Do you remember your dreams?
I find I go through periods where I have some real doozies and remember them all in graphic detail and other times when I don’t seem to dream at all. I was once told I could train myself to remember my dreams by keeping a dream diary but half the time I think I’m happier not remembering them. Though I find that sometimes when I can’t remember my dreams mentally my body seems to remember them and then I am somewhat ‘haunted’ by odd feelings throughout the day that have a surreal dreamlike quality about them.
And what about dream interpretation and analysis? Are the archetypes actually significant or are they too general to be meaningful for us as individuals?
Or perhaps dreams are simply random cerebral and emotional ‘left-overs’ without any meaning other than that which we choose to give them?
casa azahar 
I remember a lot of my dreams. But I go in cycles. There are times when I go for weeks without having a remembrance, then I will have a vivid dream that sticks with me for hours. In the past, I have done the exercise of writing down dreams as soon as I awaken. It has seemed to me that the exercise of putting them down as soon as I wake up has the effect of making me remember them more. I have read that the simple fact of writing them down teaches your psyche that your dreams are important and so you are more likely to remember more of them the more you write down. I have found this to be true. As I fell out of the habit of writing them down, I started remembering less of them.
I also believe that dreams are meaningful. If you spend time thinking about the symbols that appear regularly in your dreams, you find that there are patterns. Those patterns often give you insight as to what is going on in your subconscious. I think that the archetyes really are significant, with the caveat that it is also important for you to look at how you feel about certain symbols, and define your own personal symbology and apply it to your dreams.
I kept a dream journal for several years, and it is fascinating to go back and read some of the labyrinthine passages my brain went down.
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Or perhaps dreams are simply random cerebral and emotional ‘left-overs’ without any meaning other than that which we choose to give them?
That’s more or less it. Modern thinking in psychology is that during REM sleep we generate pretty much random brain activity – accessing memory and the like – just to keep us ticking over. However…our brains have evolved to (oops…I nearly typed ‘are designed to’ there ;-)) make sense out of chaos, so they try to fit it all together into a narrative. Think of it as night-time Improv Comedy.
Now, inevitably the bits of memory that are used most are things like deeply encoded stuff (eg my childhood home is frequently the venue for my dreams), stuff that’s near the surface (eg what’s been going on that day) or things that are really significant to us (eg our anxieties and phobias), so they keep cropping up in some form in our dreams. I say ‘in some form’ because the way we encode memory means that a lot of things are interconnected.
Freud said that dreams are ‘the Royal Road to the unconscious’…ie they reveal what we are ‘really’ thinking about. That’s not quite true: there’s little sense in treating dreams as a source of truth that cannot be gleaned from the waking mind and we shouldn’t obsess over the meaning of every dream (‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar’). That’s not to say they have no role in psychotherapy: ‘What did it make you think about?’ can be a valid question. (‘The cigar reminded me of that time my dad…’).
I have my most intense dreams if I don’t take my medication (venlafaxine) at night. Sometimes these are wonderful, trippy ‘technicolor movies in the head’ – but often they get unpleasant…I generally get into a physical fight with my dad (not an uncommon feature of my adolescence). In the best dreams I can fly, but in a strange, ‘falling down and missing the ground’ way.
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By the way…that ‘haunted’ feeling in your body…I’d be a little more prosaic about that. The body moves a lot during sleep. It’s probably just that you’re feeling. I’m trying desperately to remember about sleep stages from my university lectures. I think that in REM sleep, movement is limited to muscle twitches rather than gross movement. And I did get to use the phrase ‘penile or clitoral erection’ during my psychology exam.)
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Most of my most vivid dreams tend to be upsetting somehow … kind of like that fabulous scene at the end of one of the Twin Peaks episodes (first season, I think) with the red curtain and the creepy dancing dwarf character …
Even thinking of that episode still sends shivers down my spine – damn but it was well done!
Re: the ‘haunted’ feeling in my body – I think this comes from doing a year of therapy with an amazing shrink in Toronto who was into talking to and recognising the ‘body memory’ stuff more than analysing feelings. He didn’t hold much truck with analysing as he said we’d usually always turn problems into whatever was easiest for us to deal with – in other words, rationalising.
But the body memory stuff was fascinating as it was all about acceptance, and when feelings were accepted and dealt with ‘on their own terms’, a lot of healing could happen. Which actually did happen, at least for me.
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“…so they keep cropping up in some form in our dreams.”
In other words dreams are neither properly ordered/meaningful, or entirely random. The same probably applies to the symbolisms.
“because the way we encode memory means that a lot of things are interconnected.”
In looking for patterns I suspect that the brain connects things by resemblances and such like, rather than by logic (probably a feature of the more recently developed parts of the brain), and that in dreams such juxtapositions are the rule rather than the exception. We don’t get to check back with reality while we’re dreaming either. But such connections can be creative too, because we frame things differently.
Speaking personally I rarely remember my dreams, and even when I wake up knowing I’ve just been having a long and complex dream the memory of it starts to fragment almost at once, as if the dream is not being processed for long term memory. I would imagine writing dreams down probably increases recall by utilising parts of the brain that *do* commit things to long term memory.
But dreams are certainly fascinating, and we seem to need them. Deprived of opportunity to dream most people rapidly develop hallucinations.
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I’ve also had dream phases, but like Edward I find meds seem to supress them.
I think the language of dreams is very interesting and find they often have much to teach me if I think about them in a similar way to thinking about say a poem. It’s a symbolic language that can work on many levels.
A simple example of a meaningful dream was one I had shortly before starting therapy. I was in an old room and began chiselling at something on the wall. Suddenly all these wasps emerged from the hole I’d made. I felt it was warning me not to dig too deeply into myself too quickly or I would stir up a ‘hornets’ nest’. I told the my therapist about it and she agreed. It made me feel much safer about dealing with stuff.
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In looking for patterns I suspect that the brain connects things by resemblances and such like
Sort of…although ‘resemblance’ may not be rsticted to visual resemblance. Yes, round things, yellow things, etc. may have a coded relationship. But ‘Sensations that were around while I was pinned down in a foxhole by the Vietcong’ may be encoded with an emotional relationship.
probably a feature of the more recently developed parts of the brain
Yes, dreaming and the subsequent narrative formation appear to be a forebrain function.
You’re damn right that dreams are creative! I associate creativity with the sort of mind that can slot disparate ideas together. The strange thing, though, is that creativity seems to be a propensity to fit any ideas together, even those that don’t go anywhere. Sleep shares a similarity with cannabis smoking and hypomanic psychosis (I know whereof I speak!) in that they are all periods in which neural connections are particularly active…but on waking, little if any of it makes much sense.
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I find dreams fascinating, especially recurring ones. Those are the ones I try to analyze. Whether they are actually meaningful or I am giving them an importance they don’t deserve is open to conjecture, however. But then even if dream analysis is similar to the placebo effect, who cares if it helps?
I am restraining myself from getting started on a very lengthy response here. Unfortunately this is one of those subjects where I tend to get carried away.
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Okay, what’s everyone’s take on those ‘dream analysis’ books that say a HOUSE means such-and-such and finding yourself naked in a public place means THIS?
Can there be a one-size-fits-all analysis when it comes to personal dreams?
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No! Those books are bollocks. It’s about context and meaning in one’s own life and maybe some cultural context. But you can never know what the context is until you think seriously about a dream.
Those silly simplistic books give dreams a bad name.
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I doubt there’s a “one size fits all” interpretation for dreams, but some things crop up with a frequency that’s too great to be just a coincidence.
I’ve had three different recurring dreams (that I can still recall) at different times in my life. Flying, my teeth crumbling, and wandering around in big old houses. All of these are common, and could well have some similar symbolic foundation in many people.
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Yes, apparently the teeth crumbling dream is a usual sort of anxiety dream – I’ve had those too.
One of my most remembered recurring dreams is being very small and not being able to look up above knee level (and usually in the dream I’m in a very vulnerable place) but looking higher than knee level includes a sort of blinding light and it’s also a semi-lucid dream, meaning every time I have it I am also thinking (in my dream state) that this is just like one of those dreams I used to have, somehow not accepting I’m dreaming it. Very weird. Haven’t had one of those for ages.
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I also think those books are bollocks, Fanny.
They are akin to horoscope predictions in the daily newspaper.
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Yes! I get the teeth crumbling too! Of course, it could be our sensory misinterpretaion of involuntary tooth grinding during REM sleep.
Anthony Burgess regarded dreams as an elaborate mechanism to get us to get up and go to the toilet. He illustrates this at the start of one of his ‘Enderby’ novels where the poet is driving through the countryside with a couple of attractive women, they stop at a pub, he goes to the toilet, only to find that it’s at the end of a corridor miles and miles long. I’m sure we’ve all had similar dreams in which our bladder has dictated the plot.
“I dreamt I was eating a giant marshmallow. When I woke up, my pillow was missing.”
Oh…and falling off a high building and waking with a start is correlated with a (quite normal) change in vascular tone resulting in a drop in blood pressure.
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Like sometimes when you are just drifting off to sleep and awake with a start because you feel you are sliding off the bed?
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Actually…that’s not quite the same as a dream. Then you’re in Stage 1 sleep (REM happens in Stage 2). It’s what’s known as a ‘hypnagogic fugue state’. There are some similarities though – the mind can get quite whacky – but you’re still partially conscious. But, yes, it’s the vasodilation that cause it.
(I was taught at university by a Prof Jim Horne who’s a leading sleep reseacher).
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I’ve had the flying dreams and the one of wandering in a large house without being able to find the exact room I want. I don’t remember ever having a dream about my teeth crumbling.
My recurring dreams have two themes – water and nothing ever working. The water dreams were very common when I was younger, but I haven’t had one for ages. The other ones are very frustrating, however.
In these dreams light switches don’t work, telephones always have someone else talking on them so I can’t make a call, windows won’t open or close, the brakes won’t work on the car, that sort of thing. I also drive in reverse in the car a lot without being able to stop because the brakes will slow me down but not to a complete stop.
The water dreams were more pleasant. I rather wish I still had them.
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Dream themes — I’ve had the teeth falling out, the wandering in large houses or abandoned buildings and the flying dreams. Also the naked in public ones (can you call a dream a nightmare when *you’re* not the one being frightened? ;-)).
Some dreams I can remember very vividly even though they happened years ago. There’s a few from the period right after my husband died that I remember clearly — in one, M hugged me, without saying a word; I felt so comforted and can recall the hug as though it were real. Another from that period involved driving a friend’s borrowed car, a flat tire and clear plastic bags, in place of the usually substantial black rubber ones??? Don’t know if I’d want to analyze that one!
Dreams can also be really beautiful and a joy to remember. I had one when about 5 years old. I was picking flowers and felt a tug on my bouquet. I looked to my left and there was a gray baby brontosaurus nibbling delicately on the flowers! I can still remember the colors if I close my eyes. 🙂
Earlier Edward mentioned that meds tend to suppress dreams. I’ve had blood pressure meds which have stated in the literature that they “could cause unusual dreams”. In my case, my dreams were just more coherent, like movies.
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The other dream I have is public nudity. I find I’ve been going about my business inappropriately trouserless. In RL, I don’t have any hangups about nudity, and this seems to be reflacted in my dreams: I’m more concerned that others will think it inappropriate.
On the meds thing…it isn’t so much that my venlafaxine supresses dreams. In some patients it causes vivid dreams. With me, it’s the withdrawal that does it. Generally it’s known as a drug with some very uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms. I must admit once or twice I’ve deliberately missed one so I can have far-out dreams – although there’s a big risk of a bad trip. After a night of fighting my dad, I can’t wait to get up and take one. And if I were to miss two…well, I’d feel really shitty, panicky and tearful.
Has anyone else had sex dreams about the last person on earth you’d expect? Very embarassing!
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(on the other hand – it’s a life-saving drug)
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“Has anyone else had sex dreams about the last person on earth you’d expect? Very embarassing!” Edward
Yes I’ve had sex dreams involving sex with someone who almost seems to be several people in one, (no, I don’t mean group sex 😉 )
And often that person can almost be one of my family, so the dream has an incestuous element. Makes me feel weird when I wake up, but I’m sure Sigmund would re-assure me that it was perfectly normal and healthy.
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By the way I hasten to add. Dreaming about something is very different to doing it in reality. We probably all have in our unconscious, the most outrageous fantasies involving murder and incest, as well as wonderful loving things. I think dreams can be an important ‘safety valve’ for some of our more extreme and destructive desires.
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I’m with Noggin – I know that I must dream, but it is VERY unusual for me to be able to remember them in any sort of detail. In fact I generally can’t remember having them at all.
One of the strangest that I can remember was a long time ago, but I only noticed it because I went to school on a Tuesday (for example, I can’t remember exactly) prepared for Wednesday. I was certain that Tuesday had happened, with the right lessons and everything, but must have dreamed it!
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Well, I have one of those dream books. In fact, I have a couple of them. I have passed up the simplistic ones in favor of the sort that more resemble Webster’s Unabridged, and even then there are recurring elements of my dreams that are not addressed in the book. I like the sort of book that takes a symbolic element and gives you several ways of looking at it in context of your dream.
Sometimes, a dream is just a dream. Other times, it is your subconscious trying to tell you something. Sometimes, you have a dream and it makes you think, as you wake up and start to forget it, “What did THAT mean?” Then it sometimes helps to think about what the symbology might possibly mean. If what you come up with sounds like bollocks, then forget about it. But a lot of times you will come up with an insight that helps you deal with some ongoing crisis or change you are making in your life.
I have interpreted dreams for people who were really wanting to know what the deram meant. Most of the time the response I have gotten from them is “Oh. That makes sense.”
Of course, I also read Tarot cards on occasion and meditate with crystals, so all of my opinion may be just that much bollocks to you all. And that’s okay, I don’t mind being told I am too weird or too far out. Sometimes I scare even myself.
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Yes HMH maybe it was a bit strong to dismiss all those books. Some are more or less like horoscopes, but some can assist you by suggesting possible symbolic meanings. But I must admit I’m wary of all of them because even if it’s a common symbol like ‘crumbling teeth’, I still think it’s important to look seriously at your own particular life and think ‘why am I having that dream right now? What is it trying to tell me?’
People are always so desperate for someone else to give them answers. I would be very wary of ever explaining to someone what their dream meant. I would always encourage them to think what it might mean to them, and then give very minimal input if it seemed helpful. And also take into account how strong the person was mentally. Some people just ‘drink’ in someone else’s viewpoint. Others are tougher and are more able to say, “No you got that bit all wrong!”
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(Fanny)
We probably all have in our unconscious, the most outrageous fantasies involving murder and incest, as well as wonderful loving things.
I’m rather sceptical about the existence of an unconscious mind. We only have one mind. Sure, a lot of our memory, impulses and processing is inactive at any given time…but that doesn’t mean there’s some kind of fantasising or whatever ticking away in the background. The point about – say – unresolved issues is that they simply haven’t been thought about – not that they’re hiding somewhere.
Similarly hmh…
Sometimes, you have a dream and it makes you think, as you wake up and start to forget it, “What did THAT mean?”
Hmmm. If it doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t mean anything. Could it not be that one fabricates meaning when one starts to think about it? And that meaning will inevitably be to do with unresolved issues and things that are generally concerning us? Not that there’s anything wrong with that…as always, I’m just trying to take the mysticism out of it.
Clearly though, dreams are meaningful, objectively speaking. People find them meaningful!
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Ah I see your an existentialist Edward. I am at heart a Freudian and do believe in the unconscious. It makes sense to me in terms of my own life and experiences. And that at the end of the day is what matters about things that can’t really be strictly proved scientifically.
I enjoy your input coming from a different slant to me though.
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I’ve dreampt of flying like a bird but have never flown. I’ve had recurrent dreams of driving on a coast road but the dream stopped after I actually drove on the road I had dreamed about. My most vivid dream was about Tir na nOc(see http://outer-rim.lweb.net/mythos/10point.html), the celtic otherworld beyond the western horizon. In my dream my guide told me it was the land of eternal youth. I always know I am dreaming during a dream.
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When I taught myself machine code I started to dream sequences of code which I tried on my computer and found that they worked. Usually they were solutions to problems I had been working on during the day.
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From ‘Myth across Time: Jung, Archetypes and Strange Journeys’ @ http://outer-rim.lweb.net/mythos/strange.html
“Myths are the Dreams of the Race
Dreams are the Myths of the Individual”
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Interesting, alji. My Toronto shrink who suggested I keep a dream diary also said that, with some practice, I could pretty much ‘programme’ my dreams after awhile, so that I’d dream about things I felt I needed to sort out.
The thing about myths is that they always refer to the basic human condition, which is why they are all so similar in various cultures that had no physical way of comparing their ideas.
I think this also holds true for many of our dreams, that they are based in the birth-life-death basic human cycle and all that comes in between for individuals.
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Ah I see your an existentialist Edward. I am at heart a Freudian and do believe in the unconscious.
But that’s why we have to be biological reductionists. There’s no evidence for the unconscious mind. There is now good neurophysiological evidence on how memories are stored and retrieved, and this suggests that the thought processes consist of retrieving and processing memories as and when they are needed.
Anyway…Freud’s ideas abou phallic symbolism were a load of cock…
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I would say dreams were evidence for the unconscious mind. When I have a dream I am unconscious, in the sense that I have no knowledge of my waking self, and my mind works completely differently from when I’m awake. It shows me things that aren’t really there, I do things like fly, I have sex with people it would disgust me to have sex with in waking life. And yet there is a language going on that is meaningful to my emotional self, but completely mad and senseless to my rational logical self.
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Last night in my dreams I kept coming across naked men with multi-coloured cocks, they had these almost irridescent blue and red lumps growing on them … kinda creepy.
Somehow this had something to do with me deciding to move to a small village outside of Seville rather than continue living in the centre of town … go figure.
No wonder I’m better off not remembering my dreams. 😉
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I was tempted to say something cheeky az, as Freud suggested that on some level all dreams are ‘wishes’ 😉 But thought better of it……
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I agree with Edward about biological reductionism, but of course we don’t, as yet, have the knowledge and tools to treat many aspects of the mind that way.
In the meantime, the mind has its own “high level language” for talking about its own experiences.
The brain certainly does lots of stuff that we aren’t directly conscious of, and which could be described as “unconscious”, and these include some of the ways that the brain connects items of experience and memory together.
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It’s probably true that everything involving the mind could eventually be described in terms of biological reductionism. But as a feeling living person that’s not always what means most to us.
A quote I remember reading somewhere, when someone asked Einstein if everything could ultimately be explained in terms of science. He said ‘yes, but that is not alwaysthe point, it would be like describing Beethoven’s ninth symphony in terms of an air pressure curve.’ (i may have the quote slightly wrong, but you get the idea.)
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I would say dreams were evidence for the unconscious mind.
That would depend on what you mean by ‘mind’. If you mean some kind of ordered process that operates below the surface of a conscious mind…then no.
The evidence from neuroscience seems to be that consciousness is the sum total of all the activity that happens within our brains. Sesations and memories are processed and turned into new sensations. It’s these sensations that we call ‘consciousness.’
Granted, there are at any one time gazillions of stored memories lying dormant, and we are indeed unconscious of these. They enter our consciousness when they are accessed – whether in waking thought or when dreaming.
note that the brain activity which we perceive in the form of dreams is random activity in the forebrain. It is not an ordered process – just stuff to keep the brain ticking over. As a side-efefct it triggers those memories which are the most primed for action and those to which they are connected during storage.
Do you see what I’m getting at? We don’t need posit an ordered process to explain dreams. This is where Freud, without the benefit of modern neurophysiology, went too far.
It’s probably true that everything involving the mind could eventually be described in terms of biological reductionism. But as a feeling living person that’s not always what means most to us.
It would be a mistake to think of biological reductionism as being incompatible with a ‘human-centred’ viewpoint. I’m not talking about something cold and Spock-like.
All I’m suggesting is that it helps to understand the biology in order to understand the psychology. There are consequences here. The Freudian/Jungian approach would have us searching for the deep, unconscious significance of our dreams, to tell us ‘what we’re really thinking’. The biological perspective tells us that what we’re thinking at any given time is…what we’re thinking. And if that thinking is counter-productive, we can look to therapies such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to re-shape some of the links between memories and feelings.
Let’s take another example – panic attacks. Sufferers can be aided greatly, simply by understanding, at the biological level, what they’re going through. (And by training the body and mind to behave differently).
it would be like describing Beethoven’s ninth symphony in terms of an air pressure curve.’
But you can look at biology at different levels. For example, I’ve been talking about general brain functions, not about neurotransmitter chemicals.
Yes, the individual’s feelings are very, very important. All I’m saying is that Freud was wrong about where feelings come from.
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What a strange world you live in, Edward. Whenever I am stuck on a problem I stop thinking about it and let my subconscious come up with an answer.
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>>random activity in the forebrain.
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Oh shit! I just wrote a load of stuff that’s lost forever……I keep forgetting about not using chevrons. C’est la vie!!!:-)
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That’s too bad, Fanny. Usually if you just go back a page you can retrieve it, but it’s obviously too late now after having closed the page.
That’s one thing WordPress is missing – a preview button!
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Alji:
What a strange world you live in, Edward. Whenever I am stuck on a problem I stop thinking about it and let my subconscious come up with an answer.
It’s more that I experience the same world as you, but I understand it differently in the light of neurobiology.
Yes…that is a puzzling phenomenon. But I’m afraid it’s still not evidence for a subconscious…except to a limited extent. The neuroscientific thinking seems to be that various problems compete for our attention at any one time. The dominant ones are worked on. The remainder are parked in some sort of memory buffer. They’re not being worked on during this time, just lying dormant. The reason why the ‘Aha!’ phenomenon occurs is that in the meantime, all the dead-ends that have stopped you getting the solution have calmed down.
I agree…it does sometimes seem that we have an unconscious mind. However, I suggest that this is down to Freud. Nobody thought that way until he suggested it.
Btw…we are also probably capable of processing various skill-based activities unconsciously. That is how come, eg, I suddenly woke up yesterday to realise that I’d missed a turning while driving and was some way along the wrong road. I was totally unconscious of my driving – yet I hadn’t crashed.
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Typical of the scientific mind; if you can’t measure it, it does not exist! Perhaps neuroscientists should study their own minds.
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Yes I happen to think Freud was a genius forr openning up a whole new discipline, including those that were heavily influenced but took Psychoanalysis off in all sorts of directions like Jung, Klein, Fromm etc etc, I have read a lot of Freud and find it fascinating. The only reason I like the ideas though is because they seem to make so much sense to me in my own life. But I in no way hold onto it like a ‘religion’. It’s probably closer to ideas I get from literature and poetry that make sense emotionally. Freud is essentially a ‘story’ teller for me, trhat helps me better understand myself interms of my emotions and personal relationshiops.
Also so much art has been influenced by the ideas of freud, such as the Surrealists and writers like Proust.
I think Nietzche also mentions the subconscious. But obviously in a much more undefined way, and possibly in a different context. It’s difficult sometimes reading someone from the 19C, and trying to work out in what way they mean something.
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Coming in late, as usual!
I’m one of those people who can never remember her dreams, not even if I’m awoken in the middle of one, except for the “recurring” ones. One recurring dream I have had for years is one which takes place in a single-story house (apparently my home, but it’s not a place I’ve ever actually been in). All of the windows, doors, closets and cabinets are open. And none of the photos have faces- just smooth white eggs like in that old horror flick. I’ve often wondered what that might symbloize for me, but can never make any sense of it.
I also often have that long corridor full of locked doors dream… never occured to me it might mean I had to pee.
Edward said “Let’s take another example – panic attacks. Sufferers can be aided greatly, simply by understanding, at the biological level, what they’re going through. (And by training the body and mind to behave differently).” And I wanted to vouch for it- I had some therapy (the only good shrink I ever dealt with) where I was definitely helped in this regard. I haven’t had an actual panic attack in a few years or so. What amazed me was that it was much simpler than I’d allowed myself to be convinced it would be. But I think that’s another topic entirely…
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I also agree with Edward about dealing with panic attacks at a biological (physiological?) level. When I was first taught to do this it helped me considerably. Though maybe you’re right, PC, that this topic requires it’s own entry … so I’m off to beat the two of you to it! 😛
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Alji..
I think you’ve missed the point. All I’m saying is that what we’ve been taught to regard as a process bubbling under, beneath the conscious, really isn’t. By definition, if it’e beneath the conscious, we can’t ‘feel’ what’s going on there, can we? Freud’s ideas seemed like a sensible explanation of a lot of things. But science has moved us on.
And I’m not totally writing off Freud, either. He had the brilliant idea of taking our thoughts and feelings seriously and studying them.
I promise you, when I talk about neuroscience, I’m not being cold and clinical. What I’m talking about is an exciting, emerging field which gives us great insight into how we think and feel.
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Let me give another example. You know how when you eat spinach, it makes your teeth feel chalky? The definitely do, don’t they? It’s as if all the enamel has been replaced by chalk.
But it’s only as if that. I thought for years that the spinach must do something to the enamel…until I discovered a couple of years ago that spinach contains oxcalic acid, which numbs the nerve endings in the tongue.
The same as for the subconscious. It feels as if there’s processing going on underneath the surfcae. But now that we’ve got CAT scans and the like, we don’t see any evidence of that.
So far, so ‘So what’. Just because (capital-S) Science can explain our feelings, it doesn’t meen they’re not valid. No. Of course not. All it means is that a psychoanlytic model that assumes the existence of the subconcious will only take us so far. Therapeutic models which more closely match our actual psychobiology are more likely to succeed.
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But I think that when it comes to understanding the mind, science is only at a very primitive point. Sure the little we do know scientifically is interesting, but oh so limited at present. I mean how on earth do chemicals moving in and out of neurons create a subjective experience of pictures. How are all those memories stored for years in just chemicals. Obviously eventually we’ll start to work it out better. But really I reckon we’re still at the medieval ‘mapa mundi’ view of the world when it comes to really scientifically understanding the functioning of the mind.
So for now I’m more interested in the more subjective psychoanalytical description.
When I’m reborn in a few hundred years or so 😉 I might be more interested in what the scientists can tell me about dreams, like am now about what they can tell me about evolution.
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From newscientist.com
“Working at the University of Montreal in Quebec, Beauregard has been using a brain imaging machine to probe what is going on in the minds of people as they watch erotic videos. When they see images they find sexually desirable, the “higher” brain areas that deal with reasoning and logic go pretty quiet, but the basic emotion circuits show an unashamed burst of activity. It is almost the identical reaction you find in drug addicts when they get a craving. Beauregard will even know if you are concealing your arousal.”
“Negative feelings about black people may be subconsciously learned by both white and black Americans, suggests a brain imaging study. The research is among the first to test the brain physiology of racial biases in both black and white subjects.”
Edward, CAT scans show structure not content. We are just begining to discover what’s going on in the brain so the tools that are being used may be the wrong ones for the subconscious, like radio we may be missing the FM transmissions because we are using an AM radio reciever.
To discover what’s going on in the brain, people are asked to think about something or look at a picture so the the scan is related to the activity but we don’t know what is going on in the subconscious so we can’t find a relationship.
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I think that now know enough from fMRI scanning, which tells us which parts of trhe brain are active when, to tell us that there simply isn’t processing and problem solving bubbling away beneath the conscious. From what else we know, things like the memory activation hypothesis give a much better explanation of our subjective experience. And that is the name of the game: Not to disregard subjective experience, but to make sense of it. (And hopefully to fix our minds when it all goes Pete Tong.)
I really don’t want to make this into a science/anti-science argument. But remember where Freud was coming from. His Big Idea was to treat the human mind as a biological phenomenon. Starting from the viewpoint of the phrenologists, who believed that different bits of the brain were responsible for different elements of character, he had in his mind that the hindbrain, midbrain and forebrain manifest themselves as the id, ego and superego. Turns out it’s not like that…but it was a damned good start.
Fanny’s right…neuroscience is in its relative infancy. But it’s superceded Freud. If we postulate something called the subconscious, it behooves us to look for confirmatory evidence…and it simply ain’t there. Thus it does individuals no great service to make them struggle to map their own, personal, subjective feelings onto Freud’s innacurate map. If it works for individuals, fine – but let’s not force it. If we’re not confident that we have a better map…then what’s wrong with good old Rogerian non-directive therapies?
How many non-directive coincellors does it take to change a lightbulb?
How many do youthink?
How many Freudians does it take to change a lightbulb?
Two. One to change the lightbulb, the other to hold the penis…No!…mother…No!…ladder!!!
As for The God Spot…I’m sceptical about it turning out to be an FM link to God…but that’s a separate issue (and not one to get into here.)
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Who’s making it a science/anti-science argument. All I am saying is that we don’t know and just because it has not been discovered yet, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I happen to believe the Freudian view is a load of cobblers. Don’t close your mind to the possibility of a subconscious.
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” I happen to believe the Freudian view is a load of cobblers. Don’t close your mind to the possibility of a subconscious.”
Erm I’m slightly confused by the connection between these 2 statements. Freud was the first person to systematically try to explain the ‘unconscious’ For example his papers on various forms of hysteria and dreams. Subsequent thinkers however much they went off in different directions to Freud, such as Jung, always made clear their respect for and connection to freud’s original ideas however much they disagreed about many details. If you actually read him you can see the connection, and without his writings it’s hard to see how the development of subsequent ideas would have taken place.
You say the Freudian view is cobblers. If you are talking about a subconscious that has no connection whatsoever with Freud’s description, what DO you mean by the term subconscious then?
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For Freud the unconscious is the mental processes not acccessible to consciousness by direct means, i.e., by turning attention to them. Their existence must thus be inferred through examination of gaps in consciousness, symptoms, dreams, etc. It is said to be dynamically, not merely descriptively, un-conscious, since its contents are blocked from consciousness by repression.
The notion of a subconscious in some branches of psychotherapy is considered to be the deepest level of consciousness, that individuals are not directly aware of, but still affects conscious behavior. This notion is similar to, but not precisely the same as, the notion of the unconscious in psychoanalytic theory.
I’ve studied my own subconscious for the past 45 years.
During those years I also gained control over blinking, closed down my peripheral vision, found that hearing was the first sense to close down when going to sleep or at least go to standby mode.
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I’m not so much closing my mind to the possibility of a subconscious. What I’m saying is that when we look (with fMRI, etc)…it turns out it ain’t there.
Similarly…I’m not closing my mind to the idea that there’s a giant teapot orbiting Mars. I doubt very much that there is, and if anyone were to claim there is one, the onus would be on them to show me. And if anyone claims there is a subconscious mind…show me some evidence that cannot be explained equally well by known phenomena to do with the way memory appears to work.
Remember, we never thought about things in terms of the subconscious before freud. In days of yore, for example, some people thought that spirits put dreams into their head. That turns out to be no more true than the idea that we have an orderly process ticking away below the level of the conscious.
This does not devalue peoples’ thoughts, feelings and perceptions. All it means is that we shouldn’t sweat too much at trying to work out what a subconscious mind is telling us.
Honestly…I’m not trying to get into an argument – just trying to explain something of how we now know that the mind works. Maybe Fanny’s question is the most relevant: What DO you mean by the term subconscious?
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Who are the ‘we’ who know how the mind works?
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Y’all might find my book review (comment 43) of Umberto Eco’s latest book of interest as it deals with the various types of memory we have.
I’m finding it quite fascinating and also a damn good read.
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Is God all in your mind @ http://www.wie.org/consciousness/content/AllInYourHead.pdf
It struck me this morning that what we see on the fMRI and MEG scans, we may not be conscious of as we only become conscious in the final phase of the process. We do not search through our memory for a word as we would search through a dictionary for the same word. Take the word process, when I typed it first I put in an extra C and when I looked at it, it didn’t look right but I looked it up in the dictionary to make sure.
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Scientists say they can read a person’s unconscious thoughts using a simple brain scan.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4472355.stm
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Ah…there’s science…and then there’s journalism.
As for ther extra C in Process: I’ll conceed that there are lots and lots of brain processes which are subconscious. Take, for example, thermoregulation. But these are somewhat different to the sort of parallel cognitive processes that Freud et al meant. All I’m saying is that I’m cautious of anyone who tells us that what we think we think isn’t ‘really’ what we think.
Don’t want to get into a debate on the (non)existence of god on az’s blog. Suffice to say, I remain an Atheist Fundamentalist. Happy to take it up on my own blog or on h2g2.
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Sorry Edward, I’ve had enough of you! BTW you didn’t answer my question.
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Now boys … no fighting! 😉
As I recall the question was ‘who is the “we” who knows how the mind works?’
In the Eco book I’m reading now the character wakes up hearing five chimes of the church bell (marking the hour) and even though he only ‘consciously’ heard five chimes he knows it is 8 o’clock. Which turns out to be the case. I’ve had similar experiences.
Explanation?
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Sorry…I thought it was a rhetorical question…and I hope I wasn’t fighting.
Yes, I’ll happily back-peddle on the ‘no such thing as subconscious’ thing. What I’m really meaning is that there isn’t a sort of parallel stream of cognition constantly whirring away underneath.
However…there are many processes that can go on, in some circumstances’ without needing conscious attention. Counting church bells. Driving. Breathing. These seem to be highly learned skills which (I’m speculating here) can be parceled up as a separate bit of processing.
Thinking of how memory is encoded and retrieved…Say a cigar reminds you of your father. This doesn’t require an awful lot of processing. All that it requires is for memories associated with the two to be tagged with the attribute ‘has penis-like characteristic’ – and that can be a very simple matter of perceptual-level stuff. (Admittedly unconscious – but the sort of thing a machine can do).
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Oh…and I forgot to answer the question.
The same ‘We’ that knows that the world is round. I’ve certainly never made the measurements, but I think ‘we’ have known it at least as far back as Eratosthenes.
Similarly…I’ve not myself conducted fMRI scans but have no reason to doubt various eminent neuroscientists.
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Hey Edward, I’m happy to fight nicely with you 😉
From your post 38
“note that the brain activity which we perceive in the form of dreams is random activity in the forebrain”
Last night I had quite an intense dream, which felt very significant, where I was alternately signing my name firstly with my left hand and then my right. The signiture came out quite bizarrely when I signed with my left hand, though it started to improve. The one with my right hand I could write quickly was also rather scribbly, but in a conventional way like a docor’s signiture on a meds script.
I thought today why did I dream that? There are 2 reasons I can think of. I had my purse stolen last week, and I have quite a fear of someone stealing my identity. Also over the weekend I had conversations with people about confusion of one’s identity. I certainly feel very confused about my identity, in various ways.
So I reckon my dream probably related quite strongly to both these expertiences in waking life. So I find it hard to believe how something ‘random’ in my forebrain could relate so meaningfully to my waking life.
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As I said earlier…if it seems significant, then it is. However, I don’t think there’s any mileage in psychotherapists insisting that their clients delve further to discover hidden meaning. Chances are it’s absent, not hidden.
Presumably, though, this identity thing is something that leapt fairly readily to your mind. Because of the theft, it was something at the forefront. It seems to me that this is pretty much in line with the memory activation hypothesis. The random activity in your forebrain triggers memories. The memories it’s most likely to trigger are the ones that are most ‘active’ – eg to do with subjects that have been pre-occupying you lately. Sometimes you might not get at the direct memory, but at the ones filed in the adjacent drawer, as it were. The triggering is random, the memories aren’t.
No axes to grind, though…maybe we’re all talking about the same thing. All I’m doing is applying what (little) I know about contemporary neuroscience to help us understand what’s going on in our spongey masses. The ect evidence says that the forebrain activity during dreaming is very different to that involved with thinking.
So I find it hard to believe how something ‘random’ in my forebrain could relate so meaningfully to my waking life.
Yes…and it’s absolutely amazing how all this stuff can come about through chemical reactions which produce weak electrical signals through a wee box of jelly!
—————————————-
Your dream also reminds me of a couple of other recurrent dreams. In one, I’m trying to get through a door or up a staircase, but it’s too narrow and twisty. In the other, I’m trying to drive a car from the back seat…partly I’m frustrated because I can’t reach the pedals, partly I know shouldn’t be doing it, I don’t know why I am and I’m worried I might get stopped.
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Did you see ‘A patient in a vegetative state can communicate just through using her thoughts, according to research.’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5320234.stm
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‘note that the brain activity which we perceive in the form of dreams is random activity in the forebrain. It is not an ordered process – just stuff to keep the brain ticking over.’
Wrong, wrong, wrong! It was believed that it was random but we are far from knowing for a fact that it is random. It is now thought to be esential in retrieving and sorting memory.
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It is now thought to be esential in retrieving and sorting memory.
I know of this hypothesis from Chris Evans’ work in the 70s. His book on dreaming is one of the things that first got me interested in psychology, way back when. It fell out of favour at around about the time of Evans’ death. Besides the neurological stuff, there have been various studies which show that lack of sleep does significantly impair memory function. But if there’s any new evidence, I’d like to be pointed at it.
________________________________________________
On the brain activity in PVS…this is an interesting one, isn’t it? I don’t think it says “We were wrong about what goes on in the minds of PVS patients.” It’s more subtle than that:
“Maybe we were wrong to classify all patients as PVS simply on the basis that they share certain external characteristics and reactions.”
There’s been a lot of speculation on the ethical implications. I don’t think that from this one case that we can say that we must no longer allow PVS patients to die. But what it might say is that we need better diagnostic techniques.
Also…I don’t think the evidence yet says that the patient’s mind is intact…ie that it’s a ‘conscious’ person trapped in an unresposive body. Hypothetically, the brain could be running disjointed language comprehension and tennis-imagining routines. (My intuition is that this isn’t likely, btw). It certainly makes us think again about what we mean by ‘consciousness’, though.
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More on PVS: http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1870171,00.html
I can see a major ethical re-think coming.
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For example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1869385,00.html
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Why we dream or Why we think we dream; read
Ernest Hartmann, a professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and the director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Newton Wellesley Hospital in Boston, Mass., @ http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=00072867-D925-1F0E-97AE80A84189EEDF&catID=3
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Thanks! Great article, and an interesting opposing view. I’m still not sure you can say I’m ‘wrong wrong wrong’ – as he says, others regard dreaming as an epiphenomenon – plus he carefully ponts out that his theory is ‘…possible, but not proven’. That’s science for you – the testing and comparison of hypotheses.
It occurs to me that a synthesis may be possible between the two views. If dreams are about making new connections between stored memory, this process may be stimulated by more-or-less random forebrain activity. As an analogy, think of the technique of Brainstorming in which the bouncing around of cause something snesible to coalesce. Don’t know, of course – just speculating.
Thanks again for pointing me at that. I can hunt down some related stuff now. In either case, I think we’re a million miles from the Freudian idea of a hidden narrative, no?
Do you have a particular background in/ interest in psychology and neuroscience? If so, you might like the 2003 Reith Lectures by Villayanur Ramachandran(which I’m constantly plugging).
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Read this article @ http://www.brucelipton.com/article/mind-over-genes-the-new-biology
Quote from page 2
‘The subconscious mind is not a seat of reasoning or creative consciousness, it is strictly a stimulus-response device. When an environmental signal is perceived, the subconscious mind reflexively activates a previously stored behavioral response…no thinking required. The subconscious mind is a programmable autopilot that can navigate the vehicle without the observation or awareness of the pilot—the conscious mind. When the subconscious autopilot is controlling behavior, consciousness is free to dream into the future or review the past.’
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I have replayed the 2003 lectures more times than I can remember. There have been other programmes on radio and TV about his work which I have not recorded.
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That quote is pretty much what I’ve been trying to say: “…no thinking required.” My point – and it must have come over wrong – is that this is very different to what most people mean by the Subconscious, especially if they have half an idea about Freud. There’s a world of difference between processes whirring away in the background to do things like recognise shapes, retrieve memories, send signals to the adrenal gland than a process which is constantly whispering in your ear “Mummy never loved me.”
I have to say…I wasn’t entirely convinced by that Contemporary Theory of Dreaming stuff. Granted stuff it certainly sounds plausible – we use literature and art for much the same purpose, don’t we? But the guy doesn’t mention any neurological evidence for the emotional connection, and so far I haven’t seen any mention on the pages I’ve tracked down. It shouldn’t put me off that the theory seems to have been mostly discussed at conferences with heavy representation from the flakier end of psychotherapy – ‘Dream Interpretation and Healing Worksops’ and all that malarkey…but I’m afraid it does.
Hasn’t that Villayanur Ramachandran got a gorgeous voice, though?
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Sorry – even more than my usual quota of typos and grammatical non sequiturs than usual in the last post. I hope you got the gist.
An important thing to add…it isn’t really the case that a set of subconcious processes is passing up information to a conscious mind. It’s more that ‘consciousness’ is the sum total of all the interconnecting processes. I think that’s more or less what Prof. Rama is saying.
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You didn’t read the article!
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Sorry…I’m puzzled as to why you’d think that. Which bits do you think I’ve understood wrong?
Granted he doestalk about two separate minds. But what I’m trying to say is that the subconscious one isn’t what we’d really think of as a mind – it’s just a set of mechanical processes (and I’d argue that it’s not ‘separate’ either).
From the rest of Lipton’s site, he seems to be coming at things from a holistic, new-agey angle. Normally that would put me right off, but in the case of Consciousness, it seems quite valid. The contemporary theory seems to be along the lines that Consciousness is the sum of the parts, not a separate brain function. I must say, though…I really haven’t a clue what he’s getting at with all the cellular stuff. Cellular ‘memory’ is somewhat different to what we normally understand by the word.
As an aside, Alji…I do hope you realise that we’re not in conflict here. I may have said some things unclearly, or some things that you’ve disagreed with…but I’m not trying to score points off you. Honest!
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I reread the article and I can’t see that it supports your argument. I think a second opinion is called for.
Here’s the link again;
http://www.brucelipton.com/article/mind-over-genes-the-new-biology
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Fair enough. You’re right, it doesn’t. I was using the quote to try and reinforce the point I’ve been unsuccessfuly trying to make.
The article itself – and his site in general – I thought wasn’t much cop. There’s not a good deal of science in it. He’s certainly not amongst the ranking neuroscientists. I note that his current position is at a College of Chiropractic. One has to be selective about where and from whom one draws one’s evidence. However…he does make the distinction between the thinking and non-thinking parts of the mind. I guess my point is that there isn’t any real distinction.
But…That’s him. I’m still trying to work out what you are finding disagreeable in what I’ve said. And why.
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(nothing against chiropractors, I should add. great people for sore backs. but they don’t, as a rule, have access to the rearch tools necessary for neuroscience, such as fMRI scanners).
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Dr. Lipton began his scientific career as a cell biologist. He received his Ph.D. Degree from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville before joining the Department of Anatomy at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine in 1973. Dr. Lipton’s research on muscular dystrophy, studies employing cloned human stem cells, focused upon the molecular mechanisms controlling cell behavior. An experimental tissue transplantation technique developed by Dr. Lipton and colleague Dr. Ed Schultz and published in the journal Science was subsequently employed as a novel form of human genetic engineering.
Dr. Lipton has taken his award-winning medical school lectures to the public and is currently a sought after keynote speaker and workshop presenter. He lectures to conventional and complementary medical professionals and lay audiences about leading-edge science and how it dovetails with mind-body medicine and spiritual principles. He has been heartened by anecdotal reports from hundreds of former audience members who have improved their spiritual, physical and mental well being by applying the principles he discusses in his lectures. He is regarded as one of the leading voices of the new biology.
2006-Present Visiting Fellow, New Zealand College of Chiropractic, Auckland, NZ
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Did you read his CV?
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Yes. And indeed I referred to the last item on it in Posts 82 and 83.
Alji:
I get the impression that, for some reason I can’t quite fathom, I’m atagonising you in some way. Is this the case? Because I honestly don’t mean to. I may have got you quite wrong, but it seems from my end as if you’ve come in quite aggressive (see your Post 39), with similar antipathy readable in posts 44, 57, (especially) 62, 79, 81, 85. And I’m particularly puzzled as to why I think I haven’t read the articles you’ve directed me towards, even though – in the case of Dr Lipton – it is fairly clear, in my judgement, that he’s not of the first rank and something of a flake
I, on the other hand, have simply tried to present what information I know in a dispassionate way. I’m interested in discussing dreaming and other issues relating to psychology and neuroscience. I’m not here to make enemies or engage in personal disputes. I may be a fool, but I don’t think I’ve been a git.
So what’s with it, huh?
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It’s a shame you think he’s a fake, but there you are!
‘Lipton’s research on mechanisms controlling cell behavior employed cloned human muscle cells. In addition, he lectured in Cell Biology, Histology and Embryology. Bruce resigned his tenured position to pursue independent research integrating quantum physics with cell biology. His breakthrough studies on the cell membrane, the “skin” of the cell, revealed that the behavior and health of the cell was controlled by the environment, findings that were in direct contrast with prevailing dogma that life is controlled by genes. Lipton returned to academia as a Research Fellow at Stanford University’s School of Medicine to test his hypotheses (1987-1992). His ideas concerning environmental control were substantiated in two major scientific publications. The new research reveals the biochemical pathways connecting the mind and body and provides insight into the molecular basis of consciousness and the future of human evolution.’
There are many who don’t share your opinion.
BTW I’m sorry you found me quite aggressive!
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You’re not aggressive at all, alji, it’s probably just the !!!, ya know?
I’ve been having a great time reading all this. Keep up the good work, boys! 🙂
ps
Nog says he’ll join in once he gets his laptop back cos I’ve been hogging the PC … 🙄
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I have a feeling that Edward is put off by the word spirit, az.
Read here http://www.lightconnectiononline.com/Archive/apr04_article2.html
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No…it’s not just that I’m put off by the word spirit. Although granted I think it’s an obfuscatory word for something more mundane. And I don’t think that dreams have anything to do with spirits.
When assessing the value of any scientific work, one has to make certain judgements. One is whether it’s well-respected amongst peers – It’s called “peer review”. Granted it’s far from 100% reliable, but in this case I judge it significant that Lipton is looking in entirely different directions to the mainstream.
I also think it’s highly significant that he’s pursuing “…independent research integrating quantum physics with cell biology”…and the fact that he’s resigned his tenure to do so and has ended up at a chiropractors’ college sets my alarm bells ringing. Has this guy fallen off the wall?
Then, looking at the research…I take his point about environmental influences on cell biology…but I don’t see what this has to do with theories of consciousness.
Finally…with quantum physics he’s straying into Roger Penrose territory. Penrose may have something to say (basically, he thinks that ‘Dreams are simulations of other worlds’… but I – and several leading neuroscientists – doubt it. It’s simply not based around empirical research (and nor are Lipton’s theories).
So…I’ve accorded Alji the respect of reading the evidence. I have sincere doubts as to its value. But can you see why I might find it slightly galling that I keep being accused of not having read it?
Do tell me, anyone, if you feel I’m reading too much in to Alji’s tone. From my perspective, I recognise that this is azahar’s blog, not a public forum like h2g2 where I’d be happy to give as good as I get. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve been conciliatory and tried to keep the debate on target. This has been difficult when someone has started by suggesting that I live in a strange world, then moved on to telling me that he’s had enough of me.
Alji…can we shake hands, say no more about it and move on? Or am I just an intolerable dickhead?
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I read ‘The Emperor’s New Mind’ many years ago and gave it to a physics lecturer to read. He gave it back saying that he couldn’t understand half of it.
I find mainstream research boring but that’s me!
You’re not ‘an intolerable dickhead’ but you do remind me of a friend of mine whose mother said to me “How do you put up with him!”
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Interesting discussion. I used to have dream landscapes which I would revisit in my dreams over and over, but less so nowadays. Sometimes these were loosely based on places I had actually been and sometimes they were pure fiction.
I’ve also had the experience of solving problems in my dreams. I remember very well coming up with an idea for a mathematical proof in my sleep, and the next day I got straight on it. It didn’t work out, but the idea was sensible.
Also… Roger Penrose. Sucks. (Twistors are ok though.)
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I still can’t work out why on this occasion I was seen as hard to put up with from the get go, other than having different views…but at least I’ve said how I’ve felt.
I’ve also had the experience of solving problems in my dreams. I remember very well coming up with an idea for a mathematical proof in my sleep, and the next day I got straight on it. It didn’t work out, but the idea was sensible.
Now that kind of thing does look like some kind of evidence for processing during dreams, I’ll admit. On the other hand…Daniel Dennet’s ‘Multiple Drafts’ theory suggests that we may be constantly trying and discarding out solutions for dealing with data, with the resulting one becoming what we call ‘consciousness’ (This in his excellent ‘Consciousness Explained’…also widely known as ‘Consciousness Explained Away’). It is possible that a mathematical mind has various trial solutions on the back burner.
The thing to remember about mainstream research, Alji, is that on the whole it’s the stuff that makes sense. That’s not to say that the odd maverick has nothing to say…but let’s just say those sites you’ve linked to are as boring to me as the mainstream is to you.
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It doesn’t have to mean there is processing going on in sleep. It might be that I had subconsciously solved the problem the previous day when thinking hard about it, and it was only the presentation of the idea that occured during my dream.
Incidentally Ed, I don’t know if I had mentioned to you or anyone else on H2G2 that I’m giving up my life as a mathematician to become a theoretical neuroscientist. Exciting eh?
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There’s a nice little article on memory @ http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/news/in-vivo/vol5_2_april-may_06/brain_theory.html
quote;
One problem in modeling memory stems from two contradictory aspects of our memory: We are fast learners and so our synapses can change rapidly to record a memory. But we’re also good at retaining those memories for decades and for that synapses need to be rigid and stable. Memory models must combine these two conflicting characteristics.
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It doesn’t have to mean there is processing going on in sleep. It might be that I had subconsciously solved the problem the previous day when thinking hard about it, and it was only the presentation of the idea that occured during my dream.
That’s what I was hinting at – one of the multiple drafts squirreled away somewhere. Of course – we don’t know either way without empirical confirmation – but the evidence is pointing that way, no?
Wow! A jen-yoo-wine neuroscientist, huh? Do keep in touch, then. Exciting indeed! Who are you on hootoo again?
Alji –
Super article. Thanks. Much more my kind of thing. ;-)…and CUMC is much more reputable than any Kiwi College of Chiropractic.
The quote that stood out for me:
Detailed knowledge of cells, synapses and molecules does not automatically lead to an understanding of how a memory forms or how vision works. It is now necessary to develop theory and models to bridge the two levels
Indeed! I point again to the high-level software language vs binary code analogy.
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Edward, he’s Dogster. You are involved on the thread he started about whether atheists can talk to theists.
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This morning I remembered a dream my wife had many years ago. It was funny because it was about her fathers house being flooded and the house was on top of a hill. At breakfast she said “I had a realy daft dream last night, the house was flooded. We’d all be under water if that came true.”
Five minuites later we had a phone call from her father to tell us that the water tank had burst in the loft.
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Wow! Hope your FIL is still dry! *yikes*
Meanwhile, I’ve had a dream which occurs to me is a somewhat recurrent one: I’m in the suburb I grew up in, and I go out onto the porch, and there’s lava running down the street, between the curbs! Reality wise, this would never happen — Michigan is just about as flat as Kansas!! Still, very odd, and I’ve had something similar several times. Now if I could only remember what was going on in my live the last couple of times I’ve had that one…. 😉
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Interesting discussion.
For my two cents worth, I think we’re due a recategorisation of the relationships between processes that we are conscious of, and those that we aren’t.
There is no clear division between conscious and subconscious in the Freudian sense.
For instance, I can use words correctly to say what I mean, and read other people’s words and understand them, without consciously calling to mind the meanings of the individual words. And a lot of things go on in the mind that are like this.
Does focused conscious thought require a high level of activity in some appropriate part of the brain? Does non-zero, but lower level activity result in changes in the connections between memories of which we are not immediately conscious (but which we become conscious of if those memories are drawn into more active processing?
For the moment there are a lot of gaps in our knowledge, some of them pretty fundamental, but there is no reason to suppose that mind function involves something other than brain function (in this respect the arguments between cellular and molecular level events are a bit of a red herring – they both go on in the brain).
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Theoretical neuroscientist, eh Dogster? Sounds way 😎 . I am green with envy – especially if they actually pay you for doing it.
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Is there a special significance to recurring dreams? I have had a couple of these throughout my life, though curiously not in the past few years. And these recurring dreams have always been very disturbing.
Meanwhile, most mornings I wake up and say to Nog – I’ve just had the weirdest dream! – and he always says something like ‘yeah well, what else is new?’ 😉 But it seems I either have very weird convoluted dreams or else rather scary ones. I almost never have ‘happy and pleasant’ dreams.
Does anybody out there ever have happy dreams?
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‘Does anybody out there ever have happy dreams?’ Puts hand up and waves to az!
Before going to sleep I think about things I want to dream about. I love dreams where I’m driving in the country. I’ve just remembered one dream where I was cycling accross England and in another I was driving from London down to the south coast through Kent.
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Alji
Five minuites later we had a phone call from her father to tell us that the water tank had burst in the loft.
Wouldn’t life be soooo fucking wierd if there were never any coincidenes? 😉
(noggin)
For my two cents worth, I think we’re due a recategorisation of the relationships between processes that we are conscious of, and those that we aren’t.
Yes, that’s a lot more sensible way of saying my “There’s no such thing as the subconscious” that seemingly got alji so hot and bothered. What I’m trying to get at is that neither the ‘conscious’ nor ‘unconscious’ have special status. What we think is what we think. There’s (usually, by and large, on the whole) little mileage in telling people: “Ah, but that’s not what you really think, deep down.”
Does anyone else dream in foreign languages? I dream in O Level German and French (But not Latin or Italian). Last night I was saying “aSalaam alaikum” and “shukriya” to a Bedouin camel herder. (It’s a long story. I was trying to explain to my school music teacher that I’d found important Mesopotamian artefacts under my bath).
Happy dremas…do “Ooh…thet was nice!” erotic dreams count?
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OK I have no problem with coincidence! If that’s what you believe, so be it.
Dreaming in a foreign language! I dream in Welsh and Engligh (my Welsh is limmited to a few words) and I can’t understand Welsh when I’m dreaming.
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Did you hear the Radio 4 programmes about memory? The website is @
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/memory/programmes/me_and_my_memory5.shtml
Talking about coincidence, before our holiday in Kent I found three places to vist.
The first was Squerryes Court.
I didn’t know anything about this place before our visit. Here’s what I found out from the brochure;
Edward Villiers, 1st. Earl of Jersey bought hie house in 1700. The 3rd. earl sold it. (local connection – The 4th Earl of Jersey lived behind the church where we were merried.)
General Wolfe recieved his commission there in 1741. (Canadian connection)
The second was Scotney Castle.
The castle was owned by the Hussey family who bought it from the Derrell family. (My friend’s name is Hussey and my mother’s friend’s name is Derrell)
The third house was Darwin’s but I knew of the local connection before we went.
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From a review of ‘The Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of a Universe’ by Michael Frayn in the Weekend Grauniad:
What Frayn seems to recognise, though he does not specifically say so – indeed, at one point he speaks of “the centrality of the self” – is that there is no essential self, a fact attested to surely by the incoherence of our dreams. What during the day we think we are falls apart at night; the singularity we imagine ourselves to be shatters into shards. The sleeping mind desperately seeks to reassert the semblance of order which during waking hours our will imposes on experience, with the result that we find ourselves, with imperturbable logic, flying trouserless over Buckingham Palace where the Queen can clearly be seen playing croquet and using a flamingo for a mallet.
Once again, wiser minds than mine putting things much better than I ever could.
On coincidences…It’s important to remember that the probability of anything and everything that has actually happened happening is 1.0. This is as opposed to the predicted probability of events.
I’m most struck by the mis-use of statistical probability in identical twins studies of personality. In one example, aired on a Horizon prog, two men were shown who’d been separated shortly after birth and who had been brought up 250 miles apart in the US. The researchers had taken various facts about them…in a similar line of business, drove the same car, liked the same sports, wives had the same name, same number of kids, etc. etc. and – erroneously – multiplied the probabilities to arrive at an outrageous ‘probability that these could have all arisen simply by chance.’ Of course, they’d ignored the obvious fact that the variables were not independent: various factors make it highly likely that two people of the same socio-economic class and in the same geographic area will drive a certain car, participate in certain sports, hold certain jobs, marry a woman called ‘Barb’…etc. Plus, the researchers’ bias will possibly have made them home in on the ‘relevant’ similarities and ignore the ‘irrelevant’ differences. I’m sure that by careful selection of data one could draw up similarly significant probabilities for any two randomly chosen individuals.
Indeed, I have one from my own experience. I work in a fairly rare occupation…shared by surely couldn’t happen by chance. Well…guess what? It happened! And we’re all here by a long chain of chance anyway. But now look at some dissimilarities. He’s a good footballer but I hate sports. He ha a mustache, I don’t. He only has the use of one eye and his partner of one ear…my wife and I have two of each. And Squerryes Court is associated with two names known to an individual, but not with the many other names known by the same individual. It may be that the universe is telling us something…but we certainly don’t have decent evidence for that.
See also: The idiocy of child murder convictions based on the expert testimony that probabilities can be multiplied.
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Oops!
Must have been an html goof in the penultimate para above. Try:
Indeed, I have one from my own experience. I work in a fairly rare occupation…shared by less than 0.001% of the UK population. A colleague in the same occupation had boy/girl twins (1 in 200 of births) less than 6 months before we did. Plus his partner was in the same occupation as my wife. Plus we lived 400m apart. That surely couldn’t happen by chance, could it? Based on probabilities, you wouldn’t predict it. Well…guess what? It happened! And we’re all here by a long chain of chance anyway. But now look at some dissimilarities. He’s a good footballer but I hate sports. He ha a mustache, I don’t. He only has the use of one eye and his partner of one ear…my wife and I have two of each. And Squerryes Court is associated with two names known to an individual, but not with the many other names known by the same individual. It may be that the universe is telling us something…but we certainly don’t have decent evidence for that.
I think it must have been a ‘less than’ sign that fucked it up.
Oh…and they’ve gone on to have a second set of twins!
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From http://consc.net/misc/fivesenses.html
Don’t LOOK at anything in a physics lab.
Don’t TASTE anything in a chemistry lab.
Don’t SMELL anything in a biology lab.
Don’t TOUCH anything in a medical lab.
and, most importantly,
Don’t LISTEN to anything in a philosophy department.
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Have a look at ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ @ http://www.thymos.com/tat/dreams.html (Thinking About Thought)
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Oof! Some good summary material in there from what looks like a respectable source. Thanks for the link. I have misgivings about some parts, eg:
In 1962 the French physiologist Michel Jouvet observed that REM sleep is generated in the pontine brain stem (or “pons”). In other words, Jouvet localized the trigger zone for REM sleep and dreaming in the brain stem.
and
In 1977 the American neurophysiologist Allan Hobson proved that, far from being the center of production of dreams as Freud imagined, higher brain functions such as memory and emotion are simply responding to a barrage of stimulations that are generated from the brainstem.
My understanding is that this lags behind the science which has demonstrated seemingly random forebrain activity during dreaming. The hindbrain…particularly the reticular formation is certainly likely to play a role also: It seems to govern the switching between cognitive modes. Hence (I think), Zopiclone, a widely prescribed sleeping pill, acts on the reticular formation as a hypnotic agent, switching the brain into ‘stay asleep’ mode. (Good stuff it is, too…when you’re away on business and can’t sleep in hotels.)
Also…
By contrast, in 1983 Francis Crick proposed that the function of dreams is to “clear the circuits” of the brain, otherwise there would not be enough space to register each day’s events.
That was Chis Evans’ idea…see my Post 70. No evidence for it, though. I don’t think that studies of sleep-deprived subjects bear it out.
Dreaming is a process that absorbs a lot of energy; therefore, it must serve a purpose, possible an important one.
Why? Why not…
The simplest explanation is that dreams are just an evolutionary accident.
See also the appendix, men’s nipples, sickle-cell anaemia.
Section headed:
The genetic meaning of dreams.
I think what he’s saying is that the stimulation of memory during dreams allows us to fit recent experiences into our hardwired memory schema. It’s plausible.
My scepticism was aroused by this comment:
Research seems to indicate that different individuals each have a different sleep pattern, but patterns of eye movements in identical twins are similar
Sleep patterns are culturally determined. In societies without electric light, it is common to have an evening sleep, a period of nightime wakefulness (during which activities such as storytelling, sex occur) and various periods of nightime sleep. And we all know about Spanish siestas and late dinners. The twin studies may say something about brain function…or maybe about the musculature of the eye.
I’ve nothing against the article as “101: And introduction to theories of dreaming”…but it’s not vary comprehensive or up to date.
My most fundamental criticism, though, is the emphasis on ‘The Interpretation of Dreams.’ Implicit here is the notion that dreams have an internal meaning. Better questions are: ‘What are dreams?’ and ‘Do they have any function?’
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There’s some interesting stuff on the news page; http://www.thymos.com/news/index.html
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What about semi-lucid dreams when you think you are actually awake?
Yesterday morning I just couldn’t wake up properly and for about twenty minutes after the alarm went off kept ‘falling back into dreams’ which lasted maybe five minutes each, but I was convinced I was awake and they scared the dickens out of me.
I remember feeling scared and wanting to tell Nog about what was going on, but when I opened my mouth no sound would come out. Then I would properly wake up for about half a minute and snuggle up to Nog or cuddle a cat … then drift back into yet another weird and scary 5-minute dream (which seemed much longer) in which I thought I was still awake.
It felt like being ‘between two worlds’ if that makes any sense.
But once I was able to keep my eyes open all memories of these dreams (except one) totally disappeared. But it still makes me shudder thinking about it.
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I’ve been thinking about lucid dreams, actually. I have them if I forget to take one of my medications (venlafaxine – known for its strong withdrawal effects). Sometimes I can even ‘wake up’ in the dream and realise I’d been dreaming. If you’ve ever read PK Dick’s The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (the prototype for ‘Freddy’ in the Friday 13th movies), you’ll know what I mean. And I get another common characteristic of lucid dreaming…I have a certain degree of control over what I do in them.
It’s possible that lucid dreaming does involve a degree of higher-level cognitive processing that is absent from regular dreams. I’m not sure of the research…but I suspect they might be something entirely different from REM sleep. During REM, the body undergoes short, involuntary movements. During my lucid dreams, my wife tells me I breathe and snort heavily, cry out and take swings at imaginary aggressors. (She usually wakes me).
A night’s lucid dreaming follows a typical pattern for me. First I get a freaky, far-out dream. Then I often get a particularly pleasant and detailed erotic dream. But I generally end up in an argument with my parents, and often a fist-fight with my father.
Analyse that 🙂
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From the site that alji linked to (ta for that. A good source):
Experiments with neural-controlled devices have been performed for several years, but the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin has demonstrated one that seems to be more than a novelty. The Berlin Brain-Computer Interface (BBCI) allows a user to mentally control the movement of a cursor on the screen of a computer.
This kind of thing always reminds me of the story from 1001 Nights about the flying carpet that would fly just so long as its rider didn’t think of the word ‘elephant’.
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Have a look at these;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming
http://www.lucidity.com/LucidDreamingFAQ2.html
http://www.web-us.com/lucid/luciddreamingFAQ.htm
I can only remember once being involved in a fight while dreaming. It was on our wedding night, 39 years ago and we were in London. In the dream I was in our local Italian cafe and the people I was fighting with were in the mafia. It was a flying drop kick that woke up me and my wife.
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Interesting. Ta.
I do get a little agitated, though, when people start linking dreaming to new-agey spirituality, ‘healing’, etc. etc. The last of those links talks about precognitive dreams, orgone energy and…so help me…crystals. Gimme a break!
Lucid dreams are a deeply fascinating phenomenon, and I’m lucky to have experienced them myself. But they’re far, far more interesting when treated as a neurobiological phenomenon than any made-up tosh.
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Not on dreams pe se, but still inna neuroscience stylee…this article by Villayanur Ramachandran.
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Edward the link, where’s the link?
This week was a good one for coincidence. On Monday a random thought entered my consciousness. I had not seen any of my old workmates since June. On Tuesday I saw three of my old workmates and on Wednesday I saw my old supervisor who I had last seen some time before last Christmas.
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Good point. Where is the link? It seems to have highlighted the href, but lost the url.
Now, where did I see it? (rummage)…ah, yes: http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/10/on_my_mind_vs_ramachandran.php It’s only a short article, but I think it’s a good summary.
And if you want to talk coincidences, while tracking it down, I stumbled across an article relevant to something entirely unrelated that I’d just been discussing over at ‘the old place’.
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Edward have you heard of the “Pauli Effect”
See http://uploads.pacifica.edu/gems/slattery/AtomArchetype.pdf
Pauli readily concluded that “complementarity in
physics… has a very close analogy with the terms ‘conscious’ and
‘unconscious’ in psychology, in that any ‘observation’ of unconscious
contents entails fundamentally indefinable repercussions of the conscious on
these very contents” (Atom and Archetype, p. 185).
and http://www.psychovision.ch/synw/pauli_fludd_flood_sync.htm#a1
‘Wolfgang Pauli, Carl Jung and the Challenge of the Unified Psychophysical Reality’
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