A Note on Dreams and memory:

Is Dreams What

      That didn’t make sense? Why, I can’t see why not. So what the hell is dreaming anyway? It has something to do with the memory process, for sure. I think there are definitely different languages that the brain uses to store information in. So for example, long term memory must either use a certain part of the brain only, or it’s a certain way of coding for information (different way of organizing neurons). And short term memory must either use a certain part of the brain, or it is using a separate way of encoding. The reason I say this is because of the differences between short term and long term memory; and specifically the differences in how long it takes to use them. Short term memory is for quick information storage, it makes sense then, that it is a simpler language in that it trims off lots of excess detail in order to get the main parts down quick. So maybe you don’t remember what color the car was, but you know that a car just went by you, and that it was not a truck, or a van. That is how short term memory is, it just gets a few key features from a scene. For example, the way something smelled, but you can’t remember where you smelled it. And then long term memory. Long term memory is a little different, it is for details, and in fact, it can be used to remember detail as far as the brain can go, it is the max for what we can remember; which is why we can’t just glance around and jot down every little piece of stimuli we find laying around; imagine that, you would spend all day long remembering things, and the reason, because long term memory takes a long time to use. And it takes longer to use because it is including the details that short term memory left out, but more importantly, it is also storing the information relative to not the small short term memory, but the gigantic sized long term memory. This takes quite a long time, kind of like using the search function on a large hard drive, always takes longer. So ya, short term and long term memory could be described as “running” on different languages. So how do they relate? How do they hook up? I think that sleep plays a major part of that. And mainly I feel that REM sleep is just a compiler program for taking detailed short term memory files that some how are chosen to be remembered into long term memory, and putting them into long term memory, extrapolating them, allowing them to be accessible with more ease and finesse, allowing them to work side by side with other memories, and concepts; but why? What chooses them? The psyche we say. Anyway, REM is our compiler program to get between long term and short term memory. And you dreaming, well that is you consciously choosing what is important to you to remember. You have to review a lot of information, so it takes place in this dream thing, which allows you to interpret information faster, that’s why it is all in symbols.

freestylethought