Just in Time—Dreamless Sleep Experience as Pure Subjective Temporality

The author proposes extending Evan Thompson's argument for dreamless sleep experience. An analogy is drawn between Indian philosophical debates about reports of peaceful sleep and scientific dream research debates about the trustworthiness of dream reports, leading to the conclusion that the default view of consciousness disappearing in dreamless sleep is inconsistent with methodological assumptions of scientific dream research. A conceptual model is sketched in which dreamless sleep experience involves pure subjective temporality—phenomenal now and sense of duration without further intentional content—making it a candidate for minimal phenomenal experience. Three empirical examples are discussed: minimal lucid dreams, white dreams, and sleep-state misperception in subjective insomnia.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In this commentary, I propose a strategy for extending Evan Thompson’s argument on the existence of dreamless sleep experience. My first aim is to show that the Indian debate on reports of having slept peacefully is importantly similar to debates in scientific dream research and contemporary Western philosophy on the trustworthiness of dream reports. This analogy leads to a surprising conclusion: the default view of conscious experience as that which disappears in dreamless sleep, though widely accepted in cognitive neuroscience, is in fact inconsistent with the methodological background assumptions of scientific dream research. Importantly, the methods already used in scientific dream research, as well as the theoretical justification on which they are based, can be extended to the investigation of dreamless sleep experience. Second, I sketch the outlines of a conceptual model of dreamless sleep experience as involving pure subjective temporality, or phenomenal experience characterized only by the phenomenal now and the sense of duration, but devoid of any further intentional content. I suggest that understood in this manner, dreamless sleep experience is a candidate for minimal phenomenal experience, or the simplest form in which a state can be phenomenally conscious. This model also extends existing work on minimal phenomenal selfhood in dreams. Third, I discuss three empirical examples that I take to be particularly promising candidates of dreamless sleep experience. These are certain forms of minimal or imageless lucid dreams, white dreams, and sleep-state misperception of the type most dramatically seen in subjective insomnia.