The Mystery

We explore the relationship between dreams and emotions within the human brain. Human emotions play an important role in dreams, something that has long provided clues to what dreams mean--at least with regard to their general significance. This involvement of emotions helps to explain how towering emotions can get aroused in dreams, something that accounts for all manner of nightmares, including recurring nightmares and night-time PTSD flashbacks. Within this context, it seems likely that dreams can be beneficial, not only by providing what amounts to therapy for certain sleep disorders following trauma, but also by providing the equivalent of therapy in less stressful situations. The book Dreamworld explains much of the mystery about dreams. In the process, it provides a sound, appealing, and easily readable account of how the brain works, something useful for everyone interested in the brain and mind. At a more advanced level, in later chapters Dreamworld breaks new ground in the dr

The function of REM sleep dreaming is still unknown. We situate our approach to understanding dream phenomenology and dream function within that part of evolutionary theory known as Costly Signaling Theory (CST). We contend that many of the signals produced by the dreaming brain can be and should be construed as 'costly signals'--emotions or mental simulations that produce daytime behavioral dispositions that are costly to the dreamer. For example, often the dreamer will appear in the dream as handicapped in some way (i.e., no clothes, no ID, no money, is under attack, being chased etc.). The dreamer, during waking life, is then influenced by the carry-over effect of the unpleasant dream content. The informational and affective content of the dream creates a mental set in the dreamer that operates during the daytime to facilitate the signaling of a 'handicapped' Self. The subtle signaling effect might be via display of the intense emotions or physical demeanor that had

The mysteries of the mind have always fascinated mankind. Humans have been mystified by dreams and astral projection since the dawn of time. Dreams have inspired many events throughout history, from the artistic to the horrific. Astral projection has been considered as the soul leaving the body in order to travel to other realms in space and time. Yet the questions remain: what is the difference between the two phenomena, are they mutually exclusive or can they intersect and occupy the same space? Some say no, as dreaming occurs in our minds, with supposedly random images being brought up through the cortex and played out in our sleep. With astral projection, the soul actually leaves the body to investigate other places. Some note how different the experiences are, such as super intensified awareness with astral projection, in comparison to the sometimes murky and confusing elements of dreams. Yet there are always exceptions to the rule, as some psychic dreams – especially lucid dreams

Consciousness never enters a state or becomes anything other than itself. It simply seems to contract and relax, or, more accurately, to focus and defocus like a camera lens. The states of waking, dreaming and sleeping, and any other states that may be experienced, are varying degrees of this focusing and defocusing. When a camera is fully unfocused nothing is seen through it, but as the lens is progressively focused, objects begin to emerge from the unmodulated image, bringing into focus what was already present but could not be seen. However, there are no clear lines between any of these states. They are a continuum, appearing in consciousness, known by consciousness and made of consciousness. As a result of the narrowing of its focus, consciousness seems to become increasingly obscured from itself as the forms of the finite mind become more distinct with the emergence of the waking state. In the waking state, the separation and otherness of forms, their ‘not-consciouness-ness’, is a