Stasis
Bluelight Crew
A few weeks ago a friend of mine was in a bind and needed to write a five page paper for school. This was an extra credit paper and if she did well on it she could possibly salvage a 'B' in the class (had a 'C' at the time). She hounded me to help her write it and I finally caved, and ended up writing the whole thing, lol. So here it is, she scored an 'A' on the paper and squeezed a 'B' out of the class. 
What Are Dreams?
I observe myself, as though from a distance. I appear to be standing in a pitch black room shivering to the coldness, standing in front of a dark brown box that was large enough to fit an adult body. I moved closer as if it were calling for me, suddenly realizing it is an empty coffin. There is a flash of light. Next thing I know I'm sitting up in my bed, looking around, slowly adjusting to reality. Why did I dream about this coffin? What does it mean? Was it trying to tell me something? Or was the dream truly void of any real meaning at all?
So what are dreams? What do these dreams mean? According to Sigmund Freud’s dream theories, he believed that nothing we did occurred by chance; every action and thought is motivated by our unconscious at some level. Freud claimed to understand the symbolic nature of dreams and believes dreams were a direct connection to our unconscious mind. He believed that when humans are asleep their guard is lowered and the unconscious has the opportunity to act out and express its hidden desire.
But what causes dreams? Why do we have them at all? Is there really hidden desire embedded in these dreams, or is there sometimes no meaning at all? Modern biology may show that the theories of Freud are perhaps improbable. Science tells us that our brain works like a computer, passing information back and forth as it processes information collected during our day. When humans are asleep, the brain then scans this data, organizes it and re-files the information where it belongs. While our brains are firing the neurons involved in this reorganization, bits and pieces of this information are rapidly moving from one area of the brain to another. As these bits and pieces move, the images attached to them may combine to form a visual scenario, or “dream”. They may not always form a clear picture to the observer, but often it will form in a way as to create a surreal scenario that can have a profound effect on the dreamer, if, they remember it. This random passing of data may explain why sometimes we have very complex and lucid dreams, and sometimes the dreams don’t make any sense at all. In this view, dreams are the result of the random firing of neurons as the sleeping brain processes the information used in our waking hours. Instead of dreams being the result of our hidden desires, they are perhaps scripted by brain chemistry and the defragmentation of personal data.
According to J. Allan Hobson, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, this is exactly what is happening. After four decades of research into sleep and dreaming, Hobson theorizes that what is happening in the brain during a dream is akin to what is happening to an awake person during a state of delirium or psychosis, that they are basically hallucinating (Pisano, 1). In his research, he has determined that during REM sleep, the frontal lobes, which integrate information, are shut down, and the brain is driven by its emotional center. The significance of this finding is that if dream content was truly defined by unconscious wishes and hidden desires, the frontal lobes would have to be active. It is called REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep because our eye muscles do not become paralyzed. Researchers have speculated that nature did not bother to develop a mechanism to paralyze our eye muscles during sleep simply because eye movement is a kind of gratuitous detail, that it doesn’t have much impact on the dreamers. REM sleep has often been equated solely with the state of dreaming, but this is not the case. Humans dream throughout sleep, not just during REM, which the brain cycles through about four to six times a night. But REM sleep itself does have an impact on the dreams themselves. REM dreams tend to be overall more emotional and memorable than non-REM ones, probably due to the swift change in brain chemistry, including a steep drop in serotonin and norepinephrine levels and an increase in acetylcholine, which stimulates nerve cells while relaxing muscles. The changes in brain chemistry during these cycles are so pronounced, it is as if we are functioning with a different brain altogether (Neimark, 2). It is this different brain that Hobson says is in a state of psychosis. It is here that we are having delusions, seeing things that aren’t there, feeling as if we’re moving when we’re not. Only rarely are we aware enough to know that we are dreaming, same as when someone is delusional. This happens because waking and sleeping are ruled by almost completely different chemical systems. (Pisano, 2) "It's related to being unable to concentrate," Hobson explains. "You can't pay attention in dreams. By the time you've noticed the picture, the scene has changed from a museum to your grandmother's house. But you don't say to yourself, 'that shouldn't be happening' or 'that's an interesting scene; I think I'll go have a closer look at it.' Insight is nonexistent-precisely like being crazy." (Perrone)
In light of this new research, we must now ask the question, do dreams really have any meaning? In the world of psychology, scientists seem to be divided on the subject. On one side we have a number of prominent scientists who contend that we dream for physiological reasons alone and that dreams are essentially mental nonsense devoid of meaning, and on the other side we have a group of scientists who lean towards the Freudian view that we dream for psychological reasons and that dreams always contain important information about the self. If the latter side is correct, we must ask an importation question, “Why don’t we always remember our dreams when we awaken?” Dream and sleep studies have shown that when a subject is awoken during the middle of an REM cycle, they are more likely to be able to recall details of the dream, but if they are allowed to continue to sleep beyond REM cycles, they typically wake up with no recollection of any dream whatsoever. So if our dreams are important, meaning filled products of our unconscious mind, meant to reveal to us some insight into our own lives, why isn’t it that important that we be able to recall them clearly? This shouldn’t automatically mean that our hidden desires and wishes aren’t sometimes exploited in our dreams, but it should lend a reluctance to assume that our hidden desires and wishes are what cause them. If that were the case, we would expect to awake almost everyday with clear recollection of the dreams and be able to find some sort of life-guiding message within them.
So next we may ask, if dreams are merely the by-product of REM sleep, why do we even have REM sleep? The answer to this may lie in our ability to learn. Further dream studies have shown that there is a direct connection between REM sleep and learning and memory. Evidence for this is found in an extensive body of research which discovered that when a subject is challenged to learning tasks that require significant concentration or the acquisition of unfamiliar skills, their subsequent amount of REM sleep is greatly increased. Furthermore, if a subject is presented with learning a new, challenging skill, their ability to repeat this skill is greatly reduced if they are deprived from REM sleep. Boston psychiatrists Dr. Ramon Greenberg and Dr. Chester Pearlman tested this notion by performing numerous such learning experiments on rats; afterwards they concluded that REM sleep "appears in species that show increasing abilities to assimilate unusual information into the nervous system." They suggest that the evolutionary development of the dream state "has made possible the increasingly flexible use of information in the mammalian family. That this process occurs during sleep seems to fit with current thinking about programming and reprogramming of information processing systems. Thus, several authors have pointed out the advantage of a separate mechanism for reprogramming the brain in order to avoid interference with ongoing functions." (LaBerge)
In conclusion, if we can determine through the evidence uncovered in recent years that dreams are merely a by-product of REM sleep, and REM sleep is a necessary function of the brain developed through natural selection, it would seem that the only meaning that can be found in dreams is perhaps the personal significance that a dream would have to the dreamer. This, of course is dependant upon the off chance that they were able to successfully recall that dream. For one person who has recently had a dream where they were flying, it could signify that they secretly wish to travel around the world, but for another, it could simply be that flying is the easiest way to move about the dream world. Whether or not either dream has any real meaning is left solely to the interpreter. For someone to assume that the similar details of each individual’s dream will always imply the same message universally, would deny that each individual leads a different life with different situations, and assert that there is an underlying truth to all dreams. Based on what we now know about the brain and its physiology, perhaps we could simply tell them, as our parents told us when we were children, “Relax, it was only a dream.”
I observe myself, as though from a distance. I appear to be standing in a pitch black room shivering to the coldness, standing in front of a dark brown box that was large enough to fit an adult body. I moved closer as if it were calling for me, suddenly realizing it is an empty coffin. There is a flash of light. Next thing I know I'm sitting up in my bed, looking around, slowly adjusting to reality. Why did I dream about this coffin? What does it mean? Was it trying to tell me something? Or was the dream truly void of any real meaning at all?
So what are dreams? What do these dreams mean? According to Sigmund Freud’s dream theories, he believed that nothing we did occurred by chance; every action and thought is motivated by our unconscious at some level. Freud claimed to understand the symbolic nature of dreams and believes dreams were a direct connection to our unconscious mind. He believed that when humans are asleep their guard is lowered and the unconscious has the opportunity to act out and express its hidden desire.
But what causes dreams? Why do we have them at all? Is there really hidden desire embedded in these dreams, or is there sometimes no meaning at all? Modern biology may show that the theories of Freud are perhaps improbable. Science tells us that our brain works like a computer, passing information back and forth as it processes information collected during our day. When humans are asleep, the brain then scans this data, organizes it and re-files the information where it belongs. While our brains are firing the neurons involved in this reorganization, bits and pieces of this information are rapidly moving from one area of the brain to another. As these bits and pieces move, the images attached to them may combine to form a visual scenario, or “dream”. They may not always form a clear picture to the observer, but often it will form in a way as to create a surreal scenario that can have a profound effect on the dreamer, if, they remember it. This random passing of data may explain why sometimes we have very complex and lucid dreams, and sometimes the dreams don’t make any sense at all. In this view, dreams are the result of the random firing of neurons as the sleeping brain processes the information used in our waking hours. Instead of dreams being the result of our hidden desires, they are perhaps scripted by brain chemistry and the defragmentation of personal data.
According to J. Allan Hobson, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, this is exactly what is happening. After four decades of research into sleep and dreaming, Hobson theorizes that what is happening in the brain during a dream is akin to what is happening to an awake person during a state of delirium or psychosis, that they are basically hallucinating (Pisano, 1). In his research, he has determined that during REM sleep, the frontal lobes, which integrate information, are shut down, and the brain is driven by its emotional center. The significance of this finding is that if dream content was truly defined by unconscious wishes and hidden desires, the frontal lobes would have to be active. It is called REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep because our eye muscles do not become paralyzed. Researchers have speculated that nature did not bother to develop a mechanism to paralyze our eye muscles during sleep simply because eye movement is a kind of gratuitous detail, that it doesn’t have much impact on the dreamers. REM sleep has often been equated solely with the state of dreaming, but this is not the case. Humans dream throughout sleep, not just during REM, which the brain cycles through about four to six times a night. But REM sleep itself does have an impact on the dreams themselves. REM dreams tend to be overall more emotional and memorable than non-REM ones, probably due to the swift change in brain chemistry, including a steep drop in serotonin and norepinephrine levels and an increase in acetylcholine, which stimulates nerve cells while relaxing muscles. The changes in brain chemistry during these cycles are so pronounced, it is as if we are functioning with a different brain altogether (Neimark, 2). It is this different brain that Hobson says is in a state of psychosis. It is here that we are having delusions, seeing things that aren’t there, feeling as if we’re moving when we’re not. Only rarely are we aware enough to know that we are dreaming, same as when someone is delusional. This happens because waking and sleeping are ruled by almost completely different chemical systems. (Pisano, 2) "It's related to being unable to concentrate," Hobson explains. "You can't pay attention in dreams. By the time you've noticed the picture, the scene has changed from a museum to your grandmother's house. But you don't say to yourself, 'that shouldn't be happening' or 'that's an interesting scene; I think I'll go have a closer look at it.' Insight is nonexistent-precisely like being crazy." (Perrone)
In light of this new research, we must now ask the question, do dreams really have any meaning? In the world of psychology, scientists seem to be divided on the subject. On one side we have a number of prominent scientists who contend that we dream for physiological reasons alone and that dreams are essentially mental nonsense devoid of meaning, and on the other side we have a group of scientists who lean towards the Freudian view that we dream for psychological reasons and that dreams always contain important information about the self. If the latter side is correct, we must ask an importation question, “Why don’t we always remember our dreams when we awaken?” Dream and sleep studies have shown that when a subject is awoken during the middle of an REM cycle, they are more likely to be able to recall details of the dream, but if they are allowed to continue to sleep beyond REM cycles, they typically wake up with no recollection of any dream whatsoever. So if our dreams are important, meaning filled products of our unconscious mind, meant to reveal to us some insight into our own lives, why isn’t it that important that we be able to recall them clearly? This shouldn’t automatically mean that our hidden desires and wishes aren’t sometimes exploited in our dreams, but it should lend a reluctance to assume that our hidden desires and wishes are what cause them. If that were the case, we would expect to awake almost everyday with clear recollection of the dreams and be able to find some sort of life-guiding message within them.
So next we may ask, if dreams are merely the by-product of REM sleep, why do we even have REM sleep? The answer to this may lie in our ability to learn. Further dream studies have shown that there is a direct connection between REM sleep and learning and memory. Evidence for this is found in an extensive body of research which discovered that when a subject is challenged to learning tasks that require significant concentration or the acquisition of unfamiliar skills, their subsequent amount of REM sleep is greatly increased. Furthermore, if a subject is presented with learning a new, challenging skill, their ability to repeat this skill is greatly reduced if they are deprived from REM sleep. Boston psychiatrists Dr. Ramon Greenberg and Dr. Chester Pearlman tested this notion by performing numerous such learning experiments on rats; afterwards they concluded that REM sleep "appears in species that show increasing abilities to assimilate unusual information into the nervous system." They suggest that the evolutionary development of the dream state "has made possible the increasingly flexible use of information in the mammalian family. That this process occurs during sleep seems to fit with current thinking about programming and reprogramming of information processing systems. Thus, several authors have pointed out the advantage of a separate mechanism for reprogramming the brain in order to avoid interference with ongoing functions." (LaBerge)
In conclusion, if we can determine through the evidence uncovered in recent years that dreams are merely a by-product of REM sleep, and REM sleep is a necessary function of the brain developed through natural selection, it would seem that the only meaning that can be found in dreams is perhaps the personal significance that a dream would have to the dreamer. This, of course is dependant upon the off chance that they were able to successfully recall that dream. For one person who has recently had a dream where they were flying, it could signify that they secretly wish to travel around the world, but for another, it could simply be that flying is the easiest way to move about the dream world. Whether or not either dream has any real meaning is left solely to the interpreter. For someone to assume that the similar details of each individual’s dream will always imply the same message universally, would deny that each individual leads a different life with different situations, and assert that there is an underlying truth to all dreams. Based on what we now know about the brain and its physiology, perhaps we could simply tell them, as our parents told us when we were children, “Relax, it was only a dream.”
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