Illness Thread

**lars573** · 11-21-2013, 07:15

Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr

Dreams are always weird.

If you say so. Some of us don't dream.

**a completely inoffensive name** · 11-21-2013, 08:30

If you are 5 ft 6 in, you should live with me and we can make indie cop buddy films. I'm 6 ft 1 in. It will be hilarious.

**Fragony** · 11-21-2013, 09:38

Originally Posted by lars573

If you say so. Some of us don't dream.

Everybody dreams, some people just don't remember them.

**lars573** · 11-22-2013, 00:32

Which is the same as not dreaming.

**Husar** · 11-22-2013, 12:10

Originally Posted by lars573

Which is the same as not dreaming.

For your brain and your mental health it is not.

**Fragony** · 11-22-2013, 12:27

Originally Posted by Husar

For your brain and your mental health it is not.

Indeed, brains are a bit of a preassue valve. You do dream or you would be insane by now.

**Montmorency** · 11-22-2013, 12:33

The experiential effect might as well be the same, but inasmuch as dreaming has distinct physiological correlates it would be problematic to assert that people who don't remember their dreams actually didn't/don't dream at all. In that case, there opens up a new angle of inquiry into the causes, effects, and correlates of dreaming, and physiological diversity within the species, but it also would probably require significant revisions to the existing knowledge-base. At the very least, it shouldn't be said carelessly.

At any rate, my impression from my limited reading on the subject is that dream-like brain-states have been recorded in individuals who upon waking didn't recall having dreamt. For people who don't recall any of the dreams (and I think I read that virtually all 'dream-time' in virtually all individuals is not remembered), there are likely some more precise/fine-grained processes varying than can be studied with current technology. Or at least as far as I'm aware; maybe there actually is a detailed mechanical consensus on this point by now. But there are indeed many if not most of the questions remaining to be addressed, including the phenomenological component which I have not referred to above. It is interesting to me that at least some researchers interpret dreaming as a form of conscious experience within sleep. Combined with research on the brain's active mechanisms for disposing of memories, things should get even more interesting in the near-future.

I'm thinking of one Tononi...