The Induction of a Quasi-Dreaming Mental State by Means of Flickering Photic Stimulation1

Abstract

Breger, L.: Function of dreams. J. abnorm, soc. Psychol. Monogr. 72: 1-28 (1967 This paper is based on the assumption that EEG a-rhythm is concomitant with divergent thinking. This assumption is suggested here as an alternative to the usual assumptions that a-rhythm represents a lack of visual perception and of visual imagination, or a lack of arousal state. The theoretical considerations for this new assumption will be discussed elsewhere, where it will be shown that it accounts for most of the known empirical facts about the relationship between the appearance and disappearance of

Influencing dreams through sensory stimulation: a systematic review

“…Studies for which we could not retrieve the full manuscript or for which we could only retrieve the abstract or summarised results were excluded. Yet, we opted to include conference papers when they provided a comprehensive experimental report (i.e., Haar Horowitz et al, 2018;Lewin et al, 1973;Strauch, 1988;Ziegler, 1973), even though this does not guarantee peerreview. The rationale behind this choice was twofold: due to the scarcity of informative data on the topic of SDDCs, we included as many research findings as possible -for a discussion about this issue, see Scherer & Saldanha (2019) -, while simultaneously striving to minimise the effects of potential publication bias (Moher et al, 2009).…”

“…In particular, the timing of stimulation and the targeted sleep stage show substantial variability. Out of all the selected studies, 25 targeted only REM sleep, 2 focused on NREM sleep specifically (N1-N2 and N3, respectively; Haar Horowitz et al, 2018;Lewin et al, 1973), and the remaining 24 stimulated both during REM and NREM sleep (mainly N2; Figure 3). On 6 occasions, the stimulation procedure was performed during a daytime nap (Bloxham & Durrant, 2014;Conduit & Coleman, 1998;Haar Horowitz et al, 2018;Nozoe et al, 2020;Picard-Deland et al, 2021;.…”

“…Later, Lewin and colleagues used flickering photic stimulation to induce changes in brain oscillatory activity during N3, under the hypothesis that increasing alpha oscillations would lead to an increase in dream-like mental experiences (Lewin et al, 1973). Nine volunteers completed three consecutive nights in the sleep laboratory.…”