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The Nature and Function of the Hypnagogic State Thesis Submitted HYPNAGOGIA The Nature and Function of the Hypnagogic State by Andreas Mavromatis Thesis submitted to the Department of Psychology, Brunel University, for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 1983 V01-1 PIS 4: r.:: ; D Eiz. -D Dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate one second before waking up 1944 Oil()" canvas. ;1x 41 Thyssen-Bornemis_a Collection. Lugano SalvadorDeli -' i 1 y1 \i ý;,, ý. ý,ý, 4' l ! ,,.: . >" ý -d Rupp- a All 4ý Vic All CONTENTS Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 5 Preface 6 - PART ONE - PHENOMENOLOGY 1. Introduction 8 2. Historical background and incidence 12 3. Methods and procedures of investigation 19 4. Sensori-motor phenomena and systems of classification 25 5. Physiological correlates 64 6" Problems of definition and the stages of the hypnagogic state 73 7. Cognitive-affective characteristics 83 Summary and Conclusions of Part One 131 - PART TWO - HYPNAGOGIA AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER STATES, PROCESSES, AND EXPERIENCES Introduction 137 Be Hypnosis 139 9. Dreams 150 10. Meditation 183 11. Psi 212 12. Schizophrenia 265 13. Creativity 310 14. Other areas of experience 374 Summary and Conclusions of Part Two 388 - PART THREE - GRAIN MECHANISMS AND FUNCTION OF HYPNAGOGIA Introduction 394 15. Cerebral correlates of hypnagogic visions 395 16. Cerebral correlates of hypnagogic mentation 420 17. The old versus the new brain 434 18. The loosening of ego boundaries 460 19. The function of hypnagogia 474 20. The significance of hypnagogia 492 Appendix 510 Bibliography 519 ANDREAS MAVROMATIS Ph. D. Psychology, Brunel University, 1983. - HYPNAGOGIA - The Nature and Function of the Hypnagogic State ABSTRACT An analysis of the hypnagogic state (hypnagogia) leads to the conclusion that, far from being a simple phase of sleep, this state or process is a central phenomenon characterized by a constellation of psychological features which emerge as a function of the hypnagogic subject's loosening of ego boundaries (LEB) and are correlated with activities of subcortical structures. This analysis both facilitates the relating of hypnagogia to other states/ processes of the human organism, such as hypnosis, medi- tation, dreams, psi, schizophrenia, and creativity, and is helps shed light on their nature. Further, hypnagogia viewed as a circadian phenomenon. related to the basic rest- activity cycle wherein it represents the cycle's dream component. As such it encompasses a variety of types of dream, the nocturnal or REM kind being only one of them. It, thus, constitutes the exemplification of a basic and pervading phenomenon herein termed Oneirosis, i. e. the need and readiness to have dreams and dreamlike experiences, such as hallucinations and quasi-hallucinations, through- out the 24 hour cycle independently of sleep and wakeful- ness. It is further proposed, on neurophysiological, developmental and psychological grounds, that this phen- omenon is evolutionally older than sleep and wakefulness, that it has a hypometabolic and anxiety-reducing function, and that, by dint of its character of LEB, it enables the individual to slacken his ego strictness and become more tolerant as well as providing him with opportunities for more holistic experiences and continually renewed psycho- logical orientations. Moreover, due to its unique charac- ter of riding between wakefulness and sleep, hypnagogia points to new evolutional possibilities, namely, to the establishment of a new psychological state serving collec- tively the functions of wakefulness, sleep, and dreaming. To my mother for her love and patience ET1v µ&va µov Yßä r 7,)v ay(Xit tirc xaC Tiv ünoµovT, ) T119 Acknowledgements Thanks are due to a number of people and establish- ments without whose generous assistance this work would never have reached its present form. First, I would like to extend my thanks to the Social Science Research Council for awarding me the grant (No. 79/20805/PSY) that enabled me to carry out this research at all, and to Brunel Univer- sity for offering me a post-graduate place and for being instrumental in my receiving the S. S. R. C. grant. I would also like to thank the staff of Brunel University Inter- Library Loans section for their helpfulness, and in parti- cular Ms. Lorna Barnes for her tireless efforts in tracing in and obtaining material from obscure and remote sources this country and abroad. Thanks are also due to a number of colleagues and staff of the University's Psychology Department for consultations and personal support. Special thanks are due to Dr. John Richardson for his constant supervision, advice and encouragement throughout this research, and for so patiently deciphering my scribbly handwriting. I am deeply grateful to the following for spending generously so much of their time and energy in translating for me hundreds of pages of very important material not available publicly in English: Adie Fishman, Heather Cox, Anne Vasseur, Annabelle Theodore, Liz Neville, Richard Pelling, Janice Selkirk, Jane Conway, Nigel Cooper, Ursula Riniker, Gabriele Simons. I wish also to thank Harry Fox for his incalculable contribution in helping me collect a great deal of the material in this thesis. Finally, in dedicating this work to my mother I hope to express my gratitude for her unstinting support, enormous patience, and constant supply of coffee. -5- Preface This research has been one of theoretical exploration rather than hypothesis testing. As I read the literature in the area I was struck by four important observations: First, no systematic analysis of the subject's cognitive- experiential state had been undertaken. Second, research in this area, which was until very recently mainly ignored outside France and Germany, was rather fragmented and carried out on the whole without any serious attempt to place it in a comprehensive conceptual framework. Third, although the hypnagogic state appeared to be related to a number of other states, processes, and experiences, on phenomenological and possibly aetiological grounds, no systematic studies along these lines had been reported. Fourth, there was no systematic attempt to understand the function of the hypnagogic state in a wider, evolutionary setting. In my efforts to remedy the above, I carried out an exhaustive research of the literature - not all of which was easily accessible - bringing together varied material from disparate sources and organizing it in what I believe to be a comprehensive and, I hope, comprehensible concep- tual framework. -6- - PART ONE - PHENOMENOLOGY CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: Hypnagogic experiences are generally referred to as hallucinatory or quasi-hallucinatory events taking place on falling asleep. The term "hypnagogic" (from the Greek hypnos = sleep, and agogos = conductor, leader) was intro- duced into the literature by Maury (1848). Other terms proposed include Mitchell's (1890) "praedormitium", Wey- gandt's "presomnal or anthypnic sensations" (Vihvelin 1948), Trdmner's (1911) "hypnagogic phantasms", Arnold-Forster's (1921) "borderland state" experiences, Leroy's (1933) "visions of half-sleep", Archer's (1935) "oneiragogic" images, Critchley's (1955) "sleepening" state experiences, and "phantasmata" and "faces in the dark" (in: Leaning, 1925, p. 289). Similar phenomena occurring at the other end of sleep have been called "hypnopompic" (Myers, 1903), that is, coming or leading out of sleep. The pre-sleep period as a state or process has been variously designated as "the hypnagogic state", "falling asleep", "sleep onset", "Einschlafen", "endormissement", "addormentamento". Unfor- tunately, there is no single word in English equivalent to the Italian "dormiveglia" (sleep-waking) which so succ- inctly describes both the "hypnagogic" and the "hypnopompic" states. In general, there is a tendency among investigators in this area to employ the term "hypnagogic"to refer to experiences occurring both at sleep onset and at the awake- ning side of sleep. Since there have not as yet been pro- posed strong phenomenological and physiological criteria for their distinction I shall continue in the same tradi- tion and consider them as belonging to the same group of phenomena. I shall, furthermore, introduce the collective term "hypnagogia" to stand for the hypnagogic-hypnopompic state and all the phenomena and experiences encountered in -8- 9 it. However, the use of the two separate terms will be maintained for the purpose of indicating the temporal occurrence of such experiences. The paper falls into three parts dealing respectively with the nature of hypnagogia, its relationship to other states and phenomena, and its function and evolutionary significance. More specifically, in the first part I examine the phenomenology of the state which I divide into somato-sensory or perceptual and quasi-perceptual (visual, auditory, olfactory, etc. ) and psychological phenomena (quality of thought, mental attitude, etc. ). I examine briefly the physiological correlates of the state as well as the methods used for studying hypnagogia and offer some criticism. In classifying the phenomena I make use of existing classificatory systems and suggest the employ- ment of new ones. Defining the hypnagogic state has been a difficult task. This was partly due to the transitional character of the state and the occurrence in it of cognitive modes and phenomena which are generally thought to be severally descriptive of - indeed, to characterize - other states of consciousness. Moreover, at the very introduction of the term 'hypnagogic', Maury (1848), the man who coined it,
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