I don’t accept the “recent findings in cog sci” mentioned (“that one of the functions of dreams is to consolidate memory and learning, by transferring mental content from ‘working (short-term) memory’ to ‘long-term memory’”), although I’m sure dreams help organize our memories.  I believe dreams have two principal functions: (1) the detonation of the potential mistakes that accumulate during a person’s daytime life while sleep paralysis prevents the process from causing harmful physical actions; and (2) allowing combinations of incongruous images and ideas to form,some of which may prove beneficial–again, in the security of sleep paralysis.  See my essay, “Mistakes, Dreams and Creativity” at /knowlecular-psychology/2470-2/ for details.

I just stuck the attempted post to Aeon above as a record of it, because one version of it I attempted to post there seems to have been rejected, and I’m afraid this one will, too.

Hmm, this one took.  Dunno what happened to the previous one.  I’m glad I haven’t become a persona non grata at Aeon because it’s the latest door I’m fantasizing will admit me into the BigTime.  (Note: I don’t italicize phrases from Rome like “persona non grata” because I consider them to have become English.)  Aeon, which is something like Psychology Today, seems to be interested in many topics I’ve been thinking and writing about for almost fifty years like dreams, beauty, creativity, etc., and its writers don’t seem peer-reviewed.  Anyway, if I can get my essay on Beauty reasonably current and entertaining, that’s where the essay will be headed.

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