Sunday, November 18, 2018

For the dreamer, the dream world is the real world, best explained in terms of the concept of mental ownership: the exogenous nature of that narrative is the result of an individual assuming perspectival, not personal, ownership of the content

B. Klein, Stan. (2018). The phenomenology of REM-sleep dreaming: The contributions of personal and perspectival ownership, subjective temporality, and episodic memory. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice. 10.1037/cns0000174

Abstract: Although the dream narrative, of (bio)logical necessity, originates with the dreamer, he or she typically is not aware of this. For the dreamer, the dream world is the real world. In this article, I argue that this nightly misattribution is best explained in terms of the concept of mental ownership (e.g., Albahari, 2006; Klein, 2015a; Lane, 2012). Specifically, the exogenous nature of the dream narrative is the result of an individual assuming perspectival, but not personal, ownership of the content she or he authored (i.e., “The content in my head is not mine. Therefore it must be peripherally perceived”). Situating explanation within a theoretical space designed to address questions pertaining to the experienced origins of conscious content has a number of salutary consequences. For example, it promotes predictive fecundity by bringing to light empirical generalizations whose presence otherwise might have gone unnoticed (e.g., the severely limited role of mental time travel within the dream narrative).

Saving regret (the wish in hindsight to have saved more earlier in life): little of the variation is explained by procrastination & psychological factors; unemployment, health & divorce explain much more

Saving Regret. Axel H. Börsch-Supan, Tabea Bucher-Koenen, Michael D. Hurd, Susann Rohwedder. NBER Working Paper No. 25238, Nov 2018. https://www.nber.org/papers/w25238

Abstract: We define saving regret as the wish in hindsight to have saved more earlier in life. We measured saving regret and possible determinants in a survey of a probability sample of those aged 60-79. We investigate two main causes of saving regret: procrastination along with other psychological traits, and the role of shocks, both positive and negative. We find high levels of saving regret but relatively little of the variation is explained by procrastination and psychological factors. Shocks such as unemployment, health and divorce explain much more of the variation. The results have important implications for retirement saving policies.