Perspectives on Dreaming Essay - 1007 Words

Perspectives on Dreaming That you have but slumberd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream†¦. William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Nights Dream Each night, visions inhabit our minds during sleep and vanish with the morning light. These visions, these dreams, are without substance. Often, the waking mind recalls dreams only vaguely, if at all. A complete, separate world seems to exist within each of us; a world that can only be found through sleep, through dreams. What are dreams? Why do some people find nightly reverie in the comfort of their beds, while others dread sleep, terrified of the content of their dreams, and yet others recall no dreams to fear or fancy?†¦show more content†¦The extent that external activity modifies dreams is difficult to ascertain because the person is often awakened by such activity. A possible purpose for sleep is that decreased responsiveness allows the brain to undergo dynamic stabilization, or DS, which is essentially the activation of synapses in neural circuits of the cerebral cortex to enhance and maintain neural functioning (2) . Generally, DS does not initiate the activation of a neural circuit because of extensive inhibition of the motor neurons, and is therefore non-utilitarian, meaning that there are no visible physical results (2) . DS can occur during consciousness, but the cerebral complexity of warm-blooded vertebrates requires more DS than can occur simultaneously with the processing necessary for waking thought and perception. Sleep thus evolved to provide the brain with a condition virtually free from external distraction (2) . DS occurs most frequently during REM sleep (2) , which is also the state biologically most suitable for dreams (1) . DS that occurs in the regions of the brain responsible for conscious thought is therefore a possible physiological explanation for dreams. Dreaming could be a very short-term unconscious awareness of the DS process that occurs during sleep (2) . Poor recollection of dreams would be expected in this situation, since the brain would have noShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Descartes Dreaming Argument812 Words   |  4 PagesDescartes dreaming argument suggests that perhaps our senses cannot be fully trusted because we cannot be certain we are not dreaming, and this means we therefore cannot be certain of anything. His evil demon argument is similar but uses the idea of an evil demon deceiving you instead of your senses. These sceptical arguments mean that we cannot be certain of anything at all for it may be happening whilst we are dreaming, or we are being tricked into think ing it is happening. 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Descartes has three foundations in which he will challenge, the first which challenges his perceptual illusion, the second which is the dreaming state, and the third, which is the evil demon. In the first stage of doubt, Descartes attacks the sensory perception, although the senses can fool us, and some things are not often what they are seen for or heard. It is thought that if something