Hybrid States of Consciousness: Insights from Cognition in Sleep

For our first international Cross Roads, Liza Solomonova joined us from Toronto.

Liza's abstract:

In traditional neuroscience, “states” of consciousness are typically thought of as distinct and specific, non-overlapping phenomena. Waking, dreaming and deep sleep are considered to be separate and mutually exclusive. In recent years, however, discrete nature of these states has been challenged, particularly in the field of sleep research. In this talk I will present examples from neuroscience of sleep to show that cognitive processes in sleep often integrate phenomenal and electrophysiological qualities proper to different states of consciousness. Using such phenomena as sleepwalking, lucid dreams and sleep paralysis, I argue that hybrid states are more common than previously thought, and may represent a fundamental dynamic quality of the brain.

Thank you to Liza, everyone who attended for the lively discussion afterwards that extended well into the Tokyo night, and to our sponsor Cross Compass.

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