Biology 202 Web Paper 3

Memory Distortion and its Connection to Reality

"Memory is the scaffolding upon which all mental life is constructed."

–Gerald Fischbach

                “You are getting sleepy” are the last words you hear as you close your eyes and shut out the gold watch waving in front of your face. This is the classic image that is conjured when imagining a hypnotist or circus sideshow. Hypnosis is not as simple a phenomenon as circus shows make it seem. How does the brain work to override a person’s better judgment and leave them quacking like a duck on stage? What gives the suggestions spoken by a virtual stranger such power? All of these questions and more have been studied by analyzing the brain and its various regions activated at certain times.

Seasonal Affective Disorder Treatment – A New Approach to Treating Psychiatric Disorders?

Paul Bloch

I have noticed that some students seem as though they are in better moods whenever spring comes. When I asked them why their mood is uplifted during the change in season, they reply that they just love the warmth and brightness. This led me to investigate correlations between good weather and mood. My research led me to one fascinating disorder: seasonal affected disorder (SAD). Patients with seasonal affective disorder suffer depression during the fall and winter seasons but become functional again when the season changes to spring/summer.

  Except maybe for those who sell military arms and equipmentsand, therefore, think that "war is good for business," most of us would agreethat war is destructive and has no benefit whatsoever to humanity. The loss ofmillions of lives; the destruction of almost everything that man has built overthe centuries; the millions of people who suffer from major and permanentbodily injuries and loss of limbs; and the traumatic and post-war psychologicalsufferings of both soldiers and civilians (who were in harms way), makes onewonder whether it is ever worth it "to fight for one's country." 

Throughout the course of this past semester, the Biology 202 class has attempted to reach an understanding regarding absolute truth in the face of multiple realities. The division between an individual’s personal reality and some greater unifying factor is a topic which is widely discussed in Vedanta literature as well. More specifically, certain Vedic practices advocate the belief that the soul is misled by matter and trapped in a state of illusion.[1] It

When asked to define ‘reality’ or to consider the ways by which one concludes that a particular physical reality ‘exists,’ the average human will tend to reference their visual, tactile, and auditory abilities, and probably in that order too. These modes through which the majority of humans assess and process their surroundings are three major and essential contributors to how we, as humans, define the existence of a physical reality. However, a fourth mode of perception that is also extensively used and trusted, but whose scientific, historical, and practical significance is severely underestimated is our