Dream Poetry as Dream Work

This paper explores the relationship between dream poetry and dream work by presenting a representative dream poem, along with the text of the dream that inspired it; examining some of its poetic qualities and showing how these figured in the writing of the poem; and comparing the dream writing process to dream interpretation and to Jungian active imagination work. The formal demands of poetry introduce a unique type of critical thought into the creative process that develops the dream material in ways different from other forms of dream work. Writing dream poetry differs from both dream interpretation and active imagination in important ways, but can be viewed as a form of non-interpretative dream work. These observations are probably generalizable to all forms of dream writing and dream art.     

The Phenomenology of True Dreams in Maimonides

Maimonides' conception of true dreams posits an important role for the faculty of imagination within the growth of the intellectual self. However, unlike many modern theories of the dream, Maimonides requires one to subject the imagination to intellectual processes, in order to be able to harness the imagination for the practical knowledge. The imagination found in the dream images consists of objective graded levels based on the purity of the imagination from desire and the use of the intellect. The content of the dream is new piece of knowledge, a solution, a political agenda, or a vision for the future that needs to be contextualized within one's own life. Maimonides emphasizes the image as an intellectual object, specifically a single object and not the event. For Maimonides dreams do not give supernatural content nor are true dreams a universal part of daily life. They are extraordinary and do not have presentational immediacy.     

Darwin’s Methodological Evolution

A necessary condition for having a revolution named after you is that you are an innovator in your field. I argue that if Charles Darwin meets this condition, it is as a philosopher and methodologist. In 1991, I made the case for Darwins innovative use of thought experiment in the Origin. Here I place this innovative practice in the context of Darwins methodological commitments, trace its origins back into Darwins notebooks, and pursue Darwins suggestion that it owes its inspiration to Charles Lyell.     

How does visual thinking work in the mind of a person with autism? A personal account

My mind is similar to an Internet search engine that searches for photographs. I use language to narrate the photo-realistic pictures that pop up in my imagination. When I design equipment for the cattle industry, I can test run it in my imagination similar to a virtual reality computer program. All my thinking is associative and not linear. To form concepts, I sort pictures into categories similar to computer files. To form the concept of orange, I see many different orange objects, such as oranges, pumpkins, orange juice and marmalade. I have observed that there are three different specialized autistic/Asperger cognitive types. They are: (i) visual thinkers such as I who are often poor at algebra, (ii) pattern thinkers such as Daniel Tammet who excel in math and music but may have problems with reading or writing composition, and (iii) verbal specialists who are good at talking and writing but they lack visual skills.     

Reading the Signs by Lenin's Light: Development,Divination and Metonymic Fields in Mongolia

This paper examines two apparently contrasting cases: the imaginative effects generated by Mongolian scapulimancy practices, and the impact that the introduction of electric light had on rural Mongolians. Scapula and other divinatory items are analysed as ‘metonymic fields’ – bounded technical practices from which wider meanings are read. The Soviet-era electrification programme was designed to create the sorts of imaginative perceptions that the modernist state advocated. However, it is argued that Mongolia cannot be described in terms of a successful modernist ‘colonisation’ of the social imaginary, since this metaphor implies a bounded space being filled with particular ideologies. Rather than displace each other, narrative genres and metonymic fields have coexisted and interacted in new ways.     

Reconciling competing mechanisms posited to underlie auditory verbal hallucinations

Perception is not the passive registration of incoming sensory data. Rather, it involves some analysis by synthesis, based on past experiences and context. One adaptive consequence of this arrangement is imagination—the ability to richly simulate sensory experiences, interrogate and manipulate those simulations, in service of action and decision making. In this paper, we will discuss one possible cost of this adaptation, namely hallucinations—perceptions without sensory stimulation, which characterize serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia, but which also occur in neurological illnesses, and—crucially for the present piece—are common also in the non-treatment-seeking population. We will draw upon a framework for imagination that distinguishes voluntary from non-voluntary experiences and explore the extent to which the varieties and features of hallucinations map onto this distinction, with a focus on auditory-verbal hallucinations (AVHs)—colloquially, hearing voices. We will propose that sense of agency for the act of imagining is key to meaningfully dissecting different forms and features of AVHs, and we will outline the neural, cognitive and phenomenological sequelae of this sense. We will conclude that a compelling unifying framework for action, perception and belief—predictive processing—can incorporate observations regarding sense of agency, imagination and hallucination.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Offline perception: voluntary and spontaneous perceptual experiences without matching external stimulation’.     

三维旋进式振动疗法联合运动想象训练对脑卒中偏瘫患者上肢功能、平衡能力及日常生活活动能力的影响

摘要 目的：研究运动想象训练联合三维旋进式振动疗法对脑卒中偏瘫患者平衡能力、上肢功能及日常生活活动能力的影响。方法：研究对象来源于苏州市立医院康复医学科2019年4月~2022年4月期间收治的80例脑卒中偏瘫患者。入院后按照计算机产生随机数进行随机分配为对照组和研究组,每组各40例。对照组患者接受运动想象训练,研究组患者接受三维旋进式振动疗法联合运动想象训练。对比两组疗效、上肢功能、平衡能力及日常生活活动能力。结果：两组患者干预2周后、干预4周后Fugl-Meyer上肢运动功能量表（FM-uL）、上肢动作研究量表（ARAT）评分均升高,且研究组均高于对照组同期;改良Ashworth痉挛量表（MAS）评分均下降,且研究组低于对照组同期（P<0.05）。两组患者干预2周后、干预4周后Berg平衡量表（BBS）评分均升高,且研究组高于对照组同期（P<0.05）。两组患者干预2周后、干预4周后Barthel指数（BI）评分均升高,且研究组高于对照组同期（P<0.05）。结论：运动想象训练联合三维旋进式振动疗法干预脑卒中偏瘫患者,可有效改善患者的平衡能力、上肢功能及日常生活活动能力。     

The imagination of ‘society’ in measurements of immigrant integration

Abstract

My aim in this contribution is to clarify in which way social scientific measurements of immigrant integration operate as a form of ‘social imagination’, that is, of the routinized and professionalized visualization of social life. Through such measurements, images of ‘society’ are produced that feed into larger social imaginaries. My discussion takes as an example Dutch discourse and research on integration. Crucial to the constitution of society in the Netherlands and many other Western European countries is what I call a culturist discourse that has many similarities to racism. This discourse demarcates the boundaries of society by rendering objectively observable the non-integrated who are considered to reside ‘outside society’. The image of society thereby produced is that of a morally cleansed realm: social problems are relegated to the domain ‘outside society’, consisting of persons in need of integration.     

The Child on the Threshold of Becoming a Pupil

The functions of a preschooler's imagination that are required for a child to become immersed in the new social situation of development that characterizes the beginning of the early school ages are analyzed. The new social situation of development consists, above all, of new forms of interaction for the child with adults and other children within new primary activity—education. Imagination is viewed as a condition for the development of interaction during the older preschool ages based on a number of important indicators—the degree of development of social-communication skills and communicative competence—that underlie the “social component” of school readiness.     

Physiological Evaluation on Emotional Change Induced by Imagination

In this study, emotional changes were induced by four imaginations—pleasantness, unpleasantness, arousal, and relaxation. They were induced using situations or pictures, as stimuli for imagination, selected on the basis of subjective evaluation and were examined by analyses of the physiological signals of the central and autonomic nervous systems whether the intended emotions were appropriately achieved, and whether these emotional changes could be distinguished from the analysis of physiological signals. While participants were asked to recall each situation (for experiment 1—free recall) or picture (experiment 2—forced recall) of the four imaginations, Electroencephalogram (EEG) in the area of Fz and Cz, Electrocardiogram (ECG), Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), Skin Temperature (SKT), and Respiration (RSP) were measured. The analysis of the EEG revealed that three emotional states were classified by values of α/(α+β) and β/(α+β) and the autonomic nervous system responses, particularly the average interval of R-R and RSP. The results suggest that the values of α/(α+β) or β/(α+β) in the areas of Fz and Cz and the average interval of R-R and/or RSP can be reliable parameters to measure some of the emotional states.