It's interesting to frame technology as knowledge that enables. I've been reading about the science of dreams - dreams themselves were first an accepted technology (e.g. ancient Greece) but got increasingly devalued as mysticism. Only in the last few decades has it been propped back up, particularly by neuroscience. Makes you wonder what else is currently taken for granted.
It does make you wonder what else is taken for granted.
Dreams once viewed as communication from the ultimate source of life and knowledge, are now mostly ignored and shrugged off. That's interesting that they viewed dreams themselves as technology, it registers as so true. Anyone that pays attention to their dreams and analyzes their messages understands quite quickly how transformative they can be in one's life.
Any suggested readings about the science of dreams?
"The Oracle of Night" has been a fascinating read! It goes through the history of dreams across cultures and how the science evolved - the author himself having authored some breakthrough studies. For instance, on how short term memories neurologically become long term (which, surprise, involves dreaming).
As for dreams as technology, indeed a lot of cultures turned to dreams for decisions and insight. While there was totally a mystic and irrational component, nowadays we know REM dreaming creates neural pathways in such a way that the waking mind doesn't - apparently with less biases and constraints. Hence so many scientific discoveries coming out of dreams, like the benzene structure!
I added it to my list. At some point in the future I’m going to go deep on dream research and will put this in the mix.
I’ve furthered my thinking on dreams through Jung. It’s so fascinating that something in us is communicating to our conscious mind in ways that our conscious mind may not have been thinking about a given situation/idea.
It's interesting to frame technology as knowledge that enables. I've been reading about the science of dreams - dreams themselves were first an accepted technology (e.g. ancient Greece) but got increasingly devalued as mysticism. Only in the last few decades has it been propped back up, particularly by neuroscience. Makes you wonder what else is currently taken for granted.
It does make you wonder what else is taken for granted.
Dreams once viewed as communication from the ultimate source of life and knowledge, are now mostly ignored and shrugged off. That's interesting that they viewed dreams themselves as technology, it registers as so true. Anyone that pays attention to their dreams and analyzes their messages understands quite quickly how transformative they can be in one's life.
Any suggested readings about the science of dreams?
"The Oracle of Night" has been a fascinating read! It goes through the history of dreams across cultures and how the science evolved - the author himself having authored some breakthrough studies. For instance, on how short term memories neurologically become long term (which, surprise, involves dreaming).
As for dreams as technology, indeed a lot of cultures turned to dreams for decisions and insight. While there was totally a mystic and irrational component, nowadays we know REM dreaming creates neural pathways in such a way that the waking mind doesn't - apparently with less biases and constraints. Hence so many scientific discoveries coming out of dreams, like the benzene structure!
I added it to my list. At some point in the future I’m going to go deep on dream research and will put this in the mix.
I’ve furthered my thinking on dreams through Jung. It’s so fascinating that something in us is communicating to our conscious mind in ways that our conscious mind may not have been thinking about a given situation/idea.