What Dreams Are Made Of
Tuesday, September 25, 2007 Filed in: People
What do you remember of dreams? Falling, being
chased, standing completely naked, are a few of the
common dreams.
In reality, scientists don't know much about the reason for dreams, which appear to be a series of intense visions, images on parade, some of which are familiar, some are not.
Throughout the waking day we are multi-conscious. There's what we see and acknowledge, what we see and are not conscious of, what we are thinking while we go about our business, and what runs sub-conscious while we go about our business.
Dreams tend to reflect both conscious and sub-conscious events in a mildly entertaining, often disjointed way. Dreams were once seen as messages from the gods. In some cultures dreams are considered prophetic.
If so, then the world is in for a shock as many of us will be running with no clothes on, running very slowly from some deep, dark dread that gets our hearts pumping but that only wants to share a cup of coffee.
Sigmund Freud theorized that dreams were an expression of conscious desires from childhood. Modern science has determined that sleep has distinct patterns and phases, some with intense brain activity during the REM, or rapid eye movement period.
I'm not with Freud. He would really enjoy some of my dreams, most of which involve past girlfriends and require me to wake up too early. Harvard's Allan Hobson proposed that dreams were random firings in the brain. They just happen.
That's not a good explanation for dream researchers looking for government grants to continue the "mysterious origin" of dreams. After all, why study what is nothing more than meaningless nocturnal firings in the brain.
It would be more beneficial to study President Bush's brain.
Wait. Same thing.
In reality, scientists don't know much about the reason for dreams, which appear to be a series of intense visions, images on parade, some of which are familiar, some are not.
Throughout the waking day we are multi-conscious. There's what we see and acknowledge, what we see and are not conscious of, what we are thinking while we go about our business, and what runs sub-conscious while we go about our business.
Dreams tend to reflect both conscious and sub-conscious events in a mildly entertaining, often disjointed way. Dreams were once seen as messages from the gods. In some cultures dreams are considered prophetic.
If so, then the world is in for a shock as many of us will be running with no clothes on, running very slowly from some deep, dark dread that gets our hearts pumping but that only wants to share a cup of coffee.
Sigmund Freud theorized that dreams were an expression of conscious desires from childhood. Modern science has determined that sleep has distinct patterns and phases, some with intense brain activity during the REM, or rapid eye movement period.
I'm not with Freud. He would really enjoy some of my dreams, most of which involve past girlfriends and require me to wake up too early. Harvard's Allan Hobson proposed that dreams were random firings in the brain. They just happen.
That's not a good explanation for dream researchers looking for government grants to continue the "mysterious origin" of dreams. After all, why study what is nothing more than meaningless nocturnal firings in the brain.
It would be more beneficial to study President Bush's brain.
Wait. Same thing.
