Jonas Beckman

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Cafe con leche
Kabbala
Scholem
New Age nonsense
Dreams
Hobson
Cafe con leche

Are dreams meaningless? Some people want to interpret this fairly technical paper by Allan Hobson that way. Personally, I think that’s taking it one step to far.

I am skeptical of anyone who claims to be certain of how dreams work. Freud and his followers have taken a beating for several years, for good reasons. But many neuroscientists make pretty wild conceptual leaps themselves, when they use barely confirmed low-level measurements to “explain” very high-level concepts.

Is it possible to find meaning in reflecting on powerful personal experiences? If so, dreams are universally available. Just watch out for people who are dead-certain they know the best (or only!) way to think about them.

Blinded by science In a recent experiement, people are blindfolded for a week.

Outage update: my cable provider (UPC) has problems with the transatlantic traffic. I am now using one of my backup modem connections.