Ganzfeld, i.e., exposure to an unstructured, uniform stimulation field, elicits in most observers pseudo-hallucinatory percepts, and may even induce global functional state changes ('altered states of consciousness'). The present paper gives a comprehensive overview of the phenomenology of subjective experience in the ganzfeld and its electrophysiological correlates. Laboratory techniques for...
In clinical praxis, the question as to whether it is possible – based on a dream report – to make any inferences about the characteristics of the dreamer often arises. For the present study, gender was selected for the matching task. The judges were able to match the dreamer’s gender based on a single dream report better than chance. The rate of correct decisions (57.5% to 64%), however, was...
Understanding how the brain produces conscious mentation is vital to the prospective integration of psychoanalytic and neuroscientific study of the mind-brain relation. This essay explores some of the current opinions, based on recent neuroscientific research, regarding origins of consciousness in the brain. Areas explored include levels of consciousness, waking versus dream consciousness, and...
This paper addresses the correlation of dreamed and actual actions. This issue is related to the theory of neural simulation of action. The simulation theory postulates that, in general, covert actions are actual actions relying on the same brain regions, except for the fact that they are not executed. By reviewing studies conducted in the field of dream and lucid dream research on REM sleep it...
Current life emotional experiences have been demonstrated to elicit a process called social sharing of emotion, consisting of repetitive talking about these experiences in conversations with relevant others. Like many diurnal experiences, dreams are generally loaded with emotional elements, and empirical evidence has suggested that individuals share their dreams with others mainly belonging to...
The authors review current literature on hallucinations in Parkinson's disease (PD). Recent neuropathological studies showed that hallucinations occur in synucleinopathies and are a significant predictor of Lewy Body depositions. Therefore, hallucinations are a hallmark of PD and of dementia with Lewy Bodies. Visual hallucinations are mostly complex and kinematic; preserved or disturbed insight...
Scholarly depictions of mysticism, as varied as they have been, frequently include visions and dreams on the list of common characteristics. Literary and other material artifacts attest that communion with what is considered in a particular milieu to be the fount of inspiration can provoke revelatory experiences, and the history of Judaism is no exception to this rule. Dreams, in particular,...
The relationship between emotional dream content and Alpha and Beta REM sleep EEG activity was investigated in typical individuals and in Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Dream narratives of persons with ASD contained fewer emotional elements. In both groups, emotions correlated positively with slow Alpha (8.0-10.0 Hz) spectral power over parieto-occipital and left central regions, as well as...
Within contemporary understanding of attitude reports, the possibility of a single proform referencing either counterpart would appear to be simply another manifestation of the de re-de se distinction (Lewis 1979), as well as its attendant linguistic ambiguities. However, as first noted by Percus and Sauerland (2003b), there is a striking asymmetry in the possible counterparts for the pronouns...