Benjamin Baird, apoiado pela Fundação BIAL no âmbito do projeto 334/18 - Inducing lucid dreams with optimized sensory cues, concluiu que os pensamentos episódicos, relacionados com o passado e o futuro, raramente ocorrem no sono fase N2 ou REM, apesar serem comuns durante o pensamento espontâneo no estado de vigília. O artigo que detalha estes resultados “Episodic thought distinguishes spontaneous cognition in waking from REM and NREM sleep” foi publicado na revista científica Consciousness and Cognition.
“Evidence suggests continuity between cognition in waking and sleeping states. However, one type of cognition that may differ is episodic thoughts of the past and future. The current study investigated this across waking, NREM sleep and REM sleep. We analyzed thought reports obtained from a large sample of individuals (N = 138) who underwent experience-sampling during wakefulness as well as serial awakenings in sleep. Our data suggest that while episodic thoughts are common during waking spontaneous thought, episodic thoughts of both the past and the future rarely occur in either N2 or REM sleep. Moreover, replicating previous findings, episodic thoughts during wakefulness exhibit a strong prospective bias and frequently involve autobiographical planning. Together, these results suggest that the occurrence of spontaneous episodic thoughts differs substantially across waking and dreaming sleep states. We suggest that this points to a difference in the way that human consciousness is typically experienced across the sleep-wake cycle.”
