Monday, July 8, 2013

What Do Our Dreams Mean?

I've always had a slight interest in dreams and the things that fuel them, but I've never been interested enough to study it. In the process of making this episode of "To Fuse is Richer Than to Separate," I had the opportunity to learn some things I didn't know before. Perhaps the most interesting that I read was the theory that dreams are a means of clearing the scraps from our minds. This is the excerpt from Wikipedia that I read.

"Robert (1886), a physician from Hamburg, was the first who suggested that dreams are a need and that they have the function to erase (a) sensory impressions that were not fully worked up, and (b) ideas that were not fully developed during the day. By the dream work, incomplete material is either removed (suppressed) or deepened and included into memory. Robert's ideas were cited repeatedly by Freud in his Die Traumdeutung. Hughlings Jackson (1911) viewed that sleep serves to sweep away unnecessary memories and connections from the day.
This was revised in 1983 by Crick and Mitchison's "reverse learning" theory, which states that dreams are like the cleaning-up operations of computers when they are off-line, removing (suppressing) parasitic nodes and other "junk" from the mind during sleep. However, the opposite view that dreaming has an information handling, memory-consolidating function (Hennevin and Leconte, 1971) is also common. Dreams are a result of the spontaneous firings of neural patterns while the brain is undergoing memory consolidation while sleeping."

The thing that particularly interests me about this is the idea that during the day we are having impressions and thoughts that are not fully developed, and a dream is what completes or satisfies it. That is perhaps why so often our dreams contain people, places, or circumstances that we've thought of during the day, but they are usually thoughts that have only been on the back of our mind, not the things we've been dwelling on. 

I don't pretend to understand this theory that well, or even any of this information about dreams, but it's certainly interesting. If you're interested please, by all means read up on it yourself and share any insights that you discovered and found interesting



Also, please comment and let us know what the phrase "To Fuse is Richer Than to Separate" means to you, and feel free to add any insights on the other questions we posed in the video.

Thanks for watching!
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6 comments:

  1. DanJuly 8, 2013 at 9:55 PM

    I had a dream once about a family of dinosaurs that was living in my kitchen cupboard and when I went inside the cupboard I was in dinosaurland and I made a bunch of dinosaur friends and we did dinosaur things. It was cool.

    Then I woke up, and realized there were no dinosaurs. I was sad. Then again, I was also about three years old.

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  2. Hannah GraceJuly 8, 2013 at 10:53 PM

    I think that's a really good name for your blog! Like, the idea that fusing ideas together by discussing with other people and sharing them with the world is more powerful and enriching than dissecting, analyzing and separating them obsessively by yourself. I don't know. It's cool, though.

    Also, I can't believe you didn't sing I dreamed a dream. What a waste.

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    Replies
    1. UnknownJuly 9, 2013 at 8:02 AM

      Thanks Hannah!

      That's a really good way to put it. In fact that's exactly how I felt about it, but I was previously unable to put it into words. So thanks!

      Delete
    2. PeteJuly 10, 2013 at 4:53 PM

      Hannah, I also like your comment and I will have you know that I DID sing some bars from "I Dreamed a Dream" but it didn't make the final cut.

      Delete
  3. PatJuly 14, 2013 at 12:59 AM

    The past two nights I had bad nights of sleep but very memorable dreams.

    In one dream I was in the Philippines with a few friends - in real life, I will go there next month with those friends. We were hanging out with gangsters, riding around in speed boats, and going to clubs and getting in fights. It was all really absurd, but fun and exciting. It felt like a movie. One of my favorite dreams in years.

    Last night I dreamed I was studying at an acting school, and people were aggressively competing for good roles. Lots of jealously and manipulation, especially from one guy who liked to spread rumors and get people upset at each other. I don't know who the guy is, he didn't look at all familiar to me.


    Anyway, I'm surprised you guys didn't mention lucid dreaming. I had a lucid dream recently, but after I realized I was dreaming I couldn't control the dream, and quickly woke up.


    Now I'll give my thoughts on the blog title. It is throught-provoking, and you can think about each word for a minute - like richer. What exactly is richness? Saying "To Fuse is Better" is totally different.

    The idea of separation versus fusion makes me think of simplicity versus complexity. In music (or all art, I guess), you have a range from the simple and minimal, to the highly complex. Neither simple music or complex music is better - or, in my opinion and association of the word, richer.

    I'll try to wrap-up with this: A snickers is my favorite candy bar. Nougat, caramel, nuts, and chocolate in a delicious combo. Most of the time that's the candy bar I will pick. But sometimes I just want chocolate.

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  4. Andrew JJuly 29, 2013 at 11:04 AM

    The real dilemma is if you fuse then separate. Your only option then it's to refuse. The double meaning on that one really puzzles me.

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