CONSCIOUSNESS The 20th century witnessed tremendous scientific progress in many fields.

This has brought about a better understanding of the world we inhabit, of the forces that drive it, of the relationships between the human race and the rest of the universe. Scientific explanations have been provided for most of the phenomena that used to be considered divine events. We have learned how the universe was born, and how it gave rise to the galaxies and the stars and ultimately to our planet; and what life is, how it survives, reproduces and evolves; and what the structure of the brain is, and how it works. The mystery is no longer in our surroundings: it is inside ourselves. What we still cannot explain is precisely that: "ourselves". We may have a clue to what generates reasoning, memory and learning. But we have no scientific theory for the one thing that we really know very well: our consciousness, our awareness of being us, ourselves. No scientific theory of the universe can be said complete if it doesn't explain consciousness. We may doubt the existence of black holes, the properties of quarks and even that the Earth is round, but it is harder to doubt that we are conscious. Consciousness is actually the only thing we can be sure of: we are sure that "we" exist, and "we" doesn't mean our bodies: it means our consciousness. Everything else could be an illusion, but consciousness is what allows us to even think that everything else could be an illusion. It is the one thing that we cannot reject. If our theory of the universe that we have does not explain consciousness, then maybe we do not have a good theory of the universe. Consciousness is a natural phenomenon. Like all natural phenomena it should be possible to find laws of nature that explain it. Unfortunately, precisely consciousness, of all things in the universe, still eludes scientists. Physics has come a long way to explaining what matter is and how it behaves. Biology has come a long way to explain what life is and how it evolves. But no science has come even close to explaining what consciousness is, how it originates and how it works. Neurology tells us an enormous amount about the brain, but it cannot explain how conscious experience arises from the brains electrochemical activity. One wonders if there is still something about the structure of matter that we are missing.

We may have figured out the meaning of matter and the structure of life, but we were more interested in the structure of matter and the meaning of life.

What Is Consciousness?
What is consciousness? What is it to be aware? The more we think, the less we can define it. How does it happen? How does something in the brain (it is in the brain, isn't it?) lead to our emotions, feelings and thoughts? And why does it happen? Why were humans (and presumably to some extent many animals) endowed with consciousness, with the ability to know that they exist, that they live, that other people live, that they are part of this universe and that they will die? Why do we need to "think" at all? Why doesnt our inner life mirror faithfully, one to one, our external life? When we experience sensations related to interactions of our body with the world, our emotional life can be said to mirror the environment. But when we think, sometimes we think things that never happen and will never happen. How can consciousness be so decoupled from the environment if brain processes are tightly coupled to it? Is consciousness a form of self-maintenance the same way that the autonomic system is a form of self-maintenance of the body regardless of what happens in the environment? Paradoxes and weird properties of consciousness abound. Why can't I be aware of my entire being? We only have partial introspection. We have no idea of what many organs are doing in our body. Consciousness is limited to my head. Do I need hands and feet in order to be conscious? Is consciousness only determined by what is in the head, or is it affected also by every part of the body? Am I still the same person if they cut my legs? What if they transplant my heart? We can only be conscious of one thing at a time. There are many things that we are not conscious of. How do we select which thing we want to be conscious of? Why can I only feel my own consciousness and not other people's consciousness? Why can't I feel other people's feelings? Why can't anybody else feel my feelings? Conscious states are fundamentally different from anything else in nature because they are "subjective" and "opaque" (I cant feel yours). They are not equally accessible to all observers. Consciousness is a whole, unlike the body which is made of parts, unlike everything else which can be decomposed into more and more elementary units. Conscious states cannot be reduced to constituent parts.

How did consciousness come to exist in the first place? Did it evolve from nonconscious properties? In that case, why? What purpose does it serve? Could I be conscious of things that I am not conscious of? Am I in control of my consciousness? Is this conscious thought of mine only one of the many possible conscious thoughts that I could have now, or is it the only conscious thought that I could possibly have now? Is consciousness in control of me? This question is crucial to understanding whether there is a locus of consciousness in the brain, or whether consciousness is simply a side-effect of processes that occur in the brain. The most frustrating property of consciousness is probably its opacity: we cannot know who and what is conscious. How widespread is consciousness? Who else is conscious besides me? Are other people conscious the same way I am? Are some people more conscious and others less conscious? Are some animals also conscious? Are all animals conscious? Are plants conscious? Can non-living matter also be conscious? Is everything conscious? Can things inside conscious things be conscious? Are planets and galaxies conscious? Are arms and legs conscious? What is the self? The self seems to represent a sense of unity, of spatial and time unity: "my" self groups all the feelings related to my body, and it also groups all those feelings that occurred in the past. My body changed over the years, and my brain too. All the cells of the body change within seven years. Therefore my "mind" must have changed too. But the self somehow bestows unity on that continuously changing entity. If we consider that our bodies are ultimately made of elementary particles, and that the average lifetime of most elementary particles is a fraction of a second, we can say that our bodies are continuously rebuilt every second. The matter of our bodies changes all the time. The only thing that is preserved is the pattern of matter. And even that pattern changes slowly as we age. Not even the pattern is preserved accurately. What makes us think that we are still the same person? How can I still be myself? Laws that protect animals are not clear about "what" makes an animal worthy of protecting: killing a neighborhood cat because I don't like it is generally considered offensive, but killing a spider because I don't like it is absolutely normal. One can own a dog and file a suit against somebody who killed it, but one cannot own an ant and file a suit against somebody who stepped over it. Why slaughtering cows by the millions is a lawful practice and killing a pigeon in a square is a crime? The USA physicist Erich Harth focused on the following properties of consciousness: "selectivity" (only a few neural processes are conscious); "exclusivity" (only one perception at the time can be conscious); "chaining" (one conscious thought leads to another one"); "unitarity" (the sense of self).

These properties of consciousness (partiality, sequentiality, irreducibility, unity, opacity, etc) set consciousness apart from any other natural phenomenon. And make it difficult, if not impossible, to study it with the traditional tools of the physical sciences.

ConsciousnessThe having of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings; awareness

Two Levels of Consciousness

We can take consciousness as a primitive concept (just like "time", "space" and "matter"), that we all "know" even though we cannot define it. We can define what the brain (or at least the neural system) is and what brain processes are. We can define cognition, as the set of cognitive faculties (learning, memory, language, etc), each of way is relatively easy to define. When we refer to cognition, we are often interested in more than just the neural process underlying a cognitive faculty. We are interested in general questions such as "how can a living thing remember something" and "how can a living thing learn something". Such questions have two parts. The first part is about the mechanism that allows a piece of living matter to remember or learn something in the sense of being able to perform future actions based on it. The second part is about the awareness of remembering or learning something. The first part doesn't really require consciousness, and it may well be explained on a purely material basis. Even non-conscious things (non-living matter) may be able to remember and learn. Ultimately, the first part of the cognitive process can be summarized as: "matter modifies itself based on occurrences in the environment so that its future behavior will be different". Fascinating and intriguing, but far less mysterious than the other half of the phenomenon: "... and, in the process, it is also aware of all of this". The mechanisms that preside over memory, learning, language and reasoning can be described in material terms. And machines have been built that mimic those processes. The other half of the problem is still as mysterious as it was centuries ago. How does a brain process give rise to the awareness that the process is going on? It looks like by "mind" we always meant something physical, material, reducible to physical processes inside the brain, which could be reproduced in a laboratory, and possibly on beings made of a different substance. But at the same time we also

meant something that today's sciences cannot replicate in a laboratory: the awareness of that physical process going on inside us. "Mind" encompasses both the cognitive processes (of of memory and learning, language and reasoning) and the "feeling" associated with those processes: consciousness. At closer inspection, "consciousness" is a term that encompasses a number of phenomena: thought, the self (the sense of the "I", the awareness of being), bodily sensations (such as pain and red), emotions (anger, happiness, fear, love). But not necessarily cognition (reasoning, memory, learning, etc). There is a "narrative", "cognitive", "higher-level" consciousness, which is relatively detached from our bodily experience and which seems to rely on language, and there is an "experiential", "sensorial" consciousness, which has to do with sensations received from the senses, i.e. with our immediate bodily experience. The latter may be common to many species, while the former might be an exclusive of humans because it may require some additional level of circuitry in the brain than basic sensations or emotions. The former is what we call "thought", including the self. The latter consist of "sensations" and "emotions". Consciousness is the awareness of existing. Self is the awareness of lasting in space and time (of being an "I"). Sensations are bodily feelings such as pain, red, warmth. Emotions are non-bodily feelings such as anger, happiness, fear. Cognition encompasses the processes of reasoning, memory, learning, speaking, etc. Perception is the physical process of perceiving the world. Thought is the act of being conscious over an extended period of time.

"There are four main functions of consciousness:

1. Simplification and Selection of information There is much "editing" that goes on in the mind--from the first cuts as the senses to those of perception, memory, and thinking--but still there is far too much information available at once, so there needs to be a choice in what the organism does at any moment. It is in consciousness that the choice is made.

2. Guiding and overseeing actions Consciousness connects brain and body states with external occurrences. In order to function in a complex environment, actions must be planned, guided and organized: We must know when and where to walk; when to speak and what to say; when to eat, drink, eliminate, and sleep. These actions must be coordinated with events in the outside world. At any moment the content of consciousness is what we are prepared to act on next. 3. Setting priorities for action It is not enough for our actions to be coordinated with events in the outside world; they must reflect our internal needs. Pain can flood consciousness in the same way that an emergency fills the front page of a newspaper. The priority system gives certain events, those affecting survival, fast access or a controlling influence on consciousness. Survival and safety come first; while hunger will not intrude as dramatically as does pain, the need will be felt if left unattended.

4. Detecting and resolving discrepancies" Since the information selected to enter consciousness is usually about changes in the external and internal worlds, when there is a discrepancy between our stored knowledge about the world and an event, it is more likely to come to consciousness. For instance, a woman in a bikini would probably not attract too much attention on the beach, but if she wore the same outfit to a formal dinner it would certainly be noticed. Discrepancies may arise internally,, as well. For instance, you are usually not conscious of your breathing. However, when you have a cold your breathing may enter your consciousness, and this may tell you to slow down or to see a doctor. Consciousness involves actions to reduce the discrepancy, as when you straighten out a crooked painting on the wall because it does not fit with the other paintings."

Types of Consciousness

Consciousness: the human subject perceiving and knowing in such a manner, as to leave a memory which can be accessed. Characterized by various combinations of attention, intention, perceptual data, and energy. Ego: The everyday experience of subjectivity, generally associated with self-image, and standing between and filtering the data of the outer world and the inner world. Normal consciousness. A state in which the ego is able to direct the activities of the person. Abnormal consciousness. The ego is unable to direct the activities of the person because the contents of consciousness are charged with negative energies which the ego is unable to counter. Ex. addictions, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, personality disorders. Unconsciousness. A state in which the human subject perceives and knows (perhaps), but without creating memories which can be accessed by the Ego. Ex. coma, intoxicating states, deep sleep. Altered states of consciousness. States in which there is limited Ego-control, but which are not necessarily abnormal or pathological. Memory access is limited. Ex. certain drug experiences, meditation states, dreams, hypnosis., daydreams, out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences. Mystical Consciousness. Presence and energy of the divine are known and remembered by the human subject. Awareness infused with divine presence, will infused by love, energy joyful/blissful, contents may or may not be stimulated. May occur in normal.. altered, and abnormal states. May be relational or nonrelational in quality. Psychic Consciousness. Normal, abnormal, altered, and mystical states in which the contents of consciousness are extra-sensory.

Why Do We Dream?

Written by Joel Aguerro, Winter 2010

Dreams manifest themselves in a number of ways, ranging from the ridiculously improbable, to the realistically haunting, to near life and death situations -- yet for centuries curious minds have wondered: why do we dream? To answer this question, we must first answer another: what exactly is a dream? Dr. William C. Dement, the father of REM sleep and a professor of sleeping and dreaming at Stanford University, describes a dream as "a vivid, complex, hallucinatory experience generally accepted as real by the dreamer." Of course, an individual almost always recognizes the dream as a dream upon awakening, but during the dream itself the the dreamer is unaware that what he is experiencing is a fabricated reality. However, the word "generally" Dement uses in this sentence is key, for some individuals possess the ability (and indeed train themselves to develop the ability) to be conscious of their own dreams while they are happening, in a way so that they can actually control what happens in the dream. This is called lucid dreaming , and you can learn more about it here. But to get back to the topic at hand, is there an evolutionary function to dreams? What causes dreams? And why do people dream? Why do we dream? Hmm.... Do you have any thoughts yourself? Or maybe you think the theories out there miss the mark after reading them below? Click here to share your thoughts with us and the world. Questions like these have been racking people's minds for years. More recently, dreams have come under scientific study following research concerning the human body and sleep; however, scientists have yet to reach a consensus regarding concrete reasons for dreaming. Instead, various theories have surfaced in the past century, all of which attempt to lay claim to the true purpose of dreaming. It's important to emphasize that no single theory has ever been proven or generally accepted by the scientific community, giving way instead to a continually elusive definite purpose of dreaming.

Dreams as Illustrations of Our Unconscious Desires The most popular theory was proposed by Sigmund Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams, in which he claims that dreams are manifestations of repressed desires. Freud introduced the concepts of a dream's manifest content -- the images and events taking place in the dream -- and a dream's latent content -- the psychological significance of the dream to the individual. In many ways, Freud's proposition led to the practice of dream interpretation and the creation of dream dictionaries, due to the belief that dreams contain hidden, deeply personal messages from our unconscious. Freud's theory has neither been proven nor disproven, and many respected scientists, psychologists, and dream experts offer strong arguments against it. Dreams as a Combination of Conscious and Unconscious Desires Carl Gustav Jung originally worked with Freud, but did not believe that every dream required a hidden, unconscious motive. Rather, Jung focused on Freud's concept of manifest content: the actual events of dreams. Jungian theory states that dreams are the easiest access to the contents of the unconscious; analogous to a different language that merely needs to be deciphered using symbols rather than vocabulary. It considers dreams as a product of one's personal unconscious and of what Jung referred to as a collective unconscious, which deals with society's broader notions. Dreams as Products of Neurons Randomly Firing Harvard University psychiatrists James Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley published their theory of dreams in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1977. They concluded that dreams are caused by randomly firing neurons within the brain; however, because the body enters a state of paralysis during REM sleep, the activity in the brain is synthesized as a dream in lieu of executing physical movement. Hobson and McCarley's theory claims that dreams are primarily sporadic and unpredictable, lacking any real significance. It largely contradicts the Freudian perspective on dreams and concludes that the only meaning dreams might have is found when thinking about them during wakefulness in the context of other aspects of the dreamer's life.

External Stimuli and Dreams Dr. William C. Dement found strong evidence concerning the relationship between external stimuli of a dreamer and the content of the dreams. During one specific study, Dement dropped water droplets onto a sleeping patient approximately three minutes before they were awoken. After being asked about the content of her dream, the patient reported an elaborate dream that ended with her looking up at a sporadic rainfall from above. The natural implication is that the content of the dream was influenced by the external stimuli, particularly because the water droplets were applied just before waking the patient. Dement, however, recognized that dreams were not the interpretation of external stimuli -- but rather, that the content of dreams could be influenced by external factors, such as water, should they coincide with a REM period. Other research by Stanford students in 1970 conclusively demonstrated the effects of particular stimuli on the content of dreams using common sounds like a locomotive horn, a barking dog, traffic noise, and a rooster crowing. Other Theories and the Purpose of Dreams Various other theories concerning the importance of dreams have surfaced over the course of history. Ranging from spiritual associations to a means of relieving stress, little conclusive research has been accomplished. Alternatively, scientists remain out of concurrence with regard to the true, verifiable reason behind dreaming.

The Mystery of Sleep Since time immemorial, the subject of sleep and dreams has intrigued man. Sleep fascinates people because it may be somewhat reminiscent of death: We lie down, we close our eyes and we are dead to the world. Apparently, only a few minutes later, without being aware of any loss of time, we get up again. Sleep is an event that conveys the subjective appearance of not happening at all. We are not aware of having slept. Sleep is a non-activity that seems to steal one-third of our life. Dreams, that are usually part of sleep, can be very unsettling and can even make us question our sanity. In the past, a shroud of mystery has covered the subject of sleep and dreams. Little objective knowledge about the nature of sleep and dreams was available. What information about sleep was accessible, represented a murky mixture of facts and mystified conclusions, mired in superstition. Sleep, this condition of semiconsciousness, causes anxiety because sleep reduces our environmental perceptions and degrades our ability to respond to danger. We are concerned because we realize that we are very vulnerable while we are asleep. Sleep involves the cessation of most of our sensory input and a reduction in most of our physiological processes: We are not aware of ordinary sounds; we close our eyes in order to eliminate visual input. On the physiological level, our limbic nervous system slows down our breathing rate and our heartbeat; it even reduces our blood pressure. Our autonomic nervous system curtails the production of waste products in order to prevent disruptions to our sleep. While our physiological functions operate at a minimal level, our brain also adjusts itself to reduced sensory input and operates on a very primitive level. When we try to probe the mysteries of sleep, we are only moderately concerned with the changes in our physiological functions while we are asleep. After all, these functions are readily discernible and are fully under the automatic control of the autonomic nervous system. What really intrigues us, are the mechanics of sleep as it affects our brain and, therefore, our mind. What are the functions of our brain while we are asleep?

The Need for Sleep and the Stages of Sleep

Before we can examine this question, we must understand the functions of our mind when we are asleep. Sleep is a critical survival need, similar to eating, drinking and breathing. Sleep is not unique to humans. All vertebrates, animals with a segmented spinal column, do sleep to some degree. Fish and even reptilians or amphibians lower their sensory awareness for prolonged periods, similar to sleep in vertebrates. We know little about the need for sleep of even more primitive living organisms such as bacteria or viruses. One can only surmise that there is no need for sleep in such primitive organisms. These little beasties seem to be busy around the clock, because they are not aware of diurnal rhythms. The need for sleep increases with the complexity of the organism and its nervous system. Human sleep ranges from sleepiness to Stage 4 sleep, which represents profound insensitivity to external stimuli. When we try to fall asleep, we prefer to do so in an environment free of sudden noises and other external stimuli. After we have fallen asleep, our skeletal muscles relax and our nervous system severely curtails the entire range of our sensory perception. Although electroencephalographs can readily measure the depth of our sleep objectively, we may also subjectively refer to being in a deep sleep, or sleeping fitfully. We are not concerned about the act of falling asleep because we know from experience that sleep is a regular occurrence and thus predictable. Sleep is unlike a coma, due to the ready reversibility of the condition and we are fully confident of a rapid return to a state of wakefulness. In addition to the classification of sleep from Stage 1 through Stage 4, human sleep falls in other patterns. One of the major patterns refers to Non-REM sleep and REM sleep. REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement, the visually observable movement of the eyeball under the eyelid. Periods of REM usually coincide with our dreams, whereas Non-REM sleep is essentially free from dreams. While we are dreaming, the brain deactivates our major muscle systems in order to preclude uncontrolled thrashing and potential injury. We may dream that we are running at top speed to escape from a monster, but our legs will merely twitch. Stage 4, the stage of deepest sleep, usually occurs within the first hour of sleep. This is nature's way of assuring that we optimize badly needed sleep in case external events prematurely interrupt our sleep. At Stage 4, we are almost in a state of stupor and rather insensitive to moderate stimuli. It may be necessary to shake a person in this stage to awaken him.

After a brief period of Stage 4 sleep, and to prevent us from falling into a deep coma, our brain partially arouses us: Our brainstem, the most primitive part of our brain, stimulates the higher levels of our brain with random impulses and returns us to Stage 2 sleep, associated with REMs and dreams. We stay in the REM dream stage for a while and then again return to deeper stages. As the night progresses, Stage 4 levels become more and more shallow. This cycling between Non-REM deep-stage sleep and REM low-stage sleep, repeats several times every night while we are asleep. We are fluctuating between dreamless periods of deep sleep and periods of light sleep, sustained by dreams. There is no substantiated report of a human being functioning without sleep indefinitely. Experiments with humans and animals have shown that it is possible to survive without sleep for approximately ten days. If we deprive a person of sleep by constant stimulation, he will eventually succumb to sleep. He will then sleep and he will feel fully restored upon awakening, without any permanent damage. This situation is analogous to starvation: Food deprivation, even to a skeletal stage, is readily reversible by the introduction of food and will normally not result in any permanent injury. The need for sleep varies from person to person and depends on age. Young persons require slightly more sleep than elderly persons do. The range of normal sleep for humans ranges from five to ten hours, with a median in the 7 1/2 hour range.

Why do we sleep? Several theories try to explain why most animals, including humans, have a compelling need for sleep. One theory describes it as a mere a habit, without biological foundation. Creation-based theories attribute the existence of man and all of his needs, including the need for sleep, to a superior being. Another theory refers to sleep as a state of exhaustion, requiring restoration of bodily functionality. Whenever we try to determine why human beings do whatever they are doing, we must remember that human beings did not develop overnight. Human beings are the product of billions of years of evolution. Certainly, no superior being created man and then decided that man had to waste half of his life in a state of stupor. If we search with sufficient persistence, we will always find an evolutionary explanation for all human behavior. All human physiology and behavior is

attributable to the process of evolution. There is no other rational explanation for human behavior. A search for a plausible explanation of the need for sleep will take us back millions of years, long before humans entered the scene. We need to go back to periods when living organisms first became aware of light and evolved sensors for visually perceiving the difference between night and day, between darkness and light. Evolution rewarded organisms that had the ability to perceive visual impulses with a greatly enhanced ability to survive. The visual perception of objects greatly enhanced the ability of such organisms to survive by preying on other organisms that lacked these faculties. About 2.5 billion years ago, one billion years after the inception of life on earth, many animals had developed the ability to utilize daylight in order to survive. The competition in the food chain became intense during daylight hours. However, at night when there was no light energy to activate lights sensitive cells, most animals were at a disadvantage. The most efficient way of coping with the lack of light was to reduce exposure by lying still and keeping very quiet. Animals that utilized such imposed periods of inactivity to restore their physiological systems, gained a further survival advantage: They were in better condition to pursue prey when the sun rose again. Another incentive to remain motionless in a safe and secluded place was the difficulty of moving around in darkness. Animals, including the ancestors of humans, who insisted on moving around at night, risked falling off cliffs or into holes. They also exposed themselves to forms of life that had never developed any sensitivity to and dependency on light. Insomniacs also were in danger from animals that had specialized in hunting at night and had therefore evolved high susceptibility to light. Such night-predators, such as the precursors of owls or cats, were able to see when other animals could not. If other animals are stalking you and you cannot even see them, your best course of action is to remain immobile and very quiet: You enter a state of semiconsciousness, you sleep.

The Need for Dreams

Over billions of years, the process of evolution favored animals that slept at night. In doing so, they prevented injury to themselves, avoided falling prey to specialized predators and they gained the opportunity to restore their bodily functions. Thus, animals achieved the ability to sleep and rest at night. However, in the event of a disturbance by predators, this period of semiconsciousness demanded the ability to restore, instantly, full operational control over the body. Therefore, animals benefited from the ability to sleep and rest during the dangerous and unproductive periods of darkness. While benefiting from sleep, animals also had to develop a mechanism that prevented them from falling into a deep coma while asleep. It was vitally important that some neural systems remained partially active and that the body could be re-activated instantly. Dreams are the evolutionary response to this need. The most expeditious way of letting an animal rest quietly, and thus safely, was to shut down most perceptions, such as vision. However, sleep also had to provide for instant awakening in the event of loud noises that might be a warning of large predators stumbling around in the darkness. Animal brains accomplished this feat by selecting those organisms for survival that developed the means to stimulate the brain at intervals in order to prevent it from succumbing to a comatose sleep. We do not shut off an automobile engine if we anticipated its use in the near future. Therefore, we allow an automobile engine to idle, to let it tick over very slowly, ready for instant acceleration. Thus, evolution enhanced the survival of organisms that were able to generate random impulses in the brainstem, the most rudimentary part of the brain that never sleeps. Such random impulses triggered complex responses in other areas of the brain, without fully engaging and awakening the brain as a whole. In animals, including human beings, dreams caused by random impulses in the brainstem, punctuate sleeping patterns. Dreams provide sufficient stimulation to prevent the rest of the brain from falling into a dangerous stupor during which an animal would be completely unaware of looming hazards. A coincidental advantage to maintaining the brain in a balance of dormancy and preparedness is the resulting ability of the body to restore the vitality of mental and physical functions. Both body and mind refresh and restore themselves to new vigor after a good night of sleep.

Do all Animals Sleep and Dream?

Just as there is an absolute need for sleep in all but the most primitive of animals, all animals must dream because dreams are an essential part of the sleep cycle. Dreams are just as essential as sleep because dreams prevent regular sleep, with its ready accessibility to wakefulness, from slipping into a comatose state. Dreams are the mechanism to keep our physiological perception machinery in a state of semi-alertness, while remaining safe and quiet and while restoring our physiological and mental resources. We can observe dreams in animals when we are watching a sleeping dog or cat. Their twitching extremities and flickering eye movements clearly indicate periodic brain activity. The same mechanism applies to humans: While we are in a dream state, our legs may twitch but we cannot move them. During deep sleep, such as Stage 4 Sleep, our brain actually paralyzes our legs. The obvious reason for this reaction can be readily deduced from the need to lie quietly but remain semi alert. An animal, thrashing around in its dreams, would soon attract predators. Such uncontrolled motion might also result in physical injury. Eons ago, evolution has eliminated all animals, including humans, who do not exhibit safe sleep and dream patterns. There may be more profound explanations dealing with the nature of sleep and dreams but, according to Occams Razor, the simplest explanation is the one most likely to be correct

Sleep, Dreams and Happiness In order to be successful in our goal of achieving happiness, we must see Objective Reality as clearly as possible. Persons who have a distorted view of reality are bound to incur conflicts in dealing with reality. They will thus find it difficult to achieve lasting happiness. There is nothing mysterious or threatening about sleep and dreams because both attributes are hard-wired into the human brain and body by billions of years of evolution. Sleep is nothing but a survival mechanism to prevent us from falling off cliffs and from being devoured during diurnal periods of darkness. Sleep also serves to rejuvenate and restore many of our physiological and brain functions and allows us to face every new day with optimized mental and physical resources. Dreams are essentially the random firings of part of our brain and are necessary to keep us in a state of semi-alertness while we are sleeping. Dreams may also serve to reactivate and refresh our physiological systems.

Unless dreams become very repetitive or frightening, such as very frequent nightmares dealing with similar subjects, it is fruitless and confusing to attempt any interpretations of our dreams. The random firings of our neurons do not follow normal neurological pathways. If we are determined to find the root of psychological difficulties by reference to our dreams, the corresponding psychoanalytical process is very lengthy and may have very questionable results, if any. We also need to be aware of pseudoscientific charlatans who can only offer arbitrary interpretations of our dreams, while using this process to part us from our money. For a happy life: Sleep as soundly as you can, forget your dreams and, above all, do not allow your dreams to influence or impinge on your everyday existence.