5.15.2007


I studied neuroscience all day yesterday. Consequently, most of my dreams revolved around the brain.

I dreamt that there was some sort of evil scientist out there doing research. I was observing him somehow. He would force his subjects to administer an electric shock to themselves. The shock looked painful, although it wasn't enough to knock anyone over when they pressed the button to receive it (All subjects were standing, all of the time). To motivate subjects to cooperate, the scientist threatened them with a much more powerful electric shock, which he could apply to them at any time. If a subject didn't administer a shock to themselves when they were ordered to, the scientist would give them a jolt capable of sending most subjects into violent seizures. Since all subjects were held in the same room, uncooperative ones were basically examples for the rest. Compliance was high with the scientist's requests, for the most part.

I also dreamt about neglect, which results from a lesion to the posterior parietal cortex. I was treating a patient with contralateral neglect; he hadn't dressed the left half of his body and described things monocularly. It was interesting.

The last dream I can recall involved some sort of high school project. For the project, each student was given a sample of marijuana. I don't know what the project entailed, but my dream picked up on the conclusion of the project, at which time each student was required to turn their pot sample back in to the teacher. Pretty much every student was coming up with ingenious ways to smuggle most of their pot sample out of the school. This was incredibly amusing. I guess it's always funny to outwit teachers when you're in high school.

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