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How memory and dreams may be related
Neuroscience Posted by Eugen Tarnow on Friday November 21, @09:17AM
from the dept.
Fair Lawn, NJ - A new theory just published in the international peer-reviewed journal Neuro-Psychoanalysis suggests that a modified version of Freud's dream theory describes not only how dreams are generated but how they are related to our memory. The strangeness of dreams is hypothesized not to come from a censor being turned on during sleep but to come from daily perceptions and thought being forced at the time of storage to conform to a brain structure largely frozen in childhood and then interpreted with the executive function turned off. According to the theory when turned on the executive function transforms the memories back from the primitive memory structure into real daily perceptions and thought. The article, authored by Dr. Eugen Tarnow, a researcher in New Jersey, also removes the hitherto rigid boundaries between memory and dream research and reaffirms the importance of the old Penfield Rasmussen findings (thye were looking for memory and found dreams because memory is stored in dream format).

The theory summarized:

Perceptions and thought are conjectured to be stored in the brain according to what is already stored. The brain structure of a human being is largely frozen during childhood. Freud's dream work, which can be thought of as a list of mnemonic devices, describes how perception and thought is transformed at the time of storage to conform to the childhood brain structure. Dreams are proposed to be focussed versions of ever present excitational responses to new perception and thought that only become conscious when the executive function ceases. The existence of a consciousness pointer is proposed to explain why dreams are relatively focussed to a single storyline rather than consisting of unfocussed masses of parallel storylines.

Irwin Feinberg. Chief of the Sleep Research Laboratory at UC Davis, one of the researchers who discovered that REM sleep is not dream sleep, says of the theory: "It is very interesting. I have no problems with it."

The author concludes that Freud's mysterious "unconscious", previously thought to only be accessible by psychoanalysts via dream interpretation, is really long term memory accessible also by memory researchers. Dreams, previously ignored by memory researchers, become another tool to probe our memory structure.

To speak with the author, contact Eugen Tarnow in his office at Avalon Business Systems in New Jersey, NJ, USA; tel: 00-1-646-825-9080 x423; email: etarnow@avabiz.com

For copies of the original paper, contact Leena Hakkinen at Karnac press; tel: 00-44 20 8969 4454 ;email: l.hakkinen@karnacbooks.com For your convenience the proofs have been attached.

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  • The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them.
    ( Reply )

    Re: How memory and dreams may be related
    by Eray Ozkural on Monday November 24, @08:21AM
    I was reading one of Freud's books on dream interpretation, and it seemed to me that it essentially implied a computational theory of common sense. However, it doesn't seem to me that memory is the whole story unless you take it in an exceptionally wide meaning. In my opinion, dreams illustrate not only main properties of storage processes but also of reasoning, i.e. inference....
    [ Reply to this ]
    • Re: How memory and dreams may be related
      by Eugen Tarnow on Wednesday November 26, @07:27AM
      I would never say anything is the whole story on dreams. There are so many others who say that and, as they say, to their health. There seems to be a lot to clean up in this field, though. For example, REM sleep is not dream sleep, dreams are not random excitations, memory researchers should be taking dreams seriously, Jung should be thrown out the window, etc.
      [ Reply to this ]
      • Re: How memory and dreams may be related
        by Eray Ozkural on Wednesday November 26, @10:35AM
        Yes, and one of the most interesting, at least for me, properties of dreams is how the temporary storage is transcoded into sense experiences by means of analogies and generally by compression using existing knowledge. And of course some of this information seems to be encoded in more permanent non-volatile kind of storage.

        Most of the techniques used in dream processing could be the same as employed in the course of ordinary thought.

        It is as if a process which can use all CPU power instead of a portion of it exploits it to decide the value of information collected in a certain area.

        [ Reply to this ]
    Re: How memory and dreams may be related
    by Eugen Tarnow on Wednesday May 11, @06:16AM
    The article is available at http://cogprints.org/2068/01/DreamsAndMemoryTarnow.pdf
    [ Reply to this ]
    long term memory
    by harry on Tuesday April 10, @03:51AM
    i have exsperianced life in reality but it seems as though i am not alive as though i walk around it doesnt feel like i am doing anything it became scary it lasted about 3 days it was a very horrible exsperiance this exsperiance is called long term memory until i found out on wikiapeadia i did not know there was a name for my exsperiance
    [ Reply to this ]
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