HOLD THE PHONE. I'm looking at an anti-abortion billboard right now, and it's telling me that babies can dream before they're born. Excuse me? What the fuck could a fetus dream about? Pink and mushy? How would a fetus even be able to tell whether it was dreaming or awake?
I'm not trying to say that the billboard is lying, I’m sure that it's based on evidence that fetus' brainwaves sometimes match the brainwaves of dreaming adults. I'm not saying that fetuses don't dream. I'm just genuinely curious about their dreams.
Can you be said to dream if you're not even aware of existing? Can you dream if you've never had any experiences? Is it possible that fetuses have some kind of deep memory that can emerge in dreams, like a universal-consciousness sense of things experienced by ancestors? I know some people believe that certain memories are embedded in our genes, that we must remember some kind of primitive experience or we wouldn't have any instincts. Are fetuses dreaming about running away from saber-tooth tigers? Do they have emotions in their dreams? Emotions are definitely embedded in the human brain, things like fear and joy and rage are universal and hard-wired, so it isn’t too far-fetched to think that maybe fetuses can experience them. Even if their dreams have no images, can they include feelings? Can a fetus experience fear in a dream, even though it's never been afraid of anything while "awake" (whatever "awake" means in the womb)?
This is blowing my mind.
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