Dreams causing real injuries?

[Phi for All]

Obviously there’s no scientific proof to this intriguing account, but it’s not too far-fetched considering what we already know about the power of the brain over the body.'

This is classically written to manipulate, stating a truth to begin ("no scientific proof") so you feel you might trust the statement, then moves on to a gross and vague assumption ("what we already know") that attempts to lend authority to the questionable statement ("the power of the brain over the body"). No protocols typical of even the least rigorous experiments were followed.

 

Trusting these anecdotes as supportive evidence is the equivalent of leaving the magician alone with the locked box, then assuming he must really be magic when you re-enter to find the box open. We shouldn't do science this way.

[Ophiolite]

The only logical conclusion is that you are a prophet.

I thought this was a not-for-profit forum.

[BlueSpike]

You still haven't explained how the girl got a black eye, swelling, and injuries consistent with being hit with a stick, after dreaming that she was hit in that area with a stick.

Read my OP.

[Acme]

You still haven't explained how the girl got a black eye, swelling, and injuries consistent with being hit with a stick, after dreaming that she was hit in that area with a stick.

Read my OP.

Yes; we have. She hit herself in the head. Whether by thrashing about and hitting her head on a part of the bed or having some object in her hand which she used to strike her head, the wound was self-inflicted. Neither does it matter if she was asleep or awake when the injury occurred.

[BlueSpike]

if your mind truly believes you are being injured it could possibly create the effects of the injury...the mind is capable of amazing things and I have heard stories of people with PTSD who undergo hypnotherapy to re-create their traumatic events and end up experiencing actual physical injuries due to the sheer belief that they are living through it again.

[ACG52]

 

 

I have heard stories

Stories are all you have.

[BlueSpike]

When you're having a bad dream, your heart rate speeds up. You also breathe fast after dreaming you've almost drowned. Why couldn't the brain also cause physical effects such as scratch marks, burn wounds, swelling etc?

 

Look up the nocebo effect and the Japanese poison ivy study.

There are a few NCIBI articles on hypnosis and blister formation too.

Edited April 4, 2014 by BlueSpike

[Phi for All]

if your mind truly believes you are being injured it could possibly create the effects of the injury...the mind is capable of amazing things and I have heard stories of people with PTSD who undergo hypnotherapy to re-create their traumatic events and end up experiencing actual physical injuries due to the sheer belief that they are living through it again.

 

This is just wishful thinking. There's nothing that supports this other than random anecdotes. Don't you think if this were possible that we'd be seeing a LOT more of it? And if we saw a LOT more of it, somebody(s) would set up a double-blind experiment to gather some data. This is the kind of support you need to move from wishful thinking to trustworthy explanation. You're just assuming it's possible because "the mind is capable of amazing things", but it isn't capable of changing physics.

 

The mind doesn't create the bruise. Trauma to the area is the trigger for the body's responses. Contusions are broken capillaries that bleed into the surrounding tissue, the brain has nothing to do with the process. There is no mechanism for the brain by itself to create physical trauma consistent with bruising, other than manipulating your other body parts to do it.

 

Does that make sense? The mind is capable of a lot, but it has no mechanism to affect the body physically like that. It can affect your heart rate and respiration because it's wired into those systems.

[Acme]

When you're having a bad dream, your heart rate speeds up. You also breathe fast after dreaming you've almost drowned. Why couldn't the brain also cause physical effects such as scratch marks, burn wounds, swelling etc?

 

Look up the nocebo effect and the Japanese poison ivy study.

There are a few NCIBI articles on hypnosis and blister formation too.

Stop telling us to look up the Japanese study. As I said before, the onus is on you to give a link and quote from it what you think supports your thesis.

 

PS Besides physical trauma, some animal venoms are capable of causing bruising.

Edited April 4, 2014 by Acme

[Endy0816]

That study has been referenced a lot online but there's no report available anyone has been able to find. Was supposedly leaves from the Japanese Lacquer Tree, if anyone is interested in making the attempt.

Edited April 4, 2014 by Endy0816

[Phi for All]

You still haven't explained how the girl got a black eye, swelling, and injuries consistent with being hit with a stick, after dreaming that she was hit in that area with a stick.

Read my OP.

 

It's been explained several times. It's most likely that she hit herself while dreaming, which caused her dreams to match the pattern of the trauma, making up a man who hit her. Her husband was up late, it was 2am, and he says he first heard her crying. He could have nodded off himself, was woken up by the sound of his wife twitching in her sleep and hitting herself. His first conscious recollection is that he's been awake and now hears his wife crying. He assumes her dream caused the bruise because he didn't observe her hitting herself.

 

Occam's Razor. This is much more probable than the mind magically creating a laceration or contusion with no outside stimuli.

[BlueSpike]

Here is the link to the famous Japanese Poison ivy study. It is considered by many proof the mind can cause injury. (A.K.A, the '' Nocebo Effect '' where the brain is tricked into thinking it will be harmed, so the brain creates those injuries to compensate. )

 

http://www.thrivingnow.com/nocebo-effect/

Edited April 5, 2014 by BlueSpike

[John Cuthber]

OK, so the brain has direct links to the heart (via the vagus nerve IIRC) and so it's clear how it can affect heart rate.

Pain is only experienced in the brain. For example, heroin is a more effective pain killer than morphine because ti does a better job of reaching the brain.

So, the brain, as the origin of the perception of pain, is able to block that perception.

 

So, in order to explain that Japanese study, we need a means by which the brains of these children could affect the physical condition of the skin.

 

OK, that's called scratching.

 

Is there any evidence which actually stands up to scrutiny?

[BlueSpike]

There's several other nocebo studies which do not tell of the method by which the brain affects things such as the bronchus (they made asthmatic people have asthma attacks by telling them water vapor was an irritant)

Most scientists accept the nocebo as a fact.

When you look at the studies of the nocebo effect (aside from simple pain studies), it would appear as if the brain is telekinetically affecting the physical body.

Most doctors agree that stigmata can be best explained by the mind causing those injuries or that the person injured themselves via a physical method.

 

There was a case where a man was diagnosed with cancer, mis-diagnosed actually. a few months later he died of cancer-like symptoms!!

 

Notable cases[edit]

Though cases within aboriginal societies are the most commonly cited when researchers, such as Cannon, set forth examples, voodoo, or psychosomatic, death can occur in nearly any place, to anyone.

In his 1964 article, James L. Mathis, MD, describes a case of a previously healthy man who died from asthmatic attacks when his mother "cursed" him for going against her wishes. Mathis proposes that "fatal psychosomatic conditions" were the cause of this man's death, and thus a form of voodoo death.^[13]

Another scientist—Clifton K. Meador, MD—in 1992 discussed the case of a man diagnosed with cancer who, along with his physicians and family, believed he was dying of cancer. In the autopsy after his death, however, the doctors discovered that his cancer was not at all the cause of his death. Meador deduces that the man's belief in his imminent death was the cause of his death itself.^[14]

Edited April 5, 2014 by BlueSpike

[John Cuthber]

"Most scientists accept the nocebo as a fact."

Yes, OK it is.

It has established mechanisms.

They involve systems where the brain has a direct link to the outcome.

For example, the brain has neural paths to the lungs and can influence bronchoconstriction there. So asthma can be modulated by placebos and nocebos.

 

"When you look at the studies of the nocebo effect (aside from simple pain studies), it would appear as if the brain is telekinetically affecting the physical body."

No, it's not "telekinesis" it's straightforward nerve transmission.

 

"Most doctors agree that stigmata can be best explained by the mind causing those injuries or that the person injured themselves via a physical method."

Yes. There are two possible causes there and, for some reason, you have lumped them together.

They putative causes are

"the mind causing those injuries"

and

"the person injured themselves via a physical method."

Doubtless most doctors think one of those is responsible for the injuries.

But do you not see that the vast majority of doctors would think it's more likely to be the second reason (for which there's a simple credible mechanism), rather than the first (for which no mechanism exists)?

 

"previously healthy man who died from asthmatic attacks when his mother "cursed" him for going against her wishes."
so, a man got asthma and unfortunately, died.

Shit happens.

So what?

 

A few anecdotes don't prove anything.

[chadn737]

Here is the link to the famous Japanese Poison ivy study. It is considered by many proof the mind can cause injury. (A.K.A, the '' Nocebo Effect '' where the brain is tricked into thinking it will be harmed, so the brain creates those injuries to compensate. )

 

http://www.thrivingnow.com/nocebo-effect/

 

This is not a study. What Journal was it published in? Where is the data? This is pseudoscientific nonsense.

[Phi for All]

Another scientist—Clifton K. Meador, MD—in 1992 discussed the case of a man diagnosed with cancer who, along with his physicians and family, believed he was dying of cancer. In the autopsy after his death, however, the doctors discovered that his cancer was not at all the cause of his death. Meador deduces that the man's belief in his imminent death was the cause of his death itself.^[14]

 

If you follow this anecdote back far enough, you'll find that it's really in reference to the psychological trauma felt by some upon learning they're about to die. The mind is responsible, but only in that it follows mechanisms the body actually has, such as causing acute depression so the subject stops sleeping, eating and hydrating, making them subject to all kinds of illness from which they are now too weak to recover.

 

So the mind doesn't cause the actual fatal trauma directly, but rather uses a physical system already in place that achieves the same end. BUT, no such physical system exists that could cause wounds consistent with trauma like being beaten with a stick.

 

This reminds me of a discussion about those ionic foot baths where they have electrodes in the water running a mild electrical current that's supposed to detoxify the body. The water turns reddish brown from the electrolysis, but they claim it's "toxins" being somehow pulled out through the soles of your feet. Trivially refuted by showing that you don't need to stick your feet in for the water to turn yucky, but the real point is that the body has no mechanism for removing anything through your feet, except some skin cells.

[Acme]

snip...

This reminds me of a discussion about those ionic foot baths where they have electrodes in the water running a mild electrical current that's supposed to detoxify the body. The water turns reddish brown from the electrolysis, but they claim it's "toxins" being somehow pulled out through the soles of your feet. Trivially refuted by showing that you don't need to stick your feet in for the water to turn yucky, but the real point is that the body has no mechanism for removing anything through your feet, except some skin cells.

This reminds me of the film Road to Wellville* where the guy gets electrocuted in a similar 'health apparatus'. The movie well makes the point of how gullible people are, especially under the influence of perceived [scientific] authority.

 

...Will goes along but is constantly filled with doubts about Kellogg's health methods. While he takes part in the therapy, he gags at health food, does not enjoy the laughing therapy, and watches as his friend Homer Praetz is electrocuted during a sinusoidal bath. Meanwhile, his wife Eleanor finds too much enjoyment at the sanitarium, especially at the hands of Dr. Spitzvogel, a doctor who practices Die Handhabung Therapeutikor in common parlance, erotic massage. ...

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Wellville

[BlueSpike]

you still havent explained how in the Japanese poison ivy study, those who were exposed to the skin a harmless plant (they were blindfolded and told it was the poison ivy) had that arm (and that arm only!) flare up with hives!

If the skin isn't linked to the brain how can it cause hives...limited to only one arm?!

[John Cuthber]

you still havent explained how in the Japanese poison ivy study,

Yes I did.

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/82516-dreams-causing-real-injuries/?p=799821

Edited April 5, 2014 by John Cuthber

[BlueSpike]

what do you think? how is it possible that those allergic to the ivy did not react when told it was a harmless plant instead?

How does the mind somehow prevent the antigens from binding to the mast cell receptors?

Edited April 5, 2014 by BlueSpike

[John Cuthber]

what do you think? how is it possible that those allergic to the ivy did not react when told it was a harmless plant instead?

How does the mind somehow prevent the antigens from binding to the mast cell receptors?

You seem to have missed the important part of what I wrote.

Here it is again.

"So, in order to explain that Japanese study, we need a means by which the brains of these children could affect the physical condition of the skin.

OK, that's called scratching."

[BlueSpike]

but couldnt the brain compensate by releasing histamine to that specific arm?

[John Cuthber]

It could do all sorts of complicated things, or the kids scratched the arm that they expected to be itchy and that caused the effect.

Can you rule out that obvious explanation?

[BlueSpike]

I'm just wondering if it's possible.

I know some people get hives when stressed but it isn't localized to a specific part of the body

How does the nocebo effect even work anyway? people say it's due to expectation/suggestion but that doesn't explain the mechanism.

Edited April 5, 2014 by BlueSpike