Pagel Dream Science

Exploring the Forms of Consciousness
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-0-12-404710-5
Verlag: Elsevier Science & Techn.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 244 Seiten

Dreaming is the cognitive state uniquely experienced by humans and integral to our creativity, the survival characteristic that allows for the rapid change and innovation that defines our species and provides the basis for our art, philosophy, science, and humanity. Yet there is little empiric or scientific evidence supporting the generally accepted dream-based theories of neuroconsciousness. Dream Science examines the cognitive science of dreaming and offers an evidence-based view of the phenomenon. Today, such evidence-based breakthroughs in the field of dream science are altering our understanding of consciousness. Different forms of dreaming consciousness occur throughout sleep, and dreamlike states extend into wake. Each dream state is developed on a framework of memories, emotions, representational images, and electrophysiology, amenable to studies utilizing emerging and evolving technology. Dream Science discusses basic insights into the scientific study of dreaming, including the limits to traditional Freudian-based dream theory and the more modern evidence-based science. It also includes coverage of the processes of memory and parasomnias, the sleep-disturbance diagnoses related to dreaming. This comprehensive book is a scientific exploration of the mind-brain interface and a look into the future of dream science. - Provides a more evidence-based approach than any other work on the market - Single source of integrated information on all aspects of dream science makes this a critical time-saving reference for researchers and clinicians - Authored by one of the leaders in the field of dream research

JF Pagel has authored more than 170 publications. His basic research addressed the electrophysiology of consciousness, the neurochemistry of sleep and dream, and the role of REM sleep in learning and memory. His clinical work includes proofs for non-dreaming and the requirement of sleep for dream and nightmare, the diagnostic code for nightmare disorder, a definition protocol for dream, and demonstrations that REM sleep and dreaming are doubly dissociable. He has developed approaches to treating insomnia, sleep & altitude, narcolepsy, pediatric parasomnias, and waking somnolence, as well as addressing dream and nightmare use in trauma, art, creativity and filmmaking. He is co-editor of one of the major sleep-medicine texts: Primary Care Sleep Disorders (2007/ 2014). His books include: The Limits of Dream - A Scientific Exploration of the Mind /Brain Interface (2007), Dreaming and Nightmares (ed.) (2010), and Dream Science - Exploring the Forms of Consciousness (2014).

Autoren/Hrsg.

Pagel, Md

Leseproben

Chapter 1

Archaeology, Anthropology, and Dreaming

The association between dreaming and art extends back 35,000 years to western European cave paintings, and back 4000 years to the first decipherable writing. The capacity to dream may describe the point at which we became recognizably human, marking the development of reflexive consciousness and of two-dimensional paintings, elaborate burials, and complex language by our ancestors. The southern European Paleolithic cave paintings are located at the primary site and time of transition from a world occupied by a variety of proto-humans to a single species. These paintings reflect on a genetic, social, and cognitive hybridization developing between species that experienced the world in different, yet complementary ways. A cognitive approach that includes dreaming and self-reflexive consciousness would have been required for the creation of this cave art. Archaeological findings from Neanderthal sites indicate that their cognitive processing was probably quite different. The remarkable cave art that flourished during the interface of contact emphasizes the differences between the species. Dreaming versus non-dreaming may be the difference in conscious processing that existed between the species. Today, dreaming is utilized both visually and cognitively in the personal creative process and in the creation of products. Successful creative writers and film-makers are significantly more likely to use dreams in their creative process. Individuals who do not dream are unlikely to be involved in creativity-based processes. Based on the association between dreaming and creativity, there is good evidence that dreaming is one of the primary cognitive processes supporting species survival.

Keywords

anthropology; archaeology; cave painting; dreaming; ; Neanderthal; Paleolithic

Outline

Moving Images - Cave Art

Mimeographs on fresh clay

Night Terrors

The Mechanical “Creativeness” of a Lightning Storm

Illumination

Non-Dreaming Neanderthals

The Shadow Play of Consciousness

Notes

None of us could paint like that … We have learned nothing in 12,000 years.

(Picasso) (1)

We are a dreaming species. Coming out of sleep, we experience the finding of our way into wakefulness, to arrive at a place where almost all of us remember the thoughts, images, and emotions that occurred during our sleep, labeling them as what we call dreams. We are not alone in this experience. The human species, as far as we can know, has always dreamed, at least since the dawn of recorded history and probably far before. The Paleolithic cave paintings that flickered in the first artificial firelight have much in common with dreams. Like dreams, the unreal magical creatures on the walls of the caves are images seen through the lens of a belief system, incorporating memories and emotions. And like dreams they can affect others.

The point at which we began to dream may be the point at which we became recognizably human. A dream is a waking realization of internal and non-perceptual mental processing. In order to dream, we must have acquired the capacity to view ourselves as independent of one another and the world around us. In order to dream, we must have developed the ability to consider, in a form of self-reflection, the inner working of our brains and bodies.

Dreaming marks the presence of consciousness awareness, not just of the world around us but also of ourselves as independent functioning creatures. It is likely that all have woken from the strange death-like state of sleep to the same jumble of images, thoughts, and emotions. These dreams form a mental reflection of our waking life experience. Using the tools of language and grammar, we take the continuity of waking experience from the day before, combining the mental activity occurring during sleep, and form it into stories. And, oh, what stories!

Moving Images - Cave Art

Before the advent of written language, in the caves of southern France and Spain, we drew mystical creatures: pregnant mares fat with possibilities, now extinct ibexes nodding exquisite swept-back horns, dancing cave bears, mastodons, and charging rhinoceroses. As Levi-Strauss has pointed out, our only access to the Paleolithic mind is through close analysis of the products of those minds (2). Beyond unadorned stone tools, a few pierced beads, stringed shells, and a red ochre scratch design found in South Africa, there are few other decorated human artifacts that pre-date the paintings of the Chauvet Cave in France from 32,000 years ago (3). These Paleolithic images were created by humans able to create representative two-dimensional images independent of their creators and the world around them.

These paintings mark a period of major and accelerated changes in the development of the human species. Between 30,000 and 50,000 years ago, there is the first evidence that our human ancestors developed refined and decorated tools for use beyond the utilitarian. We find the first evidence for body adornment and for the elaborate burials for certain individuals. In this area of southern Europe we find the cave paintings, the first images (4). This is also the period in which the specific strain of the species that was to become our ancestor differentiated from the other proto-human species such as . Genetic evidence indicates that the Neanderthal contributed at least minimally to the modern gene pool even as remnant elements were in the process of becoming extinct (5). It is possible that the other proto-human species also had representational art, perhaps created on external rock outcroppings that were destroyed by rain and wind, or on perishable materials long lost to the historic record. There is little question that the art being drawn on the walls of hidden caves had a major role in preserving what still exists today. The available evidence does indicate that the paintings were created by our ancestors (6). As far as is currently known, none of the other proto-humans, including the Neanderthals, produced depictions (7).

It is not fully clear why these paintings were created in only this area (8). By this point in time archaeological evidence indicates that various species had disseminated throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, and Australia (9). There is also the question of function: why were these images created? The arguments having to do with the value or function of artistic creations persist to this day. In a world in which starvation based on declining resources, illness, predation, and internecine conflict is a real possibility, the effort involved in learning, training, and creating art is arguably misapplied. This perspective further emphasizes the importance of addressing the potential function of the cave paintings. From the perspective of dream science, it is hard to overemphasize the importance of the cave paintings.

• The cave paintings are the first clear archaeological evidence that our species had obtained the capability of reflexive consciousness.

• Reflexive consciousness is required for and associated with the capacity to dream.

Most animals have a form of primary consciousness, an awareness of the outside world. Several species, including elephants, bottlenose dolphins, and apes, demonstrate an ability for self-awareness that may rival that of humans (10). Proto-humans clearly had a primary consciousness of the external world, and were likely to have been self-aware, with the capacity to view themselves as independent of one another and the world around them. Without self-awareness, they could not have conceived of themselves as independent organisms, somehow existing apart from the external world. Modern humans extend that awareness into what has been called “reflexive consciousness” – the ability to self-consider the working of our brains and bodies. Reflexive consciousness is required if we are to organize our thoughts independently of others, and includes the recognition that the thinking subject has his or her own acts, and the existence of a socially based self-hood that affects others on a timeline that includes the personal, the past, and the future (11). These capabilities require an awareness of our own thoughts and an understanding of the behaviors of others. It has been suggested that this is the capability that differentiated our ancestors from other proto-modern humans (12). The paintings potentially mark the moment when people began to conceive of themselves as different from animals – the moment when they became human (13). Some authors extend this perspective, suggesting that the marker for the development of reflexive consciousness may have been the development of dreaming (14).

The cave paintings are also evidence that their creators had acquired the capacity to create two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional objects. This ability, like dreaming, also requires the capacity for reflexive consciousness. Visually, dream images are representationally two-dimensional (15). It is interesting to suggest that the ability to create two-dimensional representations is related to the capacity to experience dreaming. Of course, the cave paintings may have had nothing to do with dreams. The...