Delusional ideation is characteristic of psychopathology (e.g., psychosis, bipolar disorder) and is also found among the general population. Contemporary case studies have documented delusional ideation as a feature of meditation-induced psychosis, and Buddhist literature on the side effects and adverse effects of meditation also includes discussion of transient experiences that could be...
A traumatic event can profoundly affect individuals emotionally and physically, with trauma referring to the psychological response to such events. While most people recover over time, some struggle to process their experiences, leading to conditions such as anxiety, mood, and/or personality disorders. Ernest Hartmann’s concept of boundaries—developed in the context of personality differences...
Background Psychedelic drug experiences are shaped by current-moment contextual factors, commonly categorized as internal (set) and external (setting). Potential influences of past environments, however, have received little attention. Aims To investigate how previous environmental stimuli shaped the experiences of patients receiving ketamine for treatment-resistant depression (TRD), and...
Abstract Purpose: Delusional ideation, defined as false beliefs and altered thinking, has long been attributed to anomalous/bizarre perceptual experiences and reasoning deficits. Recent studies, however, have challenged this view, suggesting instead that delusional ideation may have more of a social component to its phenomenology and underlying mechanisms. This study investigated associations...
January 28, 2022Sophie Smith, Sofia Hempelmann Perez, Sara Carling et al.
preprint
Nightmares are intense emotional experiences that can greatly alter sleep quality and affect most people at some point in their lives. Yet little research has focused on the relationship between nightmares and the subjective experience of sleep quality. In this study, we aimed at investigating the relationship between nightmare frequency, subjective sleep duration, subjective estimation of...
(1) Objective: to determine if a brief mindfulness intervention (BMI) and a health education program (HEP) could improve measures of insomnia in patients undergoing hemodialysis. (2) Methods: this was a planned secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial of BMI vs. HEP for hemodialysis patients with depression and/or anxiety symptoms. The primary outcome for the analysis was the Athens...
Traditionally, dreams have been seen as experiences that one cannot control, as something that happensto the dreamer (at times through involvement of supernatural powers), without the dreamer’s permission,volition or agency. This view was famously challenged in the advent of psychoanalysis: in his Interpretation ofDreams, Freud proposed that while we may not be consciously in control of our...
Background: An upsurge in dream and nightmare frequency has been noted since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and research shows increases in levels of stress, depression and anxiety during this time. Growing evidence suggests that dream content has a bi-directional relationship with psychopathology, and that dreams react to new, personally significant and emotional experiences. The first...
An upsurge in dream and nightmare frequency has been noted since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and research shows increases in levels of stress, depression and anxiety during this time. Growing evidence suggests that dream content has a bi-directional relationship with psychopathology, and that dreams react to new, personally significant and emotional experiences. The first lockdown...
Despite a high prevalence and broad interest in flying dreams, these exceptional experiences remain infrequent. Our study aimed to (1) induce flying dreams using a custom-built virtual reality (VR) flying task, (2) examine their phenomenological correlates and (3) investigate their relations to participant state and trait factors. 137 participants underwent VR-flying followed by a morning nap....
Aim: Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, and sleep spindles are all implicated in the consolidation of procedural memories. Relative contributions of sleep stages and sleep spindles were previously shown to depend on individual differences in task processing. However, no studies to our knowledge have focused on individual differences in experience with Vipassana...
Vipassana meditation is characterized by observing bodily sensations, developing emotional and attentional stability, and promoting prosocial qualities. Whether these characteristics are also reflected in meditators’ dream content is not currently known. Evidence relating dream content with sleep-dependent learning is mixed: Some studies suggest that dreaming of a task is beneficial for...
Sleep paralysis is an experience of being temporarily unable to move or talk during the transitional periods between sleep and wakefulness: at sleep onset or upon awakening. The feeling of paralysis may be accompanied by a variety of vivid and intense sensory experiences, including mentation in visual, auditory, and tactile modalities, as well as a distinct feeling of presence. This chapter...
Les théories récentes de la conscience incarnée (embodiment) soulignent que l'esprit est un processus incarné, impliquant le cerveau, le corps et l'environnement. Plusieurs aspects de la cognition, de l’interaction sensorimotrice avec l’environnement à la pensée abstraite et métaphorique, ont été conceptualisés dans ce paradigme. Le sommeil et le rêve, cependant, ont rarement été abordés par...
Sleep paralysis is an experience of being temporarily unable to move or talk during the transitional periods between sleep and wakefulness: at sleep onset or upon awakening. Feeling of paralysis may be accompanied by a variety of vivid and intense sensory experiences, including mentation in visual, auditory, and tactile modalities, as well as a distinct feeling of presence. This chapter...
Both rapid eye movement (REM) sleep dreaming and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep spindles have been linked to processes of memory consolidation. However, relationships between the two phenomena have yet to be explored. In a heterogeneous sample of 53 healthy subjects who had participated in a memory consolidation protocol and who varied in their self-reported recall of dreams and...
Memory consolidation is associated with sleep physiology but the contribution of specific sleep stages remains controversial. To clarify the contribution of REM sleep, participants were administered two REM sleep-sensitive tasks to determine if associated changes occurred only in REM sleep. Twenty-two participants (7 men) were administered the Corsi Block Tapping and Tower of Hanoi tasks prior...
Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the scientific study of contemplative practices. While seated meditation practices have historically been at the center of inquiry in contemplative sciences, movement-based practices, such as yoga, t'ai chi, qigong, and others, are currently coming to the forefront of this discourse. In her introduction to the present Research Topic, Schmalzl et al....
Isolated reports have long suggested a similarity in content and thought processes across mind wandering (MW) during waking, and dream mentation during sleep. This overlap has encouraged speculation that both "daydreaming" and dreaming may engage similar brain mechanisms. To explore this possibility, we systematically examined published first-person experiential reports of MW and dreaming and...
Study objectives: To assess whether dysfunctional autonomic regulation during REM sleep as indexed by heart rate variability (HRV) is a pathophysiological factor in frequent nightmares (NMs). Design: Monitoring with polysomnography (PSG) and electrocardiography (ECG) for 3 consecutive nights: Night 1 (N1), adaptation night; N2, administration of partial REM sleep deprivation; N3, recovery...
Isolated sleep paralysis (ISP) is a common parasomnia characterized by an inability to move or speak and often accompanied by hallucinations of a sensed presence nearby. Recent research has linked ISP, and sensed presence more particularly, with social anxiety and other psychopathologies. The present study used a large sample of respondents to an internet questionnaire (N=193) to test whether...
Vipassana meditation is characterized by observing bodily sensations, developing emotional and attentional stability and promoting pro-social qualities. Whether these qualities are also reflected in dream content is not currently known. Evidence relating dream content with sleep-depending learning is mixed: some studies suggest that dreaming of a task is beneficial for improvement, while others...
Study objectives: Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, and sleep spindles are all implicated in the consolidation of procedural memories. The relative contributions of sleep stages and sleep spindles was previously shown to depend on individual differences in task processing. Experience with Vipassana meditation is one such individual difference that has not been...