created when random energy signals reach the brain's cortex during REM sleep. The cortex attempts to make sense of the random inputs it is receiving, which causes dreams.[3] Dr. Hobson clearly dismisses the idea that there are deep, nonphysiological, or hidden meanings in dreams. He calls such notions "the mystique of fortune cookie dream interpretation." For years he has proven his theories through lab testing with mice and human subjects.[4]
In addition to his many paid appointments, Dr. Hobson is actively involved with four groups relating to his neurological sleep research: the Society Memberships, the Society for Neuroscience, the Society for Sleep Research, the AAAS, and the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD), for which he used to be president.[5]
Dr. Hobson has published six books that relate to his mental health and dream research. The following is a complete list:[6]
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