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4COMMENTS
We know if pathways in the brain that connect one area to another (most often the corpus colosseum is studied) are disrupted that condition like Alien Limb can occur most classically described where the conscious brain controls one arm which is doing up buttons of a shirt and the other arm is following along under "alien" control undoing the buttons. We can lose a sense of recognition of parts of ourselves. I don't think it is only as simple as just isolating an area as there is also the phenomena of some forms of brain damage causing individuals to believe their loved one is an imposter when they look at their face (even though they recognise that they look like their loved one) but don't get the same imposter feeling if they hear their voice in isolation. This suggests there are specific areas of the brain that register specific people as familiar and maybe the same goes for our own internal voices and non verbal thoughts. If so, an area such as this malfunctioning combined with disrupted connecting pathways may be involved in conditions like schizophrenia where voices that are actually part of the individual are perceived as 'other'. Generally it seems that a lack of integration of all aspects of the Self leads to various psychopathologies.
My theory is that there are parts of consciousness in the brain that don't have a direct line to speech who's language is emotion and imagery. I suspect that dreams are the mechanism by which these functionally different aspects of our 'self' communicate with each other and become integrated to make us into more harmonious individuals.
I wonder if the part of ourselves we often call subconscious is actually the emotional, imagery based part of the brain that is actually not sub conscious but rather dominated by the verbal, rational part of the brain during waking yet still always present and during sleep it becomes dominant. Dreams that are remembered become the bridge between the two states and by putting conscious effort into recognising what the dreams are expressing emotionally, combining words and rationality with the emotions and images, we become more integrated and harmonious individuals.
This study talked of benefits of dreams that present solutions. I take this one step further and suggest that by endeavouring to understand what the non verbal/ emotional aspect of our brain or Self is experiencing by relating the dream imagery and emotion to situations our verbal/rational/waking dominant mind is aware of in day to day life, we can (and just through recognition and awareness just naturally do) come up with solutions or courses of action that address the concerns of both our rational and emotional aspects of Self. Without the analysis that connects the dreams to the reality of the waking world the dream tends to hang around generating discontent in the same way a loved one might mope around when they have issues that they feel their significant other is not hearing.
Through personal experience I have found doing this increases the ability to remember dreams, leads dreams over time to become more vivid and complex and even increases the chance of lucid dreaming. I also found that I reached a point that my inner critic, that often manifests as fleeting feelings or thoughts of fear or contradiction, had silenced and I was able to simply set tasks and goals and happily set out to accomplish them without the draining input of the inner critic. I felt like all of me was moving along harmoniously in the one direction. I got lazy and all reversed to how it was before I started the process. Any time I start trying again I can go from only occasionally and randomly remembering dreams to remembering them nightly almost immediately, though the quality of remembering progresses more slowly. It seems a bit like exercise; if you do it regularly it becomes an easy habit to maintain but it feels a bit tedious and can take a bit of effort to get it happening regularly if you are out of practice. As with exercise, starting with small regular efforts (walking before you run) seems to work. I would like to see a study into this dream integration technique that stays with people for at least 6 months. I'm interested in outcomes for those who are relatively healthy as well as those with clinical disorders who's symptoms my lessen with greater internal integration of Self.
