Ladrões

“Navegava Alexandre em uma poderosa armada pelo mar Eriteu a conquistar a Índia, e como fosse trazido à sua presença um pirata, que por ali andava roubando os pescadores, repreendeu-o muito Alexandre de andar em tão mau ofício; porém ele, que não era medroso nem lerdo, respondeu assim: Basta, senhor, que eu, porque roubo em uma barca, sou ladrão, e vós, porque roubais em uma armada, sois imperador? Assim é. O roubar pouco é culpa, o roubar muito é grandeza; o roubar com pouco poder faz os piratas, o roubar com muito, os Alexandres. (...) O ladrão que furta para comer, não vai nem leva ao inferno; os que não só vão, mas levam, de que eu trato, são outros ladrões de maior calibre e de mais alta esfera; os quais debaixo do mesmo nome e do mesmo predicamento distingue muito bem São Basílio Magno. Não só são ladrões, diz o santo, os que cortam bolsas, ou espreitam os que se vão banhar para lhes colher a roupa; os ladrões que mais própria e dignamente merecem este título são aqueles a quem os reis encomendam os exércitos e legiões ou o governo das províncias, ou a administração das cidades, os quais já com manha, já com força roubam e despojam os povos. Os outros ladrões roubam um homem, estes roubam cidades e reinos; os outros furtam debaixo do seu risco, estes, sem temor nem perigo; os outros, se furtam, são enforcados; estes furtam e enforcam. Diógenes, que tudo via com mais aguda vista que os outros homens, viu que uma grande tropa de varas e ministros de justiça levavam a enforcar uns ladrões, e começou a bradar: Lá vão os ladrões grandes a enforcar os pequenos! Ditosa Grécia que tinha tal pregador! E mais ditosas as outras nações, se nelas não padecera a justiça as mesmas afrontas. Quantas vezes se viu em Roma ir a enforcar um ladrão por ter roubado um carneiro; e no mesmo dia ser levado em triunfo um cônsul, ou ditador, por ter roubado uma província. E quantos ladrões teriam enforcado estes mesmos ladrões triunfantes?”

Pe. Antônio Vieira

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Dream Therapy

Did you know you’ll have about 197,100 dreams by the time you’re 60?

Our dream experts reveal how to use your night visions as daytime therapy.

♦Train your memory

Dreams do have something to tell you. Keep a dream diary for two weeks to help analyse your state of mind. “Record whether you feel frightened, sad, angry or happy and note any images, pictures or phrases you remember,” advises dream specialist Professor Petruska Clarkson. This will help you work out which issues you need to deal with, and in which order.

♦Face your fears

If you’re having recurring dreams, ask yourself whether there is any issue you need to face. “I encourage patients to face their pursuer or fear head on in the dream. Once they do this, the dreams stop and they feel more at ease they’re awake,” says psychologist and sleep expert Cliff Arnall.

♦Have an open mind

“Don’t take dreams literally – for example, dreaming of pregnancy doesn’t mean you’re expecting a baby in real life. It may indicate you are ready to create something new in your work or relationship”, explains Clarkson.

♦Take positive action

Anxiety dreams, relating to a forthcoming stressful event, are very common. “If you feel that worries or concerns are being played out in advance, learn to use your dreams as motivators,” says Arnall. “Write a list of problems or obstacles that were brought to the surface – there may be things you previously didn’t consider – and take positive steps to solve them.”

Mind reading “a step closer to reality.”

BBC, 13 March 2009

Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging at University College London told reporters: Mind reading comes a step closer as scientists map people’s brain.

The hippocampus is widely known to be integral to memory, but researchers say they now see how images are stored and recalled in the part of the brain. Neurons in the hippocampus, also known as “place cells”, activate when we move around to tell us where we are.

Using a computer keypad, four young male volunteers navigated virtual reality rooms, choosing to “stand” in one of four locations marked by a rug. The British scientists were able to tell where an individual had been “standing” inside a virtual reality room from records of the volunteers’ brain activity. Their heads had been placed in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, allowing their brain activity to be monitored. This piece of equipment highlights brain regions as they become active. Focusing on the hippocampus, the small area of the brain vital to navigation, memory recall and imagining future events, the scientists measured blood flow related to neural activity.

“We asked we could see any interesting patterns in the neural activity that could tell us what participants were thinking, in this case where they were.”, said Professor Eleanor Maguire.

Are people lying?

Surprisingly, just by looking at the brain data the scientists could predict exactly where the volunteers were in the virtual reality environment.

“By looking at activity over tens of thousands of neurons, we can see that there must be a functional structure – a pattern – to how these memories are encoded.”, said Professor Maguire.

But the researchers stressed that the prospect of genuinely reading someone’s most intimate thoughts- or working out if they were lying- was still a long way off. It is brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s which could stand to benefit from such research.”

Understanding how we learn and store memories could aid our understanding of conditions in which memory is compromised and potentially help patients in the rehabilitation process,” said Professor Maguire.

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