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The Myth of Dreams

Steve Jefferson said:
The stuff you said about Gestalten is extremely interesting, although I don't really know why intellectuals like to use German words for simple concepts. A Gestalt is a figure or shape or (at a stretch) a formation.
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Um - because nobody speaks Latin anymore? What I wonder is, what do the poor German translators do when translating? Render the word back into English?
[
What did you mean about these fairies being real? Who was John Connolly? I'm working with a bloke of that name on a project in Scotland at the moment and I can't think why anyone would want to take a shot at him.
:(
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Fairies: That's what Frances said when she was old and was asked about the photographs after Elsie died. According to her story, they used to see the fairies regularly, but the grownups wouldn't believe them. So they hoaxed the photos, the plan being to get the grownups to accept them and then say: "But there aren't any fairies" - basically showing the adults exactly how dumb they are. However, the adults fell for them so spectacularly that there was never a good time for the punch line. I *like* this story better than the alternatives, not only because I believe in fairies (more or less), but because it's so layered.

John Connally: Sorry, I'm used to people having the broad details of the JFK assassination in their general database, which is not necessarily true outside the US. Connally was governer of Texas and commandant of marines, the man sitting next to JFK in the motorcade and the other person struck by the "magic bullet." The theory that Oswald was aiming for him was put forward by one of the secret service men in the motorcade who was interviewed for an anniversary story a few years, and I fell in love with it at once. Oswald, the failed marine, arguably had more cause to shoot at Connally than Kennedy - and it's *so* completely in character for him to screw up in this spectacular fashion. Speaking as a writer, it's thematically wrong for Oswald, the archetypal loser, to become famous for something he actually intended to do.

As you see, evidence has little to do with this process. Belief is prompted by my sense of story, and I'd never try to convince anybody of my preferred scenarios. I only do it with things that aren't provable one way or another anyway.

As you'd expect given where I live, I have a terrific Alamo narrative, too, based partly on history, partly on folklore, partly on a disputed diary, and partly on a story told by a woman who also claimed to be over 100 years old. If you're going to tell a myth, give people something to sink their teeth into, I say.

And that's as far off-topic as I'm going right now.
 
JerryB said:
Hmm, aren't we studying the nuts and bolt of dreaming here? As far as I'm concerned, the mechanisms that are possibly concerned are a means to an end. The real meat of the situation is the dream experience itself
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I can't speak for anyone else, but I personally am mostly shooting off my mouth, discouraging people from pursuing lines of thought that don't fit my own experience. :) I suppose where you go with the original thought depends on whether you're interested in understanding brain mechanics or the dream as experience. Both are potentially fruitful topics.

My own dreams are distinctive experiences, separate from both physical activity and waking mental activity, and subject to the same processes once complete. You'd have to show me some good solid evidence that they didn't happen while I was asleep, and then I might not be able to believe the evidence because it would be so alien. As for what dreams are for, sometimes I think they're the royal road to the unconscious, sometimes I think they're a trivial byproduct of essential brain activities which we are physically incapable of perceiving, and sometimes I think that these two theories are not incompatible.

Beast, I've had those dreams of waking and starting my day only to discover that I'm still asleep many times, and they are so frustrating! One thing I've noticed that speeds the process is, that there's always some little giveaway. Once you've gotten up only to wake again a couple of times, start paying attention. Is anything in the wrong place? Are you walking around with your head tilted? Is the light wrong? Are you unable to accomplish anything in the bathroom? The sooner you recognize that you're dreaming, the earlier you can get to the next wakeup until you finally reach the real one.

Always assuming, of course, that the state we call waking is real...
 
Why Dream?

why do we dream? What are dreams?

ask an expert. Answer from, Scientific American:

expert answer

There was a whole article on dreaming in animals not long ago...one unexpected statement in that article was that dolphins apparently do not dream at all. IIRC, it has something to do with the fact they keep swimming around while they are asleep. :cool: Poor dolphins though. dreams are fun. Maybe their waking life is like a dream.
 
Some expert! Starts off by saying that he doesn't know the answer then goes on to put up an untestable theory:rolleyes:

Anyway, Jung and Freud; there's a pair! I would have thought that most educated people have binned most of their books by now. They have both been thoroughly discredited and represent no authority on any subject whatsoever.

I had a horrible dream last night. I dreamt I was awake all night. I woke up shattered!:eek:
 
Jung and Freud have been thoroughly discredited in some people's view... they both still have a significant following, especially Freud. Bear in mind that it was Freud who started off our understanding of the importance of the subconcious. I used to think his theories about childhood sexuality were completely craxy, but then I spent a day with my 7-year-old cousin and I'm not so sure anymore.
 
Talking in Sleep

Back to original question.

I sometimes talk in my sleep. Thought of this last weekend while on a road trip. Had a weird dream about garden gnomes frozen into the ice on a lake. Everyone in motel room was apparently woken up by me saying quite loudly "The gnome bandit has struck again!" or something of the sort. Supposedly I did not wake up while I said this. So does that not correlate dream, to dream state, rather than to a "invented upon waking" theory?

It still doesn't refute the solipsistic view but I have better projects to waste my time on than solipsism anyway



:rolleyes:
 
Perhaps dreams are the engine behind creativity?

Maybe the brain is constantly joining ideas together at random until one makes sense and then you have that "Eurika!" moment of invention. While asleep this process comes to the fore due to lack of other stimuli?
 
Dolphin REMless factoid

I found my source... article "What is Sleep" in the November 2003 Scientific American.
 
You might have a point with this business about talking in your sleep, actually. I'll have to think about that one. It certainly can't be dismissed out of hand.

I talked in my sleep once when I was about 11 or so. My mother heard me because I was making quite a racket. She came into the bedroom and found me ranting and raving in German. Fluent and flawless. Now the weird thing is that I'm Scottish and had never had any contact with Germans or the German language at that time.

I soon forgot all about it. But when I was 21 I was posted to Germany with the British Army. Within 3 months I had gained a qualification in colloquial German and after 6 months I passed the test for the highest qualification in that language with 100%. I now consider myself to be bilingual.

So did the dream gibbering have any significance or was I merely regurgitating something I'd heard on some war movie? I've learned other languages since but none of them came to me as easily as German.:confused:
 
There've been some cases in FT recently (or possibly just in the news section on the web site) about people changing accent following head injuries. I *think* there've been cases where people have even changed language, although that could be a false memory.

Past life experience perhaps? Knowledge being passed on in the genes? Was your mother a native german speaker - otherwise how did she know you were speaking it fluently?
 
Shug,

My mother is Scottish, but she learned German at school. Her brother is a German teacher so there was some familiarity of the language within their family.

Could be the result of a past life experience. I'm very open to that type of idea. I spent 10 years in Germany altogether and was always struck with a peculiar feeling of comfort and familiarity whilst there.

Gene memory - not possible. The only way that one could reasonable talk about memory in relation to genes is in the very limited, almost allegorical sense that any given genome is obviously (and tautologically) a 'memory' of a set of genes, which have thus far proved their survival potential by dint of the fact that they have survived to be represented in the individual being studied. Traits, such as a language, which are acquired during an individual's lifetime, are not reflected in the genes, which that individual passes on to its offspring. (With the possible, but unlikely exception of non-fatal injuries to the genes carried in eggs or sperm).

There is therefore very little chance of anything resembling racial memory being found in the human genome. I say very little because it is always possible that the ability to speak a particular language without impediment could have conveyed a major advantage on individuals in a given (and intolerant) group over an extended historical period. The ability to be able to produce the required vowels and consonants may well be gene related, being a function of the tongue, vocal tract, mouth formation etc. The ability to pronounce say the English "th" sound for example could be controlled by a particular gene only found in certain populations, although I have never heard that this is the case. These weird clicks and things that the South African Bushmen come out with may be an example of this. In such a case, it may be reasonable to talk about a racial memory or a racial predisposition in relation to the language in question.

The same type of racial memory could be present for other traits such as the ability to survive in certain climates or terrains or to extract a living from certain foodstuffs. Even in such cases, I would prefer not to use the term 'racial memory' or 'genetic memory' as it conjures up more esoteric ideas than one would wish to imply by the term.
:sceptic:
 
"(With the possible, but unlikely exception of non-fatal injuries to the genes carried in eggs or sperm)."

I can personally vouch for this ability. I have two traits passed onto me from my dad:

1) Immunity to Poison Ivy.
When he was in his teens my dad was burning leaves after they had cleaned out all of the poison ivy in the yard. He got covered in it inside and out and was in the hospital from it. He used to get poison ivy like anyone else, but ever since this incident he has been immune to it. He passed it onto me.

2) Two webbed toes.
Before I was born he was in a car accident and had one of his toes replaced with a plastic toe (bone) and they sowed the two toes together (the two on the right foot next to the big toe). They later healed so that they are webbed up to about 1/4 inch from the top. My two toes next to the big toe on my right foot are webbed all the way up to about 1/4 inch from the top. Those are the only two.

So yes, physical traits that are gained in life can be passed onto offspring. I doubt language would be passed on in this way though.
 
I'm not convinced that traits acquired during the lifetime can't be passed on (partly coz of examples like snap's), although I know mainstraim evolutionary theory is opposed to the idea (Laramckian inheritance I think its called). Maybe 'genetic memory' is wrong phrase to use.

As for sounds, all humans are born producing the full set of phonemes in their babble. Pretty quickly (possibly a matter of weeks, I can't remember), they start to only produce the phonemes they hear and seem to lose the ability to produce the remainder, as evidenced by our inability to make certain sounds in foreign language. Perhaps you have an ability to still produce those phonemes, but I wouldn't have thought that that would make it that much easier to learn a language.
 
Snap,

If what you say is correct then that's incredible. Shug is right about Darwinian orthodoxy and it's rejection of Lamarckian ideas about the heredity of acquired traits. It is difficult to imagine a mechanism whereby this could actually happen. I would probably still side with the orthodox camp even in the face of such apparent evidence of Lamarckism as your webbed toes represent.

I think orthodox scientist would probably not dismiss the evidence out of hand but that they would demand a stringent assessment of the facts. Your webbed toes are obviously the result of a genetic 'command' and as such, the particular gene responsible should be identifiable. This must either have come from your mother or father or alternatively it could be the result of damage that happened to one of the genes that would usually sit at that position on your genome either in their sperm/ova or whilst you were a small embryo.

To prove Lamarckian inheritance you would need to provide evidence that a) the gene that is causing your webbed toes is not present in any of your parents either as an active gene or an allele; b) that if it is present in your father's genome it was not present prior to the incident to which you alluded; c) that your own genome was not damaged when you were an embryo.

Pretty hard evidence to deliver, but I doubt if they'd bin the conventional theory without being able to conceive of a suitable mechanism and the ability to manipulate it at will.
:sceptic:
 
Ironically, Darwin was a Lamarckian in this sense. Evolution doesn't require either the existence or the absence of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Our understanding is that the mechanism of evolution is genetics and that genes aren't changed by life experience. I've come across various bits of anecdotal evidence for inheritance of acquired characteristics (can't recall anything right now, but Snap's examples are typical). I grant that we have no way of explaining it right now, although there have been attempts to propose a mechanism by which it could happen, such as the notion of morphic fields.

The trouble with theories of evolution is that they tend to get tied up in religious/political agendas. Lamarckian inheritance was pleasing to Communist ideals and it was accepted as fact for this reason: the resulting disasters can't have helped orthodoxy's willingness to accept it. The morphic field theory arose out of a particular scientist's Christian faith. Evolution has significant implications outside of science and therefore is hard to study dispassionately - scientists are human, after all.

But this is sooooooo off-topic, so I'll shut up now ;)
 
Shuggaroth said:
But this is sooooooo off-topic, so I'll shut up now ;)
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True. But, it's a good comment on the Lamarckian/ Darwinian Evolution debate and should be moved to one of those threads!
 
Well, it's true that people tend to drag religion and politics into the 'debate' (if that's what it still is) about evolution. But I don't think that this should distract us from the proven facts of the matter. I think the whole subject of evolution is very simple and seems almost tautological in its relentless, dispassionate simplicity.

Basically, a thing is able to replicate itself or to be replicated. This thing is a gene. The replication happens in the form of a copy of the gene being constructed. If the copy is accurate and is placed in the same environment as the gene, which is copied, then it is likely to produce the same results within that environment. If the copy is inaccurate then it is unlikely to produce anything of interest, but might occasionally produce something more interesting than the original gene. By 'interesting' I mean 'likely to be replicated.

Sometimes the environment in which a gene finds itself will change, which may mean that what the gene does, or what it produces makes it less apt to be replicated than it was in the original environment. In such a case, the chance of a flawed copy being equally, if not more likely to be replicated in the new environment is increased.

The tautological part of the argument is that what it amounts to is that what makes a given gene good is its propensity to become replicated. The genes most likely to be replicated are good.

I think that a gene should be defined as any segment of DNA that can be replicated, of any length, and that its environment should include all other segments of DNA in the same genome as well as the rest of the Universe.

All seems pretty straight forward to me.

If that all leaves a person feeling that there is no ultimate point to life then that's bad luck for them. It doesn't put them in a position to be able to reject the theory. Like I've pointed out elsewhere, whatever the truth is, remains the truth, regardless of what any one being or collection of beings, knows, or thinks or believes or forces anybody else to profess to believe.

We hear about these American fundamentalists who manage to have evolution removed from the curriculum in some states to be replaced by a legend from Middle Eastern desert tribes. Even if they manage to prevail for a million years, it does not alter anything about the ultimate truth of evolution - whatever that may be.

By the way, has anybody ever heard of a chap called Cairns-Smith? He came up with a brilliant theory of pre-organic evolution based on clay crystals, which eventually started to include organic molecules within their complex matrices, acting as scaffolding for the production of the first complex self replicating organic molecules, which then abandoned the clay crystals and went off to start life as we now know it.
 
Yep, I've heard of him (albeit in 'Paradigms Lost' rather than a proper scientific journal or anything). Fascinating theory, I rather liked it.

I don't believe in proven facts, there's always the possibility of new facts that undermine the old one. The issue with Lamarckian inheritance is whether or not information can be added to DNA by life experience (and indeed whether DNA/genetics is the *only* mechanism by which evolution occurs, as opposed to the only known one - information can be transmitted in any medium). The orthodox answer is that information can't be added, based, I believe, on such things as the failure of rats that had their tails chopped off to pass short or missing tails on to their offspring. but orthodoxy can be wrong. I think the anecdotal evidence is sufficient that we shouldn't write off the posibility.

But this discussion should really move into a different thread if its going to continue.
 
I once read about a lucid dream in which a moderen day man awoke in a hospital bed in the time of the crimean war. He had been injured and actually 'lived' an entire year or so in that time frame/other existance. Then one day he went to sleep, and instead of waking in the ward as usual he awoke in his own bed next to his wife. Of course only 8 hours or so real time had gone by. But then its all subjective, so whos to say whats real. For all we know we could all be bit players in someone elses dream ?
 
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