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Week 7: Neuroscience + Art

In this weeks lecture videos professor Vesna describes the fairly new fascination of artists with the brain. She explores the idea of the conscious and unconscious and how our brains behave differently in each of these states. Scientists have been intrigued by the thought of consciousness and how long we as humans have been living a conscious life.

Ramon Y. Cajal and Franz Joseph Gall were critical in showing us how the brain looked. Gall created the idea of phrenology and that the shape of someone skull indicated which part of your brain was working the hardest. The idea was later disproven but did provide a basis for future studies. Joseph Gall was credited with understanding the microscopic nature of investigation of the transmission of neural signals and of neuronal degeneration and regeneration. The tree like connection patterns he found are not only beautiful but are also extremely important.

95% of what we dream is forgotten, you dream every single night yet only some nights you wake up remembering what they were about. We have so much research yet so little answers to what actually goes on while you're dreaming. Dreams are fascinating as they are one of the moments you are in touch with the unconscious. The two people heavily associated with the unconscious are Freud and Jung. Although Jung did disagree with some of Feud's basic elements such as religion and sexuality. Most of Jung's analysis of the unconscious is associated with his experience of working with schizophrenic people in a mental institution.


There will always be more that we can learn about the brain. The way the brain works is a beautiful and powerful thing that I will never fully be able to understand.


Works Cited:
Vesna, Victoria. "Neuroscience Pt1." Neuroscience Pt1. Online, Los Angeles. 9 May 2016. Lecture.

"Phrenology." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Apr. 2016. Web. 09 May 2016.

"Franz Joseph Gall : Founder of Phrenology." Franz Joseph Gall : Founder of Phrenology. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 May 2016.

"Santiago Ramón y Cajal - Biographical". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 10 May 2016.

"Bio Art - Suzanne Anker." Suzanne Anker. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 May 2016.

Comments

  1. Baraka BeckettMay 22, 2019 at 8:44 PM

    I like how you mentioned dreams and how we only remember 95% of them. This led me to wonder what makes you remember certain dreams but end up forgetting others. Also It makes me wonder what exactly is the point of dreams in terms of our human evaluation.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownSeptember 7, 2020 at 1:34 PM

    Where did you get that image of the nested ovals model of the psyches? Trying to find out if Jung actually made that. thanks

    ReplyDelete

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