The purpose of this paper is to introduce a methodological concept of phenomenological elucidation to promote the development of phenomenology as psychology. After offering a minimal review of the historical relationship between phenomenology and psychology, the first section gives a brief overview of the descriptive phenomenological approach developed by A. Giorgi and other psychologists....
Why do people sometimes report that they remember dreams, while at other times they recall no experience? Despite the interest in dreams that may happen during the night, it has remained unclear which brain states determine whether these conscious experiences will occur and what prevents us from waking up during these episodes. Here we address this issue by comparing the EEG activity preceding...
In rapid eye movement (REM) dreams elements are taken out of their waking-life context and associated to portray a complex, non-obvious pattern in experience. In the last chapter we looked at this process as insight into a hidden pattern; here, we focus on the novel nature of the pattern. A series of dream scenes creates a narrative that has not been experienced. REM dream narratives are new,...
The thesis of my paper – evolving out the abstract submitted months ago – is that our lingering ethnocentric reification of “dreaming” as not just distinct from but the opposite of “waking” – dream consciousness versus waking consciousness – elides and occludes much power and value in and across mental states that include dreaming. There is arguably a strong connection if not continuum across...
Dreams are extremely varied and are almost always a completely unique experience. However, there are some aspects of dreams that stand out as being common across many dreams. During rapid eye movement sleep, we have our most stereotypical ‘dream-like’ dreams, with the common characteristics mentioned before, like world simulation, bizarre occurrences, a narrative feel, and strong emotions....
Dreams have been integral to human culture all over the world and throughout human history. In many ancient and medieval accounts of dreaming, dreams were often seen as prophetic, gifts from the gods, communications with ancestors, or as having some other kind of religious or spiritual meaning. In the early 20th century, oneirology had a huge makeover thanks to perhaps the most famous...
The spell formula called the Marduk-Ea incantation from ancient Mesopotamia is unique in history of medicine due to its documented use of almost 3000 years. The incantation was recited in exorcistic healing rituals. The formal structure of the spell is studied from the point of view of neuroscience of doctor-patient relationship and in the context of the decentring mechanism of religious...
Antiretroviral drugs are the mainstay of treatment for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Lifelong highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is indicated to prevent disease progression to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Efavirenz was a first-line component of HAART across the world for many years. The purpose of this article is to review the psychotropic properties of...
Abstract Background and objectives Occasional nightmares (distressing dreams that awaking the sleeper) and bad dreams (distressing dreams that do not awaking the sleeper) are very common in children and adolescents. About 5% of children experience frequent nightmares (once a week or more often) and the question arises as to what factors contribute to significant nightmare distress which is...
Using a personal experience at the time of the death of her mother and a subsequent dream, the psychoanalyst/author explores the phenomenon of mystical experience. She shows how the surrender of well-developed ego structures enables vectors of intense communication to cross psychic thresholds to create a mystical experience that can be understood as being overtaken by a full and numinous...