Part 5: The World of Dreams Reexamined |
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INTRODUCTION |
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"One Second Before Awakening from a Dream Caused
by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate" by
Salvador Dali
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So far we saw that in addition to chemical models of various systems such as ecstasy and Depression,there is something else. This something else is often calledthe psychological. In the paper I wrote about dreams, I was quite proud of finding that the model based on genetic influence on dreams (Activation Synthesis Model), which I will shortly examine, was inadequate to grasp the phenomenon in its entirety. I noted that �Dreams embody a synthesis of the self that is manifested at the physiological, psychological, and �theoretical� level (this encompasses the brain making stuff up for itself�we should see that this is what happens during dreaming!). Although I used Popparian notion of interaction between the three levels of the self, I did not ground these in anything.I decided that the brain must be the physical and something else �the mental� and �theoretical.� But where the heck that something else is to be found I had no clue. So I, by a rather common misconception, rooted the �psychological� and theoretical outside the brain.My mistake is largely caused by improper evaluation of the morphology of the brain. |
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I hope that the following account will help you (and me!) form a theory about the brain and its role in dreams which explains the pattern that has been building up based on our observations of various examined systems. In Section 1 , Iprovide the background necessary for evaluation of dreams, and in Section 2 ,I present Freudian model of dreams. Section 3 deals with the current model of dreams, as well as the various contradictions that point to the idea that there is something else. In Section 4 , we should revisit our observations about the dream state and find out what that something else might be! | |