The Mindbrain and Dreams

The Mindbrain and Dreams PDF Author: Mark J. Blechner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351185659
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 461

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Book Description
In The Mindbrain and Dreams: An Exploration of Dreaming, Thinking, and Artistic Creation, Mark J. Blechner argues that the mind and brain should be understood as a single unit – the "mindbrain" – which manipulates our raw perceptions of the world and reshapes that world through dreams, thoughts, and artistic creation. This book explores how dreams are key to understanding mental processes, and how working with dreams clinically with individuals and groups provides an essential route towards achieving transformation within the psychoanalytic process. Covering such key topics as knowledge, emotion, metaphor, and memory, this book sets out a radical new agenda for understanding the importance of dreams in human thought and their clinical importance in psychoanalysis. Blechner builds on his previous work and takes it much further, drawing on the latest neuroscientific findings to set out a new way of how the mindbrain constructs reality, while providing guidance on how best to help people understand their dreams. The Mindbrain and Dreams: An Exploration of Dreaming, Thinking, and Artistic Creation will appeal to psychologists, psychoanalysts, philosophers, and cognitive neuroscientists who want new ways to explore how people think and understand the world.

The Mindbrain and Dreams

The Mindbrain and Dreams PDF Author: Mark J. Blechner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351185659
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 461

Get Book Here

Book Description
In The Mindbrain and Dreams: An Exploration of Dreaming, Thinking, and Artistic Creation, Mark J. Blechner argues that the mind and brain should be understood as a single unit – the "mindbrain" – which manipulates our raw perceptions of the world and reshapes that world through dreams, thoughts, and artistic creation. This book explores how dreams are key to understanding mental processes, and how working with dreams clinically with individuals and groups provides an essential route towards achieving transformation within the psychoanalytic process. Covering such key topics as knowledge, emotion, metaphor, and memory, this book sets out a radical new agenda for understanding the importance of dreams in human thought and their clinical importance in psychoanalysis. Blechner builds on his previous work and takes it much further, drawing on the latest neuroscientific findings to set out a new way of how the mindbrain constructs reality, while providing guidance on how best to help people understand their dreams. The Mindbrain and Dreams: An Exploration of Dreaming, Thinking, and Artistic Creation will appeal to psychologists, psychoanalysts, philosophers, and cognitive neuroscientists who want new ways to explore how people think and understand the world.

Dreaming Souls

Dreaming Souls PDF Author: Owen Flanagan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019534958X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
What, if anything, do dreams tell us about ourselves? What is the relationship between types of sleep and types of dreams? Does dreaming serve any purpose? Or are dreams simply meaningless mental noise--"unmusical fingers wandering over the piano keys"? With expertise in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, Owen Flanagan is uniquely qualified to answer these questions. And in Dreaming Souls he provides both an accessible survey of the latest research on sleep and dreams and a compelling new theory about the nature and function of dreaming. Flanagan argues that while sleep has a clear biological function and adaptive value, dreams are merely side effects, "free riders," irrelevant from an evolutionary point of view. But dreams are hardly unimportant. Indeed, Flanagan argues that dreams are self-expressive, the result of our need to find or to create meaning, even when we're sleeping. Rejecting Freud's theory of manifest and latent content--of repressed wishes appearing in disguised form--Flanagan shows how brainstem activity during sleep generates a jumbled profusion of memories, images, thoughts, emotions, and desires, which the cerebral cortex then attempts to shape into a more or less coherent story. Such dream-narratives range from the relatively mundane worries of non REM sleep to the fantastic confabulations of deep REM that resemble psychotic episodes in their strangeness. But however bizarre these narratives may be, they can shed light on our mental life, our well being, and our sense of self. Written with clarity, lively wit, and remarkable insight, Dreaming Souls offers a fascinating new way of apprehending one of the oldest mysteries of mental life.

Dreaming as Delirium

Dreaming as Delirium PDF Author: J. Allan Hobson
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262581790
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
In this book J. Allan Hobson sets out a compelling—and controversial—theory of consciousness. Our brain-mind, as he calls it, is not a fixed identity but a dynamic balancing act between the chemical systems that regulate waking and dreaming. With a new foreword by the author. In this book, J. Allan Hobson sets out a compelling—and controversial—theory of consciousness. Our brain-mind, as he calls it, is not a fixed identity but a dynamic balancing act between the chemical systems that regulate waking and dreaming. Drawing on his work both as a sleep researcher and as a psychiatrist, Hobson looks in particular at the strikingly similar chemical characteristics of the states of dreaming and psychosis. His underlying theme is that the form of our thoughts, emotions, dreams, and memories derive from specific nerve cells and electrochemical impulses described by neuroscientists. Among the questions Hobson explores are: What are dreams? Do they have any hidden meaning, or are they simply emotionally salient images whose peculiar narrative structure refects the unique neurophysiology of sleep? And what is the relationship between the delirium of our dream life and psychosis? Originally published by Little, Brown under the title The Chemistry of Conscious States.

The Limits of Dream

The Limits of Dream PDF Author: J. F. Pagel
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080559603
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
The Limits of Dream focuses on what we currently know of the human central nervous system (CNS), examining the basic sciences of neurochemisty, neuroanatomy, and CNS electrophysiology as these sciences apply to dream, then reaching beyond basic science to examine the cognitive science of dreaming including the processes of memory, the perceptual interface, and visual imagery. Building on what is known of intrapersonal CNS processing, the book steps outside the physical body to explore artificially created dreams and their use in filmmaking, art and story, as well as the role of dreaming in creative process and creative "madness. The limits of our scientific knowledge of dream frame this window that can be used to explore the border between body and mind. What is known scientifically of the cognitive process of dreaming will lead the neuroscientist, the student of cognitive science, and the general reader down different paths than expected into an exploration of the fuzzy and complex horizon between mind and brain. - The clearest presentation of research and philosophy currently available relating to the mind/brain interface - Discusses the cognitive processes of dreaming utilized in film and artificial intelligence - Describes the functioning of dream in the creative process

The Dreaming Brain

The Dreaming Brain PDF Author: J. Allan Hobson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description


Understanding Dreams in Clinical Practice

Understanding Dreams in Clinical Practice PDF Author: Marcus West
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429923511
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
This book presents a simple, effective and illuminating way of understanding and working with dreams in clinical practice. It describes the mechanisms through which the mind/brain processes our experience and forms symbols, which embody a rich network of associations. It demonstrates how the dream and this network of associations can apply on a number of levels and thus shows how the full richness and vital importance of dreams, their meanings and purposes, can be explored. The book also explores the history, theory and science of dreams and dreaming. It reviews the debates between, and contributions from, Freud, Jung and other psychoanalysts, as well as the developments and discoveries from neuroscientists and dream laboratories, bringing the subject right up to date. Whilst the book primarily uses Jungian terminology, and highly values Jung's insights and approach to dreams, it gives a critical, contemporary account of the whole field of dream work and will be useful to practitioners of all theoretical persuasions.

The Dream Frontier

The Dream Frontier PDF Author: Mark J. Blechner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134893906
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
The Dream Frontier is that rare book that makes available the cumulative wisdom of a century's worth of clinical examination of dreams and then reconfigured that wisdom on the basis of research in cognitive neuroscience. Drawing on psychodynamic theorists and neuroscientific researchers with equal fluency and grace, Mark Blechner introduces the reader to a conversation of the finest minds, from Freud to Jung, from Sullivan to Erikson, from Aserinksy and Kleitman to Hobson, as the work toward an understanding of dreams and dreaming that is both scientifically credible and personally meaningful. The dream, in Blechner's elegantly conceived overview, offers itself to the dreamer as an answer to a question yet to be asked. Approached in thi open-ended manner, dreams come to reveal the meaning-making systems of the unconscious in the total absence of waking considerations of reality testing and communicability. Systems of dream interpretation arise as helpful, if inherently limited, strategies for apprehending this unconscious quest for meaning. Whereas students will appreciate Blechner's concise reviews of the various schools of dream interpretation, teachers and supervisors will value his astute reexamination of the very process of interpretating dreams, which includes the manner in which group discussion of dreams may be employed to correct for individual interpretive biases. Elegantly written, lucidly argued, deftly synooptic but never ponderous in tone, The Dream Frontier provides a fresh outlook on the century just passed along with the keys to the antechambers of the new century's reinvestigation of fundamental questions of conscious and unconscious mental life. It transcends the typical limits of interdisciplinary reportage and brings both researcher and clinician to the threshold of a new, mutually enriching exploration of the dream frontier in search of basic answers to basic questions.

The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness

The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness PDF Author: Mark Solms
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393542025
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
A revelatory new theory of consciousness that returns emotions to the center of mental life. For Mark Solms, one of the boldest thinkers in contemporary neuroscience, discovering how consciousness comes about has been a lifetime’s quest. Scientists consider it the "hard problem" because it seems an impossible task to understand why we feel a subjective sense of self and how it arises in the brain. Venturing into the elementary physics of life, Solms has now arrived at an astonishing answer. In The Hidden Spring, he brings forward his discovery in accessible language and graspable analogies. Solms is a frank and fearless guide on an extraordinary voyage from the dawn of neuropsychology and psychoanalysis to the cutting edge of contemporary neuroscience, adhering to the medically provable. But he goes beyond other neuroscientists by paying close attention to the subjective experiences of hundreds of neurological patients, many of whom he treated, whose uncanny conversations expose much about the brain’s obscure reaches. Most importantly, you will be able to recognize the workings of your own mind for what they really are, including every stray thought, pulse of emotion, and shift of attention. The Hidden Spring will profoundly alter your understanding of your own subjective experience.

Psychodynamic Neurology

Psychodynamic Neurology PDF Author: Allan Hobson
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 042958587X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Psychodynamic Neurology: Dreams, Consciousness, and Virtual Realty presents a novel way of thinking about the value of dreaming, based in solid comprehension of scientific research on sleep and dreams, but with deep understanding of psychoanalytic and other interpretations of dreams.This book:Surveys the remarkable history of sleep research over th

Dream Science

Dream Science PDF Author: J. F. Pagel
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0124047106
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Dreaming is the cognitive state uniquely experienced by humans and integral to our creativity, the survival characteristic that allows for the rapid change and innovation that defines our species and provides the basis for our art, philosophy, science, and humanity. Yet there is little empiric or scientific evidence supporting the generally accepted dream-based theories of neuroconsciousness. Dream Science examines the cognitive science of dreaming and offers an evidence-based view of the phenomenon. Today, such evidence-based breakthroughs in the field of dream science are altering our understanding of consciousness. Different forms of dreaming consciousness occur throughout sleep, and dreamlike states extend into wake. Each dream state is developed on a framework of memories, emotions, representational images, and electrophysiology, amenable to studies utilizing emerging and evolving technology. Dream Science discusses basic insights into the scientific study of dreaming, including the limits to traditional Freudian-based dream theory and the more modern evidence-based science. It also includes coverage of the processes of memory and parasomnias, the sleep-disturbance diagnoses related to dreaming. This comprehensive book is a scientific exploration of the mind-brain interface and a look into the future of dream science. - Provides a more evidence-based approach than any other work on the market - Single source of integrated information on all aspects of dream science makes this a critical time-saving reference for researchers and clinicians - Authored by one of the leaders in the field of dream research