Psychodynamic Neurology: Dreams, Consciousness, and Virtual Realty

272 Pages·2014·1.41 MB·English

by  Hobson

NEUROPSYCHIATRY H
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Waking Dreaming
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Lucid
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Dreaming
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PSYCHODYNAMIC NEUROLOGY
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Dreams, Consciousness, and Virtual Reality O
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Psychodynamic Neurology: Dreams, Consciousness, and Virtual Reality presents a novel
way of thinking about the value of dreaming, based in solid comprehension of scientific Y
research on sleep and dreams, but with deep understanding of psychoanalytic and other N
interpretations of dreams.
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This book:
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• Surveys the remarkable history of sleep research over the past few decades
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• Examines the neurobiology of sleep and its implications for consciousness and well-being C
• Addresses the nature of waking and dreaming consciousness and how they are deeply
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related
• Presents the neurogenesis, function, and clinical importance of a brain-based dream theory E
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Our dreams are a mixture of anticipated virtual as well as remembered real experience.
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This book tells the story of how neuroscience has helped us reach this startling and exciting
PSYCHODYNAMIC
conclusion and how the new scientific model builds upon and departs from the dream O
theories of the past.
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“Hobson invites us to take a step back and think carefully about what came before waking NEUROLOGY
consciousness. He offers an alternative view—in which waking consciousness emerges
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from a much deeper precedent; namely a proto-consciousness that we possess before ever
perceiving the world.” Y
—From the Foreword by Professor Karl J. Friston, University College London, UK
Dreams, Consciousness, and Virtual Reality
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Cover Images Courtesy of Ursula Voss.
Allan Hobson
6000 Broken Sound Parkway, NW
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New York, NY 10017
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PSYCHODYNAMIC
NEUROLOGY
Dreams, Consciousness,
and Virtual Reality

PSYCHODYNAMIC
NEUROLOGY
Dreams, Consciousness,
and Virtual Reality
Allan Hobson
Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Boca Raton London New York
CRC Press is an imprint of the
Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
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Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742
© 2015 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
No claim to original U.S. Government works
Version Date: 20140818
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-1-4822-6055-7 (eBook - PDF)
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Contents
Foreword ............................................................................................................ix
Introduction ....................................................................................................xiii
Acknowledgments ..........................................................................................xxi
The author .....................................................................................................xxiii
Chapter 1 Historical background: The mind- brain schism of 1900 ....1
Virtual reality dream—12/6/2011 ....................................................................1
Philosophical issues ...........................................................................................3
The Freudian split ..............................................................................................4
Modern sleep science .........................................................................................5
Psychodynamics .................................................................................................6
William James .....................................................................................................8
Helmholtz and the pact against vitalism .......................................................8
Wilhelm Wundt ..................................................................................................9
Chapter 2 Neurological development: Sleep and dream science .......11
Noreene Storrie and potatoes—11/26/2012 ..................................................11
Self and agency .................................................................................................13
Fetal brain activation .......................................................................................16
Sleep eye movement ........................................................................................18
I move, therefore I am ......................................................................................19
Separate selves ..................................................................................................20
Vision in waking and dreaming ....................................................................22
A virtual space for virtual sensation and virtual movement ....................27
Taking virtual reality seriously .....................................................................28
Evolution............................................................................................................29
Self-organization ..............................................................................................30
Dreaming in real-time .....................................................................................33
Time sense in dreams ......................................................................................34
v
vi Contents
Chapter 3 Lucid dreaming: Splitting primary and secondary
consciousness .............................................................................37
Waking dream—1/12/13 .................................................................................38
Flip-flop states ..................................................................................................39
Brain dissociation .............................................................................................41
Free will? ...........................................................................................................45
Brain imaging and lucid dreaming ...............................................................48
Chapter 4 Hypnosis: Entering the brain- mind via the brain
stem cellar ...................................................................................51
Associations are never free .............................................................................52
Autosuggestion and self-hypnosis ................................................................53
Chapter 5 Let there be light: Information creation and
management ...............................................................................55
PGO waves of REM sleep................................................................................56
PGO wave inhibition .......................................................................................58
Turning on PGO waves and REM sleep .......................................................60
A startling hypothesis .....................................................................................61
Chapter 6 Central heating: Keeping warm while dreaming ..............65
Circadian rhythms ...........................................................................................67
Loss of temperature control ............................................................................69
Individuality and sleep ...................................................................................71
Alcoholism: An experiment of culture and nature .....................................73
Psychodynamic neurology?............................................................................74
Quantification ...................................................................................................76
What is free energy? ........................................................................................79
Chapter 7 Religion and sexuality: A civil war in the brain- mind .....81
Religion ..............................................................................................................81
Dreaming as religion .......................................................................................82
My God is better than yours ..........................................................................84
Varieties of religious experience ....................................................................84
Denial of comfort .............................................................................................85
Sex ......................................................................................................................87
Chinese love dream—1/12/2012 ....................................................................88
Sex rules ............................................................................................................90
Brain activation in sleep ..................................................................................91
Wet dreams .......................................................................................................92
Sex and religion cross wires ...........................................................................93
Chapter 8 The psychodynamic ego: An epigenetic self .......................97
Freud as inadvertent Cartesian ......................................................................98
A conceptual reversal ......................................................................................99
Contents vii
Mental? illness ................................................................................................100
The trauma hunt .............................................................................................102
Why go to medical school? ...........................................................................103
Celebrate skepticism ......................................................................................103
A shorthand of defenses ...............................................................................104
Psychological camouflage .............................................................................105
Primary and secondary consciousness .......................................................107
Free will ...........................................................................................................109
Dreaming as primary consciousness ...........................................................111
Chapter 9 The transcendental ego: Art and science of the
brain-m ind ................................................................................113
The creative ego ...............................................................................................114
Philosophical background .............................................................................114
Biologizing Kant ..............................................................................................115
Transcendentalism ..........................................................................................117
A model of the world ......................................................................................119
Is waking as bizarre as dreaming? ..............................................................121
Illogical us .......................................................................................................121
Creativity and the transcendent ego ...........................................................122
Ski-fl ying dream—Sicily, 4/8/2011 ..............................................................123
Storytelling and the transcendent ego ........................................................126
New initiatives linking dream science and literature ..............................128
Toward a science of subjectivity ..................................................................130
Chapter 10 Instincts and emotions: Ethology of the brain- mind ......135
Emotion is inherently cognitive ...................................................................136
Ethological psychiatry ...................................................................................137
The reticular activating system ....................................................................140
REM sleep without atonia ..............................................................................141
REM sleep behavior disorder .......................................................................143
Threat avoidance ............................................................................................146
Attachment and separation ..........................................................................147
Chapter 11 Psychopathology: Dysfunction of the brain- mind ..........149
Dream madness ..............................................................................................151
What kind of psychosis is dreaming? .........................................................153
Sleep and mood regulation ..........................................................................158
A paradox explained .....................................................................................158
Monoamine oxidase inhibitors ....................................................................159
Lessons from the past ....................................................................................164
Chapter 12 Memory: Epigenetic and experiential aspects ..................169
Contrasts with the Freudian unconscious ..................................................169
Genetic memory .............................................................................................172
viii Contents
Epigenetic memory ........................................................................................175
Epigenetic instantiation of the NREM- REM sleep cycle ..........................177
Cats beget kittens ...........................................................................................179
REM sleep and the consolidation of memory ............................................181
Elaborative encoding .....................................................................................182
Chapter 13 Post- Freudian revisions: Further attacks on
psychoanalysis and alternative models..............................187
The anti-F reud war ........................................................................................189
Biological psychiatry and psychobiology ...................................................194
Behavioral neurology ....................................................................................194
Sleep and dream science ...............................................................................195
Chapter 14 Altered states: Toward a science of the brain- mind ........201
Transcendental meditation ...........................................................................203
Eye movement redirection therapy .............................................................205
Substance abuse .............................................................................................206
Alcohol ........................................................................................................207
Cocaine .......................................................................................................208
Amphetamine ............................................................................................210
Prozac ..........................................................................................................212
LSD ..............................................................................................................215
Chapter 15 Brain- mind dream interpretation: A new project for
scientific psychology ..............................................................217
Laboratory dream—1/2/2012 .......................................................................219
Commentary ...................................................................................................221
Bibliography ....................................................................................................235