PHASE ONE

Where It All Began

Following the Friday session and the beginning of a new year, the time had come to erase bad habits and plan ahead with new and different approaches. Considering that documenting my work and the processes of development is not a strong suit of mine, I had decided to keep a journal as a personal diary just for that, just so I could follow the train of thought and later transcribe it to my blog (currently being done). It might've been easier to insert everything on a Google Document, but I felt like the pen-and-paper approach is much more personal and it doesn't allow for erasing of thoughts if they would have seemed a bit off later.

Either way, back to the topic. We had been tasked with coming up with a plethora of ideas, from which we could consequently feed our game ideas. Following the class exercises, I've mapped out different ideas and the additional thoughts derived from the mindmaps. We've had a set of different questions that we had to assign different ideas to.

Phase One: Bio

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?

Onions
Existentialism
Worries
Humiliation
Natural disasters
Hormonal imbalance
Relationships

Being someone that doesn't actively express their emotions (or at least not in public), this exercise was rather hard for me, despite its innately simple nature. Perhaps, it is a subconscious (or very much conscious) reflex after a series of events that might be considered "difficult" or "challenging", or just the way I'd like to be perceived. Nevertheless, I couldn't actively come up with any sober and not humorous/parodist answers, which are over-lined above. But as they say (in Bulgaria, at least), "many a true word is spoken in jest". Truth be told, I tend to cry about a lot of arbitrary things with the occasional serious topic popping up because I don't tend to take things that seriously in (my own) life.

Going back to the outlined topics, I'd probably have to shed some light. Onions were the first thing to come to mind because they have the same effect on everyone - making them cry. Be it someone at home, cooking up a tasty dinner, or a small child taking it for an apple, its effect is mostly the same.

When talking about humiliation, I was thinking about the constant need of society to expose each other, hanging everyone's dirty laundry in front of the whole world. Branding it as something truthful and noble, in the case this exposure is about someone notorious or someone in a position of power, people often forget that there are human beings behind every politician, superstar, YouTuber, murderer, student, parent, child. And as such, we are prone to make mistakes, for it is part of our nature. Of course, there are good cases of exposure and humiliation, but I feel like modern-day society wishes to bring everyone down more than anything.

Natural disasters is one of those "random" subjects that have made me cry, probably closely intertwined with hormonal imbalance. I remember when I was watching a video on YouTube about at-the-time floods in Greece, which then spiraled towards videos of tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural phenomena. It is strange how after something so widely affecting we usually go back to our daily routines, just like the rest of the living species, for we are simply incapable of doing anything about it, apart from dust ourselves and start anew. And, of course, think if we might've caused said disaster, climate change and all that jazz (which I think people are crediting themselves too much for).

And going down the drain to the last subject, relationships, there isn't much to say. Everyone's been through break-ups, everyone's been worried or had a conflict with a relative, which unraveled into countless hours of tears and sobbing. Which, again, goes down to the way we've been programmed, where "blood is thicker than water", or when our bodies exert physical pain onto themselves when we find ourselves in emotional pain, and our brain simply cannot make sense of the situation.

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Phase One: Quote

"This has been quite helpful for my thoughts already, and I begin to see resurfacing themes that I will probably come back to later."

Journal Note

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WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?

People
Animals
Comedies
Jokes
Babies falling over
Wordplay
Silly mistakes

Normal to every human, it is only natural to find laughter from the surrounding environment. That includes both people and animals, which then derives into comedies and jokes, wordplay and silly mistakes. Funny things are probably the most often found subject from everything listed, as it inherently correlates with happiness and that "good feeling". Of course, talking about humour in some sort of a limit, rather than a satiric or hyperbolic joke that most often ends on the back of the subject of the joke. Even though, technically, that is still something that makes people laugh.

Laughter and jokes are probably one of the most common defence mechanism when dealing with trauma, and is often used to ridicule social norms that would otherwise be considered rude or inappropriate to question. It is interesting how everything nowadays is so closely intertwined with each other, and the simple act of laughter might bring up a variety of different emotions or reactions, be it anger or sadness from the subject of the joke, for example.

I would say that laughter is the most common emotion, inherent to each and everyone, no matter whether or not the act of it is in a good or bad will. It is the most egoistic of all emotions, in its pursuit of personal happiness and satisfaction.

WHAT MAKES YOU EXCITED?

Food
Payday
Competition
Planning
New discoveries
Series (games, movies, TV, books)

Perhaps the most difficult question for me, excitement is not a feeling I can say I have in excess. I don't want to go too deep into the subject to explain as to why I feel the way I feel, but I can just say I am quite content with life and its tides, and I usually tend to go with the flow. Not to say I completely lack it, but I am far from the most enthusiastic person in the world.

From the few things that make the list, competition definitely is something I am interested in. It is a natural feeling that's been developed for thousands of years with the whole concept of "survival of the fittest", and it is also a good way to see what lies beneath the layer and layers of social norms and conventions. Everyone loves to win, everyone loves approval and affirmation of their skills, but everyone deals differently obtaining said win, as well as they behave differently when they lose.

As for the second subject I've listed, series, I suppose it extends more to the whole idea of art and human creations - something that differs us from the rest of the animal kingdom. Where do all these ideas come from, how did they surface and what do they give us? Questions we might not ever fully understand completely, but which are a constant part of us, surrounding us and nurturing us every day. Human creations.

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WHAT STIMULATES YOU INTELLECTUALLY?

Drugs
Debates
Reading studies
Books
Documentaries
Stories

Before jumping to any conclusions, no, I don't mean any hard addictive substances, even though they've been known to stimulate the brain in ways that it wouldn't usually work. Since ancient times, shamans and elder priests would intake such substances in order to foresee events or reach a higher level of consciousness where they seem to be communicating with a higher being. Of course, the credibility of such instances is questionable, but the effects are still there.

When talking about drugs I imply a softer version of those breakthroughs, through the consumption of chocolate, coffee and tea. Perhaps, their effect is in the same family as the above-mentioned, but their power is simply weaker. Nevertheless, they still stimulate the brain to think and think and think...

The second point is debates, which surround the exchange of information on the same subject, where both sides give insight to a different point of view. Somewhere there, along the heated lines, the truth of a subject lies, of course, unless it progresses into an argument.

Falling into a similar group/family, stories, too, are a way of exchanging information. Perhaps, in a more descriptive and sometimes biased way, they serve as a way of communication, be the story a gossip between friends, an ancient tale or a movie script.

In all of that, I can say that what fascinates me the most is the thought of how things came to be the way they are nowadays, or in history. "Why are certain things the way they are in society" is maybe a simpler question to answer, but things like "why is the sky blue" or "why do birds communicate through songs" are a much harder topic. Of course, all of those questions could be swept away with the simple saying "it's just the way it is", and perhaps that is true, but the endless expanses of the human brain and imagination will never be satisfied with that answer. We've been programmed to search for the meaning of everything, constantly scouring for an answer in everything, and meaning as well. And through that intellectual expansion, we create newer and newer inventions, we progress in social constructions and ways of thinking. Which is quite the remarkable thing in itself, but sad as well, for when do we stop this endless pursuit? Where will it lead us? Do we actually need it? There is a multitude of other species that simply don't think about such concepts.

But I will end this monologue here, because I can go about it for ages.

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WHAT INTERESTS YOU?

Writing
Crafts
Drawing
Anthropology
History
User-centred design
Occult
Human beliefs
Games
Reading

Taking in the rant from the previous question, it is easy to plug in history, anthropology and the occult into topics that interest me, because they touch on the subject of the human race, its origin, its progress and way of thought, taking in both scientific facts and religious beliefs. Drawing in the card of contradictions from the DNA table myself, and through the social effects that have shaped me the way I am today, I can't help but find myself in constant doubts in my beliefs. From one side, I am a child that grew up in the 21st century, meaning that the exposure to scientific facts is larger, and not everything is a random payback for something you may or may not have done in a previous lifetime. But on the other hand, coming from a religious family has brought me up to believe in the existence of higher powers that control our lives, and there are things simply far from our grasp and perception. This constant shift between one and the other is challenging to live with, as it constantly pushes one to search for information, only to gradually realise that one doesn't know anything (like the Archimedes' circles). As the inner circle (things one knows) enlarges, so does the outer (things one wants to know).

And having chosen my field of professional advance in games design, it is only evident that I am interested in games. It is the newest form of mass entertainment and art, of course, the modern definition of games. And just like any other media of art, it tells a story, communicates a problem, or simply exists to entertain (just like writing).

WHAT ANGERS YOU?

Environmental unawareness
People walking slow
Motorway traffic
Ignorance
Failure
Bullying
Inequality
This task

Anger is quite a powerful emotion, which I don't tend to rely on because it most often leads to irrational decisions. But I can still say that the occasional slip occurs here and there with slow walkers, but that feeds into the general frustration I have with people unaware of their environment. That extends from people unable to understand that they are not the only pedestrians on the street, to the social instances of emotionally illiterate individuals or nature-harming corporations and their effects on the environment. I suppose that feeds into ignorance and its possible deviations in different circumstances.

As far as failure goes, I can't say I am particularly bothered by it, but it was something that popped into my mind when thinking of competitive games. Yes, I am a bit of a sore loser.

Inequality is another subject that stirs the pot for me, closely intertwined with history and the result of so many questionable choices. In all those examples, people have tried to push themselves on top of each other, unable to realise that we are part of one thing - humanity. But I guess that is something natural, for it does reoccur in nature as well.

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FURTHER IDEATION

Moving Forward

Before hurling myself into a loop of decision making in regards to the choice of the 4 ideas I am interested in exploring, I thought it might be helpful to use the exercise from the workshop and design a set of questions that could guide me to a better choice. The subject of this initial study is going to be onions:

What is an onion?
Where does the term originate from and does it have similar pronunciations in other languages?
How, where and why is it used
When was it found?
Has its usage changed over time?
What is the most "nontraditional" way it is used?
Does it bear any unique qualities?
How is it represented in different media?
What is its significance globally?
Has it evolved?
Is it symbolic in any way?

Even for such a simple thing as an onion, one can come up with a variety of questions, which lead to new fields of research and interesting opinions. For example, I cannot help but think about The Adventures of the Little Onion by Gianni Rodari - a children's story about the struggle of the underclass against the powerful, good versus evil, and the importance of friendship in the fall of difficulties. And while the usage of onion as the main character might be simply due to an allegoric transaction of real-life problems into a language understandable by children, it still shows us the many layers behind social interaction, like the coats of an onion.

But going back to the choice of a theme, I can say that I already see a reoccurring theme along all of the brainstorming and deliberation in the previous pages. And while it might be too early to pin down the final idea from now, I'd like to explore topics that touch upon parts of it:

world foundation - how was the world created in different religions and science theses;
social structures, interactions and conventions - how has society changed throughout the ages and what has affected it;
artistic expressionism and superstitious beliefs - how are they defined through the imagination of people and its effect on them;
the nature of humankind - what natural instincts still exist nowadays that we simply cannot erase and how were instincts subdued by social norms;
communication in nature - how do animals and plants express certain notions and what are widely known signals that exist throughout the continents;
extraterrestrial life - is there life beyond Earth and what could it possibly be;
astrology - what's the effect of the universal positioning of planets on humanity if any.

After discussing the gathered subjects of interest with the rest of the class, I was guided to pick narrower topics, considering the width and length of some that I've previously chosen. Pinpointing and extracting exactly what interested me in the notes, I settled down on Superstitious Beliefs, Astrology, Communication in Nature and Dreams.

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SUPERSTITIOUS BELIEFS

Superstition is any belief or practices that is generally considered irrational or supernatural, for example: if it arises from ignorance, a misunderstanding of science or casualty, a positive belief in fate or magic, or fear of the unknown. It is commonly applied to beliefs and practices surrounding luck, prophecy, spiritual beings, and the belief that future events can be foretold by specific unrelated prior events. It is often used to refer to a religion not practised by the majority of a given society, regardless of whether the prevailing religion contains alleged superstitions.

While the formation of the Latin word means "to stand over, stand upon; survive" (super-stare), its original intended sense can be interpreted as "standing over a thing in amazement or awe". Other possibilities have been suggested, e.g. the sense of excess, over scrupulousness or over-ceremoniousness in the performing of religious rites, or else the survival of old, irrational habits.

Greek and Roman polytheists, who modelled their relations with the gods on political and social terms, scorned the man who constantly trembled with fear at the thought of the gods, as a slave feared a cruel master.

Diderot's Encyclopedie defines superstition as "any excess of religion in general", and it links it specifically to paganism.

The current Catechism of the Catholic Church considers superstition sinful in the sense that it denotes "perverted religion", as a demonstrated lack of trust in divine providence, and a violation of the first of the Ten Commandments.

In 1948, behavioural psychologist B. F. Skinner published an article in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, in which he described his pigeons exhibiting what appeared to be superstitious behaviour. Because these behaviours were all done ritualistically in an attempt to receive food from a dispenser, even though the dispenser had already been programmed to release food at set time intervals regardless of the pigeons' actions, Skinner extended these actions as the nature of superstitious behaviour in humans.

"Some pigeons responded up to 10000 times without reinforcement when they had originally been conditioned on an intermittent reinforcement basis. Compared to the other schedules, these behaviours were also the most resistant to extinction. This effect of partial reinforcement means that, whenever an individual performs an action expecting a reinforcement, and none seems forthcoming, it actually creates a sense of persistence within the individual. This way the individual feels that, by continuing this action, they will be rewarded; or that this may be one of those times that a reward is received, simply because it has come at certain times in the past as a result of this action."

From a simpler perspective, natural selection will tend to reinforce a tendency to generate weak associations that are overgeneralised. If there is a strong survival advantage to making correct associations, then this will outweigh the negatives of making many incorrect "superstitious" associations.

People seem to believe that superstitions influence events by changing the likelihood of currently possible outcomes rather than by creating new. In sporting, for example, a lucky ritual or object is thought to increase the chance that an athlete will perform at the peak of their ability, rather than increasing their overall ability at a said sport.

Psychologist Stuart Vyse has pointed out that until about 2010 "most researchers assumed superstitions were irrational and focused their attentions on discovering why people were superstitious." Vyse's preliminary work has indicated that such rituals can reduce stress and thereby improve performance, but "...not because they are magic, but because they are rituals... there is no real magic, but there is a bit of calming magic in performing a ritualistic sequence before attempting a high-pressure activity."

Events are usually attributed to supernatural causes most often under two circumstances:

People are more likely to attribute an event to a superstitious cause if it is unlikelier than if it is likely. The more surprising the event, the more likely it is to evoke a supernatural explanation. This stems from a basic desire to exert control over one's environment, and attributing an event to a superstitious cause may give people some sense of control and ability to predict what will happen in their environment.
An event is more likely to be considered superstitious if it's negative, rather than positive, also known as negative agency bias.

Common superstitions from across the world include knocking on wood, the evil eye, black cats/birds, sitting at the corner of a table, purse/wallet on the ground, broken mirrors and photographs.

References:

ASTROLOGY

Astrology is a pseudoscience that claims to divine information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the movements and relative positions of celestial objects. It has been dated to at least the 2nd millennium BCE and has its roots in calendar systems used to predict seasonal shifts and interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Important in many and diverse cultures (Hindu, Chinese and Mayan), it's developed elaborate systems for predicting events. Western astrology can trace its roots to 19th-17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from which it spread to Ancient Greece, Rome, the Arab world and eventually Central and Western Europe. Contemporary astrology is often associated with systems of horoscopes that explain aspects of a person's personality and predict events in their lives based on the celestial objects.

Throughout most of its history, astrology was considered a scholarly tradition and was common in academic circles, often in close relation with astronomy, alchemy, meteorology and medicine. However, following the end of the 19th century and the wide-scale adoption of the scientific method, astrology has been successfully challenged on both theoretical and experimental grounds and has been shown to have no scientific validity or explanatory power, thus losing its academic and theoretical standing.

There is no proposed mechanism of action by which the positions and motions of stars and planets could affect people and events on Earth that does not contradict well understood, basic aspects of biology and physics. Those that continue to have faith in astrology are susceptible to confirmation bias, meaning that they tend to selectively remember predictions that turn out to be true, and do not remember those that turn out false. Another, separate form of confirmation bias also plays a role, where believers often fail to distinguish between messages that demonstrate special ability and those that do not.

Under the criterion of falsifiability first proposed by the scientific philosopher Karl Popper, astrology is "pseudo-empirical" in that "...it appeals to observation and experiment, but does not come up to scientific standards." In contrast, the philosopher Thomas Kuhn argued that it was not the lack of falsifiability that makes astrology unscientific, but rather its process and concepts are non-empirical. In his eyes, astrology is not science because it was always more akin to medieval medicine: astrologers followed a sequence of rules and guidelines for a seemingly necessary field with known shortcomings, but they did not research because the fields are not amendable to research, and so "...they had no puzzles to solve and therefore no science to practice." An astrologer could only explain away failure, but could not devise the astrological hypothesis in a meaningful way.

Astrology has also not demonstrated its effectiveness in controlled studies and has no scientific validity. One famous experiment included 28 astrologers who were asked to match over a hundred natal charts to psychological profiles generated by the California Psychological Inventory questionnaire. The study found that predictions based on natal astrology were no better than chance and that the testing "...clearly refutes the astrological hypothesis." Another example is the experiment conducted by Michel Gauquelin, who allegedly applied selective bias in claiming that the diurnal position of Mars in the natal charts signified athletic success, which became known as the Mars Effect. A consequent study conducted by seven French scientists attempted to replicate the claim but found no statistical evidence.

Testing the validity of astrology can be difficult because there is no consensus among astrologers as to what astrology is or what it can predict, as most horoscopes only make vague untestable statements that can apply to almost anyone. Many claim that astrology is scientific while proposing conventional causal agents such as electromagnetism and gravity. Scientists reject these mechanisms as implausible since, for example, the magnetic field, when measured from Earth, of a large but distant planet such as Jupiter is far smaller than that produced by ordinary household appliances.

Objections to astronomy date back to ancient times too. Cicero stated the twins' objections, later developed by Saint Augustine. He argued that since that other planets are much more distant from Earth than the Moon, they could have only very tiny influence compared to the Moon's effect on tides and animals. He also argued that if astrology explains everything about a person's fate, then it wrongly ignores the visible effect of inherited ability and parenting, changes in health worked by medicine, or the effects of the weather on people. Carneades argued that belief in fate denies free will and morality; that people born at different times can all die in the same accident or battle' and that contrary to uniform influences from the stars, tribes and cultures are all different.

Nevertheless, there are studies that affirm the influence of astrology despite its unbelievable nature nowadays. Apart from Michel Gauquelin's statistical research, which indicated the correlation of a person's profession to an "aspected" position of a planet in a natal chart, there have been others to take onto the mantle of astrological research. A professor of biology at the Northwestern University of Illinois, Frank Brown, went out to find the answer behind the non-explainable nature of biological clocks, producing evidence for a theory that organisms respond to rhythms beyond the surface of the earth. Professor Brown showed that a rat in a darkened cage was twice as active when the invisible moon was above the horizon as when it was beneath it - proving that astrologers have been correct in their forecasts of full moon affecting the insane. Another experiment of his was the placement of Atlantic oysters in darkened containers in Evanston, Illinois. Within a fortnight, the oysters were opening and closing their shells to what would have been the tidal rhythm of Evanston, if there had been any tides there. The experiment led to a massive study of living organisms, which found that all those tested were sensitive to rhythms whose origin could only be the Sun and Moon.

There are a number of experiments to show that man also responds to such external influences, as Dr Leonard J. Ravitz of Duke University measured the electrical potential emitted by the Moreover, he found that the changes were more violent among more disturbed subjects. Another study of Dr Edson Andrews over a thousand cases proved that hemorrhaging of patients was definitely relatable to the phases of the moon.

Dr Eugen Jones, a Czech psychiatrist, noticed that many female patients manifested cycles of unusual vitality and sexuality independent of menstrual cycles. Taking this as the subject of his research, as well as deformed, defective and under-developed children, he came to the following conclusions:

The ability to conceive of a mature woman tends to occur under exactly the phase of the moon that prevailed when she was born.
The sex of a child depends on whether, at the time of the conception, the moon is in a positive or negative field of the ecliptic.
The viability of the embryo is greatly influenced by the positions of the celestial bodies at the time of conception.

Jonas has written that the at-first fantastic conclusions, thousands of observations confirmed their veracity. His research has allegedly enabled him to predict the sex of future offspring with up to 90% accuracy; he can predict for otherwise barren women days on which they can conceive, as well as the days likely to produce deformed or defective children.

In the end, whether a person is influenced largely falls on their belief, considering the conflicting and broad nature of astrology. At least until we can find a definite justification on whether or not it is true, although that extends to many theories, beliefs, religions, and other products of the human mind.

References:

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COMMUNICATION IN NATURE

The ability to effectively communicate with others plays a critical role in nature, and while animals might not verbally express their emotions as humans do, and their body language considerably differs too, communication systems are involved.

Animal communication is classically defined as occurring when "...the action of or cue given by one organism [the sender] is perceived by and thus alters the probability pattern of behaviour in another organism [the receiver] in a fashion adaptive to either one or both the participants." While both a sender and receiver must be involved for communication to occur, in some cases only one player benefits from the interaction. For example, female Photuris fireflies manipulate smaller male Photinus fireflies by mimicking the flash signals produced by Photinus females. When males investigate the signal, they are voraciously consumed by the larger firefly. Alternatively, in the case of fringe-lipped bats and tungara frogs, the receiver is the only player that benefits the interaction. Male tungara frogs produce advertisement calls to attract females, while eavesdropping fringe-lipped bats detect the information as well and use it to locate and capture the frogs. In an all-benefiting scenario, male greater sage grouse produce strutting displays that are energetically expensive, and females use this honest information about male quality to choose which individual to mate with ("true communication").

Animals use a variety of sensory channels for communication. Visual signals are very effective for animals that are active during the day, and some are permanent advertisements, while others are actively produced by an individual under appropriate conditions. For example, the bright red epaulettes of male red-winged blackbirds are important for territory defence, while male green anoles bob their head and extend a brightly coloured throat fan when signalling territory ownership.

Acoustic communication is also exceedingly abundant, likely because sound can be adapted to a wide variety of environmental conditions and behavioural situations. Sounds can be varied in amplitude, duration and frequency structure, all of which impact how far the sound will travel and how easily the receiver can localise the position of the sender. A particularly specialised form of acoustic communication is seen in microchiropteran bats and cetaceans that use high-frequency sounds, which returning echo is detected and processed, ultimately allowing the animal to build a picture of their surroundings and make very accurate assessments.

Compared to the previous two, chemical signals travel much more slowly since they must diffuse from the point source of production. Yet, these signals can be transmitted over long distances and fade slowly once produced, often being the higher choice than visual cues. Chemical communication is also critical in the lives of other animals, especially those specialised in their vomeronasal organ that is used exclusively to detect chemical cues (elephants detecting fertilisation in urine).

Tactical signals, in which physical contact occurs between the sender and receiver, can only be transmitted over very short distances. It is often very important in building and maintaining relationships among social animals. For example, chimpanzees that regularly groom others are rewarded with greater levels of communication and food sharing.

Electrical signalling is the ideal mode of communication for aquatic animals living in murky waters. Foraging sharks have the ability to detect electrical signals using specialised electroreceptor cells in the head region, which are used for eavesdropping on the weak bio-electric fields of prey.

Some of the most important/extravagant signals play important roles in sexual advertisement and mate attraction. Successful reproduction requires identifying a mate of the appropriate species and sex, as well as assessing indicators of male quality. Males that do not produce such visual signals have little chance of securing a mate, and while females are generally the picky sex due to greater reproductive investment, there are species in which sexual roles are reversed and females act as the senders.

Communication signals also play an important role in conflict resolution, including territory defence. When males are competing for access to females, the costs of engaging in physical combat can be very high; hence natural selection has favoured the evolution of systems that allow males to honestly assess the fighting capability of their opponents.

Signals are often critical for allowing animals to relocate and accurately identify their young. In species that produce altricial young, adults regularly leave their offspring at refugia, such as nests, to forage and gather resources. Upon returning, adults must identify their own offspring, which can be especially difficult in highly colonial species; thus they use spatial memory, acoustic signalling and chemical signalling.

Many animals rely heavily on communication systems to convey information about the environment to con-specifics, often alarming about the presence of a specific type of predator. Such systems are also used for facilitating the integration of individuals into a group and maintaining cohesion. In group-living species that form dominance, hierarchies, it is critical for maintaining improved relationships between dominants and subordinates. Communication plays part in coordinating group movements as well.

Contact calls, which inform individuals about the location of group mates that are not in visual range, are used by birds and mammals.

Overall, communication studies not only give us insight into the inner world of animals but allow us to answer evolutionary questions. As an example, when two isolated populations exhibit divergence over time in the structure of signals used to attract mates, reproductive isolation can occur. This means that even if the populations converge again in the future, the distinct differences in critical communication signals may cause individuals to only select mates from their own population. A thorough understanding of animal communication systems can also be critical for making effective decisions about the conversation of threatened and endangered species.

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DREAMING

A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not fully understood, although they have been a topic of scientific, philosophical and religious interest, wrapping up in superstitious interpretations in search of underlying messages, as well as oneirology.

Dreams mainly occur in the rapid-eye-movement stage of sleep, when brain activity is high and resembles that of being awake. This phase of sleep is unique to birds and mammals, distinguishable by random/rapid movements of the eyes, accompanied by low muscle tone throughout the body and the propensity of the sleeper to dream vividly. It is also known as paradoxical sleep because of physiological similarities to waking states, including rapid, low-voltage desynchronised brain waves.

The length of a dream can vary; they may last for a few seconds or approximately 20-30 minutes. The average person has three to five dreams per night, and some may have up to seven; however, most dreams are immediately or quickly forgotten, and people are more likely to remember the dream if they are awakened during REM stage.

Opinions about the meaning of dreams have varied and shifted through time and cultures. Sigmund Freud, who developed the psychological disciplines of psychoanalysis, wrote extensively about the dream's manifestation of one's deepest desires and anxieties, often relating to repressed childhood memories or obsessions. He believed that virtually every dream topic, regardless of its content, represented the release of sexual tension; furthermore, he developed a psychological technique of interpretation and devised a series of guidelines.

In modern times, dreams have been seen as a connection to the unconscious mind, ranging from normal and ordinary to overly surreal and bizarre. Their events are generally outside the control of the dreamer, with the exception of lucid dreaming where the dreamer is self-aware.

In Ancient History, dreams were always held to be extremely important for divination, seen as a means of seeing into other worlds or receiving a divine message. It was thought that the soul moved out of the body of the sleeping person and actually visited the places or people the dreamer saw in their sleep. People with vivid and significant dreams were thought blessed and were considered special, often "incubating" their sleep in temples and shrines.

During most dreams, the person dreaming is not aware they are dreaming, no matter how absurd or eccentric the dream is. The reason for this may be that the prefrontal cortex, the region of the brain responsible for logic and planning, exhibits decreased activity during dreams. This allows the dreamer to more actively interact with the dream without thinking about the consequences, since usually noticeable in real life things blend in with the dream scenery.

This, however, is not the case of lucid dreaming, where the dreamer may gain some amount of control over the dream characters, narrative and environment. The first step to achieve this is recognising one is dreaming. This recognition might occur in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is an area deactivated during REM sleep and where working memory occurs. Once this area is activated, the dreamer must be cautious to let the dream continue, but be conscious enough to remember that it is still a dream. It's been found that when subjects were counting or singing in their lucid dream, the appropriate hemispheres were responding during each activity. And while these dreams were often practised by monks for revelation and communication with the divine in the past, or allegedly by shamans and witches to dream walk into another's dreams, it's nowadays used as a form of therapy or search of the creative.

The ability to dream is embedded in the biology of many animals, such as monkeys, dogs, cats, rats, elephants, shrews, birds, reptiles. Dolphins experience minimal REM, while humans are in the middle of the scale, with armadillo and the opossum being the most prolific dreamers. And while dreaming is closely intertwined with sleeping, and the latter's function is well studied, the former remains an unknown territory.

Some scientists argue that from a Darwinian perspective, dreams serve some sort of a purpose of biological requirement, providing benefit for natural selection. In 2000, Antti Revonsuo, a professor at the University of Turku in Finland, claimed that dream would prepare humans for recognising and avoiding danger by presenting a simulation of threatening events. According to his colleague Ioannis Tsoukalas, dreaming is related to the reactive patterns elicited by encounters with predators, evident in the control mechanisms of REM sleep.

Earlier research and theories speculate of the psychological meaning of dreams, such as Freud's perception, later challenged by Carl Jung as he described dreams as messages of revelations that can uncover and help to resolve emotional or religious problems and fears. Fritz Perls presented his theory of dreams as projections of parts of the self that have been ignored, rejected or suppressed. In 1976, John Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley proposed that dreams were simply synthesis and interpretation of emotions, sensations and memories by the brain, as it tries to make sense of changes in the physical environment or physical stimuli.

In conclusion, despite being quite a common occurrence in our lives, dreaming remains a partially unknown and unresolved subject, as the opinions of it vary as from different perspectives of different fields (science vs. spiritualism), so from different theories of the same field (Freud vs. Jung).

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PHASE CONCLUSION

Wrapping It Up

Having rounded up the first set of ideas that interested me, I started by exploring and researching superstitious beliefs and their interpretations. I didn't want to go too deep into the definitions and meanings of every superstition in different countries, but, rather, explore the driving force behind the formation of such.

Considering that superstitions were a part of different civilisations, cultures and countries for centuries, it was interesting to explore the modern definition of such. Their close connection to confirmation bias, which explains that people are very likely to remember events and consider them as an external influence of the divine if they proved to be rewarding at a certain time in the past, made me think about how that is true for so many other things in life. Perhaps, having noticed that once, I saw the psychological definition in the other chosen themes, such as astrology and human instincts and reflexes. Which begs the question whether or not we are too critical about things we cannot normally perceive with a naked eye. How can we be sure that there aren't magical and supernatural activities happening all around us? In the end, nobody would've considered radio-magnetic communication a thing in the past, but we've come to create so many extraordinary things, such as phones, TVs, the Internet, radio and other.

Dipping into the research of astrology, I've noticed a similar tendency. While it's been widely perceived as a pseudoscience with no real factual value, there are experiments and observations that have proven it to be true. Of course, there's the confirmation bias here as well, together with the fact that we might not know what exactly has happened during these instances, but I think there is some truth to it. And, at the end of the day, there is nothing bad behind the concept of hope and faith, be it in the face of religious beliefs, superstitions, occult studies or pseudosciences. For we don't really know how far this world expands, all of its secrets and nuances, and as it stands, we are quite preoccupied with the physical and material world. But hardly is that everything.

Going forward, I had decided to pick a theme that didn't fall into deep contemplation (even though I definitely did spend quite some time deliberating about it), which brought me to communication in nature. The theme sparked in my head on a morning like any other, as I was indulging in a cup of coffee and a cigarette. I was looking out into the garden as a neighbour's tree is towering just over our kitchen door, observing the flight and chirps of a sparrow nest. Something so usual and normal, which we don't really pay that much attention to. But in this cacophony of bird tunes lied my interest of what could it all mean. Were the sparrows simply a product of natural selection, and their songs were reports of the surroundings to each other, or were they asking about each other's day? Maybe they had a conversation just like any other, or they were chirping because it is what it is.

Nevertheless, I had decided to look into it and found out quite some captivating information. While it didn't bear the philosophical answer I was looking for, it gave me an insight into the different aspects of animal communication in all of its forms and variations. It all made a little bit more sense now, even if it was from purely scientific standpoint.

I had left the choice of my final fourth theme to the side, as I was unsure what exactly to stop at. World foundation was too broad in itself and I was risking going too "existential crisis" on it, while human reflexes and innate instincts was too scientific, despite its initially curious nature. And after several nights, after a series of questionable and intriguing nights, I decided that my theme would surround dreams.

Something that is so common and natural to the animal kingdom, it still bore unexplained areas. It was the perfect subject, considering the healthy balance between scientific facts and spiritual reading. Plus, I'd get to deep dive and research into it by taking frequent naps.

Phase One: Bio

Phase One Presentation

Phase Two

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