What are dreams about?

[alloker]

Some of the areas where the right cerebral hemisphere (RH) is superior to the LH are as follows: (a) evaluating environmental sounds; (b) perceiving the expressions of emotion on people�s faces and in their voices; (c) understanding body language; (d) fast analogic-creative thinking; (e) using space; (f) using tools in simple tasks; and (g) producing fast responses. Evidently, these abilities make the RH an expert in dealing especially with close dangers, as necessitated by the fast development of the RH in childhood.

Some of the shortcomings of RH functioning are the following inabilities: (a) to see distant and indirect dangers; (b) to foresee the possible distant and indirect consequences of the solutions it produces; (c) dealing with detail; and therefore (d) dealing with distant and indirect dangers.

What the RH cannot do, at all or adequately, is done by the LH. For example, the LH is capable of foreseeing possible consequences using logic and therefore makes the final decisions under normal conditions. This is principally why the LH is considered the major, or dominant, brain. But under emergency conditions which leave no time for sequential-logical RH thinking, the RH interferes for realizing self-protection. The same thing happens when the LH is incapable of realizing sufficient self-protection for any reason, as detailed in my other posts. Dreams are part of this process.

If the principal function of the RH is to realize self-protection, peoples living in the most secure environments can be expected to have the least active RHs in the world. This is in fact what is observed. American psychologists and educators have been complaining of the weakness of the RHs of Americans for more than 100 years. Some examples cited by Robert Ornstein are below.

�In our present school system, the attention given to the minor hemisphere of the brain is minimal compared with the training lavished on the left, or major, hemisphere� (Roger Sperry, Nobel Prize laureate).

�The scientific findings powerfully suggest that schools have been beaming most of their instruction through a let-brained input (reading and listening) and output (talking and writing) system, thereby handicapping all learners� (an educator, quoted in New York Times).

�If children were trained to develop both brain halves, we would have a sturdier and healthier race, both mentally and physically� (Charles Brown-S�quart).

�The time has now arrived when our posterity must utilize to the utmost every cubic line of brain substance; and this can only be done by a system of education which will enforce an equal prominence to both sides of the brain in all intellectual operations� (William Hollis).

These quotations prove sufficiently that Americans are left-brained, as also revealed by the Lateral Eye Movement (LEM) test that I performed. But these writers think that the education system is responsible for this situation. In reality, the security and comfort that Americans enjoy make them left-brained, although education can activate their right brains too. An average American who does not antagonize the society can live in a perfectly secure environment, not considering the effect of recent international terror and the current economic crisis. But laterality does not appear to change in short times.

The proved RH origin of dreams and the proved defensive function of the RH make dreams automatic self-protective responses.

[DrmDoc]

Persons living in security and comfort are more left-brained than others because security makes self-protection less needed, and therefore those living in security have less developed and less active right brain which principally seeks to realize self-protection. You are incapable of understanding this because your pathological yearning to look intelligent and learned blocks your intelligence selectively. If your mind were as weak as it seems to be in relation to this discussion, you would reach that age.

Spewing false assumptions and denigrating comments do not support a weak position.  You seem to have interpreted my disagreement with your theory as a personal attack, perhaps, on your intelligence.  You�ve obviously devoted considerable time in researching and formulating your ideas and I understand your apparent frustration when some seem to have no appreciation for your efforts.  However, presumptions about my yearnings or intellectual designs do not contribute to the validity of your theories.

If it is your intent to dissuade my opposing comments to your theories with personal insults, rest assured that my hide is made of tougher stuff that any silly words you care to muster.  I will not be dissuaded by irrelevant remarks nor will I engage in schoolyard name-calling.  Now, let us proceed to a more mature exchange:
 

�Security and comfort� is not caused by the brain only or even principally.  The environment plays the principal role in allowing human development and creating security and comfort.

I vehemently disagree; we are instinctually compelled to seek security and comfort regardless of environmental conditions.  Instinct, a product of brain function, drives our every effort.  Perhaps the strongest and most basic instinct is self-preservation.  There is more than sufficient evidence in brain research supporting the position that our survival instinct arises from structure below the cortex (RH and LH).  Empirically, brainstem functions (amygdale and hypothalamus) generate the instincts that drive our behaviors.  Therefore, any outcome of our instinctual drive (e.g., security and comfort) does indeed emerge �principally� from the brain.

All great men suffered much in their childhood, and this boosted their creative and self-protective RH activity. Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Newton, and Einstein are the most famous examples. Newton and Einstein naturally had active left brains like all Westerners, and suffering activated also their right brains. You must have heard that suffering enhances creativity. The invention of the sewing machine by Howe is another example of this fact.

I think need rather than suffering leads to creativity.  Also, I think issues of logic rather than suffering generated Newton and Einstein�s ideas and that need led to Howe�s invention.  

However, RH creativity produces great results only if it is supplemented by logical LH activity, just as LH logic produces great results by being fed by RH creativity.

How?  What is the functional mechanism that allows communication between the two hemisphere?  Wouldn't such communication require that each hemisphere speak the creative or logical language of the other?

It is again your baseless �position� against scientific evidence. There is no �seems� concerning the lateralization of logic; and your concept of creativity is imprecise, as explained below.

I saw a science program on American television called, The Fantastic Plastic Brain.  There was a French woman on that program who had her RH removed as an adolescent.  In her mid twenties, she speaks several languages, writes, enjoys art, have dreams, and hopes to compete in the Special Olympics.  If LH function was strictly logical, would such person have the ability to engage in allegedly creativity tasks such as writing and art appreciation?  If the RH generates dream content, would such a person have dreams?

Both the RH and LH engage in creative and logical functions as distinguished by their separate objective and subjective functional perspective.

Again obscure and imprecise concepts and thoughts designed to make you look intelligent and learned; and your claim that the RH engages in logical activity is simply wrong.

As I have tried to convey, my perspective of brain function is based on the evolutionary root of that function.  As you seem disincline to consider any discussion of brain evolution, my perspective may continue to appear obscure and imprecise to you.

One of the tactics that you are using to look intelligent and learned is to mention known facts and imply that only you know them. The old brain is also called the animal brain and naturally seeks self-protection or is the source of the �survival instinct.� But the thoughts that serve to realize self-protection and survival are produced by the new brain on both sides, each using its special abilities.

Instead of trying to discern and respond to what you think my motives are for our little discussion, try reading and responding solely to what I have written.  The drive for self-protection and survival is instinctive and does not necessarily involve thought.  In my book about the dreaming brain, I wrote:

�In studies of decorticate animals and congenitally decorticate humans, researchers have found few distinctions between their behavior and the behavior of those with intact brains.  Decorticate animals appear to have normal sleep/wake cycles.  They can stand, walk, and run.  Even more amazing, they can engage in complex behaviors, such as copulation, and they learn almost as well as corticated animals of their species.

A few of my references for these remarks were:
 
Whishaw, I.Q. �The Decorticate Rat,� in B. Kolb and R.C. Tees (eds.), The Cerebral Cortex of the Rat. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990.
Whishaw, I.Q. and Kolb, B. �Decortication Abolishes Places but Not Cue Learning in Rats.� Behav Brain Res. (1984: 11(2): 123-34.
Overmier, J.B. and Hollis, K.L. �Fish in the Tank: Learning, Memory, and Integrated Behaviour,� in R.P. Kesner and D.S. Olton (eds.) Neurobiology of Comparative Cognition (pp. 205-236).
Gallistel, C.R. The Organization of Action: A New Synthesis.  Hillsdale: Lawrence, Elbaum, 1980.
Shewmon, D.A., Holmes, G.L., and Byrne, P.A. �Consciousness in Congenitally Decorticate Children: Developmental Vegetative State As Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.� Dev Med Child Neurol. (1990): 41(6): 364-74.

Decorticate studies of animals and human suggest the �thoughts that serve to realize self-protection and survival� are not necessarily �produced by the new brain.�  These studies suggest that neither the RH nor LH is necessary for some species to engage certain survival behaviors.

Also, the RH and the LH have different goals, or strategies, in relation to realizing survival.

Here, you have now shaded your perspective to suggest, as I have, that both side engage in survival-centric functions.  This was not the thought you originally conveyed.

The RH seeks principally to terminate and prevent failures and harms, whereas the LH tries principally to realize successes and gains of all kinds,�.

I disagree; success and failure is the purview of both hemispheres. To suggest otherwise is to infer a kind of functional schizophrenia with one hemisphere in a constant state of anxiety and the other in a state of denial.

as I wrote before.  Also, the RH deals with current failures and harms and with close dangers, whereas the LH is also capable of dealing with remote and indirect dangers because it can foresee consequences using logic.

I disagree; assessment of consequence is the purview of prefrontal function in both hemispheres.  Studies of lobotomized patients have shown how separating the prefrontal cortex from the remainder of brain structure produces behaviors suggestive of inattentiveness, apathy, and the inability to assess the consequences of ones actions. ( Brower, M.C. and Price, B.H. �Neuropsychiatry of Frontal Lobe Dysfuntion in Violent and Criminal Behaviour: A Critical Review.�  J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry, [2001]: 71[6]: 720-6.)

You are confused about the meaning of creativity. What psychologists call a �creation� is a new idea that constitutes the starting point and also the most important and the most creative step in the realization of something new and useful.

Here, is it your opinion that only the RH produces new or original thoughts?  Are you suggesting that people with substantial RH dysfunction or even RH ablation are incapable of thinking for themselves?  The case I mentioned in earlier comments seems to suggest otherwise.

Moreover, because the LH principally seeks to realize success and gain, it conceives of great projects and adopts high goals.

Is it also your opinion that RH dominant individuals are not as successful or as success driven as LH dominant individuals?  If this were true, we should find evidence suggesting that creative, RH dominant individuals are not as ambitious and, therefore, as successful as LH dominant people.

But RH creativity is necessary for solving the most difficult problems, as exemplified in Howe�s invention of his sewing machine.

Isn�t problem solving the purview of logic?  Although I will concede that some problems have been solved creatively, I will also submit that application of logic were probably essential to assessing the nature of the problem to be solved.

It is evident that the brain operates most fruitfully when the RH and the LH and all other parts of the brain communicate and cooperate as established by evolution. But this does not mean that all parts of the brain speak all languages that exist in the brain.

I disagree; the plasticity of brain structure after traumatic injury proves that the brain can rewire its functions through remaining, undamaged structures that perform distinctly different functions prior to injury.  For example, a blind man profiled on the science program I mentioned earlier was learning how to see with his tongue.  Such cases suggest that some areas of the brain are capable of assimilating and responding in the language of other brain areas.
 

�. you deny the scientific evidence respected by almost all psychologists concerning the source of dream thoughts?

If this is true, then almost all psychologists are wrong.  The problem here is that most psychologists are not neurologist.  Although they may have some knowledge of brain function, that knowledge may be archaic given the current perspective suggested by how the brain evolved from a lump of neural ganglia to it present state.

Again obscure words: �posited ultimate priority.� Analogic RH cognition is better equipped for dealing with close dangers compared to logical LH cognition. This is a proven fact. The principal goal of the RH is to realize self-protection because of the timing of its development. This is another proven fact. But this does not mean that survival is solely the responsibility of the RH. You again confused causality with identity and exclusivity. Everyone knows that consciousness too seeks self-protection, as I wrote several times. It is when consciousness fails to realize sufficient self-protection that the RH steps in most conspicuously.

Therefore, as a extension of your argument, LH dominant people are not as focused on self-protection issues as RH dominant people.  How is this a proven fact?  

I tried to clarify these facts for the benefit of all, and I will write no more. You have the stage to display your �positions� which expose your wisdom and knowledge.

For those who have followed our little exchange, I suggest that you meticulously examine all of the supposed facts herein with sound reasoning based on what the brain research actually suggests.


 


 

[voodoo scientist]

I'd like to preface this by saying that I'm immensely enjoying this debate, but I feel the need to make one comment:

I saw a science program on American television called, The Fantastic Plastic Brain.  There was a French woman on that program who had her RH removed as an adolescent.  In her mid twenties, she speaks several languages, writes, enjoys art, have dreams, and hopes to compete in the Special Olympics.  If LH function was strictly logical, would such person have the ability to engage in allegedly creativity tasks such as writing and art appreciation?  If the RH generates dream content, would such a person have dreams?

Given the name of the show, I'm guessing the point was to illustrate that if the RH, which is normally specialized for certain things is removed, the brain recreates any missing functions in the remaining brain real estate so that relatively normal functioning can continue (neuroplasticity), right? A similar, somewhat inverted effect has been observed in patients who have their eyes covered up for a period of time as part of an experiment: once blinded for 72 hours to a week, the brain started reclaiming the "defunct" visual cortex for other things such as audio processing.

So, yes, according to my understanding, even if the RH was definitively linked as the sole point of origin for dreams (I make no claims one way or the other and will let you two continue your extremely interesting debate on that point), a person who had their RH removed would most likely resume dreaming and carrying out other ordinarily RH activities some time after the operation, if those functions were deemed more necessary than other functions.

[DrmDoc]

I saw a science program on American television called, The Fantastic Plastic Brain.  There was a French woman on that program who had her RH removed as an adolescent.  In her mid twenties, she speaks several languages, writes, enjoys art, have dreams, and hopes to compete in the Special Olympics.  If LH function was strictly logical, would such person have the ability to engage in allegedly creativity tasks such as writing and art appreciation?  If the RH generates dream content, would such a person have dreams?

Given the name of the show, I'm guessing the point was to illustrate that if the RH, which is normally specialized for certain things is removed, the brain recreates any missing functions in the remaining brain real estate so that relatively normal functioning can continue (neuroplasticity), right? A similar, somewhat inverted effect has been observed in patients who have their eyes covered up for a period of time as part of an experiment: once blinded for 72 hours to a week, the brain started reclaiming the "defunct" visual cortex for other things such as audio processing.

Precisely my position.  Further still, the RH visual cortex performs the same processes as the LH but from opposite functional perspective.  When the brain dreams, functional evidence does not show exclusively RH activation but rather diffuse activations encompassing both hemispheres.

If the principal function of the RH is to realize self-protection, peoples living in the most secure environments can be expected to have the least active RHs in the world. This is in fact what is observed. American psychologists and educators have been complaining of the weakness of the RHs of Americans for more than 100 years. Some examples cited by Robert Ornstein are below.

�In our present school system, the attention given to the minor hemisphere of the brain is minimal compared with the training lavished on the left, or major, hemisphere� (Roger Sperry, Nobel Prize laureate).

�The scientific findings powerfully suggest that schools have been beaming most of their instruction through a let-brained input (reading and listening) and output (talking and writing) system, thereby handicapping all learners� (an educator, quoted in New York Times).

�If children were trained to develop both brain halves, we would have a sturdier and healthier race, both mentally and physically� (Charles Brown-S�quart).

�The time has now arrived when our posterity must utilize to the utmost every cubic line of brain substance; and this can only be done by a system of education which will enforce an equal prominence to both sides of the brain in all intellectual operations� (William Hollis).

In my opinion, such comments only suggest that some have a very elementary perspective of brain function based on the appearence of functional evidence rather than an understanding of the underlying nature of that evidence.  The RH and LH engage in mirror functions from opposite perspectives that cause functional evidence to appear as either creative or logical outputs.

[hulala]

Scientists are still confused about the origin center of dreams. I think they are a way of our unconscious mind to express its perception and imagination. About 90% of our dreams are meaningless and we sometimes even forget about them. But sometimes dreams reflects some important information about future.

[DrmDoc]

About 90% of our dreams are meaningless and we sometimes even forget about them. But sometimes dreams reflects some important information about future.

I disagree; all dreams are meaningful.  Our dreams describe something our conscious brain believes it experienced during the sleep process.  Our dreams appear nonsensical because they do not conform to the linear, literal logic of physical/material reality.  Dreams are mental experiences and, as such, they conform to the non-linear, abstract logic of mental reality.  For example, a dream about a cow jumping over the moon is nonsensical to our conscious mind because that imagery defies the accepted laws and logic of physical/material reality.  To our dreaming brain, the cow, the act of jumping, and the moon describe the non-linear, abstract nature of our thought process.  By further example, the moon, which lights the night sky, might represent how a dreamer perceives some inspiring example or source of insight amid a socially dark period in his or her life. Further still, the act of jumping might suggest a leap of faith or an effort to aspire to some great example amid a prolonged period of pessimism.  When we translate the imagery in our dreams as mental interpretations of experience, their meaning becomes more apparent and relevant.  

The reason why we forget our dreams easily is because they are not concurrent with true physical/material experience.  Concisely, memory was evolved for the physical/material wellbeing of ancestral animals.  Our brain is predisposed to remember experiences that have a real physical/material impact on our wellbeing.  Because dreams are mental experiences and true physical/material experience does not reach the dreaming brain as it does when we are awake, we do not give our dreams the degree of mental attention necessary to form the kind of detailed and lasting memories we form about our conscious experiences.

[SWM]

appologies for participants of this discussion. during some maintenance work some of the data was converted to a format that wasnt diplayed correctly. i have restored all the messages to the original content however there are some unrecognised characters in some of the posts.

appologies i will be making an announcement reagrding this in the announcements forum.

this error has effected other threads as well. while it is easy for me to restore the data it is not so easy for me to find the errors. i would greatly appreciate if any body finds any further errors to repeor them to my self.