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Author |
|
| Name | Campillo Ferrer, Teresa |
| Research field | Neuroscience |
| Career stage | doctoral researcher |
| Home university/institution | Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) |
| Department/Research unit at home university/institution | Psychology |
| Chair/Working group at home institution | - |
International activity |
|
| Country | Netherlands |
| Location | Nijmegen |
| University | Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour |
| Fund Research School | PR.INT |
| Type of activity | research stay |
| Period |
starts 01-09-2023 ends 31-05-2024 |
| Keywords | Unusual bodily experiences, lucid dreaming, sleep, consciousness |
| Report |
Purpose and overview: The primary purpose of this research stay abroad was to collect data for the research project entitled “Neural correlates of unusual bodily experiences and lucid dreaming: an electrophysiological and neurophenomenological study”. Unusual bodily experiences are illusory sensations involving vestibular-motor experiences and distorted perceptions of the body and/or surroundings, such as floating, falling and out-of-body experiences. These experiences offer a unique opportunity to explore the foundations of conscious and unconscious mental states and the underlying brain processes related to self-consciousness, including self-location and self-identification. Although unusual bodily experiences are relatively common during sleep and dreaming, the available electrophysiological evidence is mostly anecdotal and was gathered using a limited number of EEG electrodes. Research activities: During this research stay, we collected high-density EEG data from individuals reporting unusual bodily experiences in a controlled sleep environment. Overall, a total of 35 volunteers followed a pre-sleep meditation protocol designed to facilitate unusual bodily experiences at the EEG laboratory of the Donders Institute in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Participants wore a 64-channel EEG cap along with additional electrodes to monitor ocular (EOG), muscular (submental EMG) and cardiac (ECG) activity. They were instructed to signal the occurrence of unusual bodily experiences by moving their eyes left-right-left-right, either during meditation, during the transition to sleep or in a state of lucid dreaming (defined as periods of sleep where individuals are aware of being in a dream state). The phenomenology of these experiences was examined through two different methods: 1) Open dream reports collected upon awakening. 2) In-depth phenomenological interviews conducted immediately after each session. Any experiences where dream reports and phenomenological interviews were inconsistent with each other were excluded from further analysis. Key findings: - Out of 35 participants, 20 reported unusual bodily experiences that could be localized in the EOG signal using left-right-left-right eye movements as onset markers. - From these 20 participants, we analyzed the phenomenological patterns of 35 experiences (up to 4 experiences per participant). Current status and future perspectives: We are currently finalizing the sleep scoring phase of the project and will present our results at the ASSC27 conference in Tokyo in July 2024. Overall, our preliminary results support previous research linking unusual bodily experiences with states of meditation, wake-sleep transitions and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. In the future, we plan to perform multiple EEG analyses, including spectral EEG and source localization analyses. Conclusion: This research stay abroad has provided valuable insights into the occurrence and characteristics of unusual bodily experiences reported during sleep. I am grateful for the support of the PR.INT program in making this research stay possible and I look forward to sharing more detailed findings in peer-reviewed scientific publications in the near future. |