Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 July 30

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July 30

2011 FIFA U-20 World Cup on television

→ Moved to Reference desk: Entertainment branch.

Dreams

Is there any particular meaning to hearing a song in your dream that you haven't heard in a while? 173.2.165.251 (talk) 02:29, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Nope. Ryan Vesey Review me! 02:43, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Probably not, but maybe. It means that which you wish. Schyler (exquirere bonum ipsum) 02:50, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

{http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/classicdisney/adreamisawishyourheartmakes.htm A dream is a wish your heart makes.} Edison (talk) 03:07, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure modern scholarship is that dreams have no deep meaning. They are basically the residual effects of your brain running its defrag procedure as you sleep. They mean nothing. --Jayron32 03:49, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

There is a straightforward counterexample. I think just about everybody has had dreams where you are urinating very copiously, and then you wake up to find that you have a strong need to pee. This is obviously not a matter of deep philosophical significance, but it's a pretty clear case of a dream that definitely does mean something. Looie496 (talk) 04:14, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Well yes, real life intrudes on dreams constantly. We've all also had dreams where sounds in the real world intrude on them as well. It means someone is talking to you while you are asleep. But it doesn't mean that the dream has any deep meaning beyond that. The point is that dreams are not a window into your psyche, not a means to unlock repressed memories, and aren't a key to a past life. It's just random nonsense, though sometimes you dream you piss on yourself, and you wake up to find that you have. --Jayron32 04:19, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

(After edit conflict :)

Oh sure, and a dream about a repetitive electronic tone can mean that your alarm clock isn't quite loud enough.

I don't think either of these are in the spirit of the thing though. They're just real-world stimulus effecting the dream world. APL (talk) 04:20, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Just to make it clear, there wasn't any actual music playing while I was asleep, I'm sure of it. But I heard it in my dream as if it were really playing, it was so clear. I could even make out the words and the riffs. 173.2.165.251 (talk) 06:07, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't mean anything. There are a lot of theories (explanations, that is) as to the biological purpose of dreaming, but it mostly comes down to the residual effects of the brains internal maintenance; i.e. as your brain works to sort through its connections, form new ones, etc. the result ends up being a dream. They don't have any deeper meaning; if you dreamed a song it may be just that it was time for your brain to clean out that closet, as it were. Don't attach anything further to it. --Jayron32 06:16, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

You say that with such comfortable patrician assuredness, such "think-what-I-think-and-all-will-be-well"-ness, Jayron. Far greater minds than you or I (Freud and Jung, to name two of the best known) have ventured that dreams do indeed, or can indeed, have meaning in terms of symbolic messages from the unconscious to the subconscious, in amongst all the random cleaning out. It's like a faint radio signal just detectable in among a heap of static. Hearing a song, any song, is not the thing here; it's the precise, specific song that the OP heard that's relevant. Why that particular song? He/she hasn't shared the name of the song with us, and does not need to. But there will be something about that particular song - the words most likely - that have meaning to the OP in the context of their life. Only the OP can know what that meaning is, but there's some sort of message there. It's important enough for them to come here and ask about it, so it's not nothing. We outsiders have zero right to tell the OP to disregard it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 12:26, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Hallucination of sound is noted as very common during Sleep deprivation, see article. The OP's second post indicates they want a diagnosis of their particlar dream which we cannot give. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:53, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Dreams are not literally "meaningless". If you pay attention to the dream's contents and think about what's going on in your world, you can often discern the dream's "meaning", i.e. what it symbolically represents. I think what Jayron is trying to say is that dreams don't have anywhere near the kind of significance that is often attributed to them. They are merely your mind's way of handling certain things that are "on your mind" at a given time. Lots of animals dream. It's a normal function. P.S. There seem to be related questions on 2 or 3 ref desk pages now. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:18, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

As you can see from our article on dreams, Jayron32's view is by no means unanimously held. However, I don't think that any advocate of psychoanalytic dream interpretation would argue for a deep meaning in remembering an old song. It's more likely that you encountered something recently that reminded you of the song, or that you are remembering a song that you liked a lot or that had meaning for you. John M Baker (talk) 02:02, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Abbreviation for "friend with benefits"

I was told that for a friend with benefits there is an abbreviation, pronounced like Phoebe. Is this true, and if so, how do you spell it? --KnightMove (talk) 11:32, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Um.....FWB? Kinda obvious, no? Heiro 11:35, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Um.....Heiro? Kinda blunt, no? An editor since 10.28.2010. 05:32, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

So then you can get a freebie from your FWB ? :-) StuRat (talk) 04:09, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thanks, but is this pronounced like Phoebe? --KnightMove (talk) 09:18, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

If I saw it written FWB, I'd pronounce it F.W.B., not Phoebe. But someone else may tell me I'm just not socialising with the right people, and tell us they have heard it "Phoebe" in certain circles. It is a very odd pronounciation of a TLA, though.--Lgriot (talk) 15:10, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Consentration Camp names of detaines

'Bold text'Bold textWhere can I search the names of detaines in consentration camps in Minto NB and Petawa ON Canada. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.7.171.202 (talk) 15:11, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Uhh, Concentration Camps in Canada? If you mean normal prisons you could use the search function here: [1]. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:24, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I think I figured out what you mean, the internment camps during the World Wars? [2] It's doubtful there is a searchable online database of exactly who was in those camps. This site [3] has some statistics, but that's it. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:37, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: See List of concentration and internment camps, section "Canada". Bielle (talk) 18:33, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

How much does a bottle of vintage 1540 Steinwein cost?

See here:

"Four bottles of vintage 1540 Steinwein are still in existence," he said, referring to a Riesling from the Stein vineyard in Franconia. "A bottle of Steinwein was opened in London in 1961 when it was 421 years old, and it was unbelievably still alive and drinkable."

Count Iblis (talk) 18:28, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Short answer: A lot. Wines that rare are usually auctioned, not sold at a fixed price. With four bottles of the 1953 fetching £132 at auction [4] one would imagine the price for the 1540 would be in the thousands. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

The bottle was tasted by Hugh Johnson, author of "The Story of Wine" at the offices of Ehrmann's, the wine merchants, in July 1961[5]. Possibly Mr. H. Joseph Ehrmann is the man to ask about the remaining bottles, and according to this he is to be found in San Francisco. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:52, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Check this out for some idea of the prices rare wines can get [6]. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:54, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Bassoon players' headrest

While watching Prom 21 of the BBC Promenade Concerts on TV tonight (with Midori playing Walton's Violin Concerto) I noticed that the two bassoon players had some sort of headrest attached to their chairs. They were similar to car/auto head rests/restraints but had side pieces that covered the ears. Can someone enlighten me as to their purpose? I have tried googling a few phrases but nothing arrives and the bassoon article does not have anything helpful. (unless I missed it) Richard Avery (talk) 21:19, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

When I was in wind symphony at university playing Bass Trombone our section sat immediately behind the bassoons. Bassoonists have an interesting combination of principles used in order to play their instruments. Not only is there a single combination for every note, but some combinations can play the same note; it gets quite tricky to find the right note in your minds ear. Hearing a sustained pedal b flat behind you while trying to play triplet arpeggios is almost impossible. Schyler (exquirere bonum ipsum) 23:10, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

The CBSO bassoonists usually have the horns right behind them so I assume these are to protect their ears. One of the bassoonists John Schroder has his own website here from where you can send him an email.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:34, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Excellent responses, thank you both. I will mail John Schroder. Richard Avery (talk) 10:20, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

And here is his very informative response "What you saw was a 'Hearwig'. It is an acoustic screen made in Sweden and designed to protect the hearing of the person in front from the noise from behind. Our bassoon section usually sits in front of the trumpets and trombones, and their sound is very directional. At a concert in May the peak noise level where the bassoon section sat was measured at over 127 dB which, of course, is damaging to hearing. The Hearwigs can reduce the sound level at our ears though it was not sufficient for me in the Prokovief and I used ear plugs too in places. It isn't easy to play with earplugs but I'd rather have my hearing at the end of the day! The Hearwigs also act a bit like a tea cosy and kept my head cooking under the TV lights." Richard Avery (talk) 19:02, 1 August 2011 (UTC)