By the way ... read a section in my Pinel text for Biopsychology over supper tonight that sparked a thought concerning gorarelpul. It was the bit about the emotional response to pain being localized in - I think it was in an anterior bit of the parietal lobe? A bit that tended to get trashed in slap dab prefrontal lobotomies anyway. The point of interest was that sensory awareness of pain need not be removed by pain training in order to mute or nix the emotional reaction to it in a non-regenerative commoner. I suppose that begs the question, though, of whether awareness or emotional reaction is the thing with the survival value. The text cites a case history of a Canadian university student who had no pain of any sort and died of it. Not immediately, but by about 30 years of age. I always thought there would be risks - remember our bits and pieces in which Shatenous has acid burns on his hands? - but hadn't thought of the one that the text cited. Apparently she suffered terribly from skeleto-muscular problems because she did not shift while sleeping to get comfortable, switch legs when standing, etc. Never felt discomfort.

Speaking of that class I am taking - do you dream in multiple personalities? Glenda (instructor) was doing sleep today, including dreaming. Occurred to me, listening, that while I am not sure it is lucid dreaming in the sense the Pinel text intended, I used to very clearly be aware of / remember dreams in which I might not be able to control everything but felt I should be able to, and most definitely switched characters in the the dream - usually 3 or more times. Wonder if those sort of habits are to blame for the difficulty I have maintaining a single POV while writing.

posted by Lynda at 22:10   comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments links to this post