Volitional components of consciousness vary across wakefulness, dreaming, and lucid dreaming

42Citations
Citations of this article
117Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

Consciousness is a multifaceted concept; its different aspects vary across species, vigilance states, or health conditions. While basal aspects of consciousness like perceptions and emotions are present in many states and species, higher-order aspects like reflective or volitional capabilities seem to be most pronounced in awake humans. Here we assess the experience of volition across different states of consciousness: 10 frequent lucid dreamers rated different aspects of volition according to the Volitional Components Questionnaire for phases of normal dreaming, lucid dreaming, and wakefulness. Overall, experienced volition was comparable for lucid dreaming and wakefulness, and rated significantly higher for both states compared to non-lucid dreaming. However, three subscales showed specific differences across states of consciousness: planning ability was most pronounced during wakefulness, intention enactment most pronounced during lucid dreaming, and self-determination most pronounced during both wakefulness and lucid dreaming. Our data confirm the multifaceted nature of consciousness: different higher-order aspects of consciousness are differentially expressed across different conscious states. © 2014 Dresler, Eibl, Fischer, Wehrle, Spoormaker, Steiger, Czisch and Pawlowski.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Dresler, M., Eibl, L., Fischer, C. F. J., Wehrle, R., Spoormaker, V. I., Steiger, A., … Pawlowski, M. (2014). Volitional components of consciousness vary across wakefulness, dreaming, and lucid dreaming. Frontiers in Psychology, 4(JAN). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00987

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free