JITOTM43: Eyes and Mind
You know that whirring sound your hard drive makes when it's working on a big application? What if REM - rapid eye movement, which normally signifies dreaming - is actually a sign your brain is "chugging" when it's writing to memory?
The suggestion is that you might be dreaming all night long; it's just that you can only remember dreams that happen during REM sleep - because any other dreams you might have just don't 'stick'.
It's a wacky, unsubstantiated theory from a certain podcaster who admits to knowing nothing about it, but it makes for a good discussion. One that includes winking, blinking, darting, RAM, ROM, dreams, long-term memory, memorizing multiple decks of cards, solving Rubik's cube blindfolded...
The usual good stuff, in other words. You'll be blinking along to the conversation in this week's edition of JITOTM, Eyes and Mind.
posted by David Newland at 7:36 PM
5 Comments:
Why aren't the "season 1" episodes available? Do you not own the rights to them or something?
1:59 PM
Ah, podcasts are a two-edged sword. I can download them and listen at my leisure. But, in listening at my leisure, I find myself wanting to comment on a two month old podcast that is fresh to me this morning.
While listening, a sequence of words triggered a goofy little idea.
1) Blinking. We blink more than we have to. We blink when we're nervous. The notions of "eyes" and "nervous" floating in my head.
2) Dreams are "jagged" and make little logical, sequential sense.
3) The frontal lobes ("the Boss") are pretty much out of the loop during sleep and dreaming, leaving the rest of the brain to shenanigans.
4) What is the purpose of R.E.M.?
Maybe the frontal lobe is aware enough to be horrified at the crazy dream shenanigans the rest of the brain is creating without its supervising authority. The REM is the nervous twitch/panic attack of the frontal lobe at chaos in its own house.
I really enjoy the podcast. Hope you two can keep them going!
9:37 AM
aww, sweet, you mentioned Dave Farrow! I got to sit in as a witness for that record...it was quite extraordinary. Dave, as you might remember, is actually ADD and Dyslexic, as well. I hope he gets into the record book for the card memorization.
7:42 PM
ps- what about people that dream with their eyes open? I've heard it's freaky...
7:47 PM
Hey, I'm the guy who does the card memorization. I just thought this was interesting but since I have been doing the memory stuff I have found it easier to achive lucid dreaming. And when I memorize a lot of material (over 1000 units the sleep is extra deep with the most intence dreams. Also from what I know of the labels. Rem does not nessisarily mean very rapid. It was miss labled in the early days. It just referrs to the fact that the eyes do not move at all durring deeper sleep. In R.E.M. sleep some people move thier eyes slowly or in different patterns, That would seem to back up the idea that it is just the dreamer looking around. I am most currious what happens durring the other states of sleep. I have heared the brain is very active but the eyes do not move. Could you do a pod cast on that? (Delta and theda wave sleep).
6:11 PM
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