From the open-access Frontiers in Psychology: Consciousness Research, researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich looked at the reflective (volitional) aspects of consciousness across three different states - waking, dreaming, lucid dreaming (becoming conscious of the dream while in the dream).

From the abstract:

Overall, experienced volition was comparable for lucid dreaming and wakefulness, and rated significantly higher for both states compared to non-lucid dreaming. However, three subscales showed specific differences across states of consciousness: planning ability was most pronounced during wakefulness, intention enactment most pronounced during lucid dreaming, and self-determination most pronounced during both wakefulness and lucid dreaming. Our data confirm the multifaceted nature of consciousness: different higher-order aspects of consciousness are differentially expressed across different conscious states.

In essence, lucid dreaming is clearly a higher order state of consciousness. Nice research that will hopefully be replicated by others so that lucid dreaming becomes a more widely accepted phenomena.


Full Citation: 
Dresler M, Eibl L, Fischer CFJ, Wehrle R, Spoormaker VI, Steiger A, Czisch M and Pawlowski M. (2014, Jan 2). Volitional components of consciousness vary across wakefulness, dreaming, and lucid dreaming. Frontiers in Psychology: Consciousness Research; 4:987. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00987

Volitional components of consciousness vary across wakefulness, dreaming, and lucid dreaming

Martin Dresler, Leandra Eibl, Christian F. J. Fischer, Renate Wehrle, Victor I. Spoormaker, Axel Steiger, Michael Czisch, and Marcel Pawlowski

Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany

Abstract 

Consciousness is a multifaceted concept; its different aspects vary across species, vigilance states, or health conditions. While basal aspects of consciousness like perceptions and emotions are present in many states and species, higher-order aspects like reflective or volitional capabilities seem to be most pronounced in awake humans. Here we assess the experience of volition across different states of consciousness: 10 frequent lucid dreamers rated different aspects of volition according to the Volitional Components Questionnaire for phases of normal dreaming, lucid dreaming, and wakefulness. Overall, experienced volition was comparable for lucid dreaming and wakefulness, and rated significantly higher for both states compared to non-lucid dreaming. However, three subscales showed specific differences across states of consciousness: planning ability was most pronounced during wakefulness, intention enactment most pronounced during lucid dreaming, and self-determination most pronounced during both wakefulness and lucid dreaming. Our data confirm the multifaceted nature of consciousness: different higher-order aspects of consciousness are differentially expressed across different conscious states.

Introduction

The ability to engage in volitional behavior has traditionally been closely associated with human consciousness: to freely act implies to make conscious decisions (Dijksterhuis and Aarts, 2010). However, consciousness is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon; its multiple facets differ across species, vigilance states, or health conditions. A striking variation in consciousness is experienced every day during the sleep–wake cycle: during wakefulness, human subjects are normally alert, aware of external and internal stimuli, able to reflect on their perceptions, emotions and thoughts, and capable to volitionally act according to their intentions. While most of these properties of waking consciousness fade during the process of falling asleep, many basal features of consciousness reappear during dreaming. Dream mentation may occur in all sleep stages, but is most intense and vivid during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (Hobson et al., 2000). The dreamer perceives and interacts with a hallucinated dream environment and often experiences strong emotions (Hobson and Pace-Schott, 2002). However, typical dreaming is deficient of many higher-order aspects of consciousness: the dreaming subject experiences highly impoverished self-reflective capabilities and therefore does not recognize that he is dreaming. Instead of volitionally and systematically acting according to his intentions, the dreamer is a rather passive subject in the chaotic flow of the dream narrative. In contrast, the rare state of lucid dreaming is characterized by full-blown consciousness including all higher-order aspects: the dreamer regains metacognitive abilities and memory, becomes fully aware of his current state of consciousness, and experiences volition and fully realized agency (Metzinger, 2003; Windt and Metzinger, 2007). As phrased by Van Eeden (1913), who coined the term lucid dreaming: “the sleeper remembers his day-life and his own condition, reaches a state of perfect awareness, and is able to direct his attention, and to attempt different acts of free volition.”

On a closer look, however, the situation is less clear: on the one hand, during alert wakefulness, the experience of volitional capabilities may be strikingly impaired as seen, e.g., in pathological cases such as delusions of alien control in schizophrenic patients (Lafargue and Franck, 2009) or in alien hand syndrome (Biran and Chatterjee, 2004). On the other hand, during altered states of consciousness such as hypnosis (Oakley and Halligan, 2013) or even non-lucid REM sleep (Takahara et al., 2006), volitional behavior can be observed. Moreover, lucid dreaming is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon, but might occur in different degrees from pre-lucid reflections to full-blown lucid control dreams (Tyson et al., 1984; Barrett, 1992; Kahan and LaBerge, 1994). Descriptions of higher-order aspects of consciousness in lucid dreaming, including volitional capacities, rely mainly on anecdotal evidence, but have rarely been studied systematically. Two recent exceptions are the Metacognitive, Affective, Cognitive Experience questionnaire (MACE; Kahan and Sullivan, 2012) and the Lucidity and Consciousness in Dreams scale (LuCiD; Voss et al., 2013) which have been used to assess metacognition during different states of consciousness including lucid dreaming.

Here, we assessed different aspects of volition during normal dreaming, lucid dreaming, and wakefulness with an adapted version of the Volitional Components Questionnaire (VCQ; Kuhl and Fuhrmann, 1998) in lucid dreamers. We hypothesized that experienced volition would be generally higher in both wakefulness and lucid dreaming compared to non-lucid dreaming. We exploratively tested if the subscales of the VCQ would differentially vary between the three states of consciousness.

Materials and Methods

Ten healthy subjects (mean age 28.1 ± 9.8 years, age range 19–47 years, five female) recruited at the University of Munich or from a volunteer database of the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry participated in this study. They all were experienced lucid dreamers with a reported mean frequency of 1.9 ± 0.7 lucid dreams per week. Lucid dreaming ability was verified in five of the subjects in a sleep laboratory with full polysomnographic recordings, exploiting the classical eye signaling technique (LaBerge et al., 1981). For the other five subjects, lucid dreaming ability was assessed by self-report.

To measure volition in different states of consciousness, we adapted the German short version of the VCQ (Selbststeuerungs-Inventar, SSI-K3; Kuhl and Alsleben, 2012). The VCQ is an instrument to measure different aspects of volitional competence; it specifically aims at assessing the subjective experience of volitional components supporting central coordination of goal-maintenance and self-maintenance (Kuhl and Fuhrmann, 1998). The short form includes 13 subscales consisting of four items each. The test subjects have to rate the extent to which the item applies to themselves on a four-point Likert scale from 1 (not at all) to 4 (wholly). The validity of both the long and short versions has been repeatedly demonstrated (Forstmeier and Rüddel, 2008). Since several of the 13 subscales are not meaningfully applicable to the dreaming state, as they, e.g., ask to evaluate time frames of several weeks, we chose to restrict the study to six subscales: self-determination, planning ability, intention enactment, powers of concentration, self-access, and integration. As a measure for the general experience of volitional capacity, an overall score consisting of the mean of all six subscales was calculated. Where necessary, questions were adapted to be applicable to the dreaming state, e.g., the integration subfactor item “On many days I feel the opposite of what I felt before” was changed to “I often feel the opposite of what I felt before.” The sequential order of questions was adopted from the original questionnaire.

Subjects were asked to complete the questionnaire at least once for each of the three states of consciousness: in the morning after awakening from a non-lucid dream, in the morning after awakening from a lucid dream, and after a normal day of wakefulness, i.e., before going to bed in the evening. Specifically, subjects were instructed to rate their general experience during the respective state, using the preceding dream or day as an anchor or reminder thereof. For those individuals who completed the questionnaire more than once for one of the three states of consciousness, we used the mean score of the given state for further analysis. For wakefulness, four subjects contributed multiple questionnaires adding up to a total of 15; for non-lucid dreaming, five subjects contributed multiple questionnaires adding up to a total of 20; for lucid dreaming, four subjects contributed multiple questionnaires adding up to a total of 14.

For statistical analysis of the VCQ overall score, we performed a repeated measures ANOVA with the three factor levels non-lucid dreaming, lucid dreaming, and wakefulness. For specific comparisons between the three states of consciousness, we performed post hoc two-sided paired t-tests. For statistical analysis of the six subscales, we first performed a repeated measures MANOVA with the three factor levels non-lucid dreaming, lucid dreaming, and wakefulness. For further analysis of the subscales that revealed significant results in the following ANOVAs, we subsequently performed two-sided paired t-tests to analyze specific differences between the states of consciousness. All significance levels were set at p = 0.05.

Results

The ANOVA for the VCQ overall score revealed a significant effect of the state of consciousness (F2,18 = 4.4, p = 0.027, η2 = 0.33). Subsequent t-tests demonstrated that both wakefulness (t9 = 2.7, p = 0.026, r = 0.66) and lucid dreaming (t9 = 2.3, p = 0.044, r = 0.61) differed from non-lucid dreaming, however not from each other (t = 0.5, p = 0.618, r = 0.17). Hence, volition was strongly experienced during wakefulness and lucid dreaming, but considerably less so during non-lucid dreaming. For comparisons of the overall results, see Table 1.

TABLE 1

TABLE 1. Experienced volition during wakefulness, lucid dreaming and non-lucid dreaming according to theVolitional Components Questionnaire (VCQ) overall and subscale results.

The MANOVA for the subscales of the VCQ revealed a significant effect of the state of consciousness (F12,26 = 8.9, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.80), which turned out to be significant for the subscales self-determination (F2,18 = 15.4, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.63), planning ability (F2,18 = 31.2, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.78), and intention enactment (F2,18 = 7.3, p = 0.007, η2 = 0.45), but not for powers of concentration (F2,18 = 0.1, p = 0.942, η2 = 0.01), self-access (F2,18 = 0.6, p = 0.573, η2 = 0.06), or integration (F2,18 = 0.7, p = 0.503, η2 = 0.07). Subsequent t-tests demonstrated that self-determination was significantly more pronounced during both wakefulness (t9 = 5.6, p < 0.001, r = 0.88) and lucid dreaming (t9 = 5.2, p < 0.001, r = 0.87) compared to non-lucid dreaming, however did not differ between the two former states of consciousness (t9 = 0.9, p = 0.461, r = 0.28). Planning ability was most pronounced during wakefulness compared to both lucid (t9 = 6.5, p < 0.001, r = 0.91) and non-lucid dreaming (t9 = 5.7, p < 0.001, r = 0.88), but did not differ between the latter two states (t9 = 0.8, p = 0.407, r = 0.25). Intention enactment turned out to be most pronounced during lucid dreaming compared to both wakefulness (t9 = 3.9, p = 0.004, r = 0.79) and non-lucid dreaming (t9 = 3.2, p = 0.011, r = 0.73), while the latter two states did not differ from each other (t9 = 0.2, p = 0.862, r = 0.06). For subscale comparisons, see Table 1.

Discussion

Comparing the experience of volition as assessed by the VCQ during three different states of consciousness, we found volition to be generally most pronounced during both wakefulness and lucid dreaming as compared to non-lucid dreaming. A more differential picture appeared when the subscales of the VCQ were analyzed separately.

For both lucid dreaming and wakefulness, self-determination was rated higher than for non-lucid dreaming. This subscale is probably the most prototypical volitional component, asking to what degree the subject experiences being able to act freely according to his will. The fact that the result of this subscale is in line with the overall score confirms the hypothesis that volition is generally more pronounced during both wakefulness and lucid dreaming compared to non-lucid dreaming.

For wakefulness, planning ability was rated higher than for both lucid and non-lucid dreaming. This subscale asks for how well organized the subject pursues his plans and intentions. The fact that this subfactor is most pronounced during wakefulness compared to both dreaming states might be interpreted as a sign for a more spontaneous execution of intentions during dreaming.

For lucid dreaming, intention enactment was rated higher than for both wakefulness and non-lucid dreaming. This factor asks for how promptly and determined intentions are executed. On first sight, this seems to be a surprising finding, demonstrating that a component of volition is more strongly experienced during a state of sleep than during wakefulness. However, on second sight a strong feeling of being able to enact one’s intentions during lucid dreaming seems reasonable, as the dreamer is aware that in contrast to the constraints of waking life, during dreams all potential obstacles are not real and hence can easily be overcome. This interpretation would also be in line with the former finding of a comparably low level of experienced planning ability during lucid dreaming: organized planning might be possible during lucid dreaming in principle, however is rarely actually performed since intention execution is possible without such effort.

Neither powers of concentration, nor self-access, nor integration differed between the three states of consciousness. The first of these subfactors asks for how easily the subject gets distracted from his current line of intentional thought. The failure to find any difference between the three states of consciousness is rather surprising, since concentration and goal-directed thinking are generally thought to be strongly impaired during non-lucid dreaming (Hobson and Pace-Schott, 2002; Metzinger, 2003). The subfactor self-access asks for the quality of access to one’s intentions and feelings in stressful situations. It might be speculated that in such situations, also during wakefulness and lucid-dreaming, self-reflection might be impaired, thereby leveling potential differences of self-access that would occur in non-stressed situations. The subfactor integration asks for the occurrence of seemingly contradictory behaviors and emotions. It is rather surprising that non-lucid dreaming does not differ from the other two states, since incongruities and inconsistencies are generally associated most strongly with the dreaming state (Mamelak and Hobson, 1989). However, such inconsistencies are typically attributed to the dream plot rather than to the dreamer, whose mental complexity is narrow and “single-minded” compared to a much broader repertoire of behaviors and thoughts experienced during wakefulness or lucid dreaming (Rechtschaffen, 1978). Hence, compared to a bizarre and highly incongruent dream plot, the single-mindedness of dream cognition might be experienced as relatively straightforward.

In the following, we will try to embed the topic of volition in a broader discussion of the multiple facets and neural correlates of human consciousness.

Basal Vs. Higher-Order Aspects of Consciousness

The enquiry into consciousness has long been the domain of philosophy, however recent years witnessed a growing interest also among neuroscientists in the problems surrounding consciousness. While there is still little agreement on a specific characterization or definition, it seems clear that consciousness is a multifaceted concept, with its different aspects varying dramatically between species, vigilance states, or health conditions. A common categorization differentiates between basal and higher-order aspects of consciousness: the concept of basal (or primary) consciousness comprises perceptions and emotions, whereas higher-order (or secondary) consciousness is proposed to constitute reflections on these (for a review cf. Morin, 2006). As phrased by Edelman (2003, p. 5521):“Higher-order consciousness allows its possessors to go beyond the limits of the remembered present of primary consciousness. An individual’s past history, future plans, and consciousness of being conscious all become accessible.”

A striking variation in consciousness is experienced every day during the sleep–wake cycle: awake human subjects are normally alert, aware of external and internal stimuli, and able to reflect on their perceptions and emotions and to volitionally act according to their intentions. These experiences and capabilities fade during the process of falling asleep, however the progress through the sleep cycle is associated with a reinstatement of essential features of consciousness: REM sleep evokes the most vivid and intense dreams, in which the sleeper perceives a hallucinated environment and often experiences strong emotions.

However, the dreaming state instantiates only basal aspects of consciousness, being deficient in reflective thought, metacognition and volitional capabilities: the internally generated perceptions and emotions experienced during dreaming typically show many cognitive abnormalities, with a bizarre dream plot full of gaps, delusional thought, and a complete lack of insight into the current condition (Hobson and Pace-Schott, 2002; Metzinger, 2003). Rechtschaffen (1978) called this persistence of a single train of related thoughts and images without disruption from other simultaneous thoughts or reflections the “single-mindedness” of dreams. He pointed out that without reflectiveness, there could hardly be volitional control. Nevertheless, some rudimentary processes of reflection and volition have been reported to occur during dreaming (Kahan et al., 1997; Wolman and Kozmová, 2007), even though less often than for waking episodes (Kahan et al., 1997; Voss et al., 2013). Our results confirm these findings, suggesting a generally weaker experience of volition during non-lucid dreaming compared to wakefulness, however with some components being similarly expressed during wakefulness and dreaming.

Lucid Dreaming as Higher-Order Consciousness

In contrast to the restricted consciousness of normal dreaming, the rare state of lucid dreaming is characterized by full-blown consciousness including all higher-order aspects: the sleeping subject is no longer deluded by the dream narrative, but becomes fully aware of the true nature of his current state of consciousness (LaBerge et al., 1981). This wake-like intellectual clarity comprises a restored access to memory functions including increased availability of self-related information, and fully realized agency, enabling the dreamer to volitionally execute his intentions within the dream narrative (Metzinger, 2003; Windt and Metzinger, 2007). Lucid dreaming can be trained (LaBerge, 1980; Purcell et al., 1986), which makes this phenomenon a promising research topic despite its rarity in untrained subjects (Schredl and Erlacher, 2011).

In comparing lucid and non-lucid REM sleep, the distinction between basal and higher-order consciousness is of great value, since the contrast between lucid and non-lucid dreaming strikingly mirrors the conceptual contrast between basal and higher-order consciousness (Dresler et al., 2009; Hobson, 2009): while all basal features of consciousness like perceptions and emotions are present in normal dreaming, metacognitive reflections and the insight into the current state of consciousness is – by definition – bound to lucidity. Since also in non-lucid dream reports some reflective thoughts have been reported and since also during daydreaming and other phases of wakefulness active reflections are frequently absent, it has been argued that metacognitive activity differs only quantitatively and not qualitatively between dreaming and waking consciousness (Kahan et al., 1997; Kahan and LaBerge, 2011). However, this absence is only a “local,” not global feature of such phases: it is hardly imaginable, at least for non-pathological cases, that the day-dreaming subject misinterprets the daydream for reality once paying attention to his current state. For the dreaming state, in contrast, this is completely normal – unless the dreamer eventually achieves lucidity through these “prelucid” reflections (Tyson et al., 1984).

Lucid dreaming may even be critical to fully understanding the neural correlates of higher-order consciousness, because in contrast to, e.g., coma–wake, anesthesia–wake, or sleep–wake comparisons, there is no major shift in vigilance state as defined by formal neurophysiological criteria: lucid REM sleep still is REM sleep proper according to the classical Rechtschaffen and Kales (1968) or new AASM (Iber et al., 2007) sleep scoring criteria. When compared to wakefulness, pathological or pharmaceutically induced loss of consciousness also reduces the brain’s basal metabolism, as does deep sleep. Dreaming therefore provides the only phenomenon we know of, that can contrast basal consciousness with full-blown higher-order consciousness within the same vigilance level (Spoormaker et al., 2010), allowing for comparison of cerebral activity by means of EEG, PET, or fMRI without differences in the basal activity state.

Neural Correlates of Lucid Dreaming

On the phenomenological level, REM sleep is the sleep stage associated with the most vivid sleep mentation (Fosse et al., 2001). On the neurobiological level, it is associated with strong activation of visual association areas and limbic structures such as the amygdala, while the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and parietal areas are deactivated (Maquet et al., 1996; Braun et al., 1998). This activation pattern has been proposed to underlie the visual hallucinations, emotional intensifications, and metacognitive impairments experienced in most dreams (Hobson and Pace-Schott, 2002; Schwartz and Maquet, 2002). In particular diminished activity in the DLPFC during REM sleep has been related to cognitive aspects of dreaming such as impaired directed thought, volitional control, and a complete lack of insight into the current state of consciousness (Hobson and Pace-Schott, 2002; Schwartz and Maquet, 2002).

In contrast to normal dreaming, the regaining of wake-like metacognitive capabilities during lucid dreaming is related to increased EEG gamma-band activity over dorsolateral prefrontal areas (Voss et al., 2009). fMRI data have confirmed increased activation of the DLPFC during lucid dreaming, as well as of bilateral frontopolar and parietal areas (Dresler et al., 2012). These brain regions have been related to self-focused metacognitive evaluation (Stuss et al., 2001; Schmitz et al., 2004), supervisory modes (Burgess et al., 2007), and self-referential processing in general including the experience of agency (Cavanna and Trimble, 2006). Their activation during lucid dreaming is in line with the notion that lucidity consists in an increased availability of self-related information, leading to a much higher degree of coherence and stability of the phenomenal self during lucid dreaming (Metzinger, 2003). Our findings fit well into this literature, demonstrating that volition is similarly experienced during wakefulness and lucid dreaming as compared to non-lucid dreaming.

Neural Correlates of Volition

As is the case for consciousness, volition is a multifaceted concept, hence not traceable to one specific brain region. However, several cortical areas have repeatedly been demonstrated to be related to volitional processes. While most studies show motor areas to be involved in volitional action, this research mainly focuses on willed motor actions (Haggard, 2008), which seem to share similar neural substrates during wakefulness and dreaming (Erlacher and Schredl, 2008; Dresler et al., 2011). In contrast, more general or abstract intentions are thought to rely on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Roskies, 2010). In addition, early stages of intentional action have been related to anterior prefrontal brain regions. Such processing of complex information, only broadly determined by specific task demands, is then thought to travel posteriorly to enter later stages of intentional action (Brass et al., 2013). The subjective experience of volitional agency has been associated with parietal brain regions (Roskies, 2010). Hence, in line with our findings, general aspects of volitional control and the subjective experience thereof rely on brain regions that are highly active during lucid compared to non-lucid dreaming.

Consciousness in Humans and Non-Human Animals

Higher-order aspects of consciousness are traditionally thought to be most pronounced in humans (Edelman, 2001). In particular volitional capabilities have been proposed to be a distinctive human attribute (Dijksterhuis and Aarts, 2010; Frith, 2013). If the contrast between ordinary and lucid dreaming mirrors that between basal and higher-order consciousness, data on the neural correlates of dream lucidity might shed new light on this debate. Indeed it turns out that cerebral regions showing increased activity during lucid dreaming also show extensive volumetric expansion in humans as compared to non-human primates (Van Essen and Dierker, 2007; see Figure 1). Recently the hypothesis was proposed that only animals possessing higher-order aspects of consciousness may develop psychotic states – “in other words an animal needs to have a highly developed mind in order to go out of it” (Hobson and Voss, 2011, p. 993). Neuroimaging data on lucid dreaming support this claim: areas activated during lucid dreaming (Dresler et al., 2012) do not only mirror human vs. non-human primate brain differences (Van Essen and Dierker, 2007), but also show striking overlap with brain areas associated with insight deficits in psychosis (Dresler et al., in revision).

FIGURE 1 

FIGURE 1. Brain areas subserving the transition from basal to higher-order consciousness in REM sleep dreaming mirror those with strongest volumetric expansion in humans compared to non-human primates. Left: during lucid dreaming, the dorsolateral prefrontal and frontopolar cortices, parietal lobules, and inferior/middle temporal gyri among other cortical regions are strongly activated as compared with non-lucid REM sleep (republished with permission of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, from Dresler et al. (2012); permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.). Right: neuroanatomical differences between humans and non-human primates (Van Essen and Dierker, 2007; reprint with permission of Cell Press). Color-coded are regional volumetric expansions in the human relative to the macaque brain hot colors depict up to a 32-fold volumetric increase in humans. Right lateral view.

Limitations
A couple of limitations have to be kept in mind for the interpretation of our study’s results. First, we used an adapted version of VCQ that was not specifically validated for its use in different states of consciousness. This applies in particular to the overall score combining the six subscales. While the original version was created to evaluate time frames of several weeks, for our adapted version only items were chosen that are applicable to shorter episodes like dreams. Second, whereas the ratings for lucid and non-lucid dreaming were collected after awakening from the respective dream phase in the early morning, the ratings for wakefulness were collected after a full day of wakefulness in the evening. Thus, the length of the rated episodes differed, and it cannot be excluded that chronobiological influences affected the ratings. Third, the order of data collection was not randomized, but started for all subjects with the wakefulness ratings, followed by the non-lucid dreaming ratings, which were finally followed by the lucid dreaming ratings. Thus, order effects might have influenced the results. However, several subjects completed more than one questionnaire and did so after a complete round of ratings. Since the scores from these repeated ratings did not differ from the first ratings, it is rather unlikely that rating order affected the results. Fourth, gender differences for content and recall have been reported for non-lucid (Schredl et al., 2004) and lucid (Schredl and Erlacher, 2011) dreams, however our small sample size does not allow a reliable analysis of possible gender effects on state-dependent volition. An explorative analysis did not reveal gender effects (p > 0.2) or gender × state interactions (p > 0.4).

Conclusion and Future Directions

Our study confirmed the multifaceted nature of consciousness: volitional components of higher-order consciousness are differentially expressed among different conscious states. On a coarser level, the generally wake-like expression of volition during lucid dreaming is well in line with the neural activity pattern observed during this state. Up until 15 years ago, using lucid dreaming for the study of consciousness was not seen as experimentally advantageous (Crick and Koch, 1998). However, neuroimaging research into the neural correlates of lucid dreaming and its association with metacognitive and volitional processes has proven lucid dreaming to be a highly promising approach for the investigation of higher-order aspects of consciousness. Neural correlates of lucid dreaming show a remarkable overlap with areas and networks subserving self-reflective thought and volitional capabilities. In addition, these areas show the strongest differences between human and non-human primates, strengthening suggestions that higher-order aspects of consciousness are most pronounced in humans.

While research into lucid dreaming is currently hampered by the rarity of the phenomenon, systematic training (Stumbrys et al., 2012), and new technical approaches for its induction like transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS; Noreika et al., 2010; Stumbrys et al., 2013) might lead to research programs beyond a collection of case studies. In such research programs, subjects might be asked to actively engage in metacognitive processes and volitional acts during lucid dreaming, thereby tracing higher-order consciousness from its state-dependent absence to the regaining of the ability to engage in higher-order conscious thought to its actual execution. Using neuroimaging methods in combination with refined measures of the degree of lucidity, e.g., by exploiting scales that assess several dimensions of volition and insight during dreams (Voss et al., 2013), the specific involvement of several brain regions in distinct higher-order aspects of consciousness may be disentangled. Such studies would further refine the neural correlates underlying the multiple facets of human consciousness.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

References available at the Frontiers site

Hitting Snooze Ruins Your Sleep and Wastes Your Morning

I already know the "snooze" button on my alarm clock is my own private crack stash. I have "snoozed" for more than an hour on many occasions and 45 minutes or so is not unusual. Turns out that hitting snooze is about as bad for us we are likely to do it - i.e., VERY.

In this article from Pacific Standard, Casey Cep takes a closer look at the issues with hitting snooze several times each morning - essentially, the "snooze" sleep is not good sleep, and the time we waste on lousy sleep is also time we waste when we could be awake and getting the day underway.

The Devil Is in Your Snooze Button

It's the enemy of both good sleep and productive wakefulness.

October 23, 2013 • By Casey N. Cep  

I feel like Faustus every morning. The warm darkness of sleep around me like a blanket, I listen as Mephistopheles whispers: Oh, Faustus, dear, I am here. I listen, but want so badly to still be asleep: What do I care, there is no here. There is neither here nor there in sleep, no anywhere really.

Faustus, Mephistopheles says, this time tugging softly at the blanket of darkness, dear Faustus, wouldn’t you like more rest? I never lie. You can have a few more minutes. I close my eyes against the day and answer: Oh, Mephistopheles, I’d do anything for more sleep, even a few more minutes.

The bargain is struck nine minutes at a time. I am Faustus, but the devil is my alarm clock or cell phone, whichever I’ve managed to set the night before. The devil offers me little extensions of nine minutes, and I happily accept three or four installments every single morning.

Then Mephistopheles enforces the bargain. I stumble out of bed, at least 18, though usually 36 minutes later than when I had planned. I am late, and I will have bargained away all the leisure and pleasure of the morning: No time for taking a shower, no time for toasting a bagel or bread, no time for reading the newspaper, no time for brewing coffee at home. I wonder sometimes what my neighbors think of me: all those endless choruses of alarm chimes and bells not once a morning, but at least three or four times on repeat.

Snooze is the enemy of both sleep and wakefulness. Snooze is the devil that cheats us into thinking we’ll be more awake for those nine extra minutes of sleep, more rested for every one of those sleep extensions we accept from Mephistopheles. But it’s all a lie: Nine minutes at a time, the snooze cheats us of our waking life. It hasn’t always been this way. Alarm clocks are an ancient device, but the snooze button is a recent invention.

THERE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ways of waking: Even before clocks, there were crowing roosters and the rising sun. When water clocks first appeared centuries ago in Egypt, they were modified over time to include alarms. Bells and whistles were adjusted to specific levels in the container from which or into which the water fell. These noisemakers sounded whenever the water rose or fell to the appropriate level, providing a reliable alarm for keeping time. There’s some indication that even Plato used such a clock, sounding a water organ early every morning to mark the beginning of his lectures.

The history of horology is entangled with the history of commerce, so the next wave of time-keeping developments was tied to industry. Alarms came in the form of town clocks, factory whistles, and neighborhood knocker-uppers. Town clocks chimed the early morning hours; factory whistles sounded the hours of shift work; and knocker-uppers went around cities knocking on windows or doors at arranged times so that everyone could make it to work. None of these methods offered the opportunity for drowsing. Even when Seth Thomas patented a small mechanical alarm clock in 1876, there was still no snooze function.

For centuries we got by without the snooze. It was only in 1956 that General Electric-Telechron released the Snooz-Alarm, which came equipped with a control bar for snoozing. Westclox released their Drowse Alarm three years later, which featured the choice between snoozing for five minutes and 10 minutes. There is so much more truth in advertising with drowse than snooze, since what you get with each interval is less like sleeping and more like drowsing—a pitiful mix of hazy, haunted wakefulness.

The original Snooz-Alarm had a nine-minute snooze, which became the standard, though there is not much consensus about what dictated that arbitrary interval. There is some speculation that engineers were constrained by mechanical gears and had to choose between complicated double-digit intervals and the easier nine-minute dose. Nine minutes was the most you could get without designing a more sophisticated mechanism. For all the customizable features of modern alarms, from radio stations, specific songs, a multitude of tones, user-recorded messages, it’s surprising that no one has allowed us the freedom of timing our own snoozing for something less regulated than nine minutes.

A stitch in time may save nine, but every nine minutes of snooze wastes a little slice of our lives. Since 1956, we have been confusing snooze for sleep, sacrificing our waking life nine minutes at a time. Not only do we delay the start of our days, but we compromise the very sleep we are trying to steal. The healthy, continuous sleep cycles we need are thoroughly disrupted by the snooze. When we hear the first sound of the alarm, our bodies release adrenaline and cortisol, hormones that wake us, interrupting our natural sleep cycle to make us alert.

Surrendering to the temptation of the snooze erases that hormonal surge: our bodies try to reenter the deeper periods of sleep. Only those restorative levels of sleep take a lot longer than nine minutes to enter, so every snooze confuses our bodies even more. We think three or four snoozes are the equivalent of an extra 30 or 40 minutes of rest, but the patchy, interrupted sleep of snooze is worse than no sleep at all. Instead of the natural sleeping then waking, the snooze drags us into unhealthy, unsatisfying fits of trying to sleep and trying to rise, but failing to do either.

I LIVED WITHOUT THE snooze for the first two decades of my life. It was only during a particularly sleep-deprived period of college that I gave in to the temptation of tapping that button three or four times every morning. Like any addiction, it’s hard to break. I go to bed contracting with my future self to rise the precise moment the alarm sounds, but morning after morning my future self cheats my past self with one snooze after another. Day by day, I rise groggier and drowsier, taking hours instead of minutes to actually, truly awaken.

So how are we to resist the wiles of Mephistopheles? If the war on smoking was won partly by convincing smokers that every cigarette stole 11 minutes of their lives, then perhaps the war on snooze can be won by convincing sleepers they lose nine, 18, 27, even 36 minutes of their sleep lives every morning. We must realize that every snooze is not nine minutes gained, but hours lost: not only of productive sleep, but productive wakefulness.

Next time Mephistopheles whispers in your groggy ear, try rejecting his bargain. Don’t cheat yourself out of restful sleep or waking life. Sleep scientists suggest going to bed earlier or setting your alarm for later, but never giving into the cheat of the snooze. Rather than negotiating that Faustian bargain every morning with the snooze, try setting a second alarm for 30 or 40 minutes after the first. If you find yourself too sleepy to rise when you first intended, let yourself get real, restful sleep before trying again. It’s a war on snooze, but one we can win one morning at a time.

UCLA Psychologists Report New Insights on Human Brain, Consciousness (via Tracing Knowledge)

Regions displaying a significant effect of condition on local metrics. (a) Nodal strength (yellow-red colors indicate regions in which degree was stronger, on average, for the S [propofol sedation] and LOC [loss of consciousness] conditions, while blue/light-blue colors indicate regions in which degree was stronger for W [wakefulness] and R [after conscious recovery]). (b) Local efficiency (yellow-red colors indicate regions in which the measure is stronger, on average for the LOC and R conditions). Color intensity is assigned on the basis of the (FDR adjusted) p-value for the condition factor in the 2-way repeated measures ANOVA. (Surface rendering was performed using Caret [98].)  doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003271.g006

An interesting new study from researchers at UCLA has provided insights into what happens in the brain as a person shifts from consciousness to being unconscious following administration of the anesthetic propofol. Not only does this tell us a lot about unconsciousness, it also suggests that consciousness "arises from the mode in which billions of neurons communicate with one another."

Key points:

• Monti and his colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study how the flow of information in the brains of 12 healthy volunteers (ages 18 to 31, 6 men and 6 women) changed as they lost consciousness under anesthesia with propofol. 
• Analysis of “network properties” of subjects’ brains conducted with graph theory (often used to study air-traffic patterns, information on the Internet, and social groups, among other topics).
• When we become unconsciousness, communication between brain areas becomes extremely inefficient (each area of the brain became very distant from every other, making it difficult for information to travel from one place to another).
• This research shows that consciousness is not a localized event in the brain - it “arises from the mode in which billions of neurons communicate with one another.”

Below is the press release followed by the abstract and author summary of the PLoS Computational Biology article. I found this via the blog, Chasing Knowledge.

UCLA psychologists report new insights on human brain, consciousness

October 17, 2013 | By UCLA Newsroom
Original online publication: UCLA Newsroom
PDF: UCLA psychologists report new insights on human brain, consciousness : UCLA Newsroom

UCLA psychologists have used brain-imaging techniques to study what happens to the human brain when it slips into unconsciousness. Their research, published Oct. 17 in the online journal PLOS Computational Biology, is an initial step toward developing a scientific definition of consciousness.

“In terms of brain function, the difference between being conscious and unconscious is a bit like the difference between driving from Los Angeles to New York in a straight line versus having to cover the same route hopping on and off several buses that force you to take a ‘zig-zag’ route and stop in several places,” said lead study author Martin Monti, an assistant professor of psychology and neurosurgery at UCLA.

Monti and his colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study how the flow of information in the brains of 12 healthy volunteers changed as they lost consciousness under anesthesia with propofol. The participants ranged in age from 18 to 31 and were evenly divided between men and women.

The psychologists analyzed the “network properties” of the subjects’ brains using a branch of mathematics known as graph theory, which is often used to study air-traffic patterns, information on the Internet and social groups, among other topics.

“It turns out that when we lose consciousness, the communication among areas of the brain becomes extremely inefficient, as if suddenly each area of the brain became very distant from every other, making it difficult for information to travel from one place to another,” Monti said.

The finding shows that consciousness does not “live” in a particular place in our brain but rather “arises from the mode in which billions of neurons communicate with one another,” he said.

When patients suffer severe brain damage and enter a coma or a vegetative state, Monti said, it is very possible that the sustained damage impairs their normal brain function and the emergence of consciousness in the same manner as was seen by the life scientists in the healthy volunteers under anesthesia.

“If this were indeed the case, we could imagine in the future using our technique to monitor whether interventions are helping patients recover consciousness,” he said.

“It could, however, also be the case that losing consciousness because of brain injury affects brain function through different mechanisms,” said Monti, whose research team is currently addressing this question in another study.

“As profoundly defining of our mind as consciousness is, without having a scientific definition of this phenomenon, it is extremely difficult to study,” Monti noted. This study, he said, marks an initial step toward conducting neuroscience research on consciousness.

The research was conducted at Belgium’s University Hospital of Liege.

Monti’s expertise includes cognitive neuroscience, the relationship between language and thought, and how consciousness is lost and recovered after severe brain injury. He was part of a team of American and Israeli brain scientists who used fMRI on former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in January 2013 to assess his brain responses.

Surprisingly, Sharon, who was presumed to be in a vegetative state since suffering a brain hemorrhage in 2006, showed significant brain activity, Monti and his colleagues reported.

The former prime minister was scanned to assess the extent and quality of his brain processing, using methods recently developed by Monti and his colleagues. The scientists found subtle but encouraging signs of consciousness.

Co-authors of the current research included Evan Lutkenhoff, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar in Monti’s laboratory; Mikahil Rubinov of Cambridge University in the U.K.; and Steven Laureys, who leads the Coma Science Group at the Cyclotron Research Center and the department of neurology at Belgium’s Sart Tilman Liege University Hospital.

The study was funded primarily by the James S. McDonnell Foundation.

___ Read straight from UCLA Newsroom

Reference paper

Dynamic Change of Global and Local Information Processing in Propofol-Induced Loss and Recovery of Consciousness

Martin M. Monti, Evan S. Lutkenhoff, Mikail Rubinov, Pierre Boveroux, Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse, Olivia Gosseries, Marie-Aurélie Bruno, Quentin Noirhomme, Mélanie Boly, Steven Laureys

Abstract

Whether unique to humans or not, consciousness is a central aspect of our experience of the world. The neural fingerprint of this experience, however, remains one of the least understood aspects of the human brain. In this paper we employ graph-theoretic measures and support vector machine classification to assess, in 12 healthy volunteers, the dynamic reconfiguration of functional connectivity during wakefulness, propofol-induced sedation and loss of consciousness, and the recovery of wakefulness. Our main findings, based on resting-state fMRI, are three-fold. First, we find that propofol-induced anesthesia does not bear differently on long-range versus short-range connections. Second, our multi-stage design dissociated an initial phase of thalamo-cortical and cortico-cortical hyperconnectivity, present during sedation, from a phase of cortico-cortical hypoconnectivity, apparent during loss of consciousness. Finally, we show that while clustering is increased during loss of consciousness, as recently suggested, it also remains significantly elevated during wakefulness recovery. Conversely, the characteristic path length of brain networks (i.e., the average functional distance between any two regions of the brain) appears significantly increased only during loss of consciousness, marking a decrease of global information-processing efficiency uniquely associated with unconsciousness. These findings suggest that propofol-induced loss of consciousness is mainly tied to cortico-cortical and not thalamo-cortical mechanisms, and that decreased efficiency of information flow is the main feature differentiating the conscious from the unconscious brain.

Author Summary

One of the most elusive aspects of the human brain is the neural fingerprint of the subjective feeling of consciousness. While a growing body of experimental evidence is starting to address this issue, to date we are still hard pressed to answer even basic questions concerning the nature of consciousness in humans as well as other species. In the present study we follow a recent theoretical construct according to which the crucial factor underlying consciousness is the modality with which information is exchanged across different parts of the brain. In particular, we represent the brain as a network of regions exchanging information (as is typically done in a comparatively young branch of mathematics referred to as graph theory), and assess how different levels of consciousness induced by anesthetic agent affect the quality of information exchange across regions of the network. Overall, our findings show that what makes the state of propofol-induced loss of consciousness different from all other conditions (namely, wakefulness, light sedation, and consciousness recovery) is the fact that all regions of the brain appear to be functionally further apart, reducing the efficiency with which information can be exchanged across different parts of the network.

___Read straight from PLoS Comput Biol 9(10): e1003271. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003271