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WASHINGTON – A year after the Bush administration abandoned its harshest interrogation methods, CIA operatives used severe sleep deprivation tactics against a terror detainee in late 2007, keeping him awake for six straight days with permission from government lawyers.

Interrogators kept the unidentified detainee awake by chaining him to the walls and floor of a cell, according to government officials and memos issued with an internal CIA report. The Obama administration released the internal report this week.

Current Mood: truth serum

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According to the journal Science, the function of sleep is one of the 125 greatest unsolved mysteries in science. Theories range from brain "maintenance" — including memory consolidation and pruning — to reversing damage from oxidative stress suffered while awake, to promoting longevity. None of these theories are well established, and many are mutually exclusive.

Now, a new analysis by Jerome Siegel, UCLA professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for Sleep Research at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and the Sepulveda Veterans Affairs Medical Center, has concluded that sleep's primary function is to increase animals' efficiency and minimize their risk by regulating the duration and timing of their behavior.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Outskirts of Luminality
Current Music: A lot of local stuff lately...

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Do you remember what you dreamt last night? Had a recent doozy of a dream? Those memorable ones hold so many clues into our lives and the situations at hand. Dreams are like little analysts cloaked in symbolic language- sometimes more easily recognized, sometimes subliminal. Keeping a dream log for 3 years+ has been a wonderful journey. Some folks swear by a chocolate goodie, others by banana, still others by spicy foods, figs-either mission or calimyra to help bring on dreams. Dreams are the subjects of songs, poetry and scripture alike. Read the apocalyptic book of Revelations and you wonder what the heck the author ingested to have a dream/vision like that, or prophet Ezekiel and his vision of the dry bones? God communicates directly through dreams in many of the world’s religions. Of course, under the duress of persecution, torture and death one just might also have nightmares, and legend says a person’s hair can even go white.

-FULL REPORT-

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The dream stalker invades Comic-Con! It was a big year at the annual San Diego expo for A Nightmare on Elm Street and iconic horror legend Freddy Krueger. He's got a new film. A facelift. And a new man beneath the makeup.

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According to the results of a European Science Foundation (ESF) workshop, it may be that sleep therapy could help treat patients with psychosis. Experts have found that brain activity patterns in people dreaming are roughly the same ones that occur in psychosis episodes. Additionally, others have proposed over the years that a strong evolutionary correlation may exist between the two phenomena, and the scientists at the meeting have proposed that dreaming may be an efficient way to combat psychosis.

-SNIP-

The experts underline the fact that lucid dreaming and psychosis are very similar. In the case of the former, people know they are awake, but are also aware that they are dreaming at the same time. This hybrid state of mind generates distinct patterns of electrical activity in the human cortex, which can be recorded using electroencephalograms (EEG), for example. Expert Ursula Voss, from the University of Frankfurt, in Germany, argues that lucid dreaming sends the brain into a dissociated state, in which patients lose conscious control over mental processes, including logical thinking or emotional reaction.

Current Mood: crazy

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Dream within a Dream...

Ramblings from an Unstrung Mind

CIA Pushed Limits of Sleep Deprivation

Why sleep? Scientist delves into one of science's great mysteries

Spirituality and Dreams 101

SDCC Press Conference: A Nightmare on Elm Street

Sleep Therapy May Be Useful in Treating Psychosis

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