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Regarding why we dream, I've always thought that it's got something to do with exercising our right brain. We feed our left brain when we're awake, we feed o

Regarding why we dream, I've always thought that it's got something to do with exercising our right brain. We feed our left brain when we're awake, we feed our right brain when we're asleep ... can anyone confirm or deny this ?

sheffield 15y ago
We have only one brain.
- treyp 15y ago
  what if you sever your corpus callosum?
  - oscilloscope 15y ago
    Then we have two brains.
    - sheffield 15y ago
      Two half brains. Everything has two halves. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain
    - slowcpu 15y ago
      That is a common misconception. In reality, there are other interhemispheric connections.
araneae 15y ago
During sleep both hemispheres show large scale inactivity. There's no different in activity between the two hemispheres. All of our brain needs sleep. Just because only one half of our brain is responsible for speech doesn't mean we don't use it when we're awake.
Shorel 15y ago
It is my understanding that we have two different future-predicting brains: the limbic system (mammalian brain) and the neocortex (primates and dolphins brain). The r-complex is a purely reactive brain, and tries to predict little. The neocortex is incredibly powerful, but the limbic system notices stuff that the neocortex misses on our day-to day routine. Things like micro-gestures (emotions drawn by our faces for mere fractions of a second), non-spoken language, etc. This neocortex-unperceived stuff is perceived by us as 'feelings', the operating material of the limbic system. The REM dream stage is the limbic system putting all those feelings as requests to the neocortex, in the way of: "give me a logical and understandable explanation for this feeling I've been having all week". Then we experience crazy stuff that actually matches the limbic sensation, or we get the right answer. This also helps/interacts with learning processes. For the rest of the dream state, I have no current theory/explanation.

sheffield 15y ago

We have only one brain.

treyp 15y ago
what if you sever your corpus callosum?
- oscilloscope 15y ago
  Then we have two brains.
  - sheffield 15y ago
    Two half brains. Everything has two halves. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain
  - slowcpu 15y ago
    That is a common misconception. In reality, there are other interhemispheric connections.

araneae 15y ago

During sleep both hemispheres show large scale inactivity. There's no different in activity between the two hemispheres. All of our brain needs sleep. Just because only one half of our brain is responsible for speech doesn't mean we don't use it when we're awake.

Shorel 15y ago

It is my understanding that we have two different future-predicting brains: the limbic system (mammalian brain) and the neocortex (primates and dolphins brain). The r-complex is a purely reactive brain, and tries to predict little. The neocortex is incredibly powerful, but the limbic system notices stuff that the neocortex misses on our day-to day routine. Things like micro-gestures (emotions drawn by our faces for mere fractions of a second), non-spoken language, etc. This neocortex-unperceived stuff is perceived by us as 'feelings', the operating material of the limbic system. The REM dream stage is the limbic system putting all those feelings as requests to the neocortex, in the way of: "give me a logical and understandable explanation for this feeling I've been having all week". Then we experience crazy stuff that actually matches the limbic sensation, or we get the right answer. This also helps/interacts with learning processes. For the rest of the dream state, I have no current theory/explanation.