![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
capri0mniA couple of weeks ago, on the radio, I heard an interview with a scientist talking about what dreams are for and what actually happens in our brains while we're dreaming.
...It turns out, about 70% of our dreams are sad/bad, and brain scans done while people are sleeping show something of the reasons for that, or at least, they show the mechanics of it.
Turns out that the limbic part of the brain, the part that processes emotion, is highly active, especially that part of the limbic system that deals with threats and fears, and our reasoning part of the brain is completely shut down. Also, that part of the visual cortex that interprets what we see is highly active, even though the part of the brain that takes in visual information is shut down. And since there's no logic happening, there's no editor saying: "No, hold on, your Aunt Matilda never did have three heads, or wings... You're probably just seeing a wierd shadow; look again, and get back to me."
The theory is, now, according to this interviewed scientist, since all mammals dream, this wierdness must help with our survival, somehow, and that it's some way of actually practice for ways to deal with threats and fears without actually putting ourselves in harm's way -- sort of like phobia therapy, where people get over their phobias by exposing themselves to it. Dreams may also work for our subconscious a bit like the liver works for our blood, filtering out those fears that aren't really important, so that we can concentrate on what is important in our waking lives.
The night before last (actually, it was well into the morning, since I was suffering from insomnia), as I was drifting off to sleep, I was having auditory hallucinations in my right ear, only. It wasn't like my usual, imagined voices, as when I'm daydreaming about fictional characters, and what they say to each other: I was physically hearing the voices in my right ear, and they were loud enough to drown out the radio I was trying to listen to with my left ear. FWIW, I was hearing a crowd -- like there was a party going on, and people were laughing and talking loudly to be heard over each other, and there might have been some spirited discussion (or three) going on, but I didn't recognize any particular voice as that of someone I knew, or make out what the general subject(s) of conversation might have been. It was a bit disconcerting, but it didn't particularly scare me, or anything, because I knew it wasn't real. And there weren't any fights or threats of violence, or anything; a good time was being had by all (And I was definitely awake, I've done enough lucid dreaming exercises to recognize that difference).
...But I guess now, I know where my story ideas come from: there's a crowded convention hall in the back left corner of my brain, three doors down, next to the snack bar.
When I finally did slip into real dreaming, we were in a spaceship that was also a suburban house, with paisley-patterned wall-paper and lace curtains on the windows, and we had a portable rocket engine, that, while cumbersome, could be carried from place to place as long as you had 4 to 6 strapping people to manuever it. We would steer by pointing it out the different windows of the house. And it somehow pulled us in that direction, rather than pushing us away from it...
And here's where the fear and that active limbic system comes in:
We had to make an emergency landing on the surface of a mostly volcanic planet-- what land masses there were were floating on the surface of flowing lava, and then, I spied what looked to be like a flat, grey, surface of granite, rising out of a lake. Just as I'm about to land on that stone, however, it turns out to be a shark who lunges up and tries to take a bite out of our ship... And then, I wake up for a second, before drifting back to sleep.
And here's where my limbic system shows its sense of humor: one of my crew members meets up with a little alien creature that's shaped just like a human hand: it's little legs are where the wrist would be, the face is in the "palm," and it has five appendages growing out of the top of its head, that are exactly like our five fingers. And it played a bamboo-like flute instrument on its "pinky." And it was rather friendly and nice.
I had another dream, this morning, that had sad/scary bits (revolving the death of an uncle that changed from something that happened decades ago to something that just happened recently), that somehow involved an epic battle between a dragon king and an ice queen, and ghosts and spirits living deep in the earth, and hauntings, and such, and it was all some tangled up with family politics and inheritance, and there was a black mourning wreath we were making, to hang over the door of the house, and I was defending my decision to decorate the wreath with pink and white dried flowers...
Frankly, If it's pretty much a given that 70% of our dreams are destined to be sad/bad, I vastly prefer those that at least show some imagination, and have me confronting dragon kings and alien lava sharks to those that simply leave me dealing with a lack of elevators, and doorways that are too narrow, you know?
And now, the poll:
[Poll #1175467]
...It turns out, about 70% of our dreams are sad/bad, and brain scans done while people are sleeping show something of the reasons for that, or at least, they show the mechanics of it.
Turns out that the limbic part of the brain, the part that processes emotion, is highly active, especially that part of the limbic system that deals with threats and fears, and our reasoning part of the brain is completely shut down. Also, that part of the visual cortex that interprets what we see is highly active, even though the part of the brain that takes in visual information is shut down. And since there's no logic happening, there's no editor saying: "No, hold on, your Aunt Matilda never did have three heads, or wings... You're probably just seeing a wierd shadow; look again, and get back to me."
The theory is, now, according to this interviewed scientist, since all mammals dream, this wierdness must help with our survival, somehow, and that it's some way of actually practice for ways to deal with threats and fears without actually putting ourselves in harm's way -- sort of like phobia therapy, where people get over their phobias by exposing themselves to it. Dreams may also work for our subconscious a bit like the liver works for our blood, filtering out those fears that aren't really important, so that we can concentrate on what is important in our waking lives.
The night before last (actually, it was well into the morning, since I was suffering from insomnia), as I was drifting off to sleep, I was having auditory hallucinations in my right ear, only. It wasn't like my usual, imagined voices, as when I'm daydreaming about fictional characters, and what they say to each other: I was physically hearing the voices in my right ear, and they were loud enough to drown out the radio I was trying to listen to with my left ear. FWIW, I was hearing a crowd -- like there was a party going on, and people were laughing and talking loudly to be heard over each other, and there might have been some spirited discussion (or three) going on, but I didn't recognize any particular voice as that of someone I knew, or make out what the general subject(s) of conversation might have been. It was a bit disconcerting, but it didn't particularly scare me, or anything, because I knew it wasn't real. And there weren't any fights or threats of violence, or anything; a good time was being had by all (And I was definitely awake, I've done enough lucid dreaming exercises to recognize that difference).
...But I guess now, I know where my story ideas come from: there's a crowded convention hall in the back left corner of my brain, three doors down, next to the snack bar.
When I finally did slip into real dreaming, we were in a spaceship that was also a suburban house, with paisley-patterned wall-paper and lace curtains on the windows, and we had a portable rocket engine, that, while cumbersome, could be carried from place to place as long as you had 4 to 6 strapping people to manuever it. We would steer by pointing it out the different windows of the house. And it somehow pulled us in that direction, rather than pushing us away from it...
And here's where the fear and that active limbic system comes in:
We had to make an emergency landing on the surface of a mostly volcanic planet-- what land masses there were were floating on the surface of flowing lava, and then, I spied what looked to be like a flat, grey, surface of granite, rising out of a lake. Just as I'm about to land on that stone, however, it turns out to be a shark who lunges up and tries to take a bite out of our ship... And then, I wake up for a second, before drifting back to sleep.
And here's where my limbic system shows its sense of humor: one of my crew members meets up with a little alien creature that's shaped just like a human hand: it's little legs are where the wrist would be, the face is in the "palm," and it has five appendages growing out of the top of its head, that are exactly like our five fingers. And it played a bamboo-like flute instrument on its "pinky." And it was rather friendly and nice.
I had another dream, this morning, that had sad/scary bits (revolving the death of an uncle that changed from something that happened decades ago to something that just happened recently), that somehow involved an epic battle between a dragon king and an ice queen, and ghosts and spirits living deep in the earth, and hauntings, and such, and it was all some tangled up with family politics and inheritance, and there was a black mourning wreath we were making, to hang over the door of the house, and I was defending my decision to decorate the wreath with pink and white dried flowers...
Frankly, If it's pretty much a given that 70% of our dreams are destined to be sad/bad, I vastly prefer those that at least show some imagination, and have me confronting dragon kings and alien lava sharks to those that simply leave me dealing with a lack of elevators, and doorways that are too narrow, you know?
And now, the poll:
[Poll #1175467]
