Can I read Dreaming Souls: Sleep, Dreams and the Evolution of the Conscious Mind (Philosophy of Mind Series) on EtoBox?

Dreaming Souls: Sleep, Dreams and the Evolution of the Conscious Mind (Philosophy of Mind Series) by Owen J. Flanagan is a philosophy book available to read on EtoBox.

What is Dreaming Souls: Sleep, Dreams and the Evolution of the Conscious Mind (Philosophy of Mind Series) about?

What, if anything, do dreams tell us about ourselves? What is the relationship between types of sleep and types of dreams? Does dreaming serve any purpose? Or are dreams simply meaningless mental noise--"unmusical fingers wandering over the piano keys"? With expertise in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, Owen Flanagan is uniquely qualified to answer these questions. And in Dreaming Souls he provides both an accessible survey of the latest research on sleep and dreams and a compelling new theory about the nature and function of dreaming. Flanagan argues that while sleep has a clear biological function and adaptive value, dreams are merely side effects, "free riders," irrelevant from an evolutionary point of view. But dreams are hardly unimportant. Indeed, Flanagan argues that dreams are self-expressive, the result of our need to find or to create meaning, even when we're sleeping. Rejecting Freud's theory of manifest and latent content--of repressed wishes appearing in disguised form--Flanagan shows how brainstem activity during sleep generates a jumbled profusion of memories, images, thoughts, emotions, and desires, which the cerebral cortex then attempts to shape into a mo

Who reads Dreaming Souls: Sleep, Dreams and the Evolution of the Conscious Mind (Philosophy of Mind Series)?

Author

Owen J. Flanagan

Publisher

Oxford University Press, Incorporated

Published

2001

Language

EN

ISBN

9780195349580

Category

philosophy

Subjects

Psychology, Fiction, Self Help

Rating

3.66 / 5 (28 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14