so do people dream while in a coma?

Are you suggesting the brain is dead when in a coma? Parts of the cerebral cortex may have reached an inactive state due to inflammation or hemorrhaging (In 100% of cases your conscious motor skills). However, as long as blood flow remains to the cortex and the tissue hasn't been compromised by gangrene, in addition to the medulla oblongata (located at the base of the cerebral cortex) automating your breathing and heart rate, I would say dreaming is very possible when in a coma and returning from the coma is also possible. Where dreaming takes place in the brain can be a little different from person to person, but if what caused your coma state caused damage to that area, then no, you won't be dreaming in a coma.

It's very circumstantial. Nothing is cut and dry like so many ignorant linear-thinking people on these forums are inclined to think.

This post was edited by Asno on Sep 11 2013 06:12am

I think its pretty ignorant to not think there is a reason. But tbh there might not be a reason but its exciting to search for one. Just about every other physiological/ psychological is rooted in something, be it in the past (predators for example) or present (attractiveness in a person for the sake of reproduction). Asking what is the meaning of life is a different question. And you are actually providing a reason in your previous post, where you claim "The brain has to remain active even when you sleep... if it completely shut down, you would be dead. Brain activity when sleeping is like the pilot light of a gas stove, there needs to remain an active ignition source for the stove to fire back up again."

I agree with your statement, but I dont think speculation stemming from experience really solves it. Thats where citing experiments and papers comes in.

i think dreaming is just our way of almost defragging our sensory input for that day. because every day our senses take in a lot of things and we cant even begin to compute it all. i think our dreams are just are way to decompress those sensations and throw out the shit we dont need.

Pretty well said.

Well...

The light spectrum allows greater absorption for our green chlorophyll as opposed to its red padres. So there is definitely some advantage there.

More on the OP: It's been revealed that we can learn and solve problems during dream states.

To clarify more on that.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/learning-while-you-dream/?%5Fr=0

But I would fathom that's a secondary attribute to having such a big brain, which would be the larger cause of this all and is directly related to a notable evolutionary scale.

So yes in the abstract, no in terms of Darwinism.

This post was edited by piddywiffle on Sep 12 2013 04:56pm

If you can answer this question definitively, you deserve a Nobel.

ah another thread about a combo of philosophy/ethics/life/death/science/politics which won't be answered and will lead to raging.

In my opinion dreaming has nothing todo with evolution. I think it could be extremelly helpful but i dont think it happened over time. U either have the brain power to dream or u dont...

On the note of it being helpful i aggre with whoever it was that said that its a simulation tool that can help u work out dofferent problems.

I think almost all of us are not capable to exploit its power yet... When we dream we dont really have control over the dream but imagine if u could actually "wake up" in ur dream.

Some dreams look unreal or unachievable when compared to our real life boundaries so if u think about it then maybe if u can learn how to awake in ur dreams u can imagine whatever u want, lets say i want a Ferrari...
And it will appear and u can drive it and what not...
Its a very basic example but if theres some truth to this it will be ground breaking as u would be able to do research in ur mind using different equipment without actually having that equipment so it could save money

The only problem would be that in ur imagination it will be hard to imagine something that u have never seen so i guess that if at some point we discover a way to use our dreams productivelly it will be done by ppl that are familiar with what they actually want to use.

Example... Lets say i want to build a plain out of wood using a perticular type of wood. (Forst thing i need to do is go and visualize that type of wood if i havent seenit before)
Then i do the same with every piece of equipment i will need and if i need any electric equipment then i ll need to know how to use that equipment.

Now that i know all of that I wont need to go and buy everything and start doing planning on how my plain is gonna be assembled.
I can dream it all and try to find the best possible way to assemble a wooden plain so that it could fly efficently.

After im done with the dreaming and i have figured out my plan for the build i can go and buy the exact amount of wood i need, all the instruments i will need to build it and assemble it in the quickest way possible as i will have already done it in my mind.

It sounds too good to be true but its not that crazy of an idea

force yourself to dream... Dreaming is the main thing we have for progress. Our brains work 100thousand times faster in REM mode..If you can daydream you live 2 days inside of 20 minutes. Why Artistic people soo dam talented they live in a REM mode.

This post was edited by doomchaser on Oct 5 2013 11:52am