Waking Life
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:47:02
I contemplate
relationships...

:47:05
of my various selves
to one another.

:47:07
While most people
with mobility problems...

:47:10
are having trouble
just getting around,

:47:12
at age 92,joy Cullison's
out seeing the world.

:47:15
~~Now I'm free to see the world~~
:47:40
Hey, how's it going?
:47:44
They say that dreams are real
only as long as they last.

:47:47
Can't you say
the same thing about life?

:47:49
A lot of us out there are mapping
that mind/body relationship of dreams.

:47:54
We're called the oneironauts.
We're explorers of the dream world.

:47:58
Really, it's just about the two
opposing states of consciousness...

:48:02
which don't really
oppose at all.

:48:04
See, in the waking world,
:48:06
the neuro-system inhibits the activation
of the vividness of memories.

:48:10
This makes evolutionary sense.
:48:12
It'd be maladapted for the perceptual
image of a predator...

:48:16
to be mistaken for the memory
of one and vice-versa.

:48:19
If the memory of a predator
conjured up a perceptual image,

:48:23
we'd be running off to the bathroom
every time we had a scary thought.

:48:26
So you have
these serotonic neurons...

:48:28
that inhibit hallucinations...
:48:30
that they themselves
are inhibited during REM sleep.

:48:33
This allows dreams
to appear real...

:48:36
while preventing competition
from other perceptual processes.

:48:39
This is why dreams
are mistaken for reality.

:48:43
To the functional system of neural
activity that creates our world,

:48:48
there is no difference between dreaming
a perception and an action...

:48:54
and actually the waking
perception and action.


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