Dreams and Dreaming

[DrmDoc]

Hello All,

Previously, I've posted my general thoughts on the Progression of Sleep to Dreaming in the Speculation Forum because they were based on my personal assessment of compelling meta data.  I've finalized my perspective on this topic and I have posting my thoughts here in the Psychology Forum because I believe they are beyond speculation.  If you should disagree, be well prepared with your arguments. Let us begin:

Dreaming is a perceptual activity our brain engages primarily amid its unconscious state of brain function. The dreams we recall upon arousal from sleep are a collection of perceptual experiences because their content consciously interprets as sensory data (visual, auditory, tactile, etc.) that describes something our conscious, waking-state brain perceives or interprets as having experienced while in its unconscious state of sleep. Dreams are not products of random neuron firings, neuron realignments, or memory consolidation processes as some researchers theorize or believe. In fact, they are interpretations of stimuli our active unconscious brain receives or experiences amid sleep and, as such, they are meaningful.

The theory for random neuron firings, arises either from the nonsensical appearance of dream content or from researchers’ inability to clearly determine or understand the mechanisms for dreaming.  The theory for neuron realignments and memory consolidation (Psychology Today) primarily arises through post-dreaming and brain damage cognitive studies without consideration of the glymphatic system's effect in the removal of cognition obstructing chemistry and interstitial cell waste (See Progression of Sleep to Dreaming).  The basis for these popular dreaming theories is further flawed (IMO) through inadequate consideration for how the dreaming brain likely evolved.

In consideration of a contiguous path of brain evolution, dreams are interpretations of stimuli synchronous with the evolved nature of brain function in that recently evolved neural developments are dependent on the functionality of earlier developments, which confers the neocortex's functional dependency on links to subcortical relays.  Via its subcortical relays, our brain receives, accesses, and responds to stimuli.  It mediates our bodily systems, behavioral and sensory responses based on the stimuli it receives and experiences.  Dreams are interpretive responses to stimuli and, as interpretations, dream content does not describe sensory experiences but rather stimuli relative to those experiences based on our brain’s store of life experiences.  Dreams are meaningful in that they arise from stimuli that can be related to real life experiences.  For example, we would not be able to visually dream about a car or house without real life perceptual experiences and references relative to cars and houses.  This is confirmed by the non visual, tactile dream content of the congenitally blind. 

So, one might ask, if dream content in an interpretation of stimuli relative to real life experiences and references, how and why does the brain confer such specific interpretations to this stimuli content?  The short and most basic answer is metabolic homeostasis (See Progression of Sleep to Dreaming).  The long and most complex answer regards the unconscious nature of human psychology.

Although, from my perspective, our unconscious brain function and dream experiences can be extraordinary, it is not essential that each of us should have such interest.  The cognitive, conscious experience of real life is more important to our mental health and wellbeing than immersing oneself in a subject where so much is misinterpreted and so very little is generally understood.  Dreaming is an autonomous process which functions quite well without our conscious consideration or interference.  I welcome your thoughts.

 

[DrmDoc]

Hello again,

While re-watching a PBS NOVA program on the “Mysteries of Sleep”, I was struck by how little popular research understands brain function and how much misinformation is disseminated about sleep and dreaming to the public because of it.  One research presenter on the program, neuroscientist Rebecca Spencer, described the impact of sleep on memory formation relative to hippocampus function.  Rebecca described the hippocampus as storage for temporary memory files that gets moved and organized into permanent memory storage during sleep.  Rebecca theorizes that when sleep is deprived our ability to retain memory of what we’ve learned is impaired but she doesn’t explain how or why this impairment occurs.  Like most researchers, Rebecca’s concepts of brain function appear to be based on a functional appearance that has no clear basis in our brain’s functional evolution, IMO.

Brain function conforms to the nature of its evolution in that the functionality of recent brain developments is dependent on the function of earlier developments.  As with most structures along the neural circuit for memory formation in the brain, the hippocampus is merely a subcortical depot or weigh stations for stimuli before reaching the memory functions in the neocortex.  As a weigh station, the hippocampus adds a quality to stimuli that defines its memory impact, quality or worthiness. From this perspective, the neocortex is where all memories--short and long-term--are filed and the hippocampus merely rates or categorizes the nature of stimuli on its path to the neocortex. 

Rather than a shuttling of stimuli from short to long-term storage, memory is more like a path that stimuli travel to reach a state of permanency.  Our experiences become permanent memories through a repetition of familiar stimuli along familiar paths to their storage places in the brain.  The hippocampus enhances what we remember through repeated stimulation of those memory circuits.  When we learn something for the first time, the path of memory to that experience is short due to continuous stimulation.  As we go about our day, the path of memory to that first time experience begins to lengthen as other experiences fill the divide with more recent stimulation.  Stimuli produces cell waste, which litters the path of stimuli to memory.  The glymphatic processes in sleep clears the path of continual stimulation to memory of recently learned experiences thus enhancing related memory functions.  This may partly explain why PTSD sufferers experience abnormal sleep as these very same glymphatic processes also clear a path for memories of recent traumatic experiences also.  

[DrmDoc]

DREAM CONTENT

If I may entreat your interest just a bit further, this is my final post on this topic:

Perhaps, through my prior posts and links, I have minimally established that dream content arises from the stimuli our brain experiences amid its metabolic arousal during sleep.  I said that the sensory experiences (visual, auditory, tactile, etc.) our dreams encompass are how our conscious, waking-state brain interprets or assesses the resonant stimuli it believes it experienced amid sleep.  In support, I cited rapid eye movement (REM) as evidence of our sleeping brain’s interpretive responses to stimuli of a type that affects eye movement.  While awake, eye movement is a reflexive response to visual stimuli, which is incongruent with the supposed effect of closed eyelids in sleep.  While sleeping, our closed eyelids supposedly shield our sight from the distraction of real visual experiences in our sleep environment.  The non sequitur of sleep stimuli relative to our actual experiences while asleep begs a question--what “type” of stimuli is it in sleep that our brain interprets and we perceive as sensory related when we awake?

In prior comments, I said that memory storage is more like a path that stimuli travel to reach a state of permanency.  I said that our experiences become permanent memories through a repetition of familiar stimuli along familiar paths (neural circuits) to their storage places in the brain.  Further, I said that a functionally misunderstood subcortical brain structure (hippocampus) enhances what we remember through repeated stimulation of those memory circuits.  For example, the memories we use to navigate our conscious, waking-state experience of life rely on the continual stimulation of the memory circuits associate with those waking-state experiences.   This perspective of memory in brain function is applicable to overall brain function, as well as the type and source of the stimuli our sleeping brain experiences.

As the memories we use to navigate life experience emerge from the continual stimuli or repeated stimulation we experience daily, our dream content emerges from the resonant, neural aftereffects of that same stimuli.  Like a bell that resonates after striking, subcortical brain structures like the hippocampus continue to resonate the effects of unconsciously impactful stimuli into the interpretive response centers of our dreaming brain.  Dream content interprets the resonant neural “effects” of stimuli that persist in sleep and, as essentially effects, dream content describes something indirectly related to an original and real source of sensory stimuli. This resonant relation to real experience extenuates the meaningful nature of dream content and why that content decrypts our unconscious experience.