Consciousness and Cognition
April 1, 2014
Pilleriin Sikka, Katja Valli, Tiina Virta et al.
We investigated whether inconsistencies in previous studies regarding emotional experiences in dreams derive from whether dream emotions are self-rated or externally evaluated. Seventeen subjects were monitored with polysomnography in the sleep laboratory and awakened from every rapid eye movement (REM) sleep stage 5 min after the onset of the stage. Upon awakening, participants gave an oral...
Brain and Cognition
December 1, 2011
Valdas Noreika, Leila Jylhänkangas, Levente Móró et al.
62 citations
Anesthetic-induced changes in the neural activity of the brain have been recently utilized as a research model to investigate the neural mechanisms of phenomenal consciousness. However, the anesthesiologic definition of consciousness as "responsiveness to the environment" seems to sidestep the possibility that an unresponsive individual may have subjective experiences. The aim of the present...
Journal of Sleep Research
August 4, 2011
Katja Valli, Birgit Frauscher, Viola Gschliesser et al.
58 citations
Motor activity in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) has been linked to dream content. Systematic and controlled sleep laboratory studies directly assessing the relation between RBD behaviours and experienced dream content are, however, largely lacking. We aimed to investigate whether a link can be established between RBD behaviours and dream content when both are...
The International journal of clinical and experimental hypnosis
April 2011
Levente Móró, Valdas Noreika, Antti Revonsuo et al.
The relationships between hypnotizability, sleepiness, and the subjective experience of hypnotic suggestions were investigated in 90 participants. Scores from the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility Form A (HGSHS:A), the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS), the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and our self-developed Questionnaire on Subjective...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Antti Revonsuo, Katja Valli
Based on biological realism, that is, the philosophical assumption that consciousness is a real natural biological phenomenon in the brain, we argue that dreaming is a pure form of phenomenality, and suggest that the dreaming brain could be used as a model system for consciousness. The dreaming brain offers the most challenging model system that represents all the theoretically and...
Cognitive Neuroscience
September 1, 2010
Antti Revonsuo, Mika Koivisto
3 citations
Abstract Recent evidence from event-related brain potentials (ERPs) lends support to two central theses in Lamme's theory. The earliest ERP correlate of visual consciousness appears over posterior visual cortex around 100-200 ms after stimulus onset. Its scalp topography and time window are consistent with recurrent processing in the visual cortex. This electrophysiological correlate of visual...
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
2010
Josefin Gavie, Antti Revonsuo
9 citations
future of lucid dreaming treatment : Commentary on The neurobiology of consciousness: Lucid dreaming wakes up by J. Allan Hobson
Neuropsychologia
November 1, 2009
Mika Koivisto, Pasi Kainulainen, Antti Revonsuo
107 citations
The relationship between attention and awareness is complex, because both concepts can be understood in different ways. Here we review our recent series of experiments which have tracked the independent contributions of different types of visual attention and awareness to electrophysiological brain responses, and then we report a new experiment focusing on spatial attention, nonspatial...
International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology
October 1, 2009
Valdas Noreika, Katja Valli, Hetti Lahtela et al.
A new experimental paradigm called "Early-Night Serial Awakenings" (ENSA) was explored to find out its strengths and weaknesses for psychophysiological studies of NREM sleep dreaming. Five participants spent 20 experimental nights in the sleep laboratory, and were serially awakened with approximately 24-minute intervals during Stages 2 and 3 of NREM sleep. As a total, 164 awakenings were...
The American Journal of Psychology
April 1, 2009
Katja Valli, Antti Revonsuo
132 citations
The recently proposed threat simulation theory (TST) states that dreaming about threatening events has a biological function. In the past few years, the TST has led to several dream content analysis studies that empirically test the theory. The predictions of the TST have been investigated mainly with a new content analysis system, the Dream Threat Scale (DTS), a method developed for...
A Phenomenological Inquiry into the North American Shaman's Experience of the Altered State of Consciousness
April 1, 2009
A. Revonsuo, S. Kallio, P. Sikka
“Altered State of Consciousness” (ASC) has been defined as a changed overall pattern of conscious experience, or as the subjective feeling and explicit recognition that one's own subjective experience has changed. We argue that these traditional definitions fail to draw a clear line between altered and normal states of consciousness (NSC). We outline a new definition of ASC and argue that the...
Epilepsy & behavior : E&B
August 1, 2008
Mirja Johanson, Katja Valli, Antti Revonsuo et al.
19 citations
Epilepsy research suffers from a deficiency of systematic studies concerning the phenomenology of the contents of consciousness during seizures, partially because of the lack of suitable research methods. The Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory (PCI), a standardized, valid, and reliable questionnaire, was used here to study which dimensions of the contents of consciousness are distorted...
Consciousness and Cognition
March 1, 2005
Katja Valli, Antti Revonsuo, Outi Pälkäs et al.
The threat simulation theory of dreaming (TST) () states that dream consciousness is essentially an ancient biological defence mechanism, evolutionarily selected for its capacity to repeatedly simulate threatening events. Threat simulation during dreaming rehearses the cognitive mechanisms required for efficient threat perception and threat avoidance, leading to increased probability of...
Contemporary Hypnosis
September 1, 2003
Sakari Kallio, Antti Revonsuo
133 citations
Abstract There is currently agreement that, in addition to the changes in external behaviour, suggestions presented in a hypnotic context may give rise to changes in subjective experience. Yet, there is no general agreement about the theoretical framework within which these changes in experience should be explained. Though different theories about hypnosis overlap in many respects, there is...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
August 1, 2003
Antti Revonsuo
The Gestalt Bubble model of visual consciousness is a courageous attempt to take the first-person perspective as primary in the study of consciousness. I have developed similar ideas as the Virtual Reality Metaphor of consciousness (Revonsuo 1995; 2000). I can, hence, only agree with Lehar about the general shape of a proper research strategy for the study of consciousness. As to the...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
Antti Revonsuo
AbstractIn this commentary, I point out some weaknesses in Gray's target article and, in the light of that discussion, I attempt to delineate the kinds of problem a cognitive neuroscience of consciousness faces on its way to a scientific understanding of subjective experience.
Philosophical Psychology
1995
Antti Revonsuo
148 citations
In this paper I develop the thesis that dreams are essential to an understanding of waking consciousness. In the first part I argue in opposition to the philosophers Malcolm and Dennett that empirical evidence now shows dreams to be real conscious experiences. In the second part, three questions concerning consciousness research are addressed. (1) How do we isolate the system to be explained...