PATTERNS OF BASAL SKIN RESISTANCE DURING SLEEP

There are qualitative differences between Ss in the pattern of basal skin resistance (BSR) through a night's sleep. The most common is a rapid rise to maximum value of BSR in the first hour, with a steady fall the rest of the night. A steady rise through the night is also common. No relationship between BSR and the occurrence of stage 1 dreaming was found.     

The relationship of alexithymia characteristics to dreaming

Objective: In two studies, we tested two hypotheses about the relationship of alexithymia to dreaming; that dreams of alexithymic people are barren and rarely recalled, and that the dreams are unregulated and nightmarish.Methods: Study 1 was a retrospective survey of dreaming among several hundred young adults, and Study 2 was a 1-week, prospective diary study of 153 young adults in which recall, content, and length of dreams were assessed.Results: Across both studies, the externally oriented thinking (EOT) facet of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS)-20 correlated with different dream characteristics than the difficulty identifying feelings (DIF) and difficulty describing feelings (DDF) facets, even after statistically controlling for the other facets. Greater EOT was related to an increased frequency of nights without dream recall, having shorter dreams, having dreams rated as boring and lacking vividness, and not believing in the importance of dreams. In contrast, greater DIF or DDF was related to an increased frequency of nights with disturbing dreams, and having dreams rated as bizarre and aggressive.Conclusion: We find support for both hypotheses, but different facets of the multidimensional alexithymia construct account for the two types of dream reports.     

住院抑郁症患者梦的内容研究

目的探讨抑郁症患者梦的特点以及其内容是否与疾病演变有关。方法根据CalvinHall的＂梦的内容分析（thecon-tent analysis of dreams）＂方法,分别记录住院抑郁症患者病前印象最深的梦、入院前1个月内、住院治疗2周内、住院2周后到4周内及出院前的梦,然后对其进行相关分析。结果共收集30例患者不同阶段的梦112个,平均每个梦（68.8±8.13）个字;患者在抑郁症病重期梦到友好行为的梦和不幸事件的梦较少,经治疗抑郁好转后梦中友好行为增加,自我负性评价减少。结论住院抑郁症患者的梦较为简短;梦的内容随病情的变化而有所不同。     

Secobarbital and nocturnal physiological patterns

Summary Sleep patterns of 14 male Ss were examined following a single oral dose (200 mg) of the barbiturate secobarbital. Compared to baseline, medication caused definite changes in the amount and distribution of the EEG stages of sleep. With the drug, a decrease in percent stage REM and an increase in percent stage 2 were accompanied by fewer body movements and a trend toward less waking. A more striking effect was the drug-induced redistribution of EEG stages with slow-wave sleep potentiated during the first half of the night but virtually eliminated during the last half. Stage REM, on the other hand, was inhibited in the first half but returned to baseline levels in the last half of the night. Recent evidence suggests that such effects could result from modulation of brain levels of the monoamines.Within the stages of sleep the amount of fast EEG activity was increased by the drug, with a tendency toward desynchrony. Pre-central beta activity became especially prominent in stages REM and 2 (low-voltage phases), and this change was associated with inhibition of such phasic events as eye movements during REM sleep, sigma spindles during stage 2 and spontaneous electrodermal responses in slow-wave sleep. Thus, it appears that secobarbital potentiates tonic and suppresses phasic phenomena during sleep. A possible interpretation of these results is that secobarbital enhances electrical activity in forebrain structures (Routtenberg's arousal system II) while inhibiting the reticular activating system (arousal system I) causing a reduction of phasic variability in all stages of sleep.We wish to thank O. H. Rundell and Joe Gold for their assistance in data acquisition and management of the experiment, and Rosa Coulter, Cindy Williams and Maria Chan for their invaluable contributions to data reduction and statistical analysis.     

DREAMS OF SUBJECTS WITH LOSS OF MEMORY FOR RECENT EVENTS

Dreams of six subjects with postencephalitic complete loss of memory for recent events were compared to dreams of control subjects with intact memory. The incidence of dreams decreased with the memory defect. Furthermore, the dreams were shorter, simpler, reality bound, lacked daily residue and emotional depth, and followed secondary-thought-type logic. They were stereotyped and repetitious. Instead of symbolically elaborated new attempted solutions for recent conflicts, these dreams contained the memory of events the subjects experienced before the onset of the memory defect. In each instance, the remembered event once offered a relief for a physiological need, similar to the one that precipitated the dream. Assuming that the mechanism of dreaming remains intact in these subjects with permanent memory loss for recent events, the results suggest that dreams of subjects with intact memory combine two processes: 1) a sensory stimulus of internal origin (e.g., an organic need) may serve as a decoding signal resulting in retrieval of an old memory trace; and 2) processes connected with perception and encoding the memory of recent events contribute the daily residue and the newly created symbolic elaboration of the daily residue, and old memory traces under an emotional impact.     

Dreams,Perception, and Creative Realization

This article draws on the ethnography of Aboriginal Australia to argue that perceptual openness, extending from waking life into dreaming experience, provides an important cognitive framework for the apprehension of dreamt experience in these contexts. I argue that this perceptual openness is analogous to the “openness to experience” described as a personality trait that had been linked with dream recall frequency (among other things). An implication of identifying perceptual openness at a cultural rather than at an individual level is two-fold. It provides an example of the ways in which cultural differences affect perception, indicative of cognitive diversity; and, given the relationship between dreams and creativity suggested anecdotally and through research, a cultural orientation toward perceptual openness is also likely to have implications for the realization of creativity that occurs through dreams. Such creativity though cannot be separated from the relational context in which such dreamt material is elaborated and understood.     

BIS does not predict dreams reported after anaesthesia

Background: In earlier studies, between 1% and 57% of patients have been reported to dream during anaesthesia. Thus, dreaming is much more common than definite memories of real events. We wanted to examine whether dreaming during anaesthesia is related to insufficient hypnotic action, as indicated by BIS levels and, thus, may constitute a risk for awareness.
Methods: After IRB approval, 2653 consecutive surgical patients were included. BIS registrations were recorded continuously during the anaesthetic procedure. The patients were interviewed on three occasions after anaesthesia. Standard questions, according to Brice, to evaluate awareness and dreaming during anaesthesia were asked. The dreams were categorized as either pleasant/neutral or unpleasant without any further evaluation of the dream content. Episodes with a mean BIS below 40, above 60 and above 70 were identified and subdivided according to duration (1, 2, 4 and 6 min, respectively). The total time as well as number and duration of episodes for the three BIS-levels were used to analyze any relation to reported dreaming. The mean BIS was also analyzed.
Results: Dreaming during anaesthesia was reported by 211 of patients (8.0%) on at least one of the post-operative interviews. BIS data did not show any significant correlation with dreaming, and neither did any of the tested case-specific parameters (gender, age, ASA group, BMI, use of relaxants, induction agent, maintenance agent, length of procedure, omitting N₂O and concomitant regional anaesthesia).
Conclusion: Dreaming during anaesthesia seems to be a separate phenomenon, not in general related to insufficient anaesthesia as indicated by high BIS levels.