Month: October 2020

Tales of Dreams in Japanese Scrolls

by lcamberato

A Wakeful Sleep by Tosa Mitsunobi (c. 15th/16th Century)

“Utatane soshi emaki (A Wakeful Sleep), Artist / Origin: Tosa Mitsunobu (Japanese, 1434–1525), Region: East Asia, Date: Late 15th–early 16th century, Period: 1400 CE – 1800 CE, Material: Ink, color, and gold on paper, Medium: Painting, Location: National Museum of Japanese History, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, Credit: National Museum of Japanese History, Chiba Prefecture, Japan.”

 

“Working in collaboration with the courtier-scholar Sanjonishi Sanetaka (1455–1537), imperial court painter Tosa Mitsunobu created some of the most impressive examples of the small narrative scrolls known as ko-e in fifteenth-century Japan.”

“A Wakeful Sleep is a notable example of a Japanese dream tale. This particular scroll tells the story of a young female courtier who falls asleep while gazing at the cherry tree in her garden. She dreams first of receiving a beautiful love letter, then later, of being visited by her lover—a man she has never met in real life. The images in A Wakeful Sleep occupy an ambiguous space between dreams and reality. In this particular image we see the woman sleeping, but are left to wonder whether we are looking at the world as it exists or the world conjured through her dreaming.”

Source: https://test-learnermedia.pantheonsite.io/series/art-through-time-a-global-view/dreams-and-visions/utatane-soshi-emaki-a-wakeful-sleep/

Section of a Dream Diary with Sketch of the Mountains, by Myōe Kōben (c. 1203-10)

“Title: Section of the Dream Diary with a Sketch of Mountains

Artist: Myōe Kōben (Japanese, 1173–1232)

Period: Kamakura period (1185–1333)

Date: ca. 1203–10

Culture: Japan

Medium: Hanging scroll; ink on paper

Dimensions:Image: 12 x 19 in. (30.5 x 48.3 cm)

Overall with mounting: 44 5/8 x 19 5/8 in. (113.3 x 49.8 cm)

Overall with knobs: 44 5/8 x 21 1/2 in. (113.3 x 54.6 cm)”

Translation:

Source: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/60437

 

 

“Big Dreams” and the Science of Sleep

by lcamberato

The book “Big Dreams” by Kelly Bulkeley is surprisingly enjoyable and easy to understand. He has a knack for breaking down some heavy content into quick summaries to explain his points. Thus far, I have only read chapter 3 about the brain but I look forward to reading the whole book for my research on our next project.

The following is an abstract from the SBU library website with my own summary/response to follow:

“Abstract

‘Big dreams’ are rare but extremely vivid forms of dreaming that make a strong, lasting impact on waking consciousness. Experiences of big dreaming have played prominent roles in religious and cultural traditions throughout history. This book provides an original, evidence-based analysis of big dreams drawing on research from cognitive science and the comparative history of religions. The goal is to shed new light on the classic theory of Nietzsche, Tylor, and others that the origins of religion can be found in dreaming. This theory has always appealed to anthropologists and philosophers, but it has never been tested using current scientific research. Big Dreams is the first book to make that attempt. It builds on findings from neuroscience, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and psychology to illuminate the dreaming‒religion connection. The book provides a mapping of four “prototypes” of big dreaming: aggressive, sexual, gravitational, and mystical. Each prototype is associated with a distinct kind of emotional and physiological arousal—a fight/flight response in a chasing nightmare, an actual orgasm in a “wet” dream, a startled sensation of vertigo in a falling dream, a joyous feeling of freedom and power in a flying dream. Scientific research on these big dream prototypes has revealed a naturalistic basis for religious beliefs arising from intensified modes of sleep and dreaming. Big Dreams looks at cross-cultural and historical cases of dreams involved in demonic seduction, prophetic vision, ritual healing, and contemplative practice to argue that Nietzsche and Tylor were essentially right—dreaming is a primal wellspring of religious experience.”

***

Summary & My Response to Chapter 3: “Brain:”

This chapter provides an efficient summary of the evolution of humans and the brain. The author highlights two specific growth spurts for the brain that occurred in the evolutionary process and how this new, larger, brain has some disadvantages. Knowing these facts helps us gain a foundational understanding of the relationship between sleep and the brain. 

When I read, especially anything science-related, and the author openly admits that their field does not fully understand the topic, they gain my full respect for the admission, spark excitement in me that there is still so much more to know, and a sense of reassurance that it is okay to not know. Bulkeley states, “There are three basic ways to measure the sleeping brain: electrically, chemically, and anatomically. All three dimensions of neural activity are vital to sleep, all of them are incredibly complex, and no one has a clear understanding of how they interact with each other. To put it mildly, many uncertainties remain in the neuroscience of sleep.” The most interesting takeaway for me on this topic was that humans over all other species have the most intense sleep called “paradoxical sleep (PS)”. When you think about this it is not shocking at all since we seem to use our brains at a level other species. I thought, “of course, we do!” And it opened my eyes to how important our sleep is for us to function at the heightened state in which our evolution sees fit. 

Permalink to book in SBU Library Database: https://search.library.stonybrook.edu/permalink/01SUNY_STB/1m9tbf5/alma9917468942604856

 

Brain Fog & Insomnia

by lcamberato
Insomnia, Loren Camberato, Digital Art, 2020.

When I think about the sleep project it is hard to not think about my nights with insomnia. However, I am lucky it is not every night, and very rarely do I not go to sleep at all. I know some people who go days without sleep. I can only imagine the full extent of how this negatively affects our brains. We know sleep is incredibly important for our survival and well-being.

My first post, Something Neuro, talks about the research by Sejnowski & Oakley on the brain and their course called Learning How to Learn they mention how imperative sleep is for brain function. “Importance of Sleep in Learning” section of the course:

“You might be surprised to learn that just plain being awake creates toxic products in your brain. How
does the brain get rid of these poisons? Turns out that when you sleep, your brain cells shrink. This
causes an increase in the space between your brain cells. It’s like unblocking a stream. Fluid can flow
past these cells and wash the toxins out. So sleep, which can sometimes seem like such a waste of
time, is actually your brain’s way of keeping itself clean and healthy.

 

So, let’s get right to a critical idea. Taking a test without getting enough sleep means you’re
operating with a brain that’s got little metabolic toxins floating around in it. Poisons that make it so
you can’t think very clearly. It’s kind of like trying to drive a car that’s got sugar in its gas tank.
Doesn’t work too well. In fact, getting too little sleep doesn’t just make you do worse on tests, too
little sleep, over too long of a time, can also be associated with all sorts of nasty
Conditions, including headaches, depression, heart disease, diabetes, and just plain dying earlier.

 

But sleep does more than just allow your brain to wash away toxins. It’s actually important part of
the memory and learning process. It’s seems that during sleep your brain tidies up ideas and
concepts your thinking about and learning. It erases the less important parts of memories and
simultaneously strengthens areas that you need or want to remember. During sleep your brain also
rehearses some of the tougher parts of whatever you’re trying to learn, going over and over neural
patterns to deepen and strengthen them. Sleep has also been shown to make a remarkable
difference in your ability to figure out difficult problems and to understand what you’re trying to
learn. It’s as if the complete deactivation of the conscious you in the pre-frontal cortex at the
forefront of your brain helps other areas of your brain start talking more easily to one another,
allowing them to put together the neural solution to your learning task while you’re sleeping.

 

Of course, you must also plant the seed for your diffuse mode by first doing focused mode work. If
you’re going over what you’re learning right before you take a nap or going to sleep for the evening
you have an increased chance of dreaming about it. If you go even further and set it in mind that you
want to dream about the material, it seems to improve your chances of dreaming about it still
further. Dreaming about what you’re studying can substantially enhance your ability to understand.
It somehow consolidates your memories into easier to grasp chunks.
And now time for a little sleep”

Cubist Paintings & Stereo Blindness: Could this be a way someone sees the world?

by lcamberato

According to Tate.org one of the main goals for a Cubist painter is to “…emphasized the two-dimensional flatness of the canvas instead of creating the illusion of depth.” They also mention that Cubist played around with multiple perspectives by layering images over one another. However, if you removed the cube-like layering and just focus on the idea of flattening a 3D image into only the 2D I gather this is what it would be like to see through the lens of Stereoblindness.

Juan Gris, Oil Painting, c. 1912.

 

George Braques, The Clarinet, Oil On Canvas, 1913
“Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1902-04, oil on canvas, 28 3/4 x 36 3/16 inches (73 x 91.9 cm) (Philadelphia Museum of Art)” khanacademy.org on Cubism and it’s influences.

 

Stereoblindness: What is it? Do you have it?

by lcamberato

I was introduced to stereoblindness in Oliver Sack’s book The Mind’s Eye where he gives a detailed account of “Stereo Sue” in her self-titled chapter that shares her story, that of his own, and others. This disorder according to “medical-dictionary” can be summarized as:

“Complete lack of perception of stereopsis. It may result from blindness in one eye or strabismus, but also from some unknown cause in people with otherwise normal vision in both eyes. Stereo-blindness in some parts of the visual field also occurs in people who have had their corpus callosum or optic chiasma cut or destroyed. However, some depth perception may still exist thanks to monocular cues (e.g. aerial perspective, light and shadow, overlap, relative size).”

After reading Sack’s book I am confident that I do not have this disorder but I was perplexed by Sue’s experience when I learned she had no idea that she suffered from this disorder until she reached her college years. Like Sacks, Sue pursued a career in Neuroscience, and without her education would never have known her perception of the world differed from that of the majority. Fortunately, with eye therapy, Sue was able to gain stereopsis, essentially the ability to perceive depth perception, eventually. Today, there seems to be more research being conducted on the topic, you can even take a free test online, yet I fear the awareness of this disorder is not as well-known as it should be. Maybe this is because people seem to function fully in our world with this ailment, ignorantly unaware of its existence like Sue was? I wonder what they are missing, but I also wonder what it is like to see the world through the eyes of someone who is Stereoblind?

Did you know Van Gogh may have been colorblind?

by lcamberato

I came across this in-depth slide presentation on Art and Perception while scouring the web for ideas for our next project. Among all the fascinating points the author presents he mentions the researcher Kazunori Asada who has convincing theories on the potential colorblindness of renowned artist Vincent Van Gogh. In the presentation link, you can see more comparisons between Van Gogh’s actual paintings (image on left) against those through a colorblindness lens (image on right). Surprisingly, the latter leans more toward a realistic interpretation of the landscape. Asada’s theory totally threatens those made by art historians who link Van Gogh’s alternative color choices with his own emotional turmoil as noted in any Modern Art History 101 class.