Dream-like State Research Articles

More than just joy: A qualitative analysis of participant experiences during nitrous oxide sedation.

Nitrous oxide use is shifting from general anesthesia to sedation and pain control. Interest in novel uses of nitrous oxide in psychiatry is also growing. Thus, understanding the consequences of using nitrous oxide remains relevant. Previous quantitative research might not have fully captured the whole spectrum of nitrous oxide, whereas qualitative analysis can provide a more comprehensive description. This qualitative study aims to describe the subjective experiences of nitrous oxide use in healthy volunteers who have no prior history of recreational substance misuse. Twenty healthy male volunteers inhaled 50% nitrous oxide for 20 min. Females were excluded due to higher incidence of nausea with nitrous oxide. Afterwards, all participants answered an open-ended question about their experiences during sedation. The answers were then analyzed with inductive qualitative content analysis to identify emergent subcategories, categories, and overarching themes. We identified two themes: nitrous oxide is mind-altering and produces sensory overload. The mind-altering properties were represented by dreamlike states and heightened emotions. Dreamlike states comprised changes in consciousness and scary, bizarre, or transcendental dreams. Pleasant dreams were not reported. Heightened emotions included euphoria, anxiety, and fear of losing control. Sensory overload consists of distorted perception, bodily sensations, and a heightened sense of surroundings. Experiences under nitrous oxide sedation are extremely variable and not always pleasant. These findings can improve our understanding of the likes/dislikes of patients undergoing nitrous oxide sedation. Further qualitative studies should focus on the experiences of other groups, such as children or women in labor.

Slava's Snowshow and Existentialism

In a paradoxical manner, the clowns of the Russian creator Slava Polunin evoke Beckett's tramps, even though Snowshow breaks away from existentialism transcending the nonsense of life by mirroring oneself in the other. In the year of its premiere, the show talked about freedom, about that late release from the restraints of a totalitarian regime, about resistance through hope and dreams throughout the difficult communist period. Nowadays, 30 years later, its circumstantially, even historically - dare we say - modified semantics has acquired a deep philosophical substratum. In the connection between Slava Polunin's show and the existentialist movement, we can highlight two distinct plans. First, there is a manifestation of the ontological nonsense within each sequence of the performance, which causes the childish "detours" towards play. Secondly, the existentialism manifests itself through the very structure of the entire spectacular ensemble. It all starts with the clown entering the scene as if in another dimension. Then, the symbolism of the show makes its aesthetics difficult to categorize. The sequentiality that alternates in a versatile way the dreamlike state and the playful one, the oxymoron and the metaphor, manages to transform the stage discourse into a story that you don't know how to grasp, while being, at the same time, hypnotized by it. At the end, we are invited to test in a sensorial manner a passage to another dimension, a possible evocation of dissolution that takes the shape of an overwhelming snowstorm.

The Song of Earendil from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien: Translation Issues

This article is concerned with translation issues of The Song of Earendil by J. R. R. Tolkien, the poem included in The Lord of the Rings and incorporated into the narrative with Bilbo as the internal author and Frodo as the listener. The first part of the research provides detailed analysis of the poem contextual role as well as its perception by the characters and the reader. Imbued with various details and proper names, The Song highlights Еarendil’s voyage, one of the most essential narratives in Tolkien’s mythology (the Legendarium), however left beyond the bounds of The Lord of the Rings and not completely understood by the reader or Frodo, for the latter is listening to the Song being in a most peculiar, dreamlike state of mind evoked by elven singing he previously attends to. Frodo’s mood correlates not only and not so much with the poem’s narrative, but with its style and poetic features, especially the verse form and the rhyme scheme. The latter uses triple assonances as additional rhyme, connecting the clauses of the odd lines with the first halves of the subsequent even lines and bringing forth a notably melodical, ‘elvish’ impression.In this respect, the verse form of The Song of Earendil takes on particular importance in relation to poetic translation; and retaining the main metrical and phonoaesthetic features of the poem seems necessary for achieving translation equivalence as well as maintaining the effect derived from the context of the novel. These features are considered using the example of four Russian translations of the Song (by A. A. Kistyakovsky, I. B. Grinshpun, S. A. Stepanov, and V. G. Tikhomirov). Comparative analysis of these translations shows a tendency for the translators to change the verse form significantly either by using more fluent rhyme schemes and stanzaic structures (as Kistyakovsky or Tikhomirov do), or by simplification (e.g. Grinshpun) and neutralisation of some other poetic features (like the use of proper names). The most consistent, although partial, representation of the original poetic form, can be found in Stepanov’s translation only. As for some other translation solutions regarding verse form and vocabulary, they appear to be non-equivalent. At the end of the article, the author presents his own translation of The Song of Еarendil, aimed at retaining the above listed features of its poetic form.

ANCIENT INDIAN CONCEPTS AS PORTRAYED IN CONTEMPORARY WESTERN FILMS

Historically, in the European imagination, India was a place that existed outside of history. The German philosopher G.W.F.Hegel wrote that India-with its psychology, religion, caste-system, and holy men - existed in a dream-like state. However, India, like every other place in the world, has never existed outside of history as an exotic dreamland. It has had itsown complex economic, social and political things going on regardless of whether the West was aware of it. India is a dream of the West. Being a maelstrom of human, social, and spiritual contradictions, India has always attracted many western filmmakers. In order to give a glimpse of its ancient concepts, complex reality and dynamism the contemporary global view of filmmakers on the lifestyle and the diversity of this country has been proposed. Many westernfilmmakers, including those from France, have had a desire to express themselves often with talent.The aim of this research paper is to bring forth their insight into life and culture of India. An analysis of how Westerners have stereotyped Indian concepts or accounted for the profound changes inIndian societyin their films has been done.

Queer Transgressions in Twentieth-Century Polish Fiction: Gender, Nation, Politics

Queer Transgressions in Twentieth-Century Polish Fiction: Gender, Nation, Politics

Converging theories on dreaming: Between Freud, predictive processing, and psychedelic research.

Dreams are still an enigma of human cognition, studied extensively in psychoanalysis and neuroscience. According to the Freudian dream theory and Solms' modifications of the unconscious derived from it, the fundamental task of meeting our emotional needs is guided by the principle of homeostasis. Our innate value system generates conscious feelings of pleasure and unpleasure, resulting in the behavior of approaching or withdrawing from the world of objects. Based on these experiences, a hierarchical generative model of predictions (priors) about the world is constantly created and modified, with the aim to optimize the meeting of our needs by reducing prediction error, as described in the predictive processing model of cognition. Growing evidence from neuroimaging supports this theory. The same hierarchical functioning of the brain is in place during sleep and dreaming, with some important modifications like a lack of sensual and motor perception and action. Another characteristic of dreaming is the predominance of primary process thinking, an associative, non-rational cognitive style, which can be found in similar altered states of consciousness like the effect of psychedelics. Mental events that do not successfully fulfill an emotional need will cause a prediction error, leading to conscious attention and adaptation of the priors that incorrectly predicted the event. However, this is not the case for repressed priors (RPs), which are defined by the inability to become reconsolidated or removed, despite ongoing error signal production. We hypothesize that Solms' RPs correspond with the conflictual complexes, as described by Moser in his dream formation theory. Thus, in dreams and dream-like states, these unconscious RPs might become accessible in symbolic and non-declarative forms that the subject is able to feel and make sense of. Finally, we present the similarities between dreaming and the psychedelic state. Insights from psychedelic research could be used to inform dream research and related therapeutic interventions, and vice versa. We propose further empirical research questions and methods and finally present our ongoing trial "Biological Functions of Dreaming" to test the hypothesis that dreaming predicts intact sleep architecture and memory consolidation, via a lesion model with stroke patients who lost the ability to dream.

From naked bike rides to spectacles of motion: cycling and the rider-bicycle in experimental documentary film

ABSTRACT Although the relationship between cycling and cinema has recently received some attention from researchers, there are no accounts on how it links to experimental documentary film and avant-doc storytelling. To fill this gap, I take a phenomenological stance on cycling to discuss the rider’s embodied experience of travel in a few short and stylistically distinct works, Chuck Hudina’s Bicycle (1975), Jon Behrens’ Girl and a Bicycle (1995), Vanessa Renwick’s The Yodeling Lesson (1998), Ken Paul Rosenthal’s I My Bike (2002), Tomonari Nishikawa’s Into the Mass (2007) and Tony Hill’s Bike (2013). Despite a different format and narrative focus, which questions the genderedness of cycling, explores it in a trance and dreamlike state or turns it into the sheer spectacle of motion, all films echo the recent phenomenological turn in film studies and present cycling as a multisensorial, kinesthetic practice, demonstrating how the rider-bicycle hybrid assemblage relates to both cycling mobilities and the riding environment. Compared to narrative and fiction film, experimental documentary film looks at the bicycle identity as a distinctive subject of inquiry and maps cycling not so much through its traditional connotations as through the actual lived experience, one that is not necessarily already pre-determined, mediated and ideological.

BIRTH OF A SURREAL IMAGE IN ATTRIBUTIVE CONSTRUCTIONS

Introduction. The article focuses on the problems of the surreal images in the poetry of David Gascoigne – one of the leaders of surrealist movement in Great Britain.Surrealist image remains a complex phenomenon with weird, fantastic, dream-like qualities. To create surreality, it must conform to rigid criteria of juxtaposing distant realities.Purpose of this paper is to define the types of semantic connections between the elements in the adjective/participle-noun constructions in Gascoigne’s poetry and to analyze the linguistic mechanisms of creating a surreal image.Methods. The research was carried out by means of the methods of structural, semantic and contextual analysis.Results. Despite the fact that British surrealism was less automatic than the French original, the poems of David Gascoyne show the avant-garde tendency to the liberation of the language from the established norms and freeing the poems of narrative contexts. Reading surrealist poetry involves constant and systematic decoding of strange, sometimes absurd, often violent images.The paper looks at various types of adjective-noun constructions in Gascoigne’s poetic collection created both in accordance with the system of the language and by its violation, and analyses the ways of rendering the unconscious and creating the surreality.Conclusions. Analyses of adjective/participle-noun combinations shows the mechanisms of image creation the poet uses in his works – expressions with literal meaning in inappropriate, metaphorical, hallucinatory contexts where they acquire new semantic shades of meaning, and combinations of lexemes that belong to incompatible semantic groups. The most complicated surrealist images are born of the interlocking of several tropes or are the product of the poet’s appeal to dream-like states and his contacts with the artists. The links of meaning in these wordcombinations are hard to find, which doesn’t lead to the destruction of the image but inspires readers’ spontaneous associations.

Delta-8-Tetrahydrocannabinol, an emerging NPS and other structurally related cannabinoids

The aim of this presentation is to find answers why delta-8 THC is an emerging NPS and why structurally related analogs like delta-10 THC, tetrahydrocannabivarin and THC-O-acetate are also of concern? From a regulatory point of view, banning delta-8 THC, as has been done with delta-9 THC, will attract people to become interested in other isomers and structurally related analogues. So how to deal with this? We screened the available scientific literature dealing with the biological and chemical synthesis methods of cannabinoids, including their precursors, conversion reactions, types of extractions, relevant by-products and known pharmacological data. Delta-8 THC, differing in the location of a double bond between two carbons from delta-9 THC, is present in very low concentrations in cannabis plants. Like delta-9 THC, it can provoke psychoactive effects such as euphoria, visual and time distortion, relaxation, difficulty in thinking, speaking and reading, and a dream-like state. The dose required to achieve these clinical effects is unclear, as controlled dose-response studies of delta-8 THC in humans are scarce. Delta-8 THC is known to be less potent than delta-9 THC, but a standard human dose has not been set. Several countries have banned or restricted delta-8 THC products, but elsewhere it remains legal and available for sale to individuals of all ages. Where the sale is not restricted, delta-8 THC is often available at tobacco shops and convenience stores in various formulations, such as vape cartridges, dried plants, or candy gummies. Furthermore, as the awareness and popularity of delta-8 THC expands, it is predictable that medical caregivers will encounter increasing numbers of patients who are under the influence of delta-8 THC. Toxicology screening assays for delta-8 THC are also not readily available in most medical facilities and certainly not for law enforcement. Most importantly, a worrying interest is noticed based on the information available on the internet and social media, that deals with the question « How to make delta-8 THC? CBD to delta-8 THC step-by-step ». Given the fact that CBD is legal, not psychoactive, but that it can be used as precursor in the process for converting CBD to delta-8 THC, being psychoactive, is frightening. Even more since the conversion isn’t alchemy or magic; in fact, it's much less complicated than one might expect. The basic process for converting CBD to delta-8 THC simply is: “CBD + acid + time = delta-8 THC”. One by-product commonly found in delta-8 THC products is olivetol, a precursor for the synthesis of THC in the chemical laboratory or manufacturing plant. The Swiss Federal Customs Administration seized a total of 260 kg of olivetol and 260 kg of p-mentha-2,8-dien-1-ol in 2019, an indication that some of the delta-8 THC on the market may be synthetically produced. Another molecule of particular concern is the cannabinoid called THC-O-acetate (the acetyl ester of THC), which seems to be popping up in gummies and vapes. It is basically acetylated THC, which does not occur naturally in cannabis plants and can be called a New Psychoactive Substance (NPS). Interestingly, also heroin was created by acetylating morphine over 100 years ago. No human studies on the effects of acetylated THC are available, illustrating the danger. Many cannabinoids can be obtained from ingredients extracted from hemp and by means of biotechnological processes. We therefore need to inform the public in saying that just because the starting material is legal, it does not make the resulting product(s) legal or safe. We recommend regulatory oversight, uniformity of delta-8 THC's status and its analogues, wide-scale scientific dissemination for law enforcement and the general public, together with sufficient laboratory testing know how and capacity.

Review: Explosions in the Mind: Composing Psychedelic Sounds and Visualisations, by Jonathan Weinel

Review: <i>Explosions in the Mind: Composing Psychedelic Sounds and Visualisations</i>, by Jonathan Weinel

The vision of dreams: from ontogeny to dream engineering in blindness.

Vitali H, Campus C, De Giorgis V, Signorini S, Gori M. The vision of dreams: from ontogeny to dream engineering in blindness. J Clin Sleep Med. 2022;18(8):2051-2062.

Romance of the Rose (Excerpt)

Romance of the Rose (Excerpt)

Does This Make Me Look Fat?

I create figurative art through a gendered food lens. I use a surrealist approach, juxtaposing food and bodies in unconventional ways to explore food, gender norms, and cultural ideals about body size. Those ideals shift over time, but I am amazed by how often their underlying meanings remain unchanged, regardless of any gains women have made. I’m especially interested in through lines from the mid–twentieth century and the persistent valorization of women’s thinness in Western culture. In the mid–twentieth century, many women—especially white, middle-class women—were raised to perform gendered roles centered on what were considered traditionally feminine ideals about behaviors and appearances. Having “the right” body size seemed crucial for achieving the heterosexual goal of marriage and, in turn, to securing wealth and social status.The piece entitled “Does This Make Me Look Fat?” (oil on linen canvas, 18” x 24”) gets its title from a well-worn phrase. It illustrates the intense bodily awareness that many women internalize, regardless of their size. The ridiculously large vegetables (typical ingredients of a diet regimen) sit on top of the women’s heads, overshadowing their exposed bodies, which exist in an arresting, dreamlike state. The scene emphasizes that these women are what they eat (or at least that they believe that to be true), and that concerns about having “the right size” body concerns are disturbingly tenacious.

Waking up to my sleep disorder.

Moments before I presented my first seminar as a postdoc to my lab group, my eyelids grew heavy and my sense of alertness dissolved into a dreamlike state. It was a sleep attack—a result of narcolepsy, which I was diagnosed with 2 years earlier. I apologized for my incessant yawning and continued with my talk despite an overwhelming urge to sleep. It’s one of many moments when my narcolepsy made my career difficult. But ever since I learned of a renowned scientist who has narcolepsy, I’ve known I can succeed in science, too. > “I … feared my career in science had reached a dead end.” I’ve fought the urge to sleep for much of my life. At a young age, I fell asleep in bizarre places—on the front lawn, in a pile of stuffed animals—and in school I was frequently reprimanded for yawning. Fearing others would think I was lazy, I got in the habit of working harder on my schoolwork than everyone else. As an undergraduate, I relied on energy drinks to keep me awake through long hours studying. But when exams were over, I’d stay in bed for days to recuperate. Graduate school was more difficult because my work was never “done.” There was always a new paper to read or an experiment to plan. Shortly after passing my Ph.D. qualifying exam, I worked in the lab every day for more than 30 days straight. That sapped what little energy I had in the first place. The stress and exhaustion exacerbated my sleep issues. On more than one occasion, I had to postpone planned experiments and rush home to take a nap. During conversations with my mentor, my stream of thought would sometimes run dry midsentence and I would have to ask him what I was talking about. I thought depression caused my brain fog and fatigue, so I started seeing a psychiatrist. After 2 years, and multiple medications, I was no better. So she had me complete a sleep questionnaire, which led to a referral to a sleep clinic and a series of sleep tests. Shortly thereafter I received my diagnosis: narcolepsy. The news was a relief because it meant I might finally receive appropriate treatment and learn how to manage my symptoms. But I also feared my career in science had reached a dead end. As a neuroscientist, how could I uncover the inner workings of the brain with one that is “broken”? How could I succeed if I had to put sleep hygiene ahead of science? Then I stumbled on an article about George Church, a prominent Harvard University geneticist who has narcolepsy. Calling his condition “a feature, not a bug,” he said his daytime bouts of sleep are opportunities for creative, quasi-conscious thought, when he’s hatched some of his best ideas. Reading about his condition was empowering. It gave me a sense of belonging, one that went beyond “sure, you can enter our circle” to “you’re in our circle and we’re better for it.” I wrote Dr. Church an email, telling him how much his perspective meant to me. To my surprise, he sent a detailed reply. “Lecture classes were very hard for me,” he wrote. “I even flunked out of my first attempt at Ph.D.” His words helped me cultivate a fierce sense of self-compassion. I began to accept that my best can look different from day to day and that I might struggle with some aspects of academia more than others. I also implemented many of the strategies he recommended for dealing with narcolepsy, including waiting until evening to eat a large meal and breaking up the day physically with a mixture of standing, pacing, and sitting. I registered with my university’s disability office and made requests for workplace accommodations. The university bought me a standing desk, which helped me feel more alert, and I received permission to take naps at work. I made similar requests when I started a postdoc last year. I still harbor fears of seeming lazy, and I worry that the brain fog I suffer from will one day settle and never lift. But these fears do not stop me from continuing to pursue my goal of managing my own lab one day. Thanks to Dr. Church, I know it’s possible—as long as I take care of myself.

Evidence of High-Detail Perceptual Modeling in the Visual Cortex

This informal but well-referenced description of an afterimage experiment called Ghost Tap provides persuasive and easily reproducible evidence that the visual cortex plays a significant role in certain classes of long-duration visual afterimages. Subjects of the experiment literally cannot discern the difference between the afterimage and reality, resulting in easy startling of the subjects when physical motion in the room no longer matches the persuasive afterimages they are perceiving. Anecdotal examples of less extreme versions of the same effect suggest that the Ghost Tap effect has, over centuries, intentionally and unintentionally helped persuade people of the existence of nominally “supernatural” effects that are just persuasive long-duration afterimages. While this description is informal, the easy reproducibility of the Ghost Tap makes it a good candidate for more precise and quantitative studies. One theory why Ghost Tap exists is that it is part of load reduction and speed enhancement strategy to compensate for the slow processing speeds of neurons. Maintaining a dynamic and predictive real-time model of likely sensory inputs from the external world would enable the brain to discard quickly and with minimal processing any sensory inputs that fall within the predictive tolerance limits to the current model state. A perceptive load reduction interpretation of the Ghost Tap argues that the ability of the brain to support dreaming in vivid detail is likely a direct corollary of its ability to create dream-like waking states for faster and more efficient processing of large sensory loads. If the brain regularly uses dream-like waking states to reduce data, more study of effects like Ghost Tap might help explain the frequency of pathologies in which perception becomes disconnected from reality.

“Men Fear Most What They Cannot See.” sleep paralysis “Ghost Intruders” and faceless “Shadow-People”—The role of the right hemisphere and economizing nature of vision

Sleep paralysis is a curious condition where the paralyzed person may hallucinate terrifying ghosts. These hypnogogic and hypnopompic visions are common worldwide. They often entail seeing and sensing shadow beings; although hallucinating full-fledged figures (e.g., cat-like creatures and witches) are not uncommon. In this paper, I propose a neuroscientific account (building on previous work) for why people see ghosts during sleep paralysis and why these tend to manifest as faceless shadows. This novel venture considers the distinct computational styles of the right and left hemisphere and their functional specializations vis-à-vis florid intruder hallucinations and out-of-body experiences (OBEs) during these dream-like states. Additionally, I provide a brain-based explanation for dissociative phenomena common during sleep paralysis. Specifically, I posit that these ghost hallucinations and OBEs are chiefly mediated by activity in key regions in the right hemisphere; and outline how the functional organization of the visual system (evoking concepts like surface interpolation) and its economizing nature (i.e., proclivity to minimize computational load and take short-cuts) can explain faceless humanoid-shadows and sensed presence hallucinations during sleep paralysis; and how the hypothalamus and anterior cingulate may be implicated during related dissociative states. Ultimately empirical research must shed light on the validity of this account. If this hypothesis is correct, patients with right hemisphere damage (i.e., in implicated areas) should be less likely to hallucinate ghosts during sleep paralysis; i.e., compared to those with intact hemispheres or damage to the left only. It may also be possible to temporarily disable right hemisphere functions during sleep paralysis using transcranial magnetic stimulation. Accordingly, this procedure should eradicate sleep paralysis ghost hallucinations.

Musical Images from Sufferers: “Entangled” – Genesis

The present paper carries out a textual, discourse and semantic analysis of the song Entangled, a masterpiece by the English band Genesis. The song describes a patient living in a dream-like state, having many similarities and parallels with the state of being affected by Covid-19 in the final stages of the disease. The most overt message deriving from analyzing the words and the discourse in Entangled is the prevailing-type pattern that evidences the strong imbalance existing in a relationship between a doctor and a patient. The inaffable music and voices join in a coral-like song that seems to have links with serenades, charms, prayers, and with unknown dimensions. The enchanting images produced by Entangled evoke a calm, dream-like state where the listener is carried inside the soft ripples of the rhymes and verses that combine and overlap perfectly with the flowing rhythm and the purely magical music.

Whose Envy Is It Anyway?

In this paper I offer a description of a patient with a prolonged dissociated transference and my countertransference reactions to her. Envy, both hers and mine, permeated our interactions and prevented me from dealing directly with her aggression. I will discuss the process of disentanglement and emotional differentiation that was triggered by a therapeutic crisis that penetrated the dreamlike state and led to a productive treatment of the patient’s envy.

Screening Nature in Walt Disney's Bambi (1942) and Dr. Seuss's The Lorax (1972): An Ecocritical Approach to Enviro-toons

The present study is an attempt to fill in a gap in Ecocriticism which until recently has focused on literature defined as Nature Writing; poetry, fiction and drama. Yet, with the move toward ecocritical Film Studies, there is a place for work on animated feature films. The premise of the study is the ethical and environmental implications as exemplified in the two selected enviro-toons: Disney's Bambi (1942) and Dr. Seuss's The Lorax (1972). The depiction of wilderness and the representation of nonhuman animals provide a rich context to investigate ideology and power to explore oppressive practices of contemporary societies. The selected enviro-toons strongly articulate ecological crisis; hunting, species loss, pollution, deforestation and overproduction. The Lorax exposes overconsumption that is driven by the capitalism's profit motive and the pro-industrial character the Once-ler's jobs –jobs rhetoric. On the other hand, Bambi stands for a romanticized environment with the perspective that marks nature as an ecological sublime since the wilderness trope is worthy of awe and wonder. The peculiar language of animation is deliberately defined by multiple distinctions. Animation is an aesthetically determined lexis, interpreted by different animators, hence, animation bears a distinct authorial signature and a unique studio style. Disney's 'realist' style fits into orthodox animation while that of Dr. Seuss is 'abstract' and 'experimental'. The focus is on the poetics of enviro-toons, that is, not only what cartoons show but how they illustrate ecocritical sensibility and how it affects the way of 'seeing' and understanding the human/nonhuman world. Not only does Dr. Seuss tell fantastical tales of far-away places but he also illustrates a unique visual language that carries his stories to new heights of artistic expression. Surrealism provides the foundation from which he builds the structure of The Lorax. The structure is analogous to a dream-like state to underlie hidden sentiments beyond the orthodoxies of language. In contrast, Bambi is a monologic biography in photographic realism. Disney's mimesis and linear structure do not require deep interpretation and since it is only a warning with no handy action plan, there is no path to human redemption to exist in a world that upholds 'strong anthropocentrism' as a discourse of human dominion over nature. Finally, Ecomedia Studies is a promising pop culture field not only geared to adolescents and children, but also to human community to be aesthetically interpreted against a monolithic approach.

Psychosis: Between Dreams and Perceptual Reality

From the beginning of time, the layman always described and understood psychosis as a dream-like state. Researchers have characterized both psychosis and dreaming with common denominators, both displaying visuomotor hallucinations, loose associations, metacognitive deficit, impaired reality discrimination, strong emotional component, resulting in a general lack of insight. The association of psychosis with dreaming was present in literature centuries ago, in the works of great thinkers such as Kant and Schopenhauer, which prompted many modern specialists to delve deeper into studying this connection for a better understanding of psychosis and possible applications in the clinical practice. During REM sleep, which is the most associated with dreaming, visual and motor areas in the brain show increased activation, which is congruent with the presence of hallucinations, the hallmark of the dreaming state. Also, the amygdala, involved in emotion regulation, has a prominent role in the sleeping brain. The deactivation of parts of the prefrontal cortex translate in altered capacity for making decisions and critical thinking. Several neuroimaging studies have shown similar neural patterns in the wakeful state of psychotic patients, especially those associated with the presence or absence of insight. As insight is thought to play a major role in treatment compliance and quality of life in psychotic patients, it is the most studied element linking psychosis and REM sleep. Lucid dreaming is a state of awareness of dreaming, while the individual is still asleep. The dreamer has a degree of control of the narrative and capacity for self-reflection, aspects deemed as insight. Lucid dreaming is a rare occurrence, but has the potential to be trained, concept with great relevance in researching modalities for insight gain in psychotic patients. In conclusion, the research of insight present in lucid dreaming shows great prospect for developing better interventions that target the lack of it in psychotic patients, thus contributing to significant improvement in their prognosis, quality of life and treatment compliance.