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michelle's picture

Some more thoughts on Dreams

I really like this theory and I was trying to get at it today in class, but couldn't quite elegantly explain it the way you did above. It seems to make the most sense to me and seems to descibe my dreams the most accurately. I think it's cool that we are still some what cognitive during our dreams and still trying to make sense of our neural static. I wonder what would happen if our interpretive part could actually realize that our dreams weren't making sense and could interfere to try to make more logical sense of them. Also, why does taking cough medicine before bed make my dreams a lot more illogical? I guess its because it may amplify the static and create more nonsense.

However, I have to disagree with your suggestion that dreams serve no purpose. In class today, we illustrated a number of ways in which dreams have fueled creativity. I especially liked Dr. Grobstein's comment about dreams making us surrender standard ways of thinking in order to explore more creative realms. I also think that dreams can bring to consciousness ideas that have been suppressed. All we can hope for is to be able to remember our dreams when we wake up so that we may be able to make use of the static.

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