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From: prune@athena.mit.edu (Paul Berland)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Function of Dreams (was Re: Dreams(Garbage collection))
Keywords: dreams prefrontal cortex learning
Message-ID: <1991Apr5.105056.12662@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 5 Apr 91 10:50:56 GMT
References: <1991Mar27.162850.4397@mercury.cair.du.edu> <1991Mar30.023454.12481@athena.mit.edu> <1991Mar31.024741.29337@mercury.cair.du.edu> <1991Apr1.143027.12963@grebyn.com>
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Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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In article <1991Apr1.143027.12963@grebyn.com>, fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Oceanstar) writes:
|> ....
|> The central problem faced by the mammalian brain, says Winson, is how to
|> integrate experience over time--how to construct and modify neural
|> representations of the environment so as to guide the animal's future
|> behavior.  *Learning*, in other words.  Winson breaks this process down
|> into three components:
|>      1)  assimilating new information,
|>      2)  associating new info. with memories of past experiences,
|>  and 3)  formulating strategies to govern future behavior.
|> ....
|> So what is the scheme used by marsupial and placental mammals?  Winson
|> says, "I propose that it [is], in computer terms, off-line processing"--
|> where off-line processing entails the acquisition of input information
|> and its temporary storage in memory, until such time as processing
|> components become available.  And when is the brain "off-line"?  When
|> it's asleep.  This scheme would allow for a smaller prefrontal cortex
|> because the task of integration, or learning, would not have to take
|> place simultaneously with the processing of new information.  The
|> integration, association, and action-planning stages of learning, could
|> take place during REM sleep.

Q1:  Does this theory imply that while awake, only 1 and 2 can operate?
     (Perhaps only tentative "strategies" can be formed while awake that 
     become incorporated only during dreaming?  Can we consciously
     reference these tentative strategies and in what way do they
     subjectively differ from fully formulated strategies?)

Q2:  Does this theory imply that lucid dreaming (having an awake mind while
     dreaming) may have significant effect on subconscious motivations?
     (I know that lucid dreaming has occasionally been used in 
     psychotherapy and "self-psychology" but TO WHAT EXTENT is lucidity
     potentially causing havoc to the proper functioning of the brain?
     How comprehensible is the "strategy formulation process" to the
     conscious mind?)