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“Buenos dias, I am Santiago Ramno Y Cajal, the father of modern neuroscience, and I am here to tell you all about dreams.”
“Hi Santiago, wow what a pleasure to meet you in the flesh, uh I mean in holographic flesh…You’re an epic legend for sure. But before I ask for your signature and for a selfie, could I please illuminate me on dreams, or on ‘los sueños’ or whatever you call them in your language (you must know that I took AP Spanish in high school so I think that should be right about…).”
“Well, certainly. After all, that is my sole purpose of existing here as this holographic projection. I shall begin with Salvador Dali, as he was one of the ones who brought dreams into the public eye. Or I am sure there must have been many more important shaman men or other spiritual leaders that brought dreams up to possess tribal significance, but I shall start with him because he is one the first notables to have introduced dreams into the mesocosm of art (and particularly to modernism). He was the one who made psychedelic masterpieces important.”
“Ok cool, that makes sense. So what can you tell me about Dali and dreams then?”
“Well maybe the most important thing to note about Dali is that back in 1944 when he was still around, it was believed that the entire dream happened in the moment of awakening. Today, we of course known this not to be the case at all.”
“Haha that’s pretty funny. I can’t believe people back then seriously thought that an entire dream was lived in the moment of waking. Sounds like shit from ‘A Handmaid’s Tale’. But if that’s not how it happens, then what are the actual mechanisms that surround sleep? Why do we sometimes remember our dreams and sometimes we don’t?”
“I will approach your inquiries logically and begin with your first. As it just so happens, it appears that as we dream, our brains create electromagnetic waves that rattle over one another in smooth succession in the same way as night-time wind that caresses the surface tension on stormy nights. It is not just one sort of wave either. No, if we are being precise, there appears to be two distinct wave-types in the mix.
The first type of waves comprises something commonly known as slow wave sleep. You probably know what I mean with this one. It is the part of sleep where you, you know, you seem pretty much to have gone under when it comes to most aspects of our consciousness.
The second type is REM sleep, which you have most likely also heard about. It is during this one that our minds seem almost as to be awake. Under the influence of such active rest if you will allow me to call it, the pons in the brainstem keeps the body paralyzed.”
“Ohh. You know I used to sleep walk a lot as a kid. I sometimes even used to travel up and down stairs and once I was even caught singing while doing it. I thought I was just a freak but do you think that could have been occurring during this REM sleep thing that you were talking about?”
“Indeed my dear, that happens exactly to be the case. Sometimes the inhibitory system that should be in place during sleep malfunctions, accidentally allowing us to complete some of the action we are imagining ourselves to be performing while we sleep. So have no fear, as you are no freak: it actually makes perfect sense for you to sleep walk. The singing however, sounds more odd to me….I would have to consult some of my colleagues about this and give you the low down on exactly why we sleepwalk.”
“Alright, so there exist like some sort of waves or whatever that arise while our minds are dozing off. But that still doesn’t explain why we dream!”
“Well it sort of does, or it does at least when you make the necessary connections…You see, my impatient child, you must recognise that ‘dreaming’ in the most traditional sense seems mostly to occur when our brain are sort of awake in a sense (during REM sleep) . Or, well, that was at least the consensus that was reached some years ago. There has now arise some newer evidence to suggest dreams to also occur as a part of non-REM sleep. Please do not ask me more about this as I am not an expert in the field, but please do go look for some more papers on this if the topic seems at all to be of interest for you.”
“Ok, I guess I’ll just have to do my own research on that I guess. But wait! Don’t go yet! I have another question, one that I think you many actually have the ability to answer. So you see, the thing I’m mainly left wondering about after all the amazing information you have already endowed me with is why dreams seem to us to be us to so meaningful. I don’t know whether this is like a personal thing with me or whatever, and I swear, cross my heart, that I believe in science over all else, so why does it seem to be that sometimes my dreams are so obviously linked to whatever is going on with me when I am awake?”
“Ah my darling, this seems to be more my sort of question. You see, sleep and dreams are most probably some sort of mechanism with which we are to store and sort through our paste experiences. This is all with the purpose of making for more enjoyable and productive times during wakefulness.
It just so happens to be that case that no matter at what stages these exactly occur, when we dream our ‘logic filter’ that is usually revved up during our times awake is switched be off (or in the very least the dial for ‘logic’ is cranked down to minimum). While all of this is happening, our emotional brain, in turn, is turned on (or in the very least the dial for ’emotion’ is cranked up to maximum).
Dreams become to be momentous on a purely biochemical level: these transformations occur largely due to decided changes in neurotransmitters.
The first important one is norephinepherin, that, once depleted, makes for situation in which it is much more difficult for us to eternalise the stuff of dreams as we do with most of our other memories.
Another change that occurs is that the serotonin filter somehow shuts off, making us feel that whatever we dream about has more importance than is perhaps warranted considering the fact that dreams are in a large part, merely incidental curdling of our experiences.
This circumstances make for a situation for in which, when we finally wake come to the point of awakening, we are left with an impression of something profound. Like a religious experience.”
“Wow I never knew that. Is that why people have historically related dreams to transient revelations?”
“Yes exactly! So now, let me zone in for just a moment on the HISTORY of dreams….
As I explained earlier, across cultures, dreams have become to be viewed to be messages from the Gods.
Even some of the most powerful luminaries have commented or agreed on this idea. During the Enlightenment, these celestial notions were understandably and publicly brought under fire by thinkers such as Locke. This is not to say that there were no erroneous ideas to take root after this. During the Victorian period, for instance, it became to be a belief that dreams are caused by indigestion. (As an aside I just quickly want to remark on what a shame may ideas in this period were. Shouldn’t have these points of stupidity been completely cleared during the ‘The Age of Reason’?)
But I came along soon enough and showed these dumb ones all wrong by showing that particular regions of the brains of patients could incite visions. So at the end of the day, our dreams are nothing more or less than just random neuronal firings, that may in some instances of course be impacted by the ways in which these were firing earlier that day.”
“Wait but I was pretty damn sure about my dreams having more hidden meaning than that! Aren’t there like still people out there who believe in Freuds ideas of dreams and all that jazz?”
“Yeah so these were all part of the notion of dreams having some hidden SYMBOLISM relating to various aspects of life….
Some, but by no means all, of the ones given below are examples of the ones that were thought to have such meanings:
-climbing stairs
-swords
-suitcases
-sticks
-tearing branches off trees
-planes
-tea
-fish
-fountains
-reptiles
-chapels
-the number three
-woman’s hats
-complicated machines
-the number three
And then there were a few that were considered particularly representative:
The Trickster – to denote anxiety
The Maiden – to denote purity
The Wise Old Person -to denote wisdom
And last but not least, dreams about Loosing Teeth were to signify the guilt related feelings surrounding masturbation (this idea among most of the ones above have been blatantly disproven and people who dream about their teeth falling out have been shown simply to be more anxious and perhaps also to have more thoughts surrounding their teeth compared to the average person).
So it all seems pretty outrageous, now but there were influential people, such as Jung and others, believed there to be some sort of truth behind these.”
“So based on what you just said, can we like forget Freud….I’ve seen some other sort of more pop-Psychology based stuff on dreams too. I mean I’m not too fussed even if it isn’t necessarily real or whatever, but I would just like to hear your take on that…”
“Ah well, according to me and some superficial research, the most popular dreams are something along the following lines:
1.Being chased
2.Sex
3.Falling
There are admittedly different ways to interpret these however, and I am much to lazy to review each one. If you would like to know more you may perhaps be interested in “The Phenomenology of Dreaming” published in 1970”
“Aha, so there you let me in on what people generally tend to dream about, now for another thing that has been bothering me about these: does the identity of the people we dream about have any real significance?”
“We no, not really. It is just the case that we tend to dream about the people we have happened to encounter on that specific day, or whom we have brought to be with us in our thoughts. Surprisingly, in a weird way the people we dream about happens to be quite gender dependent. Men tend to dream about other men, while women have been found to dream equally about men and women. Children, on the other hand, have been found to dream more about animals than about other animals. Moreover, our dream also seem to be familiar in terms of their locational aspects: did you know that only 5% of dreams are set somewhere the dreamer doesn’t recognise?”
“Ok then, if dreams are influenced extensively by what we encounter during a specific day/ during some sort of preluding interval of time, couldn’t like influencing people’s dreams be possible?”
“Well yes my child, it has been done. Let’s look first at the Tetris study, conducted in 2000, in which participants were made to play these games for at least 3 hours of a day. It was no surprise then, that the participants started at some point to incorporate these into their dreams.”
“Nooo man I still can’t believe how easy it can be to influence people’s dreams….I can’t believe this tactic hasn’t yet to be used by authoritarian leaders and others who are into that whole mind control business…Maybe it has…I should look into this….Anyways, now that I come to think of the topic of dreams, I do have another sort of something I am dying to ask you about and that I believe you could probably give me a comprehensive take on. So I have this friend Clara. Well, she’s strictly speaking not my real “friend” or whatever, but just sort of an acquaintance I speak to when I’m bored during Monday morning tutorials. She always tells me like crazy stories about her weekends and all, but now in the past few weeks she’s started going on and on about how she can lucid dream. She even went as far as to give me a detailed description of the strange squishy Haribo sweets she was supposedly to have witnessed floating in some sort of sewer. All minutiae were of course explained from an aerial perspective as she claimed herself to have been travelling in an air-balloon or whatever. So do you think this could be possible or do you think she’s making it up like she does with the rest of the implausible details she associates with her personal life? I sorta wish it isn’t true cause she’s just so damn smug sometimes that I wanna call her out on it. I don’t think she would be the type to be able to do it, but I wanna check with you first to make sure.”
“No, lucid dreaming as a concept is real and there have certainly been many instances of lucid dreaming documented. I have engaged some of the masters of the art in conversation and have found the most integral component of success of learning to perform the activity is to ask onself the question of if one is awake in all situations where this is remembered and possible (both while one is asleep as well as when one is awake). It just so turns out the more you inquire in your wakeful state, the more natural this becomes and the more likely you are to incorporate this into your dream states as well. However, in terms of your friend Clara I cannot say if what she is reporting is fact or fiction, that could only be examined with an EEG or like an fMRI machine. Do let me know if she is interested to find more about her capabilities and willing to pop by the lab!”
“I mean, I believe you cause you’re sort of a God in this whole field of science or whatever. But like, it doesn’t sound feasible to me, the whole idea of being in control of your dreams.”
“Perhaps it would help to understand the sort of systems that contribute to the process of lucid dreaming. The main component of importance is the prefrontal cortex: this region seems to be more active in lucid dreamers compared to other dreamers. We actually do not yet have a perfect understanding of how the whole system works, but I believe that it would potentially be worth looking into the literature to find out more.”
“What are some of the benefits of lucid dreaming?”
“It is possible that lucid dream could have an important impact on memory and learning. This has for instance been shown to be the case with humans: those who woke and reported to have dreamt about the mazes they encountered earlier that day showed significantly increased improvement compared to those who did not report dreaming about mazes. However, as this study was based solely on self-report measures we have no idea whether these participants were merely just saying they had dreamt of mazes are happened to perform better compared to those who did not report dreaming about mazes, but evidence gathered from studies conducted on other species has supported the idea of this notion being a real effect. There are several studies to show for instance that rats who dreamt about mazes they had learnt about previously improve their maze navigation performance more compared to rats who did not. Parallel results have also been discovered for birds in terms of abilities to navigate the different variations of songs the produce.”
“Damn, that was a long schpeel. I feel like I most probably need to catch some z’s after having listened to all that…Anyways, thank you mr. Cajal…or the holograph realisation of mr. Cajal or whatever…for having given me so much information with which I may now undertake further explorations about the nature of dreams.”
“You’re very welcome my dear. Ah, it seems that my lower half is in the process of vanishing so it looks like it is my time to go. Adios! Till next time!”
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WAST WRTNG 