Re: Some brain questions i need help with

From: dan michaels (feedbackdroids_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 09/24/04 

Date: 23 Sep 2004 21:53:23 -0700

Wolf Kirchmeir <wwolfkir@sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:<rkE4d.27315$bL1.1103684@news20.bellglobal.com>...
> dan michaels wrote:
> [...]>
> >
> > Trying to analyze the dream contents, as per Freudianism, is probably
> > either mundane or hopeless.
>
> Mundane as an opposite to hoipeless???? How?
>

What I meant is that many dream experiences are completely mundane, as
JH was saying, and probably too trivial to worry about analyzing.
Other experiences are so totally bizarre that it's probably hopeless
to try and figure them out. Non-psychologists probably aren't gonna
get too excited either way :). Life is for living.
==============

> > However, conceptualizing the "mechanisms"
> > underlying them is much more interesting - and pertinent. Vivid visual
> > imagery, totally internally-generated. High emotional content, totally
> > internal. The feeling to the externally-unconscious "I" that it is
> > fully-conscious within the dream, experiencing the dream experiences,
> > and experiencing high-emotional affect due to the dream experiences.
> > All this totally internal. That's what's remarkable. Isn't it.
> > ============
> [...]
>
> It's just as remarkable as visual imagery etc "externally" generated.
> Because of course there's really no difference. IMO, all visual imagery
> is internally generated. The only difference between the "internally"
> and "externally" generated VI is the originating stimulus. That's why
> it's so hard to study VI - we have on the one hand the external visual
> environment, on the other the responses in the VC and other parts of the
> brain (including the speech centers when the subject reports on what's
> een, etc.) When dreaming, almost all the same parts of the brain are
> active as when awake.

Exactly.
=================

Now _that's_ interesting - it suggests (to me
> anyhow) that the "experience of seeing" in the waking state is as much a
> product of the internal processes of the brain as when we dream. Since
> in REM sleep the eyes move, and muscular contractions are potentiated
> and inhibited (otherwise you'd actually flap your arms while "flying"
> etc), there is also feedback between the VC and other parts of the
> brains. Now _that's_ interesting, too, since it suggests that seeing as
> a behaviour is far more complex than "processinmg visual inputs from the
> retina".

Good point.
====================

It also suggests that the VC uses the feedback as much as it
> uses the retinal inputs. Etc.

An idea that some of us are very partial to.

I seem to recall reading that the volume of interconnection
[feedforward + feedback] fibers between visual cortical areas,
including V1, is far greater that the #fibers coming from the retina.
Which might suggest that internal processing may be even more
important that inputs from outside. Fancy that. You have to support
all of those multi-pass cycles that build up activity prior to overt
behavior initiation. EP's, P300's, RP's, etc.
================

IOW, if the VC gets input from other parts
> of the brain, it responds as usual. It can't differentiate between
> signals originating as responses to some external stimulus and those
> originating from some internal process. The "I" can sometimes tell the
> difference, but exactly how it does this is not clear.

One suspects that Gazza*** or the evol.psych guys might attribute
this to somehting like a module of "critical thinking and
decision-making" which is offline during dreaming. Hmmm, Gazz has done
30+ years of study of people with brain injuries. I wonder if he also
asked them about dreaming?

Ah, what's this, I have his book "The Mind's Past" checked from the
library. Aww, no mention of dreaming in the index. He does have an
item re "the interpreter[module]'s creation of false memories". I'll
have to see what it says ;-). He also has a chapter on real vs phony
memories, and mentioning Penfield. I'll have to read it. Later.

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