The borderlands of waking: Quantifying the transition from reflective thought to hallucination in sleep onset.
Consciousness and Cognition April 1, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2016.01.009 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 16 |
| Population | Human participants providing mentation reports after forced awakenings |
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Keywords | Consciousness Hypnagogic hallucinations Linguistics Mentation reports Motor imagery Schizophrenia |
| Key findings | Reflective thinking decreases and motor imagery increases during the transition from waking to sleep, as measured by linguistic analysis of mentation reports. |
Abstract
We lose waking consciousness spontaneously and regularly over the circadian cycle. It seems that every time we fall asleep, reflective thinking gradually gives way to our interactions with an imaginary, hallucinatory world that brings multimodal experiences in the absence of adequate external stimuli. The present study investigates this transition, proposing a new measure of hallucinatory states. Reflective thinking and motor imagery were quantified in 150 mentation reports provided by 16 participants after forced awakenings from different physiology-monitored time intervals after sleep onset. Cognitive agency analysis and motor agency analysis--which are objective (grammatical-semantic) tools derived from linguistic theories--show (i) a decrease in reflective thinking which sleepers would need to acknowledge the hallucinatory quality of their state, and (ii) an increase in motor imagery, indicating interactions with a hallucinatory world. By mapping these spontaneous changes in human consciousness onto physiology, we can in the long run explore the conditions of its decline, and possibilities for treatment.
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on 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 |
| Nightmare Prevalence, Nightmare Distress, and Self-Reported Psychological Disturbance Young adults with a mean age of 20 years | 2002 | Prospective observational study | n = 116 |
| Long-term effects of extreme situational stress on sleep and dreaming Survivors of traumatic events who complained of sleep disturbances, compared with... | 1987 | Case-control study | n = 11 |
| The relationship of nightmare frequency and nightmare distress to well‐being Adults who reported dreams | 2004 | Observational cohort | n = 147 |
| Dreaming in NREM Sleep: A High-Density EEG Study of Slow Waves and Spindles Healthy human subjects | 2018 | Observational cohort | n = 14 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 18
- Decreased mental time travel to the past correlates with default-mode network disintegration under lysergic acid diethylamide Journal of Psychopharmacology 2016
- How deep is the rift between conscious states in sleep and wakefulness? Spontaneous experience over the sleep–wake cycle Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences December 13, 2020
- The hypnagogic state: A brief update Journal of Sleep Research August 26, 2022
- EEG Microstate Dynamics Associated with Dream-Like Experiences During the Transition to Sleep. Brain Topography March 1, 2024
- Quantifying auditory impressions in dreams in order to assess the relevance of dreaming as a model for psychosis PLoS One March 12, 2020
and 13 more in the library
Cites 7
- Decreased mental time travel to the past correlates with default-mode network disintegration under lysergic acid diethylamide Journal of Psychopharmacology 2016
- A psycholinguistic method for analyzing two modalities of thought in dream reports. Dreaming March 1, 1996
- Auditory Verbal Experience and Agency in Waking, Sleep Onset, REM, and Non‐REM Sleep Cognitive Science March 22, 2016
- As we fall asleep we forget about the future: A quantitative linguistic analysis of mentation reports from hypnagogia. Consciousness and Cognition October 1, 2016
- A differentiating empirical linguistic analysis of dreamer activity in reports of EEG-controlled REM-dreams and hypnagogic hallucinations. Consciousness and Cognition September 1, 2013
and 2 more in the library