Department of Philosophy, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2021 Feb;376(1817):20190696. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0696. Epub 2020 Dec 14.
Whether we are awake or asleep is believed to mark a sharp divide between the types of conscious states we undergo in either behavioural state. Consciousness in sleep is often equated with dreaming and thought to be characteristically different from waking consciousness. Conversely, recent research shows that we spend a substantial amount of our waking lives mind wandering, or lost in spontaneous thoughts. Dreaming has been described as intensified mind wandering, suggesting that there is a continuum of spontaneous experience that reaches from waking into sleep. This challenges how we conceive of the behavioural states of sleep and wakefulness in relation to conscious states. I propose a conceptual framework that distinguishes different subtypes of spontaneous thoughts and experiences independently of their occurrence in sleep or waking. I apply this framework to selected findings from dream and mind-wandering research. I argue that to assess the relationship between spontaneous thoughts and experiences and the behavioural states of sleep and wakefulness, we need to look beyond dreams to consider kinds of sleep-related experience that qualify as dreamless. I conclude that if we consider the entire range of spontaneous thoughts and experiences, there appears to be variation in subtypes both within as well as across behavioural states. Whether we are sleeping or waking does not appear to strongly constrain which subtypes of spontaneous thoughts and experiences we undergo in those states. This challenges the conventional and coarse-grained distinction between sleep and waking and their putative relation to conscious states. This article is part of the theme issue 'Offline perception: voluntary and spontaneous perceptual experiences without matching external stimulation'.
无论是清醒还是睡眠，人们都认为这标志着我们在这两种行为状态下经历的意识状态类型之间的明显区别。睡眠中的意识通常与做梦等同，并被认为与清醒意识明显不同。相反，最近的研究表明，我们在清醒状态下有相当一部分时间会走神或陷入自发的思绪中。做梦被描述为增强的走神，这表明存在一种自发体验的连续体，从清醒延伸到睡眠。这对我们如何将睡眠和清醒的行为状态与意识状态联系起来提出了挑战。我提出了一个概念框架，该框架独立于其在睡眠或清醒中的发生，区分了不同类型的自发思维和体验。我将该框架应用于梦境和走神研究中的选定发现。我认为，要评估自发思维和体验与睡眠和清醒的行为状态之间的关系，我们需要超越梦境，考虑那些可被视为无梦的与睡眠相关的体验类型。我得出结论，如果我们考虑整个范围的自发思维和体验，那么在行为状态内部和之间似乎存在不同类型的变化。我们是在睡觉还是在清醒状态下，似乎并没有强烈限制我们在这些状态下经历的自发思维和体验的类型。这对睡眠和清醒的传统和粗糙区分及其与意识状态的假设关系提出了挑战。本文是主题为“离线感知：没有匹配外部刺激的自愿和自发感知体验”的一部分。
