In a recent electroencephalography (EEG) sleep study inspired by complexity theories of consciousness, we found that multi-channel signal diversity progressively decreased from wakefulness to slow wave sleep, but failed to find any significant difference between dreaming and non-dreaming awakenings within the same sleep stage (NREM2). However, we did find that multi-channel Lempel-Ziv...
What accounts for feeling deeply asleep? Standard sleep recordings only incompletely reflect subjective aspects of sleep and some individuals with so-called sleep misperception frequently feel awake although sleep recordings indicate clear-cut sleep. To identify the determinants of sleep perception, we performed 787 awakenings in 20 good sleepers and 10 individuals with sleep misperception and...
The paper focuses on the Taoist concept of “dreams”, which is considered from the point of view of the meditative practice of “realized dreams” or “controlled visions”. Famous Taoist masters Chen Tuan (10th cent.), Ma Danyang (12th cent.), Bai Yuchan (12th cent.) and many others implemented techniques of “controlled dreams” as a type of meditative alchemical practice: erasing the frontier...
This chapter presents the results of a study, by the writers, of their own dreams and of the dream-records of four fellow students. The observations followed the general plan outlined by Miss Calkins, and this description of them lays special stress only on experiences which confirm her conclusions on disputed points or which contradict her results. The dreams were recorded during periods of...
Dreams may be recalled after awakening from sleep following a defined electroencephalographic pattern that involves local decreases in low-frequency activity in the posterior cortical regions. Although a dreaming experience implies bodily changes at many organ, system, and timescale levels, the entity and causal role of such peripheral changes in a conscious dream experience are unknown. We...
According to depth psychology, whose pioneer is C.G. Jung, inflation is an emotional state, most often triggered by a dream, manifested by an increase in sexual urge, a feeling of higher energy, power and fascination. Ego inflation can have a dual effect on the individual who experiences it: positive, which is associated with the possibility of establishing contact with archetypes as elements...
Consciousness research has a cognitive-diversity problem. Any view that holds that attention is either necessary for consciousness or that attention precedes conscious awareness confronts the difficulty that the theoretical categorization of attention is as diverse as the categorization of intelligent cognition, but consciousness is typically referred to as a single and unified capacity. On the...
In 2014, engineers and entrepreneurs began meeting up in San Francisco to explore how virtual reality and lucid dreaming headsets using electroencephalography and other kinds of biofeedback could stimulate altered mental states. They called these practices “consciousness hacking” and referred to research, financing, and design efforts around these wearables as a movement. Unlike Quantified Self...
To understand how anesthetics with different molecular mechanisms affect consciousness, we explored subjective experiences recalled after responsive and unresponsive sedation induced with equisedative doses of dexmedetomidine, propofol, sevoflurane, and S-ketamine in healthy male participants (N = 140). The anesthetics were administered in experimental setting using target-controlled infusion...
Reality shifting (RS) is a trendy mental activity that emerged abruptly following the flare-up of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and seems to be practiced mainly by members of the post-millennial generation. RS, described as the experience of being able to transcend one's physical confines and visit alternate, mostly fictional, universes, is discussed by many on Internet platforms. One RS forum...