Blackout of my nights: Contentless, timeless and selfless report from the night in patients with central hypersomnias.
Emma Chabani, Marie Charlotte Vionnet, Romy Beauté, Smaranda Leu-Semenescu, Pauline Dodet, Isabelle Arnulf
Consciousness and Cognition May 1, 2020 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2020.102931 (opens in new tab) via PubMed
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractPatients with idiopathic hypersomnia more often report a night blackout—an absence of experiences or recall from sleep onset to offset—than patients with narcolepsy or healthy controls. In a questionnaire study of 133 idiopathic hypersomnia patients, 108 narcolepsy patients, and 128 controls, those with idiopathic hypersomnia and frequent night amnesia had lower dream recall, felt sleep as deeper and mind as blank, and showed a higher proportion of slow wave sleep on retrospectively collected recordings. The night blackout offers a model for studying loss of consciousness during sleep, experienced as contentless, selfless, and timeless upon awakening.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Cross-sectional questionnaire study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 369 |
| Population | Patients with idiopathic hypersomnia, patients with narcolepsy, and healthy controls |
| Keywords | Amnesia Blackout Consciousness Hypersomnia Narcolepsy |
| Key finding | Night blackout was more frequent in idiopathic hypersomnia than in narcolepsy and control groups, and was associated with lower dream recall, deeper sleep perception, blank mind, and higher slow wave sleep proportion. |
Abstract
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, 108 patients with narcolepsy, and 128 healthy controls. The night blackout was more frequent in idiopathic hypersomnia than in narcolepsy and control groups. Patients with idiopathic hypersomnia and frequent night amnesia had lower dream recall frequencies, and felt more often sleep as deep and mind as blank during the night. They had a higher proportion of slow wave sleep on their (retrospectively collected) sleep recordings than those without night blackout. This night blackout provides a new model for studying loss of consciousness during sleep, here as a contentless, selfless and timeless feeling upon awakening.