Sleep / Wakefulness - Consciousness - Memory - Left / right hemispheres.

1. Sleep - Wakefulness:

Sleep - wakefulness are expressions for living individuals' double roles:
   During sleep an individual has the role as a relative whole in itself. Awake it has a role as a part of the entire whole.
   Awake, as part of the whole, she represents center - the 0-pole (half of Universe) - in relation to the surrounding world as anticenter - the 00-pole (the other half) - and is consequently fundamentally outward directed. While sleep is characterized by internal double-direction outwards <====> inwards. With this aspect it becomes natural that sleep also includes internal activity.

The outward directed component during sleep is evident from the fact the sleep is actively governed from deep centers in the brain stem, mainly from pons (Mf).
   Simultaneously, sleep is the result of active inhibition from higher levels, hence characterized by inward direction. The epiphysis dorsally (~ 00-pole) produces sleep hormones as melatonin and different types of sleep phases can be triggered from areas on higher levels in diencephalon and cerebral cortex (Nf).
   From the CSF fluid, which surrounds the brain in ventricles and around cortex, substances that trigger sleep are secreted inwards the brain, for instance γ-hydroxibuturate (Nf p. 337).
   These cavities for CSF fluid are originally the primary surrounding of an embryo = anticenter, which get built-in through the invagination of the neural tube. The internal secretion too becomes an expression for the component of inward direction in sleep.

The role of an individual as a relative whole entity in itself and two-way directed leads to internal polarizations - (as a 5-dimensional unit in the dimension model here implies polarizations to a dimension chain).
   The main polarization appears as the one between orthodox (non-REM, NREM) sleep and paradoxical REM sleep, (REM for rapid eye movements), during which most dreaming occurs.
   Number of periodic changes between the two kinds of sleep is said to be about 4 - 6, which could have connection with number of steps in a dimension chain.

Fig BM-1-133-1

This connection seems supported by later research according to Wikipedia, "Sleep" and a figure (319px-Sleep_Hypnogram_svg-Wikipedia.jpg) from this source:

      Fig BM-2-319px

Note the stepwise decreasing depth of NREM sleep towards more superficial levels as towards lower dimension degrees (d-degrees), besides the steps between REM and NREM sleep.

Adult humans sleep about 1/3 of the 24 hours: cf. the sleeping individual as a whole (d-degree 5 ~ 0/00) in itself !
   (However, elephants sleep only ~ 3 hours.)

      Fig BM-3-134-2

According to older data (Mf 1979) about 4/5 of sleep time is of the orthodox NREM type, 1/5 of the REM-type in average.* For newborn babies the quotient can be 50/50.
   *(Hardly agreeing with the figure from Wikipedia above?)

Several features make it possible to interpret the two types of sleep as expressions for inward versus outward direction as shown with the arrows in the figure below;

Fig BM-4-134-3

- Stimulation in thalamus gives orthodox sleep, stimulation of a center in pons, a deeper level, triggers paradoxical sleep (Nf p. 333). One could imagine that it should be the opposite, deeper center in the brain giving a deeper sleep, but with arrows for directions it seems to make sense. Cf. the reticular system ARAS in the brainstem.

Fig BM-5-134-4

- Orthodox sleep is characterized by a domination of activity in the parasympathetic nervous system: a decrease of blood pressure, increasing activity in intestines etc., thus by the inward direction of the autonomous nervous system (ANS). While paradoxical sleep is characterized by increasing activity in the sympathetic nervous system, the outward direction of ANS, increasing blood pressure and pulse frequency etc. (LEL).

- The activity in visual cortex increases during REM sleep with its rapid eye movements, as expression for the direction outwards, upwards the dorsal lobe of cortex, with answers as the visual pictures of dreams.

- It may appear a bit curious that muscle tonus are blocked or effectively lowered during paradoxical sleep, in spite of general muscle activation being a function of the sympathetic nervous system.
   Yet, real muscle activity concerns outer environment, and also sensory impressions from outside are suppressed.* It obviously underlines that the polarization between ortho- and para-sleep concerns the autonomous system, the inner milieu, the individual as "autonomous" in the sense of a whole in itself. (A "nuclear power plant" during reparation.)
  

- That persons are more difficult to awake during paradoxical REM sleep than during orthodox NREM sleep may seem just 'paradoxical' but shows on the simultaneous suppression of sensory signals from outer world during sleep.
   During REM phases a person can be said to exist under and inside the curve in the figure above as under a barrier, during orthodox sleep outside it and without obstacles to the surface of wakefulness. (Besides that the person is already fully occupied in its inner dreams. Dreams as mental reparations?)
   What would the curve as a barrier, defined by the opposite directions, then represent? Perhaps something like the potential barrier around an atomic nucleus?

- That different hormones give (or are involved in?) the two types of sleep is a further indication on their polarity.

- Old individuals can lose the paradoxical REM sleep (LEL). A possible explanation is that aging often implies that the force from inside (arrows upwards in the figure) grows weaker. The identity becomes more dependent on what is given from outside, the created, surrounding milieu as of memories in backward direction of time. It agrees with the findings that small children sleep more REM-sleep than adults.

EEG waves:
Scientists differentiate simplified between 5 general types of EEG waves from conscious integrating patterns to deeper NREM sleep:

Gamma waves, ~ 30 - 100 Hz — conscious, integrating patterns,
Beta waves, ~ 12 - 30 Hz — normal, concentrated wakefulness,
Alpha waves, ~ 8 - 12 Hz — relaxed wakefulness with closed eyes,
Theta waves, 4 - 7 Hz — drowsiness, transient stages I and II in sleep, more in children
Slow wave sleep, Delta waves, (1) — 4 Hz.

(Numbers from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography#Wave_patterns)

Delta waves have generally the highest amplitudes. The steps correspond very roughly as it seems to a transition from higher amplitudes to higher frequencies. An increase of the amplitude is seen as a decrease in frequency (Mf).
   The pattern is thus in compliance with the general system for nerve signals: the opposition between amplitude modulation in inward direction to the cells, frequency modulation in outward direction. Inwards towards deeper NREM sleep (as arrows in the figure above) and outwards as towards wakefulness.

2. Wakefulness - Consciousness:

The (A)RAS system in the brain stem (in upper part of the reticular system) activates all parts of cerebral cortex, and the unspecific projections from thalamus leads to general wakefulness. Hence, wakefulness can be described as radial divergence from deep inner centers.
   It may be remembered in this context what has been mentioned about "will", psychologically often apprehended as a governing force from "above", from higher centers. Will-governed motions however cannot be triggered by electric stimulation in cortex. Activity in deeper centers is involved.

However, wakefulness is not the same as consciousness. A person can be awake even without a cerebral cortex (Nf)! Consciousness demands in the first place undamaged deeper centers but also these in interaction with a cortex. "Probably" participation of both ARAS and thalamus as well as of cerebral cortex (Mf).

If the basis for what usually has been meant with "consciousness" is the meeting or interaction of the opposite poles 0 and 00 (as ARAS and anticentric cortex) and directions outwards → ← inwards, consciousness could perhaps be described as a "rebound in cortex", of "reflection", as light bounces from a mirror.
   Compare in the development of an embryo when the top of invaginated archenteron from vegetative pole reaches the animal pole and this induces the invagination of a neural tube.

Elementary emotions as pain and its opposite: anguish (as a fear for a threatening pain, cf. anguish to fall) have naturally influence on consciousness.
   Physiologically pain turns off alpha waves, gives beta waves corresponding to attention, characterized by outward direction..
   Anguish seems to block neural connections and integration and mentally imply repression, and inhibition, hence constrict consciousness. (Anguish seems to give a big disorder in normal EEG-patterns, no closer information available in here used sources.)
   If pain can be described as a lack of adequate answer from outside, anguish becomes the expression for an unanswered inward direction as the lack of supporting ground in the fear to fall. (Referring here to a book in Swedish: "The I versus the Ego. Psycho-geometry", presented in English here.)
   Both these emotions concerns self-preservation, the individual as a whole in itself, but pain its outward direction, anguish its inward direction in terms of the dimension model.
   Cortex sends impulses downwards to the reticular formation in the brain stem and can thus exert an influence on its own activity. (It has probably an impact on which psychological sense a certain stimulation has (LEL p. 199). Cf. blocking of incoming signals in stages of potential anguish.

For a person in the role of part in the entirety, only a 0-pole, a state of wakefulness, the real anticenter isn't the cortex as during sleep but the surrounding world. Consciousness can be assumed to grow through responses from this outer world - as answers on the person's own activity from "0-pole" - and thus be a question of a gradual development. The word con-sciousness (from Latin) means with - know(ledge). The answer from outside gives the word with = con.
   Consciousness in the psychological sense surely grows through increasing interaction and connections between neurons in the brain, but the brain develops through double-direction and presupposes an active, localized center.
   It's shown that the activity in the brain during drowsiness on the way to sleep doesn't disappear but gets disintegrated, more randomly spread, while wakefulness or physiological "consciousness" gives integrated patterns. This in agreement with the dimension model where the force form 0-pole is defined as the integrating one, the force from 00-pole as the disintegrating one.

Besides the physiological and psychological purport of the word consciousness, it cannot be excluded that there is a knowledge without the prefix with = con, as an "inner eye", capable of getting all the inner knowledge from depths of the own body structures, atoms and history. Even during "wakefulness" without a cortex, although without its transformations into identifying symbols and signs.

"Awareness" is another sense of "consciousness" and could be described as a special part of knowledge, integrated in the total activity of a conscious brain.

3. Memory:

Centers for creation of long-term memories are situated in areas around the 3rd ventricle, hippocampus and amygdaloid body that are parts of the limbic system. It's areas that also are connected with centers for elementary emotions.
   Memories belong to passed times, the time direction inwards, as the limbic system is inwards from cortex. Storage of these long-term memories occurs however in cortex.

Human experiences indicate that a free access to one's memories demand a position "inside" the memories, a not blocked center.
  It's surely a rather common experience that one fails a forgotten name or other such special details when trying to reach the memory as from outside - inwards, from a detailed verbal and sensory level, while the memory pops up later during a relaxed, less concentrated level; psychologically from an underlying level that awakes a bigger association area. It implies that the memories exist in outward direction from the I in the same sense that storeroom shelves surround a storeroom manager. Compare repression of bad memories.
   Hence, these mechanisms seem to indicate that involvement of deeper centers in the brain is necessary for memory as well as for consciousness.

Principally, it may be presumed as a fundamental principle that wider areas of cortex, including association areas, are integrated from deeper levels in the brain than from more superficial ones, illustrated by the gradient funnel below:
      Fig BM-6-114-3

4. Right - Left hemispheres of the brain:

3rd coordinate axes of the body, the right-left one, may probably be regarded as bilateral symmetric at first stages of the embryonic development, but several asymmetric features develop later along this axis too: in the transverse aortic arch and which side, the right (in birds) and the left in humans (Kz) that become the big aorta. Further the asymmetric positions of heart, liver and spleen for instance.
   The differentiations between the cerebral hemispheres become an expression of this polarization - with character of complementarity, both in size and in functions.

      Fig BM-7-137-1

- Spatial apprehension, understanding of 3-dimensional relations - and of emotional content in conversations - are among the functions that have been attributed to the right hemisphere.
- Reading, writing, speech and "mathematical calculation" are functions (and centers) most often localized to the left hemisphere.
   A more appropriate and general description has been said to be that right hemisphere (usually) is responsible for comprehensive apprehension, the left hemisphere for analytic functions.

Translated to a dimension chain:
        Fig BM-8-137-2

We may note that reading, writing and speech (and some types of mathematics and so called "logic") demand an ability to linear, 1-dimensional functions, which demands ability for transitions from higher d-degrees, as from 3- to 2-dimensional pictures for instance.
   The fundamental double-direction is revealed in many common transpositions of letters.
   It has been said that right hemisphere only can count to 20, that's 5 x 4, first steps in a dimension chain.

Impact of left and right halves of the brain on the function of the other half?

According to the dimension model the differentiation should also be a question of directions as marked in the figure above. Witch influence could the centers in right hemisphere and a force as direction "outwards" from these towards the left hemisphere have on the development of speech and other "linear" abilities. (Analysis as equivalent with dissolution of factors.) And vice versa; a force from left centers "inwards" on the right hemisphere? (A synthesizing factor.) Can they be regarded as two gradients in each other:

      Fig BM-9-117-3

It's left as an open question here if such an interpretation agrees with other findings, for instance from persons with only one hemisphere or where a person has got the connection between the hemispheres cut off. Such a connection for the mutual interplay between directions must in those cases have existed earlier in development of the brain or occur through deeper, underlying levels in diencephalon or brain stem.

The interpretation of right hemisphere as "the inner pole", the left one as "the outer" pole in a relation of the type 0 — 00 does agree with a theory that left hemisphere hampers emotions that arouse from right hemisphere. In the same way as elementary emotions have centers on inner levels as in the limbic system, and cortex to a big extent represent inhibiting impulses, it sounds natural that emotions should originate in direction from the "inner" right hemisphere and psychological, inhibiting impulses from the "outer" left hemisphere in its secondary role as anticenter.

Left-handed people make up about 9 % of all in our days and are said to have grown in number. It could assumably depend on less authoritarian societies, less suppression, more liberation of emotions - in opposition to the old, in language established opinion that right hand is "recht" (German), "right" as opposite to wrong (in western cultures at least).
   Cf. too in the world of etiquette the position of a man at left side of a woman and the old conception (or demand) that man is the representative of reason and logic, the woman of feelings.