What do dreams do? /
Dreams are a puzzle. We don't know what to make of them. Familiar faces, identifiable places, and remembered experiences appear but dreams mix them up. Why is this? Is dreaming just a frivolous mental activity, or might there be a greater purpose to dreaming. This book argues that dreams take p...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Language: | English |
| Edition: | First edition. |
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| Summary: | Dreams are a puzzle. We don't know what to make of them. Familiar faces, identifiable places, and remembered experiences appear but dreams mix them up. Why is this? Is dreaming just a frivolous mental activity, or might there be a greater purpose to dreaming. This book argues that dreams take people, places, and events out of their waking life context to identify complex patterns in their experience - patterns that on first glance might seem to be chaotic. It considers that dreaming brains evolved to identify non-obvious associations. For example, throughout evolution, you didn't want to get sick, so survival depended on being well enough to anticipate the non-obvious patterns of predators and human competitors, whilst securing access to food and water. Making these associations might have driven many, if not all, brain functions. The book shows how these dream associations might support memory, emotional stability, creativity, unconscious decision-making and prediction, and even possibly even contribute to mental illness. Exploring the evolutionary significance of dreaming, and showing the reader how to identify patterns in their own dreams, this book will be compelling reading for anyone interested in psychology, consciousness, and the arts. -- Provided by publisher. |
| Physical Description: | x, 234 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and indexes. |
| Published: |
Oxford ; New York :
Oxford University Press,
2020.
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| ISBN: | 0198818955 9780198818953 |
2nd floor
| Call Number: |
BF1078 .L54 2020 |
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| BF1078 .L54 2020 | Available Place a Hold |