Chaos, Consciousness, & Dreaming

Originally Posted by Rachel Hensey and John Sehi

In a dream, Paul McCartney (1965) created the melody to the popular song, "Yesterday."  Likewise, Tse Wen (2003) was inspired in a dream in which he developed a breakthrough drug that greatly reduces the risks for people who suffer from peanut allergies. These two men are examples of scientists, musicians, athletes, mathematicians, writers, and artists who have reported accounts of moments of inspiration or breakthroughs during dreaming time.

This construction of nonlinear meaning that occurs during dreaming is an example of chaos theory at work in the brain. The brain is a complex, chaotic system, and small shifts in its input during any state can dramatically alter how it operates. Inputs of order and chaos cause a tension in the brain that is mandatory for proper growth. Without the input from order, the brain would dream too much and thus fall into irrationality. Without the input from chaos, the brain would no longer dream and thus would function like a robot/automaton, without any real creativity. The output (our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors) depends upon a proper blend of chaos and order. For additional information on chaos in the brain, click here.

Comments

[Meridyth Mascio]

Rachel and John: I thought that your topic was really interesting. I had never before considered dreaming as chaotic, but your presentation effectively convinced me that the correlation is indeed possible. I have had dreams that interweave people and subject matters together from different areas of my life in seemingly random ways, and your explanation of the states of order and disorder in the mind during sleep provide choatic insight.

[Sean Houlihan]

I like that some foundations are being made for the unconscious, dream state. It was very interesting that chaotic models (like the bifurcation of logistic growth) can be used to model such intangible subjects.

Furthermore, it would be truly interesting, as I stated in class, to find out how chaos and dreaming can relate to things such as deja vu, nightmares, etc.