DREAMS & DREAMING II

[DrmDoc]

Greetings,

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here on this titled subject, so I thought I’d do so now with this brief discussion.  I thought I might correct some misconceptions about the nature of dreams and dreaming and answer any questions you may have.  My perspective is based on the science of the dreaming brain, which traces the intricacies of dreaming in brain function.  You are free to critique my perspective and, as always, I will try to keep this discussion palatable to respondents of all knowledge levels.  Let’s begin with the most basic question about the nature of dreams, which is are they important or meaningful?

If you never learn anything about or from dreams, you can still live a full and happy life.  There are likely billions of peoples who have lived long and healthy without ever knowing a single thing about their dreams, which suggests an outcome that it’s fine not knowing.  Understanding your dreams is not important to your day-to-day life unless you believe they are important or their experiences somehow interfere with your daily functions.  Repetitive or traumatic dream experiences, for example, can be symptoms of deeper unresolved mental health issues you should address with a seasoned professional.  For most of us, whether our dreams are important is subjective; however, whether they’re meaningful is not.

Dreaming is an interpretive response in brain function caused by its increased sensitivity to the stimuli it experiences during sleep progression.  Our brain’s sensitivity to stimuli decreases during the early stages of sleep.  This diminished sensitivity begins to reverse as the metabolic processes of sleep ultimately increase blood flow to the brain.  However, the key words to note and understand in my comments here are “interpretive response”.  Those words are key in that they infer our dreaming brain is attempting to understand something it believes it is experiencing as we sleep—and that “something” makes our dreams meaningful.

Depending on your responses or unless you have questions, I will move on to a discussion of dreams and memory from here.  I welcome your thoughts and continued interest in this brief discussion.

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, DrmDoc said:

However, the key words to note and understand in my comments here are “interpretive response”.  Those words are key in that they infer our dreaming brain is attempting to understand something it believes it is experiencing as we sleep—and that “something” makes our dreams meaningful.

I have extensive personal experience of this, as well as anecdotal reports from mature adults I have no reason to doubt.

As to the personal, when I was doing art, I often dreamed images of something I wanted to create. The dream would take a fairly obvious form. For example, I went to a craft fair (something i often did in waking life), looked at many attractive items and bought the one I liked best. But some authority would not allow me to take it out of the building. The message: Since I owned it, I was free to make a replica in the real world. Or I might dream of acquiring a house and deciding how to allocate the spaces in it. Again, a fairly plain reference to organizing a project. Even more directly, I would often repeat in my dream, actions I had to perform in the learning of a skill : practice through visualization. A close friend used to solve problems in computer program design in his sleep, sometimes even starting awake to write it down or test it; another came up with story ideas.

Emotional interpretation is much more difficult, subject to a private vocabulary and image library. I understand my own by now, and can take a shrewd stab at those of people I know well. I know many of the 'universal' symbols - they're not, really; many are culture- and vintage-dependent, and there is always individual variation on common themes. With a stranger, especially one with a very different background, I would be guessing and asking, guessing and asking, until the dreamer herself arrived at an answer they recognize.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Peterkin

[DrmDoc]

1 hour ago, Peterkin said:

Emotional interpretation is much more difficult, subject to a private vocabulary and image library. I understand my own by now, and can take a shrewd stab at those of people I know well. I know many of the 'universal' symbols - they're not, really; many are culture- and vintage-dependent, and there is always individual variation on common themes. With a stranger, especially one with a very different background, I would be guessing and asking, guessing and asking, until the dreamer herself arrived at an answer they recognize.

Over the years I've met individuals and read the research whose ideas many considered doctrine in this area of interest.  They believe that the individual and deeply personal nature of our life experiences renders the dream content they inspire virtually indecipherable by anyone other than ourselves.  These experts believe that there's no Rosetta Stone one may universally apply to understanding all dreams and the influences their content interprets--they are mistaken.

The interpretive responses of our brain in sleep isn't about how we as individuals interpret our dream experiences, it's about how our brain interprets stimuli in sleep.  The commonality of brain development and function that all humans share virtual assures some commonality in how our brain perceives and processes the things we see, taste, touch, and smell.  What makes these experiences different for each of us isn't how our brain interprets this stimuli but rather how we respond to that stimuli.  Universally, our brain interprets all stimuli the same way and without variance.  Variance only occurs when there's a defect in the sensory systems our brain relies on to receive and experience stimuli.  What this means for dream content is that there is a Rosetta Stone of sorts for understanding their meaningful nature.

First and foremost, dream content invaribly interpret stimuli arising from mental and/or social influences; therefore, the content of our dreams describe something our dreaming brain perceives as either mental and/or social in nature.  For example, any and all buildings in dreams are how our dreaming brain interprets the affects of mental and/or social structures.  That word "structures" does not relate to the buildings themself but rather to something more abstract in nature.  In fact, the easiest way to understand dream content is to simply add either the word "mental" or "social" to your description of its depictions (e.g., mental firehouse, social butterfly, mental boxing). 

Dreams are not materially real physical sensory experiences and our dreaming brain is able to perceive that distinction.  The imagery and experiences of dream content are interpretations of stimilu facilitated by our brain's library or store of real life experiences.  Whatever you have consciously experienced or envisioned in life is stored in your memory and can be used by your dreaming brain to interpret whatever it may be perceiving as you sleep.  Your dreaming brain cannot interpret something it has not experience; e.g., cogenitally blind individuals do not experience visual dream content.

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, DrmDoc said:

What makes these experiences different for each of us isn't how our brain interprets this stimuli but rather how we respond to that stimuli. 

That would make "we" a separate entity from "our brain" with different processing of data being done by each. I can't quite follow that reasoning: I have learned to believe that personality [identity - the I] is a product of neural activity in the brain. How 'we' respond to input depends entirely on how 'we' interpret it. 

An example of stimulus: heat. When I'm too hot at night, I tend to dream of violence. The stimulus of feeling an uncomfortably high temperature generates images of hectic activity, weapons, menaces, danger - but not always the same film-sequence. Actually, the choice of cinematic imagery is heavily influenced by the videos I've been watching.  If my feet are uncovered, I tend to dream of water: wading waist-deep in a swamp, or crossing a river. Noises stimulate various images of things make a similar sound: train whistle for a kettle downstairs; church bells for a telephone; dog or wolf howling for a siren. I have some idea where these associations of image to sound come from. (I just this minute realized that my mind transfers quite a few modern sensations and sounds into primitive contexts... Hm... racial memory?)   

1 hour ago, DrmDoc said:

Universally, our brain interprets all stimuli the same way and without variance. 

How do you know? I think that's the wrong way around: the brain responds the same way, but the individual mind interprets differently.  Without the subject reporting - according to their own conscious impression and memory of a dream - how do you compare dream content? You can compare red and yellow patches on a scan, and measure brain-waves, but that only tells you what bits are active, not how they're interpreting stimuli into visual, auditory, sensory and sometimes even olfactory images.

1 hour ago, DrmDoc said:

In fact, the easiest way to understand dream content is to simply add either the word "mental" or "social" to your description of its depictions (e.g., mental firehouse, social butterfly, mental boxing). 

That sounds more like 'facile' than 'easy'.

 

1 hour ago, DrmDoc said:

Whatever you have consciously experienced or envisioned in life is stored in your memory and can be used by your dreaming brain to interpret whatever it may be perceiving as you sleep.  Your dreaming brain cannot interpret something it has not experience; e.g., cogenitally blind individuals do not experience visual dream content.

That, in itself, makes the interpretation not universal. We speak different languages, for one thing, so the puns and homonyms can't work the same way for German and Korean subjects. Our arenas of experiences, from which the memories - image libraries - are drawn are vastly different. All the brain can do is fire off neurons - it doesn't understand the 'wicked stepmother' trope, or the sexual significance of a snake.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Peterkin

[DrmDoc]

26 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

That would make "we" a separate entity from "our brain" with different processing of data being done by each. I can't quite follow that reasoning: I have learned to believe that personality [identity - the I] is a product of neural activity in the brain. How 'we' respond to input depends entirely on how 'we' interpret it. 

From my perspective, there are subtle distinctions between the processes in brain function involving the "we" and those involving "our brain".  The "we" is a distinctive output of those processes intergrating our sensory experiences with our memories and memory function.  " Our brain," in the context of this discussion of dreams and dreaming, refer to those processes that quantify and categories the nature of our sensory experiences.    What I'm referring to in all this is a distinction between the efferent and afferent processes of brain function. 

2 hours ago, Peterkin said:

An example of stimulus: heat. When I'm too hot at night, I tend to dream of violence. The stimulus of feeling an uncomfortably high temperature generates images of hectic activity, weapons, menaces, danger - but not always the same film-sequence. Actually, the choice of cinematic imagery is heavily influenced by the videos I've been watching.  If my feet are uncovered, I tend to dream of water: wading waist-deep in a swamp, or crossing a river. Noises stimulate various images of things make a similar sound: train whistle for a kettle downstairs; church bells for a telephone; dog or wolf howling for a siren. I have some idea where these associations of image to sound come from. (I just this minute realized that my mind transfers quite a few modern sensations and sounds into primitive contexts... Hm... racial memory?) 

Using your examples here, the heat you detect, the uncovered feet you feel, and the noises your hear are your brain's interpretations of the afferent stimuli it has detected, felt, and heard. Your brain's afferent processes are what quantifies your sensory experiences as heat, uncovered feet, and various noises.  Your brain's efferent processes are what generates your responses to the stimuli it quantifies.  Dreaming is an efferent response to the stimuli you experience in sleep and your dream content interprets the affects of that stimuli in sleep.

3 hours ago, Peterkin said:

How do you know? I think that's the wrong way around: the brain responds the same way, but the individual mind interprets differently.  Without the subject reporting - according to their own conscious impression and memory of a dream - how do you compare dream content? You can compare red and yellow patches on a scan, and measure brain-waves, but that only tells you what bits are active, not how they're interpreting stimuli into visual, auditory, sensory and sometimes even olfactory images.

 Our responses are individual because they are predicated on our individual life experiences.  My responses to heat, uncovered feet, and various noises may be distinctly different from yours because we have likely had different life experiences involving those sensory perceptions.  Nevertheless, our afferent interpretations of those sensory experiences as heat, uncovered feet, and various noises are likely the same because of the neural structure and sensory system we share in common as humans.

3 hours ago, Peterkin said:

That sounds more like 'facile' than 'easy'.

That, in itself, makes the interpretation not universal. We speak different languages, for one thing, so the puns and homonyms can't work the same way for German and Korean subjects. Our arenas of experiences, from which the memories - image libraries - are drawn are vastly different. All the brain can do is fire off neurons - it doesn't understand the 'wicked stepmother' trope, or the sexual significance of a snake.

Perhaps is does sound that way but it doesn't invalidate this approach if properly understood.  The examples I provided where not meant to infer the use of puns, homonyms, or tropes to understand dream content.  As you observed, that approach may not work for all nationalities. Instead, the words "mental" and "social" are meant to quantify the basic nature of dreams and dream content for the dreamer.  Dreams are mental experiences and in any language their content interprets that mental and social nature. In any language and regardless of nationality, a firehouse, butterfly, or boxing, using my examples, describe something specific or culturally significant.  Adding the words mental or social to these examples identifies and defines the common and basic nature they convey when they appear in dream content--much like a surname identifies a family of related individuals.

I welcome your further thoughts.

[Peterkin]

25 minutes ago, DrmDoc said:

From my perspective, there are subtle distinctions between the processes in brain function involving the "we" and those involving "our brain".  The "we" is a distinctive output of those processes intergrating our sensory experiences with our memories and memory function.  " Our brain," in the context of this discussion of dreams and dreaming, refer to those processes that quantify and categories the nature of our sensory experiences.    What I'm referring to in all this is a distinction between the efferent and afferent processes of brain function. 

Sorry, that's not making any sense to me. Or I'm not making any sense of it. Or my brain is not processing it...

Edited October 23, 2022 by Peterkin

[DrmDoc]

11 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Sorry, that's not making any sense to me. Or I'm not making any sense of it. Or my brain is not processing it...

In retrospect, I understand and have given my perspective further thought.  Our brain relies on two distinct neural processes: Those that deliver sensory information into the brain (input) and those that issue responses from the brain (output).  Respectively, these are what I referred to as the afferent (input) and efferent (output) processes of brain function, which should clearly be a distinction between what is sensory input and what is behaviroal output in response to that stimuli.  What I now understand is that the interpretive aspects of brain function are more aligned with the efferent response systems of the brain, which rely heavily on what has been our individual experiences.

Consider, for example, the sensory input associated with aggression.  When we encounter aggression, it's associated visual, tactile, and auditory sensory information is initially interpreted or identified by it's immediate impact on our senses.  Barring sensory abnormality, the impact of external sensory on our sensory system is the same for all of us.  Divergence only occurs during the quantification process where that impact is weighed against what has been our prior experience stored as sense memory.  Quantification only occurs as a response to stimili.  The images in our dreams quantify the affects of the stimuli our brain believes it is expereincing while dreaming.  As quantification relies on personal experiences stored as memories, this would indeed belie the idea of a universal meaning for every aspect of dream content.  This perspective, however, does not invalidate the empirical nature of dreaming relative to all dreaming species--dreams are mental experiences and are, therefore, defined by the nature of mental experience.

The mental nature of our experiences regards those that exclusively affect and involve our psychology.  The images in our dreams describe the affects of something that has or is having a mental influence akin to what that dream imagery depicts.  Using your example, the affect of your uncovered feet while sleeping had an affect on your dreaming brain akin to standing in water.  However, it is unlikely that everyone with uncovered feet will have the same dream experience while sleeping. This suggests that your uncovered feet has aroused perceptions unique to you, which your dreaming brain depicts as standing in water.  This is akin to how the smell of a freshly baked apple pie could arouse thoughts and memories in me that are different from yours due to our different life experiences.  However, a dream imagery of standing in water likely suggests something more than how our dreaming brain interprets uncovered feet while asleep.  Unlike the thoughts, feelings, and memories inspired by our conscious experiences, the mental nature of our dream experiences interpret influences relevant to our psychology; therefore, it is likely that dreams of standing in water describe something that is mental in nature.  I welcome your thoughts.

Edited October 23, 2022 by DrmDoc
afferent to efferent in the initial paragraph.

[Peterkin]

42 minutes ago, DrmDoc said:

Respectively, these are what I referred to as the afferent (input) and efferent (output) processes of brain function, which should clearly be a distinction between what is sensory input and what is behaviroal output in response to that stimuli. 

I think that misses a step. The brain doesn't produce automatic output in the form of behavior. To a given stimulus, it responds by informing itself (the network of relevant functions) what part of the body is being affected, whether it's being damaged, whether action is required. It doesn't turn into behaviour of the entire organism until all that has been processed and interpreted. The interpreting is what requires memory and pattern-formation. Awake, the interpreting process is experienced by the entity as thinking, followed by deliberate, observable action. Asleep, it is witnessed by the unconscious as dreams; if there is observable activity, it's limited to eye movement and limb twitching. (I know when a dog dreams of chasing prey, e.g.)

 

52 minutes ago, DrmDoc said:

Consider, for example, the sensory input associated with aggression.... it's associated visual, tactile, and auditory sensory information is initially interpreted or identified by it's immediate impact on our senses.

By aggression here, do you mean a violent physical attack? That's a whole series of separate stimuli, each of which has to be reported to to brain by sensory equipment throughout the body, processed by the brain and posed as a problem: What to do?

1 hour ago, DrmDoc said:

Barring sensory abnormality, the impact of external sensory on our sensory system is the same for all of us. 

This is what I'm not at all convinced of. Human bodies and sensory functions may be similar, but they are not all the same. A big muscular man kicked in the chest may suffer a broken rib or two, but a four-year-old will probably die. Human brains may not all be the same, either; not equally adept at distinguishing sounds, for example, or discerning colours.

If the aggression is merely a threat, both stimuli and response become even more variable, according to the subject's previous experience. 

1 hour ago, DrmDoc said:

The images in our dreams quantify the affects of the stimuli our brain believes it is expereincing while dreaming.

I don't see that, either. Quantifying, I mean. What's being measured, on what scale? And how does that translate to movies?

I'm beginning to suspect that we don't disagree on anything but the use of some particular words.

[DrmDoc]

7 hours ago, Peterkin said:

I think that misses a step. The brain doesn't produce automatic output in the form of behavior. To a given stimulus, it responds by informing itself (the network of relevant functions) what part of the body is being affected, whether it's being damaged, whether action is required. It doesn't turn into behaviour of the entire organism until all that has been processed and interpreted. The interpreting is what requires memory and pattern-formation. Awake, the interpreting process is experienced by the entity as thinking, followed by deliberate, observable action. Asleep, it is witnessed by the unconscious as dreams; if there is observable activity, it's limited to eye movement and limb twitching. (I know when a dog dreams of chasing prey, e.g.)

“Behavior” isn’t a term that uniquely describes physically expressed activity.  To clarify relative to brain function, “behavior” refers to any activation of brain function in response to stimuli.  Dreaming is a response to stimuli amid sleep and is, therefore, an expression of brain “behavior” in sleep. Rather than “informing itself,” the sleeping brain is aroused to a dreaming state by the stimuli it can detect in sleep. Albeit an entirely a mental state, the behavior our brain engages in response to stimuli in sleep is dreaming.

7 hours ago, Peterkin said:

By aggression here, do you mean a violent physical attack? That's a whole series of separate stimuli, each of which has to be reported to to brain by sensory equipment throughout the body, processed by the brain and posed as a problem: What to do?

My reference to aggression refers to all forms of its expression that may elicit an interpretive brain response.

7 hours ago, Peterkin said:

This is what I'm not at all convinced of. Human bodies and sensory functions may be similar, but they are not all the same. A big muscular man kicked in the chest may suffer a broken rib or two, but a four-year-old will probably die. Human brains may not all be the same, either; not equally adept at distinguishing sounds, for example, or discerning colours.

Stimuli impacts our sensory system similarly in that our system is primed to similarly perceive and interpret sound as auditory stimuli, visual experience as ocular stimuli, taste as oral stimuli, touch as tactile stimuli, and so on.  Barring sensory and brain defect, our sensory system is similaryl primed to perceive and interpret stimuli by their distinct nature.

7 hours ago, Peterkin said:

I don't see that, either. Quantifying, I mean. What's being measured, on what scale? And how does that translate to movies?

I'm beginning to suspect that we don't disagree on anything but the use of some particular words.

By quantify I am referring to the depth and breadth of dream imagery and experience.  Through dream content, our dreaming brain assigns a deminsion of perception and understand to our experience that belies the simple nature of the material stimuli inspiring that experience in sleep--much like dreams of standing in water as an affect of having one's feet uncovered while sleeping.

[Peterkin]

What we have here - with respect - is a failure to communicate.

[DrmDoc]

18 hours ago, Peterkin said:

What we have here - with respect - is a failure to communicate.

That's unfortunate...I thought we communicated quite well...my apologies.

[Peterkin]

4 hours ago, DrmDoc said:

That's unfortunate...I thought we communicated quite well...my apologies.

So am I. It's nobody's fault I lack the specialized vocabulary. 

[DrmDoc]

Greetings,   

Before we proceed to a discussion of my next topic, Dreams & Memory, we should have a clear perspective of the distinction I’ve discussed between our brain and our sense of self.  Our brain is an organic machine whose function is fueled by our bodily systems and informed by our body’s sensory array.  Conversely, our sense of self—our individuality and personal identity—is a product and expression of that machine’s function.  “We” do not exist without brain function; therefore, our personal perspective and expression does not exist without that function.

Dreams & Memory—most researchers agree that dreaming serves memory function by transferring short-term memories into permanent storage.  This shared perspective is rooted in an abundance of sleep and dreaming deprivation studies involving acuity observations and testing.  Unfortunately, this popular and generally accepted perspective is not entirely accurate.

Through sleep studies, researchers have observed sharp declines in mental acuity and memory formation of study participants when they experienced prolonged periods without sleep.  Researchers have also observed the same effect when they studied interruptions in the dreaming portion of sleep solely. However, these study results are deceiving and do not provide a mechanism in brain function for the conclusions researchers have reached.

What researchers have failed to consider in reaching their conclusions are the effects of interrupting the glymphatic processes that occur most efficiently during sleep progression.  Glymphatic processes in the brain during sleep more efficiently remove the interstitial cell waste produced by the metabolic activity of the brain.  At a rate of about 20%, our brain is the largest consumer of our body’s energy uptake.  That consumption rate produces a substantial amount of cellular waste in the brain during all periods of wakeful activity, which also includes dreaming.  Researchers of sleep have failed to consider and assess how experiments that interfere with the brain’s ability to remove extracellular waste may also interfere with communication between those cells.

With sleep/dreaming function, the idea that memory is like removing an item from a refrigerator (short-term memory) and placing that item into a freezer (permanent memory) is imprecise.  Memory is more like the path between distinct locations that must be continuously cleared of debris to not be overgrown and forgotten.

In a final note on this topic, one might question if dreaming and memory are so closely tied as some researchers believe, why are our dream details difficult to remember without continual practice?  As I have explained perennially, memory was evolved for experiences that had real, physical/material impact on ancestral species and dreams are not real, physical/material experiences; therefore, our dreams aren't as easy to recall as real experiences.

Pending further responses to this and prior topics, my next topic will be a further discussion of dream content and meaning.  I welcome your thoughts and continued interest.

[DrmDoc]

Greetings,

Dream Content & Meaning – In earlier comments, I said that dreaming was an interpretive response to “something” our brain believes it is experiencing as we sleep and that this “something” makes our dreams meaningful.  So, what is this “something”?

Although dreaming occurs amid sleep progression, it isn’t sleep relative to brain function.  Dreaming is an active, albeit unconscious state of brain function. In other words, is a wakeful state of brain function that occurs as we sleep.  This is essential to our understanding of dream content and meaning because the state of brain function while dreaming is somehow equivalent to the state we experience when we are awake and aware.

If you’ve read my prior comments in this forum on MIND & CONSCIOUSNESS, you should know how homeostasis is likely a primary impetuous for brain function and that all brain activity is essentially our brain’s effort to maintain its metabolic stability against the stimuli it experiences.  Dreaming is our brain’s unconscious effort to maintain its functional stability in sleep against the stimuli it experiences as we sleep. Although our dream content may not be real experiences, they are responses to real stimuli. So, what is that stimuli?

As suggested in Peterkin’s response to this discussion, something as innocuous as sleeping with one’s feet uncovered may stimulate dream content.  However, what we physically experience during sleep may not always generate a dream or determine what a dream ultimately interprets.  For an understanding of what our dreams likely interpret consider that they are empirically mental experiences, which suggest experiences that are psychological or of the mind in nature.  The texture, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and even our thoughts and feelings amidst our dreams interpret something entirely of the mind.  In Peterkin’s example, the link between sleeping with one’s feet uncovered and dreaming about standing in water provides a clue to the precise nature of the mind that dream content interprets.

Sleeping with one’s feet uncovered and subsequently dreaming about standing in water is equivalent to the conscious experience of smelling a freshly baked apple pie that then inspires thoughts and feelings of an earlier time in one’s life.  In these examples, significance isn’t conveyed by the uncovered feet or apple pie materially but rather by the mental and emotional affects of standing in water and the recollections those wakeful experiences inspire--succintly, dream content and meaning interpret the mental and emotional "affects" of stimuli in sleep.

If interest prevails and moderators permit, I will provide a bit more on the topic of dream meaning in my next post.  Until then, I welcome your thoughts.

[Peterkin]

On 10/29/2022 at 11:38 AM, DrmDoc said:

the idea that memory is like removing an item from a refrigerator (short-term memory) and placing that item into a freezer (permanent memory) is imprecise. ...

In a final note on this topic, one might question if dreaming and memory are so closely tied as some researchers believe, why are our dream details difficult to remember without continual practice?

That's because they're closely tied in two-way connection. Dreams can serve as a processing-station for newly-learned skills or facts, but they're not a conveyor-belt from short to long-term memory. A datum in short term memory only lasts a matter of seconds, before it's either filed in long-term or thrown away. The unconscious mind has access to all the same long-term memory content as does the waking mind, only it uses different criteria for retrieval and deployment of that material. It's the method of deliberate vs involuntary retrieval that accounts for our failure [or resistance?] to recall dream content. Possibly because dreams repurpose the same memories for a  surreal imagery, according to the requirements of the issue the subconscious is trying to resolve, while the waking mind needs the memory content in its realistic form for practical, real-world application. In one realm, a cigar might be a minaret or an alien spaceship; in the other, it's just a smoke.

Dreams are easy enough to remember in the dreaming state. "Oh yes, I've been here before. The bronze doe on the front lawn will raise her head in a moment, and the stag will come to attention as I walk along the flagstoned path. There are 8 shallow steps up to the double doors. The hall is illuminated in soft yellows, greens and blues by the tall stained glass window...." They're hard to remember when the state changes to waking, because they have no meaning, no place in this realm.

43 minutes ago, DrmDoc said:

As suggested in Peterkin’s response to this discussion, something as innocuous as sleeping with one’s feet uncovered may stimulate dream content.  However, what we physically experience during sleep may not always generate a dream or determine what a dream ultimately interprets. 

Not always. Sometimes it triggers a memory - and maybe that memory has a relevance to some current problem, or maybe it's just entertainment, or self-verification. I believe that identity - self-imaging, inspection, verification, validation, amending and redefining - is one of the main functions of dreams.  Which is why keeping a dream log is so important in managing chronic illness and in major life changes, like marriage, parenthood and bereavement, as well as intended changes in behaviour, like weight-loss or sobriety. But that's by the way.

But the brain doesn't disconnect from the body during sleep. It still receives sensory input from the nerves and still retains a vestige of self-preservation. But the muscles are "in the shop" as it were; temporarily out of service while undergoing repairs. So there is no automatic response to discomfort or even danger, as there would be when one is awake. Sometimes a situation arises, where the non-thinking brain has to get in touch with the conscious mind and send a message: "Wake up. You need to take control. Action required." That's what some discomfort dreams are for: warnings to close the window, go to the bathroom, take your head off that arm, go see why the drain is rumbling, leave the burning house, or whatever.

Other times, you may be perfectly comfortable physically and have a bunch of weird dreams that don't seem to have any relation to your life. The mind throws up questions - randomly or in response to some trigger in waking experience - that one has not consciously answered, anxieties that are never quite laid to rest, unresolved feelings, unfinished ideas. 

I know what that recurring dream I referred to earlier means. It was one of several houses I used to visit that had something in common: one room, on the second floor, at the rear, with glazed doors that gave onto a shallow balcony and looked out on a sunny vista (the front of the tall, foreboding red brick mansion was all in shadow). That room was unfurnished and had grass and daisies growing on the floor and it was reserved for me. I never knew or who owned the rest of the house, just so my room was ready when I came to visit.  When I go there, it means I've come to a conclusion about something or made a decision in real life.

For me, decision-making is always represented by architecture. Where I am with a problem determines which structure I wander around in at night.

Anxiety and worry come in the form of dependents - children or animals usually - and I'm responsible for them, have to save them from some imminent threat, have to rescue, help or repair them.

 

[DrmDoc]

24 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Dreams are easy enough to remember in the dreaming state. "Oh yes, I've been here before. The bronze doe on the front lawn will raise her head in a moment, and the stag will come to attention as I walk along the flagstoned path. There are 8 shallow steps up to the double doors. The hall is illuminated in soft yellows, greens and blues by the tall stained glass window...." They're hard to remember when the state changes to waking, because they have no meaning, no place in this realm.

I understand why there are varying views about the nature of memory and dreaming but I think one only needs to look at the likely evolution of memory in brain function to better understand that nature. Memory most likely evolved concurrent with the cerebral development and evolution in ancestral spieces.  We know from current studies in humans and contrasting animal studies that brain development is, among other things, experience dependent.  This means that neural development, brain volume, and memory function are inextricably tied to real sensory experiences.  It is likely that ancestral species developed memory in response to experiences that had a concurrently real physical/material impact on their survival. 

Although dreams are mental experiences, they do not arise concurrently with experiences that have a real physical/material impact on our survival. We know that this is particularly true because comparative studies between the dreaming and conscious brain show distinctly different patterns and levels of activation in specific brain regions. Most notably, the prefrontal cortex experiences a state of diminished activation (hypofrontality) amid dreaming, which suggests certain executive brain function are not sufficiently stimulated during the dreaming state.  Essentially, our dreaming brain does not process dream experiences with the same concern and attention as it does real experiences.  Our general inability to recall the details of our dreams when awake is likely because memory was not evolved for experiences that don't impact our concern and attention the way our consious, waking-state experiences do.

Dreaming has as much to do with memory formatiion as fleeting emotions, which are only important for a moment.  What most impacts memory is the neural connectivity of the brain and what may improve or hinder that connectivity.  The glymphatic processes that occur during sleep are crucial to the neural connectivity within the brain.  Dreaming actually increases interstial cell waste, which can diminish connectivity and memory formation.  However, the brain's system of cleansing itself responds more efficiently during sleep progression.  That response is suggested by the increasing length of dreaming that occurs as sleep progresses.

I welcome your continued interest.

[Peterkin]

2 minutes ago, DrmDoc said:

It is likely that ancestral species developed memory in response to experiences that had a concurrently real physical/material impact on their survival. 

Well, of course! How else can evolution work?

 

3 minutes ago, DrmDoc said:

Although dreams are mental experiences, they do not arise concurrently with experiences that have a real physical/material impact on our survival

Not directly. But both kinds of mental operation need, and have access to memory archives for their problem-solving. Experience is documented and filed away. New challenges are met by thinking, which makes use of the stored material, both in waking and dreaming.

[DrmDoc]

1 hour ago, Peterkin said:

That's because they're closely tied in two-way connection. Dreams can serve as a processing-station for newly-learned skills or facts, but they're not a conveyor-belt from short to long-term memory. A datum in short term memory only lasts a matter of seconds, before it's either filed in long-term or thrown away. The unconscious mind has access to all the same long-term memory content as does the waking mind, only it uses different criteria for retrieval and deployment of that material. It's the method of deliberate vs involuntary retrieval that accounts for our failure [or resistance?] to recall dream content. Possibly because dreams repurpose the same memories for a  surreal imagery, according to the requirements of the issue the subconscious is trying to resolve, while the waking mind needs the memory content in its realistic form for practical, real-world application. In one realm, a cigar might be a minaret or an alien spaceship; in the other, it's just a smoke.

I commented before about the nature of the unconscious mind and how we at once tend to ascribe too much and too little to its nature.  However, through dreaming, our unconscious isn't offering any particular assistance to our conscious perceptions or problem solving, it is merely revealing some resonant mental affect influencing our brain function in sleep.  When we have problem-solving dreams it is because something about our sensory experiences in sleep has focused our unconscious perception on the mental affects of the problem absorbing our conscious attention. Our dreams can provide solutions to our waking-state problems by characterizing the mental impact of those problems, which can present them in a way that provides clarity.  Although dreams can provide us with clarity and ingenious invention, again with clarity, dreams are not about our unconscious mind's intent or effort to address issues involving our waking state--they are about the interpretive processes involving the resonant mental affects of the stimuli our brain detects during sleep progression.

[Peterkin]

27 minutes ago, DrmDoc said:

Although dreams can provide us with clarity and ingenious invention, again with clarity, dreams are not about our unconscious mind's intent or effort to address issues involving our waking state--they are about the interpretive processes involving the resonant mental affects of the stimuli our brain detects during sleep progression.

Well, fine. The results are the same, in whichever terms you couch the process.

Where do you go from here?

[DrmDoc]

39 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Well, fine. The results are the same, in whichever terms you couch the process.

Where do you go from here?

Where?  If one truely understands the interpretive nature of unconscious brain function in sleep, one may potentially aquire an ability to focus their unconscious eye at will on perceiving and understanding an infinite number of affects and experiences that could have a real physical/material impact or outcome on their wellbeing and the wellbeing of others.

Edited November 5, 2022 by DrmDoc

[Peterkin]

13 minutes ago, DrmDoc said:

If one truely understands the interpretive nature of unconscious brain function in sleep, one may potentially aquire an ability to focus their unconscious eye at will on perceiving and understanding an infinite number of affects and experiences that could have a real physical/material impact or outcome on their wellbeing and the wellbeing of others.

As far as I can see, we're already doing the second half of that, and have been for thousands of years, if not hundreds of thousands - or millions. For all I know, rats dream their way to solving the locked cage problem. It seems to me that bringing the unconscious into the light and bending it to our waking will is a bad idea. Something like amputating your left arm and regrafting it to the right side of your body. 

[DrmDoc]

25 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

As far as I can see, we're already doing the second half of that, and have been for thousands of years, if not hundreds of thousands - or millions. 

What we've been doing, IMO, has been haphazard at best and more like fumbling around in the dark trying to find a switch that may or may not light the room.

25 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

For all I know, rats dream their way to solving the locked cage problem. It seems to me that bringing the unconscious into the light and bending it to our waking will is a bad idea. Something like amputating your left arm and regrafting it to the right side of your body. 

Indeed it does and that's a wise perspective.  However, bending our unconscious to our conscious will isn't as simple as it sounds.  Afterall, our conscious will and thoughts emerge from our unconscious brain function.  Essentially, our conscious mind is secondary to the unconscious processes from which that mind originates.

Edited November 5, 2022 by DrmDoc

[Peterkin]

2 hours ago, DrmDoc said:

However, bending our unconscious to our conscious will isn't as simple as it sounds.  Afterall, our conscious will and thoughts emerge from our unconscious brain function.

I'm not sure I accept that - at least, not without caveats and modifiers. I think that conscious thought is a conversion of processes carried out by networks in different parts of the brain. Some of those may be entirely unconscious, like primordial impulses; some habitual, cultural attitudes of which are only dimly aware; instincts that lie just below the threshold of consciousness; emotions we feel rather than understand; reflex reactions we are aware of but can't control, as well as learned methods of investigation and cogitation... In that sense, much of what happens in sub-conscious.

But I wouldn't equate that with "the unconscious", which is the custodian of that museum archive of the memory where we store all that uncatalogued material we have not processed because we didn't have a suitable place to hang it; projects begun at various times and left unfinished; knowledge we have not been able to assimilate, because it's too complex or we lack the right tools, or have insufficient information; associations that in conflict with preciously held convictions; beliefs and doubts that have yet to be analyzed; experience or ideation that we have hidden deep in below consciousness, because it was emotionally overwhelming.

It seems to me, we have a lot of stuff in basements that should not be shovelled up willy-nilly, but uncovered carefully, one square meter at a time, like a well-run archeological dig. I think that's what dreaming is for: to locate the appropriate next square for excavation. 

Edited November 5, 2022 by Peterkin

[DrmDoc]

20 hours ago, Peterkin said:

I'm not sure I accept that - at least, not without caveats and modifiers. I think that conscious thought is a conversion of processes carried out by networks in different parts of the brain. Some of those may be entirely unconscious, like primordial impulses; some habitual, cultural attitudes of which are only dimly aware; instincts that lie just below the threshold of consciousness; emotions we feel rather than understand; reflex reactions we are aware of but can't control, as well as learned methods of investigation and cogitation... In that sense, much of what happens in sub-conscious.

I’ve had several discussions about the unconscious in this forum and didn’t want to make this another.  However, one can’t talk about dreams and dreaming without a discussion of the unconscious and unconscious brain function.  To begin, we should have a clear perspective of my view on the unconscious.

In my view, the unconscious is everything about brain function and its processes below the threshold of our conscious awareness. If we are not concurrently aware of the intricate brain functions and processes comprising our conscious responses as they are happening, then those functions and processes are occurring within the realm of the unconscious.  As I have previously commented, our conscious awareness and behaviors are merely the outcome of those unconscious processes in the brain that converge in response (efference) to the stimuli (afference) our brain experiences.

20 hours ago, Peterkin said:

It seems to me, we have a lot of stuff in basements that should not be shovelled up willy-nilly, but uncovered carefully, one square meter at a time, like a well-run archeological dig. I think that's what dreaming is for: to locate the appropriate next square for excavation. 

Focusing our unconscious eye on just the “stuff in basements” is limiting, selfish, and not the only view available to that eye.  The potential gain from a better understanding of the unconscious and dream content isn’t just about looking inward—it’s also about looking outward, beyond self to a universe of potential insight.

[Peterkin]

2 minutes ago, DrmDoc said:

Focusing our unconscious eye on just the “stuff in basements” is limiting, selfish, and not the only view available to that eye.

Well, all right. Then I'm limited and selfish, because I'm not volunteering to turn my psyche inside-out for a potential understanding of the universe. I don't see how that's going to be accomplished through dream content, but I'll be interested to learn the results. Meanwhile, if the aliens make contact, I'm happy to mash some potatoes.