Neurological format wars

[davywavy]

In an interesting post yesterday, song_of_copper mentioned a piece of research into dreaming, and whether or not we dream in colour. According to the latest New Scientist,
People who were children during the era of black and white movies and TV dream in monochrome more often than younger people do. Apparently there is a point during childhood when our 'dreaming style' develops, and what we watch on the big or small screen seems to influence that. ,
and I find that extremely interesting.
My immediate reaction to reading this was along the lines of "of course people born 50 years ago dream in black and white - the world only turned colour in the early 1960's!", but the more I thought about that joke the more I realised the truth of it; it seems that our visual imaginative media define how our brain processes our own automatic imaginative behavoiur.
I dream in colour; I know some people who don't (or say they don't), and whilst it's difficult to know for sure what colours people before moving pictures and even photography dreamed, there are enough reports of people having vivid and colour-filled dreams in victorian literature to give us a clue.

The question this really makes me ask is whether or not our dreams have format wars? in the late seventies, did people with VHS have grainer, lower quality dreams than people with BetaMax? And do people who watch movies in BluRay and Hi-Def now have dreams in really sharp definition, possibly with surround sound?
I reckon I'm going to watch more 3-D films with lots of special effects. My dreams have beena bit dull lately and they could do with livening up. Perhaps I ought to defrag my frontal lobes first?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I find cheese to be a great help to quality dreaming. My golfing pirates dream was inspired by a hefty chunk of Marksbury.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

This is because the blue mold in cheese is related to LSD; it's a very mild dose which you don't notice when you're awake but it's enough to cause your brain to do wierd stuff when you're asleep - hence cheese giving you dreams.

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

That is very cool. I hope it's true.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Of course it's true! I'm a psychologist, you know.