The Limits of Dream: A Scientific Exploration of the Mind / Brain Interface - Hardcover

Pagel MS MD, J. F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0123742153 ISBN 13: 9780123742155

Publisher: Academic Press, 2008

Synopsis

The Limits of Dream focuses on what we currently know of the human central nervous system (CNS), examining the basic sciences of neurochemisty, neuroanatomy, and CNS electrophysiology as these sciences apply to dream, then reaching beyond basic science to examine the cognitive science of dreaming including the processes of memory, the perceptual interface, and visual imagery. Building on what is known of intrapersonal CNS processing, the book steps outside the physical body to explore artificially created dreams and their use in filmmaking, art and story, as well as the role of dreaming in creative process and creative “madness. The limits of our scientific knowledge of dream frame this window that can be used to explore the border between body and mind. What is known scientifically of the cognitive process of dreaming will lead the neuroscientist, the student of cognitive science, and the general reader down different paths than expected into an exploration of the fuzzy and complex horizon between mind and brain.

* The clearest presentation of research and philosophy currently available relating to the mind/brain interface
* Discusses the cognitive processes of dreaming utilized in film and artificial intelligence
* Describes the functioning of dream in the creative process

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Clay codas unearthed from ancient Mesopotamia and inscribed with the dream of a King mark the historic limits of dream study. Some 4000 years later, in the plaza of Athens, Aristotle pushed the limits of critical thinking by arguing for a definition of dream in his attempt to understand human thought in abstract form. Fifteen centuries later, Descartes' attempt to differentiate between wake and dream led to the beginning of the scientific era, and a weakening of religious constraints.

Today, a system of hard-wired neurotransmission controlled by on-off switches in the brain is postulated to explain much of the functioning of the human central nervous system (CNS), one of the most complex systems that we have ever tried to understand. The Limits of Dream focuses on what we currently know of the human CNS, examining the basic sciences of neurochemistry, neuroanatomy, and CNS electrophysiology as these sciences apply to dream, then reaching beyond basic science to examine the cognitive science of dreaming including the processes of memory, the perceptual interface, and visual imagery.

Building on what is known of intrapersonal CNS processing, we step outside the physical body to explore artifically created dreams and their use in filmmaking, art and story, as well as the role of dreaming in creative process and creative "madness". The limits of our scientific knowledge of dream frame this window that can be used to explore the border between body and mind.

What we know scientifically of the cognitive process of dreaming will lead the neuroscientist, the student of cognitive science, the cinematographer, and the general reader down different paths than expected into an exploration of the fuzzy, complex, eclipse horizon between mind and brain.

About the Author:

JF Pagel has authored more than 170 publications. His basic research addressed the electrophysiology of consciousness, the neurochemistry of sleep and dream, and the role of REM sleep in learning and memory. His clinical work includes proofs for non-dreaming and the requirement of sleep for dream and nightmare, the diagnostic code for nightmare disorder, a definition protocol for dream, and demonstrations that REM sleep and dreaming are doubly dissociable. He has developed approaches to treating insomnia, sleep & altitude, narcolepsy, pediatric parasomnias, and waking somnolence, as well as addressing dream and nightmare use in trauma, art, creativity and filmmaking. He is co-editor of one of the major sleep-medicine texts: Primary Care Sleep Disorders (2007/ 2014). His books include: The Limits of Dream - A Scientific Exploration of the Mind /Brain Interface (2007), Dreaming and Nightmares (ed.) (2010), and Dream Science - Exploring the Forms of Consciousness (2014).

About this edition

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0123742153
• ISBN 13: 9780123742155
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 250