I don’t have to explain my answer. Look up Placebo and that’s my explanation.
If something produces a result, then it works.
What are some of the advantages of labling what works as “such and such”. In this instance “Placebo”?
I don’t see too much use in calling an effect a placebo. Because once you believe that it’s name is “Placebo” then it becomes “Placebo”, and may not work in the same way it did previous to being named, because you now believe it’s “not a real effect”. Just to retain it’s value and it’s effect I would rather call it “The stuffed animal principal” and study it further. 
Or we could just say it’s “Placebo” because that’s what a dictionary tells us. That’s just not as fun. For me.
What if you made up your own definitions for words, whos to say your wrong? A book?
I say books were written to increase our knowledge, not place limits. When you label something, it can be useful in certain instances. Like “That’s an ‘oncoming car’, let’s go back into the right lane.”
For the general sake of being safe it was probably pretty useful to use that label in that instance.
An example of labeling which places limits on our knowledge is “Your a ‘Loser’”. Which entails it’s own limiting definitions about how that person is. So we let our minds settle to say they are “Loser” and that we don’t need to investigate what’s going on with them any further. It’s useful to make your brain stop going. Though it’s not useful if you really want to study something, like that person.
Or this stuffed animal effect.
Why label is “Placebo”?
Probably because the stuffed animal does not directly release chemicals into the brain which produce sweeter dreams.
Or do we actually get high off the dye used in the stuffed animal? 
Or mabey the very position the stuffed animal places us in reminds us of the same position we used to sleep in when we were happy childrens. Kind of like changing positions when practicing dream recall? Or how you suddenly remember a dream when you go back into your bed?
Who knows.
We could call it “Placebo” if you really wanted to.
Though that’s just not as interesting. 
The point of placebo is to show scientifically whether or not a certain agent is bringing about a certain effect, or whether that effect is apparent because the subject THINKS about that effect.
Regardless, the effect is still present. If you’re selling a drug to cure cancer, you would sure as hell want to know if it works by placebo effect, or by some other means. If you’re going to spend ten bucks on a teddy bear to improve your dreams, it doesn’t matter so much.
I must say It would pretty interesting to cure cancer with Placebo. Does that happen?
It’s true that Placebo is an effect by “thinking that it works”. So this seems to indicate that thoughts are very powerful and can produce similar results as the non placebo. Doesn’t it? So what is a thought anyway?
I suppose that’s what I seem to be more interested in these days. “Mind over matter” issues. Do you think that placebo is like a mini mind over matter occurence?
Your right that defining placebo is an important part of drug development. Though I do wonder about the mind a lot. I wonder how drug chemicals effect the mind too. Though It seems this thread is more about teddy bears, soooooo
I say we deem this effect “Teddy Bear Effect TBE” which refers to “Any noticed change in general dream pattern by the addition of a teddy bear or other stuffed critter to the sleepers immediate sleeping enviroment” 
Mabey we could even expand this effect to other various objects in the room like dream catchers, or statues, or whatever you have in your room. Mabey if you add a new painting to your room your dreams change.
Do you notice how you have unusual dreams when you change sleeping enviroments? Mabey it’s kind of like that. Mabey TBE is like a micro change to your sleeping enviroment.
What could possibly cause this? I say we assume the hypotheseis that TBE is real and go with it. Alright everyone find your old stuffed toys and lets see what happens. I bet Argitoth is on to something huge! Let’s believe him just because it’s fun.
In lucid dreams you make yourself believe you can fly and you can fly. Hmmm. What if the real world is that too? What if we make ourselves believe that TBE is real and then it becomes real. I totally believe it. I’m going to sleep with my teddy bear now. Grandma used to call him “shortbear” because hes small with a little blue hat but thats beside the point! 
What I am proving (or trying to prove) is that when you are able to let out or feel emotions you don’t usually let out or feel (such as when cuddling a stuffed animal) it will make your dreams more pleasant. Now, the one thing that is important to realize that if you feel no emotion differently from when you sleep without a stuffed animal it will simply not do anything. So, as I said before, sleeping with a stuffed animal is just one way to feel one of those emotions which I listen in my last post (or even a physical cozy feeling). I suspect sleeping with a wife or husband would also improve your dreams. 
Who’s to say what I feel is a chemical reaction in the brain or not? Am I right in saying any emotion is due to chemical balances in the brain? That would rule out the placebo effect.
What I’m suggesting is quite simple: If you want to have pleasanter (is that a word?) dreams you should first make sleeping pleasanter. I am simply discovering that using a stuffed animal is one great way to do that. I encourage you to try it because you won’t know if you will feel any better sleeping with a stuffed animal or not until you try!
us.st11.yimg.com/store1.yimg.com … 3_14762369
This is my stuffed animal my sister got me last xmas.
Somehow i dont think i will get happy dreams with ‘cuddles’ around 
omg don’t even try with that thing.
n00dle, roflmao! 
You should give it a try and tell us what happened. 
It depends.
If you randomly started sleeping with stuffed animals and noticed you had more dreams, then technically that is not a placebo effect.
But if you started sleeping with stuffed animals and EXPECTED to have more dreams (and you did) then that would be a placebo effect.
That…is not a good stuffed animal.
I must say happy tree friends is… disturbing. 
That is all I’m willing to say about that.
Placebo (n.)
Any inactive therapy or chemical agent, or any attribute or component of such a therapy or chemical, that affects a person’s behavior for reasons related to his or her expectation of change.
What about cognitive therapy? Would it be considered a placebo? It seems improvement in such things as deppression require more than just a drug, but alterations in your thinking, which a drug can create by altering the way your body feels or how your brain interprets things.
Cognitive therapy is simply changing the way you believe and think and thereby altering your mood and the way you feel. Which would essentially alter active chemicals in your brain, but is cognitive therapy itself an active chemical?
I suppose it all depends on what you consider an active chemical. I say an active chemical is anything which has an active effect on you. Words?
Food is pretty active in your body: Fruits, Vegetables, Sprouts, Seeds, Herbs, Roots. Perhaps TBE works due to the active alterations of thoughts and memory because of the change in enviroment (internal or external). Thoughts and beliefs are actively altered upon any noticed change in an enviroment (internal or external). Perhaps if you “notice” the teddy it will have some sort of an effect. Different for everyone, yeah? Kind of a like drug.
In lucid dreams we can only control our dreams when we “expect” something to happen. Perhaps this expectation effect carries into our waking life.
Can we accomplish anything if we don’t expect to?
Could someone please tell me what TBE stands for?
My old cat used to sleep at the end of my bed, purring loudly. I always found this quite comforting - I suppose you could say this was the TBE at work, as I always found it difficult to sleep after he died. Now I sleep with the fan on, perhaps that’s another from of TBE.
I like the idea of TBE, it kind of encapsulates the concept of a placebo without having any negative undertones - and at the same time it captures the soft and cuddly feeling that you sometimes get when your bed feels extra cozy and comfortable.
Mmmmmmmmm, TBE.
I dont sleep with a stuffed animal, but I do sleep with my miniture dovermen, I cant sleep without him.
I like this thread.
I like it too Argitoth.
Snape, I really think your right to expand TBE in such a way to encapsulate other objects or noises in the room. I think that is indeed some form of TBE right there.
Area51, I think you may be addicted to your little dog
Anyone want to make an official definition of TBE?
I’d say TBE is a modality of the autosuggestion technique in which you use a real object as a concrete expression of your autosuggested will so as to reinforce the power of the autosuggestion.
I falled asleap looking at a stoft bear made me tink of kenai when i woke up.
SHAME ON YOU KENAI FOR SPAMING MY MIND
VERY GOOD IDEA!!!
I would have thought you couldn’t really define TBE without at least mentioning the word ‘placebo’, considering this is how the definition seems to have originated.
Perhaps something like:
TBE: “The effect or emotions stimulated by an object or particular frame of mind, similar to the comforting placebo effect caused by a Teddy Bear on a sleeping child.”
Or something thereabouts.