Yeah. Not really interested in the battle of the brain. Obviously we need one to live. You can take out the appendix. You can't remove the brain. Not entirely sure how this got started, but let's get back to talking about dreams. I would be interested to see some studies on dreaming and the brain. I'm sure there are some out there.
(2017-09-21, 08:28 PM)chuck Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah. Not really interested in the battle of the brain. Obviously we need one to live. You can take out the appendix. You can't remove the brain. Not entirely sure how this got started, but let's get back to talking about dreams. I would be interested to see some studies on dreaming and the brain. I'm sure there are some out there.
But you are wrong don't you see?
There are many examples where people do live essentially without a brain. I just gave you an example of one. Why are you just ignoring what I said? Is it that you don't accept the account? Or that you want to pretend it doesn't exist?
Apparently it is too weird for you, but no matter how weird,,, it is true. You can't wish it away.
(2017-09-21, 08:44 PM)jkmac Wrote: [ -> ]But you are wrong don't you see?
There are many examples where people do live essentially without a brain. I just gave you an example of one. Why are you just ignoring what I said? Is it that you don't accept the account? Or that you want to pretend it doesn't exist?
Apparently it is too weird for you, but no matter how weird,,, it is true. You can't wish it away.
Please open a thread for that discussion. This isn't that thread. Thanks.
(2017-09-21, 08:44 PM)jkmac Wrote: [ -> ]But you are wrong don't you see?
There are many examples where people do live essentially without a brain. I just gave you an example of one. Why are you just ignoring what I said? Is it that you don't accept the account? Or that you want to pretend it doesn't exist?
Apparently it is too weird for you, but no matter how weird,,, it is true. You can't wish it away.
LIVING WITHOUT A BRAIN
Dr. John Lorber (1915–1996), neurology professor at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, recalled the time in the 1970s when the campus doctor asked him to examine a student whose head was a bit larger than normal. Instead of the normal 4.5-centimeter thickness of brain tissue between the ventricles and the cortical surface, Lorber discovered that the student had only a thin layer of mantle measuring about a millimeter and his cranium was filled mainly with cerebrospinal fluid.
The man had hydrocephalus, a condition in which the cerebrospinal fluid, instead of circulating around the brain, becomes dammed up inside the cranium and leaves no space for the brain to develop normally. Such a condition is usually fatal within the first few months of life. If individuals should survive beyond infancy, they are often severely retarded. In the case of the math major from the University of Sheffield, he had an IQ of 126 and graduated with honors.
Lorber collected research data concerning several hundred people who functioned quite well with practically no brains at all. Upon careful examination, he described some of the subjects as having no "detectable brains."
Dr. Patrick Wall, professor of anatomy at University College, London, stated that there existed "scores" of accounts of people existing without discernable brains.
(2017-09-21, 08:55 PM)chuck Wrote: [ -> ]Please open a thread for that discussion. This isn't that thread. Thanks.
If someone wants to discuss further they can start a thread. I don't have an urgent need to discuss.
I'm just pointing out that your comments about the brain are not accepted by all, and I'll leave it at that.
(2017-09-21, 01:58 PM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]Probably not without entering you into my dreamworld. I know that's probably a copout but the sort of dreams of which I'm thinking aren't very amenable to being put into words, and sometimes not even into waking logic. I think when you transcend human logic in a dream and enter some sort of realm of paralogic - something that I have never seen a human artist do, and can't even imagine how it would be done - you can be pretty sure that you're not dealing with an ordinary, personal creativity.
We have dreams that are "maintenance" dreams where we sort through issues, these are usually fairly easily remembered on waking and have a semblance of continuity and relevance. I call this the bottom side of dreamstates.
The top side is the dream which is so completely out of our ability to make sense of it (time discontinuity, constantly changing imagery, etc.) that our physical mind does the best it can to create symbols that represent the events in the experience. Both dreamstates are experiential regardless of how confusing one might be. The top side dream is primarily for learning at the Higher Mind level.
(2017-09-22, 09:20 AM)Brian Wrote: [ -> ]I would say it is highly likely from the signals the brain gives at the time REM sleep starts. Having spent time in deep sleep giving off primarily delta waves, the brain starts to move towards the theta stage, usually associated with the hypnagogic state but something strange happens instead. The brain makes the body go limp for it's protection and starts to produce bursts of alpha spikes. It is at this point the REM starts and if you wake the sleeper, he/she is likely to report having a dream.
You may be making the big mistake of looking at brain waves and other properties, and confusing the brain's reaction or cooperation with level of consciousness and cognition with it's initiation of it.
I can go into a TV and find certain nodes in the electronics that become more or less active, when various types of audio or video content are present on the screen. These activations could be incorrectly interpreted as the TV
initiating a certain type of content, whereas the truth this, these brain activities are a
reaction to varying input from the remote TV station.
How can we tell the difference? There are a multiple of ways, than I can review, and maybe will during some thread. Apparently Chuck doesn't really want to discuss brain in this thread and I tend to want to honor that desire as he created the thread in the first place.
OTOH- I don't know how you have a complete conversation about dreaming w/o talking about mind vs brain.
A single example I can give you about the brain's possible minor or reactive role in cognition would be the many cases of where patients have had full and complete cognition while "bread dead" or with the brain almost totally disabled.
(2017-09-22, 09:45 AM)Brian Wrote: [ -> ]You make a good point. The brain is clearly involved but we have no proof it initiates. 
Ahhh,, not so fast. Actually we do have some proof.
I'm just honoring Chuck's request by not giving you the multitude of examples here and now.
(2017-09-22, 09:25 AM)Brian Wrote: [ -> ]I need to look into the details, but I think it is possible he had a cerebellum which is the primitive part of the brain. The cortex which was mostly missing is part of the cerebrum. I think the cerebellum may be active during dreaming but don't quote me on this - It's been a long time since I looked at this stuff.
There are many different cases. The most astounding ones with where the only part of the found in tact was the brain stem. The rest of the brain was a thin sheet of material around a mm thick.