Awake or Sleeping? Maybe Both… A Review of Sleep-Related Dissociative States.
Maria Eduarda Sodré, Isabel Wießner, Muna Irfan, Carlos H. Schenck, Sérgio Mota-Rolim
Journal of Clinical Medicine June 6, 2023 DOI: 10.3390/jcm12123876 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Review Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Lucid dreaming |
| Keywords | Anesthesia Daydreaming Dissociative states False awakenings Hypnosis Psychedelics Sleep dissociation Sleep paralysis Sleepwalking |
| Citations | 15 |
| Key findings | Sleep-related dissociative states—physiological, pathological, and altered—arise from the concurrent appearance of basic states of consciousness and have significant implications for understanding consciousness and treating neuropsychiatric diseases. |
Abstract
Recent studies have begun to understand sleep not only as a whole-brain process but also as a complex local phenomenon controlled by specific neurotransmitters that act in different neural networks, which is called "local sleep". Moreover, the basic states of human consciousness-wakefulness, sleep onset (N1), light sleep (N2), deep sleep (N3), and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep-can concurrently appear, which may result in different sleep-related dissociative states. In this article, we classify these sleep-related dissociative states into physiological, pathological, and altered states of consciousness. Physiological states are daydreaming, lucid dreaming, and false awakenings. Pathological states include sleep paralysis, sleepwalking, and REM sleep behavior disorder. Altered states are hypnosis, anesthesia, and psychedelics. We review the neurophysiology and phenomenology of these sleep-related dissociative states of consciousness and update them with recent studies. We conclude that these sleep-related dissociative states have a significant basic and clinical impact since their study contributes to the understanding of consciousness and the proper treatment of neuropsychiatric diseases.
Comparable studies
Other narrative reviews on lucid dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The cognitive neuroscience of lucid dreaming | 2019 | Review | |
| My Dream, My Rules: Can Lucid Dreaming Treat Nightmares? | 2019 | Review | |
| What about dreams? State of the art and open questions | 2022 | Review | |
| The Dream of God: How Do Religion and Science See Lucid Dreaming and Other Conscious States During Sleep? | 2020 | Review | |
| Insight and Dissociation in Lucid Dreaming and Psychosis | 2018 | Review |
Citations in the library
Cited by 6
- A dream EEG and mentation database. Nature Communications August 13, 2025
- Targeted dream incubation at a distance: the development of a remote and sensor-free tool for incubating hypnagogic dreams and mind-wandering Frontiers in Sleep May 28, 2024
- Neuropsychopharmacological Induction of (Lucid) Dreams: A Narrative Review. Brain Sciences April 25, 2024
- The impact of homeostatic inhibitory plasticity in a generative biophysical model bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) January 13, 2026
- Predicting and exploring ayahuasca effects: Perception, mind-wandering, and EEG oscillations Journal of Psychopharmacology December 4, 2025
and 1 more in the library
Cites 73
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- Default Mode Network Activity and Connectivity in Psychopathology Annual Review of Clinical Psychology March 29, 2012
- Neural correlates of the LSD experience revealed by multimodal neuroimaging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences April 11, 2016
- Global Street Food: la cocina de la calle Diseño interior 2009
- Linking Out-of-Body Experience and Self Processing to Mental Own-Body Imagery at the Temporoparietal Junction Journal of Neuroscience January 19, 2005
and 68 more in the library