Thread: Physics of Dreamsharing

Originally Posted by ubigcow

I believe!


*In some things.*


Just not this.

Anyway. I have read this whole thread. All of it. Even the tiny threads on page 15 and 22. And it was interesting. I enjoyed it more than many books I have read. I said above that I don't believe in this, but I can picture a world were this is possible, so I will debate it like I do.

There have been many theories as to how people dreamwalk. I don't know what to accept, probably the radio theory. EDIT: the radio theory is out, thanks to the post by adam has a dream below. I don't know why people dreamstalk, but I think it is for several reasons: they get enjoyment out of it, they get power out of it, and they get expirence out of it. Now, I don't mean they get power that they suck out of the dreamer. I mean they get more powerful by dreamstalking. This might be power over the person, or it might be power over themselves. The expirence part is somewhat similar. By practicing dreamstalking, they get better at dreamstalking and imagining stuff and getting people's attention (The Cusp's theory @ The Nature of Dream Control seems good to me). Why would people want to be better at these things? Because, if you could nightstalk better, it would be easier to convince your boss to give you a raise, you could influence politics, you could get a oil company to give you a discount, ect. Why not practice on a bunch of other people who you don't care about first? Now, their are many reasons good imaginations are useful, for writing books, for art, for music, ect. Getting people's attention while they are asleep is much like getting their attention while they are awake, I believe. Knowing effective ways to get people's attention would help people who want to lower drunk driving, global warming, world hunger, ect. get groups organized. Also, people who know what gets people's attention would also know what doesn't. This would be helpful to people trying to, say, launder money or something. Also, if the techenque for going unnoticed that I read somewere works, (you behave so normally that people forget they see you almost as soon as they do) this would be invaluable to it. The most common reason, I believe, (if dreamstalking isn't too hard to do) to dreamstalk is for enjoyment. There would be two ways to achieve enjoyment out of dreamstalking people: deliberately tormenting them and accedently harming them. Why would you just bully a guy at work or school, if you could bully him when he is alseep too. Or you could bully many more people than you meet in waking life. Or you could bully people just in your dreams so you would have friends in the waking world. On the other hand, like some dude said early in this thread (I'm too lazy to find it; I tried.), one could dreamstalk accidentally. I wouldn't be suprised if over 50% (Made up stat) of the expirenced lucid dreamers on these forums have sometimes done things in their dreams that would hurt the DCs if they were real. I, for example, beat up a car for no reason in a LD and then beat up some random dude with it. The chances of the random dude being the other person in your dream (if, of course, there was one) would probably be suprisingly high if your subcontiousness sensed something odd about them. The attention theory would imply that, if you payed a little more attention to some "DC" since it was odd, it would be more likely to be a target when you decide to do something violent, as you are already paying more attention to them. The "DC" would be another person who you were sharing dreams with, so it would continue to be odd.

Book to read: Wake by Lisa McMann

The Cusp, I really like your thread on attention.

Has anyone here at least tried to dream in 4D? I have been trying to do this one and off for years, but when I met someone (on this thread) who also tried, I decided maybe I could get help. PM me if you have or you know someone who has.

Dreamhope11, your sig and av are cool.

This is the longest post I've made on these forums.

*I believe in smilies (Yes, I know, a bit of overkill. But that sure beats underkill.)

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

Originally Posted by ubigcow

There have been many theories as to how people dreamwalk. I don't know what to accept, probably the radio theory.

What I'm most skeptical about it the how part. Any theory that involves an electromagnetic send/receive link is most likely bullshit because
1) any emissions on the EM spectrum would be detectable as they would interfere with communications
2) even if something was being sent, it would be drowned out by all the sources of EM we have in modern life - every part of the spectrum has something on it.

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

[What I'm most skeptical about it the how part. Any theory that involves an electromagnetic send/receive link is most likely bullshit because
1) any emissions on the EM spectrum would be detectable as they would interfere with communications
2) even if something was being sent, it would be drowned out by all the sources of EM we have in modern life - every part of the spectrum has something on it.

Light is also an EM wave, nub. Light doesn't get 'drowned' out or doesn't interfere with communications or whatever.. you're so full of it. Also, your whole body and brain communicates through an 'electromagnetic send/receive link'. That's also how your eyes perceive light, they resonate with lightwaves. Which basicly make your eyes an EM link between your brain and the outside world. I don't understand why you would want to try so hard and come up with completely illogical explanations to try and show it would be impossible? This is the beyond dreaming forum fyi, not the science forum. And even if it was, your 'scientific explanations' don't make any sense at all.

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

how are you going to get a light link between two people?
do you know a thing about physics? apparently not.

you don't have an EM link in your body, the only time electricity travels through your body is when it goes between the synapse and axon in a nerve, the rest of it is ion transfer.

i understand that humans receive light, but i'd like to ask you, how is it that humans transmit light?

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

That's also how your eyes perceive light, they resonate with lightwaves.

your eyes don't resonate with lightwaves, that's bullshit.
you have two types of light-detecting cells in your eyes, rods and cones.
rods detect light intensity
cones detect colour
nothing resonates.

Originally Posted by ubigcow

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

What I'm most skeptical about it the how part. Any theory that involves an electromagnetic send/receive link is most likely bullshit because
1) any emissions on the EM spectrum would be detectable as they would interfere with communications
2) even if something was being sent, it would be drowned out by all the sources of EM we have in modern life - every part of the spectrum has something on it.

Good point. I hadn't thought of that. ChaybaChayba doesn't know what he's talking about. The statement that every part of the spectrum has something on it is not quite true, but close enough. Even if the waves were on a part of the spectrum that wasn't used for communications, thus would doubtfully be detected, there is a lot of noise at every frequency.

I don't know how dreamsharing would be possible, but for the sake of the conversation, let's say that it is. Then we just have to figure out why. EM emmisions are out. I'm going to edit my first post.

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

Originally Posted by ubigcow

Good point. I hadn't thought of that. ChaybaChayba doesn't know what he's talking about. The statement that every part of the spectrum has something on it is not quite true, but close enough. Even if the waves were on a part of the spectrum that wasn't used for communications, thus would doubtfully be detected, there is a lot of noise at every frequency.

I don't know how dreamsharing would be possible, but for the sake of the conversation, let's say that it is. Then we just have to figure out why. EM emmisions are out. I'm going to edit my first post.

Yeah I was thinking a combination of communications and noise, which like you say would make it very difficult to detect.

Haha thanks, I've learned long ago that Chayba has no idea what he's talking about...

I'd love to believe in dream sharing and a few people even claim to have done it, but the mechanism eludes me.

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

your eyes don't resonate with lightwaves, that's bullshit.
you have two types of light-detecting cells in your eyes, rods and cones.
rods detect light intensity
cones detect colour
nothing resonates.

How do you think they 'detect' light? By resonating. Duh? How else would this process be possible?! It's like a tuning fork that resonates with sound, thats how your eyes work. If you don't know what resonating means, why do you even bother arguing about it and saying it's bullshit and impossible! LOL please. What's next, you're going to say it's bullshit that the earth is round? Just do some random googling or read whatever source that talks about the mechanics of eyes and light detection.
http://homepage.mac.com/dtrapp/essay...oOnVision.html

There are several kinds of light detectors on the back side of the eyeball. Faint light is detected by rod-shaped detectors and brighter light of various colors is detected by three types of cone-shaped detectors, each sensitive to the different range of color with sensitivities centering on blue, green, and red light. The cones must contain different organic molecules with conjugated double bonds that absorb the light that matches the resonance frequency of the electrons in the conjugated double bonds. The energy from the absorbed light briefly breaks one of the rigid double bonds, allowing the molecule (called retinal) to rotate to a new shape. The newly shaped molecule interacts with a much larger protein (named opsin), setting off a series of chemical reactions which that causes ion channel proteins imbedded in photoreceptor membrane to open and for change in polarization, This starts an electrical signal passing along the cell membrane surface of the optic nerve to the brain. The chemistry of the retinal seems well understood and the successive protein and nerve reactions fit with many other similar enzyme reactions that occur in living creatures.

If they wouldn't resonate, how the hell would you explain interaction with waves if not through resonance? You seem to know better than current science, I'm all ears to hear your theory.

Besides it's obvious science isn't advanced enough to figure out how the mechanics of dreamsharing would work. Science can't even figure out the mechanics of gravity (of course some people will claim science can, eventho this is only an example, feel free to demonstrate and go off-topic without coming up with "bending of spacetime" if you can't help yourself), so how are you gong to start and figure out the mechanics of dreamsharing?!

Originally Posted by ubigcow

ChaybaChayba, when I said you don't know what your talking about, I meant about two things:

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

Light is also an EM wave, nub. Light doesn't get 'drowned' out or doesn't interfere with communications or whatever.. you're so full of it.

Light does get drowned out. Have you ever tried to see my house? Or China? Or the top of the moon? Light gets drowned out by objects in its path. All EM waves do this too, but light is of smaller wavelenth than the EM radiation used for communications. This is why such small things as, say, a freshly picked booger can stop it. Light could theoretically be the median of shared dreaming, but if it was, then you couldn't share dreams with someone you can't see. Also, people would glow when they were sharing dreams. (emitting and recieving light) What I and probably adam has a dream meant was that all frequencies that could be used for relatively long distances and could get past moderate obsticals (like sheets) are transmitted on or have noise on them.

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

I don't understand why you would want to try so hard and come up with completely illogical explanations to try and show it would be impossible? This is the beyond dreaming forum fyi, not the science forum. And even if it was, your 'scientific explanations' don't make any sense at all.

I do not believe that adam has a dream is trying to "come up with completely illogical explanations to try and show it would be impossible." (the sentence I took this out of doesn't make sence at all.) He is showing that that explanation is impossible. That does not mean that shared dreaming is impossible, much like proving that mach 15 ram jets are impossible doesn't prove that mach 15 jets are impossible. Our 'scientific explanations' make sense.

Originally Posted by Croneus

I will go ahead and concede the fact dream walking of some kind MAY be possible, simply due to the fact that a) there is a lot of things about the human brain we do not understand yet and b) there is a lot in the realm of quantum physics that we cannot understand. It's always possible until disproven that the human mind is capable of emitting some kind of brain waves or energy in some form while dreaming that we are unaware of or unable to quantify at this time. However that being said, I still find such things to be a bit of a stretch, along with telepathy in any form, and even OBE's as well. Always a skeptic but always willing and enjoy being proven wrong and learning something new.

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

How do you think they 'detect' light? By resonating. Duh? How else would this process be possible?! It's like a tuning fork that resonates with sound, thats how your eyes work. If you don't know what resonating means, why do you even bother arguing about it and saying it's bullshit and impossible! LOL please. What's next, you're going to say it's bullshit that the earth is round? Just do some random googling or read whatever source that talks about the mechanics of eyes and light detection.
http://homepage.mac.com/dtrapp/essay...oOnVision.html

If they wouldn't resonate, how the hell would you explain interaction with waves if not through resonance? You seem to know better than current science, I'm all ears to hear your theory.

Besides it's obvious science isn't advanced enough to figure out how the mechanics of dreamsharing would work. Science can't even figure out the mechanics of gravity (of course some people will claim science can, eventho this is only an example, feel free to demonstrate and go off-topic without coming up with "bending of spacetime" if you can't help yourself), so how are you gong to start and figure out the mechanics of dreamsharing?!

Chayba, you stated that your eyes resonate with incoming light. That is a load of shit. While the quoted portion of the article is correct, it says that the chemical bonds in the molecules in your eyes resonate with light of a particular wavelength. That's entirely different to your whole eye resonating. Make sure you make accurate claims and understand what I'm saying before you tell me I'm wrong.

I didn't make any claims at all about resonance within bonds. If you'd like to go into a lengthy discussion about resonance, I'm quite happy to do that.

Don't go quoting science and then saying science is bullshit. Go live in a forest with absolutely no technology if you feel that way, otherwise shut the fuck up. Do you have an explanation for gravity? Science does! It might not be a quantum mechanical one but it's perfectly fine in the classical realm. I now ask you, what is your explanation for gravity?

Dreamsharing and gravity are two different things. Science can explain a whole lot of natural phenomena so your point is completely invalid.

In conclusion: EM radiation cannot be used to explain the mechanism of dreamsharing.

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

Chayba, you stated that your eyes resonate with incoming light. That is a load of shit. While the quoted portion of the article is correct, it says that the chemical bonds in the molecules in your eyes resonate with light of a particular wavelength. That's entirely different to your whole eye resonating. Make sure you make accurate claims and understand what I'm saying before you tell me I'm wrong.

LOL you actually thought THE WHOLE EYE would vibrate along with the light? You didn't think I was talking about the rods and cones? Please... I said nothing about the whole eye, I said light detection happens through resonance. I said the eye resonates with light, and you agree obviously.

You can't even explain the mechanics of gravity, but you're confident you can explain dreamsharing? And now you admit yourself that your eyes resonate with the light, what the hell dude, first you say they can't, and now you say the complete opposite and say they can. We completely agree and still you go into arguing and claiming what I say is bullshit, but you say the same fucking thing. This is ridiclous...

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

LOL you actually thought THE WHOLE EYE would vibrate along with the light?
No, you said:I said the eye resonates with light
According to those words, that was your belief.
Reread the part of my post you quoted for my rebuttal.
Then deal with it.

You can't even explain the mechanics of gravity, but you're confident you can explain dreamsharing?
I didn't attempt to do either of those.
Reread the part of my post that refers to EM radiation and dreamsharing.
Understand that I stated EM radiation cannot be used to explain the mechanism of dreamsharing.
Understand that I stated I wasn't making any attempt to explain the mechanism of dreamsharing.
Then deal with it.


And now you admit yourself that your eyes resonate with the light, what the hell dude, first you say they can't, and now you say the complete opposite and say they can.
No, I didn't.
Re-read my original post.
Then re-read the top secion of this post.
Then realise you are trying to twist my words.
Then realise you are failing at twisting my words.
Then deal with it.

We completely agree and still you go into arguing and claiming what I say is bullshit, but you say the same fucking thing. This is ridiclous...
Read all of my posts about EM radiation in relation to the mechanism of dreamsharing.
Realise we are not saying the same thing, I am saying one thing, then you are attacking it with complete nonsense. After this I reply with a true statement. Then you attempt to tell me my statement is wrong, and finally you try to tell me that I was saying what you originally said.
Learn to read.
Learn to understand.
Learn to admit you were wrong.
Then deal with it.

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

...

Dude, when you say the eye detects lights, you also mean the rods and the cones, and not the whole eye. Just like when I say detection happens through resonance, I don't mean the whole eye together with the eyelids and the eyebrows resonates and vibrates along with light.. lol please. I just try to keep it simple. Light detection happens through resonance. This is a fact. No point in arguing about science, science is science, you can't change it. If you want to know wether I'm "lying" or telling the truth, do some research. I know you're too lazy to do so, so I did it for you. But you still go and argue about.. what? You do realize, in order to argue, you actually need to bring up some arguments. And "no", "wrong", and "bullshit" aren't arguments.

We completely agree that light detection happens through resonance, first you said BULLSHIT, and now you say.. what? You forgot to get to the point.

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

your eyes don't resonate with lightwaves, that's bullshit.
you have two types of light-detecting cells in your eyes, rods and cones.
rods detect light intensity
cones detect colour
nothing resonates.

I have no idea anymore what you claim tbh, first you say one thing, and then you go and claim the complete opposite. You have lost your point and got stuck in arguing about your ego.

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

Dude, when you say the eye detects lights, you also mean the rods and the cones, and not the whole eye. Just like when I say detection happens through resonance, I don't mean the whole eye together with the eyelids and the eyebrows resonates and vibrates along with light.. lol please. I just try to keep it simple. Light detection happens through resonance. This is a fact. No point in arguing about science, science is science, you can't change it. If you want to know wether I'm "lying" or telling the truth, do some research. I know you're too lazy to do so, so I did it for you. But you still go and argue about.. what? You do realize, in order to argue, you actually need to bring up some arguments. And "no", "wrong", and "bullshit" aren't arguments.

We completely agree that light detection happens through resonance, first you said BULLSHIT, and now you say.. what? You forgot to get to the point.

I have no idea anymore what you claim tbh, first you say one thing, and then you go and claim the complete opposite. You have lost your point and got stuck in arguing about your ego.

You're not worth talking to.
You claim I am changing my stance when you twist my words.
I know exactly what I'm talking about because I've studied the absorption of light by atoms and molecules intensively, maybe you don't understand it but that's ok.
Now I'm going to let this topic run its due course.

Originally Posted by Croneus

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

blah blah blah resonance

Basic rundown on how the human eye works.

Actually, nothing in your eye resonates. Of the roughly 5 million cones and nearly 100 million rods, they are stimulated by light. Cones deal in black and white (brightness), to form shadow, width, length, depth, night vision, ect. Rods deal in color. Of the three rods there are long, medium and short, dealing in yellow, green, and violet. Stimulation for the color blue for example would be when a photon of light hits the eye in such a way as to stimulate enough of violet, and enough of yellow, but not too much of either.

The main thing in them is the pigmented photoreceptor proteins. Rhodopsin (rods) and iodopsin (cones) are released when light stimulates the cones and rods after being focused through the retina, the proteins and ions released are stimulated in the optic centers of the brain, allowing you to see. Loss of cones causes blindess, as you cannot distinguish brightness, and loss of rods leads to night blindness. Color blindness is caused by brain/nerve damage.

The eye actually processes images in an upside down/reversed fashion, and everything in your field of vision is actually a series of images all about the size of a standard postage stamp. Your brain pieces everything together like a large puzzle. This is how you are able to have blind spots in your vision, or little optical illusions that make you miss seeing colors if you focus on a central black dot, or the gray lines, ect.

p.s. still no Nightstalkers... once again someones fantasies and need for control and betterment of their ego through exaggeration lead to random crap on the interwebs.

Originally Posted by Keiju

eye sight is odd tho, the younger you were the worse the detail in the images get

you cant remember the images from eye sight without having differentiated between all the "seperate" objects

at birth, there was only existence, then you start to give labels to "seperate" objects. "Seperate" is wierd coz seperation can go on infinitely, so can combining, so you can see something as a whole image or see something as a combination of seperate objects, so you can go in infinite detail by seperating objects and making the picture sharper/clearer but you go out of focus and start to lose sight of the "whole". You can combine everything and get a more accurate picture but you start to lose the sight itself since you have no objective reference points without labels,

if you dont have a label for something, it doesnt stand out in the image/sight, almost doesnt exist since memory seems to work by combining two senses, like a word(sound) and image, touch and image, taste and image, whatever

so in this sense, "resonance" sort of works, you have to "tune" into the frequency of the particular object in order to "see" it, but you can "see" the same thing in infinite number of ways so anway... i think this is what most people mean by "resonance" in relation to eye sight, not the sight itself but the combination of another sense (this one being the one you can tune, usually changing the combination of sounds/words) with the sight to alter perception

like... if your mind state is happy(so now we are tuned into the happy frequency, which will be different for everyone since all words are subjective), anything you associate with the word happy will stand out (or resonate) more in your eye sight, thus altering perception, not necessarily that you are actually happier but picking up what you visually percieve to be happiness i guess...

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

I liked your post until...

Originally Posted by Keiju

so in this sense, "resonance" sort of works, you have to "tune" into the frequency of the particular object in order to "see" it, but you can "see" the same thing in infinite number of ways so anway... i think this is what most people mean by "resonance" in relation to eye sight, not the sight itself but the combination of another sense (this one being the one you can tune, usually changing the combination of sounds/words) with the sight to alter perception

It doesn't work, there are no frequencies to tune into. It is part of the image that you are focusing on.
Also there is no such thing as a "happy" or "sad" frequency, people do not vibrate. I'm sorry to break that to you. I can provide further explanation if you wish.

Originally Posted by Keiju

happy or sad is a frequency in itself, not talking about vibrations or whatever, just using frequency to represent the infinite variations of sounds.. which are words, and so changing this frequency changes perception, the "focusing" is the tuning into a frequency, whatever your focusing on is a state of mind, the different states of mind... i like to use the word frequency to represent

the sight itself is not changing, it is always the same, only perception changes

like peoples idea of the universe/existence, it has/is/will always be the same, but peoples perception always changes it and so it also seems to change visually, change of frequency, my definitions/models anyway

this idea gives rise to the infinite possibility and "create your own universe" sort of thing, which is sort of true, but needs some sort of balance between objective and subjective

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

It's not a frequency. A frequency is a measure of the number of times something happens over a specific period of time. Thus, no emotion is a frequency.

Originally Posted by Keiju

hm whatever, i just defined what i meant by frequency, your definition makes no difference to my models, but at least we know what we both mean by frequency anyway

words only make sense within its own context, im sure you can see this, but yes you are correct frequency in its classical definition does not make sense in my post.... i never meant for it to though

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

the problem is words need to mean the same thing for both parties in order for communication to work

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

And within the context of that conversation, frequency had the pre-defined meaning that I explained to you.

Originally Posted by Keiju

yes or we can define what we mean by them,

like in maths we say x = ?, same with words

but i suppose this is the problem, noone is defining their words before use

but still...to say there are pre-defined meanings in words is a bit off, will make it very hard since the simplest of words are still subjective on a large scale,

rather you should of said, "what do you mean by frequency" , i think anyway

Originally Posted by adam has a dream

I think I have
It reminds me of pheremones - the natural scent of a person that we only detect subconsciously. These apparently make up part of our attraction to other people.
I would also go so far as to say entangled particles might play a role, seeing as a change in one particle causes an immediate change in the other, no matter what the distance. That would obviously be a good way to transmit information.

Originally Posted by Croneus

New studies suggest it's hard to retain memories from when you are very young because your brain hasn't learned to process and label everything yet and thusly is unable to identify and recall it as well as when you get older. Things you're with often, parents, your childhood blankey or teddy bear whatever, bring back memories better because of your time spent learning about them. The smells, touch, what they look like, sound like, taste.

Originally Posted by Sandform

Originally Posted by Croneus

New studies suggest it's hard to retain memories from when you are very young because your brain hasn't learned to process and label everything yet and thusly is unable to identify and recall it as well as when you get older. Things you're with often, parents, your childhood blankey or teddy bear whatever, bring back memories better because of your time spent learning about them. The smells, touch, what they look like, sound like, taste.

It may also be due to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoptosis .

In early childhood many kids have what some may call photographic memory, but it doesn't stay with them into adulthood because of apoptosis in the brain.

Originally Posted by Croneus

Originally Posted by Sandform

It may also be due to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoptosis .

In early childhood many kids have what some may call photographic memory, but it doesn't stay with them into adulthood because of apoptosis in the brain.

Apoptosis doesn't affect brain cells in the same way. The nuerons form new synapses and are still able to access and replicate information by doing so. Typically apoptosis will only affect brain cells that are damaged by physical trauma, or by a virus or toxin in order to try to save healthy nuerons. Eventually old age too. I've never heard of children with eidetic/photographic memories losing it.

Originally Posted by Sandform

Originally Posted by Croneus

Apoptosis doesn't affect brain cells in the same way. The nuerons form new synapses and are still able to access and replicate information by doing so. Typically apoptosis will only affect brain cells that are damaged by physical trauma, or by a virus or toxin in order to try to save healthy nuerons. Eventually old age too. I've never heard of children with eidetic/photographic memories losing it.

I actually read it in a book called Mapping the Mind by Rita Carter. I don't have the book anymore but some searching found me...The piece of link itself seems to actually be from Carter.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/SL_Psyc...etic_interplay


Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to create new neural pathways based on new experiences. It takes place over a lifetime, sometimes over genetically-determined critical periods. At birth, there are approximately 2,500 synapses in the cerebral cortex of a human baby.By three years old, the cerebral cortex has about 15,000 synapses (Gopnick et al., 1999). Because the infant brain has such a huge capacity for growth, it must eventually be pruned down. Synaptic pruning, or apoptosis, is the programmed neuron cell death that takes place during early childhood and adolescence. Pruning actually strengthens important connections and eliminates weaker ones, creating more effective neural communication (Brain Plasticity,2006). Many times children lose their eidetic or photographic memory during apaptosis. An incomplete pruning results in so-called idiot savantes while overkill apoptosis my strip too many connections and lead to Down’s syndrome (Carter, 1998).

Originally Posted by Croneus

Sorry to drag it off topic again but...

The first line of the summary says it all: "Today a brain scan reveals our thoughts, moods, and memories as clearly as an X-ray reveals our bones. We can actually observe a person's brain registering a joke or experiencing a painful memory." Uhm, no you can't. The fact she states that there are differences between a 'gay' and 'straight' brain are ridiculous. The quote you provided above also shows a huge pitfall. She suggests that incomplete pruning leads to savants, and too much leads to Downs Syndrome. Uhhh, sorry Miss Carter but Downs syndrome is a result of genetics that affect a number of things besides the brain itself. Savantism occurs mostly in children who have autistic defects (while the causes of autism are not currently known, researchers are checking for genetic defects). Calling them idiot savants is incredibly not PC as well. After searching around google, yahoo, and even altavista, I cannot find anything else that will back up where she says a child will lose their eidetic memory due to apoptosis. Also it looks like that particular nugget of information was from one of her earlier books (how can you back up a possible false claim without having someone else prove it besides yourself?) A lot of the reviews for the book, while praising its layout of information and ease to understand, several mention how she brings alot of personal bias towards various sociologial issues, makes signifigant leaps to conclusions and while well versed in the matter, makes grave mistakes on a number of topics. Sample reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R29WBFJ...cm_cr_rdp_perm

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1BBLDX...cm_cr_rdp_perm

Lastly, I'll let this article take apart the validity of much of her book.

http://human-brain.org/mapping.html

Being 8 years old much of what's said in there may have been believed to be true at the time, but is known now to be different.

(If people are getting annoyed by the derailing I have no problem creating a new discussion thread or continuing in private messages.)

Originally Posted by The Cusp

Originally Posted by Croneus

The first line of the summary says it all: "Today a brain scan reveals our thoughts, moods, and memories as clearly as an X-ray reveals our bones. We can actually observe a person's brain registering a joke or experiencing a painful memory."

Uhm, no you can't.

Yes you can.

(from this article: http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/...urrentPage=all)
"Yet academic researchers and medical entrepreneurs are already trying to sell brain scanning to both patients and corporate clients. Media giant Viacom (parent of MTV and Nickelodeon) paid a reported $200,000 to the British company Neurosense to help determine ad placement by scanning subjects as they watch different TV commercials."

Originally Posted by Croneus

Originally Posted by The Cusp

Yes you can.

(from this article: http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/...urrentPage=all)
"Yet academic researchers and medical entrepreneurs are already trying to sell brain scanning to both patients and corporate clients. Media giant Viacom (parent of MTV and Nickelodeon) paid a reported $200,000 to the British company Neurosense to help determine ad placement by scanning subjects as they watch different TV commercials."

Dude the article itself shoots down the whole theoy. Example

"He puts down his pen and turns to me. "I would love to see your brain healthier, because you'll be happier if it's healthier," he says. "It's too low in activity. I recommend a multivitamin, and to get better blood flow I would take gingko." Just before I leave, he advises me to lay off the snowboarding and play more tennis. "With the lowered activity in your cerebellum," he explains, "I'd like to see you do more coordination sports."

"There's a logical fallacy here." I am sitting at a conference table with a perfect view of the sun setting over West LA, talking to Robert Rubin, professor and vice chair of psychiatry at UCLA and one of Amen's chief critics.

My Spect scans are arrayed between us, and I have just recounted Amen's interpretation of my brain images.

Rubin, a noted researcher on brain functioning in depression, draws two circles on a sheet of paper. He points to the first and says, "Let's say this represents a bunch of people with low activity of the frontal lobe, and let's say, for the sake of argument, that many of them also have depression." Then he points to the second circle. "And here are all the people without depression. Do any of these people also have low frontal lobe activity? You bet they do. So there are people with depression who have this finding, and people without depression with this finding. How is the finding helpful?"

"Not too helpful," I say. "But Amen claims that studies have shown that low frontal lobe activity is associated with depression."

Rubin smiles while shaking his head. I can tell this is an argument he's heard before. "That's true, but the data is based on group averages. A typical study will image 10 people with depression and 10 people without depression. On average, you might find that the depressed group has lower frontal activity than the normal group. But there's a lot of variability, meaning some depressed people have normal scans and some healthy people have abnormal scans."

"Meaning ... you can't use the finding to make a diagnosis."

"Right." He looks back down at my scans, with all their dings and dents. "To determine the utility of these findings, you have to go to the critical next step, which is to come up with specific imaging criteria for depression, scan a large number of people, and then read the scans blindly — that is, without having met the patient. You can then determine the accuracy of your test. To my knowledge, nobody has done such studies for depression or for most any psychiatric disorder other than Alzheimer's disease."


and the very last bit of the entire article...

"Most neuromarketers are using these scans as a way of sprinkling glitter over their products, so that customers will be persuaded that the pictures are giving them a deeper understanding of their mind. In fact, imaging technologies are still in their infancy. And while overenthusiastic practitioners may try to leapfrog over the science, real progress, which will take decades, will be made by patient and methodical researchers, not by entrepreneurs looking to make a buck."


Nightstalkers are fakes.

Originally Posted by Sandform

Originally Posted by Croneus

Sorry to drag it off topic again but...

The first line of the summary says it all: "Today a brain scan reveals our thoughts, moods, and memories as clearly as an X-ray reveals our bones. We can actually observe a person's brain registering a joke or experiencing a painful memory." Uhm, no you can't. The fact she states that there are differences between a 'gay' and 'straight' brain are ridiculous. The quote you provided above also shows a huge pitfall. She suggests that incomplete pruning leads to savants, and too much leads to Downs Syndrome. Uhhh, sorry Miss Carter but Downs syndrome is a result of genetics that affect a number of things besides the brain itself. Savantism occurs mostly in children who have autistic defects (while the causes of autism are not currently known, researchers are checking for genetic defects). Calling them idiot savants is incredibly not PC as well. After searching around google, yahoo, and even altavista, I cannot find anything else that will back up where she says a child will lose their eidetic memory due to apoptosis. Also it looks like that particular nugget of information was from one of her earlier books (how can you back up a possible false claim without having someone else prove it besides yourself?) A lot of the reviews for the book, while praising its layout of information and ease to understand, several mention how she brings alot of personal bias towards various sociologial issues, makes signifigant leaps to conclusions and while well versed in the matter, makes grave mistakes on a number of topics. Sample reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R29WBFJ...cm_cr_rdp_perm

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1BBLDX...cm_cr_rdp_perm

Lastly, I'll let this article take apart the validity of much of her book.

http://human-brain.org/mapping.html

Being 8 years old much of what's said in there may have been believed to be true at the time, but is known now to be different.

(If people are getting annoyed by the derailing I have no problem creating a new discussion thread or continuing in private messages.)

First off I have no clue why that is really into this, all the person making the synopsis meant when she said this was that you can see areas of higher activity in the mind, this is what is known as brain mapping. If you couldn't tell things by localizing differences during specific moments then we wouldn't know what pieces of the brain are good for what. The point of the statement is that the mind is modular and they have proven it.

No it isn't ridiculous, she was citing someone else's work in which he took the brains of a whole bunch of prisoners that were known gay or straight and viewed the differences in their brains. He proposed that the areas that the brains (in a specific part which I can't recall) had in relation to the sex would be the same in homosexual men as that of women. Any claims she made she wasn't making for herself, but making observations about another persons work. She even made sure to note that the facts don't necessarily mean anything because many of the men died of AIDS.


http://jcn.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/16/6/438 2001 This one states the various chemicals associated with downs syndrome and with apoptosis inhibotory chemicals.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/...ll/127/12/2572 2004 This one states the various chemicals associated with Autistic cases and with reduction of inhibitory chemicals related to apoptosis.

Don't you think programmed cell death probably is determined by genetics...like down syndrome?

P.S. Sorry I can't provide more up to date links but I'm busy atm.

The people who reviewed her book must not have realized that everything she said was based on inference from mostly other peoples work...and
almost every time she said something she made it clear that what she was giving you a generalized view, and not a specific view. The book was catering to those less familiar with the subject. Many of them say she makes claims without reproducable experiments, because she speaks of only one, but what she is doing is telling you inferences from specific experiments, not necessarily saying it is college textbook information.

When I was reading it and she brought about things that other people are saying she said as "fact" I was thinking of it as theory, since she provided the reasons why she thought what she thought. Theory being in terms of a common persons word not a scientists.

I can't find anything about apoptosis and photographic memory either, however I have found various articles stating for a fact that some children do have eiditic memory and more often than not lose it.

This thread is not for discussing non-scientific parts of shared dreaming. Anyone else met the Night Stalkers and Dream Walkers? is.

Used to have rules here, but someone pointed out that they don't do that here.

Everyone can now post.

Erm, since this seems to be a thread to replace the now chronically off-topic nightstalkers/dreamwalkers thing, can anyone explain what exactly is going on with them? I read about 8 pages of this thread, but alkl I could really gather were that they were beings (typpiucally human) that sem to be able to "enter" others' dreams (some sort of telepathy?) and that the dreamwalkers are either good or neutral, the Night Stalkers are actively malicious,* and there are also watchers, (who may or may nopt be human, but by their name I assume theior prerogative does not include interfering in other's dreeams, but merely observing?).
If the answers to these questions can be found earlier in the thread, I could go back and read it, but if it's going to be as fruitless an effort as it seems, I figuresd I may as well ask here. First of all, is there any way to differentiate between a NS/DW and a regular dream character? If you regularly meet sentient-seeming dream characters who do not conform to any of your own dream styloes, are they likely dream walkers, or merely dream characters? Are these actively encountered beings, have people here actually had proven dreams where they encountered a DW/NS that they later met in real life and confirmed the dream encounter, or is this purely theoretical? This sort of thing seems to be important, and I wish to gather more information. FI anyone can answer these questions, or add anything odf importance I may have missed, thank you.


PS: If this is about the brain scan controversy on the other thread, and not about the original subject of the other thread, I apologise for misunderstanding the purpose. Just tell me if I misunderstood, and I'll go back to the other thread.

Originally Posted by JET73L

Erm, since this seems to be a thread to replace the now chronically off-topic nightstalkers/dreamwalkers thing, can anyone explain what exactly is going on with them? I read about 8 pages of this thread, but alkl I could really gather were that they were beings (typpiucally human) that sem to be able to "enter" others' dreams (some sort of telepathy?) and that the dreamwalkers are either good or neutral, the Night Stalkers are actively malicious,* and there are also watchers, (who may or may nopt be human, but by their name I assume theior prerogative does not include interfering in other's dreeams, but merely observing?).
If the answers to these questions can be found earlier in the thread, I could go back and read it, but if it's going to be as fruitless an effort as it seems, I figuresd I may as well ask here. First of all, is there any way to differentiate between a NS/DW and a regular dream character? If you regularly meet sentient-seeming dream characters who do not conform to any of your own dream styloes, are they likely dream walkers, or merely dream characters? Are these actively encountered beings, have people here actually had proven dreams where they encountered a DW/NS that they later met in real life and confirmed the dream encounter, or is this purely theoretical? This sort of thing seems to be important, and I wish to gather more information. FI anyone can answer these questions, or add anything odf importance I may have missed, thank you.


PS: If this is about the brain scan controversy on the other thread, and not about the original subject of the other thread, I apologise for misunderstanding the purpose. Just tell me if I misunderstood, and I'll go back to the other thread.

This is not a thread to replace the other. This is thread to get the other on topic. Please post on the other thread. Don't replace your thread, I will just post on the other 8.

Okay, thanks for clearing that up.

I had a minute of my busy schedual to come on and check out beyond dreaming really fast, not too pleased.

I think you just made this to raise your post count and to give rules to people. You joined in april of 07, you have no say in what the members of the forum can and cannot do.

Sorry, just voicing my opinion.

Oops. The rules are common in another forum I frequent. :sorry: I removed them.

About the posts. I couldn't care less what my post count is. If you had looked at the other thread, you would see that it was sadly off topic.

Now, to get this thread back on topic.

Spoiler for wikipedia article:

Taken from "the current revision of Neuroimaging as edited by 117.201.65.90 (Talk) at 15:06, 16 June 2008."

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) relies on the paramagnetic properties of oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin to see images of changing blood flow in the brain associated with neural activity. This allows images to be generated that reflect which brain structures are activated (and how) during performance of different tasks. Most fMRI scanners allow subjects to be presented with different visual images, sounds and touch stimuli, and to make different actions such as pressing a button or moving a joystick. Consequently, fMRI can be used to reveal brain structures and processes associated with perception, thought and action. The resolution of fMRI is about 2-3 millimeters at present, limited by the spatial spread of the hemodynamic response to neural activity. It has largely superseded PET for the study of brain activation patterns. PET, however, retains the significant advantage of being able to identify specific brain receptors (or transporters) associated with particular neurotransmitters through its ability to image radiolabelled receptor "ligands" (receptor ligands are any chemicals that stick to receptors).

As well as research on healthy subjects, fMRI is increasingly used for the medical diagnosis of disease. Because fMRI is exquisitely sensitive to blood flow, it is extremely sensitive to early changes in the brain resulting from ischemia (abnormally low blood flow), such as the changes which follow stroke. Early diagnosis of certain types of stroke is increasingly important in neurology, since substances which dissolve blood clots may be used in the first few hours after certain types of stroke occur, but are dangerous to use afterwards. Brain changes seen on fMRI may help to make the decision to treat with these agents. With between 72% and 90% accuracy where chance would achieve 0.8%,[2] fMRI techniques can decide which of a set of known images the subject is viewing.[3]

The article above shows that brain scans are possible to determain what parts of the brain are active. It also suggests that magnetics, not electromagnetics is used to scan the brain. That is my next theory for dreamsharing.

I understand that. Sorry if i came off as being an ass. Just get the other thread on topic by pm or by issuing it in the thread itself. Creating another thread such as this only creates clutter and confusion.

Some missguided posts in Anyone else met the Night Stalkers and Dream Walkers?

Originally Posted by WaterSquirrel

It is possible that through evolution our brains have harnessed the power of dark energy. This would then explain all inter-human psychic phenomena such as dream sharing and telepathy.

Has anyone ever thought about it this way before?

ChaybaChayba posted on Anyone else met the Night Stalkers and Dream Walkers? again instead of here. (He's not the brightest dirt clod.)

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

Originally Posted by Croneus

Basic rundown on how the human eye works.

Actually, nothing in your eye resonates.

We completely agree, the only reason why you think we don't, is because you do not understand what resonance is. I can make your eye resonate with sound waves, claiming nothing in your eye resonates is just trying to say B when I say A..

Originally Posted by WaterSquirrel

It is possible that through evolution our brains have harnessed the power of dark energy. This would then explain all inter-human psychic phenomena such as dream sharing and telepathy.

Has anyone ever thought about it this way before?

I think some scientists already discovered this dark energy (never heard of the term dark energy myself) but, I assume it's the same as orgon energy, or the aether? I don't really believe such a thing as "vacuum" exists, how can "nothing" exist? I think this vacuum lots of people, including science, talk about is actually just another form of energy.. So yeah, I also thought about that, and I read this really elaborated article about this energy and astral projections.. google for Robert Bruce. Anyway, almost all cultures through history over the whole world have talked about this energy, there must be something to it.

I don't think it's possible to scientificly show how dreamsharing would work! If we can't even show the mechanics of gravity through science, how are we gonna show the mechanics of dreamsharing through science?

There is science behind it? Thats new, tough its nearly impossible to prove... let alone find its mechanics <.<

Ya, this thread is back on topic! Now, to keep it there...

Originally Posted by Walms

There is science behind it? Thats new, tough its nearly impossible to prove... let alone find its mechanics <.<

Yes, it is nearly impossible to prove. We are (or at least I am) trying discuss how it would be possible. If it actually is done is irrelevent to this post. (And, I hope, to this thread.)

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

I don't think it's possible to scientificly show how dreamsharing would work! If we can't even show the mechanics of gravity through science, how are we gonna show the mechanics of dreamsharing through science?

We make theories about different mechanics and then try to disprove them. If we can, then we make more. And more. And more. Until we finally find a theory that is impossible to disprove. Then we say that theory is possible.
IDK, I read it in a book I think.

Spoiler for I shouldn't be here:

I don't believe in dreamsharing. Oh, well. I am acting like this is a counter-reality that I want to figure out. So I post as if dreamsharing is possible and done. All I need to do is figure out why.

Well, in case you want to prove it right, here is the only answer (what I used when I got one) get 2 brothers (preferently kids) who don't know about LD or DS or anything about dreams other than the common, actually, take millions of examples withouth they noticing, tell them to write a DJ (the fake experiment) if they both write the same, its proved, then we can go for the mechanics.

Originally Posted by Walms

Well, in case you want to prove it right, here is the only answer (what I used when I got one) get 2 brothers (preferently kids) who don't know about LD or DS or anything about dreams other than the common, actually, take millions of examples withouth they noticing, tell them to write a DJ (the fake experiment) if they both write the same, its proved, then we can go for the mechanics.

I don't care if dreamsharing is real. My disbelief will only last until I have a shared dream, and until then dream sharing doesn't affect me. My main goal is to challenge myself prove that it is not impossible. And I want to beat other people to do it. (I work better when I'm competing: I don't slack off as much.)

lol ok, we could compite... anyway, I tought that since you want its mechanics, you should first prove it right, tough it works better when your sleeping close to the person <.<

Originally Posted by Walms

lol ok, we could compite... anyway, I tought that since you want its mechanics, you should first prove it right, tough it works better when your sleeping close to the person <.<

Ya, I'll try to beat you to prove that dreamsharing isn't impossible. I do have an IQ of way over 200 (if you use a standard deviation of 100.)

Well, what your saying about sleeping close to someone makes me consider the magnetic theory more. I'll see what theory I come up with. Goodnight.