Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Dreaming and Confidence

Continuing this section of how dreaming can help a person physically, and creatively, I found another article which has suggested that in return, that many of these people feel more confident in their day-to-day life due to their dreaming experience.  This article has prompted me to look into the psychological benefits (also seen in the article posted before about PTSD) of lucid dreaming.  Another claim by the article is that lucid dreaming has helped people regain movement after strokes, this has  has prompted me to look into the medical benefits.

Reality gets a Kick

Reference:Hamzelou, J. (2011). Reality gets a kick via dream control. New Scientist, 212(2844/2845), 4-5.



On a side note, this article suggests that the movie Inception is incorrect about how dreaming and time scale works, which was disappointing to me.
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2 comments:

  1. UnknownDecember 6, 2012 at 6:08 PM

    That is sad to hear, but also makes sense. One of the largest limiting factors to how fast our body can react is the speed of synaptic transmission between our nerves, so if our brain is simulating movements in our dreams it does not really make sense that we would be able to move or think any faster. However, recovering from strokes via lucid dreaming does make sense. When we have a stroke part of the brain does in fact die, but that does not mean that the functions that were governed by that part of the brain are lost completely. Via a concept known as neural plasticity, our brains have the ability to rewire and compensate for functions that have been lost due to damage. To be clear this is not always completely possible, especially in cases of extreme damage. The way that this is done is by conceptually and eventually physically repeating the actions that have been impaired in order to strengthen the new connections that govern those actions in the brain. It is easy to see how lucid dreaming could be helpful in this sense, as these actions could be practiced in dreams where it is known that cortices can be active just as they are when we are awake.

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    1. TyDecember 14, 2012 at 11:28 AM

      I am unsure how this relates exactly but it reminded of phantom limb syndrome where amputees feel that their missing limb is still attached but stuck in uncomfortable position. One of the most common complaints is that their no longer "hand" is clenched in a tight fist and it is causing them great pain. A method they found to end this pain is by placing a mirror in front of their "hand" and using the hand that is still present to make a reflection to make the missing hand appear that it is still. They are then able to "unclench" their hand, by tricking tricking their brain.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15938103

      I wonder if there would be a similar application available in lucid dreaming, where a dreamer would be able to follow these processes.

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