(DOWNLOAD) "Introduction: What are Dreams for? (Work Overview)" by Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Introduction: What are Dreams for? (Work Overview)
- Author : Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts
- Release Date : January 01, 2008
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 53 KB
Description
A RECENT ARTICLE IN PSYCHOLOGY TODAY POSES AN AGE-OLD QUESTION: what are dreams for? The answer, according to researcher Antti Revonsuo, is that dreams are a virtual training ground, "a sort of nighttime theater in which our brains screen realistic scenarios" (Dixit 2) to prepare for threats of various sorts. By dreaming of danger, we practice dealing with that danger, and, of course, the most efficient way of dealing with danger is to run from it. Hence all those dreams where we're running through molasses or mud, chased by figures that vaguely resemble a boss or that horrible sixth-grade teacher. We learn by dreaming "not to solve a particular problem but to actually practice efficient escape behavior" (3). Revonsuo's explanation fits my experience in many ways, but it goes astray when it posits dreams as "realistic scenarios." Granted, if I were to keep track of every dream in a scientific manner, I would probably match the normal pattern of mostly mundane, realistic dreaming that another researcher David Foulkes calls "credible world analogs" (qtd. in Dixit 2). But those aren't the dreams I remember, the ones I care about, the ones I inflict on my loved ones the next morning. The memorable dreams are the ones in which I can suddenly remember--ah, at last; how could I have forgotten!--how to fly. The dreams about waking up as a monster unable to let anyone know who I am, able only to shamble about dripping swampwater and bits of my half-vegetable self. The dreams of strange cities and secret tunnels, which almost but never quite lead me to some wonderful revelation. Credible world analogs, my eye! These are fantasies.
 "Introduction: What are Dreams for? (Work Overview)" by Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free){kind=link}