Brain Mechanisms Of Dreaming | Mark Solms

Sigmund Freud was the first scientist to support the popular notion that dreams are meaningful. Fifty years later, the discovery of REM sleep thoroughly discredited the notion. Join Mark Solms as he explores the mechanisms behind the dreaming brain and what dreams really mean. In this talk, Mark will discuss where the research on sleep, generated like clockwork by the ‘mindless’ brainstem, stands today. Dr. Mark Solms is a neuropsychologist, Professor at the University of Cape Town, and author of The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness. In this episode we discuss Dr. Solms' background in neuropsychology, the overlap between modern neuropsychology and psychoanalysis, and Dr. Solms' early research on dreaming. We then discuss the illusive nature of consciousness, Dr. Solms' central arguments in The Hidden Spring that consciousness is evolutionarily ancient and grounded in feeling, and modern attempts of using quantitative methods to tackle the mystery of consciousness.