DREAMS

It has come to my attention that dreams have a huge impact on our lives when we are awake and conscious; they have the power to alter our decisions or cause us to create new ones. While dreaming we can also solve different types problems we are experiencing in our daily lives since our dreams usually depend on the events that occurred previously that day. Dreams can be so vivid and terrifying or so happy and exciting that one while sleeping can actually be moving around acting out whatever they’re dreaming. Although, this factor can negatively affect a person’s life and the life of his or her partner. A man who is aggressive during sleep, as the example shown in the video, makes it impossible for his wife to sleep next to him. This is called REM sleep disorder where the part of the brain that disables them to move during REM is not working as it should. Dreams are a kind of search for the truths that we’re unable to find while awake. I believe that dreams have motivation; they provide us the privacy to run wild and do the things that most of the time while awake we yearn to do but can’t because of the ball and chain of reality that keeps us down to earth.

Video Response: Alone

Around the world, authorities have come up with different types of torture to punish those who have done wrong or those they believe to be wrong. Never have I ever seen a type of torture such as this one shown in this video. Although no physical image of blood or screams of pain were shown, this type of torture is able to bring as much desperation as having someone cut your flesh wide open. The type of torture is called sensory deprivation in which persons are left days, months, or even years without using senses such as sight, touch, hearing or speaking with someone. It doesn’t sound as bad as physical torture but in reality, it is so much worse. The brain needs constant stimulation for it to be healthy and develop under the right circumstances. Patients being tested in a laboratory in which they had no sight or someone to speak to for 48 hours began to hallucinate, sing to themselves, pace around the room in desperation, and become terribly scared and drive themselves mad. Depriving one of these senses changes the person’s life forever; they become eternally segregated, even when given the ability to use their senses again. It makes them scream to God and wish for the pain to be physical instead of having to survive this unusual torture than creates a permanent sentence until the end of their existence.

Questions

1. Explain in detail what "savant syndrome" means.

Savants, despite serious mental or physical disability, have amazing, and sometimes spectacular, talents. This is one of the most fascinating phenomena in the study of human differences and cognitive psychology. http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/drhiles/Savant%20Syndrome.htm

2. What does genius mean?  Explain the difference between genius and savant.

One of the most awesome aptitudes of the brain is personified in the genius; an individual with sometimes astounding talents in one or more areas of achievement, usually without any education in their field. The difference between a genius and a savant is geniuses are astounding in various fields but a savant has mental and physical disabilities showing only one spike of ability in one area. http://scienceandreligion.com/genius.htm

3. What is a stroke and how could it affect your mental functioning?

 A stroke is a medical emergency caused by the blockage or rupture of an artery, which prevents the flow of blood to the brain. The injuries suffered after the stroke depends on where the stroke occurred and how much of the brain was affected. Smaller strokes may cause minor problems, such as weakness in an arm or leg. Larger strokes may lead to paralysis or death. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/7624.php

4. What is a functional MRI and how does it help us understand brain activity?

 Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a relatively new procedure that uses magnetic resonance imaging to measure the tiny metabolic changes that occur in an active part of the brain. Functional magnetic resonance uses a powerful magnetic field, radio frequency pulses and a computer to produce detailed pictures. It is used to: examine the anatomy of brain, determine which part of the brain is handling thought, speech, movement, and sensation (also known as brain mapping), helps assess the effects of a stroke, trauma or degenerative disease, monitor the growth of brain tumors. http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=fmribrain

5. What is the corpus callosum and what role does it play in your brain's activity?

 The corpus callosum is a huge bundle of nerve fibers found in brains belonging to mammals. It connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain, therefore, is responsible for most of the communication between the two hemispheres. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-corpus-callosum.htm

6. What is epilepsy and how might it affect your brain's abilities?

 Epilepsy is a neurological condition in which a person has seizures starting in the brain; it can cause memory loss or anterograde amnesia. http://www.articlesbase.com/diseases-and-conditions-articles/

7. What is autism?

 Autism is a complex developmental disability which is the result of a neurological disorder. It affects brain functions such as the development of the person's communication and social interaction skills. People with autism usually have issues with non verbal communication and social interactions, its as if these kids lived in a different world. http://kidshealth.org/kid/health_problems/brain/autism.html

8. What is Asperger's Syndrome?

AS is a neurobiological disorder that is part of a group of conditions called autism spectrum disorders which refers to a range of developmental disabilities that includes autism as well. AS is characterized by poor social interactions, obsessions, odd speech patterns, and other peculiar mannerisms similar to those kids with high functioning autism. Kids with AS often have few facial expressions and have difficulty reading the body language of others. http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/brain/asperger.html

DEFINITIONS

 Synesthesia: Synesthesia is an involuntary condition in which the information of one sense is perceived at the same time as if by one or more additional senses, it can be described as the senses being cross wired. http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/syne.html

grapheme-color synesthesia: The condition in which on perceives a color while looking at a letter, a word, or a number. Tests made on patients with this type of synesthesia show extra activations in the fusiform gyrus, which is known to be involved in color and word processing. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19302164

ordinal-linguistic personification: An automatic tendency to attribute animate-like qualities, such as personality and gender, to sequential linguistic units such as days, letters, months, numerals, etc. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1245903

 
number-form synesthesia: The condition in which a mental map of numbers appears whenever the person is thinking about numbers, its believed this is a result of “cross-activation” between some parts of the parietal lobe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_form

 
sound-color synesthesia: In thus type of synesthesia, patients experience color as a response to music, when the music plays, colors relative to the tones or instruments appear. Patients are also able to see color from ordinary sounds such as the chirp of a bird.

http://undacovabear.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/sound-colour-synesthesia/

lexical-gustatory synesthesia: When the patient can actually taste a word by saying it or thinking about it; each word has a unique taste just like food. http://alifeinpages.blogspot.com/2006/12/lexical-gustatory-synaeshesia.html