http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/7700000/mike-and-sully-monster-inc-7784854-500-517.jpg Jaynes pointed out the abrupt transition in historical accounts between “visitation dreams” (in which the dreamer is only a passive participant) and the more modern type of dream where the person dreams t...

I found this article in The Christian Century (which is a progressive/mainline Christian publication), which seems like it may have been influenced by Jaynes in some way. https://www.christiancentury.org/falling-into-metaphor The author mentions that she had heard a retelling of the Fall of Man stor...

I first became aware of the Inuit sea-goddess Sedna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedna_(mythology) after astronomers named a trans-Neptunian object (basically, a mini-Pluto) after her. In Inuit mythology, Sedna is not your friend; she’s depicted as vengeful and shamans make an effort to placate her...

I’m on the autism spectrum (I was diagnosed with Asperger’s, back when that was still an official diagnosis, as a child). I’ve long wondered if it was an atavistic trait in some way, like maybe the reason people like me have a hard time fitting in nowadays is because our brains are more like those o...

I had a coworker once who regularly used DMT ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N,N-Dimethyltryptamine ) and loved telling me stories of his trips. He was quite a character. DMT is produced naturally in the human nervous system (albeit in smaller quantities than those which cause a trip). It’s also a k...

I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with BioShock. It’s a franchise of video games with a dystopian sci-fi theme. When the first BioShock game was released, it spawned a lively discussion about whether some video games should be considered art—many people argued that this one qualified. The cr...