Well, this supports my own beliefs (coming from the British tradition of keeping one's troubles to oneself), and also a growing body of evidence - spilling your guts (metaphorically speaking) is not necessarily that good for you! A new study of diary keepers found those that regularly kept a diary were more likely than non-diarists to suffer from headaches, sleeplessness, digestive problems and social awkwardness, casting doubt on the cathartic theory of psychotherapy. There's a lot to be said for not dwelling on the past. I think in fact the study is a reflection of the way our memory works - research suggests that people tend to skew events more positively in retrospect, that is, as time goes on, we remember the good things, and lessen the unpleasantness of the bad things. People who write such events down, however, are circumventing this advantageous talent.

This is interesting - it looks like they've found the brain structure that governs dreaming. It also looks like we're even further away from understanding what dreaming's all about than we ever were - of course, it's not actually necessary that dreaming has a purpose. It may simply be a side-effect of the way our brains work, with no deeper significance than that.

I am, of course, an enthusiast for the amazing things coming out of the neuroscience labs nowadays, but it is always wise to put these things in context. Much of my enthusiasm derives from the fact that when I was a young undergraduate over 20 years ago, our knowledge of what actually went on in the brain was, basically, almost entirely guess-work. And, being of an analytical persuasion, I was an eager reductionist, always wanting to tie cognitive theory to the nuts and bolts of what happens in the brain. I am a little (just a little) less of a reductionist nowadays, perhaps - or perhaps not. I was also always a big fan of emergent properties - the idea that putting two things together can create attributes that were not predictable from their component parts.

All of which is a lead-up to an article I read recently, commenting on the findings of neuroscience, and suggesting the research has been over-hyped. It's a good article, and I think it makes a good point, although (of course) I still think neuroscience has taught, and will teach, us a great deal about ourselves. And I do in fact agree with Bloom's suggestion that this research will lead to a greater revolution than the idea of evolution (see earlier blog item). And I do think we will solve all these mysteries, including that of consciousness. But not necessarily solely from the research of neuroscience labs.