Beyond the neuropsychology of dreaming: Insights into the neural basis of dreaming with new techniques of sleep recording and analysis.

Recent advances in electrophysiological techniques, video-polysomnography, transcranial stimulation, and neuroimaging allow more accurate investigation of the neural correlates of dreaming in healthy individuals and patients with brain damage, neurodegenerative diseases, sleep disorders, or parasomnias. Convergent evidence has led to reformulation of unresolved issues of dream generation and recall within more comprehensive models of human consciousness. These studies are casting new light on the neural bases—particularly activity in dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala—of inter- and intra-individual differences in dream recall, temporal location of dream content, and memory processing during sleep. Hd-EEG techniques appear able to provide further insights into how the brain generates dreaming and dreamlike waking experiences.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Recent advances in electrophysiological [e.g., surface high-density electroencephalographic (hd-EEG) and intracranial recordings], video-polysomnography (video-PSG), transcranial stimulation and neuroimaging techniques allow more in-depth and more accurate investigation of the neural correlates of dreaming in healthy individuals and in patients with brain-damage, neurodegenerative diseases, sleep disorders or parasomnias. Convergent evidence provided by studies using these techniques in healthy subjects has led to a reformulation of several unresolved issues of dream generation and recall [such as the inter- and intra-individual differences in dream recall and the predictivity of specific EEG rhythms, such as theta in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, for dream recall] within more comprehensive models of human consciousness and its variations across sleep/wake states than the traditional models, which were largely based on the neurophysiology of REM sleep in animals. These studies are casting new light on the neural bases (in particular, the activity of dorsal medial prefrontal cortex regions and hippocampus and amygdala areas) of the inter- and intra-individual differences in dream recall, the temporal location of specific contents or properties (e.g., lucidity) of dream experience and the processing of memories accessed during sleep and incorporated into dream content. Hd-EEG techniques, used on their own or in combination with neuroimaging, appear able to provide further important insights into how the brain generates not only dreaming during sleep but also some dreamlike experiences in waking.