Ran across this theoretical review in “Sleep Medicine Reviews,” called White dreams are made of colours: What studying contentless dreams can teach about the neural basis of dreaming and conscious experiences This analysis gives me hope that a lot of what I experience at night is of more consequence than what I originally thought. People have always said “you dream even if you don’t recall them,” but that offers little consolation when we are really trying hard to remember them, but can’t. We can get discouraged when we don’t remember dreams even though we “know” we had them. The article doesn’t deal with how to “add colour” to these White Dreams, but I am encouraged that there is so much research going on to help us do just that.
Related articles that popped up as I searched contentless dreams. Perhaps I ‘read’ too much into what you said and fell into a rabbit-hole. So in the spirit of sharing, since I was already there.
Dream experiences and the neural correlates of perceptual consciousness and cognitive access (2018)
Journal: “Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci” which I think is “Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences”
The neural correlates of dreaming (2017)
Journal: Nature Neuroscience
Old Skool article from 2010 Talks about (gasp!) PET scans. My understanding is that’s old tech now.
Dreaming and the brain: from phenomenology to neurophysiology
Journal: Trends in Cognitive Sciences
The following are more of personal interest, but may relate to your initial inquiry.
I got curious about what brain parts of mine seem ‘broken’ (behavioral symptoms) and if there’s any crossover to what “lights up” - or not - when people dream and/or go lucid.
The intention morphed into wondering if my ‘dream parts’ are broken and I should just request a refund from Nightclub. (joke!)
Or that maybe I should just throw in the towel regarding all this “waking up” stuff.
It was a 1-day passion project, probably won’t follow through. I’d have to re-learn ‘brain parts’ and the path of renunciation seems so much easier.
(btw, I have a diagnosis now - got it a month ago and while it did ‘register’, somehow it didn’t. My head’s been there the past week. It’s common when I read Dr’s notes post-visit. Just shake my head wonderment, how a kinda big point a doctor mentions ‘lands’ so differently in the moment…)
Curious thing I noticed:
“Modern science” is now disjointed silos. The need to specialize is legit and very important, AND it leads to myopia. I found dream articles in neurology, psychology, biology, etc. The studies overlap and don’t talk to each other.
Symptom of too much information available, I suppose.
(my naive part doesn’t want to think it’s about ego and fame)
Brain parts:
Hippocampus - Immuno doc tested around this straight-up. He just told me today that I’m his VIP Neuroimmune patient. D’awwww!
– ps, he agreed at my little outburst that all this COVID stuff is BS. Ha! That’s for another forum I suppose.
Amygdyla - I think has to do with sorting/filing memories, and shrinks with chronic anxiety. Also with trauma.
HPA Axis - Hypothalamus, Pituitary, Adrenal – downward spiral to anxiety hell. Unconscious cause of illness, social sublingual messages, pandemonia…I mean pandemic physiology, etc
The “meta-point” is, the Dream Research Silo is finding ‘determinates’ around dreaming that are disease-caused. “Dis-ease” They already know this stuff over in the various Medical Proper Silos. So a reproduction of effort (and money spent). The opposite is also true - research in the Medical Proper Silos initiate dream/sleep studies to show dream-type manifestations of the same “diseases.” Hence the overlap.
Recalling and Forgetting Dreams: Theta and Alpha Oscillations during Sleep Predict Subsequent Dream Recall
Amygdala and hippocampus volumetry and diffusivity in relation to dreaming
Hippocampal perfusion predicts impending neurodegeneration in REM sleep behavior disorder
My mom non-officially made the step over to AD My bro drove out to see her and said she followed him around repeating the same story 12 times. My heart sunk. Part of me played the little sister dance of “I told you so, you never freaking listen to me!!” to his big brother dance of “you always get all psychological and sh!t, you’re reading way too much into things.”
Well, she’s filling out “all these essays!” - aka ‘new patient paperwork’ for neuropsych testing at an AD facility. I always know when something upsets her that she’s not conscious of, because she’s a phenomenal deflector. She hid the progression so well. I knew she had dementia and was keeping it from her doc. Bro wouldn’t believe me. He does now.
My role last few years - her psychotherapist (we always had a reverse relationship)
Bro’s role last few years - handling the details of her life (what step-dad did; death exposes some serious ‘family secrets’ kept from family!)
Also realized how she asks me what I’m up to but after a sentence or 2, we’re talking about her again. So my mother isn’t here anymore. Doesn’t remember anything I tell her and inserts her stories into my ‘life-stream’ now. Basically just her annoying habits are who I’m talking to.
That was the lead-up to the next article - a perfect example of the 2-silo model/approach: “not dreaming causes disease” and “disease causes not dreaming”
Hippocampal Perfusion and Pituitary-Adrenal Axis in Alzheimer’s Disease
(importance of acetylcholine; lucid dreaming is just a side effect and those with clear minds simply use the phenonema to further their wisdom)
Get your omega3’s!
Deficiency in short-chain fatty acid β-oxidation affects theta oscillations during sleep
And… Music for anxeity!
Moderating effects of music on resting state networks
Simply because it has NOTHING to do with sleep or dreaming!
Courtney, one need only work in “Education” to see that its really moles digging holes, the deeper they go, the more rewards they get. I prefer the digging analogy because no light penetrates the deeper one digs down into their discipline. On the other hand the view of The Ivory Tower, on close inspection, being a moated, gated community of self-enclosed silos is not inaccurate either.
My bro drove out to see her and said she followed him around repeating the same story 12 times. My heart sunk. Part of me played the little sister dance of “I told you so, you never freaking listen to me!!” to his big brother dance of “you always get all psychological and sh!t, you’re reading way too much into things.”