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I J o D R Abstracts of the 36th Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams June 21 - June 25, 2019 Kerkrade, The Netherlands Content This supplement of the International Journal of Dream Research includes the abstracts of presenters who gave consent to the publishing. The abstracts are categorized into thematic groups and within the category sorted according to the last name of the fi rst presenter. Affi liations are included only for the fi rst author. A name register at the end is also provided. This lecture invites you to accompany children on their Contents: journeys through their religious and spiritual dreams, from divine dreams which they report as encounters with divine 1. Keynotes beings, through to other big dreams which impact them, of- 2. Morning Dream Groups ten for a lifetime. Hearing the children’s voices is essential; 3. Workshops not only the descriptions of their dreams but also their re- fl ections upon them. It is in this space of refl ection and dia- 4. Clinical Topics logue that we see how children make meaning of them, and 5. Religion/Spiritual/Culture/Arts come to hold these dreams as special. Given that these of- ten make a lasting impression on their lives into adulthood, 6. Education/Other Topics it is important to recognise and value them, to help children 7. PSI Dreaming grow into spirituality confi dent adults. 8. Lucid Dreaming 9. Research/Theory Parasomnia: a window into dreaming process? 10. Posters Isabelle Arnulf Paris, France 1. Keynotes The parasomnias include sleep talking (REM and NREM sleep), sleepwalking, night terrors (NREM sleep) and REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), sleep-related hallucinations and sleep paralysis (REM sleep). Many can cause injuries The Hidden Worlds of Children’s Spiritual Dreams and sleep disturbances, thereby needing to be diagnosed Kate Adams and treated. Of note, sleep talking, sleepwalking and RBD correspond to dream-enacted behaviors, thanks to isomor- Lincoln,Lincolnshire, United Kingdom phism between behaviors and later dream recall. The ges- tures, speeches and facial expressions of the dreamers ren- The spiritual worlds of childhood are enchanting and en- der the dreaming scenario visible for external observers. We ticing, yet they often pass by unnoticed. When adults are fi rst performed an ethological repertory of all visible behav- aware of them, they often frame them as make-believe or iors, speeches and, more recently, emotional face expres- fi gments of the imagination. Yet in these spaces, children sions, in RBD and sleepwalking in a large (>200 subjects) contemplate profound questions as they seek, and fi nd, adult cohort. Aggression by animals and humans predomi- meaning and purpose in life. nated in RBD (the dreamer counterattacking the aggressor) Dreams are central to many children’s spiritual lives, serv- whereas natural catastrophes predominated in sleepwalk- ing as a place for both religious and spiritual experience and ing/night terror (the dreamer trying to escape the imminent a space for those philosophical contemplations. danger by running away), suggesting a “fl ight (NREM) and Across the literature on children’s spirituality, dreams fi ght (REM)” answer to threat simulation. Similarly, the sleep- are often mentioned by children, even when the researcher associated speeches (whether in genuine sleep talkers or has not intentionally sought them out. And yet, children’s in patients with RBD and sleepwalking) were mostly nega- spiritual dreams remain much less researched than those of tive, worried, and repeated. Verbal violence (more frequent adults across a range of disciplines. In wider, everyday life, in male sleep talkers) contained more profanities in NREM their spiritual dreams are also often invisible for a number sleep and insults in REM sleep. However, non-violent, elab- of reasons. orate behaviors and speeches were also visible, although International Journal of Dream Research Volume 12, Supplement 1 (2019) S1 I J o D R less frequent than violent ones. Smiling asleep was rare in dreams and cases of NDEs, and will discuss the implica- normal adults, but quite frequent in RBD patients. This nar- tions that these fi ndings have on the current understanding row but fascinating window helped test some hypotheses of consciousness. about dreaming, including which motor and verbal systems are at play during dreaming, whether episodic memories are included into the nocturnal behaviors, whether the eyes The EEG Correlates of Dreaming scan the dream scenario during REM sleep, whether non- dreamers do not dream or do not recall their dreams, with- Francesca Siclari out the bias of dream recall. Lausanne, Switzerland Dreaming is a form of consciousness that occurs during The Road to Reality: How the New Science of sleep, while we are functionally disconnected from the en- Dreams Explains Our Mind vironment. Traditionally, dreaming has been linked to REM sleep, a behavioral state characterized by fast, desynchro- Stefan Klein nized electroencephalographic activity similar to wakeful- Berlin, Germany ness. In recent years, however, it has become clear that dreaming can also occur in NREM sleep, in which EEG activ- From the earliest oracles to Freud, humans were interested ity is dominated by slow waves and spindles. This has chal- in dreams to answer three main questions: Why do I dream? lenged the understanding of the neural correlates of con- What do my dreams say about me? How can dreams help me scious experiences in sleep. In the present talk I will present in life? To account for their strangeness, dreams were seen a series of studies in which we investigated the neural cor- as an expression of unconscious desires which seemed to relates of dreaming using a serial awakening paradigm and defy any objective interpretation. Only recently, new meth- high-density EEG recordings. More specifi cally, I will show ods in brain research made both the act of dreaming and how local EEG features, including spectral power in differ- the content of dreams matters of empirical investigation. ent frequency bands, slow waves and spindles relate to the Dream scanners, reading dream scenes in real time out of a presence and absence of dreaming, and to specifi c dream sleeping subject’s brain, are even a reality now. New experi- contents. The results I will present suggest that local EEG ments have linked dreaming to learning and brain plasticity. correlates may account for the presence of conscious ex- This talk will summarize these insights and show how they periences in behavioral states with radically different global put dreams into a surprising perspective: Rather than mere- EEG signatures. ly being puzzles posed by the unconscious, dreams turn out to be the key to solving the mystery of our consciousness. They allow us to recognize how our brains produce what we experience as reality. 2. Morning Dream Groups Deathbed Visions, Near-Death Experiences and Dreams as Storytellers Visitation Dreams Erin Amundson Penny Sartori Ermelo, Gelderland, Netherlands Swansea, UK This morning group engages our inner creative storyteller Dr Penny Sartori undertook the UKs fi rst long-term pro- from our subconscious experiences. As a collective, we en- spective study of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) at the in- gage the stories of our dreams to inform both our waking life tensive care unit where she worked as a nurse. During her as it is and our creative power to change. Storytelling is an twenty-one-year nursing career she witnessed many dying indigenous practice that is often lost in contemporary mys- patients communicating with unseen people whom the pa- tic engagement. By inviting our inner storytellers out into tient claimed were their deceased relatives. Her eight-year our waking world, we bypass resistance and welcome the doctoral study elicited cases of NDEs, out of body expe- co-creative process. This group content is a powerful dream riences (OBEs) and deathbed visions. The fi ndings of the work technique that takes participants out of their heads research could not be explained by materialist explanations and into their subconscious. This technique has been used such as being due to drugs administered, lack of oxygen to as a morning group meeting in dream retreats facilitated the brain or abnormal biochemistry. Such anomalous expe- by the presenter for the past 2 years. This type of prac- riences are often dismissed as hallucinatory. The research tice creates a community immediately, as participants invite compared cases of NDEs with cases of hallucinations and one another into their stories and the collective experience demonstrated that both experiences were very different. of the archetypal elements is invoked. This is a practice in During deathbed visions and NDEs, and additionally in which an entire group can heal, be inspired, or transform visitation dreams documented in the lucid dream literature, based on the dream of one person, and one person can be people often gain information that they were previously un- signifi cantly inspired by the group in turn. In each morning aware of, and some acquire skills they did not previously group we will begin with the dream of a participant, told by possess. The fi ndings of such research are a challenge to the dreamer in fi rst person. The dreamer will then share his/ the materialist perspective that the brain produces con- her experience and understanding of the dream by sharing sciousness. This paper will consider some cases of visitation S2 International Journal of Dream Research Volume 12, Supplement 1 (2019) I J o D R emotions, meaning and the dreamer’s felt “theme” story of Experiential Dreamwork: Dreams as Emotional Im- the dream. Following this, we will open the group to other mune System individual perceptions of the dream “theme” and archetypal stories. The dreamer will be reminded to decide for her/him- Katherine R.