The vision of dreams: from ontogeny to dream engineering in blindness.
Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine August 1, 2022 Helene Vitali, Claudio Campus, Valentina De Giorgis et al.
Dreams originate through multiple brain mechanisms, not a single generator. Frontoparietal regions support dream recall, consistent with the Global Workspace theory of consciousness, but dreams in different sleep stages show distinct features, implying several generators. Blind individuals, including those congenitally blind, can still produce visual dreams, suggesting bottom-up mechanisms linked to innate body schemes or multisensory integration. A new dream-engineering technique may clarify multisensory integration during sleep and offer rehabilitation possibilities for sensory-impaired people. The Theory of Proto-consciousness proposes that waking and dreaming brain states interact for optimal functioning, potentially making dreaming a rehabilitative tool.