I was just thinking about dreaming and I realized that our brains have to create/maintain so much more in a dream than IRL. How can they do that? IRL, our brains only have to control our bodies and minds, but when you are dreaming it has to do the same thing for all the DC’s as well, plus it has to maintain the dreamscape and compute realistic physics, etc. Of course everything in a dream is much more basic than IRL, but it is still a huge amount of information and data that our brains have to process to maintain a dream.
So basically, our brains have to do everything they normally have to do to keep us running, plus a huge amount more. Does that mean that our brains have to work harder for us to dream than for us to live?
I’m sure this question has been thought of and answered before, but I just thought of it and it has me stumped…
Well, we do much the same in waking life as well. Our brains have to process, interpret and filter all of the sensory data we’re constantly bombarded with, while at the same time subconsciously modeling our environment and predicting what’s going to happen next, comparing it with previous memories, searching for various patterns and providing the appropriate response should they be found, (such as possible threats. How many times have you been startled by an innocuous object, unconsciously thinking it was something else?) taking care of incredibly complex mechanical processes such as walking, talking, manipulating objects, writing, all without even being consciously aware of the minutia involved, and after that, it gets even better. When you remember something, your brain tries to recreate it in your mind, such as how the grass in the park felt, or how excited you were last week, or the massive flock of birds that took off all at once yesterday. Obviously the level of detail involved has to do with how hard you’re trying to remember it and how vivid the original memory is in your mind, but still, it can easily recreate environments and sensations. When you talk to someone, your brain automatically tries to gauge their expression, their mood, has to interpret what they’re saying as meaningful words, then has to formulate a response to it while at the same time trying to predict what the response to it will be, you might have to recall information from memories, and probably a whole lot more that I’m not thinking of right now.
So all in all, waking life isn’t exactly as easy on your brain’s functions as it might appear at first glance.
Hope this helps to answer your question somewhat Faceless.
Just as Mecha have said, running us doesn’t take much effort. The real effort is in interpreting external stimuli and reacting to it.
Plus, when you think of it - Everything that happens in a dream is already predicted. You can’t actualy be surprised - since it is entirely created by you. So you don’t actually need to have your SC ready to accept new, unknown info - your SC is only busy creating the dream, while not needing to process/interpret it at all.
Hmmm yes that’s all very true. And in dreams you definitely don’t think in as much detail as in waking life, so I guess that means a lot less work. But still…you do a lot of those things you listed in dreams too. Oftentimes I find myself in ND’s thinking about what would be the best thing to say that won’t create awkwardness/bad situations, and that involves modeling the future and thinking about past situations. So a lot of the complexity of waking life is in dreams too. But I suppose you don’t focus on as many things at once as you do in life.
It makes me wonder though: do DC’s think? Like, does you brain create a little mind for each one that senses and interprets, or do they only “think” when you interact with them and force them to respond? If they do “think” continually, then your brain would be controlling several minds at once. That would be amazing!
Funny you should mention that. There’s a thread in the Pathways to Lucidity section that details just such a thing. It’s called CALD, or Character assisted Lucid Dreaming and it’s stickied so it shouldn’t be too hard to find.
To illustrate further. Your brain needs very little visual information to model the world. You don’t usually think about it, but both your eyes have large blind spots, which you can actually map with some computer software, and the results are surprising when you see how big those blind spots actually are. Usually, the left eye fills in for the blind spot of the right eye, but even with one eye closed, you still don’t see a hole in your vision. Your brain fills in the details to fit the whole of the image. That tells us, that when you’re looking, you’re not seeing “through” your eyes. It is not a direct projecion of the image on your retinas. It is a complete recreation based on the image on your retinas.
The blind spots are filled in smoothly, because they are not part of the image. So, given that there is no information in those areas of your vision, your brain uses great creativity to give you the illusion that there is. And it is able to do so on the hoof, as it were. In fact, it would be able to do so no matter where your blind spots are or how big they are, because of te way vision works. To produce an image for you, is as easy for the brain, as thinking. Partly because it takes major shortcuts to do it. Even so, I share your amazement at the brain’s capacity to create the world around me. Just remember that it does so even when you’re awake!
Indeed this is true, and if you hold one hand over your eye and get a friend to stand around 20 metres away and slowly move sideways, they will disappear when they entire your blind spot, but surprisingly, you can still see there… as your brain fills in the gap from stimuli around it.
And back to the point, the brain in dreams is performing the same, if not less than in real life, as most of the posts above have suggested, monitoring the stimulus is the hardest part, the rest falls into place.
Oh that’s really interesting. I’ve learned about those blind spots before, but I never really compared that to dreaming. That’s cool.
Wow our brains sure don’t get much of a break though if we use them rigorously all day and then almost as much while we dream. I guess it’s only during deep sleep that it really gets to rest. And lots of it never gets to rest! Reminds me of heart muscle. I guess it’s just one more thing to add to the list of amazing things about the human body!
