Link Banana

Psychology Today has a great article about the errors in reasoning that (vestigial) fear causes us to make. The ten:

• Risk and emotion are inseparable.
• Fear skews risk analysis in predictable ways.
• We underestimate threats that creep up on us.
• We prefer that which (we think) we can control.
• We substitute one risk for another.
• Using your cortex isn’t always smart.
• The “risk thermostat” varies widely.
• Risk arguments cannot be divorced from values.
• “Natural” risks are easier to accept.
• Worrying about risk is itself risky.

(via Lone Gunman)

Psychology Today reports on the theory that dreams are primarily ways that people act out potentially dangerous situations that they’ll encounter or have encountered.

If the threat-simulation theory is correct, dreams should focus on the self, and when confronted with a threat, the dream self should react realistically to ensure its own survival and that of its loved ones. And so it is. We are the heroes of our own dreams. We don’t dream about other people’s adventures or about fictional superheroes battling monsters. We dream about ourselves.

If dreams evolved to simulate the threats in our environment, then being exposed to more dangers in real life should activate the nightmare function, overstuffing our dreams with threats. This is precisely what happens. Even a single exposure to a life-threatening situation can plunge a person into an inferno of post-traumatic nightmares, dreams in which the threatening event—the attack, the rape, the war—is repeated over and over in every possible variation.

(via donklephant)