Study Buddy (Challenger): Why do we dream? Neuroscientist theory suggests it’s to expand our understanding of world
- Overfitted brain hypothesis says dreams act as a countermeasure to routine, allowing us to learn more about the universe
- This page is for students who want to take their reading comprehension to the next level with difficult vocabulary and questions to test their inference skills
One neuroscientist suggests that the weirdness of our dreams is not a glitch in the system – it’s a feature. Photo: ShutterstockContent provided by British Council
Read the following text, and answer questions 1-9 below:
[1] Lizards, birds and humans have a little-known commonality: they all dream. The average person has 1,460 dreams a year, about four dreams a night. The vast majority of dreaming occurs during the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep. REM sleep was first discovered 70 years ago, when researchers studying newborns noticed that their eyes moved about rapidly during sleep.
[2] There are many theories as to why we dream. Some researchers believe that dreams play an important part in regulating our emotions. Neuroscientists suggest that dreams play a key role in helping us store and consolidate memories. Even nightmares have benefits, according to some sleep scientists. They say these dreams can be viewed as a sort of “dry run” of sorts, the brain’s way of preparing us for the many challenging events that could come our way.
[3] Erik Hoel, an American neuroscientist, neuro-philosopher and author of The World Behind The World, a new book on consciousness and free will, has a new and novel theory of why we dream, outlined in a recent paper in the journal Patterns. His overfitted brain hypothesis (OBH) suggests that the weirdness of our dreams is not a glitch in the system – it’s a feature. Hoel thinks dreams occur to make our understanding of the world less simplistic and more expansive. Our dreams’ peculiarity acts as a sort of countermeasure against the routine experiences of everyday life.
[4] Hoel’s OBH was inspired by machine learning, a process that involves using large data sets to train algorithms. “Overfitting” is a term straight out of the machine learning dictionary. In simple terms, it is a statistical modelling error that occurs when a function finds itself curtailed by a narrow set of data points: it can’t process an answer if there is insufficient data from which to extrapolate.
[5] One way of counteracting overfitting is through data augmentation, a process that allows a user to increase the amount of data by essentially generating new data points from data already in place. Our dreams, if Hoel’s theory is to be believed, involve some sort of brain-based data augmentation. His OBH theory also suggests that the purpose of dreaming is to improve learning by reducing overfitting.
[6] The theory developed after he used a form of qualitative research that looked in-depth at non-numerical data – interviews and observation notes – to study people’s conscious experience while dreaming. He noticed the process was similar to the techniques that machine learning researchers used to improve the flexibility and generality of their artificial intelligence (AI) models.
[7] As for testing his hypothesis, Hoel did concede that scientifically scrutinising a theory in neuroscience “is always quite difficult”. That’s because neuroscience is not really at a point where we can conclusively prove that an idea is false. Hoel argues that evolution itself invented fiction hundreds of millions of years ago in the form of dreams.
[8] “Dreams are biologically created fictions. So if you can figure out why evolution invented dreams, you can figure out why humans pay so much attention to fictions … I think dreaming is probably, over the course of a lifetime, extremely important for sculpting the generality of our learning, and for keeping us from becoming too trained or specialised to one type of thing”.
Source: South China Morning Post, September 21
Questions
1. Find a phrase in paragraph 1 that refers to “something that is shared by many, but is not widely known or understood”.
2. According to paragraph 2, dreams …
A. are a way for our brains to process and store memories.
B. can help us practice coping with difficult situations in a safe environment.
C. serve important functions for our mental and emotional health.
D. all of the above
3. Paragraph 3 describes …
A. the research behind Hoel’s book.
B. the different sorts of dreams we have.
C. Hoel’s theories about dreams.
D. how dreams are a reflection of our fears.
4. In paragraph 4, what does Hoel compare the human brain to?
5. What does the phrase “if Hoel’s theory is to be believed” imply about the writer’s tone towards OBH?
6. According to paragraph 6, what type of research did Hoel use to develop his theory of dreams?
7. In your own words, why is it difficult to prove Hoel’s OBH theory according to paragraph 7?
8. Decide whether each of the following statements about the story is a Fact or an Opinion. (3 marks)
(i) Dreams can help us process and regulate our emotions. (ii) REM sleep is the stage of sleep where our brains are most active and we dream the most vividly. (iii) Our dreams help us break free from the mundane experiences of our waking lives.
9. Which of the following groups of people might find Hoel’s OBH theory useful in their field of work?
A. anthropologists
B. sleep researchers
C. animal behaviourists
D. dream shamans
Answers
1. little-known commonality
2. D
3. C
4. machine learning algorithms
5. It implies that the speaker is not fully convinced of the theory but is willing to consider it as a possibility. (accept other similar answers)
6. He used a form of qualitative research that looked in-depth at interviews and observation notes to study people’s conscious experiences while dreaming.
7. Neuroscience is not yet advanced enough to definitively disprove any ideas. (accept other similar answers)
8. (i) Opinion; (ii) Fact; (iii) Opinion
9. B