Brain basis of self: self-organization and lessons from dreaming.
Frontiers in Psychology July 16, 2013 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00408 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Keywords | Self-organization Consciousness Brain lesions |
| Key points | Argues that dreaming is a self-organizing brain process that combines disparate memories beyond the dreamer's control, producing an expanded repertoire of experience that expands the self beyond its waking state, and reviews brain injury and imaging evidence on the brain basis of the self. |
Abstract
Through dreaming, a different facet of the self is created as a result of a self-organizing process in the brain. Self-organization in biological systems often happens as an answer to an environmental change for which the existing system cannot cope; self-organization creates a system that can cope in the newly changed environment. In dreaming, self-organization serves the function of organizing disparate memories into a dream since the dreamer herself is not able to control how individual memories become weaved into a dream. The self-organized dream provides, thereby, a wide repertoire of experiences; this expanded repertoire of experience results in an expansion of the self beyond that obtainable when awake. Since expression of the self is associated with activity in specific areas of the brain, the article also discusses the brain basis of the self by reviewing studies of brain injured patients, discussing brain imaging studies in normal brain functioning when focused, when daydreaming and when asleep and dreaming.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dreaming: a conceptual framework for philosophy of mind and empirical research | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Metaphor and hyperassociativity: the imagination mechanisms behind emotion assimilation in sleep and dreaming | 2015 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Varieties of Lucid Dreaming Experience | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Experimental Research on Dreaming: State of the Art and Neuropsychoanalytic Perspectives | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Neurobiology of Consciousness: Lucid Dreaming Wakes Up | 2009 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 5
- Dissociative states in dreams and brain chaos: implications for creative awareness Frontiers in Psychology September 7, 2015
- A Supplement to Self-Organization Theory of Dreaming Frontiers in Psychology March 8, 2016
- The neurocognition of dreaming: key questions and foci. Emerging topics in life sciences December 22, 2023
- Reactions to Dream Content: Continuity and Non-continuity. Frontiers in Psychology December 3, 2019
- Dreamlike effects of LSD on waking imagery in humans depend on serotonin 2A receptor activation Psychopharmacology July 1, 2017
Cites 24
- Out‐of‐body experience and autoscopy of neurological origin Brain January 15, 2004
- Lucid Dreaming: a State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming Sleep September 1, 2009
- Neural Correlates of Dream Lucidity Obtained from Contrasting Lucid versus Non-Lucid REM Sleep: A Combined EEG/fMRI Case Study Sleep June 29, 2012
- Hierarchical clustering of brain activity during human nonrapid eye movement sleep Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences March 26, 2012
- A new neurocognitive theory of dreams. Dreaming March 1, 2001
and 19 more in the library