Status Dissociatus and Its Relation to RBD

Abstract

The simultaneous occurrence of behavioral, neurophysiological, and autonomic descriptors conventionally defines each physiologic state of being. When functional or anatomical abnormalities involve the structures of the network orchestrating the synchronization of these descriptors, features of a state of being are erroneously recruited into an ongoing state, generating aberrant conditions. Several deviant patterns may occur, such as hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations, automatic behaviors, sleep drunkenness, cataplexy, and sleep paralysis due to intrusion of other states of being while awake; REM sleep behavior disorder and lucid dreaming due to the intrusion of features of wakefulness while in REM sleep; and the disorders of arousal, for the intrusion of features of wakefulness while in NREM sleep (according to the conventional way or interpretation adopted in the chapter).