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Everything posted by DrmDoc
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If there is some real or practical advantage to understanding dream content, one may ask, what is it? A primary advantage, as many mental healthcare providers could attest, is psychological. Dream content can provide remarkably clear insight on the psychological underpinnings of our thoughts and behaviors. However, for several years now, I've investigated whether there is any materially overt advantage to knowing anything about dream content. Well, the juries still out on the latter; however, at the very least, I've proven to my own satisfaction that the psychological advantages are real. Many years ago, amid a particularly painful divorce, I fell into an extraordinarily deep depression that lingered for several years. Being a typical male of that era with my upbringing, I did not seek the professional help I obviously needed with the belief that I would recover sufficiently without it. And I did recover, but not until after I experienced a particularly vivid dream about my mother who had died just a couple years before my divorce. It was a simple dream involving me crying profusely over her departure in the dream from my home. When I awoke, I immediately understood that dreams relevancy to my current psychological state at the time and I also new what that dream meant. The cause of my deep depressions during the years after my divorce was not my marriage dissolution but the loss of my mother whom I had not sufficiently grieved until the emotional buoyance my marriage provided dissolved in divorce. Over the years, I've had many such psychological revelations regarding the underpinnings of mind and emotion from the insight my perspective of dream content provides. In more recent years, I've investigated the material advantages of dream content with inconsistent results. The material advantages I seek are those dreams that provides some provably and overwhelmingly real physical or material result that cannot be dismissed by pure chance. I've devised experiments, based on my functional perspective of dreaming, that initially but do not consistently provide the type of unassailable results I seek. But, I remain in the hunt. If your interest remains, I welcome your thoughts and discussion of the relevant science.
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You're quite right, perhaps I should unearth and revisit whatever notes I may have jotted down at the time as reassurance. I kept a journal--diary as some may reference-- of my daily experiences as a record of significant events that I may reflect on in my later years. I now keep a sort of dream journal for a similar purpose.
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Over my long years I, as have many others, have had many such dream types that tend to reflect the resonant effects of stress and anxiety that persist amid the aroused state of dreaming in brain function. Dreaming is how our sleeping brain responds to stimuli in sleep, which means they don't occur without a cause that can't be traced back to some resonant influence of primarily mental significance. Precisely! Perhaps intuition is just a convenient or simpler way to describe the perception and thought processes our brain unconsciously engages amid our conscious wakeful focus on more immediate concerns or interests. Indeed, as time does embellish memory, it may be that my dream was not as vivid as I recall. However, I believe my memory of the experience is quite clear as I have revisited it obsessively since my moment of arousal from it. Interestingly, I remember more about that moment than I do my real life experiences at the time.
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Apologies, I should have qualified my use of "precognitive dream" as a reference distinguishable from some unproven psychic phenomena. It is not a suggestion that I or anyone possesses some extraordinary perceptual ability. As I perceive and use this reference, it describes the predictive nature of a dream type and content that isn't anymore extraordinary that weather forecasting. Meteorologists, for example, can forecast atmospheric occurrences within a relative degree of certainty with sufficient data. Likewise, there's a significant amount of sensory experiences that escape our conscious perception but not necessarily our unconscious awareness. As I understand, precognitive dreaming is about the unconscious nature of brain function and how that function accumulates, processes and accesses huge amounts of sensory data to produce predictive outcomes. Using my muddy shoe dream as a example, it's likely that I was unconsciously aware of the potential for someone stepping in some muddy area near my parent's home and that anyone leaving or entering that resident might muddy their shoes if not particularly attentive. Unfortunately, my sister was that person and my dream appeared to forecast that she would muddy her shoe. Further, it may be that I was unconsciously aware that the shoe she muddied was one of a pair she might have worn frequently at the time and that if she were to step in some mud puddle, that pair would be the ones soiled. I cannot now know for certain, given the number of years that have past since that dream, what I did or didn't know about the grounds of my parent's home or my sister's foot apparel preferences at that time. What I do know is that this dream experience compelled my many years of interests in the extraordinary nature of our unconscious--which is the focus of my interests here in these discussions. Amusing and yes, coincidence does indeed appear to be the most reasonable and applicable explanation as it relates to the general nature of real life experiences; however, coincidence is not a word that apply to the nature of dreaming and dream content in brain function. Empirically, the science suggests that dreaming is not a coincidental act of brain function in sleep and neither is dream content. On average occurring at 90 minute intervals, dreaming initiates as a consequence of atonia near the end of the deepest stages of NREM glymphatic cleansing. Dreaming emerge as a response to the increase sensitivity of brain function to stimuli in sleep due to the partial removal of sensory suppressing interstitial cell waste (adenosine) and brain chemistry (melatonin). Dream content is an interpretive response to the stimuli our brain experiences in sleep. The elements of my dream suggest something deeper, which I cannot now confirm given how long ago it occurred. Nevertheless, I appreciate your perspective.
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Understandably, most people of serious mind and interests would rather consign this topic of discussion to the trash bin. From an unstudied perspective, understanding the true nature of dreams and dreaming appears to offer no real or practical advantage to our material pursuits and interests. Many years ago, I was of similar mind until I experienced a curious dream involving a muddy shoe. A remarkably vivid experience, I dreamed about a shoe belonging to my younger sister that appeared as placed in a bathroom sink. I awoke immediately and, throughout that morning, I thought the dream very odd. I said to myself, “What care did I have for my sister’s muddy shoes?” She had several shoes and that shoe was not particularly noteworthy. As I went about my day, I thought no more of the dream and my sister’s errant shoe until that evening when I entered through the basement door of the home she shared at the time with our parents. As I crossed the threshold, there, on the floor, laid the exact muddy shoe exactly as it appeared in my dream the night before, though not in a sink. After finding her muddied shoe, I later told my sister about the odd dream and we both had a laugh. She said that she had inadvertently stepped in some mud earlier and didn’t want to track it through the house while rushing to use a bathroom toilet. Thereafter, I became increasingly curious about the nature of dreams and how it was possible to dream about a future experience I could not possibly know would occur. Over the years, I would learn that my muddy shoe dream was a precognitive dream and that such experiences are quite common. Although I can explain how such dreams occur, I can’t say that I completely understand why they do. In retrospect, there was nothing about that dream’s content that clearly explains why it occurred. Nevertheless, dreams and dreaming are not total mysteries to me or to science. They are remarkably predictive and descriptive of compelling unconscious mental and social influences. Understanding dream content opens a window on our unconscious mind in ways not commonly or well understood by many--particularly those in mainstream science, IMO.
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Hello All, Through my previous SFN posts (Progression of Sleep to Dreaming, Dreams and Dreaming, & Dreams and Memory), I believe I've sufficiently established the nature of dreaming in brain function and that dreams are meaningful. Yet some of you, who may still have some interest, may still have doubts regarding all or, specifically, the latter. Indeed, dreams are meaningful in that they uniquely interpret the resonant sensory influences unconsciously affecting the brain's response centers in sleep. So, one may ask more specifically, what are these "resonant influences and how are they interpreted by dream content?" If you still have interest or doubts, let us discuss them here as permissible by SFN rules. I welcome your thoughts.
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If I may comment on just this bit, our moon is tidal locked meaning that one side of the moon always faces Earth and the other side always faces away from Earth. Both sides do receive sun exposure amid this locked rotation. The "dark side" of our moon is not a reference to its level of luminosity but rather to its unobservable position relative Earth.
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Although he may be barred from office, Trump's massive vote count in this past election and his insurrection inspiring popularity virtually assures his continued sway over Republican (conservative) politics. Stripped bare, I believe Trump's primary interest is power and his enormous potential sway over conservative politics is power. With that power he could, for example, threaten the electability of Senators who support a conviction for his seditious efforts to overturn the results of a legitimate election.
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Recent...as in the history made on the steps and in the houses of Congress just a few short weeks ago. It was a insurrection fostered by a false narrative propagated by Republican leadership in both the Legislative and Executive branches of our nation's government.
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I agree but I think Trump's threat is likely a veiled flexing of his potential political muscle against those Republicans who might support some future punitive action for his clearly seditious efforts against Biden's presidential confirmation.
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I agree...but the crazies are still out there and their leader has clearly not abdicated with his threats of a Republican alternative "Patriots Party"...which may not be such a bad thing if it will dilute or divide the political party that has done the most harm to our nation in recent history.
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predicting consequences - brain regions
DrmDoc replied to Hans de Vries's topic in Anatomy, Physiology and Neuroscience
Although I agree all regions of the brain contribute some quality to our behavioral outputs or responses, some regions contribute demonstratively and quantifiably more. Consider, if you will, the curious case of Phineas Gage who suffered a traumatic brain injury when a railroad spike rocketed through his left prefrontal in a 19th century railroad accident. Although Phineas survived and lived another 12 years after the accident, reports emerged suggesting he had suffered profound changes to his personality. Prior to the injury that destroyed his left prefrontal cortex Phineas, from most accounts, was a well regarded site manager for the railroad. After recovering from his injury, accounts are that he displayed bawdy and inappropriate behaviors, fits of anger, and an inability to maintain employment consequently. The injury appeared to have rendered Phineas with an immature disregard for the consequences of his behavior. From another perspective, consider the behavioral outcome of leucotomy (lobotomy) during the first half of the 20th century. Leucotomy was a widely used psychosurgical procedures separating the prefrontal cortex from the cerebrum that fell into disrepute by mid-20th century. Sometimes causing death, this procedure was employed to treat certain forms of mental illness and it frequently resulted in listless, indolent patients. These patients appeared unconcern with future needs or responsibilities beyond what may have been presently occurring. The behavioral outcome of these types of injuries and surgeries to the prefrontal cortex suggest that its function may contribute significantly to our anticipatory behavioral output. From my perspective of brain evolution, the cortex is merely an extension of subcortical processes and is where sensory stimuli is extensively perceived and assessed for suitable or reciprocal behavioral outputs. The prefrontal cortex evolved, in my view of evolution, concurrent with the anticipatory needs and behaviors of ancestral animals. It is my belief that our modern prefrontal cortical function is what gave our emerging ancestors a survival advantage over our Neanderthal predecessors. The quality that prefrontal function contributes to our behaviors is convincingly displayed by sufferers of hypofrontality in schizophrenia who predominately appear to have little regard for their behavioral consequences. Interestingly, we all experiences a transient form of hypofrontality during our dreaming stages of sleep. In conclusion and in answer to your query, the prefrontal cortex is likely the part of our brain that is most involved in assessing or predicting the consequences of our actions and behaviors. I hope this helps. -
And likely much closer today than you may think with all the furor Donald Trump has caused this county since soundly losing the presidency.
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Hello again, As a follow up and for clarity, dreams are efferent brain responses that do not trace a path to permanent or long-term memory unless they include or end in a real sensory experience. Recording our dreams, physically or materially, involves afferently real sensory experiences that refresh and reinforce our memory of the dream content we record. Unlike dream experiences, physical/material sensory experiences trace a path to memory through their neural altering impact. The evidence for this is shown by the neural affect of sensory experience on brain development. My particular interest in all of this, as I have previously commented, has been a better understanding of what I consider extraordinary dream experiences and content. I considered those experiences and content extraordinary when they have had some unquestionably real impact in my conscious cognitive experience. Consequently, I've acquired remarkable insight on brain evolution, neural development, brain function and the consciousness that function produces. It's my hope that what meager insights I've shared here have proved worthy of your interest.
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Forgive my descriptive ignorance, your perspective has been most illuminating. Through your words and insight, as I now more clearly understand, autism isn't necessarily debilitating or disabling. It is a neurodivergence from neurotypical norms as those norms are generally understood. My apologies for characterizing your experience as anything other than extraordinary. As I may not have adequately expressed, I do not consider the behavioral adaptations of autistics particularly divergent from those produced by the brains of neurotypical norms. In the brain, our responses are tailored by the type of stimuli it receives and how that stimuli is delivered and dispersed within its structure. Indeed, the autistic brain appears to be neurotypical in its responses to how it experiences stimuli.
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That person appears to be Marcus Hanke, didn't you read his post?
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For the moment, if you will consider, what if the way our brain develops and the way our behaviors are expressed consequently is predicated on the way it is prompted or influenced to develop? I don't claim to completely understand what may be happening in brain function with autism. However, what I do understand of average brain structure and function is that there's a neural distinction between what we experience sensorial and what we express behaviorally. I also understand that our experiences affects our cortical growth and neural development and, if deprived of experience, a type of neural atrophy can occur. If this generally accepted perspective of brain development is valid, it suggests that all aspects of cortical structure and synaptic development is influenced by our sensory (afferent) experiences. If you will consider just a bit further, what if the gatekeeper to our sensory experiences was somehow defective or faulty? Wouldn't that create some succeeding fault in the neural developments those sensory experiences are meant to create? It's my opinion that the unique synaptic formations in autistic brains is primarily a result of how those brains were forced to receive and process sensory information. Their neural gatekeeper--likely the thalamus--indiscriminately lets everything in forging atypical neural pathways and developments.
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IDK; but if there's truly a large percentage with sensory issues, then I think any associated neural research involving those issues seems appropriate.
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Where discussing "core symptoms," I believe we're discussing the response systems of brain function that likely emerge from some other causative affect on those systems. By ascribing autism to its symptoms, we are suggesting that the dysfunction of autism involves the output systems of the brain in behavioral expression. According to Markus Hanke, as I understood his comments, the problem seems to involve the input systems where sensory information enters the brain without filters or focus. If his experiences are atypical of autism, then sensory processing in the brain is likely a primary issue that should be thoroughly investigated as I have suggested--IMO.
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Hello All, Functionally, memory was evolved for experiences that had a real physical/material impact on the survival of ancestral animals. Dreams aren’t easily remembered because they are not materially real experiences and our brain is able to detect that distinction in sleep. If you’ve heard or read this explanation before, it probably originated from thoughts I’ve expressed here or elsewhere. What I may not have shared here or elsewhere before now are the mechanisms for this process in brain function. In the brain distinctively, neural activity flows in just two basic directions: Afferent for the direction of neural impulses entering the brain as stimuli from the sensory systems of the body and efferent for the direction of neural impulses exiting the brain as functional responses to stimuli. Dreams emerge from the efferent response systems of brain function and only emerge as a collective interpretive response to afferent stimuli. Memory was evolved for afferent stimuli, which describes stimuli that have a direct and tangible impact on the sensory systems of the body. Although our dream content relies on our brain’s memory stores to interpret stimuli, dreams are efferent interpretive responses that are only memorable for the afferent stimuli evoking their emergence. As they indeed originate from real sensory experiences, afferent stimuli are encoded with a physically distinct signature facilitating a unique and traceable neural path for each sensory experience to a designated state of memory in the brain. Without that physically distinctive signature, the memory of our experiences may never reach a state of permanency. From this perspective short-term memory involves stimuli and experiences that never reach a state of permanency. Dream content remains short-term because they are efferent responses that do not originate from afferently encoded stimuli. Dreams originate internally from brain function rather than externally though sensory experience. Although dream content does efferently interpret afferently encoded effects, those interpretations will not become permanent memories without afferently encoded signatures reinforcing their material value or memory worthiness—which is why recording our dreams reinforce our memory of them.
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If true, then that would suggest some extraordinary craving for stimuli...unless it is more like trying to consume everything at the same time rather in smaller, manageable portions.
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Although debilitating, it must be a remarkable experience. I've tried imagining the complexity of your sensory experience as a way to better understand what may be happening in the brain with this type of sensory experience. As I now understand through your insight, this may not be a connectivity issue as the OP and article link appear to suggest. The issue, as it appears to me, primarily involves the afferent aspect of sensory processing in the brain. Given this incoming sensory circumstance, the efferent functional responses to stimuli appears to be quite normal. The matter seems to be how incoming sensory data arrives in brain function and the dysfunctional effects that crush of data causes. As you've explained, "There is no functioning filter there to limit and focus sensory stimuli..", which points to an issue with a singular brain structure (thalamus) where all incoming sensory data (excluding olfactory) initially arrives before reaching higher brain functions. From my perspective of brain evolution, the thalamus--with its right and left hemisphere--is the proto-brain around which our neocortex later evolved. If my interests were not particularly challenged elsewhere, I might consider further structural investigation of the thalamus relative this issue rather than cortical connectivity as the OP suggests.
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I read a little bit of this article and have no opinion just yet on its validity; however, many years ago, I recall an online Q & A session with an autistic fellow who was particularly eloquent when allowed to type his responses. I recall someone asking why eye contact is so generally difficult among autistic individuals. He said, as I recall his reply, that he could not look at a person and listen to that person at the same time. What I understood from his reply was that he could not process visual and auditory stimuli concurrently without a type of sensory overload. If one is positing autism brain theories, those theories should provide a cogent sensory-to-response basis in brain function or structure for atypical behaviors such as a inability to concurrently process divergent stimuli.
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My thoughts precisely!