Dream Experience Research Articles

0088 Gravity Dreams Following a Virtual Reality Flight Simulation

Abstract Introduction Flying is a prevalent but infrequent experience in dreams. Despite a broad interest in such unique dream experiences, there is still no experimental procedure for reliably inducing them. Our study aimed 1) to induce flying dreams in the laboratory using virtual reality (VR), 2) to examine phenomenological correlates of flying dreams, such as lucidity and emotions and 3) to investigate the dynamics of dreamed gravity imagery in relation to participant state and trait factors. Methods A total of 137 healthy participants (24.01±4.03 y.o.; 85 F; 52 M) took part in a custom-built immersive VR task in which they learn how to ‘fly’ as precisely and quickly as possible, engaging vestibular, motor and visuo-spatial systems. Dreams were collected a) from home dream journals for 5 days before and 10 days after the laboratory VR task and b) after a 90-min morning nap in laboratory. Dream reports were scored by 2 independent judges for flying and other gravity-related imagery. Linear mixed models statistics were used to compare dreams from this cohort with a separate control cohort (N=52) that followed a similar protocol in the same lab but did not undertake a virtual flying task. Results The VR task successfully increased the likelihood of experiencing flying in dreams from both the laboratory nap (7.1%) and the following night (10.6%) compared to baseline (1.3%) and the control cohort on those days (Lab: 2.4%; following night: 0%). In contrast, the occurrence of other gravity imagery showed no differences. Flying dreams were altered qualitatively, exhibiting higher levels of lucid-control and emotional intensity after VR exposure. Moreover, various factors such as sex, prior dream experiences and sensory immersion in VR differentially modulated flying dream induction. Conclusion Our findings provide both quantitative and qualitative insights into flying dreams that may facilitate understanding of these typical dream experiences and future developments in dream flight-induction technologies. Support Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

0431 Two-Way Communication Between Dreamers and Experimenters

Abstract Introduction Dreams are emblematic of human sleep, but they have yet to be adequately explained. In part, this is due to the limited options available for peering into dream experiences. Mapping neural measures onto dreams is problematic when those dreams are recounted after waking. Retrospective dream reports are subject to distortion and rapid forgetting. Methods Here, we describe a method to overcome these obstacles through two-way communication between dreamers and experimenters. To demonstrate proof-of-concept, we presented softly spoken math problems to participants during lucid REM sleep, and they provided answers using covert physiological signals such as eye movements. We confirmed REM sleep using standard polysomnographic methods. Results Thus far, 3 out of 8 participants who had lucid dreams correctly answered problems during REM sleep. Conclusion Results document that sleeping individuals can have sufficient abilities for veridical perceptual analysis, maintaining information, computing simple answers using working memory, and expressing volitional replies. Dreamers can thus be capable of interacting and exchanging information with other individuals. In this way, the mental content experienced by the dreamer can be interrogated to characterize the phenomenological experiences and cognitive abilities of dreaming. Support Mind Science Foundation, National Science Foundation

Modulating dream experience: Noninvasive brain stimulation over the sensorimotor cortex reduces dream movement

Recently, cortical correlates of specific dream contents have been reported, such as the activation of the sensorimotor cortex during dreamed hand clenching. Yet, despite a close resemblance of such activation patterns to those seen during the corresponding wakeful behaviour, the causal mechanisms underlying specific dream contents remain largely elusive. Here, we aimed to investigate the causal role of the sensorimotor cortex in generating movement and bodily sensations during REM sleep dreaming. Following bihemispheric transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) or sham stimulation, guided by functional mapping of the primary motor cortex, naive participants were awakened from REM sleep and responded to a questionnaire on bodily sensations in dreams. Electromyographic (EMG) and electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings were used to quantify physiological changes during the preceding REM period. We found that tDCS, compared to sham stimulation, significantly decreased reports of dream movement, especially of repetitive actions. Other types of bodily experiences, such as tactile or vestibular sensations, were not affected by tDCS, confirming the specificity of stimulation effects to movement sensations. In addition, tDCS reduced EEG interhemispheric coherence in parietal areas and affected the phasic EMG correlation between both arms. These findings show that a complex temporal reorganization of the motor network co-occurred with the reduction of dream movement, revealing a link between central and peripheral motor processes and movement sensations of the dream self. tDCS over the sensorimotor cortex interferes with dream movement during REM sleep, which is consistent with a causal contribution to dream experience and has broader implications for understanding the neural basis of self-experience in dreams.

The Spirit and the poor in West Africa and Tanzania: A Pentecostal response to David J. Bosch’s “mission in the wake of the Enlightenment”

This article describes a pneumatological methodology of Christian mission in solidarity with the poor, which is exhibited by African Pentecostal-Charismatics in ministry in Tanzania and West Africa today. The methodology is drawn from the experiences of dreams and visions as they fund an approach rooted in two pneumatological essentials for mission praxis: (1) “poverty of spirit” as an epistemological requisite and (2) the power of Spirit for mission in an oppressive spirit-filled world. The thesis argued here is that this methodological approach to missions is evidence of the “creative tension” between mission and eschatology that missiologist David Bosch called for. As well, this en-Spirited missions motif critiques the rationalist neglect of experience Bosch lamented and satisfies as an example of what he envisioned as an “emerging ecumenical missionary paradigm.”

Lucid dream induction by auditory stimulation and reality testing during early-morning sleep

One challenge in lucid dream research executed in a laboratory setting is the reliable induction of lucid dreams. A possible way to solve this issue is the combination of already known and effective induction techniques (Stumbrys, Erlacher, Schadlich, & Schredl, 2012). The present study combines the wake-up-back-to-bed sleep protocol (WBTB) with reality testing and acoustic stimulation by music. The following question was posed: would repeating the same music presented during the waking dream work session during the subsequent REM sleep increase the chance of a lucid dream experience. In total 21 participants spent a single night in the sleep lab. The whole procedure induced in 3 participants a lucid dream (14.3%), however none of those lucid dreams were verified by LRLR eye signal. The success rate of a combination of auditory stimulation with reality testing thus lies below the success rate of other induction techniques. The incorporation of music as a theme was found in 9 (19.6%) out of 69 dream reports which is in accordance with previously reported incorporation rates. Beside the music presentation, other methodological adjustments were made (e.g., shortening of the first part of the night to 4.5 h), which will be discussed and hopefully help further research to increase lucid dream induction rate.

Structural organization of dream experience during daytime sleep-onset rapid eye movement period sleep of patients with narcolepsy type 1.

To assess the frequency of dream experience (DE) developed during naps at Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT) by patients with narcolepsy type 1 (NT1) and establish, using story-grammar analysis, the structural organization of DEs developed during naps with sleep onset rapid eye movement (REM) period (SOREMP) sleep compared with their DEs during early- and late-night REM sleep. Thirty drug-free cognitively intact adult NT1 patients were asked to report DE developed during each MSLT nap. Ten NT1 patients also spent voluntarily a supplementary night being awakened during the first-cycle and third-cycle REM sleep. Patients provided dream reports, white dreams, and no dreams, whose frequencies were matched in naps with SOREMP versus non-REM (NREM) sleep. All dream reports were then analyzed using story-grammar rules. DE was recalled in detail (dream report) by NT1 patients after 75% of naps with SOREMP sleep and after 25% of naps with NREM sleep. Dream reports were provided by 8 out of 10 NT1 patients after both awakenings from nighttime REM sleep. Story-grammar analysis of dream reports showed that SOREMP-DEs are organized as hierarchically ordered sequences of events (so-called dream-stories), which are longer and more complex in the first and fourth SOREMP naps and are comparable with nighttime REM-DEs. The similar structural organization of SOREMP-DEs with nighttime REM-DEs indicates that their underlying cognitive processes are highly, albeit not uniformly, effective during daytime SOREMP sleep. Given the peculiar neurophysiology of SOREMP sleep, investigating SOREMP-DEs may cast further light on the relationships between the neurophysiological and psychological processes involved in REM-dreaming.

Religion: Its Origins, Social Role and Sources of Variation

Religion emerged among early humans because both purposive and non-purposive explanations were being employed but understanding was lacking of their precise scope and limits. Given also a context of very limited human power, the resultant foregrounding of agency and purposive explanation expressed itself in religion’s marked tendency towards anthropomorphism and its key role in legitimizing behaviour. The inevitability of death also structures the religious outlook; with ancestors sometimes assigned a role in relation to the living. Subjective elements such as the experience of dreams and the internalization of moral precepts also play their part. Two important sources of variation among religions concern the adoption of a dualist or non-dualist perspective, and whether or not the religion’s early political experience is such as to generate a systematic doctrine subordinating politics to religion. The near ubiquity and endurance of religion are further illuminated by analysis of its functions and ideological role. Religion tends to be socially conservative but has the potential to be revolutionary.

The Dream Catcher experiment: blinded analyses failed to detect markers of dreaming consciousness in EEG spectral power.

The Dream Catcher test defines the criteria for a genuine discovery of the neural constituents of phenomenal consciousness. Passing the test implies that some patterns of purely brain-based data directly correspond to the subjective features of phenomenal experience, which would help to bridge the explanatory gap between consciousness and brain. Here, we conducted the Dream Catcher test for the first time in a step-wise and simplified form, capturing its core idea. The Dream Catcher experiment involved a Data Team, which measured participants’ brain activity during sleep and collected dream reports, and a blinded Analysis Team, which was challenged to predict, based solely on brain measurements, whether or not a participant had a dream experience. Using a serial-awakening paradigm, the Data Team prepared 54 1-min polysomnograms of non-rapid eye movement sleep—27 of dreamful sleep and 27 of dreamless sleep (three of each condition from each of the nine participants)—redacting from them all associated participant and dream information. The Analysis Team attempted to classify each recording as either dreamless or dreamful using an unsupervised machine learning classifier, based on hypothesis-driven, extracted features of electroencephalography (EEG) spectral power and electrode location. The procedure was repeated over five iterations with a gradual removal of blindness. At no level of blindness did the Analysis Team perform significantly better than chance, suggesting that EEG spectral power could not be utilized to detect signatures specific to phenomenal consciousness in these data. This study marks the first step towards realizing the Dream Catcher test in practice.

Remembering Africanization: two conversations among elderly science workers about the perpetually promissory

AbstractThe ‘Africanization’ of science after decolonization was replete with dreams. Claims to Africa's place in the high-modern world, expectations of national technological and economic progress, and individual dreams of scientific discovery, professional development and fulfilled careers drove scientific work and lives. The term Africanization, coined by the colonizers, reproduced colonial notions of race but also stimulated the imagination of mid-twentieth-century African scientists, who hotly debated and enthusiastically embraced it. Half a century later, some dreams have failed, but many more remain unfulfilled. This article examines two reunions of Tanzanian and European science workers – in Amani in 2015 and in Cambridge in 2013 – who had worked together in the decades after Tanzania's independence at Amani Hill Research Station, then one of Africa's foremost laboratories for research on malaria and other tropical diseases. It explores ideas of good science and experiences of social differentiation, divergent dreams and persistent tensions – and the role of joking in remembering these.

Narrative strategies of dream reports: focalization agencies

The article addresses the issue of the narrative strategy in dream reports as a case study of the English language online dream journals. In the research, I deploy focalization and evidentiality as key aspects for the analysis of narrative strategy in dream reports. The analysis focuses on the specific configurations of focalization types in dream narratives. I consider them as marked by possible divergencies of the “I”-of-the-dream from the “I”-of-the-narration as underpinning the difference between dream reports and personal experience stories. I demonstrate that evidentiality markers serve as means of navigation in narrative spaces. They point to the dream nature of a certain space that is distinct from real world. In my research, I single out focalization and evidentiality markers as pivotal in forming narrative strategy of rendering dream experience. It entails the narrative biases towards objectivity or subjectivity. In the research, I demonstrate that in terms of the subjective narrative strategy, the narrator approaches dreaming as a personal experience. This is manifested, first, in the “I”-of-the-dream being collateral to the “I”-of-the-narration as internal focalizing agency and, secondly, in the use of economical deictic means of navigation in narrative spaces. Conversely, the objective narrative strategy, first, involves external focalizing elements, i.e. the “I”-of-the-dream treated as external to the “I”-of-the narration, and secondly, it is manifest in the detailed propositions signaling the dream nature of the narrative space.

Are there epistemic conditions necessary for demonstrative thought?

Starting with Gareth Evans, there’s an important tradition of theorizing about perception-based demonstrative thought which assigns necessary epistemic conditions to it. Its core idea is that demonstrative reference in thought is grounded in information links, understood as links which carry reliable information about their targets and which a subject exploits for demonstrative reference by tokening the mental files fed by these links. Perception, on these views, is not fundamental to perception-based demonstrative thought but is only the information link exploited in these cases. Evans himself assigns a further epistemic condition (knowledge of a target’s location in public space), while more recently Imogen Dickie has expanded the reliability requirement into a more complex account centered around justification. In this paper I synthesize three central proponents of this approach (Evans, Recanati, and Dickie) and show that the epistemic conditions they place on perception-based demonstrative thought are not actually required. My argument gives two examples in which there is perceptual contact with an object but this perceptual contact fails to do the epistemic work in question. The first case is stimulus-incorporating dream experiences, the second involves multimodal binding failures. I argue that this perceptual contact still affords demonstrative thought in these cases.

The subversive dreams of Alice in Wonderland

This article examines the specific features of dreaming found in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, using current dream research as a guide. These features include falling, magical animals, metamorphoses, wordplay, bizarreness, memory distortions, moral ambiguities, metacognition, curiosity, empathy, existential questioning, and freedom. When Carroll’s stories are viewed through the lens of the current dream research, it becomes clear that he has provided a surprisingly accurate and comprehensive accounting of human dream experience. Drawing on historical and biographical evidence, this article goes on to argue that Carroll intentionally made dreams a central part of the stories because he wanted to give his young readers a tool for resisting the oppressive normality of adulthood in Victorian England, at the peak of the British empire. By subtly teaching his young listeners about the true nature of dreaming, Carroll was cultivating their critical capacity to look beyond the status quo of supposedly “civilized” Imperial reality.

Validation of the French version of the Mannheim Dream Questionnaire in a French adult sample

The aim of the study was to provide a reliable French validation of the Mannheim Dream questionnaire in order to further examine demographic factors that may affect dream-related experience. The participants were 315 healthy French adult volunteers aged from 18 to 73 years. We performed a test-retest reliability study to evaluate the validity of our translation. The results obtained with the online French version of the Mannheim Dream questionnaire showed good indices of the test-retest reliability, and allowed us to have a first insight of the frequency repartition of some dream-related aspects and attitudes within a French population. The French version of the Mannheim Dream questionnaire is the first comprehensive French validated tool to investigate in large cohorts several aspects of the subjective dream experience, such as dream recall frequency, nightmares, lucid dreams, attitude toward dreams and effect of dreams on waking life.

Oscillatory EEG Activity During REM Sleep in Elderly People Predicts Subsequent Dream Recall After Awakenings.

Several findings underlined that the electrophysiological (EEG) background of the last segment of sleep before awakenings may predict the presence/absence of dream recall (DR) in young subjects. However, little is known about the EEG correlates of DR in elderly people. Only an investigation found differences between recall and non-recall conditions during NREM sleep EEG in older adults, while—surprisingly—no EEG predictor of DR was found for what concerns REM sleep. Considering REM sleep as a privileged scenario to produce mental sleep activity related to cognitive processes, our study aimed to investigate whether specific EEG topography and frequency changes during REM sleep in elderly people may predict a subsequent recall of mental sleep activity. Twenty-one healthy older volunteers (mean age 69.2 ± 6.07 SD) and 20 young adults (mean age 23.4 ± 2.76 SD) were recorded for one night from 19 scalp derivations. Dreams were collected upon morning awakenings from REM sleep. EEG signals of the last 5 min were analyzed by the Better OSCillation algorithm to detect the peaks of oscillatory activity in both groups. Statistical comparisons revealed that older as well as young individuals recall their dream experience when the last segment of REM sleep is characterized by frontal theta oscillations. No Recall (Recall vs. Non-Recall) × Age (Young vs. Older) interaction was found. This result replicated the previous evidence in healthy young subjects, as shown in within- and between-subjects design. The findings are completely original for older individuals, demonstrating that theta oscillations are crucial for the retrieval of dreaming also in this population. Furthermore, our results did not confirm a greater presence of the theta activity in healthy aging. Conversely, we found a greater amount of rhythmic theta and alpha activity in young than older participants. It is worth noting that the theta oscillations detected are related to cognitive functioning. We emphasize the notion that the oscillatory theta activity should be distinguished from the non-rhythmic theta activity identified in relation to other phenomena such as (a) sleepiness and hypoarousal conditions during the waking state and (b) cortical slowing, considered as an EEG alteration in clinical samples.

A secure base for mindful dreaming: dispositional and contextually variable attachment security and the experiential quality of dreams

ABSTRACT In this study, we examined the utility of attachment theory for explaining individual differences in dream experiences. Seventy-six Israeli undergraduates completed a measure of attachment anxiety and avoidance and participated in a daily diary study for 15 consecutive days. Each evening, they rated their daily sense of attachment security. Each morning, they described in writing any dreams they recalled and rated the extent to which they (a) were aware of their sensations and mental states while dreaming and (b) reflected on their subjective experience during the dream. Two judges made similar ratings for each dream. Dispositional attachment anxiety and avoidance were associated with lower levels of within-dream awareness and reflection across the 15-day period. In addition, attachment security on a given day was associated with higher within-dream awareness and reflection that night. The findings provide new evidence concerning the contribution of attachment orientations to the experiential quality of dreams.

College students’ erotic dreams: Analysis of content and emotional tone

Summary The present study reports about the frequency, content and emotional tone of erotic dreams based on dream diary reports of a German college student sample. Four hundred and twenty-five students provided 1612 dreams, of which about 6% contained erotic themes, a figure which is in line with previous research. As for the dream content, kissing was the most frequent erotic activity, followed by intercourse and explicit sexual foreplay. Openness to experience is positively related to the frequency of erotic dreams; neuroticism and conscientiousness are associated with a rather negative emotional tone of such dreams. This supports the continuity hypothesis stating that erotic dreaming experience reflects waking life sexual activity, which is likely to be influenced by these personality dispositions. Further research should extend the knowledge of the aspects and emotional intensity of waking life sexual activity and their reflection in erotic dream content, i.e., whether experiencing unwanted and negatively perceived sexual events are associated with the emotional tone of erotic dreams. To investigate the causality of the relation between waking and dreaming sexual activity and the emotions related to it, an experimental study would be a necessary approach.

"Never in my mind to give up!" A qualitative study of long-term intensive care patients' inner strength and willpower-Promoting and challenging aspects.

To explore aspects that promote and challenge long-term ICU patients' inner strength and willpower. Considerable research has been devoted to ICU patients' experiences; however, research on long-term ICU patients is limited. Studies in a health-promoting perspective focusing on long-term ICU patients' inner strength and willpower are scarce. A qualitative, hermeneutic-phenomenological approach, using in-depth interviews. Seventeen long-term Norwegian ICU patients were interviewed once, at 6-18months after ICU discharge. The consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research was used (Data S1). The lived experience of the phenomenon "inner strength and willpower" and what promotes and challenges this phenomenon in long-term ICU patients were represented by four main themes and nine subthemes. Promoting aspects comprised of two main themes and five subthemes: (a) "No doubt about coming back to life" with subthemes; "Strong connectedness to life; feeling alive and present," "Meaning and purpose; feeling valuable to somebody." (b) "How to ignite and maintain the spark of life," with the subthemes: "Practical solutions, coping skills from previous life experiences," "Provocative and inspiring experiences" and "Vivid dream experiences that ignite the willpower." Two main categories and four subcategories represented challenging aspects: (a) Exhaustion, weakness and discomfort; subthemes; "Physical challenges" and "Mental discomfort" and (b) "Tiring delusions," subthemes; "Living in the worst horror movie" and "Feeling trapped." This study expands on previous studies by providing insights about what promotes and challenges long-term ICU patients' inner strength and willpower during their recovery trajectory. Insights into the variety of long-term ICU patients' experiences during the recovery trajectory are important for ICU nurses to support and facilitate ICU patients' inner strength and willpower.

The Complexity of Dreams: a Multiscale Entropy Study on Cardiovascular Variability Series.

Uncovering the physiological correlates of dreams is one of the most ambitious aim of multidisciplinary neuroscientific research. Here we investigated Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) dynamics associated with a dream recall, with a particular focus on the complexity assessment on cardiovascular control. We recorded electrocardiogram and arterial blood pressure signals from eight healthy subjects during rapid-eye-movement sleep before awakenings. Recordings were then split into two groups: the ones with a dream experience, and the ones without recall of dream experiences. The randomness of cardiovascular variability series was assessed through Sample Entropy metrics, which did not show any statistical difference between groups. On the other hand, a multiscale complexity analysis based on Distribution Entropy and Fuzzy Entropy revealed that a higher cardiovascular complexity is associated with a dreaming experience.

Sex dreams: Gender, erotophilia, and sociosexuality as predictors of content, valence, and frequency

The continuity hypothesis suggests that dream content is directly related to waking life experiences, personality traits, and gender; however, little is known about sexual dreaming. To address this gap, the current study examined how gender, sociosexuality (one’s willingness to engage in sexual relations outside of committed relationships) and erotophilia (a learned disposition to respond positively to sexual stimuli) related to the content, frequency, and valence of sexual dreams. Participants (n = 482) completed an online survey assessing their sex dream experiences, sociosexuality, and erotophilia and were asked to describe their most recent sexual dream. Men scored higher on sociosexuality and sex dream valence than women, but there were no gender differences in erotophilia or sex dream frequency. Individuals who scored higher on sociosexuality and erotophilia reported experiencing more frequent sex dreams and evaluated them more positively. Hierarchical regression analysis demonstrated that erotophilia and sociosexuality significantly predicted sex dream valence, accounting for 24.3% of the variance. The addition of gender at step 2 was significant, but only accounted for an additional 1.9% of the variance. Participants’ descriptions of their most recent sex dream were analyzed for common themes related to variables such as the partner(s) involved (most common: current partner), location (most common: house/apartment), and types of sexual behaviors involved (most common: kissing). Exploratory analyses, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

Relationships between video game play factors and frequency of lucid and control dreaming experiences.

Relationships between video game play factors and frequency of lucid and control dreaming experiences.