Dreams, reality and memory: confabulations in lucid dreamers implicate reality-monitoring dysfunction in dream consciousness.
Philip R. Corlett, S V Canavan, L Nahum, F Appah, P T Morgan
Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 2014 DOI: 10.1080/13546805.2014.932685 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational cohort Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 31 |
| Population | Physically and mentally healthy individuals with high (n=18) and low (n=13) self-reported dream awareness |
| Topics | Lucid dreaming |
| Keywords | Cognitive neuroscience Delusions Dreams Memory Psychosis Reality monitoring |
| Key findings | Individuals with high dream awareness exhibited a more liberal acceptance bias on a reality-monitoring task, consistent with overlap in the perception of dreams, imagination, and reality. |
Abstract
Dreams might represent a window on altered states of consciousness with relevance to psychotic experiences, where reality monitoring is impaired. We examined reality monitoring in healthy, non-psychotic individuals with varying degrees of dream awareness using a task designed to assess confabulatory memory errors - a confusion regarding reality whereby information from the past feels falsely familiar and does not constrain current perception appropriately. Confabulatory errors are common following damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Ventromedial function has previously been implicated in dreaming and dream awareness. In a hospital research setting, physically and mentally healthy individuals with high (n = 18) and low (n = 13) self-reported dream awareness completed a computerised cognitive task that involved reality monitoring based on familiarity across a series of task runs. Signal detection theory analysis revealed a more liberal acceptance bias in those with high dream awareness, consistent with the notion of overlap in the perception of dreams, imagination and reality. We discuss the implications of these results for models of reality monitoring and psychosis with a particular focus on the role of vmPFC in default-mode brain function, model-based reinforcement learning and the phenomenology of dreaming and waking consciousness.
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on lucid dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lucid Dreaming: a State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming Student volunteers trained to become lucid and signal lucidity with horizontal eye... | 2009 | Observational study | n = 6 |
| Neural Correlates of Dream Lucidity Obtained from Contrasting Lucid versus Non-Lucid REM Sleep: A Combined EEG/fMRI Case Study Experienced lucid dreamers | 2012 | Observational cohort | n = 4 |
| Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep. Individuals during REM sleep, including frequent lucid dreamers, a novice, and a... | 2021 | Observational study | n = 36 |
| Lucid Dreaming in Narcolepsy Consecutive patients with narcolepsy and healthy controls | 2015 | Case-control study | n = 106 |
| Metacognitive Mechanisms Underlying Lucid Dreaming Human participants split into high- and low-lucidity groups based on reported dream... | 2015 | Observational cohort |
Citations in the library
Cited by 12
- Are Lucid Dreams Good for Us? Are We Asking the Right Question? A Call for Caution in Lucid Dream Research Frontiers in Neuroscience January 24, 2020
- Lucid Dreaming: Intensity, But Not Frequency, Is Inversely Related to Psychopathology Frontiers in Psychology March 22, 2018
- Comparing the phenomenological qualities of stimulus-independent thought, stimulus-dependent thought and dreams using experience sampling Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences December 13, 2020
- Bizarreness of Lucid and Non-lucid Dream: Effects of Metacognition. Frontiers in Psychology 2019
- Confidence ratings do not distinguish imagination from reality. Journal of Vision May 1, 2024
and 7 more in the library
Cites 10
- A default mode of brain function Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences January 16, 2001
- Default Mode Network Activity and Connectivity in Psychopathology Annual Review of Clinical Psychology March 29, 2012
- Patterns of Brain Activity Supporting Autobiographical Memory, Prospection, and Theory of Mind, and Their Relationship to the Default Mode Network Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience July 6, 2009
- The default-mode, ego-functions and free-energy: a neurobiological account of Freudian ideas Brain February 28, 2010
- Psychobiology of Altered States of Consciousness. Psychological Bulletin 2005
and 5 more in the library