Consciousness In Dreams

2011

Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2000

Sleep researchers in different disciplines disagree about how fully dreaming can be explained in terms of brain physiology. Debate has focused on whether REM sleep dreaming is qualitatively different from nonREM (NREM) sleep and waking. A review of psychophysiological studies shows clear quantitative differences between REM and NREM mentation and between REM and waking mentation. Recent neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies also differentiate REM, NREM, and waking in features with phenomenological implications. Both evidence and theory suggest that there are isomorphisms between the phenomenology and the physiology of dreams. We present a three-dimensional model with specific examples from normally and abnormally changing conscious states.

Every day we spent about four to six hours in sleep, a part of which is spent in dreams. It is a series of thoughts, images, or emotions and consists of stories and images that our minds create while we sleep. The object of this paper was to explore what is happening to our brain when we are dreaming and what can we learn from the Quran and Sunnah about it. The analysis suggests the following: • Most of the dream occur during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. In this state the brain becomes highly active while the body's muscles are paralyzed, and breathing and heart rate become erratic. In this state we are unconscious of the world around us, but we do receive stimuli from our memory. • REM sleep are ‘literally ‘switched on’ by a small group of cells situated deep within the pons, which excrete a chemical called ‘acetylcholine’. This chemical activates the higher parts of the brain, which are thereby prompted to generate conscious images. REM activity is ‘switched off’ by another group of cells, also situated in the pons, which excrete two other chemicals: noradrenaline and serotonin. • Just like our observations during waking hours is a brain activity, so is dreaming. Most dreams incorporate autobiographical memory features. The left hemisphere seems to provide dream origin while the right hemisphere provides dream vividness, figurativeness and affective activation level. • Functional neuroimaging of the brain suggests that hippocampus fetches images and characters from the memory, amygdala imparts emotions to those characters, occipital cortex adds visual component to those characters and motor cortex impart movements to those characters’ bodies. However, the dreams are mainly experienced in the egocentric coordinates of the first-person due to decreased activity in temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and the dreamer has no control over his dream due to decreased activity in in lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) since it is responsible for “executive functions” in the brain. • Due to absence of executive control, the brain has no control over how to manage these thoughts during dream. According to the Prophet(SAW), these thoughts can be initiated by Allah(ST), by Shaytan or could be impacted by one's thoughts and experiences during wakefulness. • The dreams initiated by Allah(ST) could be shown as true reality to the Prophets(AS) or as a transposed reality to others. Bad dreams initiated by Shaytan appear in the form of nightmares and create fear. The dreams initiated by one’s thoughts during wakefulness could be random or could also be inspirational resulting in creative and scientific discoveries.

The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Psychology, 2009

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2017

Where do our dreams originate from, and what do they tell us? Is there a universal set of symbols that are common to all dreams, regardless of a person's ethnicity or culture? What does dreaming reveal about the unconscious? Why do some dreams remain etched in our memories, whereas others are almost instantly forgotten? Some scientists have adopted the position that dreams are little more than noise in the brain, without any substantive purpose or function. Yet, such a stance seemingly runs counter to the experience of many people who reflect upon and even analyze their dreams, often in search of clues to their daily lives or insights into their deeper selves. Similarly, in virtually all wisdom traditions, dreams are invoked as an important source of revelation or prophecy. Steve Paulson, executive producer and host of To the Best of Our Knowledge, moderated a discussion that included psychologist Deirdre Barrett, dream researcher Kelly Bulkeley, and psychologist and sleep/dream...

Dreams are often believed to be “symbolic” and thus categorically distinct from the “ordinary” thoughts of waking cognition. But to the contrary, emerging evidence suggests that dreams and waking cognition share a common origin at the neurobiological level, which is reflected in similarity of form, content, and function at the phenomenological level. In both dreams and daydreams, memories of the past form the basis of novel imaginary scenarios. Neural networks that support remembering the past, imagining the future, and creating fictitious scenes remain active across conscious states of wake and sleep. Taken together, this evidence suggests that dreaming is a natural extension of waking conscious experience. This empirically supported conception of dreaming has important clinical applications concerning the “interpretability” of dreams in the therapeutic setting.

Dreaming, 2001

A single definition for dreaming is most likely impossible given the wide spectrum of fields engaged in the study of dreaming, and the diversity in currently applied definitions. Many studies do not specify a definition, yet results are likely to be comparable only when comparable definitions of the topic are used. The alternative is to develop a classification system organizing the multiplicity of definitions for dream. A dream should not be exclusively defined as a non-conscious electrophysiologic state. Dreaming is, at least in part, a mental experience that can be described during waking consciousness. Definitions for dreaming should be utilized in research and discussion which address the various axes which define dreaming: Wake/sleep, Recall, and Content.

Dream is commonly used to express an unattainable ideal or a very deep and strong desire. Neurophysiological correlation of dreaming are still unclear and many questions remain unresolved, i.e. whether the images in dreams emerge randomly from the brain or they are controlled by currently known/unknown parameters and are determined by any rules; whether dreaming has any meaningful function or it just a byproduct of sleep, etc. Psychoanalytical perspective in cognitive neuroscience helps to achieve a comprehensive understanding of dreaming but it is challenging to interpret rationally. Thus, close interaction between neuroscience and psychoanalysis would probably take the dream research to a new height.