WEBVTT - Dreamfall into the Dark, Part 1 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:05.720 If dreaming really were a kind of truce, as people claim, 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:09.600 a sheer repose of mind, Why then, if you should 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:12.480 waken up abruptly, do you feel that something has been 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.960 stolen from you? Why should it be so sad the 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:20.560 early morning? It robs us of an inconceivable gift, so 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:24.520 intimate it is only knowable in a trance which the 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.560 night Watch guilds with dreams, dreams that might very well 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:33.440 be reflections, fragments from the treasure house of darkness, from 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.639 the timeless sphere that does not have a name, and 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:39.960 that the day distorts in its mirrors. Who will you 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:43.720 be tonight in your dream? Fall into the dark on 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:45.320 the other side of the wall. 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:58.120 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind? A production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:00.720 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:03.560 My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:07.679 That was, of course a dream by Jorge Luis Borges, 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:11.240 an author that we cite and refer to with some 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:15.119 degree of regularity on the show, because he was fascinated 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:17.360 with many of the things we're fascinated with on Stuff 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:25.360 to Blow Your Mind, Mirrors, dreams, strange creatures, stabbings. Sometimes 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:29.280 that sort of thing. And in this episode we're going 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:32.759 to be discussing the dream world a bit more. This 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:35.280 is a topic that we also come back to with 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.360 some regularity on stuff to blow your mind, and for 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:41.960 good reason, right, because there is a universality to dreaming, 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:46.319 and it constitutes an altered and highly subjective mental state 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:49.280 that runs the gamut from the mundane and the frankly 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.640 boring to the other worldly to the you know, from 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.480 the specific to the ineffable, and from the comforting to 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:59.480 the just absolutely terrifying. It's at once entirely shut off 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:02.600 from the wake world and yet can greatly impact it. 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.480 And we've spent a considerable portion of our conscious history 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:09.000 as a species trying to make sense of it and 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.960 to figure out to what extent these two worlds are connected, 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.840 or to what extent they're disconnected, and the enigma, in 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:17.840 many respects still remains now. 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:20.359 Rob When you first told me you wanted to talk 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.720 about this, it was in the context of looking at 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:27.640 a specific mythical monster, I believe one from Japan, right. 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:29.639 Yeah, that was kind of I guess, the White Rabbit 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.840 that I followed into all of this because it's an 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.760 interesting monster and it ties in with sort of practices 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:41.680 and superstitions concerning the manipulation of dream on our side 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:45.320 in the waking world, and I think we are going 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.920 to get back to that monster, perhaps in a forthcoming episode. 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:52.440 But as I was reading about this creature from Japanese tradition, 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.920 I started reading more about how some of these ideas 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.280 extended back through Chinese tradition as well, and so I thought, well, 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:01.880 I should maybe go a little broader and looking at 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:07.440 the larger slice of Sino Japanese thought concerning dreams, and 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.360 I ended up picking up this really fascinating book titled 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:14.160 The Dreaming Mind and the End of the Ming World 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:17.640 by Lynn A. Struve, published in twenty nineteen by the 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:21.120 University of Hawaii Press. It's an incredible book, and I 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.120 was particularly taken by Struve's discussion early on about the 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:29.280 mystique of dreams in various global cultures across time, with 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:34.480 particular times and places in which the focus of intellectual 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:39.720 and or theologic sections of the populace are just particularly 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:42.640 focused on the dream world and what is going on 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.080 in dreams and what we should draw from dreams, and 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.120 how much of our waking effort and time and thought 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:50.040 should be dedicated to dreams. 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:52.520 So you mentioned in the title of the book it 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:55.600 makes reference to the end of the Ming world. She 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:58.839 seems to draw attention to the especially the late Ming 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:01.440 period in China, as a time when there was a 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:05.000 lot of writing produced about dreams and focus on the 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:09.040 meaning of dreams, compared to maybe the same region of 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.480 the world in earlier or later times. 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:14.440 Exactly. Yeah, And this is something I had never really 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.240 thought about before, because obviously, to some degree it seems 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.680 like everyone is fascinated with dreams. If nothing else, you're 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.240 going to be interested in your own dreams. And then 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:25.279 any given culture is going to have some degree of 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:27.560 ideas about what they mean or what they don't mean. 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:30.839 And then you know, there's going to be sort of 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:35.839 a global trend towards you know, modernization and rational interpretation 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:38.240 of dreams. But I'd never really thought about this idea 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.039 that there are going to be times and places where 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:43.120 if you were looking at i don't know, some sort 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.920 of a mechanism that was giving you the readings. Right, 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:49.080 this is what dream fascination is looking like. Uh oh, 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.159 we have a spike. Why is it spiking? It certain 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:54.719 or does it seem to spike at certain points, and 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:58.159 so Struve is making a point largely for this period 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:00.320 of time at the end of the Ming daim Honesty 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:03.760 and its decline, as it's about to fall an end 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:08.400 and another dynasty is about to come to power. But 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.080 this argument that there are some other places as well, 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:15.279 where all the elements are just in proper place to 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:20.640 sort of push people inward, and particularly to push intellectuals 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.960 of the day inward, those who have more time to 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:27.840 devote to these matters, and then also you know, the 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:30.760 ability to write about them and have their words passed 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.880 on to subsequent generations. So in the books she naturally 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:37.880 discusses the subjective nature of dreams, their wide variety, and 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:42.200 how the quote deficit of logic and rationality unquote in 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:47.359 dreams has inspired both suspicion and celebration, which is this 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:51.400 duality will come back to several times in this episode. 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:53.919 Also key to all of this, of course, is that 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:59.280 dreams arise unbidden. Certainly we have no power over what 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:01.880 other people may dream, but generally we lack control over 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:04.800 what our own dreams are going to consist of, and 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:08.840 this can prove again a source of great inspiration even 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:12.000 divine inspiration. You know, Look what the dream world has 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:15.120 given to me, Look what the powers beyond the dreams 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.560 have given me. But in some cases and some worldviews, 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:21.640 it may also be seen as threatening or truly terrifying, 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:26.039 especially within worldviews where rigorous control of thought, desire, and 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.760 emotion are key. You know, It's like, perhaps you're a 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:32.360 person and in your religious devotion, you spend a lot 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:37.760 of time denying yourself, say lustful thoughts, and then you 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:40.920 enter into the dream world, and there are no guarantees 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:43.720 that those lustful thoughts will not arise there and take 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.120 on forms that may seem at odds with what you're 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:48.920 trying to do with your waking self. 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:52.320 Yes, and of course that can be threatening and unsettling 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:54.320 to people. But coming back to the first half of 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:57.760 what you said about dreams being an inspiration and having 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.279 a kind of power or authority, I think that is 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:06.640 linked to the fact about them seeming to be unbidden, 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:09.960 the fact that they seem to come from somewhere other 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:12.560 than your own thoughts. I mean, you could say that, 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:15.840 we'll wait, where do your waking thoughts really come from? 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.680 Those if you examine them more closely, might come to 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:22.720 seem as unbidden as dreams, but at least we have 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:25.360 a sense more like our thoughts in our waking state 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:28.280 are more under our control and our thoughts in the 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:31.960 dream world or not. And because they feel like they're 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.239 they're less under our control than thoughts in the waking state, 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:39.040 they can take on a kind of third party authority. 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:42.080 So it's like you can report the contents of your dreams, 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:46.120 or even just contemplate the contents of your dreams, without 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.720 the sort of self doubt and anxiety that you might 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:52.800 have about if you were just, say, like offering your 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.480 personal opinion about something. When it's a dream, it's like 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:00.200 you're reporting something you read in another source as a 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.520 kind of third party authority. And often because dreams are 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:07.480 ascribed to gods or literal powerful figures or ancestors or 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.400 other you know, beings that have senses and information and 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:14.320 powers beyond what we have in waking life, the contents 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:18.280 of dreams can be interpreted to have power and authority 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.120 over other people. Like I can tell you my dreams, 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.720 and that might have a message that you think you 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:27.520 should pay heed to, because I'm not just saying my opinion, 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:31.600 I'm reporting what was revealed to me in a dream. 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:35.280 Yeah, it's it's interesting to sort of self analyze over this, 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.720 Like if if either of us were to tell our 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.199 spouses to report in the morning, Hey, I had a 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.120 dream in which I was wearing this green suit. It's weird. 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:46.360 I don't own a green suit, And then you kept 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.920 reporting this same dream over and over again, Like how 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:53.280 would they interpret it? How would you interpret it? Like 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:55.760 at some point would you just be taking it apart, 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:57.400 trying to think of what does green mean to me? 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:01.840 And like what is this coming from? In or they 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:05.040 might think, well, maybe my spouse really needs a green suit. 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.000 Maybe that's what the root of this is, like deep 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:10.080 down they desire it. Like there's so many ways to 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:11.680 sort of tease it apart and try and make sense 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:15.000 of it when ultimately, like the signal itself is irrational. 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.199 Of course, it gets even more complicated when the dream 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:21.400 is interpreted to include an exhortation or some kind of 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:25.199 guide to action, because consider the contrast between a couple 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:27.880 of other things. What if, on one hand, I just 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:31.880 say to my family, I think I'm going to shoplift 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:35.160 a green suit out of the clothing store, and I 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.160 just present that as my idea, it seemed like a 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:40.080 good idea to me. Versus I say, I have a 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.080 dream in which I take a green suit out of 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.360 the clothing store without paying for it, and I keep 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.160 having this dream. Well there, it kind of seems like, look, 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:52.079 it's not It wasn't my idea. You know, it came 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:55.320 to me from the dream. So it's like somebody else 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:56.839 is telling me I need to do it. 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.160 Yeah, this idea that there's something about the dream that 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:03.679 does not seem to fully originate in ourselves. This is 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:08.120 a theme that we'll return to again and again here, 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.319 and something that various interpreters of dreams and sort of 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.640 dream theorists over time have latched onto. Now, coming back 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:18.440 to lynn A. Struve's book, she says that while in 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:22.400 some rare cases dreams have allegedly and allegedly is important 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:25.240 because the nature of other people's dreams is always alleged, 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:29.280 and even our own accounts of dreams that's subject to interpretation, 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:33.719 remembrance and reporting and so forth. In some cases you 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:38.880 have dreams that have allegedly directly informed history. But otherwise, like, 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:41.720 what does it matter that people are having dreams and 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:45.800 reporting them and focusing in on them. There's sort of 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.000 like two major areas that she looks out at here. 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:51.960 One is we'll explore is like what happens when you're 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:56.320 fascination with dreams kind of like bubbles over into making 0:10:56.360 --> 0:11:00.439 decisions about the waking world. But the other one that 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:03.720 she touches on has to do with ultimately with like 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:09.760 how a given society viewed consciousness, how a society views 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:15.120 its dreams, especially in highly intellectual and authoritative cultures. You know, 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:19.040 you can look to the surviving writings on dreams dream journals, 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.000 and they can ultimately reveal much about that culture and 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:24.840 the individuals doing the dreaming and the writing, as well 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:28.079 as the inner workings of the mind. She writes, I 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.600 submit that dream writing can indirectly contribute to a history 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.120 of consciousness, not in the sense of what people were 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:37.600 conscious of over time, such as class identity, but in 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:41.240 the sense of what people thought consciousness was and how 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.559 they experienced it. Delving into this can illuminate how they 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:49.800 felt and understood themselves existentially, which underlay other actions and endeavors. 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.120 Consciousness at its most primal is a sense of being 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.839 an observant entity, and it builds and modifies selfhood by 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:01.520 the agency of narrating what is observed, attempts to narrate 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.760 that most ineffable kind of observation of what occurs to 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:08.800 us in dreams expose this process at the most elemental 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:12.280 level that is accessible to others and therefore on which 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:16.000 self interacts with society. So dream talk can give us 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:20.000 valuable information on how people probed awareness itself, under what 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:23.360 circumstances they were moved to do so, and how they're 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:28.920 evolving selves negotiated nurotologically with their sociocultural milieu. 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:32.559 Okay, so this is interesting. So Struve is making the 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:36.680 argument that even if you don't have people, say writing 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:42.360 philosophical treatises on what they believe the nature of consciousness 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.480 to be, you can infer a lot of things about 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:49.319 what certain people at certain times thought believe the nature 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:53.520 of consciousness to be by reading their reports about dreams 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:56.199 and how they talked about dreams. Because in a sense, 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:01.880 dreams are a dreams are relating and experience of consciousness 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.679 separated from action and waking life. 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.160 Right right, Yeah, It provides this this sort of distance 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:12.520 on inner thought process. That's and again I'd never really 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:14.360 really thought about this either. It's easy to sort of 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:18.200 think of accounts of other people's dreams as either you know, 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:22.640 interesting or boring, or interesting only to them, or perhaps 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:25.480 interesting in terms of like exactly how it is interpreted 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.080 based on everything else, and all that's valid, but this 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.559 added level of like, yeah, you're to some degree, these 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:44.760 are accounts of people thinking about their own consciousness. Now. 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:48.559 In this book, Struve ultimately dives into the particularities of 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.480 Late Ming Dynasty China during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:55.680 but she also highlights other times in places that seem 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:59.520 particularly focused on the power of dream So, you know, 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:01.960 it's all interesting, I think, coming from our current place 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.480 in the consideration of dreams, sort of the tail end 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:08.880 of what she classifies as an accelerating Western decline in 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:14.120 the belief of prophetic and oracular dreams. And she argues 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:17.400 that this decline has been accelerating, at least among the 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:21.040 educated since the seventeenth century. I mean, we're still obsessed 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:23.440 with our dreams, we still talk about our dreams, right, 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.040 They still have the power to fascinate us, terrifies and 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.400 all that. But we're generally more inclined, it seems to 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:33.600 me anyway, to dismiss them as nonsense or the scrambled 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:38.320 remnants of waking experience, thoughts and feelings. I remember David 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:43.360 Eagleman when I initially interviewed him the interview before last, 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:46.080 he said that he mentioned that he had always thought 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.040 of it as sticking his head in the night blender, 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:50.600 which I thought was rather apt. You know, this idea 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:52.880 that yeah, this is what this is what you get. 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:55.000 You know, these are just the mental leavings from the 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:57.960 previous day, and you can pick through them. You can, 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:01.360 you know, maybe you'll find something useful that is provides 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:04.640 some inner reflection, but ultimately the thing itself has no meaning. 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.240 It is like a waste product that is extruded from 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:07.760 the mind. 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:12.720 Well. Yeah. Eagleman's particular theory about the adaptive function of 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:16.080 dreaming was that it is a defensive action of the 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:19.280 visual center of the brain to prevent takeover of that 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.760 tissue in the brain by other senses during the dark 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.960 period and the night, so that when you know it's 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:28.000 nighttime and you have your eyes closed so you're not 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:31.280 using the visual centers of your brain, those brain cells 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.520 don't start to get recruited too much by other functions 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:36.960 of the brain, because our brains are very plastic, and 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:39.520 part of the evidence he produced for that was that 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.600 there seems to be across the human life span and 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:47.080 across different animals, there appears to be a negative correlation 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:51.880 between the plasticity of brain tissue and how much dreaming 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:52.280 you do. 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:55.840 Yeah, so it was an interesting hypothesis that he came 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.320 to after initially seeing it as the night blender. But 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.720 you don't hear someone like David Eagleman talking about dreams 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:07.280 being the vehicle or the instrument through which God is 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.120 speaking to him, or to us, or to random people. 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:13.520 I mean, you will find it in the modern world, 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:15.920 but for the most part, we don't really lean into 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:18.040 that on the whole. 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:20.840 I mean, I guess technically, I want to say, those 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:25.560 are two separate scientific questions. One would be what is 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:28.800 the adaptive function of dreaming in the first place? Like 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.240 why do we dream? And I think that's the main 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:33.760 question that Eagleman was answering when we talked to him 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.760 about that, that the purpose of dreaming is to prevent 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:39.760 the nighttime takeover a visual tissue by other functions. But 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.760 there's a totally separate question, which is what determines the 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:47.320 actual contents of dreams, and you could have you in 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:49.640 a way that's kind of unrelated to the other theory. 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.040 You could just say, well that you know, the fact 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.320 that we need to prevent the takeover of that brain 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:57.200 tissue means you've got to have something going on in there. 0:16:57.360 --> 0:16:59.920 What's going on in there? What kinds of stuff you 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:02.440 see and imagine in a dream? I mean, it could 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.080 be anything. So why do we see the things we see? 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:08.760 And that's an interesting psychological question that seems somewhat separate. 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:11.560 Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, I mean, certainly 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.600 you could have a situation where if the Eagleman's hypothesis 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:19.280 was correct, that you could still have God speaking through 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:22.480 the content of the dreams, because it's like the brain 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:26.200 just needs something to keep the to keep things visually 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:29.960 powered up, but it doesn't particularly care what is in there. 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:32.480 And then yeah, you could have God or God's slipping 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:34.680 a message in to the stuff in the same way 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:36.240 that you might be able to cut up open the 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:39.840 entrails of an animal and supposedly, you know, determine the 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.200 future based on what they contain. Ah. 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:46.120 Yes, So it's technically there's no conflict between you being 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:48.600 able to read the future in the in the guts 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.159 of a chicken, and the fact that the guts of 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.639 a chicken are used for digestion by the chicken. 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:59.960 Yes, all right. Coming back to these different periods and times, 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.960 there's been an uptick in interest in the contents of 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.040 dreams and this idea that there's something meaningful there to 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.240 really latch onto. One of the periods that Struve touches 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:13.919 on is the Romantic period in Europe, particularly late eighteenth 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:17.800 through early nineteenth centuries. Shruve writes that the quote felt 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:22.240 limitations of an Enlightenment rationalism and mechanism, especially as a 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:24.639 concern the human body and the inner workings of the mind, 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:27.359 led to a kind of increased interest in the non 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:31.359 rational and the mysteries of the self, consciousness and the 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:35.360 unconscious mind. She writes, quote with growing interest in dreaming 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:38.880 as a medium through which to link these compulsions. Dreams 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:42.399 came to feature prominently in natural philosophy, medical thought, the 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.720 budding field of anthropology, art in art theory, personal notes, 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:49.919 and especially creative writing and literary criticism. This occurred as 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:54.160 intellectuals responded with elan and or anxiety, hope, or dismay 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:58.680 to the ethical French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, rising nationalisms, 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.359 and socio and environ mental changes attendant on the early 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:03.880 Industrial Revolution. 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.520 If I understand Struve's argument correctly, this seems to fit 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.879 with the pattern of the late Ming period in that 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:16.600 I think she understands an increased focus on dreaming among 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.600 the people producing writing as a common feature of periods 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.080 where there is a lot of where there is a 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:25.000 lot of strife and rapid change. 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.640 Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And I think that's that's 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:30.880 one of the main reasons that the Romantic period here 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:39.119 is such a nice parallel example. Now, in bringing up Romanticism, 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:41.560 you know, the mind instantly goes to particular authors of 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:46.160 that period, say Samuel Taylor Cooleridge, who lived seventeen seventy 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.720 two through eighteen thirty four, whose work often explored dreams 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.080 as well as those visions brought about through the use 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:55.159 of opium. So I wanted to look at like another 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:57.439 text that dealt with this topic, and I ran across 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.680 a very interesting book from nineteen ninety eight titled Coolidge 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:05.160 on Dreaming by Jennifer Ford, and it explores this naturally. 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:07.320 In the specifics of the poet's work, but also in 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.320 the large, the larger context of eighteenth and nineteenth century 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.960 dream fascination in the West. You see examples of this 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:16.440 in the work of other notable Romantic authors as well, 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:19.440 like Lord Byron and Thomas de Quincy, who, of course, 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:23.200 of course also famously imputed opium. Ford writes that there 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:27.000 was no consensus concerning the nature of dreaming at the time, 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.840 during the Romantic Romantic period, with opinions are really centering 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:35.520 on the big three interpretations. So one potentially divine visions 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:38.919 you know, could be could be God sneaking in a 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:41.879 voice or a message there, or some you know, supernatural 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:46.240 entity with our interests at heart. I guess you could 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:48.560 also look at that as too, a font of creativity 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:51.879 and inspiration, a natural place for the poets in the 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:55.240 writer's mind to go in the artist's mind or three 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:59.280 dreams as residue or byproduct, which is, you know what. 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:01.800 We've been discussed this idea that maybe dreams are nothing 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:04.919 but just sort of the reassembled contents of things we 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.840 thought about or observed, etc. During the course of our day. 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:08.879 Now. 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.199 Coolridge was much inspired by the writings of antiquity on 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:16.760 the matter, considering the idea of prophetic dreaming especially, but 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:20.480 he also consumed contemporary writings that included both serious attempts 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:24.400 to understand dreaming from the vantage point of current medicine 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:28.639 and physiology, as well as magical and mystical strains of thought. 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:31.960 Now this is kind of an aside here, but one 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:34.280 of the things that Ford points out is that one 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:37.160 of the authors that he would have, of course read 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:41.080 from antiquity would be Homer, and who in the Odyssey 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:45.360 describes the two gates from which dreams may arise Quote four. 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.639 Two are the gates of shadowy dreams, and one is 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:53.199 fashioned of horn, and one of ivory. Those dreams that 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.520 pass through the gate of saun ivory deceive men, bringing 0:21:56.560 --> 0:21:59.520 words that find no fulfillment. But those that come forth 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:02.560 through the gate of polished horn bring true issues to 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:05.040 pass when any mortal sees them. 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:07.400 Well in a way, that belief is not very helpful. 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:11.520 So it's like some dreams could contain prophetic content and 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:15.159 other dreams are there to deceive and misguide you, but 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:17.359 you can't you can't know which or which. 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:20.000 Yeah, it reminds me a little bit of the ideas 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:22.480 presented by the gomork and the never Ending Story, you know, 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:25.119 the idea of this link bit and creative creativity and 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:31.159 deception between dream and creations of imagination and lies. But 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:32.720 and I guess this get touches on, like one of 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:36.560 the real problems of valuing the content of dreams is that, like, 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:40.400 sometimes dreams are just stupid. I mean, there are gonna 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:42.960 be maybe some there's some versions of it where you're like, okay, 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:45.200 there's always something there might be cryptic, but there's something 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:48.960 there that might be your viewpoint regarding dreams. But at 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:50.840 times you're gonna have an uphill battle because you're going 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:53.840