Microdream neurophenomenology.

Sleep onset normally happens quickly and without notice, but in the lab it reveals how waking, perceptually grounded consciousness shifts into the hallucinatory simulations of dreaming. This review focuses on imagery during the sleep-onset transition—especially "microdreams"—as an alternative to studying dreaming in the traditional sleep lab. Preliminary work on microdream phenomenology has helped classify dreaming's core features (the "oneiragogic spectrum"), assess multiple memory inputs ("multi-temporal memory sources"), identify two new imagery types ("autosensory imagery" and "exosensory imagery"), and embed microdreaming in a "multisensory integration approach." These efforts may clarify dream neurophysiology and dreaming's role in memory consolidation, and advance the neuroscience of consciousness.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Nightly transitions into sleep are usually uneventful and transpire in the blink of an eye. But in the laboratory these transitions afford a unique view of how experience is transformed from the perceptually grounded consciousness of wakefulness to the hallucinatory simulations of dreaming. The present review considers imagery in the sleep-onset transition-"microdreams" in particular-as an alternative object of study to dreaming as traditionally studied in the sleep lab. A focus on microdream phenomenology has thus far proven fruitful in preliminary efforts to (i) develop a classification for dreaming's core phenomenology (the "oneiragogic spectrum"), (ii) establish a structure for assessing dreaming's multiple memory inputs ("multi-temporal memory sources"), (iii) further Silberer's project for classifying sleep-onset images in relation to waking cognition by revealing two new imagery types ("autosensory imagery," "exosensory imagery"), and (iv) embed a potential understanding of microdreaming processes in a larger explanatory framework ("multisensory integration approach"). Such efforts may help resolve outstanding questions about dream neurophysiology and dreaming's role in memory consolidation during sleep but may also advance discovery in the neuroscience of consciousness more broadly.