Neurocognitive dynamics of spontaneous offline simulations: Re-conceptualizing (dream)bizarreness

ABSTRACT

Although we are beginning to understand the neurocognitive processes that underlie the emergence of dreaming, what accounts for the bizarre phenomenology of dreams remains debated. I address this question by comparing dreaming with waking mind wandering and challenging previous accounts that utilize bizarreness to mark a sharp divide between conscious experiences in waking and sleeping. Instead, I propose that bizarreness is a common, non-deficient feature of spontaneous offline simulations occurring across the sleep-wake cycle and can be tied to the specific characteristics of spontaneous thought as being dynamic, unconstrained, (hyper)associative, and highly variable in content. Rather than misrepresenting waking reality, bizarreness can be employed to investigate the very building blocks of spontaneous cognition. The absence of bizarreness in thought processes is imposed by automatic and deliberate cognitive constraints. By contrast, thought and memory processes operating on their own without such constraints are inherently marked by different degrees and types of bizarreness.

KEYWORDS:

• spontaneous thought
• autobiographical memory
• sleep
• default mode network
• dreaming
• mind-wandering

Biographical note

Manuela Kirberg is a PhD-Candidate in the Philosophy & Cognition Lab at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

Manuela’s research focusses on spontaneous offline cognition, especially identifying differences and common features of phenomenal consciousness in dreaming and waking mind wandering. Where most research assumes sharp wake-sleep differentiations and distinctions between conscious states, her work investigates the extent to which spontaneous mental activity is state-independent, cutting across the behavioral states of wakefulness and sleep as commonly defined.

Manuela has an interdisciplinary academic background and received her M.Sc. in Philosophy-Neuroscience-Cognition from the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg and her M.A. in Anthropology (African Studies) from the University of Leipzig.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I will use the terms discontinuities (as opposed to continuous conscious thought) and bizarreness interchangeably. It is noteworthy that temporal discontinuities also refer to a subtype of bizarreness.

2. Brackets indicate a weaker commitment to the respective assumption.

3. For a philosophical companion theory, see, (Irving & Glasser, 2020).

4. From the series “Rick&Morty” (S3, E3).

5. Also referred to as ecological momentary assessment (EAS). Experience sampling methodology uses repeated assessments in the natural environment of the participants by collecting systematic self-reports at randomized times.

6. Inability to experience mental imagery during wakefulness.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council.