zzz - dream

I read it.

The question, that built up during reading, was how the brain is able to decide while unconscious which of the patterns are the parasitical.
As they stated the deprivation of REM sleep can cause increased internal fantasy, meaning more unlike associations and connections are kept alive and available in wake state.

Also, as far as I understood, associations or patterns are made out of different combinations of synaptic triggers (like a set of states, a configuration, in an automaton).
The unlearning process destroys the more odd combinations to retain a more basic functional association system. Wouldn't that mean REM sleep inhibits complex patterns of thought, thus dulling our inner world?

The note on remembering dreams as a contra-productive act was really interesting. They basically said, remembering your dreams makes you crazy. However I will continue to journal my dreams.

Really interesting paper. Thanks OP!

>>379

Greetings, 1413641667363.jpg

> Wouldn't that mean REM sleep inhibits complex patterns of thought, thus dulling our inner world?


That, obviously depends on what you think is 'inner world'. If you think mind goes as far as associations, you are right. But if you think inner world goes as far as mind, you are ignorant.

>>378
what would happen if kids brain that didn't develop yet had a hard time sleeping from time to time?
Does that mean they wouldn't unlearn(prioritize synaptic routes)?

>>380
Mind shall be the union of the result of the brains function to a given stimulus and the function itself.
The "inner world" is more a buzzword for the part of the mind we are able to perceive. Thus, I define it as a subset of the mind.
Emotions shall be defined as low-level brain functions, triggered by high-level thought patterns.
Still, I don't completely understand the reason of your last sentence. Can you explain further?

>>381
This is hard to prove. As far as I know, it is still a mystery, why we have to sleep at all. These kids would probably keep more of the parasitic patterns and develop uncommon behavior, what we usually call a disorder.

Anyways I have my doubts to the unlearning theory. For example the problem with drug induced REM sleep deprivation is not solved yet.

>>383
>till, I don't completely understand the reason of your last sentence. Can you explain further?

Sure, - when activity of mind ceases, one enters deep state of focus and becomes conscious of things far beyond 'everyday' mind. That is not recognized by science, even while significant change in brain activity in monks/developed meditation practitioners is measured.

I have entered such states myself - with disappearance of taught i have entered various states - supreme bliss, and disappearing of 'regular' sense body. In simple terms, you lose all consciousness of your body and your senses, but instead of things just ending like that, extremely powerful and even divine states manifest. You will not believe this until you get to such state yourself and when you do, i expect your reaction to be something in the lines of " HOLY SHIT, WTF SCIENCE, WHAT IS THIS " or "OMFG IM DEAD???"

>>384
This really sounds interesting. Maybe I would describe it as the result of the brain function processing itself, due to lack of outer stimulus.

I often heard that in meditation it is possible to achieve a dream like state. Similar to a wake induced lucid dream (WILD). Thought I tried hard, I was never able to reach that state.

Now, to stay on topic, does one perform the given unlearning process while deep meditation too? Crick and Mitchison only refereed to REM sleep, but where is the line between those states?

>>385
I often heard that in meditation it is possible to achieve a dream like state.

It goes way beyond any dreams. (I can't believe i'm actually using this sentence)

> Now, to stay on topic, does one perform the given unlearning process while deep meditation too?

No. But there is side effect for deep meditation - you meditate - there is nothing much to unlearn, if, for example, a monk meditates 2 times a day, each time for a single sitting of ~5hours. One is not conscious of time then - it means when a monk enters meditation, he decides ' i will expierence this or that state/ level of calmness for 5hours ', then, he goes 'in' and is not conscious of time , body or anything, but only experiences those extreme states of bliss and kind of even travel backwards in time - being able to remember previous lives and even, as Buddha said 'see a thousand worlds'- meaning actual, non-imaginary space exploration. - see,. you can really 'actively' imagine, when the mind is empty, can you? Imagining things is directed *taught*, that is - it is workings of your mind and such thing would very soon diminish what is not imaginary.

It's not unlearning process in REM, those are the wrong things. It is collateral of chemical 'rinse', that maintains inter-neuron space.

>>386
>you can really 'actively' imagine, when the mind is empty, can you?
I guess no. This would be great, but I never managed to empty my mind completely. There is always something left, breaking my focus.

>it is workings of your mind and such thing would very soon diminish what is not imaginary.
Do you mean, the fact, that meditation experiences are not vanished by this "chemical rinse", is prove of their non-imaginable character, say their realness? How can such extreme patterns be classified as non-parasitic?

Sorry, if I got you wrong there. It looks like, I am not too familiar with the topic, yet.

>>387

>Do you mean, the fact, that meditation experiences are not vanished by this "chemical rinse", is prove of their non-imaginable character, say their realness? How can such extreme patterns be classified as non-parasitic?

"They" (the experience!! -not memory, taught or whatever) is vanished immediately after starting to 'think', when mind becomes the ordinary, so called 'monkey mind' - meaning it is attached and attentive of outside from, sense perception, emotion etc. You let the outside go and you get to inside and only like that. And the 'inside' is infinite compared to part of reality you experience in ordinary mind state, like when eating, listening, walking, planning, remembering, feeling, etc.

Scientific measurements and methods *can't experience mind*.

>>379
Op here.

My understanding was that, by definition, a 'parasitic' pattern was one that was activated by random input. In a biological neural network, the noise / random input coming from PGO waves. Any pattern that fires is then considered 'parasitic'.

I too dream journal and have no plans to stop. In addition, there have been more recent studies that suggest that REM sleep plays an important role in memory consolidation – not just parasitic pattern removal as proposed by Crick & Mitchison.[1] One could argue that the two processes are not mutually exclusive; e.g., memories are consolidated by the removal of parasitic firing modes.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2869395

>>390
Thank you very much. Something like this I've been looking for. After all the article in the op is over 30 years old. The removing part probably backs up the learning part, like a garbage collector cleaning out the memory, making place for more appropriate information.

>>388
That makes it hard for me to argument.

>>390
Hey OP, just need to mention this
from http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ#benefits
Apparently training your short term memory through memory games makes you remember dreams better and have more lucid dreams.
Same effect is done by dream journals…..Even though memory games are on different level than short term memory, could we say that both of them have good effect on self-consciousness through practice of memory?

>>378
was going to start attempting to remember my dreams, not anymore.

How does one get into AI research?

>>388
In my opinion the "beyond" and "inner" states you speak of are really just the first step towards the experience of no experience. Nothing is Infinite, clearly.

I'm fascinated with the philosophical aspects of Zen Buddhism and have listened to absolutely every Alan Watts resource I could get my hands on, for whatever that's worth, and I believe that Zen is completely worthless and totally devoid of all meaning whatsoever. The same for all experiences and beliefs that come from it.

EXCEPT, of course, for whatever worth YOU see in them. This is a prime function of consciousness, I think, to differentiate between that which has worth and that which does not. But these differentiations are perfectly meaningless as well.

EXCEPT, of course, for...