Soffer-Dudek Nirit
Consciousness and Psychopathology Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the NegevBeer-Sheva, Israel.
Front Psychol. 2017 May 10;8:733. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00733. eCollection 2017.
The term "sleep experiences," coined by Watson (2001), denotes an array of unusual nocturnal consciousness phenomena; for example, nightmares, vivid or recurrent dreams, hypnagogic hallucinations, dreams of falling or flying, confusional arousals, and lucid dreams. Excluding the latter, these experiences reflect a single factor of atypical oneiric cognitions ("general sleep experiences"). The current study is an opinionated mini-review on the associations of this factor-measured with the Iowa sleep experiences survey (ISES, Watson, 2001)-with psychopathological symptoms and stress. Findings support a strong relation between psychological distress and general sleep experiences. It is suggested that that they should be viewed as a sleep disturbance; they seem to represent involuntary intrusions of wakefulness into sleep, resulting in aroused sleep. These intrusions may stem from excessively thin boundaries between consciousness states (e.g., "transliminality"), or, conversely, they may follow an attempt at disconnecting mental elements (e.g., dissociation), which paradoxically results in a "rebound effect." The extent to which unusual dreaming is experienced as intrusive, rather than controlled, may explain why general sleep experiences are related to psychopathology, whereas lucid dreams are related to psychological resilience. In conclusion, the exploration of the interplay between psychopathology and sleep should be expanded from focusing almost exclusively on quantitative aspects (e.g., sleep efficiency, latency) to including qualitative conscious experiences which may reflect poor sleep quality. Taking into account nocturnal consciousness-including unusual dreaming and permeable sleep-wake boundaries-may unveil rich information on night-time emotional states and broaden our definition of poor sleep quality.
“睡眠体验”一词由沃森（2001年）提出，指一系列异常的夜间意识现象；例如，噩梦、生动或反复出现的梦境、入睡幻觉、坠落或飞行的梦境、混乱觉醒和清醒梦。除了后者，这些体验反映了非典型梦认知的单一因素（“一般睡眠体验”）。本研究是一篇有倾向性的小型综述，探讨了用爱荷华睡眠体验调查（ISES，沃森，2001年）测量的该因素与心理病理症状和压力之间的关联。研究结果支持心理困扰与一般睡眠体验之间存在密切关系。有人认为，应将它们视为一种睡眠障碍；它们似乎代表了清醒状态对睡眠的非自愿侵入，导致睡眠被唤醒。这些侵入可能源于意识状态之间的界限过于模糊（例如，“阈限跨越”），或者相反，它们可能是在尝试断开心理元素（例如，解离）之后出现的，而这会产生一种矛盾的“反弹效应”。异常梦境被体验为侵入性而非可控性的程度，可能解释了为什么一般睡眠体验与精神病理学相关，而清醒梦与心理复原力相关。总之，对精神病理学与睡眠之间相互作用的探索，应从几乎完全关注定量方面（例如，睡眠效率、潜伏期）扩展到包括可能反映睡眠质量差的定性意识体验。考虑夜间意识——包括异常梦境和可渗透的睡眠-觉醒界限——可能会揭示有关夜间情绪状态的丰富信息，并拓宽我们对睡眠质量差的定义。
