13 papers in the library · 32 citations · publishing 2001-2026
Cambridge University Press eBooks June 12, 2026 Patrick Mcnamara
I examine more closely the question of whether and how we can voluntarily access and benefit from accessing group mind content. I argue that some of the experiences on serotonergic psychedelics can be seen in terms of unstructured access to a variety of group minds. The ego dissolution experience on psychedelics can be viwed in terms of fusion between the individual and some salient group mind.
Cambridge University Press eBooks June 12, 2026 Patrick Mcnamara
.I study what is known about the extent to which group minds shape the content of dreams and suggest we can interact consciously with some group minds during the lucid dreaming state. Typical dreams are thoroughly social, typically depicting dreamer interactions with characters that represent the group minds he/she is a member of.
March 31, 2026 Patrick Mcnamara
Dreams have always contributed to religious consciousness and religions have always, in turn, shaped dream content (McNamara, 2016; Lanternari, 1975). Many religions began as literally a dream or vision in the mind of the founder. In the holy scriptures of the three Abrahamic Faiths dreams abound, with perhaps the dream called “Jacob’s ladder” being one of the most famous. The patriarch Jacob...
Scientific Reports May 3, 2025 John Balch, Rachel Raider, Chanel Reed et al. 1 citation
Researchers have established that dreams are intensely social and populated by diverse characters, including important figures from the dreamer's daily life. This study examines the types of characters that appeared in participant dreams over two weeks. We found that the majority of dreams include strangers in addition to known individuals, and that personality measures impact the likelihood of...
Consciousness and Cognition July 1, 2024 John Balch, Rachel Raider, Joni Keith et al.
Some dissociative experiences may be related, in part, to REM intrusion into waking consciousness. If so, some aspects of dream content may be associated with daytime dissociative experiences. We tested the hypothesis that some types of dream content would predict daytime dissociative symptomology. As part of a longitudinal study of the impact of dreams on everyday behavior we administered a...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2024 Patrick Mcnamara, Jordan Grafman 8 citations
We review and synthesize recent religion and brain studies and find that at a broad network neuroscience level, religious/spiritual experiences (RSEs) appear to depend crucially upon interactions between the default mode network (DMN), the frontoparietal network (FPN), and the salience network (SN). We see this general result as broadly consistent with Menon's et al. "Triple Network or...
Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior December 1, 2023 Patrick Mcnamara 5 citations
Grafman and colleagues' papers in religion and brain research have documented the extent to which religious beliefs and behaviors are mediated by standard social cognitive networks in brain. Grafman's work however also points beyond treatments of religious cognition as merely a species of more general social cognitive processes. Data emerging from experiments targeting mystical states as well...
Cambridge University Press eBooks February 21, 2019 Patrick Mcnamara
REM dreams and NREM dreams differ in terms of content and phenomenologies, these two dream types do not exhaust dream phenomenology. Relative to REM dreams, NREM dreams tend to be less story-like, bizarre, and contain fewer aggressive social interactions and greater numbers of friendly interactions, at least where the dreamer-initiated interactions are concerned.
University Library Heidelberg June 26, 2018 Patrick Mcnamara, Kelly Duffy-Deno, Tom Marsh et al. 11 citations
We developed a dream content analysis system (DCAS) based on an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm that was trained using a relatively large corpus of over 35,000 dreams. This sample of dreams were supplied by 424 female and 211 male users over 4 years who had posted them at the dream posting website and app Dreamboard.com. Building upon previous dream content ontologies developed by Hall,...
2011 Patrick Mcnamara
This two-volume text reviews spirit possession throughout history, analyzes case studies from a cognitive neuroscience perspective, and examines rites for exorcism. From the beginning of civilization to the present day, and across all major religions and cultures, there have been documented cases of people seemingly overtaken by an unseen entity. The invading force—whether good or bad—appears...
November 6, 2009 Patrick Mcnamara
Technical advances in the life and medical sciences have revolutionised our understanding of the brain, while the emerging disciplines of social, cognitive, and affective neuroscience continue to reveal the connections of the higher cognitive functions and emotional states associated with religious experience to underlying brain states. At the same time, a host of developing theories in...
Evolutionary Psychology 2007 Patrick Mcnamara, Reka Szent-Imrey 7 citations
The function of REM sleep dreaming is still unknown. We situate our approach to understanding dream phenomenology and dream function within that part of evolutionary theory known as Costly Signaling Theory (CST). We contend that many of the signals produced by the dreaming brain can be and should be construed as “costly signals”—emotions or mental simulations that produce daytime behavioral...
Journal of Sleep Research June 9, 2001 Patrick Mcnamara, Jensine Andresen, Jill Clark et al.
We tested the hypothesis (McNamara 1996; Zborowski and McNamara 1998) that dream recall and dream content would pattern with interpersonal attachment styles. In study I, college student volunteers were assessed on measures of attachment, dream recall, dream content and other psychologic measures. Results showed that participants who were classified as ‘high’ on an ‘insecure attachment’ scale...