The dream, the remains of the night

The dream, the remains of the night Miranda Occhionero Department of Psychology Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna The term “dream” defines the specific mental activity of the physiological condition of sleep. This experience presents a multisensory quality with visual hallucination and participation of the dreamer. The dream occurs in very particular psychophysiological conditions (sleep) and consists of contents linked to the mnestic activation. The analysis of the dream reports collected in the laboratory under electropoligraphic control (EEG, EOG, EMG) has made possible to assess the differences related to cortical activation during the different phases (REM/NREM) of sleep. Based on the experimental data from psychophysiology and neurobiology, in this presentation we will discuss some fundamental aspects of the dream experience. The first aspect relates to the genesis of the dream-like hallucinatory process, in particular to the mental mechanism known as “reality testing”. This cognitive process allows, under normal conditions, to distinguish the internal (representative) from the external (phenomenal) origin of an visual experience: in other words, it distinguishes a mental representation from a phenomenal perception. A second aspect concern “the matter of dreams”, namely the activation of autobiographical and semantic memories that constitute the contents of the dream. Finally we discuss a specific quality of the hallucinatory mechanism related to the representation of self in relation to the levels of consciousness during the dreaming process. References Cicogna, P., Cavallero, C., & Bosinelli, M. (1992). Cognitive aspects of mental activity during sleep. American Journal Psychologist, 104, 413-425 Occhionero, M., Cicogna, P. (2016). Phenomenal consciousness in dreams and in mind wandering. Philosophical Psychology, 29, 958 - 966