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Dreams and fear have an odd and slightly unintuitive relationship. When we are anxious and awake the amygdala is active and norepinephrine (the “fight or flight

Dreams and fear have an odd and slightly unintuitive relationship. When we are anxious and awake the amygdala is active and norepinephrine (the “fight or flight” neurotransmitter) is high. During REM sleep, surprisingly the amygdala is inactive and norepinephrine is 85% lower than base waking levels (not high anxious levels). So the brain is in a super relaxed state! I wrote a paper on the implications for dream content and interpretation (I’m a psychotherapist in training). If you’re interested you can find the paper here: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/k6trz https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/k6trz And it was discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19143590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19143590

OhHiMarkos 2y ago
I remember something similar being mentioned in a podcast by Huberman, that dreams serve to get used to stuff that we fear, in a nutshell. Maybe not directly stuff that we fear, but maybe stuff that makes us uncomfortable? Dreams are a way to teach us stuff that seem essential to us but we found them uncomfortable to face. Interesting research topic by the way. I will take a look at your paper.
- kridsdale3 2y ago
  Like an endogenous version of Ketamine + Exposure Therapy for PTSD
- numewhodis 2y ago
  Doesn't apply to all the crazy shit some people dream of, as well as sex dreams or simple recollections of events or when the brain dreams in code or practices language skills or works on the integrity of your novels characters and the situations they get in. Dreams don't serve any function at all, they are simply visualisations of brain cells (entire networks) firing in different regions, some of which activate the active processing of touch, smell, sound, taste, vision, and whatever the hell all those 'gut feelings' are, intuition, premonition, even deja vu and the feeling that comes with insights in retrospect. Your brain winds down, disconnects from the party chat, closes the HUD, turns off most sensors, changes the voltages in brain regions and throughout the entire CNS to do all the shit on the running to do list of the day, week, month, year ( think old injuries or unsolved problems ) that it couldn't do because "it had it's hands full" balancing you on two feet and making sure you move properly through space-time and abide by the law of permanence. Cells which are wired together, fire together and vice versa.
numewhodis 2y ago
> surprisingly the amygdala is inactive and norepinephrine is 85% lower than base waking levels Why is that surprising? The body is sleeping, your senses are mostly off, reaction times are irrelevant. The brain is not necessarily super relaxed. I remember that I had to actively react in lucid dreams because my instinctive reactions were slow as fuck.

OhHiMarkos 2y ago

I remember something similar being mentioned in a podcast by Huberman, that dreams serve to get used to stuff that we fear, in a nutshell. Maybe not directly stuff that we fear, but maybe stuff that makes us uncomfortable? Dreams are a way to teach us stuff that seem essential to us but we found them uncomfortable to face. Interesting research topic by the way. I will take a look at your paper.

kridsdale3 2y ago
Like an endogenous version of Ketamine + Exposure Therapy for PTSD
numewhodis 2y ago
Doesn't apply to all the crazy shit some people dream of, as well as sex dreams or simple recollections of events or when the brain dreams in code or practices language skills or works on the integrity of your novels characters and the situations they get in. Dreams don't serve any function at all, they are simply visualisations of brain cells (entire networks) firing in different regions, some of which activate the active processing of touch, smell, sound, taste, vision, and whatever the hell all those 'gut feelings' are, intuition, premonition, even deja vu and the feeling that comes with insights in retrospect. Your brain winds down, disconnects from the party chat, closes the HUD, turns off most sensors, changes the voltages in brain regions and throughout the entire CNS to do all the shit on the running to do list of the day, week, month, year ( think old injuries or unsolved problems ) that it couldn't do because "it had it's hands full" balancing you on two feet and making sure you move properly through space-time and abide by the law of permanence. Cells which are wired together, fire together and vice versa.

numewhodis 2y ago

> surprisingly the amygdala is inactive and norepinephrine is 85% lower than base waking levels Why is that surprising? The body is sleeping, your senses are mostly off, reaction times are irrelevant. The brain is not necessarily super relaxed. I remember that I had to actively react in lucid dreams because my instinctive reactions were slow as fuck.