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Five strange facts about dreams

#1
C C Offline
https://digest.bps.org.uk/2020/11/04/fiv...ut-dreams/

EXCERPTS: . . . (#3) People who no longer think can still dream. Auto-activation deficit is a condition, caused by damage to the basal ganglia, in which people not only report having no thoughts, but have lost all self-motivation. They have to be told by carers to do everything from brushing their teeth to eating. However, even though their mind is a blank while they’re awake, research published by a team in France, shows that some, at least, do still dream. This group was much less likely to experience REM-stage dreams than healthy people, and the dreams they did have were lacking the complexity and emotion that characterises typical dreams. But they did still have some dreams. For example, one patient dreamed of shaving (something he could no longer do by himself), while another dreamed of writing, although, while awake, he never wrote anything without being instructed.

The simplicity of these patients’ dreams (together with the identification of a role for the basal ganglia in integrating information from various brain regions) supports the “bottom-up” theory of dreaming - that dreams are initiated by activity in the brainstem, which is then followed by cortical input, which allows for complex emotional and sensory experiences.

[...] (#5) Some people’s daydreams take over their lives. For some people, their daydreams are so vivid and absorbing that “real life” fades into the background. As one sufferer of Maladaptive Daydreaming (MD) explains it: “I am careful to control my actions in public so it is not evident that my mind is constantly spinning these stories and I am constantly lost in them.” Although MD does not feature in standard mental health diagnostic manuals, there are online communities dedicated to it. And as the researchers behind a recent study on MD write in their paper, “in recent years it has gradually become evident that daydreaming can evolve into an extreme and maladaptive behaviour, up to the point where it turns into a clinically significant condition.” (MORE - details)
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