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orthonormal comments on Dreams with Damaged Priors - Less Wrong
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That is indeed complicated, but that hypothesis isn't what Yvain was suggesting. The proposed adaptation is just that memories don't get stored as usual during REM sleep, which is a relatively simple thing for the brain to do. (Also, it's pretty clear that this actually happens.) It's then argued that this is a good adaptation for evolutionary reasons, because if we lacked it (and kept the rest of our tendencies of believing every conclusion we remember, context notwithstanding) we'd have some problems.
(E.g. an ex-girlfriend of mine who would stay angry at people who had been mean to her in her dreams, despite knowing that it had just been a dream.)
I don't have that bad a case, but sometimes I notice an emotions from a dream continuing into the next day. I drop them when I realize they're from a dream-- but now I realize that I only do that when something reminds me of some detail from the dream and I understand the source of the emotion. Scary thought-- how much of my emotional life is literally dream-based?
I've noticed sometimes that I think I've done something or I have something, but it was only in a dream. I worry that this will one day affect something important, rather than like last week my plan to have grilled cheese for lunch (I had already eaten all my cheddar cheese).
So Ben Folds wasn't exaggerating?