I knew I was dreaming...

Wow, I just had an experience I don't think I've ever had before. I was dreaming about playing something like Bananagrams but where we're both working on the same board, like Scrabble, and some tiles had pictures...anyway, that's irrelevant. I was playing this game, and I went to make a change to a word, which my opponent (I don't know if it was anyone in particular but was male) said was a violation of the rules and declared himself the winner. I was so P.O.'d at having had the game ended so abruptly and without discussion or prior explanation of the rule I'd broken that I yelled and violently shoved all of the pieces off of the table at him.

As soon as this happened, I remember thinking, "I wouldn't do that. That's not like me. Even if I did somehow do that, I'd bend down and help pick up pieces while talking things through and explaining my frustration, and I'm not doing that." But the dream sort of froze there as my opponent calmly started setting up a new game, and I remember wanting to talk it through but just sitting there as he did so. That's when I realized this definitely was not reality. Then the dream cut to seemingly random household images. These images weren't from my household or any I remember, mind you, but telephones I don't remember seeing, nightstands which seemed vintage but unfamiliar, a recurring fence-like structure I couldn't make out.

As these images faded in and out and played onto my mind's eye, I thought, "I don't know these images. These are rooms I haven't been in before. This is like watching a filmstrip or projected movie. Some of these items are kinda cool, though. If I can remember them, I could design them." I faintly heard something like the steady, rapid ticking of a movie projector as the images shifted to scenes of a garden, a hedge wall with a beautiful gate, mountains in light fog, a beach-like scene with large rocks jutting up and the foggy mountains as a backdrop...

As these new images came, I thought, "This is so cool. It's like I have my own internal movie screen I'm watching, but I'm pretty sure I'm awake...at least mostly. If I open my eyes, I'll just see my dark room, so I don't want to open them. I want to see how long this can last. My mind must be creating these images, but it's almost like they're being projected by someone else. What if this is what 'visions' are like? What if I someday see these scenes in real life? Would it be 'prophecy' or 'prescience'? Or could I just one day see something similar and think I'm seeing these dream images in real life because what I see looks close enough to these that I'll match reality with my by-then-vague memory of this dream?" Yes, I thought all of this while seeing these scenes play out in my mind. I continued, "I wonder if I can manipulate it. I want to see the Oregon Coast because that foggy beach-like scene reminds me of it." The rocky beach reappeared but started going fuzzy. I thought, "OK, maybe it's better to just let it be created and not try to make it something literal or specific. If I get too conscious about it, I might lose this sort of dream state, and I want to see what scenes are created if I just let it flow." So I stopped trying to see anything specific. I then saw someone in a white, short-sleeved shirt up close. It was a happy, sunny scene, the white linen waving in the breeze and happy gestures from his or her arms.

I thought, "OK, this is really cool, but I have to know...I have to find out how awake I am...I'm going to open my eyes and see what it's like and if I can get it back after opening them."

I slowly, deliberately opened my eyes. As I did, the sunny, white scene was gradually replaced by my clothes hanging in the dark closet. I closed my eyes to try to get the images back, but all I could muster was recreating the memories of the images. This time, it felt very much like me doing it, trying to remember, not like the projector in my mind. I laid there for a moment, reflecting on how strange that had been, like the transition from sleep to wakefulness hit a glitch, and I was awake inside my sleeping body but without the sleep paralysis I've heard of (something I'm pretty sure I've still never experienced) because I knew I could just...open my eyes if I wanted, and when I did want, they opened...

I really want to experience this again, but I wanted to write it down first while it's still fresh to record it as accurately as I can without the gap-filling tendency of memory.

As I thought about it, I wondered if this was anything like a phenomenon I've seen speculated about on film and in some writing, called "lucid dreams", most notably the following clip in the fascinating philosophical flick, Waking Life (which I definitely recommend to anyone who is into philosophy or who appreciates paradigm-challenging thoughts):




Admittedly, I've thought this concept of controlling your dreams was pretty "out there". I found it fascinating, but I thought, "Meh, who knows, but it's an interesting concept if it were true." I had no way to relate. I'm not presuming to say I now "get it" on any level, let alone having truly experienced a lucid dream. I'm not sure if you're supposed to be quite so...awake and able to just open your eyes whenever you're ready. But...I think I can now at least relate to the concept on some level.

Consequently, I went to YouTube to see if there were any clips from semi-credible sources regarding "lucid dreams" I could share, and I found the following clip from a Discover Channel show:



On a related note, I've become increasingly fascinated by the human brain and researching how it works, and how it relates to memory, cognition, dreaming, etc. I don't buy into "mystical" explanations or the more froofy metaphysical ideas, but I certainly believe there's so much about its workings we have yet to understand, with levels of consciousness and energy in intense complexity, and having this experience adds to my excitement around that possible area of study.

So...either I just experienced something really cool, or I'm starting to go a bit bonkers. And whatever "lucid dreaming" really is, I think I'm a fan. Don't be terribly surprised if you find me depriving myself of sleep and then trying to sleep during the day to duplicate this experience. :-)

Near Death Experiences

I've always been fascinated by near-death experiences. I've listened to firesides and lectures about them, I've watched TV specials about them, and I've read articles about them. I've not read book after book. Few things interest me that intensely. But I've heard stories of medical workers who have talked to people who had just had near-death experiences, including one old woman who, upon reviving apparently spontaneously, said something like, "Well that was a hell of a thing!" That made me laugh. I've heard a couple of people relate their own experiences, poignant and deeply meaningful to them, something so real to them that they felt they'd be betraying God to deny its divinity. Those people don't all believe similarly, so their belief systems can't all be validated by it, but the common belief seems to be that there's a god of some sort, usually with messengers, and that god is infinite love and peace and power.

I used to believe they were clear, undeniable evidence of an afterlife, of a heaven. So many commonalities among them can't be ignored or denied offhand. And what of the things they "observed" and knew about what was happening to them while they were apparently dead, like being able to see the operating room from above? How could they know those things? And how could someone just revive on their own after several minutes (DNR) being clinically dead if there wasn't an intervening divine (or "transcendent") force? Scientists and doctors had no explanations once upon a time and even still struggle to fully explain the phenomena. Declaring near-death experiences, then, to be hogwash or hallucinations seemed intellectually dishonest.

As I've read about a few factors which come into play, cellular impulses still stored and firing even after clinical death (which isn't a complete death of all cells in the body but is a process, the beginning of which is indicated by a few key indicators), to loss of blood in the eye creating a tunnel of light, to a discovery that patients experiencing NDEs (as they're abbreviated) in cardiac arrest all showed elevated levels of CO2 in their systems, to the idea that certain receptors still may be functional even after breathing and the heart have stopped, and deeply intuitive and basic brain functions still working to piece together input from the room and creating a dream-state vision of it, to...well, there are many theories about it. As for everyone experiencing similar things, do they all experience similar things because they're all partaking of one great truth, or are our brains wired to produce certain common themes and elements in that state--life in review, guide figures, seeing and interacting with deceased loved ones, etc--and do the religious perceive the afterlife the way they do because something in our wiring creates these common elements in NDEs, or are they simply manifestations of a universal, divine truth? How much does one's own cultural paradigm affect their specific interpretation of their experience? We may be a diverse planet, but maybe we're more common than we believe in our fundamental ideas about the universe? Is the great love and peace a feeling given from a great source of all things good, or is it a very real, chemical response induced in the brain which is the natural outgrowth of suddenly losing feeling and conscious perception and becoming a consciousness without physical attachment, whether that be a spiritual thing or a mental process?

It seems intellectually dishonest to say there's no possible explanation other than an afterlife. We know so little, still, about how energy works on a level we can't physically measure with our current knowledge and equipment, and we know so little about how the brain really works, and we know so little about more theoretical ideas like string theory, that to say, "we have no explanation; therefore, the only plausible explanation is divine experience," just seems...premature to me. The most honest response, I think, is to say it's a fascinating glimpse into what may happen to us after death, and it may also be fully explained by future understanding of neurology, physiology, physics, etc.

I figure this sounds like sacrilege to some, but I'm done clinging to faith in a closed-eyed, desperate way, as if it is threatened by understanding natural laws and the complexity of psychology, sociology, etc. I always prided myself on being open-minded and fairly scientifically minded, but I didn't realize how much I used to dismiss because I didn't think it confirmed my view of spirituality or the way the world is supposed to work, according to my religious or personal perspectives. I used to think scientists looking for explanations for things like NDEs were just atheists with an agenda. I truly thought I was open, but looking back, I don't think I was.

Why decry scientists for trying to understand a phenomenon we can't yet explain? Why proclaim it inexplicable and unknowable and scorn the faithlessness of those who seek explanations? We may not understand something for centuries to come, but if we declare it unknowable, we'll certainly never understand it. I don't believe possible medical knowledge should be unexplored, untapped, because some are threatened by the possibility of finding an explanation. The faithful will largely adapt and mold their faith around new understanding if such understanding is allowed to be disseminated: it's always been that way. If a clear explanation for NDEs is offered, will you reject it because you can't believe in what you want to anymore if science has an explanation? Will you be fascinated by the mechanisms God uses to induce the experiences with which he/she/it wants to teach us? Will you decry God and declare yourself a militant atheist because your faith has been completely undermined, since you placed all of its validity in there being no physiological explanation for near death experiences?

The way I see it, whether a NDE is a divine encounter, or a very natural, physiological process we're only beginning to understand, its significance depends, like everything else in life, on what you do with it, how you respond to it. You might shrug and say, "Well that was an incredible dream. I wish life were like that all the time." You might look heavenward and thank God for sharing his love with you and sending you on a mission, which you will then likely fulfill, and whether it was meant to be or you're bound and determined to make it be is almost irrelevant. You might think, "Wow, that was a grand hallucination. What if I could share that feeling of peace with other people and live my life with renewed value and determination?" I've never experienced it, and I have no doubt that, to the person experiencing it, it's "more real than can be described", but I suspect if I did have a NDE, I'd write about it, treasure the emotions and thoughts and motivation, and do something with it, whether it came from God or an as-of-yet unexplained process of cellular storms being quite secondary. But then, I guess I'd have something more to wrestle with if a messenger in a NDE told me I was to preach a message to the world...then, I think, it becomes important whether it's "real" or an intensely real dream, so until I experience it, I just leave it to each individual to make that call him- or herself and try to respect that. Interesting stuff...

Brain Fascination

OK, so I'm finally getting around to reading a book I bought several months ago: The Happiness Hypothesis. I wrote a blog entry mentioning it a while back, and I've started to read it a couple of times, but I've finally made it past page 8. ...Yes, this is typical for me. I want knowledge, but I don't like to read. It's a sad dilemma.

Anyway, the first chapter has gone into human dichotomies and, as part of the exposition, an explanation of the right and left brains and studies done on patients whose corpus callosum had been severed or damaged and how they responded to...OK, I'll try to explain briefly. The author says a researcher would flash an image to the right or left of a dot the subject was asked to focus on. The images were flashed long enough to register in the brain but not long enough for the subject to take their eyes off of the dot to examine the image. If flashed on the right, the image was processed by the left hemisphere of the brain (because the light from the image entered the left side of the retina, yadda yadda yadda) which is responsible for language, and when asked what the image was, the subject would answer: for example, "hat". But if the image was flashed on the left, it was processed by the right half of the brain which has no language processing, so when asked what they saw, they answered, "Nothing." But if they were asked to point to which image they were shown on a piece of paper, they could point to it. Weird! Then, the researcher flashed two images simultaneously. One image was to the left of the dot, the other to the right. In one example, he flashed a chicken claw to the right and a snow-covered house and car to the left. When asked to point to which image corresponded with what they'd been shown, the subjects pointed to a chicken with their right hand and a shovel with their left. When asked why they chose what they did, they didn't answer, as one might expect, "I don't know why I'm pointing to the shovel. Must have something to do with what you showed my right brain." They answered that the chicken claw goes with the chicken, and the shovel was to clean out the chicken shed."

Wow. So essentially, the left brain interpreted the association the best it knew how by making up a connection. Granted, this phenomenon only applies to people whose left and right brain have been cut off from each other by brain damage or surgery, not to normal people, but I couldn't help but wonder how many quirks about people might be explainable if we only knew their brain make-up. Another example it gave was a school teacher who had a brain tumor and, quite suddenly, began propositioning young women randomly. When his tumor was removed, his behavior stopped. It was found that this tumor was interfering with portions of the brain which inhibit behaviors and process consequences. Can this happen on a more subtle level? Do some people have greater ability to predict the consequences of their actions? Do some have less inhibition because of brain activity or lack thereof? Are some more able to see themselves objectively than others?

On a related note, I also was fascinated, last week, by a fascinating interview on NPR about memory and our tendency to see and remember things within a framework that most makes sense given what we know within our current paradigms. One of my favorite parts, because we all know one of them, is the lady who called in saying her sister has a tendency to share other people's memories as her own:



In addition to the very personal, practical application of remembering that we all have our strengths and shortcomings and can't expect everyone to see or behave the same way, all of this has me really interested in the brain and its physiology in relation to emotion, psychology, and the rest of the body. I've been thinking a bit more about what I want to do with myself professionally, so I guess this is just sneaking in as a possible area of interest I had previously overlooked but which now seems kind of obvious... Now the question: is it too late for me to start into such an involved, specialized field? Ugh, maybe it's best as a point of interest rather than a possible career. I don't know. Have to look at it.



Incidentally, I found the following stories while trying to find the one above, and they look interesting, too:

• 'Memory: Remembering and Forgetting in Everyday Life'
• Why Does Time Fly By As You Get Older?
• Biological Basis for False Memories Revealed
• Learning, Memory and the Brain
• The Surprising Strengths Of The Middle-Aged Brain
• E-Memory and Human Nature

Let's See If We May Not Eff It

I've been a fan of Douglas Adams' work for several years now. We would listen, as a family, to his books in audio form during road trips. We listened to other books as well, but the Hitchhiker's Guide and Dirk Gently series were my favorites. I recently listened to The Salmon of Doubt unabridged, borrowed from the library, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Among the many gems of thought to be found in it was the following quote which not only points out a remarkably common logical fallacy but summed up a lot of thoughts I'd been having on...well...some stuff:

"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'"

Maybe I'll expound another time, but for now, I'll just include a few other quotes I enjoy from interviews and his books:

"A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.'"

"We don't have to save the world. The world is big enough to look after itself. What we have to be concerned about is whether or not the world we live in will be capable of sustaining us in it."

"If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat."

"Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all."

"(..) Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!"
"The what?" said Richard.
"The catflap! A device of the utmost cunning, perspicuity and invention. It is a door within a door, you see, a ..."
"Yes," said Richard, "there was also the small matter of gravity."
"Gravity," said Dirk with a slightly dismissed shrug, "yes, there was that as well, I suppose. Though that, of course, was merely a discovery. It was there to be discovered." ...
"You see?" he said dropping his cigarette butt, "They even keep it on at weekends. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. But the catflap ... ah, there is a very different matter. Invention, pure creative invention. It is a door within a door, you see."

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."

"The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks."

"For Children: You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It's quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a chicken. Like most things, of course, it isn't quite that simple. The fried egg isn't properly a fried egg until it's been put in a frying pan and fried. This is something you wouldn't do to a Friday, of course, though you might do it on a Friday. You can also fry eggs on a Thursday, if you like, or on a cooker. It's all rather complicated, but it makes a kind of sense if you think about it for a while."

"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others."

"Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."

"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day."

"Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. It doesn’t necessarily do it in chronological order, though."

"There is a theory which states that if anyone discovers just exactly what the universe is for and why we are here, that it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. Then there is a theory which states that this has already happened."

"Apparently, we need to think about the building being inhabited by dragons and look at it in terms of how a dragon would move around it. So, if a dragon wouldn’t be happy in the house, you have to put a red fish bowl here or a window there. This sounds like complete and utter nonsense, because anything involving dragons must be nonsense—there aren’t any dragons, so any theory based on how dragons behave is nonsense. What are these silly people doing, imagining that dragons can tell you how to build your house?"

"I love deadlines; I love the whooshing sound they make as they pass overhead."

"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair."

"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

"[Arthur Dent] hoped and prayed there wasn't an afterlife. Then, realizing the contradiction, he merely hoped there wasn't an afterlife."

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."

"The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79."

"Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws."

"On the way back, they sang a number of tuneful and reflective songs on the subjects of peace, justice, morality, culture, sport, family life, and the obliteration of all other life forms."

"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."

"God's final message to Creation: Sorry for the inconvenience."

How Seahorse Women Prevent Deadbeat Dads

Just the other day, I was talking with a friend about the phenomenon of men sowing their seeds everywhere they go and moving on to the next exciting option, or the deadbeat dad syndrome. Well, a National Geographic article in honor of Father's Day has sparked in my mind what may be a solution. One solution might be a practice that is, as of yet, not so socially accepted: stay-at-home dads. Of course, this would require keeping "dad" around through the long pregnancy until there's a little one to stay home for. But seahorse women have found an ingenious solution. They say, "Hey baby, you wanna mate? Yeah, I'm feelin' ya. Come on over, sugar," at which point they do their dance, get their flirt on, then promptly stuff their man full of eggs and shout, "Alright, chump, you got your action, now let's see you 'deal with the consequences' of your decisions, eh?" For some reason, they then stick around for the duration of the breeding season, or possibly future breeding seasons.

Of course, "mom's" parental role is finished as soon as she has dumped her eggs off. After "dad" goes through labor and pumps out a dozen to several hundred youngsters, he's done, too. But he sticks around with the wicked woman who did this to him. Maybe he's thinking, "Shoot, I saw my fish buddy have sex the other day, and he had a whirl and was scot-free to go find another chick to have fun with. If seahorse women are gonna be pulling this crap, I might as well at least stick around with the one who seems to like me..."

Male pregnancy. Clever, wicked seahorse babes.



Note: for more unusual parenting, read this article published for Mother's Day.

Birdbrain Statistics

I'm reading Alex & Me by Irene Pepperberg, which I originally blogged about here, chronicling her research with Alex, the African Grey Parrot who won the hearts of many bird- and research-lovers worldwide over the years. I love reading about her research methods and Alex's antics. He was smart but a difficult student at times.

One recent passage amused and interested me:

I found myself having to prove over and over that Alex had more going on in his bird brain than some mechanical trickery or other. One such challenge was, "Oh, he can produce labels all right, and he sounds convincing, but does he really understand what he's saying? Does he comprehend the noises coming from his beak?"

It seemed quite clear to me from my hundreds and hundreds of hours watching and listening to Alex that he did indeed know what he was saying. A simple example: if Alex said "Want grape" and you gave him a banana, he'd spit it right back at you and repeat insistently, "Want grape." He wouldn't stop until you gave him a grape. If you were dealing with a child, you would accept without question that he or she really wanted a grape, and that banana simply wouldn't do. But that's not science. Science needs numbers. Science needs tests to be done over and over again--actually, sometimes sixty times or more--before the answer has statistical legitimacy, and before scientists will take you seriously. Poor Alex.

On a sidenote, earlier in the book, she talked about how she was trying to teach Alex to say "apple", but after two weeks of training and struggling to make the "puh" sound in "apple", he had other plans in mind. She describes it:

...he looked at the apple quite intently, looked at me, and said, "Banerry...I want banerry." He snatched a bite of the apple and ate it happily. He looked as if he had suddenly achieved something he had been searching for.

I had no idea what he was talking about. So I said, "No, Alex, apple."

"Banerry," Alex replied, quickly but quite patiently.

"Apple," I said again."

"Banerry," Alex said again.

OK, buddy, I thought. I'll make it a bit easier for you. "Ap-ple," I said, emphasizing the second syllable.

Alex paused a second or two, looked at me more intently, and said, "Ban-erry," exactly mimicking my cadence.

We went through this double act several times: "Ap-ple." "Ban-erry." "Ap-ple." "Ban-erry." I was a little ticked off. I thought Alex was being deliberately obtuse. In retrospect, it was quite hysterical. When I told one of my students, Jennifer Newton, about it later, she literally fell off her chair laughing. But Alex hadn't quite finished with me just yet. At the end of that session he said, very slowly and deliberately, "Ban-err-eeee," just as I might do with him when I was trying to teach him a new label. Maybe he was thinking, Listen carefully, lady. I'm trying to make this easy for you.

...No matter how hard we worked to get him to say "apple," he stuck with his label. As far as Alex was concerned, "banerry" it was and "banerry" it was going to stay.

A few days later I was talking to a linguist friend about all this. He said, "It sounds like lexical elision." It's a fancy term for putting parts of two different words together to form a new word. Alex might have thought the apple tasted a bit like a banana. Certainly it looked like a very large cherry (it was a red apple). "Banana" + "cherry" = "banerry."

That passage had me laughing so much my eyes were watering. I've experienced the personality of greys, so I could easily picture the interaction, and it brings me joy.

This relates to the first section I quoted because it illustrates Alex's stubbornness and their general relationship. When it came to repeating the tests enough to gather the statistics necessary for scientific reporting, there were other challenges:

The tests involved putting various of his "toys" on a tray and asking questions such as "What object is green?" "What matter is blue and three-corner?" "What shape is purple?" "How many four-corner wood?" At first, Alex answered correctly most of the time: "key" or "wood" or "wool" or "three," et cetera. But before too long, he started to act up. He would say "green" and then pull at the green felt lining of the tray, hard enough that all the objects would fall off. Or he would say "tray" and bite the tray. Sometimes he'd say nothing and suddenly start preening. Or he'd turn around and lift his butt in my direction, a gesture too obvious to need translation. Once he grabbed the tray out of my hand and flund it on the floor, saying, "Wanna go back," which meant, I'm done with this. Take me back to my cage.

Who can blame him? None of the objects were new to him. He'd answered these kinds of questions dozens of times, and yet we still kept asking them, because we needed our statistical sample. You could imagine him thinking, I've already told you that, stupid, or simply, This is getting very boring. He was like the bright little kid at school who finds none of the work challenging and so passes the time by making trouble.

Sometimes, however, Alex chose to show his opinion of the boring task at hand by playing with our heads. For instance, we would ask him, "What color key?" and he would give every color in his repertoire, skipping only the correct color. Eventually, he became quite ingenious with this game, having more fun getting us agitated rather than giving us the answers we wanted and he surely knew. We were pretty certain he wasn't making mistakes, because it was statistically near to impossible that he could list all but the correct answer. These observations are not science, but they tell you a lot about how sophisticated his cognitive processes really were. Whether you would describe what he did as something to amuse himself or as making a joke at our expense, I cannot say. But he was definitely doing something other than routinely answering questions.

This, of course, led me to wonder how you report, statistically, the responses of an animal which seems to be deliberately refusing to give you the responses you need to support your research. Obstinate little cuss. I love it. I'm enjoying the book muchly.





Alex showing Alan Alda what he can do:


ABC News report when Alex passed away:


A longer video on Dr. Pepperberg's research with Alex and other parrots: