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Smaranda Leu-Semenescu

12 papers in the library · 295 citations · publishing 2010-2025

Papers

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Live access to the emotional dynamics of REM sleep dreams in lucid dreamers with narcolepsy

bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) September 1, 2025 Jean-Baptiste Maranci, Pierre Champetier, Delphine Oudiette et al. preprint

Abstract Sleep helps regulate emotions, but it is still unclear whether -and how- the emotions we experience in dreams contribute to this regulation. To uncover the potential function of dream emotions, we must first understand what they are and how they unfold in dreams. The emotional content of dreams has mostly been studied using post-sleep dream reports, which provide a biased and static...

Talking to sleepwalkers? Response to communication efforts in disorders of arousals.

Sleep February 10, 2025 Yannis Idir, Régis Lopez, Amélie Barbier et al. 5 citations

Disorders of arousal (DoA) are diagnosed on the basis of clinical criteria, including inappropriate or absent responsiveness to communication attempts. Surprisingly, the ability of patients to interact with others during DoA episodes has not been systematically investigated. To address this gap, we conducted three studies. First, we used a retrospective questionnaire to assess verbal...

The dynamics of emotional behaviors in rapid eye movement sleep

Sleep November 29, 2022 Luc Masset, Milan Nigam, Anne Ladarre et al. 9 citations

Dream's emotions could exert a major role in desensitizing negative emotions. Studying emotional dynamics (how emotions fluctuate across time) during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep could provide some insight into this function. However, studies so far have been limited to dream reports. To bypass this limit, REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), in which participants enact their dreams, enables...

Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep.

Current Biology April 12, 2021 Karen R Konkoly, Kristoffer Appel, Emma Chabani et al. 126 citations

Dreams take us to a different reality, a hallucinatory world that feels as real as any waking experience. These often-bizarre episodes are emblematic of human sleep but have yet to be adequately explained. Retrospective dream reports are subject to distortion and forgetting, presenting a fundamental challenge for neuroscientific studies of dreaming. Here we show that individuals who are asleep...

Are sleep paralysis and false awakenings different from REM sleep and from lucid REM sleep? A spectral EEG analysis.

Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine April 1, 2021 Greta Mainieri, Jean-Baptiste Maranci, Pierre Champetier et al. 40 citations

To determine the polysomnography characteristics during sleep paralysis, false awakenings, and lucid dreaming (which are states intermediate to rapid eye movement [REM] sleep and wake but exceptionally observed in sleep laboratory). In 5 participants, we captured 5 episodes of sleep paralysis (2 time marked with the ocular left-right-left-right code normally used to signal lucid dreaming, 1...

DOI: 10.5664/jcsm.9056 (opens in new tab) Full text (opens in new tab) Rem sleep False awakenings Sleep paralysis

Blackout of my nights: Contentless, timeless and selfless report from the night in patients with central hypersomnias.

Consciousness and Cognition May 1, 2020 Emma Chabani, Marie Charlotte Vionnet, Romy Beauté et al.

At the extreme spectrum of consciousness during sleep, some patients with rare hypersomnias reported experiencing a specific night 'blackout' when sleeping, i.e., an absence of experiences or recall of them from sleep onset to offset. Thus, we explored through questionnaires the conscious experiences (dreaming experience, mind, self) during the night in 133 patients with idiopathic hypersomnia,...

Evidence that non-dreamers do dream: a REM sleep behaviour disorder model.

Journal of Sleep Research December 1, 2015 Bastien Herlin, Smaranda Leu-Semenescu, Charlotte Chaumereuil et al.

To determine whether non-dreamers do not produce dreams or do not recall them, subjects were identified with no dream recall with dreamlike behaviours during rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder, which is typically characterised by dream-enacting behaviours congruent with sleep mentation. All consecutive patients with idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder or rapid eye...

Lucid Dreaming in Narcolepsy

Sleep February 27, 2015 Pauline Dodet, Mario Chávez, Smaranda Leu-Semenescu et al. 115 citations

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the frequency, determinants and sleep characteristics of lucid dreaming in narcolepsy. SETTINGS: University hospital sleep disorder unit. DESIGN: Case-control study. PARTICIPANTS: Consecutive patients with narcolepsy and healthy controls. METHODS: Participants were interviewed regarding the frequency and determinants of lucid dreaming. Twelve narcolepsy patients and 5...

Can we still dream when the mind is blank? Sleep and dream mentations in auto-activation deficit.

Brain September 11, 2013 Smaranda Leu-Semenescu, Ginevra Uguccioni, Jean‐louis Golmard et al.

Bilateral damage to the basal ganglia causes auto-activation deficit, a neuropsychological syndrome characterized by striking apathy, with a loss of self-driven behaviour that is partially reversible with external stimulation. Some patients with auto-activation deficit also experience a mental emptiness, which is defined as an absence of any self-reported thoughts. We asked whether this deficit...

DOI: 10.1093/brain/awt229 (opens in new tab) Full text (opens in new tab) Basal ganglia Humans Emotions Mental processes +10

Fight or flight? Dream content during sleepwalking/sleep terrors vs. rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder.

Sleep Medicine April 17, 2013 Ginevra Uguccioni, Jean‐louis Golmard, Alix Noël De Fontréaux et al.

Objective: Dreams enacted during sleepwalking or sleep terrors (SW/ST) may differ from those enacted during rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD). Methods: Subjects completed aggression, depression, and anxiety questionnaires. The mentations associated with SW/ST and RBD behaviors were collected over their lifetime and on the morning after video polysomnography (PSG). The reports...

Hallucinations in narcolepsy with and without cataplexy: contrasts with Parkinson's disease.

Sleep Medicine May 2011 Smaranda Leu-Semenescu, Valerie Cochen De Cock, Valerie Dauriac Le Masson et al.

Narcolepsy and Parkinson's disease (PD) are associated with hallucinations, excessive daytime sleepiness, REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), as well as complete (narcolepsy with cataplexy) vs. partial (PD, narcolepsy without cataplexy) hypocretin-1 deficiency. To compare the hallucinations associated with narcolepsy to those of PD. One hundred patients with narcolepsy (with and without...

Do the eyes scan dream images during rapid eye movement sleep? Evidence from the rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder model.

Brain June 1, 2010 Laurène Leclair-Visonneau, Delphine Oudiette, Bertrand Gaymard et al.

Rapid eye movements and complex visual dreams are salient features of human rapid eye movement sleep. However, it remains to be elucidated whether the eyes scan dream images, despite studies that have retrospectively compared the direction of rapid eye movements to the dream recall recorded after having awakened the sleeper. We used the model of rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder (when...