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Dreaming While Awake
dailygrail.com ^ | "Greg"

Posted on 08/31/2015 11:56:27 AM PDT by BenLurkin

In February 1758 the 90-year-old Charles Lullin, a retired Swiss civil servant whose sight had been progressively failing since a cataract operation five years before, began to see considerably more than he had become accustomed to. For the next several months he was visited in his apartment by a silent procession of figures, invisible to everyone but him: young men in magnificent cloaks, perfectly coiffured ladies carrying boxes on their heads, girls dancing in silks and ribbons. These visions were recorded and published in 1760 by his grandson, the naturalist Charles Bonnet, after whom the syndrome of hallucinations in the elderly and partially sighted would much later be named.

This celebrated case is one of the founding studies in the science of hallucinations, and frames the subject in distinctive ways. Most significantly, it has no link with mental illness...

...

From the perspective of the neurosciences, such hallucinatory stereotypes are privileged, if cryptic, glimpses into the deep structure of the brain...

...

Such experiences may amount to no more than neurological flotsam, but they cannot be willed away: they must be dealt with as if real, just as Charles Bonnet or Parkinson’s sufferers must learn to cope with the persistent and ultimately banal presence of their tiny companions. They are evidence neither of insanity nor of the spirit world: the challenge is to assimilate them into the rest of our mental life. What hallucinations have to tell us might be that the inner workings of our senses are a riotous carnival, driven by an engine of unimaginable processing power whose most spectacular illusion is reality itself.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailygrail.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: blindness; parkinsons
Long and well written article.
1 posted on 08/31/2015 11:56:28 AM PDT by BenLurkin
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To: BenLurkin

I have not read it yet, but what does a “cataract” in the 1700’s entail?


2 posted on 08/31/2015 12:18:09 PM PDT by skinndogNN
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To: skinndogNN

“cataract operation”


3 posted on 08/31/2015 12:18:49 PM PDT by skinndogNN
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To: BenLurkin
Very interesting article. Love this painting by William Holmes Sullivan. The Fairy Ring:
4 posted on 08/31/2015 12:23:59 PM PDT by Beowulf9
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To: Beowulf9
Fairy ring mushroom, Marasmius oreades The one picured is probably a Lepiota but the classic "fairy ring mushroom" is known as Marasmius oreades.
5 posted on 08/31/2015 12:34:21 PM PDT by Fungi
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To: BenLurkin

What kind of cataract surgery could possibly have been performed in 1758?


6 posted on 08/31/2015 12:35:20 PM PDT by erkelly
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To: erkelly

The unsuccessful kind, apparently.


7 posted on 08/31/2015 12:37:57 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: Fungi

To my delight, a few years back I found a ‘fairy ring’ in my own backyard.

I realize it is a the mushroom springing it’s spores in some kind of little explosion and then they grow, but nevertheless I found it wonderful to see, because of it’s relation to all those amazing tales.

Love the photo :)


8 posted on 08/31/2015 12:39:38 PM PDT by Beowulf9
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To: skinndogNN; erkelly

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataract_surgery#History


9 posted on 08/31/2015 12:45:29 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: BenLurkin

I have REM Disorder. I have injured myself many times while sleeping.

“For most people, dreaming is purely a “mental” activity: they occur in the mind while the body is at rest. But people who suffer from REM behavior disorder (RBD) act out their dreams. They physically move limbs or even get up and engage in activities associated with waking. Some engage in sleep talking, shouting, screaming, hittting or punching. Some even fly out of bed while sleeping! RBD is usually noticed when it causes danger to the sleeping person, their bed partner, or others they encounter. Sometimes ill effects such as injury to self or bed partner sustained while asleep trigger a diagnosis of RBD. The good news is that RBD can usually be treated successfully.

What we call “sleep” involves transitions between three different states: wakefulness, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is associated with dreaming, and non rapid eye movement (N-REM) sleep. There are a variety of characteristics that define each state, but to understand REM Behavior Disorder it is important to know that it occurs during REM sleep. During this state, the electrical activity of the brain, as recorded by an electroencephalogram, looks similar to the electrical activity that occurs during waking. Although neurons in the brain during REM sleep are functioning much as they do during waking, REM sleep is also characterized by temporary muscle paralysis.

In some sleep disorders such as narcolepsy and parasomnias, like REM behavior disorder, the distinctions between these different states breaks down; characteristics of one state carry over or “invade” the others. Sleep researchers believe that neurological “barriers” that separate the states don’t function properly, though the cause of such occurrences is not entirely understood.

Thus, for most people, even when they are having vivid dreams in which they imagine they are active, their bodies are still. But, persons with RBD lack this muscle paralysis, which permits them to act out dramatic and/or violent dreams during the REM stage of sleep. Sometimes they begin by talking, twitching and jerking during dreaming for years before they fully act out their REM dreams.

In the course of “acting out their dreams,” people with RBD move their arms and legs in bed or talk in their sleep, or they might start sleepwalking without waking or realizing they’re dreaming. The only sensations the sleeper experiences are what is occurring in their dream. And many of these dreams can be violent or frightening, causing injury to the sleeper and his bed partner.”

I also can be asleep and awake at the same time. Quite disturbing!


10 posted on 08/31/2015 1:04:53 PM PDT by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra (Don't touch that thing Don't let anybody touch that thing!I'm a Doctor and I won't touch that thing!)
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To: Beowulf9

FYI: The captured launch of a ballistospore
http://www.mycologia.org/content/97/4/866.full


11 posted on 08/31/2015 3:57:06 PM PDT by Fungi
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To: BenLurkin

What an interesting topic! I’ll have to finish it tomorrow.


12 posted on 08/31/2015 7:01:42 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("All the time live the truth with love in your heart." ~Fr. Ho Lung)
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra

Your malady is very fascinating!


13 posted on 09/01/2015 7:51:08 PM PDT by T-Bone Texan (The economic collapse is imminent. Buy staple food and OTC meds now, before prices skyrocket.)
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To: T-Bone Texan

“Your malady is very fascinating!”

Maybe to someone not afflicted, but not to me!


14 posted on 09/02/2015 12:31:22 AM PDT by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra (Don't touch that thing Don't let anybody touch that thing!I'm a Doctor and I won't touch that thing!)
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