Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
-
- Posts: 429
- Joined: January 31st, 2020, 10:41 am
Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
Freud believed dreams expressed unconscious thought processes. His psychodynamic theory is less fashionable nowadays. But if dreams are an attempt to impose meaning, the meanings we impose must reflect the meanings and thought processes we utilise in our everyday lives. So perhaps we can learn something about ourselves from our dreams, even if not quite in the way Freud suggested.
-
- Posts: 499
- Joined: April 3rd, 2018, 9:23 am
- Contact:
Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
The neuroscience of sleep is indeed fascinating.
"Psychologists have suggested that the cortex tries to make sense of this internally generated random electrical activity in the same way as it does when you are awake (activation-synthesis theory)". -Wossname
There's certainly a lot of randomness and electrical activity during sleep. Perspective in dreams appears to have a first person point of view; the main dream character is invariably ourselves. So there might still be method to the madness of dreams. Dreaming is an almost solipsistic endeavour as you are the only conscious character in a dream.
"But if dreams are an attempt to impose meaning, the meanings we impose must reflect the meanings and thought processes we utilise in our everyday lives". -Wossname
After we wake up from sleep we can of course retroactively try to impose meaning on our dreams. But the way we just lose control and follow the dream narrative while we're sleeping resembles hypnosis and the reduction of free will.
-
- Posts: 429
- Joined: January 31st, 2020, 10:41 am
Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
Michael McMahon wrote: ↑March 26th, 2020, 5:23 am by Michael McMahon » Today, 9:23 am
After we wake up from sleep we can of course retroactively try to impose meaning on our dreams. But the way we just lose control and follow the dream narrative while we're sleeping resembles hypnosis and the reduction of free will.
Yes, control can be hard to achieve in dreams. The fun of lucid dreams (i.e. when you know it is a dream), is you can sometimes exert some control and have fun. I think that sometimes dreams may be about people you know or reflect things you have experienced. Unpleasant dreams may reflect unpleasantness or worries in your everyday life perhaps? This is for analysts.
Incidentally, external sources of stimulation can be picked up by the brain and be incorporated into dreams. I have heard of one therapy that is linked with lucid dreaming. If lights flash on the eyelids of someone in REM this can manifest in a dream. With repeated exposure, in time the dreamer becomes clued in to the fact that they are dreaming by these light flashes, and they can then try and exert control over the dream. It has been used to try and help some people suffering depression. A feeling of powerlessness can be associated with depression. Sufferers will sometimes be reluctant to take active steps to improve their situation because they believe efforts are doomed to failure and they can’t see the point. So - the thinking was that, if people can manage to take control sometimes over this aspect of their lives, (dreams), and influence things for the better there, maybe they will be encouraged to try and take control of other aspects of their lives. An interesting idea. I do not know if it proved successful.
-
- Posts: 499
- Joined: April 3rd, 2018, 9:23 am
- Contact:
Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
-
- Posts: 499
- Joined: April 3rd, 2018, 9:23 am
- Contact:
Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
- Mlw
- Posts: 256
- Joined: July 23rd, 2010, 5:03 am
- Favorite Philosopher: Augustine of Hippo
- Location: Stockholm, Sweden
- Contact:
Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
-
- Posts: 499
- Joined: April 3rd, 2018, 9:23 am
- Contact:
Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
-
- Posts: 429
- Joined: January 31st, 2020, 10:41 am
Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
Interesting stuff. Thanks for the link.
I think psychologists believe sleep serves at least two main functions:
Dream sleep might help restore the brain (increased neural activity results in increased blood flow, more oxygen or nutrients are delivered, there is an opportunity to replenish neurotransmitters used in the day etc.), and this is supported by studies of sleep deprivation showing impaired cognitive processing.
Deep or slow wave sleep (SWS) may help restore the body. This is supported by findings that people spend longer in SWS after periods of intense exercise, and more growth hormone is released in SWS which may help cell repair. The elderly, apparently, spend less time in SWS and so some have speculated that this may contribute to the physical decline associated with ageing (only speculation as far as I know).
The link with emotional processing is interesting and something which Freud would probably be unsurprised by.
Sleep probably serves a multitude of functions, since most of us spend so long doing it. It is linked with circadian rhythms (the 24 hour body clock), probably because we don’t see well in the dark (unlike some predators). The hormone melatonin usually increases at night making us sleepy (historically there was no point blundering around in the dark, and it was likely dangerous to do so).
Incidentally Michael many psychologists would agree with you that the brain does a lot of work subconsciously. Arguably conscious awareness occurs after this work has been done. Consider, if you can remember your mother’s maiden name (try it now), you don’t really know how you did it. It just pops out. You get the result of the process but the process itself is hidden from you.
I read somewhere that a chemist named Kekule was puzzling over the structure of benzene and daydreamed a snake eating its own tail, which helped him realise that the structure was circular. Whatever the truth of that, it is the case that brains are horribly complex things, and while scientists have made great strides in understanding them, I think here is still a long way to go.
Consciousness? Free-will? Two deep questions and I fear philosophers may be little wiser for all their years of wrangling. But that is part of the fun no?
- detail
- Posts: 171
- Joined: June 1st, 2019, 1:39 pm
Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
perceived states a different viewpoint and alters the aspects and perspectives of problems an encryption of data is certainly not contained
in dreaming more the processing of not consciously percieved information, that sometimes containes even lots of useless trash.
-
- Posts: 499
- Joined: April 3rd, 2018, 9:23 am
- Contact:
Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
-
- Posts: 499
- Joined: April 3rd, 2018, 9:23 am
- Contact:
Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
-
- Posts: 429
- Joined: January 31st, 2020, 10:41 am
Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
detail wrote: ↑March 29th, 2020, 12:26 pm detail » Yesterday, 5:26 pm
I think , that dreaming is some sort of data reorganization of already perceived information. Dreaming after freud is just the processing of subconscious brain information that somehow swithes to the consciousness during sleep. This data reorganization gives sometimes actual
perceived states a different viewpoint and alters the aspects and perspectives of problems an encryption of data is certainly not contained
in dreaming more the processing of not consciously percieved information, that sometimes containes even lots of useless trash.
There is support for your view of processing information in sleep. See:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articl ... xperiments
Michael, I agree we don’t always act rationally. I think that can be good sometimes and bad sometimes. I wouldn’t choose to be a Vulcan Spock. There is a thread on free will on the general philosophy section. “How can one rationally argue against free will?”
It is a tough one.
You are a product of your genes and environment. The combination of the two makes you who you are and affects the choices you make. So these things, arguably, cause you to behave in the ways that you do.
The problem is, how can something be free yet caused?
Yet this is what we want. Otherwise our behaviour is just random. I do what I do because of who I am.
It always seems to me that I make choices and could choose differently. If that is so, then I exercise my will. That is all it needs to be I think. At any rate, it is the best sense I can make of it. Some argue this sense of making a choice is an illusion. If it is it is a damn good one. The thread is quite a long and interesting one. I recommend a visit.
- Actioninmind23
- New Trial Member
- Posts: 9
- Joined: March 25th, 2020, 10:14 am
Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
That useless trash you refer to, I think is basically the information the brain contains upon the unrelated thought with abstract look that we perceived as unconsciousness, therefore the encryption or meaning of dreaming-thought is translated into a new reality, when we dream, normally we transform the reality that we live into the non-existent solved action, It is the fighting of the brain to solve the reality that we perceive awake,...that is what I think.detail wrote: ↑March 29th, 2020, 12:26 pm I think , that dreaming is some sort of data reorganization of already perceived information. Dreaming after freud is just the processing of subconscious brain information that somehow swithes to the consciousness during sleep. This data reorganization gives sometimes actual
perceived states a different viewpoint and alters the aspects and perspectives of problems an encryption of data is certainly not contained
in dreaming more the processing of not consciously percieved information, that sometimes containes even lots of useless trash.
-
- Posts: 499
- Joined: April 3rd, 2018, 9:23 am
- Contact:
Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
-
- Posts: 499
- Joined: April 3rd, 2018, 9:23 am
- Contact:
Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?
-Dr Karl Kruszelnicki
Sleep feels instantaneous. It's as if we mentally skip ahead 8 hours in time from the moment we fall asleep to the moment we wake up. So while our physical body remains stationary, our consciousness has essentially time travelled a few hours into the future!
2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023
Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023