Sleep and dream in a scientific view

[Wolfhart Willimczik]

 

 

Sleep and dream in a scientific view

By Physicist Wolfhart Willimczik

 

In the lexicon, one finds: "The dream is a kind of

unconscious mental activity. Their biological function has not yet been fully

understood."

I could find also: During sleep, the information of the day is "processed".

How exactly does that happen? This is a first attempt to explain it.

 

We will understand how our brain is working if we succeed to

build a computer with the same features - which is able to do the same

processes as our brain – at least in some respect.

Such comparison is scientifically allowable, because both

have to follow the laws of nature, ergo run in the same problems.

Such a computer must have all the sensors as a human, at

least eyes and ears. We could put a video camera on a human running the entire

day. The problem comes if all the available memory sticks are full. If we not

interfere we would find that this computer needs to disconnect from all sensors

after about a day to get into a quite or “sleeping” mode to process all the

information from last day to avoid a shut down due to a full memory. (The

“sleep mode” on today’s computer is not the same.)

Our brain has the same problem to process all information

from the last day to make room for a new flow of information the next day. Our

today’s computer ask us what can be erased and what shell be where and how

permanently saved. Our brain must do this task without asking us. Ergo – our

futuristic computer must do the same

without any help from the outside, processing and saving large video files,

sound files, information coming in by an entire array of sensors similar to a

human and files made by programs inside the computer itself to the right

places. Evidently our brain has to divide itself in at least one working part

(RAM - Random Access

Memory) and in a storage part (ROM - Read Only Memory), actually in several parts. We know

already a ultra short memory in the range of 1 minute, a short time memory of

about 1 day and a permanent memory.

The brain - like computer must know (our character,

experience etc) what is worse to save and what can be erased. If the computer

shell work alone a live time (over 80 years) with a limited capacity of its

memory etc it can’t save all the incoming information, but must decide what to

erase and what to save permanently. If there is already a big memory from many

years like a 30 years old human it will be a complicated process what needs

time and the entire processing capacity. In this time the computer cuts all

connections to its sensors except a few necessary for survival. We call it

sleep. It may take the entire night. In the morning the computer will just be

ready to take more information from all the sensors etc.

Our brain has already all these features and is able to deal

with an immense amount of information.

How can a futuristic computer do this?

First there is a short-term memory that stores everything

like a video recorder, but just a short time, because it is easily filled up.

The eyes provide a video - sound, touch, own thoughts etc will be added. Some

of it goes into a storage that contains everything since the last sleep. The

rest of the short-term memory is erased approximately every minute.

The unimportant information must be identified and deleted.

For this purpose every piece of information get an extra parameter – "a

level of importance”. Today's computers can not do it, but our brain makes

it always automatically. Depending on our character, experience etc we know

what we are interested in the pictures, the noise, odor and other impressions.

According to our impression the information is erased or is more or less deep

in our memory saved. All what made us astonished or frightened will be

permanently stored – “wow-effect”.

Example:

From a big crowd remains just the image of the beautiful

girl. Everything else will be deleted immediately. From the entire video we saw

only one person.

All the selected information is now in the daily memory,

which is already significant less, but must be emptied during sleep, to be

receptive again the next day. In sleep, the connections to the sensors are

disconnected or almost all shut down, that the entire brain processing capacity

can now be used to process all new information – empty the RAM.

 

It knows what we're interested in, which is saved in our –

lets say – “character”. But this is

still not enough. It must find the right spot in the permanent storage, that it

can easily accessed again, if the owner of this brain has the desire to

remember this. The bigger the storage the more difficult is this process to

save and to read again this specific information. (it is known that humans with

smaller storage can faster remember things.)

 

The saving process itself:

The computer/brain must compare the new information (what

was happening today) with everything that already exists in the permanent

storage to find the right spot for saving the new information.

Therefore, it searches in the sleeping mode the entire memory for similarities. This is

normally beyond our consciousness (except if we dream.) Junks of saved

information must have something like a name, number or similar finding tool. If

there are found similarities to several already existing information a more

specific process is started. We would on a split screen run the new video and

simultaneously different ones from the permanent memory until we find one

fitting to the new one and save it there permanently. Our brain made it

probably basically in the same way, but a bit more intelligent. It had millions

of years to optimize this process. (I

had 71 years only.)

Example:

 

The brain would have erased the visit of the

mother-in-law almost immediately, but she was that annoying and made the couple

angry, this event received such a very negative review (strong impression) that

the brain saved it permanently. The brain searched under

"mother-in-law", “annoying visitors” etc for similar events. In fact, she had done the same already 7

times before and the search engine of the brain finds easily a big chunk

“visits by mother-in-law”. It compares the old "videos" with the new

one and notes that there are similar events and put it there to the old ones

during we sleep.

Our strong (negative) rating is maintained in the permanent

memory. This information may follow us the entire live, even if we want to

forget it. It can’t be erased from the permanent memory. It could perhaps only

overwritten with the same event only with a better ending to sooth the memory.

Forgetting something is much harder than learning something

if it is already in the permanent memory. On the other hand we should get a

good sleep after we learned something, with it the brain saved it in the

permanent memory. (Very strong events like an accident etc go perhaps strait in

the permanent memory.)

The reading from our permanent memory is easier the higher

the rating from this specific information is. We are attempt to make a scale

from – 10 to + 10, but the actual rating can be in some seldom cases like an

accident much higher – that high, that it comes always uninvited back in our

consciousness (working memory or RAM) and messed up our day.

Dream:

 

This rather complicated process of selecting, erasing and

saving parts of our daily memory happens every night, regardless of whether we

have been dreaming or not. Because this is a long complicated process it will

need several hours – with a computer too.

 

If we - by some reason - disturb this process by switching

our just hard working memory (RAM) into conscious mode, we find remnants of the

day's events, but also things from the old days that either fit to each other

or not. We combine the 2 running “videos” just being in RAM to one. If we wake

up we remember this. This is our dream (a little simplified). We find in

a normal dream things from yesterday and things from older days.

But there are also different dreams:

Besides a video track, audio track etc, there are tracks

left by our own thoughts. What needs to be processed as well. If you just burst

into this process with your consciousness, you will have either a nice dream,

because there was just the track with our desires, or we have a nightmare what

shows us what we fear the most.

 

So how can we define a dream?

We interrupt the normal information processing during sleep by turning on the

conscious mode. Now we "see" - in other words we dream - the fragments of the

two tracks running just this moment in our working memory (RAM).

Anyone can test this by himself by analyzing its own

"simple" dreams. The question is: are there things simultaneously in

a dream from yesterday and things from the past.

Now dream something nice. I am excited about the feedback.

[imatfaal]

moved to speculations. please take a moment to read the specific rules of that forum

[nbj622]

I see that you're trying to relate dream/memory processes to computer/memory processes. I think you should organize your article into better defined segments, so that I can follow along with the concepts more easily.

 

I tend to think that being tired and going to sleep is caused by the mess of mental models that are created in our heads during our waking hours. During the day, we absorb information and the brain haphazardly organizes the information into models, however by the end of the day, the models have become very messy.

 

So we go to sleep, and as we dream, we are re-organizing the models in our head, by rebuilding the structures of hierarchies. (maybe like de-fragging a hard drive)

 

We wake up refreshed, because the mental models in our brains have been re-organized.

 

As for bad dream vs. good dreams - well maybe your ideas about the depth of memory/relationships (short vs. long), explains it.

 

Also, memory = the ability to access these models.

 

My two cents

[Bill Angel]

Example:

From a big crowd remains just the image of the beautiful

girl. Everything else will be deleted immediately. From the entire video we saw

only one person.

I have an interest in the study of dreams and also in photography. Recently I've been working on connecting the two. In support of this effort I created a musical association or bridge between the activities of lucid dreaming and photography.

One sample of this work can be viewed and listened to here: Music for Lucid Dreaming

 

It knows what we're interested in, which is saved in our

lets say character. But this is

still not enough. It must find the right spot in the permanent storage, that it

can easily accessed again, if the owner of this brain has the desire to

remember this. The bigger the storage the more difficult is this process to

save and to read again this specific information. (it is known that humans with

smaller storage can faster remember things.)

 

The saving process itself:

 

The computer/brain must compare the new information (what

was happening today) with everything that already exists in the permanent

storage to find the right spot for saving the new information.

You may find these articles to be of interest:

Machine predicts images dreamt while sleeping

Here is an older article about this same research: Brain Scans Help Decode Sleepers' Dreams

[Wolfhart Willimczik]

I have an interest in the study of dreams and also in photography. Recently I've been working on connecting the two. In support of this effort I created a musical association or bridge between the activities of lucid dreaming and photography.

One sample of this work can be viewed and listened to here: Music for Lucid Dreaming

 

 

You may find these articles to be of interest:

Machine predicts images dreamt while sleeping

Here is an older article about this same research: Brain Scans Help Decode Sleepers' Dreams

 

 

@Bill Angel

The nice locking women in the picture in your website could be the one we remember from the

crowed I spoke from. Visualizing dreams would be interesting. Perhaps smart

computers in the future may do this or at least assist us to paint our own

dreams.

Thanks also for the links.

 

I see that you're trying to relate dream/memory processes to computer/memory processes. I think you should organize your article into better defined segments, so that I can follow along with the concepts more easily.

 

I tend to think that being tired and going to sleep is caused by the mess of mental models .....

 

 

Unfortunately you are right. I am a German and struggle

still with my bad Enflish, but I would be thankful for every improvement by you.

(I have first to learn what “mental models” are to follow your thoughts.)

[nbj622]

This video is a quick overview of 'models': (They are visualized by relationship diagrams.)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1k1ERVbZEE

 

 

I think your concept of mental 'RAM', should be defined by relationship models - because how does one define the existence and structure of RAM in the brain?