> An early—and perhaps the first formal—inquiry into this phenomenon was done by Aristotle in his On Divination in Sleep. His criticism of these claims appeals to the fact that "the sender of such dreams should be God"
I respectfully disagree on this with Aristotle. Dreams are sent to the conscious mind by the organisms in our gut, that is, by the microbiome. Because it is those organisms who “color” our perception of the world.
The microbiome connection is suggested to me because I believe there is a cause and effect relation between food we ate before going to bed ant the type of nightmare we “see” in our sleep. (Not sure if this applies to all dreams and not only to nightmares.)
I wish they made an experiment about this. For instance, a subject may be asked to eat cheese before going to bed. Does he have a certain type of nightmare every time he eats cheese? For instance, every time he eats cheese he may “see” a nightmare where he cannot find something that he lost.
On the other hand, for instance, when he eats a heavy meal of fatty meat, he may have a nightmare where evil powers are chasing him.
Or some other food class may trigger nightmares where he is lost and he cannot find his way. And so on.
So, the experiment will try to tie recurring nightmares to some specific food class. And this will prove that nightmares and maybe all dreams have their origin in the guts.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 17.1 ms ] threadI respectfully disagree on this with Aristotle. Dreams are sent to the conscious mind by the organisms in our gut, that is, by the microbiome. Because it is those organisms who “color” our perception of the world.
The microbiome connection is suggested to me because I believe there is a cause and effect relation between food we ate before going to bed ant the type of nightmare we “see” in our sleep. (Not sure if this applies to all dreams and not only to nightmares.)
I wish they made an experiment about this. For instance, a subject may be asked to eat cheese before going to bed. Does he have a certain type of nightmare every time he eats cheese? For instance, every time he eats cheese he may “see” a nightmare where he cannot find something that he lost.
On the other hand, for instance, when he eats a heavy meal of fatty meat, he may have a nightmare where evil powers are chasing him.
Or some other food class may trigger nightmares where he is lost and he cannot find his way. And so on.
So, the experiment will try to tie recurring nightmares to some specific food class. And this will prove that nightmares and maybe all dreams have their origin in the guts.