Abstract
The story-like organization of dreams is characterized by a pervasive bizarreness of events and actions that resembles psychotic thought, and largely exceeds that observed in normal waking fantasies. Little is known about the neural correlates of the confabulatory narrative construction of dreams. In this study, dreams, fantasies elicited by ambiguous pictorial stimuli, and non-imaginative first- and third-person narratives from healthy participants were recorded, and were then studied for brain blood oxygen level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging on a 3.0-Tesla scanner while listening to their own narrative reports and attempting a retrieval of the corresponding experience. In respect to non-bizarre reports of daytime activities, the script-driven recall of dreams and fantasies differentially activated a right hemisphere network including areas in the inferior frontal gyrus, and superior and middle temporal gyrus. Neural responses were significantly greater for fantasies than for dreams in all regions, and inversely proportional to the degree of bizarreness observed in narrative reports. The inferior frontal gyrus, superior and middle temporal gyrus have been implicated in the semantic activation, integration and selection needed to build a coherent story representation and to resolve semantic ambiguities; in deductive and inferential reasoning; in self- and other-perspective taking, theory of mind, moral and autobiographical reasoning. Their degree of activation could parallel the level of logical robustness or inconsistency experienced when integrating information and mental representations in the process of building fantasy and dream narratives.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 576-582 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Journal of Sleep Research |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Oct 1 2015 |
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Keywords
- Dreaming
- FMRI
- IFG
- Imagination
- MTG
- STG
- Thought
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Behavioral Neuroscience
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Medicine(all)
Cite this
Right hemisphere neural activations in the recall of waking fantasies and of dreams. / Benedetti, Francesco; Poletti, Sara; Radaelli, Daniele; Ranieri, Rebecca; Genduso, Valeria; Cavallotti, Simone; Castelnovo, Anna; Smeraldi, Enrico; Scarone, Silvio; D'Agostino, Armando.
In: Journal of Sleep Research, Vol. 24, No. 5, 01.10.2015, p. 576-582.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Right hemisphere neural activations in the recall of waking fantasies and of dreams
AU - Benedetti, Francesco
AU - Poletti, Sara
AU - Radaelli, Daniele
AU - Ranieri, Rebecca
AU - Genduso, Valeria
AU - Cavallotti, Simone
AU - Castelnovo, Anna
AU - Smeraldi, Enrico
AU - Scarone, Silvio
AU - D'Agostino, Armando
PY - 2015/10/1
Y1 - 2015/10/1
N2 - The story-like organization of dreams is characterized by a pervasive bizarreness of events and actions that resembles psychotic thought, and largely exceeds that observed in normal waking fantasies. Little is known about the neural correlates of the confabulatory narrative construction of dreams. In this study, dreams, fantasies elicited by ambiguous pictorial stimuli, and non-imaginative first- and third-person narratives from healthy participants were recorded, and were then studied for brain blood oxygen level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging on a 3.0-Tesla scanner while listening to their own narrative reports and attempting a retrieval of the corresponding experience. In respect to non-bizarre reports of daytime activities, the script-driven recall of dreams and fantasies differentially activated a right hemisphere network including areas in the inferior frontal gyrus, and superior and middle temporal gyrus. Neural responses were significantly greater for fantasies than for dreams in all regions, and inversely proportional to the degree of bizarreness observed in narrative reports. The inferior frontal gyrus, superior and middle temporal gyrus have been implicated in the semantic activation, integration and selection needed to build a coherent story representation and to resolve semantic ambiguities; in deductive and inferential reasoning; in self- and other-perspective taking, theory of mind, moral and autobiographical reasoning. Their degree of activation could parallel the level of logical robustness or inconsistency experienced when integrating information and mental representations in the process of building fantasy and dream narratives.
AB - The story-like organization of dreams is characterized by a pervasive bizarreness of events and actions that resembles psychotic thought, and largely exceeds that observed in normal waking fantasies. Little is known about the neural correlates of the confabulatory narrative construction of dreams. In this study, dreams, fantasies elicited by ambiguous pictorial stimuli, and non-imaginative first- and third-person narratives from healthy participants were recorded, and were then studied for brain blood oxygen level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging on a 3.0-Tesla scanner while listening to their own narrative reports and attempting a retrieval of the corresponding experience. In respect to non-bizarre reports of daytime activities, the script-driven recall of dreams and fantasies differentially activated a right hemisphere network including areas in the inferior frontal gyrus, and superior and middle temporal gyrus. Neural responses were significantly greater for fantasies than for dreams in all regions, and inversely proportional to the degree of bizarreness observed in narrative reports. The inferior frontal gyrus, superior and middle temporal gyrus have been implicated in the semantic activation, integration and selection needed to build a coherent story representation and to resolve semantic ambiguities; in deductive and inferential reasoning; in self- and other-perspective taking, theory of mind, moral and autobiographical reasoning. Their degree of activation could parallel the level of logical robustness or inconsistency experienced when integrating information and mental representations in the process of building fantasy and dream narratives.
KW - Dreaming
KW - FMRI
KW - IFG
KW - Imagination
KW - MTG
KW - STG
KW - Thought
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84942191571&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84942191571&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/jsr.12299
DO - 10.1111/jsr.12299
M3 - Article
C2 - 25871325
AN - SCOPUS:84942191571
VL - 24
SP - 576
EP - 582
JO - Journal of Sleep Research
JF - Journal of Sleep Research
SN - 0962-1105
IS - 5
ER -