These questions seem irresistable. I can't wait to see other responses, but
here is how I'd answer such questions from students.
1. It's just a hunch mind you, but I think administering a tox screen to
that student would be highly illuminating...not a whole lifetime's worth of
illumination mind you, but still....<g> More seriously: even making the
assumption that a particular drug could initiate REM sleep outside of the
normal sleep cycle progression, how would that drug be able to specify the
content of a dream? Put differently, how would it specify the location and
sequence of neurons needed to fire in order to produce such a dream? And
remember that our best data refute the common belief that dream-time is
different than real-time. From my reading of the literature, events
happening in a dream appear to take the same amount of time that they would
in our consensually agreed upon reality. So...a whole lifetime in a dream
would mean that this student will wake up VERY refreshed, albeit with
wrinkles and gray hair. Talk about a drug with a long half-life! (pun
intended!)
2. There's a difference between growing neurons and growing a brain.
Consider that we've had some difficulty growing neurons. As far as I know,
until recently we had NEVER succeeded in demonstrating the growth of new CNS
neurons in vivo, whether naturally occurring or induced. Regarding the
latter, there was the recent research that showed either (I can't recall)
fresh spinal cord regeneration or successful transplantation of neurons in
the spines of rats that was viable enough to enable hind leg movement. In a
"petri dish," one can add all the nerve growth factors one can afford to
synthesize or harvest, but that bunch of neurons will not have all the
sensory input and motor feedback from the peripheral NS to which it adapts
and responds over the lifespan. Adult human brains act very strangely when
denied sensory input. Hop in a floatation tank for a demo. I can't imagine
precisely what would happen to an immature brain except to note that without
tactile input, babies will die. On the other hand, this question reminds me
of some really neat episodes from The Outer Limits and Star Trek!
3. Ignoring all the lurid associations evoked by this account of what you
heard, the idea of monkey head transplantation seems theoretically more
plausible than Q#2, although just as horrifying. If it is true that it has
been accomplished, I'd be curious to know 'for what length of time?' and 'at
what dosages was the monkey given immunosuppressives?' Was the monkey's
behavior different (or perhaps how different was it considering major
surgery) from pre-op functioning? Would the immune system, even in a
suppressed state cause enough damage to delicate pathways over time so as to
noticeably affect monkey behavior? If I had to guess, I'd tend to think that
the monkey was having a "trip" unparalleled by anything produced by LSD or
other hallucinogen. It reminds me of the idea that to experience
consciousness in someone else's head would be so disorienting because of
minor but pervasive idiosyncratic differences in how we perceive. Given
that consciousness is a function, presumably, of the body-mind totality of
information processing, and that the "body" part of the system has been
substituted for a different model with its own "way of doing things" or
individual body "culture" I'd suspect that monkey's ongoing awareness
(within the range of monkey awareness) was TRIPPING! I don't mean to be
anthropomorphic here: I'm presuming that while monkey awareness is not human
awareness, it still is primate awareness.
-----Original Message-----
From: K Jung [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2000 12:28 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: some student questions
Hello All,
I have some questions that I was unable to find answers to.
1. A student said they heard of a new drug that forces the user into a REM
state in which they live a whole lifetime???!!! He said it was called the
dream drug. . . what do you think or know about this?
2. During a discussion on the restrictions on what we are able to "know"
about the human brain a student proposed growing one in a petri dish - is
this possible??? I know tumors can be grown in this way, what about a whole
brain?
3. Related to Q#2, I remember hearing a convo on NPR with the researcher
who was able to do a head transplant of a monkey. After searching the npr
website I found nothing. I KNOW I heard this and don't believe I was under
the influence of a dream drug. Any leads here?
Thanks,
K
Kitty K. Jung, MA
Psychology
Truckee Meadows Community College
Reno, NV
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
775.673.7098
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