8 ms·

> Decreased alpha power is a particularly consistent finding in neuroimaging research with psychedelics7,8,11. Alpha is the most prominent rhythm of the resting

> Decreased alpha power is a particularly consistent finding in neuroimaging research with psychedelics7,8,11. Alpha is the most prominent rhythm of the resting-brain, particularly in humans, and particularly in adulthood30. Alpha has been linked with high-level psychological functioning31,32, top-down predictive processing18,33 and related feedback connectivity34 - all of which have been found to be disrupted under serotonergic psychedelics35,36,37 In regards to this, the same thing is found during REM sleep. The brain shuts down the executive functions, while the brain goes into extreme 'story generation mode'. A story in which you are a character. I think this is one of the most overlooked and interesting parts of dreaming. We are able to observe ourselves in our dreams acting without the constraints of our 'executive functioning' brain. This means we get to learn about our purely emotional behaviour, and perhaps spot where it is maladaptive. (I am very bias on this subject, as I have written a paper on this topic - https://psyarxiv.com/k6trz https://psyarxiv.com/k6trz, which was discussed here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19143590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19143590)

phaedrus 7y ago
Interesting! When you say executive functions, could ADHD be linked in a way to this? When I "zone out" it feels like REM dreaming while awake.
- ThJ 7y ago
  Oh, um, that’s interesting. I have found I can make myself dream while awake in a way... I use relaxation techniques on myself all day and it’s actually a bit frightening what you can make your own brain do... What happened to me is I became more openminded, more fluent in my writing, more daring in my choices, and actually also more socially aware... I can only compare it to eating the forbidden fruit of the garden of Eden, or to Buddhas awakening. I have such control over my own state of mind that I can calm myself down to such a degree that it almost feels like I smoked a joint, or work myself up into rage or excitement. It’s like playing yourself like a musical instrument as you constantly focus on your breathing. The other day I had the bizarre experience of sustaining a sexual climax for what must’ve been 20 minutes because I had put myself in such an extremely relaxed state that I could just let it “hang” there forever. This state of mind seems to be what artists, writers, lawyers and other people who just apply creative thinking in their work are in most of the time, as well as astronauts and professional athletes. The calmness makes you extremely fast and precise. Interestingly, I began to learn this after taking ADHD meds, but now in need less meds than before. Turns out my ADHD was just a need to stay in a very calm and playful state most of the time. The funny thing is that this has caused me to climb up on Maslow’s pyramid of needs. I think what ADHD meds often do is help you function but also push you to a breakdown and then your brain starts testing other modes of operation that won’t cause another breakdown. Facing adversity, such as the death of your mother, also seems to be a common trigger for it... Why the comparison to the forbidden fruit? Because every thought I have now is a double edged sword. Whenever I think something I instantly see the flip side. When I look at other people, I read their body language like a book. Also, self talk has become frighteningly effective. I wish I had a scientific explanation for it. The closest I can think of is something called psychosynthesis, together with the theories of Jung. I feel like what I’ve done is let the id and ego swap places... or perhaps the id and the superego. Feels like I’m damned near egoless. It’s almost impossible to say hurtful remarks to me. On the way here, I had something that can best be described as a breakdown followed by a feeling of all encompassing love. A gentle voice told me it loved me and wanted me to be happy and I was overwhelmed with emotion. I also went slightly paranoid at one point and was convinced everyone was out to get me. I trusted everything my intuition told me, every suspicion and gut feeling felt like reality. I got over that, but I rely far more on gut feeling now than I ever did before and it makes me very fluent in my writing and very unafraid to ask questions, etc. It’s been really bizarre.
  - ThJ 7y ago
    People tell you to “focus” and it’s very funny because I think much clearer than them by NOT focusing. My brain isn’t so much focused on one thing as it’s focused on everything at once. Intuition works very fast so if you give it a few data points it will triangulate them almost instantaneously.
  - pavas 7y ago
    This sounds like mania. Be careful.
    - nyolfen 7y ago
      my thought as well, particularly the bit about following amphetamine use and the death of their mother, assuming it wasn't figurative or an arbitrary example. as someone who has experienced mania it reminded me strongly of the way i've felt in the midst of it -- the sense of mastery, the paranoia, and feeling like i had some kind of conceptual or philosophical breakthrough.
      - ThJ 7y ago
        Oh, I read psychology. Actually, it was mania at one point, but, uh, I... stopped it? And then interesting things began happening. My ability to improvise on the piano improved. My appreciation of classical music grew. The paranoia was replaced by the understanding that people usually aren’t out to get me. It wasn’t so much mania as it was my social skills turning on for the first time and it was a bit intense. I’m talking to people as I’m going through this and the feedback was concern at first, followed by keen interest in what I was saying, in the sense that people now want to talk to me more often, women actually pay attention to me and laugh at my jokes. I think if this is mania, it’s controlled mania in a way? I’m able to bring myself up and down and I stop if it goes too high. There are a couple of friends of mine who have had similar experiences and they’re smart people too, and nobody locked them up for it. I think there are people out there who can control their mind states like this and it’s a rather powerful tool. I’m positive about it. I live, think and feel. I have good days and bad days. Also, I’ve been stepping the ADHD meds down not up, and even late at night when they’re supposed to have worn off, I can still get into that state. I guess in a way if I didn’t know breathing and relaxation techniques and didn’t know much about psych stuff, I’d be very confused and would possibly lose it, but since I know these things, and I know science, it’s a thing I can control. I’m not alone in it and I’m sharing these things with friends and while some of them don’t get it, some of them do totally get it. I think what you should know about my story is that I was a ball of stress and fear before this happened. All my life, actually. The notion that people go through breakdowns at stages of self development isn’t exactly unheard of. The scary thing, of course, is that it DOES break people down completely at times. It’s too much for them to handle... but when it isn’t too much to handle and you just grow from it? I’d call that self development.
- emmelaich 7y ago
  Is your "zone out" a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugue_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugue_state ? Because that is associated with > ingestion of psychotropic substances
  - wrinklytidbits 7y ago
    I highly doubt it's a Fugue state. >Unlike retrograde amnesia (which is popularly referred to simply as "amnesia", the state where someone forgets events before brain damage), dissociative amnesia is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication, DSM-IV Codes 291.1 & 292.83) or a neurological or other general medical condition (e.g., amnestic disorder due to a head trauma, DSM-IV Codes 294.0).[7] It is a complex neuropsychological process. The portion you quoted is part of the criteria that excludes an episode from being labeled a Fugue state.
- EamonnMR 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_wave
_arvin 7y ago
One of the worst side effects of cannabis :[ I miss dreaming and REM sleep. feelsbadman
- BigChiefSmokem 7y ago
  You still dream while on cannabis, I just don’t think you are able to record any of it to main memory. Actually from what I understand it we all dream a lot (with or without cannabis) we just can’t remember most of it.
  - sgdpk 7y ago
    According to Matthew Walker (Berkeley researcher on sleep), it does affect sleep. See this small clip, starting at 2:14. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lRp5AC9W_F8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lRp5AC9W_F8
    - ieleo9jjr 7y ago
      The previous comment is still correct: even without weed we dream a lot and don’t record most of it. Alcohol in our system at bed time impacts sleep as well. We’re consciously at rest (or blacked out from over consumption if that is ones thing) but our body is busy metabolizing. Poor signal, YouTube isn’t loading. Not sure if the clip is similar, but as I understand it recording a dream and restless sleep from metabolizing substances are separate processes.
      - sgdpk 7y ago
        Indeed, in general we are not aware of how much we dream, because we don't remember. I should have specified better. Weed and alcohol specifically suppress REM sleep, where most of dreaming happens. Suddenly stopping weed or alcohol leads to a REM rebound, and people experience very vivid dreams. This association suggests they were actually not dreaming much before.
- snarfy 7y ago
  You only have to quit for a few days and the dreams will come back. After a week and you'll have some nights that are almost entirely dreaming.
thelittleone 7y ago
> We are able to observe ourselves in our dreams acting without the constraints of our 'executive functioning' brain. Interestingly this can also be achieved while awake through meditation.
fellow_human 7y ago
That would explain why I've been using dreams as a sort of indicator of progress for my time in therapy and working through my anxiety and depression. Certain things I've been anxious or angry about and held on to have been 'resolved' symbolically in dreams leaving me to feel a bit lighter upon waking up. Also just in general my nightmares have gotten less, the more I've been able to work through anxiety.
- rocgf 7y ago
  What you are saying is pretty much in line with what Matthew Walker is presenting as a hypothesis for the role of dreams in his book "Why we sleep". I have no training in the field, nor am I particularly well read on the topic, but I thought you might like a confirmation that this is not just an anecdote.
  - fellow_human 7y ago
    Thank you for going to the effort of letting me know that. I will be checking out the book. Knowledge can definitely be power when healing.
rohan1024 7y ago
That's what Carl Jung suggested as well.
atian 7y ago
We use stories to simplify complex phenomena across time so that the known and attributable can be morphed and composited with the novel and new, leveraging heavier primal ones (collective subconscious structures as the strongest symbols) into something approachable. Dreaming seems to be mechanistically important to survival. It's interesting to map out that our predictive tooling (from primal emotion to top executive function) is pretty good so that we appropriate the "right" amount of energy against constantly monitoring our surroundings. The higher we go the more energy it requires. There's a weird relationship between coffee and sleep, or I make the leap to say any substance which have lasting effects on mood. It sort of offsets against the deeper primal moods and corollary activations. I argue that caffeine in this manner is pro higher-mental function through disrupting this summating sleep process (letting you naturally figure it out) and letting your brain attribute "= good mood" to it all. (humans are terrible at knowing how they felt at some point in time when the current is different).
toxik 7y ago
Not to be disparaging but you have written a pdf alone that has not been refereed in an academic publishing setting. Calling it a paper in this context would seem to imply otherwise.
- goldenkey 7y ago
  Knowledge doesn't need an entry pass to be passed around in an open forum unless it's too crowded. HN has a fine signal to noise ratio.
mycall 7y ago
What is you correlations between dreaming and imagination? Are they not mostly the same thing?

phaedrus 7y ago

Interesting! When you say executive functions, could ADHD be linked in a way to this? When I "zone out" it feels like REM dreaming while awake.

ThJ 7y ago
Oh, um, that’s interesting. I have found I can make myself dream while awake in a way... I use relaxation techniques on myself all day and it’s actually a bit frightening what you can make your own brain do... What happened to me is I became more openminded, more fluent in my writing, more daring in my choices, and actually also more socially aware... I can only compare it to eating the forbidden fruit of the garden of Eden, or to Buddhas awakening. I have such control over my own state of mind that I can calm myself down to such a degree that it almost feels like I smoked a joint, or work myself up into rage or excitement. It’s like playing yourself like a musical instrument as you constantly focus on your breathing. The other day I had the bizarre experience of sustaining a sexual climax for what must’ve been 20 minutes because I had put myself in such an extremely relaxed state that I could just let it “hang” there forever. This state of mind seems to be what artists, writers, lawyers and other people who just apply creative thinking in their work are in most of the time, as well as astronauts and professional athletes. The calmness makes you extremely fast and precise. Interestingly, I began to learn this after taking ADHD meds, but now in need less meds than before. Turns out my ADHD was just a need to stay in a very calm and playful state most of the time. The funny thing is that this has caused me to climb up on Maslow’s pyramid of needs. I think what ADHD meds often do is help you function but also push you to a breakdown and then your brain starts testing other modes of operation that won’t cause another breakdown. Facing adversity, such as the death of your mother, also seems to be a common trigger for it... Why the comparison to the forbidden fruit? Because every thought I have now is a double edged sword. Whenever I think something I instantly see the flip side. When I look at other people, I read their body language like a book. Also, self talk has become frighteningly effective. I wish I had a scientific explanation for it. The closest I can think of is something called psychosynthesis, together with the theories of Jung. I feel like what I’ve done is let the id and ego swap places... or perhaps the id and the superego. Feels like I’m damned near egoless. It’s almost impossible to say hurtful remarks to me. On the way here, I had something that can best be described as a breakdown followed by a feeling of all encompassing love. A gentle voice told me it loved me and wanted me to be happy and I was overwhelmed with emotion. I also went slightly paranoid at one point and was convinced everyone was out to get me. I trusted everything my intuition told me, every suspicion and gut feeling felt like reality. I got over that, but I rely far more on gut feeling now than I ever did before and it makes me very fluent in my writing and very unafraid to ask questions, etc. It’s been really bizarre.
- ThJ 7y ago
  People tell you to “focus” and it’s very funny because I think much clearer than them by NOT focusing. My brain isn’t so much focused on one thing as it’s focused on everything at once. Intuition works very fast so if you give it a few data points it will triangulate them almost instantaneously.
- pavas 7y ago
  This sounds like mania. Be careful.
  - nyolfen 7y ago
    my thought as well, particularly the bit about following amphetamine use and the death of their mother, assuming it wasn't figurative or an arbitrary example. as someone who has experienced mania it reminded me strongly of the way i've felt in the midst of it -- the sense of mastery, the paranoia, and feeling like i had some kind of conceptual or philosophical breakthrough.
    - ThJ 7y ago
      Oh, I read psychology. Actually, it was mania at one point, but, uh, I... stopped it? And then interesting things began happening. My ability to improvise on the piano improved. My appreciation of classical music grew. The paranoia was replaced by the understanding that people usually aren’t out to get me. It wasn’t so much mania as it was my social skills turning on for the first time and it was a bit intense. I’m talking to people as I’m going through this and the feedback was concern at first, followed by keen interest in what I was saying, in the sense that people now want to talk to me more often, women actually pay attention to me and laugh at my jokes. I think if this is mania, it’s controlled mania in a way? I’m able to bring myself up and down and I stop if it goes too high. There are a couple of friends of mine who have had similar experiences and they’re smart people too, and nobody locked them up for it. I think there are people out there who can control their mind states like this and it’s a rather powerful tool. I’m positive about it. I live, think and feel. I have good days and bad days. Also, I’ve been stepping the ADHD meds down not up, and even late at night when they’re supposed to have worn off, I can still get into that state. I guess in a way if I didn’t know breathing and relaxation techniques and didn’t know much about psych stuff, I’d be very confused and would possibly lose it, but since I know these things, and I know science, it’s a thing I can control. I’m not alone in it and I’m sharing these things with friends and while some of them don’t get it, some of them do totally get it. I think what you should know about my story is that I was a ball of stress and fear before this happened. All my life, actually. The notion that people go through breakdowns at stages of self development isn’t exactly unheard of. The scary thing, of course, is that it DOES break people down completely at times. It’s too much for them to handle... but when it isn’t too much to handle and you just grow from it? I’d call that self development.
emmelaich 7y ago
Is your "zone out" a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugue_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugue_state ? Because that is associated with > ingestion of psychotropic substances
- wrinklytidbits 7y ago
  I highly doubt it's a Fugue state. >Unlike retrograde amnesia (which is popularly referred to simply as "amnesia", the state where someone forgets events before brain damage), dissociative amnesia is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication, DSM-IV Codes 291.1 & 292.83) or a neurological or other general medical condition (e.g., amnestic disorder due to a head trauma, DSM-IV Codes 294.0).[7] It is a complex neuropsychological process. The portion you quoted is part of the criteria that excludes an episode from being labeled a Fugue state.
EamonnMR 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_wave

_arvin 7y ago

One of the worst side effects of cannabis :[ I miss dreaming and REM sleep. feelsbadman

BigChiefSmokem 7y ago
You still dream while on cannabis, I just don’t think you are able to record any of it to main memory. Actually from what I understand it we all dream a lot (with or without cannabis) we just can’t remember most of it.
- sgdpk 7y ago
  According to Matthew Walker (Berkeley researcher on sleep), it does affect sleep. See this small clip, starting at 2:14. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lRp5AC9W_F8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lRp5AC9W_F8
  - ieleo9jjr 7y ago
    The previous comment is still correct: even without weed we dream a lot and don’t record most of it. Alcohol in our system at bed time impacts sleep as well. We’re consciously at rest (or blacked out from over consumption if that is ones thing) but our body is busy metabolizing. Poor signal, YouTube isn’t loading. Not sure if the clip is similar, but as I understand it recording a dream and restless sleep from metabolizing substances are separate processes.
    - sgdpk 7y ago
      Indeed, in general we are not aware of how much we dream, because we don't remember. I should have specified better. Weed and alcohol specifically suppress REM sleep, where most of dreaming happens. Suddenly stopping weed or alcohol leads to a REM rebound, and people experience very vivid dreams. This association suggests they were actually not dreaming much before.
snarfy 7y ago
You only have to quit for a few days and the dreams will come back. After a week and you'll have some nights that are almost entirely dreaming.

thelittleone 7y ago

> We are able to observe ourselves in our dreams acting without the constraints of our 'executive functioning' brain. Interestingly this can also be achieved while awake through meditation.

fellow_human 7y ago

That would explain why I've been using dreams as a sort of indicator of progress for my time in therapy and working through my anxiety and depression. Certain things I've been anxious or angry about and held on to have been 'resolved' symbolically in dreams leaving me to feel a bit lighter upon waking up. Also just in general my nightmares have gotten less, the more I've been able to work through anxiety.

rocgf 7y ago
What you are saying is pretty much in line with what Matthew Walker is presenting as a hypothesis for the role of dreams in his book "Why we sleep". I have no training in the field, nor am I particularly well read on the topic, but I thought you might like a confirmation that this is not just an anecdote.
- fellow_human 7y ago
  Thank you for going to the effort of letting me know that. I will be checking out the book. Knowledge can definitely be power when healing.

rohan1024 7y ago

That's what Carl Jung suggested as well.

atian 7y ago

We use stories to simplify complex phenomena across time so that the known and attributable can be morphed and composited with the novel and new, leveraging heavier primal ones (collective subconscious structures as the strongest symbols) into something approachable. Dreaming seems to be mechanistically important to survival. It's interesting to map out that our predictive tooling (from primal emotion to top executive function) is pretty good so that we appropriate the "right" amount of energy against constantly monitoring our surroundings. The higher we go the more energy it requires. There's a weird relationship between coffee and sleep, or I make the leap to say any substance which have lasting effects on mood. It sort of offsets against the deeper primal moods and corollary activations. I argue that caffeine in this manner is pro higher-mental function through disrupting this summating sleep process (letting you naturally figure it out) and letting your brain attribute "= good mood" to it all. (humans are terrible at knowing how they felt at some point in time when the current is different).

toxik 7y ago

Not to be disparaging but you have written a pdf alone that has not been refereed in an academic publishing setting. Calling it a paper in this context would seem to imply otherwise.

goldenkey 7y ago
Knowledge doesn't need an entry pass to be passed around in an open forum unless it's too crowded. HN has a fine signal to noise ratio.

mycall 7y ago

What is you correlations between dreaming and imagination? Are they not mostly the same thing?