DREAMS & DREAMING II

[iNow]

I’m tired after a late night but this makes broad sense to me.

I’m thinking immediately in terms of guitar or violin stings. The plucking of the string creates a new wave we receive. That’s thalamic. Those strings settling and returning to equilibrium (or even just vibrating passively from another guitar or separate violin string plucked nearby) are the dream part.

Need more time to caffeinate and consider. Appreciate the sharing of ideas. Happy new year. 

[iNow]

Reading again a few hours later and continuing with the idea of guitar strings, it seems a bit to me like you’re suggesting dreams (in their tendency to return us toward homeostasis) act as a sort of a mute button, or perhaps even better as a type volume Down knob or lever on an equalizer board. There to slowly dissipate energy from the system… energy which came in from external stimuli. 

[DrmDoc]

On 1/1/2025 at 6:22 PM, iNow said:

Reading again a few hours later and continuing with the idea of guitar strings, it seems a bit to me like you’re suggesting dreams (in their tendency to return us toward homeostasis) act as a sort of a mute button, or perhaps even better as a type volume Down knob or lever on an equalizer board. There to slowly dissipate energy from the system… energy which came in from external stimuli. 

Quite right, dreams act to counteract the affects of a noisy (active) thalamus in sleep.  The exception in sleep is that this neural noise arising from the thalamus isn't necessarily occuring in the presence of the external stimuli (life experience) causing that noise.  Our cortical response areas in sleep are able to detect this indirect, abstract affect life experience has on thalamic function. 

In sleep, our thalamus appears to reverberate from the indirect affects of life experience and our cortical responses to that reverberance serve to nullify those affects. The form of that nullification is to mirror and, thereby, cancel the energy destabilizating neural impact of that reverberance.  This explain why our dream content interprets something that is indirect and abstract.  I welcome your continue interest.

[iNow]

12 hours ago, DrmDoc said:

dreams act to counteract the affects of a noisy (active) thalamus in sleep. 

I wonder if this is valid. It seems more intuitive to me to think that dreams could be an outcome of that denoising process in the thalamus, not necessarily the initiator or cause of it as this sentence seems to imply. 

Perhaps just an issue with word choice and not representative of your actual position? This next sentence seems to reinforce this:

12 hours ago, DrmDoc said:

In sleep, our thalamus appears to reverberate from the indirect affects of life experience and our cortical responses to that reverberance serve to nullify those affects

I’m reminded of how the prefrontal cortex modulates the amygdala and in a way suppresses or tempers emotional responses. That tempering or modulation activity could equally apply to thalamus as you’re suggesting. 

[DrmDoc]

14 hours ago, iNow said:

I wonder if this is valid. It seems more intuitive to me to think that dreams could be an outcome of that denoising process in the thalamus, not necessarily the initiator or cause of it as this sentence seems to imply. 

Much of what I understand about the dreaming brain is rooted in my perspective of its likely path of evolution.  That path suggests to me that the function of recent brain developments were built upon and are likely dependent on the function of earlier developments.  Mid-century experiments with diencephalic animals, as I recall, appear to confirm that no cortical activity occurs without a neural connection from the thalamus.  If we agree that dreaming and dream content are efferent products of cortical activity in sleep, then that activity likely doesn't occur without an afferent neural connection from the thalamus. Therefore, the question this poses is what precisely does that afferent neural connection from the thalamus contributes to the production of dreaming?

When we are awake and aware, thalamic function appears to buffer most of the neural noise it receives from the stimuli traversing its neural structure to superior brain regions from external sources.  As the gateway for neural commands exiting the brain, the thalamus also executes our physical responses to the external stimuli it experiences based the feedback it receives from superior brain regions.  That neural noise the thalamus experience at the outset of dreaming emerges from itself as a residual affect of its wakeful buffering rather than direct external stimuli. Although it may buffer the affects of external stimuli during the conscious state of brain function, the thalamus amid sleep is incapable of buffering the noise emanating from its own neural body as a result of its conscious experience—it’s the bell that keeps ringing after it has been struck.

Countering that incessant neural ringing amid sleep requires equivalent neural feedback from superior brain regions sufficient to nullify that effect.  Rather than create dream content, thalamic reverbs in sleep inspire that content.  Dreaming is a feedback process where upper regions nullify thalamic reverbs in sleep with materially meaningful neural impulses (dream content) matching the neural frequency or impact of those reverbs. 

14 hours ago, iNow said:

Perhaps just an issue with word choice and not representative of your actual position? This next sentence seems to reinforce this:

I’m reminded of how the prefrontal cortex modulates the amygdala and in a way suppresses or tempers emotional responses. That tempering or modulation activity could equally apply to thalamus as you’re suggesting. 

From my perspective, the thalamus is our instinctive, primal brain.  It doesn't engage thought, it reacts and execute our outward behavioral expressions.  Structures beyond the thalamus, as I perceive, informs the behaviors it executes.  In my view, structures like the amygdala and prefrontal cortex mediate the reactions the thalamus executes.  For example, the amygdala tells the thalamus to react with agression, while the prefrontal cortex informs the thalamus on the consequences of that agression.  But what has become more profound for me is a clearer understanding of the autistic brain--particularly through our discussion.

[Ariodos]

Quote

 

Much of what I understand about the dreaming brain is rooted in my perspective of its likely path of evolution.  That path suggests to me that the function of recent brain developments were built upon and are likely dependent on the function of earlier developments.  Mid-century experiments with diencephalic animals, as I recall, appear to confirm that no cortical activity occurs without a neural connection from the thalamus.  If we agree that dreaming and dream content are efferent products of cortical activity in sleep, then that activity likely doesn't occur without an afferent neural connection from the thalamus. Therefore, the question this poses is what precisely does that afferent neural connection from the thalamus contributes to the production of dreaming?

When we are awake and aware, thalamic function appears to buffer most of the neural noise it receives from the stimuli traversing its neural structure to superior brain regions from external sources.  As the gateway for neural commands exiting the brain, the thalamus also executes our physical responses to the external stimuli it experiences based the feedback it receives from superior brain regions.  That neural noise the thalamus experience at the outset of dreaming emerges from itself as a residual affect of its wakeful buffering rather than direct external stimuli. Although it may buffer the affects of external stimuli during the conscious state of brain function, the thalamus amid sleep is incapable of buffering the noise emanating from its own neural body as a result of its conscious experience—it’s the bell that keeps ringing after it has been struck.

Countering that incessant neural ringing amid sleep requires equivalent neural feedback from superior brain regions sufficient to nullify that effect.  Rather than create dream content, thalamic reverbs in sleep inspire that content.  Dreaming is a feedback process where upper regions nullify thalamic reverbs in sleep with materially meaningful neural impulses (dream content) matching the neural frequency or impact of those reverbs. My new project review is here

 

 

This theory resonates with some ideas about the thalamocortical loop in consciousness studies. Do you see a connection between dreaming and the brain's processes for maintaining waking consciousness?

Edited January 6 by Ariodos

[DrmDoc]

17 hours ago, Ariodos said:

 

This theory resonates with some ideas about the thalamocortical loop in consciousness studies. Do you see a connection between dreaming and the brain's processes for maintaining waking consciousness?

Much of my thoughts on this subject can be found in this discussion thread:  Consciousness in Brain Function

Give it a read and share your thoughts.

[iNow]

On 1/5/2025 at 10:51 PM, DrmDoc said:

what has become more profound for me is a clearer understanding of the autistic brain

How so? What’s the primary tie into the topic here?

[DrmDoc]

8 hours ago, iNow said:

How so? What’s the primary tie into the topic here?

It was my focusing on the buffering function of the thalamus through our discussion.  An autistic respondent in a previous discussion in another forum of this website described their condition as like having a gatekeeper who allows entry to everyone.  My epiphany, through this discussion, was that this individual's form of autism likely involves a malfunction of their thalamus' ability to buffer incoming neural impulses (external stimuli) while at the same time maintaining an ability to target the focus of their thalamus on specific and well-defined areas of feedback (behavioral commands) from superior regions of brain beyond the thalamus--it's letting all the noise in but only responding to that noise that activates a specific channel of feedback or behavioral responses. 

I believe I now have a better visual perception and understanding of the input/output function of the thalamus in the autistic brain.  Even more, I'm beginning to consider what impact malfunction of the thalamus may have in the structual variances we find in some autistic brains--indeed, a delightful and illuminating discussion.

[iNow]

Thanks for the insight, just be cautious here and recall: If you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism. 

Sharing to highlight the diversity of autism spectrum disorder and the different ways people with autism experience it

[DrmDoc]

On 1/7/2025 at 10:56 PM, iNow said:

Thanks for the insight, just be cautious here and recall: If you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism. 

Sharing to highlight the diversity of autism spectrum disorder and the different ways people with autism experience it

Quite true!  As my perspective on the interplay between the thalamus and its reciprocal connections with surrounding brain structures evolve, my perspective on the role of the thalamus in the autistic brain continues to evolve.  Although their are multiple facets to the neural interplay between the thalamus and surrounding brain structures, there's more than sufficient evidence that all behaviors we engage are executed by thalamic function.  There's also sufficient evidence, in my opinion, that our thalamus engages these behaviors according to the feedback rather than commands it receives from superior or surrounding brain structures.  The distinction between feedback rather than commands suggest that our thalamus executes behaviors based on neural advice rather than direction of other brain sturctures which places the thalamus in a far superior role than I previously perceived. For example, consider the explosive aggression of some CTE sufferers. 

Structures like the thalamus and amygdala are somewhat shielded by the cortex from intercranial trauma.  It's likely that thalamic function in the CTE brain responds more readily to amygdala feedback than the prefrontal cortex due to a compromised link between the cortex and thalamus caused by head trauma. The behaviors a thalamus expresses with a CTE brain are likely compromised by weak signals from the cortex with comparatively strong and healthy amygdala signaling.

If there's anything to draw from my comments here relative to dreams and dreaming is that they are everything I have previously discussed but, first and foremost, they are a feedback response to afferent resonance from the thalamus amid sleep.  Relative to autism, clarity will require a bit more time and investigation. 

[iNow]

1 hour ago, DrmDoc said:

The distinction between feedback rather than commands suggest that our thalamus executes behaviors based on neural advice rather than direction of other brain sturctures which places the thalamus in a far superior role than I previously perceived.

This reminds me of tides in the ocean. The moon is an enormous input, but the H2O molecules still are far more subject to local forces like electromagnetism. I suppose in this example the other brain regions are the moon and the thalamus is the ocean 

1 hour ago, DrmDoc said:

Structures like the thalamus and amygdala are somewhat shielded by the cortex from intercranial trauma. 

Yes, in much the same way that our cortex is shielded by our skull and our hearts by our rib cage. The most important bits tend to be best protected as they’re foundational to proper functioning of all the surrounding regions… a bit like a hub is to the spokes on a wheel

Thanks for sharing your explorations with us. Your interest is infectious

[DrmDoc]

22 hours ago, iNow said:

This reminds me of tides in the ocean. The moon is an enormous input, but the H2O molecules still are far more subject to local forces like electromagnetism. I suppose in this example the other brain regions are the moon and the thalamus is the ocean 

Yes! My understanding precisely!