Problematic Solutions

Two for one sale today.

Lucid Dreams Could Help People with Odd Sleep Disorder

People who suffer from narcolepsy have more lucid dreams, where they know they are dreaming and can at least partly control the events in the dream, two new studies suggest.

Yeah...  so what else is new?

The new findings suggest that people with narcolepsy could combat their nightmares even better by enhancing their lucid dreaming ability, Dresler said.
To have more lucid dreams, people can record their dreams in a diary, and think frequently about the dreams throughout the day. With recurrent nightmares, it helps to think about the subject matter — say, elementary school — along with the thought "I am dreaming now," Dresler said.

Thereby proving he doesn't know what the hell he is talking about and is willing to publish the first idea that flew out of his ass...

I guess he doesn't realize Rubin Naiman has been pushing that nonsense for years.

Lucid dreaming is not triggered by emotional content.  It is caused by an overactive stress response.  There is a lot of cortisol and dopamine running through your brain so you never fully fall asleep.  It is an indication of immune system activity, most likely an allergy or infection.   Trying to surf it or enhance it is exactly the wrong thing to do.  And analyzing the dreams is pointless.

Get up and blow your nose and rinse your mouth instead.

(I am talking to you Dr. Dreamy, your sinus infection and trigeminal neuralgia were obvious from the very back row of the room...)


Manipulating Body Temperature to Control Narcolepsy

 “Although we found that controlled mild proximal warming using a thermosuit improved sleep, bed warming by means of a heating blanket is not advised,” Van Someren says. “The body temperature will rise to a level that doesn’t favor sleep.”
Feedback-loop-controlled systems need to be developed to continuously monitor skin temperature and manipulate the bed temperature from moment to moment in the best direction up or down. Such a system does not yet exist.

Wow that sounds complicated.    Maybe if we weren't systemically infected we wouldn't have those sleep problems and temperature control issues in the first place...