Friday, July 16, 2010

The film 'Inception' has got me thinking...




Isn't it interesting that when our brains are at their most creative also happens to be when we have the least control over our thoughts? While dreaming, our brains create and experience simultaneously - i.e. every instant of the dream is fabricated completely anew from moment to moment, without any external stimuli. However, the majority of us recognize that we are not in control of what we dream per se - e.g. most of us do not want to be held accountable for what we dream, due to this lack of control. So I find it interesting, then, that when our brains are literally creating a world around us, from scratch (or memory), moment-to-moment, also happens to be the time when we almost completely lack control over our mental processes. How could it be, then, that we become our most creative only after losing control of the organ that does the creating (so to speak)? And what might this mean for our intuitions about how we "create" decisions in our day-to-day lives?

Think about it, we hold very strong intuitions that we make decisions freely because we feel like we are making them, but our brain can create dream world (seemingly) against our will, and yet we will as if we have control and also feel like we're not the one's creating each moment. The brain-mind is amazing, but very deceptive - so it seems.

4 comments:

Brittany said...

I don't think of my dreams as creative. I do feel uninhibited in my interactions with people and in my reactions to the things that happen in my dream world. The accountability is an interesting question. Maybe the reason why we don't want to be held accountable for the things in our dreams is because since they are our of our control, we fear they might represent ourselves in a way that doesn't match up with the identity we think we've built for ourselves. I often puzzle at things I would never ever do while awake and wonder if my waking self is merely misconceiving who I am under my inhibitions. Sometimes thats a scary thing to contemplate.
Also, this is why I think lucid dreaming is so interesting. I've only ever had a few moments of lucidity in one dream in my entire life (after watching Waking Life) but it was awesome. Anyway, fascinating stuff. I can't wait to see Inception.

Jorgen said...

Brittany, your dreams (and indeed everyone's) are "creative" in the sense that you literally are creating each moment in the dream actively, rather than merely experiencing it. So that's more what I was talking about. The fact that our brains create the dream as we go along, while simultaneously experiencing it, all without our realization.

Brittany said...

Yeah, I see what you mean. Its interesting because we usually think of creativity as being intentional or purposeful. I suppose dreams are a unique exception to that. I wonder then, are dreams active or passive? Maybe both? It doesn't seem right to think of a dream as an act, but our brains are active during dreams...hm.

Jorgen said...

I would guess that dreams are both active and passive, which may give clues to how our brains work while we're awake - i.e. that we "make up" (or create) more of our reality than we think we do - via contexts and frameworks, biases and so on - and then deceive ourselves into thinking that these are really objective facts that we passively perceive.

I was discussing consciousness with somebody a few weeks ago and said: "There are only two things I'm sure of about consciousness: one, that we are conscious in some way; and two, that our consciousness, whatever that is, deceives us on a regular basis."

I think dreams give a good insight into this - at least in the sense that we are easily deceived by ourselves every single night, so why not while awake?