Dreams.

[Appolinaria]

What is their purpose according to the world of psychology?

[PhDwannabe]

The World of Psychology doesn't exactly speak in a unanimous voice. 20 different answers. Not a one of them halfway decent.

[Appolinaria]

Not even decent? I was wondering if they might possibly have a therapeutic purpose.

[PhDwannabe]

Make up your own answer, then. Everyone else does.

[iNow]

Appolinaria - Not sure why the wannabe has such hostility. Probably has mommy issues and inferiority problems. Either way, the point is that it depends on who you ask, and there is no "one right answer." There are many ideas, and some have more evidence in their favor than others.

 

My take on the question is that it's about consolidation of memory and restructuring the brain to be better prepared for future experiences. In short, increasing memory of important events and pruning/reinforcing synaptic connections for increased likelihood of future survival and well-being.

 

It also seems to be an emergent phenomenon of the way we're neurally composed, much like consciousness itself.

[Appolinaria]

Interesting. Thanks for the responses.

 

Is the purpose of memory consolidation the one with the most evidence?

 

The reason I ask if it's therapeutic is because when I'm abruptly awoken in the middle of a dream, it's often times about one specific event that I never think about in my waking consciousness. What are the chances? I must therefore dream about it quite often. I was thinking it could possibly be traumatic (nothing too terrible here, don't worry guys.. just something stressful), so my subconscious mind exposes me to it when I'm asleep as a way of processing it... this way, it might diminish the possible negative after-effects.

 

I just never think about it, it doesn't seem to bother me, and it's bewildering that I dream about it so much. I thought I knew myself and my emotions very well, but it seems like I don't.

 

We sleep for a large portion of our lives, so I really think dreams play an extremely important role. Nothing to be brushed off by psychologists.

[StringJunky]

Appolinaria - Not sure why the wannabe has such hostility. Probably has mommy issues and inferiority problems. Either way, the point is that it depends on who you ask, and there is no "one right answer." There are many ideas, and some have more evidence in their favor than others.

 

My take on the question is that it's about consolidation of memory and restructuring the brain to be better prepared for future experiences. In short, increasing memory of important events and pruning/reinforcing synaptic connections for increased likelihood of future survival and well-being.

 

It also seems to be an emergent phenomenon of the way we're neurally composed, much like consciousness itself.

 

What do you think to dreaming as a platform for safely 'acting out' hypothetical scenarios and experiencing their possible consequences triggered by recurring situations or emotions in ones daily life? This might confer a survival advantage evolutionarily-speaking would you think?

Edited November 25, 2011 by StringJunky

[iNow]

I think there could very easily be validity in that. It's sort of like an extended version of imagination... practicing experiences with unseen others.

[Appolinaria]

After taking up a monotonous job and moving to a gray, boring city my dreams became significantly more vivid and overwhelmingly beautiful to me. Maybe these hypothetical scenarios and unseen others are making up for what's lacking in reality, and is key to my mental health. My natural urge as a human to interact with an unpredictable environment and the grittiness of nature is satisfied through experiences I create in my own head.

 

 

[StringJunky]

After taking up a monotonous job and moving to a gray, boring city my dreams became significantly more vivid and overwhelmingly beautiful to me. Maybe these hypothetical scenarios and unseen others are making up for what's lacking in reality, and is key to my mental health. My natural urge as a human to interact with an unpredictable environment and the grittiness of nature is satisfied through experiences I create in my own head.

 

I have also noticed that sort of broad correlation...I hypothesise the dream mechanism acting as a kind of governor geared towards maintaining emotional equilibrium in waking life. It also seems to act the other way to your experience; if I am excessively happy I am more prone to nightmares as though my brain is trying to balance my wakeful emotional state to a more neutral one. I am of the opinion that a persistent state of happiness is not desirable in an individual as it can make them more reckless and carefree about their environment ie prone to danger. Conversely, a depressive state in waking life is compensated for with vivid and desirable dreams to also try help make the individual more environmentally aware instead of getting trapped in a pattern of introspection which can also be dangerous from a survivability perspective. I think this observation ties in with my earlier comment about dreams conferring a survival advantage. The actual content or meaning of individual dreams is generally irrelevant, it's the net emotional consequences of a dream series that matters imo.

 

I wish there was more hard science on this subject but as this Wiki article mentions, putting together a viable methodology towards studying it objectively is fraught with problems.

[Ophiolite]

I suspect that dreams may well have several of the functions proposed by various researchers.

 

I have used events in dreams to facilitate my waking life. Only last night I dreamt of restructuring one of the courses I teach and fortuitously woke up mid-dream, so I was able to capture the new structure. On reflection the ideas I was working out in the dream are probably the best way of proceeding and are quite different from how I had been planning to approach the issue. Now I am fairly certain this is not the primary function of dreams, yet clearly they can be used for such a practical purpose.

[tar]

INow,

 

I like your take. Similar to the hijack thread, in that it looks at what dreams are in terms of evolution, and therefore in a sense not only what they are, but how they came about. The common idea being that as religion hijacks "already in place" neural "ability", so might/(must) dreams.

 

You pointed out the interactions with unseen others, and the "practicing" or rehearsal, or imagination of possible outcomes. This seems to "work" if there is an analogue we can "hijack" or repurpose.

 

My candidate for the job is our "predictive motor simulator". Where various timing and order of neuron firing is "rehearsed" to predict the outcome "before" actually firing the motor neuron pulses to result in the coordinated motor movement desired.

 

But the predictive motor simulator allows for the "learning of particular timing and sequences that will work" within the limits of the sensory reach, and to the limits of our fingers and toes.

 

When we reach beyond our fingers and toes, we are into an area in which we do not have neurons, either sensory or motor.

 

Perhaps we still can use the predictive motor simulator apparatus however and put together what "works" in reality, before we "fire off the particular timing and sequence" of impulses.

 

Might be good to imagine what would happen if you roasted your boss over an open fire, before making the attempt.

 

Appolinaria,

 

"making up for what is lacking in reality" may be a good way to describe our "reach" into the areas beyond our fingers and toes.

 

Regards, TAR2

[PhDwannabe]

Appolinaria - Not sure why the wannabe has such hostility. Probably has mommy issues and inferiority problems

Augh, sweet jesus, I hope that's sarcasm.

[Appolinaria]

I have also noticed that sort of broad correlation...I hypothesise the dream mechanism acting as a kind of governor geared towards maintaining emotional equilibrium in waking life. It also seems to act the other way to your experience; if I am excessively happy I am more prone to nightmares as though my brain is trying to balance my wakeful emotional state to a more neutral one. I am of the opinion that a persistent state of happiness is not desirable in an individual as it can make them more reckless and carefree about their environment ie prone to danger. Conversely, a depressive state in waking life is compensated for with vivid and desirable dreams to also try help make the individual more environmentally aware instead of getting trapped in a pattern of introspection which can also be dangerous from a survivability perspective. I think this observation ties in with my earlier comment about dreams conferring a survival advantage. The actual content or meaning of individual dreams is generally irrelevant, it's the net emotional consequences of a dream series that matters imo.

 

I wish there was more hard science on this subject but as this Wiki article mentions, putting together a viable methodology towards studying it objectively is fraught with problems.

 

I agree. I can hardly describe the details of a dream, but I can describe the overall emotion I feel very easily. My emotions seem to be in a pure state in the dream world.

[tar]

Ophiolite,

 

I too am a fan of "waking thoughts".

 

Lately I have started to write a couple of them down. Primarily because they are usually a bit odd, and the "question" that they are answering is not always as readily apparent as the course restructuring. And the details or "particular" angle might be lost or obscured by subsequent events.

 

At least writing it down, allows me to look at it later and ask "what did I mean by that?". Could it really work?

 

Regards, TAR2

 

If you are interested, and you might be, since you have been on some of the other threads I have been reading and thinking about on this forum, I will here post verbatim the last three entries in a notebook I have at arms reach when I wake. This of interest not only in their content, but to the nature of dreams, in that the following are "waking thoughts"

 

- What role does sleep play in determing subjective and objective reality. Does sleep establish a baseline,(object) from which changes are determined.

 

-Ricochet-The importance of in establishing self-and the difference in the ricochet when viewed from a different FOR

 

-The Irk IRK

The Urge URGE

The Impulse Impulse

[Appolinaria]

I suspect that dreams may well have several of the functions proposed by various researchers.

 

I have used events in dreams to facilitate my waking life. Only last night I dreamt of restructuring one of the courses I teach and fortuitously woke up mid-dream, so I was able to capture the new structure. On reflection the ideas I was working out in the dream are probably the best way of proceeding and are quite different from how I had been planning to approach the issue. Now I am fairly certain this is not the primary function of dreams, yet clearly they can be used for such a practical purpose.

 

 

You're lucky. Sometimes I dream of a mathematical structure and it makes 100% sense in my dream, 0% sense in reality. Or I'll wake my self up by laughing hysterically and there was absolutely nothing funny about my dream. The feeling of something being valid, in a dream, seems to have nothing to do with reason, for me. Haha.

 

I do think we review things in our dreams. I remember being very little, and my stepmom wanted me to memorize the home telephone number... it was hard for me because of my age, and I could not even get the 3 first numbers down I don't think. I took a nap, and when I woke up, I had it completely memorized... I didn't understand how. Even now, sometimes when I dream, I'm almost having a discussion about something.

[Xittenn]

I used to look for the meaning, logic, or reasoning behind my dreaming and the content within. I've discussed my dreams with hundreds of individuals over the years and also to a few psychologists and psychiatrists. Dreams are pretty important to me because I spend a significant amount of time in dream state; regardless of the time translation. From the insight I've gained from others, the clarity, duration, and diversity of my dreams tends towards an extreme that the people I have discussed with do not experience.

 

If I was to make on opinion about the importance of dreaming based on my own experience, I would have to chalk dreaming up to something similar to masturbation for the imagination. I know this analogy isn't a pretty one but I think it's a realistic interpretation of what we are experiencing. I think that for the most part, the individual decides subconsciously to what degree they are willing to participate and in what capacity. I think people like Ophelia who wake up with a moment of clarity do so because that is what they really wanted, a moment. If others wish to deliberate on some life events or to practice for that future hypothetical, then this is how dreaming will manifest.

 

Of coarse if you are like me and your sole purpose in life is to best life itself, well . . . . the dream world can become a pretty intriguing place to dwell!

[tar]

I used to look for the meaning, logic, or reasoning behind my dreaming and the content within. I've discussed my dreams with hundreds of individuals over the years and also to a few psychologists and psychiatrists. Dreams are pretty important to me because I spend a significant amount of time in dream state; regardless of the time translation. From the insight I've gained from others, the clarity, duration, and diversity of my dreams tends towards an extreme that the people I have discussed with do not experience.

 

If I was to make on opinion about the importance of dreaming based on my own experience, I would have to chalk dreaming up to something similar to masturbation for the imagination. I know this analogy isn't a pretty one but I think it's a realistic interpretation of what we are experiencing. I think that for the most part, the individual decides subconsciously to what degree they are willing to participate and in what capacity. I think people like Ophelia who wake up with a moment of clarity do so because that is what they really wanted, a moment. If others wish to deliberate on some life events or to practice for that future hypothetical, then this is how dreaming will manifest.

 

Of coarse if you are like me and your sole purpose in life is to best life itself, well . . . . the dream world can become a pretty intriguing place to dwell!

 

Xittenn,

 

Well considering the "nature" of dreams, in that they are "happening" in ones "imagination", many things are possible there, that are not possible "here". That is, there is a distinction between the rules of what can "work" in a dream, and the rules that the "waking world" go by.

 

But to complicate matters, the world we all consider the "real world" is ALSO "happening" in our skull. That is, we all have a "model" of the real world, that we have internalized. The world we all share is an actual one, and the model we each carry of it has an abundance of coincidential features. When something changes in the real world, that we become aware of, our "model" instantly is adjusted to include it.

 

In this, there appears to be a "mixing" possible of things that are real and things that are imaginary. Not unlikely that ALL of our thoughts and images are "taken" from the real world. After all, that is all we have to start with, and that is all we have to ever wind up with.

 

However, we know when we are asleep and we know when we are awake. Most of the time, anyway. So there is some facility we have, to be aware of the difference. Probably has to do with the "consistency" of the real world. There are "things" that are always sensible, to everybody, that always follow the same rules, regardless of whether we are thinking about them or not. Those are the rules we adhere to automatically, since there is no way to break laws of nature. In dreams though, we can adjust the rules. Go by our own, so to speak.

 

The "mixing" is enough though, to not discount "dwelling in" a dream as an unrealistic thing.

 

Regards, TAR2

[Ophiolite]

@Appolinaria and tar

I don't wish to give the impression that most, or even many of my dreams produce meaningful, useful thoughts. Most don't, but a small number do and it is a technique worth developing.

 

There is a related story, possibly apocryphal, about Winston Churchill. He used to keep a pencil and notepad by his bedside for any thoughts that occured to him. He woke up from a dream in which he felt he had finally grasped the secret of life, the universe and all that. He quickly jotted it down on the notepad. In the morning he remembered the feel of the dream, but not the specifics. With eager anticipation he picked up the note pad. There, clearly written, were the words brussel sprouts.

[StringJunky]

@Appolinaria and tar

I don't wish to give the impression that most, or even many of my dreams produce meaningful, useful thoughts. Most don't, but a small number do and it is a technique worth developing.

 

There is a related story, possibly apocryphal, about Winston Churchill. He used to keep a pencil and notepad by his bedside for any thoughts that occured to him. He woke up from a dream in which he felt he had finally grasped the secret of life, the universe and all that. He quickly jotted it down on the notepad. In the morning he remembered the feel of the dream, but not the specifics. With eager anticipation he picked up the note pad. There, clearly written, were the words brussel sprouts.

 

I might speculate that your most useful dreams occur during a Lucid Dreaming phase whereby you have a certain level of wakeful consciousness and consequently some proactive control over the dream's direction but be still fully immersed in a dream.

Edited November 28, 2011 by StringJunky

[Ophiolite]

I quite commonly have lucid dreams, but the instances I have garnered useful ideas from were definitely not lucid ones. (I'm too busy trying to take over the world in my lucid dreams to be bothered with mundane matters. )

[StringJunky]

When I'm aware of them I often go into thought-controlled anti-gravity mode and look around from a flying bird's view .

[Appolinaria]

i wish i had lucid dreams. my normal ones are incredibly strange though. really weird locations usually devoid of people. fountains in the sky, fruit i have never seen before. weird zeppelin like things and architectural structures. i didnt know my mind could be that creative and bizarre.

 

im not surprised theyre so strange, though. as im falling asleep my thoughts seem to spiral about and get more psychadelic, as if a chemical or something is slowly being released in my brain

[DrmDoc]

What is their purpose according to the world of psychology?

 

Although psychology provides no clear answer, neuroscience comes close. Dreaming is a byproduct of activations in the brain that occurs at the onset of atonia, which is the release of muscle tone. There is evidence which suggests that these activations, amid atonia, are vestiages of a period in brain evolution when the energy stores of ancestral animals were used to sustain those physiological system--more vital to survival than muslce tone--amid periods of prolonged inactivity, rest, or food privation. When the brain becomes active amid sleep, it does what it has evolved to do, which is interpret what has aroused its function. That interpretation is what we recall as dreams upon arousal from sleep. More precisely, dreams are how our waking-state brain interpret the residual effects of our brain's activation amid sleep. Dreams are how our waking brain interprets what it believes it experienced amid sleep. The next obvious question is, are dreams meaningful? Dreaming is an unconscious experience; therefore, dreams are interpretations of unconscious experience. Essentially, dreams interpret something we believe we've experienced unconsciously. As an experience that occurs wholly within the brain, dreaming is also a mental experience. Therefore, dreams are likely interpretations of unconscious mental experiences. Dream memories appear to be the product of a waking-state mind that has become consciously aware of something that has had an unconscious mental affect on its properties. I hope this helps.

[Appolinaria]

Although psychology provides no clear answer, neuroscience comes close. Dreaming is a byproduct of activations in the brain that occurs at the onset of atonia, which is the release of muscle tone. There is evidence which suggests that these activations, amid atonia, are vestiages of a period in brain evolution when the energy stores of ancestral animals were used to sustain those physiological system--more vital to survival than muslce tone--amid periods of prolonged inactivity, rest, or food privation. When the brain becomes active amid sleep, it does what it has evolved to do, which is interpret what has aroused its function. That interpretation is what we recall as dreams upon arousal from sleep. More precisely, dreams are how our waking-state brain interpret the residual effects of our brain's activation amid sleep. Dreams are how our waking brain interprets what it believes it experienced amid sleep. The next obvious question is, are dreams meaningful? Dreaming is an unconscious experience; therefore, dreams are interpretations of unconscious experience. Essentially, dreams interpret something we believe we've experienced unconsciously. As an experience that occurs wholly within the brain, dreaming is also a mental experience. Therefore, dreams are likely interpretations of unconscious mental experiences. Dream memories appear to be the product of a waking-state mind that has become consciously aware of something that has had an unconscious mental affect on its properties. I hope this helps.

 

yes, very informative. i was curious about the neurological aspects tied to dreaming. thank you for taking the time to write a response, very helpful.