Features

•Surveys the remarkable history of sleep research over the past few decades
•Examines the neurobiology of sleep and its implications for consciousness and well-being
•Discusses the value of dreaming, based on scientific research on sleep and dreams as well as psychoanalytic and other interpretations of dreams
•Addresses the nature of waking and dreaming consciousness and how these different theaters of awareness are deeply related
•Presents the neurogenesis, function, and clinical importance of a brain-based dream theory




Summary


Psychodynamic Neurology: Dreams, Consciousness, and Virtual Realty presents a novel way of thinking about the value of dreaming, based in solid comprehension of scientific research on sleep and dreams, but with deep understanding of psychoanalytic and other interpretations of dreams.

This book:


•Surveys the remarkable history of sleep research over the past few decades
•Examines the neurobiology of sleep and its implications for consciousness and well-being
•Addresses the nature of waking and dreaming consciousness and how they are deeply related
•Presents the neurogenesis, function, and clinical importance of a brain-based dream theory


Our dreams are a mixture of anticipated virtual as well as remembered real experience. This book tells the story of how neuroscience has helped us reach this startling and exciting conclusion and how the new scientific model builds upon and departs from the dream theories of the past.

Historical Background: The Mind-Brain Schism of 1900
Virtual Reality Dream—12/6/2011
Philosophical Issues
The Freudian Split
Modern Sleep Science
Psychodynamics
William James
Helmholtz and the Pact Against Vitalism
Wilhelm Wundt

Neurological Development: Sleep and Dream Science
Noreene Storrie and Potatoes—11/26/2012
Self and Agency
Fetal Brain Activation
Sleep Eye Movement
I Move, Therefore I Am
Separate Selves
Vision in Waking and Dreaming
A Virtual Space for Virtual Sensation and Virtual Movement
Taking Virtual Reality Seriously
Evolution
Self-Organization
Dreaming in Real-Time
Time Sense in Dreams

Lucid Dreaming: Splitting Primary and Secondary Consciousness
Waking Dream—1/12/13
Flip-Flop States
Brain Dissociation
Free Will?
Brain Imaging and Lucid Dreaming

Hypnosis: Entering The Brain-Mind Via The Brain Stem Cellar
Associations Are Never Free
Autosuggestion and Self-Hypnosis

Let There Be Light: Information Creation and Management
PGO Waves of REM Sleep
PGO Wave Inhibition
Turning on PGO Waves and REM Sleep
A Startling Hypothesis

Central Heating: Keeping Warm While Dreaming
Circadian Rhythms
Loss of Temperature Control
Individuality and Sleep
Alcoholism: An Experiment of Culture And Nature
Psychodynamic Neurology?
Quantification
What Is Free Energy?

Religion And Sexuality: A Civil War in the Brain-Mind
Religion
Dreaming as Religion
My God Is Better than Yours
Varieties of Religious Experience
Denial of Comfort
Sex
Chinese Love Dream—1/12/2012
Sex Rules
Brain Activation In Sleep
Wet Dreams
Sex and Religion Cross Wires

The Psychodynamic Ego: An Epigenetic Self
Freud as Inadvertent Cartesian
A Conceptual Reversal
Mental? Illness
The Trauma Hunt
Why Go to Medical School?
Celebrate Skepticism
A Shorthand of Defenses
Psychological Camouflage
Primary and Secondary Consciousness
Free Will
Dreaming as Primary Consciousness

The Transcendental Ego: Art and Science of the Brain-Mind
The Creative Ego
Philosophical Background
Biologizing Kant
Transcendentalism
A Model of the World
Is Waking as Bizarre as Dreaming?
Illogical Us
Creativity and the Transcendent Ego
Ski-Flying Dream—Sicily, 4/8/2011
Storytelling and the Transcendent Ego
New Initiatives Linking Dream Science and Literature
Toward a Science of Subjectivity

Instincts And Emotions: Ethology of the Brain-Mind
Emotion Is Inherently Cognitive
Ethological Psychiatry
The Reticular Activating System
REM Sleep Without Atonia
REM Sleep Behavior Disorder
Threat Avoidance
Attachment and Separation

Psychopathology: Dysfunction of the Brain-Mind
Dream Madness
What Kind of Psychosis Is Dreaming?
Sleep and Mood Regulation
A Paradox Explained
Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors
Lessons from the Past

Memory: Epigenetic and Experiential Aspects
Contrasts with The Freudian Unconscious
Genetic Memory
Epigenetic Memory
Epigenetic Instantiation of The NREM-REM Sleep Cycle
Cats Beget Kittens
REM Sleep and the Consolidation Of Memory
Elaborative Encoding

Post-Freudian Revisions: Further Attacks on Psychoanalysis and Alternative Models
The Anti-Freud War
Biological Psychiatry and Psychobiology
Behavioral Neurology
Sleep and Dream Science

Altered States: Toward a Science of the Brain-Mind
Transcendental Meditation
Eye Movement Redirection Therapy
Substance Abuse
Alcohol
Cocaine
Amphetamine
Prozac
LSD

Brain-Mind Dream Interpretation: A New Project for Scientific Psychology
Laboratory Dream—1/2/2012
Commentary