What are dreams for? Are they garbage processing by the brain, as Francis Crick declared? The royal road to the unconscious, as some Freudians believe? Or are they something more interesting, an intermediary between conscious and unconscious biological intelligence? Recent research out of one of the more innovative sleep labs in the world, guided by […]
Psychotherapy While You Sleep (9/30/13)
Thinking While You Sleep Can’t we get people to learn stuff while they sleep? It’s been a dream (pardon the pun) of physicians, psychologists, industrialists and teachers for many many years. Why should eight hours – one third of life – be spent in such a “wasteful” manner? Now, media hype-hopes are rekindled anew with […]
Speak, Memory (2/18/13)
Sleep’s Memory How do we remember? What do we try to forget? What do we forget without trying? As in many areas of consciousness, sleep is a key. Vladimir Nabokov was a formidable novelist, essayist and lepidopterist. He recognized evolutionary changes in butterflies decades before his colleagues. Yet he is better known as the author […]
Sleepwalking stops vegetarianism (4/2/12)
Eating in Your Sleep Some people do not eat meat; they will not eat meat. The reasons are many. They range from concern for their own health to concern for the health of the planet, as eight pounds of grain is usually needed to create one pound of meat. Yet even vegetarians of 40 years […]
Does lack of deep sleep up blood pressure? (9/9/11)
What About Sleep Causes High Blood Pressure? Funny things happen with media stories. Complicated science suddenly becomes simple, clear and distinct – with implications very different to what the research reveals. Such is the case with a recent article on hypertension. According to the report in BBC News, “Bad Sleep Ups Blood Pressure Risk.” What […]