In this paper, we address the different ways in which dream research can contribute to interdisciplinary consciousness research. As a second global state of consciousness aside from wakefulness, dreaming is an important contrast condition for theories of waking consciousness. However, programmatic suggestions for integrating dreaming into broader theories of consciousness, for instance by regarding dreams as a model system of standard or pathological wake states, have not yielded straightforward results. We review existing proposals for using dreaming as a model system, (...) taking into account concerns about the concept of modeling and the adequacy and practical feasibility of dreaming as a model system. We conclude that existing modeling approaches are premature and rely on controversial background assumptions. Instead, we suggest that contrastive analysis of dreaming and wakefulness presents a more promising strategy for integrating dreaming into a broader research context and solving many of the problems involved in the modeling approach. (shrink)

This volume is aimed at readers who wish to move beyond debates about the existence of free will and the efficacy of consciousness and closer to appreciating ...

A conscious mind in a sleeping brain: the title of this book provides a vivid image of the phenomenon of lucid dreaming, in which dreamers are consciously aware that they are dreaming while they seem to be soundly asleep. Lucid dreamers could be said to be awake to their inner worlds while they are asleep to the external world. Of the many questions that this singular phenomenon may raise, two are foremost: What is consciousness? And what is sleep? Although we (...) cannot pro vide complete answers to either question here, we can at least explain the sense in which we are using the two terms. We say lucid dreamers are conscious because their subjective reports and behavior indicate that they are explicitly aware of the fact that they are asleep and dreaming; in other words, they are reflectively conscious of themselves. We say lucid dreamers are asleep primarily because they are not in sensory contact with the external world, and also because research shows physiological signs of what is conventionally considered REM sleep. The evidence presented in this book-preliminary as it is-still ought to make it clear that lucid dreaming is an experiential and physiological reality. Whether we should consider it a paradoxical form of sleep or a paradoxical form of waking or something else entirely, it seems too early to tell. (shrink)

This book argues two main things: The first is that there is no such thing as free will—at least not in the sense most ordinary folk take to be central or fundamental; the second is that the strong and pervasive belief in free will can be accounted for through a careful analysis of our phenomenology and a proper theoretical understanding of consciousness.

Sigmund Freud – ein bekannter osterreichischer Psychiater, Psychoanalytiker und Neurologe. Er ist der Begrunder der Psychoanalyse, die einen wesentlichen Einfluss auf die Psychologie, Medizin, Soziologie, Anthropologie, Literatur und Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts ausubte. „Die Traumdeutung“ ist die erste bedeutende Monographie des Psychoanalytikers. In diesem Traktat erlautert Freud erstmals einen solchen Schlusselbegriff der Psychoanalyse, wie es das Unbewusste ist.