Sleeping, Dreaming, and the Well-Lived Life

12 June 2016

这周我们熬夜思考睡眠。我们一生中有很多时间都在睡觉,但我们哲学家对此却几乎没有什么可说的。Maybe that's becayse Philosophy is mostly about things we’reconsciousof -- our experiences, our choices, our beliefs. We’re mostly NOT conscious when we sleep, so you might wonder who cares, really.

Well, philosophers care about what makes us who and what we are. So is sleep is a big part of who we are? I’ll give you dreaming as philosophically interesting. How can we distinguish wakeful consciousness from the dreaming variety? What do dreams reveal about the unconscious mind? Those are great questions.

But philosophers also care about the nature of the well-lived life -- so can you live well if you don’t sleep well. At the very least, sleep is like brushing your teeth or going to the bathroom … important, but basically housekeeping. Nobody lives to sleep -- we sleep to live. And though I do love a good night’s sleep, when they tell the story of my life, sleep won’t figure as a significant trope. "Here lies Ken Taylor. He slept!"

That said, think about how you sleep… when you sleep … how often you sleep… who you sleep with … These all play huge roles in the stories of our lives. Think of sleeping with another person -- a symbol of intimacy and connection. Sleeping with the wrong person? A betrayal! Sleeping too much? A sign of sloth or depression. Sleepless nights? The pangs of a troubled heart. Sleep matters. Not just biologically, but narratively!

所以让我们承认睡眠的工具价值。那么,我们如何看待它的内在价值呢?想象一下,当我们都成为后人类的那一天到来——当我们超越单纯的生物,将我们的意识与计算机融合,成为虚拟的存在?问问你自己,当睡眠来临时,我们还会关心它吗?或者假设我给你一颗药丸。只睡一次,你就能反复获得良好睡眠的所有好处。你再也不用失去意识了。你要吗?

有些人肯定不会。他们每天都想从意识中解脱出来。他们想要梦想。他们想要感受在他们舒适的床上醒来的喜悦,在他们的爱人身边,准备迎接新的一天。

But what if I see the pill as offering me more life? Instead of 60 years worth of living in a 90 year span, I get the full 90. Think of the articles I could write with that extra time! Does that make me like the little kid who never ever wants to fall asleep, who doesn’t want to miss any of the fun. Do I just need to grow up, or is sleep is just a necessary evil? Tune in to find out wher our guest, Deirdre Barrett, comes down on the value of sleep.

Comments(5)


Gary M Washburn's picture

Gary M Washburn

Monday, June 13, 2016 -- 5:00 PM

The body is a community of

身体是一个细胞的共同体,它们一起工作,创造出一种比任何数量单独或完美同步更有意义的存在。时间的基本过程是一种矛盾,是对因果之间、逻辑前提与结果之间的连续性的一种补充,这种连续性是这种连续性的最严格的术语。也就是说,身体中的每个细胞都在忙着使自己成为群体中分化程度最高、因此效率最高的纽带,而不仅仅是复制。但每个细胞每天都需要时间来处理内部工作,比如储存糖。于是我们就睡觉了。心灵在这段时间(或其中的一部分)服务于自己,实践统觉的手段,作为理性和知觉之间的中间环节。睡眠充足的人更健康、更长寿、精神更敏锐。众所周知,爱因斯坦每天睡11个小时。睡眠是必要的,但并非坏事。对于那些认为时间本身就是一种罪恶的人来说,它只是一种罪恶,必须用“有益的”活动来填补对时间连续性的破坏。 It is the Calvinist myth that "idle hands are the devil's workshop". If you believe in transcendence time is corrupt, and not to be indulged by leisure or sleep.

d63tark@cox.net's picture

d63tark@cox.net

2016年7月5日星期二-下午5点

In the podcast, the question

In the podcast, the question was posed by Ken Taylor to the guest Deirdre Barrett as to what the evolutionary value of dreaming was. And while I would not, given her expertise in the field, dismiss her explanations, I would, humbly, offer a couple of my own.
第一个不那么进化,更偏向于存在主义,它与意向性的概念有关,这一概念被胡塞尔和现象学所接受:意识总是对某事的意识。如果我们遵循推理,我们会意识到,为了让某物具有意识,它必须从根本上承认它是有意识的。但正如巴雷特所指出的,在我们最深层次的睡眠中,有些时候意识会消散:它的虚无和非存在。当身体需要的时候,意识抵制这种行为是完全合理的。因此,意识必须慢慢地进入它(将脚趾浸入水中),通过梦境,通过一步一步地浸没自己。这就是为什么,当我们睡着的时候,我们倾向于体验我们的思想突然投射到视觉中,并且经常发现自己因为有东西跳出来而猛地进入全意识状态。跳出来基本上代表了意识存在的可能性?非是。This, for me, always brings to mind a quote by an old man in the movie Moonlighting:
?I hate sleep! It?s too much like death.?
第二,在本质上更进化,与大脑的可塑性有关。在这里,我们必须把做梦看作是一种精神上的拼贴,在这种拼贴中,头脑和大脑(通过意识)做了一种随机的精神清单,它浏览它的内容(它的记忆、它的情绪、它的知识等),并随机地将它们融合在一起,直到它找到与它产生共鸣的模式,然后存储起来,以便它可以从其他随机的精神单元中播放这些模式。在这方面,正如巴雷特所指出的,我们许多最伟大的头脑会从梦想中获得灵感,这是完全有道理的。但我想说的是,梦是一个更基本、更民主的过程,通过这个过程,大脑(通过大脑可塑性)改善了我们思考的潜在结构,从而使思维进入下一个层次。例如,这可以解释为什么缺乏创造力的人往往声称自己不做梦。

Gary M Washburn's picture

Gary M Washburn

Wednesday, July 6, 2016 -- 5:00 PM

We can learn a lot by

通过考虑记忆梦境这一特殊学科,我们可以学到很多东西。这是一件困难的事情,因为做梦是没有过去时和将来时的。这是即时性。你不可能记住梦,只要你把注意力集中在分散成时态的时间上。只有现在才有意义。你不能倒退,也不能计划未来。这使得意识不适合作为现象学的材料。正如萨特在他早期的两世界杯赛程2022赛程表欧洲区部关于想象的作品中所显示的那样,有意的对象是作为意识的形象而不是知觉而持续的。事实上,感知不是一种持续的观察,它是对许多时刻和成长时刻的叙述。注视的眼睛永远不会静止。 The phenomenon is a construct of a dialectical tension between faith and reason that becomes quaint or anachronistic where the historical role of faith recedes. That's why nobody talks about Husserl anymore, the role of the phenomenal in overthrowing superstition is thought to be achieved and his methodology obsolete. But what does sustain consciousness as phenomenally real is its responsiveness, both to stimuli and to its own reasoning. If some people claim not to dream this only means they have neglected the art of remembering that they do dream. It is not an easy matter to separate our perceptions from the division of time into tenses. And what sustains consciousness is not such separation and reconstruction/deconstruction, it is the narrative unity of growing moment in the power to be responsive, as responsive to external stimuli and perception as to reasoning. But the easiest pitfall is to suppose mind phenomenally distinctive, when in fact it is organic. You cannot distinguish the mind from the community of cells the organism as a whole is and into which it is the hub of a constant and intricate array of sense. Your fingertips are as much a part of your mind as your frontal lobes. And if sleep at any stage is thoroughly null, how is it that, however deeply asleep I may be, I can answer the phone before my machine does, and can clearly identify what had just gone 'bump in the night' and so woken me? The power to respond in sense, by sensing and answering sensibly, is not nothing even when it drops its "intentional object" in favor of giving the rest of the organism a breather.

Shaman_ko's picture

Shaman_ko

Sunday, March 17, 2019 -- 9:01 AM

I am very into lucid dreaming

I am very into lucid dreaming, and am currently reading a book called 'dream yoga'. While lucid dreaming itself is quite amazing, once one is able to often become conscious in dreams, many psychological explorations open up to the dreamer. In lucid dreams, there are skills that can be developed, wonderful experiences to be had, and learning can take place.

2 things are necessary to start ones journey to becoming an oreironaut (dream explorer): begin a dream journal to help with remembrance of dreams, and perform reality checks in waking life where one questions "is this real or a dream" until it becomes habitual. My favorite reality check involves plugging my nose and trying to breath in through it while i question reality; in waking life, you cannot breath in with your nose plugged, but in the dream world you can!

古老的藏传佛教哲学教授身心联系,探索我们的潜意识,在梦中冥想,甚至改变我们清醒时的视角。

The movie Inception mentions the people that fill the dream world as projections. A trick i learned is to find or summon a phone inside the dream and press 0 for operator. The 'person' on the other side of the line is there to assist any problems one may have in the dream world: escaping nightmares, explaining subjective meanings, granting in-dream powers, anything one needs.

"Have you ever had a dream you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?" - the matrix

Kyle's picture

Kyle

Tuesday, March 19, 2019 -- 12:44 PM

https://animals.mom.me

https://animals.mom.me/octopuses-sleep-2969.html

在做梦时,大脑会回顾事件并改进学习到的行为。一个人在睡个好觉之后,通常会更好地完成新学习的任务。这一假设已经通过测试对象和视频游戏得到验证。