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Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:33 am
by Dennis
There's no scientific evidence that dreams exist. That's generally known inside the scientific community. Maybe you confuse dreams with sleep and sleep patterns. But that a human sees images, and hears sounds and feel within what we call dreams hasn't been proven with scientific criteria.

So common sense would be equally important to you as scientific evidence?
Where does your sense of right and wrong come from?
I'll start a new thread for this because it's an intriguing question.

Have you always taught your child(ren) the truth about Santa Claus (for example)?

Someone once said: When all you have is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail.

Dennis

Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 8:17 pm
by Shelley
There are lots of kinds of evidence. I'd be curious to know how you define "scientific evidence." I'm not a scientist. I use a variety of critical thinking tools to weigh and evaluate evidence. I don't struggle with the existence of dreams.

I found an interesting article about a woman who stopped dreaming after she had a stroke.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3645576.stm

As to your question about my kids:
Have you always taught your child(ren) the truth about Santa Claus (for example)?
I'm not Christian. I've never lied to my kids about Santa.

As a young parent, I was not as conscious about what I was doing as I wish I had been. I would parent differently now. I asked my son (18 years old) whether I had lied to him about the tooth fairy. He couldn't recall ever believing in the tooth fairy. Maybe I told him the truth. I'm not sure. It's possible that I was not honest with my daughter (now age 21) about that. If so, I regret my dishonesty.

Your questions prompted both me and my son to remember a lie that I told when the kids were little that I also regret. My daughter refused to eat fish. I told her that the meat the I was serving for dinner was "steak." It was a salmon steak. She ate it, said it was good, and then I told her what it was. Many years later, my lie must still hurt her. She still talks about it. Also, she doesn't eat fish.

Shelley

Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:33 pm
by Dennis
Seems like we’re back at the beginning of the discussion. You said you didn’t believe in repressed memories. I gave you references to solid evidence that repressed memories do exist, but you claimed that there wasn’t real scientific evidence. Then I explained how current criteria of scientific research often don’t hold up when it comes to human behavior, giving dreaming as an example.

There are people who claim not to dream. It seems like schizophrenics have dreamless sleep. The woman with the stroke you refer to, claimed to only dream 3-4 times a week before the stroke. But her claim of not dreaming versus an examination of her brain to see what is different, is not scientific proof that she’s not dreaming. At the most, it’s perhaps common sense.

Dennis