I looked and was gratified it cited Francis Crick and Graeme Mitchinson's paper from 1983 that had a very similar idea.
The overfitted brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalization
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Re: The overfitted brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalization
#42> Notably, the techniques that researchers employ to rescue overfitted artificial neural networks generally involve sampling from an out-of-distribution or randomized dataset. The overfitted brain hypothesis is that the brains of organisms similarly face the challenge of fitting too well to their daily distribution of stimuli, causing overfitting and poor generalization. By hallucinating out-of-distribution sensory s…
Also a bit of a jump from neural networks to brains.
Re: The overfitted brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalization
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if the brain is overfitted, how can it generate out-of-distribution samples? Seems like wildly cyclical reasoning.
The brain is a lot of different components working together. Perhaps the bits which do statistical learning are functionally distinguishable from the bits which generate permutations on the data. (This is in fact how modern neural network training often works: start with a set of 50,000 images, run them through a bunch of permutations — translation, rotation, lighting changes, etc. — and produce a training set of 1 m…
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Re: The overfitted brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalization
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those are "lucid dreams". My experience is that lucid dreams do lead to you be tired, probably because we tends to wake up after lucid dreams, though we wake up momentarily in normal life too, we just don't remember it. Maybe lucid dreaming overrides the benefits of sleep since the mind is actively engaged again. It's all fascinating, and there are no real answers whatsoever. Also, side questions: 1. Is your working…
That's the term I was looking for. Memory is good. It used to be even better (I could recite important parts of meetings verbatim when I first joined my company 9 years ago). I think I'm still above average, but I'm not sure how to rule out bias on that. I've never taken an actual IQ test. When I was 5 my verbal/vocabulary skills tested on the level of a normal 10 year old. I was curious about IQ in college and took…
Yea, I asked because ability to lucid dream (and remember those dreams) is closely tied to a high working memory. A good test for working memory is called "dual n-back". Basically, its a modified version of remembering a list of numbers / letters while the list is adding and dropping items, except with a spatial aspect. More info here if interested:
Thanks for replying without context. Oh, and the reason for the chain of events question is personal curiosity. I can usually remember maybe 3 coherent actions, but there is rarely a clear start and end to the dream that I can remember.
Re: The overfitted brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalization
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a very distinct feeling waking up thinking "I did not dream last night" vs "I had a dream last night but don't remember it" IMO
Do you have any evidence for that. It's very likely you had dreams with both experiences but just didn't realise it.
It seems more likely that the brain has some kind of retention filter on dreams to try to sort the random useless signals from, for example when you deduce the structure of the benzene molecule. Probably all humans dream every night, unless there's some major issue with sleep, but only dreams passing the filter are remembered. Those on the threshold are "remembered as existing" but not the content.
Re: The overfitted brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalization
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or you just don’t remember them.
It's a very distinct feeling waking up thinking "I did not dream last night" vs "I had a dream last night but don't remember it" IMO
I think that probably has more to do with how recently you were in REM sleep (which is when most dreams occur). If you have the sensation of waking up from a dream, whether you remember it or not, you likely woke up from REM sleep. If you don't think you dreamt at all, then perhaps you just were in REM sleep much earlier during your sleep.
Re: The overfitted brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalization
#47All I know is my dog sometimes yips in his sleep, and it can be fairly loud-- I will forever wonder what he's yipping at, or how that behavior could possibly be selected for. Brains are weird.
I thought dreams only happen durring rem and you are paralyzed durring rem stages. So you wouldn't be physically reacting to anything. I think those movements only happen in other stages of sleep
My understanding is that dogs and some other mammals don't experience the same extent of paralysis as humans during REM sleep. I don't know the reason for it, but dogs flail in REM sleep. Scared the crap out of me when we first adopted our dog. I've only ever owned cats and I thought she was having a seizure.
Re: The overfitted brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalization
#48I have too many dreams. It actually sucks since you don't get great sleep.
Have you had a sleep study? I used to have tons of vivid lucid dreams during sleep apnea. Now I have much less detailed dreams and they're less frequent, after fixing my sleep apnea. It's a bit sad because the dreams were fun, but I do feel way more rested these days.
No sleep study. I do snore sometimes, but there are times, like on vacation, when I do sleep well. Maybe I'll look onto that. Thanks!
Re: The overfitted brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalization
#49Read something recently theorizing dreams are to prevent the visual processing part of the brain from being repurposed when we sleep...
This is what I want to read an article about
Re: The overfitted brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalization
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not saying it isn't the general case. I'm saying it isn't absolute. I also am not saying sleepwalking is part of REM; I'm saying it is an example of how mechanisms for quiescence are not perfect. And since we're talking specifically about your claim about dogs, I'd like the dog reference specifically, please.
https://www.petmd.com/dog/general-health/do-dogs-dream This suggests that all mammals brain work simmiliar and are paralyzed durring rem. I'm not sure why your bringing up sleepwalking and night terrors, those don't occur durring rem, so it had nothing to do with paralysis disfunctioning And I'm not even sure what point your getting at with your comments? Just demanding sources. I feel like you can Google these thing…
I know someone who sleepwalks their dreams. People are demanding sources because you are claiming "always" when the reality is almost certainly just "usually."