- The most famous dream predictions come from the Bible
- The brain doesn’t passively receive information about the external world, it actively interprets the information and looks for patterns in it
- Problamistic patterns are less obvious patterns – they are based on events that have only a tendency to occur
- When awake, we can spot logical, deterministic patterns. We are better at finding problamistic patterns during REM dream sleep (better at predicting?)
- Familiar things appear in dreams, but we never experience them as reality. Instead people, places, and experiences are recombined to render the familiar, unfamiliar and often bizarre.
- The familiar becomes bizarre because in a dream we do not experience memories. Instead, we form an image that associates with memories. A dream image is bizarre because it portrays a pattern created by combining associated elements of different people, places or events.
- Much of our behaviour when awake might be determined by unconscious associations created and expressed in dreams we cannot recall
- 98% of brain activity is unconscious
- Unconscious, predictive mental images ensure rapid responses to danger
- Dreams can also predict how we will act in certain situations because we unconsciously anticipate their consequences
I conclude dreams aren’t predictions, but they highlight events that could happen, allowing us to develop a response that when acted out appears as though the dream predicted the future.
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