Today, while I was working on a programming assignment, a thought kind of hit me. I was using quite a few pointers in my assignment to actually access memory locations rather than just memory names. And when I did it for strings I thought about how garbage from other strings can reside inside of strings. And how the length of the string starts at the memory location and continues untill the number in the char[] array is reached.
The thing that kind of hit me. What if that is how our brain comes across such random thoughts in our dreams. The brain kind of starts in a place that had to do with your day, or something that you had been thinking about during the day or before you went to bed. And then it came across all this other information, which could be related or unrelated, and basicly goes through the thoughts in whatever order they are stored in the memory.
There is so many gaps in the idea. But I thought that it might be possible. Just thought I would share.
Interesting theory, downward. Thanks for sharing.
From what I’ve read, there’s a fundamental difference between the methods by which memory is accessed in computers, compared to that of our own. Computers use a very structured addressing system, in which each memory location is systematically assigned a numeric address, like the grid of mailboxes often found out the front of a large apartment complex. The string variable, as in your example, would begin at one of these locations and extend through as many consecutive addresses as have been defined by the length of the string. When the computer accesses the value of this array, it begins at the address designated as the starting point, and moves forward through each location in numerical order until it has retrieved as many values as the string has elements.
The human brain, however, works differently. Our memories are stored not by logical order, but instead work on the basis of association. From any given point in memory, other memories can only be accessed directly if they relate in some way to the originating article. The mind itself has absolutely no idea what memories exist on either side of the one in question (physical location is meaningless, and there are no numbers to distinguish memory “nodes”), unless they happen to connect in some way through association. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that you can’t just access an area in our memories at random. Any given article must be found by following an indefinite string of existing memories which relate to the desired information, until you eventually trace through enough associations to link to the desired information.
When dreams appear to spontaneously branch off uncontrollably into unrelated tangents, I believe this is just association at work. You might see or hear something in the dreamworld, and this would trigger some related string of memories (in this case being any and all stored information, not just past experiences or events) that eventually leads your subconscious mind to manifest the newly presented ideas into the world. If you’ve ever found yourself at one location in a dream, only to be momentarily distracted by something and look back up to discover that you’re now at a completely different location, it’s probably because something in the dream triggered the association to this other environment. This process is continuate and endless. The sudden thought of this new location would instantly begin to trigger associated memories of how the place should look, and perhaps past experiences that have taken place there. Your mind will then use this to paint the new environment, and the process continues. If you’re consciously aware that this is taking place at all times (dreaming or otherwise), you can witness it happening just by tracing back through your most recent train of thought and identifying how each topic (perhaps inadvertently) linked to each other.
Interesting. I don’t know much about the human mind. I have gotten a lot more into it now that I have learned about lucid dreaming.