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സ്വപ്നങ്ങളുടെ വ്യാഖ്യാനം | Dreams and Science | Dr C Viswanathan . Programme organized by Kerala freethinkers forum
on 29.05.2016 at C Achuthamenon hall ,Ernakulam
Dreams and Science
In this presentation, Dr.Viswanathan ( Chief editor, Yukthiyugam monthly) talks about the various misconceptions, both religious and secular, prevalent in society regarding the phenomenon of dreams. Thus, religious traditions (wrongly) uphold dreams to be messages from god/gods and astrologers (again, wrongly) claim that specific dream scenes would indicate specific future events. All these belief systems view dreams as distorted messages, to be deciphered by an 'expert'. In the secular arena, Freud picked up the 'distorted message ' idea and established the belief system called psychoanalysis, which developed into a "powerful and pernicious pseudoscience". Based on the studies by Allan Hobson, (Professor of Psychiatry, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School) Dr.Viswanathan explains that dream state is not an unconscious mental activity,but another state of consciousness. Brain remains activated during this state , and dreaming is nothing but our occasional awareness of such brain activation .The difference between waking state and dream state is essentially chemical, and depends on whether cholinergic neurones of the brain are inhibited by aminergic ones or not ! Every feature of dream state that the speculative philosophy of Freud tried to explain with outlandish theories are now explainable through neurobiology: Certain mental functions are enhanced and certain others are inhibited during dream state, on account of selective activation of certain brain areas, and inhibition of others.It is explained that since dreaming has no particular function in and of itself, and since they are not twisted messages as have long been believed, they need no "interpretation", as Freud had suggested.