If sleep is the panacea of all ills, WAKE has found the very experts who can tell you exactly why that’s the case! On this week’s special bonus episode, Toby and TJ welcome internationally renowned neuroscientists, Professors Adrian Peyrache and Arjun Krishnaswamy, to talk about what’s going on inside our brains while we sleep. In an episode that’s part TED Talk and part HCE Talk, we break down insights into the sleeping brain, including how memory relies on good sleep hygiene, sleep paralysis, brain compasses, real-time dreaming, and how mice dream of mazes. We hear Adrien’s critique of the science of ‘Inception,’ position the Wake as the first-ever Large Language Model, and finally gain definitive proof of who the dreamer is. Oh, and with a whole section on erotic dream-infused cave paintings, this is a discussion that will definitely not put you to sleep. 

This week's chatters: Adrien Peyrache, Arjun Krishnaswamy, Toby Malone, TJ Young

References

Adrien’s bio: https://www.mcgill.ca/neurology-neurosurgery/adrien-peyrache-phd 

Adrien’s lab: https://www.peyrachelab.com/research

Arjun’s bio: https://www.mcgill.ca/physiology/directory/core-faculty/arjun-krishnaswamy 

Arjun’s lab: https://www.swamylab.com/ 

Sleep’s Hidden Superpower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbpidNKc5cw

What a Sleep Specialist Has to Say About the Dreaminess of Finnegans Wake https://lithub.com/what-a-sleep-specialist-has-to-say-about-the-dreaminess-of-finnegans-wake/

Joyce’s Book of the Dark, John Bishop: https://archive.org/details/joycesbookofdark00bish 

The Nighttime madness of “Finnegans Wake” https://argumentativeoldgit.wordpress.com/2021/10/13/the-nighttime-madness-of-finnegans-wake/ 

The Bluesky account recreating the Wake on LLMs

https://bsky.app/profile/funferall.bsky.social 

The Lascaux cave painting of a dream (including the erection)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Naturewasmetal/comments/fct360/lascaux_cave_painting_depicts_a_hunter_getting/#lightbox 

Stan Carey’s Putting language to sleep in Finnegans Wake

https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/putting-language-to-sleep-in-finnegans-wake/

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