Viswanathan K's Thoughts

In an earlier blog , we saw how the brain changes both its hardware and software. And how quickly it can do that. In Livewired , David Eagleman elaborates on his theory for an age-old question: Why do we dream?   The basis of his theory is the speed at which the brain can rewire itself. (Remember, from the last blog, blindfolded people started using their “sight” areas of the brain for “touch” activities within 40-60 minutes ). If that is how fast the brain can rewire itself, well, the visual cortex has a major problem unlike the sound, or touch areas of the brain . How does the visual cortex prevent itself from being taken over by the other parts of the brain, given that the world is dark half the time, thanks to that pesky thing called rotation? (Electricity is a very recent invention, in evolutionary terms).   The answer his team has proposed? “By keeping the occipital cortex active during the night. We suggest that dreaming exists to keep the visual cortex from b...

I was amused when I heard of Matthew Walker’s highly rated book, Why We Sleep . How much can there be to write about a topic like sleep, I smirked. Even for doctors, it seemed a stretch; but writing a book for laymen? But it was highly rated on Amazon, so cometh the discount, I bought the book. And boy, are the ratings justified! There’s tons of fascinating info on matters to do with sleep. Including the question: what is the purpose of dreaming? Take the heat produced by a light bulb. It is not the intended purpose, just “an unintended by-product of the operation” of producing light. The technical term for such by-product is “epiphenomenon”. Is dreaming just an epiphenomenon of sleep? The answer is a categorical No. The first use of dreaming is that it serves as “overnight therapy”. But only if it is “content specific dreaming”, i.e., related to the “emotional themes and sentiments of the waking trauma”. In those cases, dreaming helps the individual move “forward into a...