Dreams, hypnotic

Because recent memory is disenabled in both states, it is not surprising that orientation to time, place, and person is impaired in hypnotic trance and dreaming. That this process is considerably more floridly deranged in dreaming may possibly be due to the more extreme changes in neuro-modulatory balance that occur in REM sleep (for details see subsequent discussion). 

Internal inputs are enhanced in hypnotic trance and suppressed in lucid dreaming, whereas aminergic drive is suppressed in hypnotic trance but enhanced in lucid dreaming. 

Other dissociations are the altered states of consciousness seen in hypnosis and hysteria that have been likened to sleepwalking. The word somnambulism denotes not only sleepwalking per se, it also denotes those hypnotic trance states that impose a kind of sleepiness on susceptible subjects during waking. For Pierre Janet (and for Charcot, Freud, and the rest), this was the very essence of dissociation. The psychoanalytic model ascribed the same repressed libidinal wishes to the hypnotic somnambulist that it found to be the root cause of all dreaming. The fact of the matter is that any coordinated behavior is likely to invite the ascription of motive. If the subject is unconscious or nonconscious, then the motive must be unconscious too. 

This does not appear to be simply an exaggeration of normal dream disorientation, but it certainly does resemble some descriptions of psychedelic drug states. Likewise, the memory enhancement that is typical of normal dreaming is massively exceeded in what sounds for all the world like the description of false memories that subjects in hypnotic trance states often give ... 

Unless one retains the medieval view that even dreaming is caused by some vagabond genie from the spirit world (who squeezes through the cerebral valve in sleep), the most parsimonious (and, to me, completely adequate) hypothesis is that dreams, psychedelic and hypnotic visions, and psychosis are all caused by functional changes in the brain. 

Without wishing to challenge the belief systems of transcendental meditation adepts, it is possible to propose a mechanistic explanation along the same lines as those used to analyze hypnotic phenomena and lucid dreaming. In the case of transcendental meditation, the subject wishes to remain awake—or at least remain aware—but to be free of directed thoughts, organized precepts, and internal language. 

The hypnotic dream Methodological problems and a review of the literature. Psychol. Bull., 1965, 63, 87-99. 

Types of hypnotic dreams and their relation to hypnotic depth. 3. Abnorm. Psychol., 1966, 71, 377-382. 

RBD is characterized by a relative absence of the atonia characteristic of REM sleep. This lack of atonia permits the physical acting out of dream mentation, particularly dreams involving confrontation, aggression and violence. RBD is seen most frequently in older men. RBD occurs in both acute and chronic forms. Acute RBD can occur during withdrawal from alcohol or sedative-hypnotics. RBD has also been induced by the tricyclics, SSRIs and venlafaxine. The chronic form of RBD may occur as part of an identifiable underlying neurological disorder, but typically is idiopathic. RBD may also be an initial manifestation of parkinsonism. RBD is very responsive to clonazepam, although this use has not been FDA approved. 

A yagero s chant is his most precious possession. It comes to him in dreams and stays with him all his life. Until a man receives his chant from the spirit of the vine, he cannot conduct ceremonies. Luis s chant was strangely hypnotic, a mixture of sounds, tunes and words. There were Spanish words, Ingano words and words of a sort I had never heard before. I asked him what one particular word meant. "It is yag speaking, he answered. "It doesn t mean it is yag speaking. ... 

A state is an altered state if it is discretely different from some baseline state we want to compare things to. Since we usually take ordinary waking consciousness as our standard of comparison, a state such as nocturnal dreaming is thus an altered state. Other well-known examples of altered states are the hypnotic state, states induced by psychoactive drugs such as alcohol, states centered on strong emotions such as rage, panic, depression, and elation, and states induced by meditative practices. ... 

Another suggestion and the subject would have a dream, sometimes as vivid as or more vivid than his nighttime dreams. Another suggestion and the subject would forget the present and be five years old, feeling and acting as he did at that age. Another suggestion and he would not remember what happened while he was hypnotized after he woke up. 

The subject is told he will have a dream, a vivid dream, and then is given a period of silence. Asked to recount his experience afterward, he will often report a vivid dream. When subjects are asked to compare the reality of these dreams with their nocturnal dreams, they report that these dreams are sometimes just as real, sometimes even more intense. The content of the dream can also be affected by suggestion, as in suggesting that the dream will represent what it is like to be hypnotized. 

In hypnosis, a subject will dream on suggestion. Often the hypnotist can specify the dream content. For many subjects the hypnotic dream is experienced as a vivid fantasy, for some it is just as vivid and real in many ways as a nocturnal dream. The reader who wants detailed information can see my review paper on hypnotic dreams. ... 

C. Tart, The Hypnotic Dream Methodological Problems and a Review of the Literature, Psychological Bulletin 63 87-99. 

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