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Einen Blick in das verlorene Paradies werfen, den eigenen Tod erleben – nirgends scheint die Relativität von Zeit und Raum greifbarer zu sein als im Traum. Der Band beleuchtet dieses Phänomen aus literatur- und kulturwissenschaftlicher, philosophischer und psychologischer Perspektive. Träume wurden in der Kulturgeschichte immer wieder als „anderer“ Erfahrungsmodus begriffen, in dem die Logik des Wachzustands zum Teil aufgehoben ist. Gerade diese Diskrepanz begründet eine bis in die Antike zurückreichende Faszination für den Traum, der im Kontext unterschiedlicher Deutungssysteme als Zugang zu neuen Erkenntnissen und verborgenen Wahrheiten gilt. Das trifft auch auf einen der zentralen Parameter menschlicher Wahrnehmung zu: die Zeit. Der Band befasst sich mit der Wahrnehmung von Zeit im Traum. Welches Potenzial bietet sie zur Darstellung historischer Ereignisse in literarischen Texten? Die Beiträge beleuchten verschiedene Aspekte der Thematik in einem Rahmen vom 10. Jahrhundert bis heute.

Sleep can be viewed as a brain state, as a process and a behavior. As any of these, sleep serves several purposes, including energy restoration, immunocompetence, brain metabolic homeostasis, neural ontogenesis and, importantly, cognitive, emotional and social processing. Supported by a strong empirical backbone focused on contemporary research outlining links between these subjects, this book will offer a guide to state-of-the-art research of sleep mechanisms, its impact in many cognitive and affective features as well as brief but in-depth overview of the strong association between sleep and social interactions. The complexity behind the common mechanisms between sleep, cognition and emotion, reveal that only through an integral approach in its study at both a neuroanatomical, functional, clinical and social level can reveal how this interplay influences human and furthermore, of mammal homeostasis as whole. Also, we intend to shed a light on the complex relationships between sleep and specific psychiatric disorders, thereby informing both prevention and clinical intervention. In order to provide clear guidance for researchers, the book also outlines future directions for the continued advancement of our understanding of sleep. We aim to balance the breadth and depth of available information to provide a resource that is accessible for upper-level seminars within academic settings, while serving as a practical guide for established scholars studying and treating conditions related to the interplay between sleep, cognition and emotion.

The search for a shared practice of storytelling around which a popular study of cognitive narratology might form need look no further than our nightly experience of dreams. Dreams and memories are inseparable, complicating and building upon one another, reminding us that knowledge of ourselves based on our memories relies upon fictionalized narratives we create for ourselves. Psychologists refer to confabulation, the creation of false or distorted memories about oneself and the world we inhabit, albeit without any conscious intention to deceive. This process and narrative, inherent in the dreamlife of all people, is at odds with the daily menu of cultural myths and politicized fictions fed to the Western world through print and social media, and for which there is constant divisiveness and disagreement. Cognitive Narratology and the Shared Identity of Myth uses insights gained from the scientific study of dreaming to explain how the shared experience of dreamlife can work in service to the common good. Primary texts and literary works, chosen for their influence on contemporary thinking, provide a rationale and historical background: From Artemidorus (a professional diviner) and Aristotle; to the Church fathers Tertullian, St. Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, Sinesius of Cyrene; to The Wanderer (Old English poem) and Chaucers Book of the Duchess; to Coleridges writings and R. L. Stevensons A Chapter on Dreams; and to twentieth-century dream theory, and dream use in film. The purpose is to enable readers through subjective self-analysis to recognize what they share with their fellow dreamers; shared identity in formation of a shared act of dreaming creation is a universal across centuries and throughout Western culture, albeit currently misrepresented and rarely acted upon.

This two-volume set examines dreams and dreaming from a variety of angles—biological, psychological, and sociocultural—in order to provide readers with a holistic introduction to this fascinating subject.Whether good or bad and whether we remember them or not, each night every one of us dreams. But what biological or psychological function do dreams serve? What do these vivid images and strange storylines mean? How have psychologists, religions, and society at large interpreted dreams, and how can a closer examination of our dreams provide useful insights?Dreams: Understanding Biology, Psychology, and Culture presents a holistic view of dreams and the dreaming experience that answers these and many other questions. Divided thematically, this two-volume book examines the complex and often misunderstood subject of dreaming through a variety of lenses. This collection is written by a large and diverse team of experts and edited by leading members of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) but remains an approachable and accessible introduction to this captivating topic for all readers.

This textbook provides a global, chronological mapping of significant areas of theatre, sketched from its deepest history in the evolution of our brain's'inner theatre'to ancient, medieval, modern, and postmodern developments. It considers prehistoric cave art and built temples, African trance dances, ancient Egyptian and Middle-Eastern ritual dramas, Greek and Roman theatres, Asian dance-dramas and puppetry, medieval European performances, global indigenous rituals, early modern to postmodern Euro-American developments, worldwide postcolonial theatres, and the hyper-theatricality of today's mass and social media. Timelines and numbered paragraphs form an overall outline with distilled details of what students can learn, encouraging further explorations online and in the library. Questions suggest how students might reflect on present parallels, making their own maps of global theatre histories, regarding geo-political theatrics in the media, our performances in everyday life, and the theatres inside our brains.

Byron's designation of the dream as ‘the mystical usurper of the mind'captures two aspects of its perennial fascination. Dreams are mysterious and they take possession of our minds as if they had an irresistible power of their own. The usurpation of the mind by dreams has contributed to the belief that they accurately and supernaturally predict the future, reveal things unknown in the present or warn the dreamer to do or not to do something. This kind of dream goes by many names – admonitory, divinatory, precognitive, veridical, and prophetic – and even today most people believe in it. ‘Conceptions of Dreaming from Homer to 1800'presents the history of conceptions of dreaming in Europe from Homer to the turn of the nineteenth century, the long period in which the admonitory dream was the centre of learned and popular interest. By the end of the eighteenth century many researchers were interested in the dream as a psychological event rather than as a portent of the future. More of them were ceasing to ask what dreams are and how they work and asking instead which dreams reveal the future, how and their interpretation. In broader terms, western European thinking about dreams up to 1800 was primarily concerned with what they might mean or reveal. Although revelation of the future was the most common kind of significance, dreams were also thought to reveal the health of the dreamer, their wishes, character and daily pursuits. Hence the overwhelming concern with classifying dreams as significant (requiring attention) or insignificant (safe to ignore). Since the second half of the eighteenth century witnessed an important shift in the study of dreams, the period from Homer to the turn of the nineteenth century should be taken as a whole – the period of the admonitory dream. During this period the admonitory dream was accepted, questioned or rejected. But it was rarely ignored or simply mentioned as a historical curiosity, as increasingly happened in nineteenth-century scholarly and scientific discourse. ‘Conceptions of Dreaming from Homer to 1800'traces the history of ideas about dreaming during the period in which the admonitory dream was the main focus of learned interest – from the Homeric epics through the Renaissance – and the period in which it begins to become a secondary focus – the eighteenth century. The book also considers the two most important dream theorists at the turn of the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud and Sante de Sanctis. While Freud is concerned with the old questions of what a dream means and how to interpret it, De Sanctis offers a synthesis of nineteenth-century research into what a dream is and represents the Enlightenment transition from particular facts to general laws.

A science journalist explores the latest research on dreams—how they work, what they're for, and how we can reap the benefits. While on a research trip in Peru, science journalist Alice Robb became hooked on lucid dreaming—the uncanny phenomenon in which a sleeping person can realize that they're dreaming and even control the dreamed experience. Finding these forays both puzzling and exhilarating, Robb dug deeper into the science of dreams at an extremely opportune moment: just as researchers began to understand why dreams exist. They aren't just random events; they have clear purposes. They help us learn and even overcome psychic trauma. Robb draws on fresh and forgotten research, as well as her experience and that of other dream experts, to show why dreams are vital to our emotional and physical health. She explains how we can remember our dreams better—and why we should. She traces the intricate links between dreaming and creativity, and even offers advice on how we can relish the intense adventure of lucid dreaming for ourselves.Why We Dream is both a cutting-edge examination of the meaning and purpose of our nightly visions and a guide to changing our dream lives in order to make our waking lives richer, healthier, and happier.“Robb offers a welcome antidote to the medicine administered by most sleep gurus.” —New Yorker

Als anthropologische Konstanten werfen Traum und Schlaf ein bezeichnendes Licht auf unterschiedliche Kulturen bzw. Gesellschaften und historische Epochen. Gleichzeitig hat der Gegenstand ‚Traum‘ nichts von seiner Ungreifbarkeit und Rätselhaftigkeit verloren. Unter dem leitenden Gesichtspunkt einer ‚Kulturarbeit‘ am Traum (und Schlaf) schlägt dieses Handbuch einen Bogen von den antiken Kulturen bis in die Gegenwart und bietet Kapitel zu den unterschiedlichen soziokulturellen und historischen Erscheinungsweisen sowie zu ästhetischen Produktionen in der Auseinandersetzung mit Schlaf und Traum z.B. in Literatur, Kunst und Musik. Weitere Kapitel präsentieren wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse über Traum und Schlaf von der Freudschen Traumdeutung über experimentelle Schlaf- und Traumforschung bis hin zu hirnbiologischen sowie kognitionswissenschaftlichen Erklärungsansätzen.

From vampire apocalypses, shark attacks, witches, and ghosts, to murderous dolls bent on revenge, horror has been part of the American cinematic imagination for almost as long as pictures have moved on screens. But why do they captivate us so? What is the drive to be frightened, and why is it so perennially popular? Why Horror Seduces addresses these questions through evolutionary social sciences. Explaining the functional seduction of horror entertainment, this book draws on cutting-edge findings in the evolutionary social sciences, showing how the horror genre is a product of human nature. Integrating the study of horror with the sciences of human nature, the book claims that horror entertainment works by targeting humans'adaptive tendency to find pleasure in make-believe, allowing a high intensity experience within a safe context. Through analyses of well-known and popular modern American works of horror--Rosemary's Baby; The Shining; I Am Legend; Jaws; and several others--author Mathias Clasen illustrates how these works target evolved cognitive and emotional mechanisms; we are attracted to horrifying entertainment because we have an adaptive tendency to find pleasure in make-believe that allows us to experience negative emotions at high levels of intensity within a safe context. Organized into three parts identifying fictional works by evolutionary mode--the evolution of horror; evolutionary interpretations of horror; the future of horror--Why Horror Seduces succinctly explores the cognitive processes behind spectators'need to scream.

Philosophy: Mind is composed of nineteen chapters covering such topics as the self, free will, consciousness, perception, memory, emotions, and artificial intelligence. The use of film, literature, art, case studies, and other disciplines or situations/events provide illustrations of human experiences which work as gateways to questions philosophers try to address. Chapters are written by eminent scholars, are peer reviewed, and offer bibliographies to encourage further exploration. Photos and line art help illuminate the text. The volume concludes with a glossary and a comprehensive index

A detailed guide to mastering lucid dreaming for physical and emotional healing, enhanced creativity, and spiritual awakening• Offers methods to improve lucid dreaming abilities and techniques for developing superpowers in the dream realm• Explains how to enhance dreaming with supplements, herbs, and psychedelics • Explores the ability of lucid dreamers to communicate with the waking realm and the potential for shared lucid dreaming and access to our unconscious mindsIn a lucid dream, you “awaken” within your dream and realize you are dreaming. With this extraordinary sense of awakening comes a clear perception of the continuity of self between waking and sleeping and the ability to significantly influence what happens within the dream, giving you the opportunity to genuinely experience anything without physical or social consequences. In this way, lucid dreaming offers therapeutic opportunities for fantasy fulfillment, fear confrontation, and releasing the trauma of past experiences. With development and practice, lucid dreaming can provide a powerful path to greater awareness, heightened creativity, spiritual awakening, and communication with the vast interconnected web of cosmic consciousness.In this detailed guide to mastering the practice of lucid dreaming, David Jay Brown draws from his more than 20 years'experience using these techniques and his interactions with dozens of experts on consciousness, physics, dreaming, and entheogens, such as Stanley Krippner, Rupert Sheldrake, Stephen LaBerge, Robert Waggoner, Dean Radin, Terence McKenna, and many others. He explores the intimate relationship between lucid dreaming, shamanic journeying, visionary plants, and psychedelic drugs and how they are used for healing and spiritual development. Offering methods for improving both lucid dreaming and shamanic journeying abilities, he explains how to enhance dreaming with oneirogens, supplements, herbs, and psychedelics and offers techniques for developing superpowers in the dream realm.Summarizing the scientific research on lucid dreaming, Brown explores the ability of lucid dreamers to communicate with people in the waking realm and the potential for dream telepathy, shared lucid dreaming, and access to the vast unconscious regions of our minds, opening up a path that takes us beyond dreaming and waking to dreaming wide awake.

The Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks: Philosophy Series is composed of ten volumes (available individually) that serve undergraduate college students who have had little or no exposure to philosophy, as well as the curious lay reader. Beginning with a primer volume, which introduces both the discipline and the topics of the remaining nine volumes, each handbook will usher the reader into a subfield of philosophy (see list of titles below), and explore fifteen to thirty topics in that subfield. By employing literature, film, art, history, and other disciplines, the handbooks identify areas of critical thought and practice in the philosophical study. Each volume boasts peer-reviewed signed chapters written by eminent scholars, and include bibliographies to encourage further exploration. Each volume concludes with a glossary and a comprehensive index.

World-renowned contributors across several disciplines reveal how dreams can aid and empower children in daily life.Children can feel powerless in waking life, a fact that is often reflected in their dreams. This book shows how to take an active role in guiding children's dreams to help grow their confidence and improve their coping skills for real-life difficulties. Contributors from across various fields provide simple techniques to help children utilize dreamwork as a conduit for creative discovery and empowerment.Each chapter includes case studies and methods for working in practical ways with children, explaining what may trigger nightmares for children and how'monster'dreams can be guided to become'superhero'dreams. Essays encompass a spectrum of children's dreams with experts discussing dreams of trauma, dreams as a reflection of emotional and physical development, dreaming in the community, spiritual or religious dreams, lucid dreams, dreams during wartime, and dreams of death, among others. Throughout the work, the narrative discusses the use of dreams as teaching aids for use in art therapy, storytelling, and self-empowerment.

Big dreams are rare but highly memorable dream experiences that make a strong and lasting impact on the dreamer's waking awareness. Moving far beyond'I forgot to study and the finals are today'and other common scenarios, such dreams can include vivid imagery, intense emotions, fantastic characters, and an uncanny sense of being connected to forces beyond one's ordinary dreaming mind. In Big Dreams, Kelly Bulkeley provides the first full-scale cognitive scientific analysis of such dreams, putting forth an original theory about their formation, function, and meaning. Big dreams have played significant roles in religious and cultural history, but because of their infrequent occurrence and fantastical features, they have rarely been studied in light of modern science. We know a great deal about the religious manifestations of big dreams throughout history and around the world, but until now that cross-cultural knowledge has never been integrated with scientific research on their psychological roots in the brain-mind system. In Big Dreams, Bulkeley puts a classic psychological thesis to the scientific test by clarifying and improving it with better data, sharper analysis, and a broader evolutionary framework. He brings evidence from multiple sources, shows patterns of similarity and difference, questions prior assumptions, and provides predictive models that can be applied to new sets of data. The notion of a connection between dreaming and religion has always been intuitively compelling; Big Dreams transforms it into a solid premise of religious studies and brain-mind science. Combining evidence from religious studies, psychology, anthropology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience, Big Dreams makes a compelling argument that big dreams are a primal wellspring of religious experience. They represent an innate, neurologically hard-wired capacity of our species that regularly provokes greater self-awareness, creativity, and insight into the existential challenges and spiritual potentials of human life.

This book explores the intersections between dreaming and the literary imagination, in light of the findings of recent neurocognitive and empirical research, with the aim to lay a groundwork for an empirically informed aesthetics of dreaming. Drawing on perspectives from literary theory, philosophy of mind and dream research, this study investigates dreaming in relation to creativity and waking states of imagination such as writing and reading stories. Exploring the similarities and differences between the'language'of dreams and the language of literature, it analyses the strategies employed by writers to create a sense of dream in literary fiction as well as the genres most conducive to this endeavour. The book closes with three case studies focusing on texts by Kazuo Ishiguro, Clare Boylan and John Banville to illustrate the diverse ways in which writers achieve to'translate'the experience and'language'of the dream.

In this fascinating new collection, an all-star team of researchers explores lucid dreaming not only as consciousness during sleep but also as a powerful ability cultivated by artists, scientists, and shamans alike to achieve a variety of purposes and outcomes in the dream.The first set of its kind, Lucid Dreaming: New Perspectives on Consciousness in Sleep provides a comprehensive showcase of the theories, research, and direct experience that serve to illuminate how certain people can maintain conscious awareness while dreaming. The text is organized into two sections, covering science, psychology, and education; and religious traditions, creativity, and culture. Contributors to this two-volume work include top dream experts across the globe—scholars sharing knowledge gained from deep personal explorations and cutting-edge scientific investigations.Topics covered include the neuroscience of lucid dreaming, clinical uses of lucid dreaming in treating trauma, the secret history of lucid dreaming in English philosophy, and spiritual practices of lucid dreaming in Islam, Buddhism, and shamanic traditions. The work also addresses lucid dreaming in movies including The Matrix and literature such as the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien and explains how modern video gaming enhances lucidity. This set serves as an ideal text and reference work for school libraries and academic courses in anthropology, psychology, religious studies, and cognitive science as well as for graduate-level study in holistic education—an increasingly popular specialization.

Wann finden geistige Prozesse statt? Zum Beispiel, wenn wir emotional sind, uns erinnern oder träumen. Mit innovativen Beiträgen stellt das Handbuch kognitive Leistungen wie Erinnerung, Lernen, Planen, Wahrnehmung oder Sprache vor beim Menschen, aber auch im Hinblick auf künstliche Systeme wie Computer oder Roboter. Es beleuchtet die verschiedenen Modelle kognitiver Systeme, darunter das Computermodell des Geistes, neuronale Netze oder dynamische Systeme. Mit den Fächern Anthropologie, Informatik, Linguistik, Neurowissenschaft, Psychologie und Philosophie führt es in die Teildisziplinen der Kognitionswissenschaft ein.

Il sogno è fondamentale nella storia dell'uomo. Fonte di ispirazione nel campo della ricerca scientifica o artistica, o semplice guida nelle scelte quotidiane, i sogni hanno determinato alcune delle più importanti vicende umane in un modo che va ben oltre la definizione di'pura coincidenza'. L'autore di questo libro sorprendente ci rivela come i sogni abbiano guidato il destino degli uomini -'agendo come veri e propri motori invisibili'- e come la consapevolezza della nostra realtà sognata possa determinare il nostro stesso futuro. In questo volume, Robert Moss - uno dei massimi esperti a livello internazionale in fatto di sogni - ci racconta le storie di grandi personaggi la cui vita è stata segnata dall'elemento onirico, dalla bellissima Lucrecia de Leon, le cui premonizioni determinarono le scelte dei più potenti uomini di Spagna, all'affascinante corrispondenza di sogni tra Carl Gustav Jung e Wolfgang Pauli, passando per gli incredibili episodi che hanno scandito le vite di Mark Twain, Giovanna d'Arco, Winston Churchill, e molti altri. In questo libro visionario, narrato con l'abilità del romanziere, Moss getta le basi per un nuovo modo di esplorare e interpretare la storia e la coscienza umana, un viatico per penetrare con strumenti non tecnicamente'razionali'la parte più profonda, originale e inaccessibile di noi stessi.

“Insightful...draws from disparate corners of history and science to celebrate our compulsion to storify everything around us.”—The New York Times Book Review Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. It's easy to say that humans are “wired” for story, but why? In this delightful, original book, Jonathan Gottschall offers the first unified theory of storytelling. He argues that stories help us navigate life's complex social problems—just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival. Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, Gottschall tells us what it means to be a storytelling animal. Did you know that the more absorbed you are in a story, the more it changes your behavior? That all children act out the same kinds of stories, whether they grow up in a slum or a suburb? That people who read more fiction are more empathetic? Of course, our story instinct has a darker side. It makes us vulnerable to conspiracy theories, advertisements, and narratives about ourselves that are more “truthy” than true. National myths can also be terribly dangerous: Hitler's ambitions were partly fueled by a story. But as Gottschall shows, stories can also powerfully change the world for the better. We know we are master shapers of story. The Storytelling Animal finally reveals how stories shape us. “Lively.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Absorbing.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune “One of my favorite evolutionary psych writers—always insightful and witty.”—Steven Pinker

From Biblical stories of Joseph interpreting Pharoh's dreams in Egypt to prayers against bad dreams in the Hindu Rg Veda, cultures all over the world have seen their dreams first and foremost as religiously meaningful experiences. In this widely shared view, dreams are a powerful medium of transpersonal guidance offering the opportunity to communicate with sacred beings, gain valuable wisdom and power, heal suffering, and explore new realms of existence. Conversely, the world's religious and spiritual traditions provide the best source of historical information about the broad patterns of human dream life Dreaming in the World's Religions provides an authoritative and engaging one-volume resource for the study of dreaming and religion. It tells the story of how dreaming has shaped the religious history of humankind, from the Upanishads of Hinduism to the Qur'an of Islam, from the conception dream of Buddhas mother to the sexually tempting nightmares of St. Augustine, from the Ojibwa vision quest to Australian Aboriginal journeys in the Dreamtime. Bringing his background in psychology to bear, Kelly Bulkeley incorporates an accessible consideration of cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology into this fascinating overview. Dreaming in the World's Religions offers a carefully researched, accessibly written portrait of dreaming as a powerful, unpredictable, often iconoclastic force in human religious life.

Na niniejszy tom składają się rozprawy i artykuły, które powstały w trakcie przygotowań do konferencji'Epistemologia współcześnie', która odbyła się w Instytucie Filozofii Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej w Lublinie w dniach 7 i 8 listopada 2005 roku. Zawarta w nich jest specyfika epistemologii jako filozoficznej refleksji nad poznaniem i wiedzą, w szczególności jej metateoretyczny charakter. Pod tą nazwą funkcjonują różne koncepcje i stanowiska, a także metody tej refleksji - od kantowskich czy scholastycznych nastawień przez fenomenologiczne, hermeneutyczne oraz analityczne, aż po pragmatystyczne i postmodernistyczne projekty uwspółcześnienia lub radykalnej zmiany tradycyjnej epistemologii. W powyższym wstępie oraz w części pierwszej (autorstwa najwybitniejszych polskich epistemologów) zaprezentowane są zarówno tradycja każdego z tych rozumień epistemologii, jak również konkretne stanowiska, rozwiązania czy projekty metaepistemologiczne. Czytelnik znajdzie tu różnorodność autorskich ujęć oraz dyskusje nad statusem epistemologii jako takiej. W części drugiej omówione są przykłady teoriopoznawczej problematyki zawartej w tych naukach szczegółowych jak humanistyka, socjologia, językoznawstwo, biologia czy psychologia poznawcza (kognitywistyka), w których wyraźnie obecne są epistemologiczne zagadnienia. Tom kończą rozprawy autorstwa badaczy z licznych krajowych zakładów lub katedr o profilu epistemologicznym, podejmujące zarówno metaepistemologiczne wątki, jak i prezentujące konkretne przykłady stanowisk i dyskusji teoriopoznawczych.