Dream Scenario Research Articles

(Invited) Unraveling the PEC: Insight and Strategies for Addressing Materials Design By ML Support

Unlimited access to clean, sustainable and renewable source of energy seems to be a dream scenario, however with an assistance of ML (machine learning) support the experimental work which as a matter of fact reveals the right descriptors may gain a powerful tool allowing to omit a time consuming trials path. However, precise definition of descriptors will require an identification of the bottleneck materials parameters, features and processes, thus different architectures and working arrangements will be shown and discussed in this presentation in order to test their usfulness for prediction of novel and better arrangements for hydrogen and other carbon based solar fuels production. When a suitable material is identified, then there are numerous strategies to overcome potential bottlenecks, including doping, nanostructuring, surface modification, vacances optimisation or addition of co-catalysts, thus a game changer is a precise screening of possible predictors in order to identify the most performance determinant factor. Therfore, over 400 tailor-made for PEC reduction process samples based on the semiconductor oxides have been prepared and measured in order to bulid a pre-base for ML tests. In this presentation we will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of different architectures and working arrangements for hydrogen and carbon-based solar fuels production; different materials and working systems, their compositions, geometry, properties will be discussed in view of their impact on the final prediction.

Dream Scenario and Postcinematic Celebrity

FQ columnist Caetlin Benson-Allott turns the spotlight on Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli, whose films ask what it means to want attention and be subject to unwanted attention in the era of social media and viral fame. His most recent film, Dream Scenario (2023), is the third in a series of films that “interrogate twenty-first-century celebrity—the forms of social, cultural, and financial capital it generates and the rules that (fail to) govern it.” In Dream Scenario, Borgli makes good use of the US star system, exploiting the contrasting filmic reputations of his leading actors Nicholas Cage and Julianne Nicholson to add depth to his critique of postcinematic celebrity culture.

On the Role of Technology in Human–Dog Relationships: A Future of Nightmares or Dreams?

Digital technologies that help people take care of their dogs are becoming more widespread. Yet, little research explores what the role of technology in the human-dog relationship should be. We conducted a qualitative study incorporating quantitative and thematic analysis of 155 UK dog owners reflecting on their daily routines and technology's role in it, disentangling the what-where-why of interspecies routines and activities, technological desires, and rationales for technological support across common human-dog activities. We found that increasingly entangled daily routines lead to close multi-species households where dog owners conceptualize technology as having a role to support them in giving care to their dogs. When confronted with the role of technology across various activities, only chores like cleaning up after their dogs lead to largely positive considerations, while activities that benefit themselves like walking together lead to largely negative considerations. For other activities, whether playing, training, or feeding, attitudes remain diverse. In general, across all activities both a nightmare scenario of technology taking the human's role and in doing so disentangling the human-dog bond, as well as a dream scenario of technology augmenting human abilities arise. We argue that the current trajectory of digital technology for pets is increasingly focused on enabling remote interactions, an example of the nightmare scenario in our thematic analysis. It is important to redirect this trajectory to one of technology predominantly supporting us in becoming better and more informed caregivers.

Hits and Misses: Digital Contact Tracing in a Pandemic

Traditional contact tracing is one of the most powerful weapons people have in the battle against a pandemic, especially when vaccines do not yet exist or do not afford complete protection from infection. But the effectiveness of contact tracing hinges on its ability to find infected people quickly and obtain accurate information from them. Therefore, contact tracing inherits the challenges associated with the fallibilities of memory. Against this backdrop, digital contact tracing is the “dream scenario”—an unobtrusive, vigilant, and accurate recorder of danger that should outperform manual contact tracing on every dimension. There is reason to celebrate the success of digital contact tracing. Indeed, epidemiologists report that digital contact tracing probably reduced the incidence of COVID-19 cases by at least 25% in many countries, a feat that would have been hard to match with its manual counterpart. Yet there is also reason to speculate that digital contact tracing delivered on only a fraction of its potential because it almost completely ignored the relevant psychological science. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of digital contact tracing, its hits and misses in the COVID-19 pandemic, and its need to be integrated with the science of human behavior.

Why Dreaming Worlds aren’t Nearby Possible Worlds

Abstract A familiar anti-sceptical response (à la Sosa) to radical sceptical scenarios employs the safety of knowledge. Radical sceptical scenarios are purported to be too modally remote to really threaten knowledge of ordinary propositions. Why? Because knowledge requires safety, and safety requires the target belief to be true in all nearby possible worlds, but radical sceptical scenarios purportedly take place at distant possible worlds. Hence, the safety theorist claims that radical sceptical scenarios don’t challenge our knowledge of ordinary propositions. But it's alleged by Sosa and others that there's one radical sceptical scenario that can’t be dismissed so easily: the dream scenario. After all, unlike evil demons and brains in vats, ‘dreaming is a daily part of our lives…it is too close for comfort’. In this paper, I sketch an argument to the effect that there's good reason to think that the dream of dream scepticism describes a modally remote possibility, in which case I argue that if the safety-based anti-sceptical response is successful against the evil demon sceptical scenario, the brain in a vat sceptical scenario, and other Cartesian sceptical scenarios in this mould, then it's successful against the dream sceptical scenario as well.

Is REM Density a Measure of Arousal during Sleep?

Rapid eye movements (REMs), an expression of REM sleep phasic activity, occur against a stable background of cortical desynchronization and the absence of axial tone. The significance of REMs during the sleep period was initially attributed to the mental content of dreams, linking the REMs to the dream scenario. Although fascinating, the so-called "scanning hypothesis" has not been supported by consistent evidence, and thus an alternative hypothesis is necessary to understand REMs significance during sleep. Some data suggest that the frequency of REMs during the REM sleep period, known as REM density, might be related to sleep depth or arousal during sleep. REM density increases across the night concomitantly with the progressive reduction in sleep pressure, and consistently it is higher at the circadian time when arousal appears to be higher, and it is decreased in those conditions, such as after sleep deprivation, which produce increased sleep pressure. REM density is also increased in major affective disorders, and it has been suggested either as a risk factor to develop the illness or as a predictive index of response to drug treatment. Disfunction of the neurotransmitter systems involved in arousal mechanisms and wake/sleep control might underlie the altered REM density described in depression. Understanding of the REM density mechanisms could help to untangle functional significance and regulation of REM sleep. Following the seminal idea of Aserinsky that REM density is an index of sleep satiety, it may also provide a sensitive measure of sleep homeostasis in addition to, or even as an alternative to, the consolidated analysis of slow wave activity. REM density can also be utilized to explore those mechanisms which end sleep, and considered a physiological marker which indicate during sleep the "time to wake".

Dreaming Philosophers: The Daoist and the Metaphysician

Is this just a dream? Daoist philosopher Zhuang Zi and metaphysician Descartes both considered this question but came to very different conclusions. In his Dream Hypothesis, Descartes imagined that all of his beliefs about the external world could be mistaken, which led him to the realization that the only thing that he could be certain of was his own existence: “I think therefore I am.” But what am “I”? “I am a thinking thing”, he said and concluded that the existence of one’s mental self is clear, certain and indubitable, while the existence of a physical world was open to doubt. Zhuang Zi, in a similar vein, dreamt that he was a butterfly, and, on awakening, could not be sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming that he was a man. Rather than drawing a distinction between dreams and reality, or between certainty and dubitability, however, he concluded that our identities, like everything else in the world, are fluid and subject transformation and transmutation. The very different treatments of the dream scenario by these two thinkers stem from fundamentally different assumptions embedded in the two philosophical traditions. Analyzing them side by side, we realize how the resources of each intellectual tradition cast light on the unquestioned assumptions underlying the philosophy of the other. This cross cultural engagement highlights the ways in which these two varieties of skepticism fall short of complete, universal skepticism and potentially points the way towards a synthesis of the resources of Western rationalism and philosophical Daoism that may lead to novel formulations of radically skeptical world views.

Dreaming during COVID-19: the effects of a world trauma.

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a state of health emergency affecting the entire world population. Given the serious practical and psychological difficulties and complications that have been experienced during this period, many scholars have created hypothesis, as a consequence, an increased possibility of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) within the general population with significant implications for one’s dream activity. Participants in the study were recruited via the instant messaging application ‘WhatsApp’ for a period of 14 days. The study consisted of three phases: the first phase provided information on the purpose of the research and how to carry it out; in the second phase, each participant, using the Bionian model of dream experience as a focus, was asked to write down dreams, emotions and free connections/associations related to the dream. At the end of the collection, the texts obtained were analysed by means of a qualitative analysis performed with the aid of the MAXQDA software. The study confirms the computational and exploratory analysis of the text carried out in the research of Pesonen et al. (2020), finding also in our sample the presence of the hypothesized clusters going to explain the manifestation of imagery related to COVID-19 also within the dream activity. To confirm this, the nightmare of participant number 6 of the study is reported. The following qualitative research has offered an insight into the traumatic nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, showing how many unmetabolized ‘daytime elements’ have been reproposed in the dream scenario, recalling the symptomatology of PTSD through the presence of distressing content that affect the quality of sleep and the daily life of the individual.

The Hidden Fairy Tale: Oskar Kokoschka’s Die träumenden Knaben

Kokoschka’s first literary work The Dreaming Youths (Die träumenden Knaben) was published in 1908. The work includes a poem with eight colored and two black and white lithographs. Although the young artist was commissioned by the Wiener Werkstätte to make a children’s picture book, the end result seemed quite different: a sort of personal tale of self-discovery and sexual awakening during puberty placed in a dream scenario. Kokoschka himself remembers in his autobiography only following the task in the first lithograph. The aim of this paper is to show how Kokoschka actually continued to draw on the language of fairy tales, although apparently taking distance from it. The crucial role of children’s literature in adult life emerges especially within the process of shaping childhood memories and approaching traumatic experiences. The use of fairy tales becomes, therefore, an autobiographical urge and a means to tell personal experience through a universal language.

Investigation on Neurobiological Mechanisms of Dreaming in the New Decade.

Dream research has advanced significantly over the last twenty years, thanks to the new applications of neuroimaging and electrophysiological techniques. Many findings pointed out that mental activity during sleep and wakefulness shared similar neural bases. On the other side, recent studies have highlighted that dream experience is promoted by significant brain activation, characterized by reduced low frequencies and increased rapid frequencies. Additionally, several studies confirmed that the posterior parietal area and prefrontal cortex are responsible for dream experience. Further, early results revealed that dreaming might be manipulated by sensory stimulations that would provoke the incorporation of specific cues into the dream scenario. Recently, transcranial stimulation techniques have been applied to modulate the level of consciousness during sleep, supporting previous findings and adding new information about neural correlates of dream recall. Overall, although multiple studies suggest that both the continuity and activation hypotheses provide a growing understanding of neural processes underlying dreaming, several issues are still unsolved. The impact of state-/trait-like variables, the influence of circadian and homeostatic factors, and the examination of parasomnia-like events to access dream contents are all opened issues deserving further deepening in future research.

Qualidade de vida em estudantes de medicina e sua mensuração: Um estudo de revisão

According to WHO (World Health Organization) quality of life can be defined as “the individual's perception of” his or her position in life, in the context of the culture and value system in which he lives and in relation to his goals, expectations, standards and concerns'. Quality of life is a progressive concern in society and can be measured in various contexts and populations, including medical students. Higher medical education is both a fulfillment and a dream scenario, but also a place for academics to encounter stressors that require harsh adaptation processes. The study aimed to conduct a survey in the national and international literature about the quality of life in medical students and point out the most used instruments for its measurement. The articles were consulted in the PubMed, SciELO and Lilacs databases. We used articles written in English, Portuguese and Spanish published in the last 120 months, ie, from 2009 to 2019. We included 18 articles in the study. The articles included in this review show that the quality of life has a direct influence on the personal and professional behavior of the student, emphasizing the relevance of the theme and its consequences. In this sense, it was found that the most used instruments to measure the quality of life of this population were: Fantastic Lifestyle Questionnaire (EVT), (Whoqol-100), Whoqol-bref, HRQOL short form-36.

REM sleep respiratory behaviours match mental content in narcoleptic lucid dreamers

Breathing is irregular during rapid eye-movement (REM) sleep, whereas it is stable during non-REM sleep. Why this is so remains a mystery. We propose that irregular breathing has a cortical origin and reflects the mental content of dreams, which often accompany REM sleep. We tested 21 patients with narcolepsy who had the exceptional ability to lucid dream in REM sleep, a condition in which one is conscious of dreaming during the dream and can signal lucidity with an ocular code. Sleep and respiration were monitored during multiple naps. Participants were instructed to modify their dream scenario so that it involved vocalizations or an apnoea, -two behaviours that require a cortical control of ventilation when executed during wakefulness. Most participants (86%) were able to signal lucidity in at least one nap. In 50% of the lucid naps, we found a clear congruence between the dream report (e.g., diving under water) and the observed respiratory behaviour (e.g., central apnoea) and, in several cases, a preparatory breath before the respiratory behaviour. This suggests that the cortico-subcortical networks involved in voluntary respiratory movements are preserved during REM sleep and that breathing irregularities during this stage have a cortical/subcortical origin that reflects dream content.

A Copyright Limitations Treaty Based on the Marrakesh Model: Nightmare or Dream Come True?

With the adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled in 2013, the international copyright community has shown its willingness to take further steps in the harmonization of limitations and exceptions in the field of copyright. However, the Marrakesh Treaty is only the tip of the iceberg. Its preparation and negotiation took place against the background of a much broader debate over the introduction of so-called “ceilings” in international copyright law: binding rules that set a maximum level of permissible protection. While the Marrakesh Treaty entered into force on September 30, 2016, the bigger project of regulating the ceilings of copyright protection in an international instrument is still pending. Hence, the question arises whether the results of the small step of adopting the Marrakesh Treaty are encouraging enough to take the giant leap of discussing ceilings of copyright protection and establishing a general Copyright Limitations Treaty. To answer this question, the following analysis will first shed light on the peculiar configuration of the Marrakesh Treaty. The Treaty combines both very specific and very open rules on L&Es for blind and print-disabled persons with the abstract criteria of the “three-step test” known from Article 9(2) BC, Article 13 TRIPS and Article 10 WCT. As a result of this treaty architecture, the objective of offering maximum legal certainty in respect of use privileges for blind, visually impaired and print-disabled persons is compromised. The Marrakesh Treaty can lead to a nightmare scenario in which neither the goal of legal certainty nor the advantage of flexibility is realized. However, the Marrakesh Treaty also demonstrates how international norms could be structured to arrive at a sufficiently flexible and sustainable treaty framework for the regulation of limitations and exceptions at the national level. Certain features of the Treaty can serve as a source of inspiration for the development of a dream scenario.

"Ma, kan Ma dan nie sien dat ek aan die brand is nie?" Enkele opmerkings oor wat ons vandag is

Die huidige nasionale krisis in tersiêre onderrig in Suid-Afrika, gesien teen die agtergrond van 'n korrupte nasionale regering wat geen leiding neem om die krisis te bestuur nie, noop filosowe om 'n indringende analise te onderneem van ons tyd. In 'n poging om sin te versin begin die artikel met 'n soort denkeksperiment waarin ons land, Suid-Afrika haar op die spreekwoordelike praatbank bevind in gesprek met die outeur-terapeut. In die loop van die terapie-sessie kom Freud se bekende droomscenario aan bod oor die oorlede kind wie se doodskleed aan die brand slaan en die droom wat sy/haar ouer op basis van die tragiese gebeure het. In hierdie essay word die droom met sy brand-motief gekoppel aan die heersende toestand in Suid-Afrika wat deur koerantopskrifte beskryf word as 'n land wat brand van woede. In 'n poging om sin te versin word die Freudiaanse droom sorgvuldig vanuit Lacaniaanse perspektief geanaliseer. Vervolgens poog die essay om na te speur waarom die huidige woede van die jeug op hierdie spesifieke historiese tydstip so vurig is. Die speurtog bring die outeur op Mbembe se spoor en spesifiek sy oortuiging dat die fundamentele vraag rakende die herstel van sosiale bande wat vernietig is deur mensehandel en die eindelose oorloë nie vooropgestel word in die postkoloniale diskoers rondom die identiteit van die Afrika-subjek nie. In plaas daarvan figureer die Afrikaan primêr as passiewe slagoffer oorgelewer aan magte buite sy/haar beheer, onbewustelik geteken deur die onderdrukte trauma van die broedermoord wat mede ten grondslag van die slawehandel lê. As die vrygebore generasie in die teken staan van 'n oorspronklike trauma wat alle daaropvolgende traumas hulle trefkrag gee en wat irrasionele emosie-gedrewe reaksies tot gevolg het, hoe kan ons hoop op 'n uitkoms wat nie vooraf bepaal is deur dieselfde regressiewe spiraal van ons en hulle, van geweldpleger en slagoffer nie? Op 'n hoopvolle wyse wend die outeur haar tot Lacan om die vraag te beslis. Lacan dring aan op 'n minimale dog weerbarstige keusevryheid wat die historiese voorafbepaaldheid kan deurbreek. Daar word bevind dat die sogenaamde keusevryheid allesbehalwe 'n eenvoudige antwoord op die dilemma bied.

Competition between Cognitive Control and Encapsulated, Unconscious Inferences: Are Aha-Experiences Special?

Competition between Cognitive Control and Encapsulated, Unconscious Inferences: Are Aha-Experiences Special?

A Probable Cell Model in the Creation of Dream Scenarios

In rapid eye movement (REM) period of sleep, the discharges sent by the pontine reticular formation, stimulating the neuron's pools of the memories in the neocortex and other memory storage areas of the brain, constitute the dream scenarios. If the neuronal connections of memories establish random synaptic relationships with each other, it can be concluded that recently- activated neurons can randomly stimulate the neurons of other memories converging on them. For example increasing activities in the memory neurons belonged to Grandmother and an unrelated war scene may constitute a dream scenario by random connections as a ‘grandmother with weapon’ without subject integrity.

How Evaluating Dreams Makes History: Asabano Examples

Among the Asabano of Papua New Guinea, dreams deemed true have motivated hunting expeditions, medical treatments, and religious conversion. In contrast, dreams deemed false have negligibly affected behaviour. The Asabano draw on multiple and changing opinions and theories of dreams and dreaming when assessing whether or not particular dreams accurately represented reality. Dreams conforming to several dream scenario genres routinely receive attention as potential “true” dreams. These scenarios concern hunting, illness, death, and since contact, Christianity. Analysis of subsequent waking events resolves ambiguous cases. Asabano dream theories have changed in response to enculturation, diffusion, and personal experiences. Theories and methods of evaluating remembered dreams influence agency and events. I argue that classifying particular dreams as true or false is an historical process because once a remembered dream is labelled “true” or “false” it motivates appropriately responsive action or inaction.

La motricité redevient-elle normale en sommeil paradoxal ? Le trouble comportemental en sommeil paradoxal

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is characterized by violent, or potentially violent, movements during REM sleep, corresponding to enacted dreams. During sleep monitoring, there is a partial or total loss of the normal muscle atonia during REM sleep. REM sleep behavior disorder predominantly affects elderly subjects without any other disease (idiopathic RBD, a precursor of Parkinson disease and Lewy body dementia) or suffering from various neurological and neurodegenerative diseases, mainly synucleinopathies. In addition to being a treatable cause of nocturnal injury of the patients or their bed-partners, RBD is a fantastic window into motor and cognitive control during REM sleep. Notably, parkinsonism transiently disappears during RBD. The patient's voice is louder and better articulated than when awake, and movements are rapid (but jerky) suggesting that the deleterious message from the basal ganglia to the primary motor cortex is reduced or bypassed. As we observed culturally-acquired behaviors, retired patients practicing their former work with mastered gestures, as well as sentences pronounced with appropriate prosody, gesturing, fluency, and syntax during the RBD, we suggest that these behaviors are generated by the same cortical areas as during wakefulness. This model also enables the demonstration that REM during REM sleep are coded in the same direction as the arm and hand movements, as if the dreamer were scanning the dream images. This online access to the motor and verbal dream scenario (through the video and audio monitoring), and the physiological measures (via the EEG, eye movements, muscle tone, respiration, heart rate), together with the offline access to the mental content (dream report after the awakening) constitute a triangulation for validating new hypotheses about REM sleep and dreams.

Search Activity Concept: Relationship between Behavior, Health and Brain Functions

AbstractSearch activity concept provides a new classification of the behavior which distinguishes search activity (activity in the uncertain situation with the constant feedback between behavior and its outcome), stereotyped behavior with a definite probability forecast, panic (activity without feedback between activity and its outcome) and renunciation of search. Only search activity which includes fight, flight, orienting behavior and creativity raises the body’s resistance to stress, to natural and experimentally induced pathology whereas renunciation of search which display itself in freezing, helplessness and depression forms a nonspecific predisposition to somatic disturbances (e.g. psychosomatic diseases). Dreams in REM sleep are regarded as a specific form of search activity aimed at compensating for the lack of search in waking. REM sleep deprivation on a small as well as on rotating platform raises the requirement in REM sleep by frustrating search activity. It is suggested that in wakefulness characterized by the prominent search activity the inhibitory alpha-2- adrenoreceptors became less sensitive to stimulation and consequently in this state the activity of the brain monoamine neurons is less limited by the level of brain monoamines. During renunciation of search brain monoamine synthesis is not stimulated by monoamine exhaustion. In REM sleep the critical level of brain monoamines for search activity to start is lower than in wakefulness and alpha-2-adrenoreceptors are less sensitive than in the state of renunciation of search although more sensitive than during search behavior in waking. REM sleep indirectly contributes to memory consolidation by carrying out its main function — restoration of search activity. A functionally sufficient REM sleep contains search activity in dreams (subject is active in his/her own dream scenario) while in functionally insufficient REM sleep dreams are characterized by subject’s passive position and feeling of helplessness. REM sleep insufficiency is an obligate condition for mental and somatic disorders to appear. The difference between normal (adaptive) and pathological (maladaptive) emotional tension is determined by the presence or absence of search activity in the structure of emotional tension. Repression of the unacceptable motive causing neurotic anxiety is a human variant of renunciation of search. Hypochondriac symptoms are in negative relationships with psychosomatic disorders and they, as well as positive symptoms in schizophrenia and anorectic behavior in anorexia nervosa, represent a pathological misdirected search activity.

Melanoma Vaccines: Possible Progress After Years of Frustration?

Scientists are developing several additional immunotherapeutic methods, each with similar goals: to focus the immune response against tumors with greater specifi city and to block the natural suppressor mechanisms that tumors use to protect themselves from immune reactions. According to Paul Chapman , M.D., an attending physician at Memorial Sloan – Kettering Cancer Center, these approaches offer new hope for immunotherapy in the fi ght against melanoma and other cancers. “At some point, we might be able to use vaccines to prevent metastatic disease among melanoma patients whose lymph nodes have been surgically removed,” he said. “Or perhaps we could immunize people at high risk of the illness while they’re still teenagers, but that’s a dream scenario that won’t happen anytime soon.” Treatment Versus Prevention