http://www.psywww.com/books/interp/chap01h.htm

I was thinking the other day how dreaming and insanity are strikingly similar in regards to the behavior of one's mind in both states. For example, hallucinations, split personality, etc.

After reading this page I am now absolutely fascinated by the subject, and would like to discuss it further.

Any contributions are welcome, as I don't really know where to begin the discussion.

Does someone more educated on the subject want to ellaborate or share some knowledge?

Looks interesting. Will read when I get chance

"Discussions of psychology as applied to poker and other gambling games."

?

Correlation =/= causality. Lack of sleep causes mental problems, the less you sleep the more you dream when you actually do sleep.

I believe some "crazy" people exhibit mannerisms equal to those of dreams.

This is something I've always been interested in mostly because it's always related to myself quite well. I've been diagnosed as bipolar with paranoid tendencies and transient psychosis, depression, anxiety, panic disorder, the whole lot, and my whole life I've suffered from nightmares, sleep paralysis, sleep disorders such as narcolepsy, sleep apnea, insomnia, etc. Often in certain phases of my bipolar disorder or psychosis, things will feel "like a dream", and reciprocally, my dreams are much more weird/intense/crazy in these phases. From what I understand, a lot of this is due to certain chemicals and neurotransmitters being exhibited in certain fashion from waking life to dreaming in people with these types of disorders. People with schizophrenia often have excessive amounts of dopamine which is a chemical released by many drugs, and I would assume is released in dream-states more actively than awake (though I don't know this for a fact). It is often the reason the abuse of many drugs cause psychosis by damaging the regulatory system of these chemicals in the brain, or why people under the influence of certain drugs exhibit behaviour similar to crazy people. The mere act of dreaming requires a higher amount of neurotransmitters to allow for the altered consciousness and creativity needed to create the "dreamscape", of which, our conscious "unintoxicated" minds have difficulty creating in the same depth. Everyone's had a crazy dream before that seemed to make no sense, and if the chemicals in the brain that create that nonsensical dream were present in waking life, it's not difficult to see how one could exhibit some forms of psychosis in waking life if the chemicals were still present in those concentrations.

I personally believe dreams are not entirely "random" and have a huge basis in the psychological state of the dreamer. Much of the apparent randomness of dreams comes from subconscious associations and memories that are normally filtered out in our conscious states or dormant or unknown, and that a lot of what a dream constitutes is really symbolism for these subconscious manifestations that require a lot of analysis to fully understand. A very obvious or easy to trace example is a dream that has the individual travelling through an arid landscape which could be as simple as the dreamer being thirsty in real life. Or it could be something less obvious (or of a more subconscious origin) such as running away from a villain and being unable to move (this is a common dream) where the inability to escape a struggle could be a manifestation of a conscious state of turmoil completely unrelated to physically running or a physical entity (like being stuck at a dead end job that one feels they cannot escape, this could easily manifest itself as this type of dream). For someone with expressed mental disorders, the conscious state of turmoil is often greater, or more complex, or more dream-like in general so their dreams mirror this complexity in more intricate and incomprehensible ways. The correlation works in reverse from complex dreams to waking life because there is less of a concrete gap between "dreaming life" and "waking life" for people with these disorders, and therefore their waking life can mirror turmoil created by their dream worlds, and conscious "dream-like" worlds, which a person of regular mental stature might not experience to the same degree. This could create a negative feedback loop that perpetuates their psychosis. Like, for example, if somebody experienced nightmares of alien abductions, they may start attributing certain scenarios or nuances of their dream to their waking state, making them fearful, paranoid, or anxious in waking-life, which then causes more psychotic dreams, which mirrors back again to waking life, and so on.

Not to get all sanctimonious and act like I know everything, but if you have any specific questions, I could answer them from my own experiences.

From the Sandman:
Dreams are memories of past and future

How many times have you had a dream and not really remember it during the day, and then something in real life triggers you remembering that dream? Happens to me a lot.

i havent read anything itt yet but will do, dreams are reality of your own mind, if you get please and displeasure from dreams then it is very possible to live in a dream land, in your dreams the whole world is yours, and in real life your whole life is yours although it feels much more restricted irl its really isnt the only restrictions that apply are the laws of physics, and the occasional real life law (you cant have sex with jlo just cos you dream it :P )

i have some very deep physiological views on the situation but will with hold them for the time being

I have been fascinated by "mentally ill" people my entire life; I would love to learn more.

As far as dreams go, I am not a fan of the Freudian perspective. I believe that dreams are times when our brains are recharging. I do believe our problems and stresses are influencial in said dreams, but not to the point where they are solved in the dream.

schizophrenics experiencing delusions and hallucinations will. Dreams are not reality and anyone experiencing schizophrenic symptoms without the aid of hallucinogens needs help.

I've got a degree in psychology and my opinion is that dreams are a way of maintaining neural pathways while your brain is dormant so that blood and neurotransmitters do not rest in these pathways. If the fluids in your brain remain inactive for long periods of time the pathways die and they no longer serve the purpose they once did, so its logical that the brain would in a sense flush out and cycle the fluids while you are dreaming to maintain and repair the pathways used the most during the day which is why you often dream of things that occurred during the day. Fredian psychology was a starting point but is not practiced by the vast majority of psych. phd's, it laid the groundwork for analyzing human behavior but neuropsychology is where the future lies in understanding behavior and the brain.

Now I'm only a Sailor with one semester of Philosophy studies at college uinder my belt, so this could be laughably wrong, but could the cycling of the neural pathways be linked to our every day lives? We "thought that thought before" so it "flows" down that pathway because we cannot create any new thoughts while under alpha, beta, REM, etc?

That might have sounded stupid due to the fact that I only took a Psych class in high school with a terrible teacher so I don't truly understand neurotransmitters and their inner workings.

isnt the field of psychology paramount to all other fields of science? If we learn alot more about the brain and how to unlock some of its strenghts that for example now only idiot savants posses, wont we progress tremendously in other fields of science as well? And ofcourse evolve as a human species, how we get along with others.