46 replies to this topic

[Brafarality]

Apparently, this compelling question is finally getting its due.

 

The reason I couldn't find that much on it is because the question is not always posted this way. There are 100 ways to ask this question. Going to post a comprehensive list of links where its being addressed in symposiums, papers, blog posts, scientific theories, etc.

 

The crux of the problem is that when we are knocked unconscious or in a deep sleep, consciousness is gone and the brain becomes a wet physical organ of great complexity. The problem is that when we reawaken, poof, we are back. the same us. Not a new consciousness as many would think once the continuity is broken from the last one. It should be a new you every time you wake up, but it is not. Somehow, someway, the core 'You' is stored somewhere or retained somehow even when the brain is not generating consciousness. As if you may be more fundamental than the brain, but that is going beyond into speculation. Just want to give the question prior to posting the link list.

 

Just cool that there is a collective acknowledgement that this is a mystery that cannot just be swept under the rug

[Soma]

"The crux of the problem is that when we are knocked unconscious or in a deep sleep, consciousness is gone and the brain becomes a wet physical organ of great complexity. The problem is that when we reawaken, poof, we are back. the same us. Not a new consciousness as many would think once the continuity is broken from the last one. It should be a new you every time you wake up, but it is not. Somehow, someway, the core 'You' is stored somewhere or retained somehow even when the brain is not generating consciousness."

You reemerge from sleep because "you" (the idea of yourself) is stored in your memory bank. One could argue that it is the most pervasive and entrenched memories that one has.
If your memory center was targeted and destroyed while you were in deep sleep, "you" would not reemerge. I strongly suspect that someone unable to form memories would have no sense of self. To have a "self" is to think of one has having a self, which requires remembering the idea of a self. When we think of a self, we think of an "entity" that endures over time. This is obviously entirely dependent upon memory and memory is indisputably a product of brain function. I think this is one of the things that Buddhism gets right- the illusion of the self. Some, but not all, Buddhists probably lean on the side of consciousness not being a product of the brain...but this just leads to the realization that there is a distinction between self-consciousness and consciousness itself. Apparently a more naturalized form of enlightenment (to which I must admit that I am partial) is more or less the realization of the illusion of a persisting entity on an experiential level (as opposed to the intellectual level)- the experience of the loss of self without the loss of memory, if that makes any sense.

So where do you go when you sleep? Well, since consciousness is not functioning during deep sleep, it has no access to anything, including the memory center.

Edited by Soma, 03 November 2014 - 05:17 PM.

[johnross47]

You get a variation of the same effect in alzheimers. The part of the memory system that generates the feeling of continuity,fails. The moment by moment consciousness continues but it is lost in a sea of isolated moments and lacks meaning or reference. The self disappears.

[Thew]

I think it has a scientific explanation(I think)? Just don't know exactly how to explain it though.

[k4ir0s]

The same place you go to when you die. The place we'll never be able to fully comprehend.

 

We're like fish, attempting to make sense of what lies beyond the surface of water. We can analyze all the technacailities of the brain, with all of our concepts and ideas that we ourselves created, to form a comforting projection of what we think happens during sleep/death. But what good will that do? We're limited to what we know, and I think death (and even sleep) will always be beyond our understanding.

Edited by k4ir0s, 21 March 2015 - 05:02 AM.

[Clacksberg]

Interesting that when we dream we travel around without the usual (physical)sensory inputs .

 

[Saasom]

Interesting that when we dream we travel around without the usual (physical)sensory inputs .

 

Not necessarily. For example: i have had synestethic experiences in dreams. In your dreams you can dissolve yourself to float and merge with the ebb and flow of "everything". 
This is pretty fun to play with in lucid dreams. 

[shadowhawk]

How do you know you are unconscious?  Are you conscious of that?

[Clacksberg]

 

Interesting that when we dream we travel around without the usual (physical)sensory inputs .

 

Not necessarily. For example: i have had synestethic experiences in dreams. In your dreams you can dissolve yourself to float and merge with the ebb and flow of "everything". 
This is pretty fun to play with in lucid dreams. 

 

 

Yes, thats true..

Most predominant in my dreams is simply switching from scene to scene rather than movement between, exept when i need to get away prompto - then i always seem to take the form of an underpowered aeroplane slowly gaining height away from the gremlins..lol !

[shifter]

But our self can remember the dreams from when we were unconscious. Some people can even take control of their dreams. Then there are others who claim to have 'out of the body' experiences and able to learn their surroundings while they are unconscious.

What is the go in semi-final unconsciousness that the most illogical things can make total sense.

I've been curious about this topic too. A google search had some theories that dreams were proof of alternate universes and that's where we 'go'

[old_school]

When you sleep you go into the invisible spirit world with it's influences from powers in both heaven and hell.

Edited by old_school, 18 June 2015 - 02:33 AM.

[Dakman]

You talk shit man    

[shadowhawk]

You talk shit man    

 

You are so intellectual.  Tell us, you claim to know.
 

[mitteldorf]

When caterpillars were trained with electric shock to avoid a particular smell, the moths that they became remembered the smell (2008 article in PLoS One). We like to think of learned behaviors as being encoded in synapses in the nervous system, but the tiny brains of these caterpillars are completely dissolved during metamorphosis, and a new brain is formed. So in what form is the memory preserved and passed on?

[old_school]

You talk shit man    

 

I have given a clear definite answer which is far better than you can do.

 

Look up dreams and the spirit world.
 

Edited by old_school, 19 June 2015 - 12:18 AM.

[shadowhawk]

When caterpillars were trained with electric shock to avoid a particular smell, the moths that they became remembered the smell (2008 article in PLoS One). We like to think of learned behaviors as being encoded in synapses in the nervous system, but the tiny brains of these caterpillars are completely dissolved during metamorphosis, and a new brain is formed. So in what form is the memory preserved and passed on?

 

Is the brain and consciousness the same thing?
 

[old_school]

 

When caterpillars were trained with electric shock to avoid a particular smell, the moths that they became remembered the smell (2008 article in PLoS One). We like to think of learned behaviors as being encoded in synapses in the nervous system, but the tiny brains of these caterpillars are completely dissolved during metamorphosis, and a new brain is formed. So in what form is the memory preserved and passed on?

 

Is the brain and consciousness the same thing?
 

 

 

No. Human consciousness lives on with the spirit beyond the brain being dead.
 

[Dakman]

 

You talk shit man    

 

You are so intellectual.  Tell us, you claim to know.
 

 

Tell you that he talks shit, it's pretty clear, everything he can try to relate to god he will.

 

He's a godbot, programmed to only interpret the world through a biblical sense 

[old_school]

 

 

You talk shit man    

 

You are so intellectual.  Tell us, you claim to know.
 

 

Tell you that he talks shit, it's pretty clear, everything he can try to relate to god he will.

 

He's a godbot, programmed to only interpret the world through a biblical sense 

 

 

Ezekiel would have visions of God in dreams. An angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, etc. It is true that we are in the spirit world while dreaming. Most remote viewers and astral projectionists would know this as well.

Edited by old_school, 20 June 2015 - 12:18 AM.

[shadowhawk]

 

 

You talk shit man    

 

You are so intellectual.  Tell us, you claim to know.
 

 

Tell you that he talks shit, it's pretty clear, everything he can try to relate to god he will.

 

He's a godbot, programmed to only interpret the world through a biblical sense 

 

 

Wow, so much content and name calling. 
 

[shadowhawk]

I talk shit man    

 

[Dakman]

And you are robotic also, all you can do is try and relate everything back to your own hang-up of arguing about what evidence is so you can go round and round in circles 

 

Hell, you've even hijacked this orb fool's threads to try and get your own agenda in to it 

[shadowhawk]

And I am robotic also, all I can do is try and relate everything back to my own hang-up of arguing about what evidence is so I can go round and round in circles 

 

Hell, I've even hijacked this orb fool's threads to try and get my own agenda in to it 

 

Edited by shadowhawk, 20 June 2015 - 05:30 AM.

[Dakman]

Desperate times indeed 

[old_school]

A person can learn of the spirit world through dreams.

[sthira]

A person can learn of the spirit world through dreams.

[old_school]

Those with learning disabilities need to go to the back of the class.

[Dakman]

Take your bible with you then, the greatest inhibitor of learning there ever was 

[old_school]

It is a wise man who studies and practices his bible.

 

Edited by old_school, 23 June 2015 - 11:30 PM.

[Dakman]

Proof please ?