Post-Traumatic Learning
Jan. 22nd, 2015 08:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trickykittyI'm wondering if PTSD is just another aspect of the brain's learning process.
I've experienced PTSD, and once my brain was satisfied that it "learned" the ins and outs of what had happened to me, I stopped having PTSD.
Lolotehe linked this article about zero stroke to me, and it got me to thinking about the link between learning and PTSD, especially when it compared the phenomenon to having dreams about playing Tetris. Hell, I dream* quite a lot about any new task, job, etc. when newly exposed to it.
Particularly, we know that during the early learning stages the brain spends a lot of time and effort finding and locating patterns so that later exposures to the same stimuli will produce a more autonomous response that satisfies the needs of the whole system (namely, speedy and reactive processing so as to protect the safety of your person in the long run). That's the number one reason babies sleep so long and so soundly - they're processing LOTS of new data all at once.
* Dreams serve other unknown purposes as well. I still theorize that those purposes still involve the brain working towards consolidating the information gathered and finding patterns, which is why you dream mostly about things you've recently seen, heard, or experienced. This is especially true when it's something that "didn't quite fit" during the day and that your mind seemingly locked away at the time only so that you could wake up in the middle of the night having that Ah-Ha moment when your brain finally remembers or pieces something together. That's really no different than the PTSD Ah-Ha moment I had years ago, only I was wide awake for it at the time. The thought of dreams-as-a-sorting-mechanism came to me from my experience working as a bank proof operator and having to run the huge pile of randomized checks, deposit slips, and sundry other papers through the sorting machine via 3 passes so as to get them ordered correctly for later separation. The 3 passes eerily echoed in the typical 3 REM cycles most people have during a good night's sleep. I figured if I could find the programming code used for that machine, a similar code could be used for AI programming, which in turn would produce dream-like sequences that an AI machine could experience while simultaneously serving the purpose of helping with organizing the incoming data from the day.
I've experienced PTSD, and once my brain was satisfied that it "learned" the ins and outs of what had happened to me, I stopped having PTSD.
Lolotehe linked this article about zero stroke to me, and it got me to thinking about the link between learning and PTSD, especially when it compared the phenomenon to having dreams about playing Tetris. Hell, I dream* quite a lot about any new task, job, etc. when newly exposed to it.
Particularly, we know that during the early learning stages the brain spends a lot of time and effort finding and locating patterns so that later exposures to the same stimuli will produce a more autonomous response that satisfies the needs of the whole system (namely, speedy and reactive processing so as to protect the safety of your person in the long run). That's the number one reason babies sleep so long and so soundly - they're processing LOTS of new data all at once.
* Dreams serve other unknown purposes as well. I still theorize that those purposes still involve the brain working towards consolidating the information gathered and finding patterns, which is why you dream mostly about things you've recently seen, heard, or experienced. This is especially true when it's something that "didn't quite fit" during the day and that your mind seemingly locked away at the time only so that you could wake up in the middle of the night having that Ah-Ha moment when your brain finally remembers or pieces something together. That's really no different than the PTSD Ah-Ha moment I had years ago, only I was wide awake for it at the time. The thought of dreams-as-a-sorting-mechanism came to me from my experience working as a bank proof operator and having to run the huge pile of randomized checks, deposit slips, and sundry other papers through the sorting machine via 3 passes so as to get them ordered correctly for later separation. The 3 passes eerily echoed in the typical 3 REM cycles most people have during a good night's sleep. I figured if I could find the programming code used for that machine, a similar code could be used for AI programming, which in turn would produce dream-like sequences that an AI machine could experience while simultaneously serving the purpose of helping with organizing the incoming data from the day.
