Dreams and Memory

[DrmDoc]

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.

Edited December 15, 2020 by DrmDoc

[DrmDoc]

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.

Edited December 23, 2020 by DrmDoc