Re: Perceptual symbol systems

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Date: 18 Aug 2004 09:58:57 -0700

feedbackdroids@yahoo.com (dan michaels) wrote in message news:<8d8494cf.0408151018.6c0dc023@posting.google.com>...
> Wolf Kirchmeir <wwolfkir@sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:<tFtTc.38862$Mq1.2216042@news20.bellglobal.com>...
>
> > Re: dreams of the blind:
> >
> > The little reading I've done on blind people's dreaming suggests that
> > those who become blind late in life dream in visual images, while
> > congenitally blind people don't. That is, that's what their reports
> > about their dreams imply. (Also, keep in mind that blind doesn't
> > necessarily mean "unable to detect light." Blindness isn't an either-or
> > condition, but a continuum.)
> >
>
> This sounds reasonable. The congenitally blind never learned to see
> correctly in the first place. One suspects dreaming uses many of the
> same internal pathways used by normal visual processing, so if those
> internal pathways weren't set up correctly in the first place, then
> neither vision nor dreaming works properly. With dreams, of course,
> the [mental] images have an internal rather than external origin.
> ===============
>
>
> > NB that reports about dreams are most detailed when the subject is
> > wakened during or immediately after REM sleep, and become less so later.
> > Most people do not remember much about their dreams - so little in fact,
> > that many people claim they don't dream all.
>
>
> Yes, of course. I've read this, and also experienced it firsthand many
> times. I dream very vivid dreams, but if I wake up directly from one
> [which I tend to do almost every day], and don't immediately "think"
> about or review the dream [usually result of drowsiness upon waking],
> the content completely disappears within secondsm, and I cannot recall
> anything about it a minute or two later. OTOH, if I catch it soon
> enuf, I can consciously review many parts of the dream in sequence.
> Another fun experience is to wake up from a dream, and then
> immediately nod off again, and have the dream start back up. Another
> common experience is to wake up from a dream, and then lie there in a
> "semi-conscious" state, and the dream [or something similar] will
> continue. Internal mental imagery is a wonderful part of human nature.

Just thought I'd toss this out - roughly related to the on-going
discussions ...

I read another essay by Oliver Sacks - this one about an abstract
artist, Mr.J.I, who had an accident in his middle years and suffered
permanent loss of his normal color vision ... "The Case of the
Colorblind Painter".

After some analysis, they concluded that the cells in V1 which respond
to colors were probably working ok, but the cells in V4, which is
considered to be the main color processing area, were permanently
damaged. 2 points of interest are that Mr.J.I lost his ability to
dream in color, and that after many years he was never able to
"re-learn" how to see colors as previously. He could no longer draw
the sort of color paintings as previously [ie, when trying to draw
colored objects, he drew a random mismash of colors], etc. These
findings would appear to say something about modularity in the visual
system, and the idea that a general cortical learning faculty cannot
compensate for losses in critical [and necessary] processing pathways.

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