ArticleScientific reports2018
REM sleep respiratory behaviours mental content in narcoleptic lucid dreamers.
Article in Scientific reports, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 16 papers.
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16 citing papers in PubMed, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Respiratory pauses highlight sleep architecture in mice.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Using Real-time Reporting to Investigate Visual Experiences in Dreams.Journal of cognitive neuroscience · 2026Article
- Advancing sleep health equity through deep learning on large-scale nocturnal respiratory signals.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Investigating dreams by strategically presenting sounds during REM sleep to reactivate waking experiences.Neuropsychologia · 2025Article
- The Future of Parasomnias.Journal of sleep research · 2025Review
- Astrocytes Regulate Brain State Transitions.Neurochemical research · 2025Review
- Lucid dreaming of a prior virtual-reality experience with ego-transcendent qualities: a proof-of-concept study.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Article
- Do individuals with disorders of consciousness dream and mind wander? Implications for improving diagnosis and understanding patient wellbeing.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Article
- Humans can intermittently respond to verbal stimuli when sleeping.Nature neuroscience · 2023Article
- Behavioral and brain responses to verbal stimuli reveal transient periods of cognitive integration of the external world during sleep.Nature neuroscience · 2023Article
- Dream engineering: Simulating worlds through sensory stimulation.Consciousness and cognition · 2020Review
- Physiological changes in sleep that affect fMRI inference.Current opinion in behavioral sciences · 2020Article
- Significance of considering respiratory movement in estimating sleep stage.Biomedical engineering letters · 2020Article
- On Moving the Eyes to Flag Lucid Dreaming.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2020Article
- The cognitive neuroscience of lucid dreaming.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2019Review
- Smooth tracking of visual targets distinguishes lucid REM sleep dreaming and waking perception from imagination.Nature communications · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Breathing is irregular during rapid eye-movement (REM) sleep, whereas it is stable during non-REM sleep. Why this is so remains a mystery. We propose that irregular breathing has a cortical origin and reflects the mental content of dreams, which often accompany REM sleep. We tested 21 patients with narcolepsy who had the exceptional ability to lucid dream in REM sleep, a condition in which one is conscious of dreaming during the dream and can signal lucidity with an ocular code. Sleep and respiration were monitored during multiple naps. Participants were instructed to modify their dream scenario so that it involved vocalizations or an apnoea, -two behaviours that require a cortical control of ventilation when executed during wakefulness. Most participants (86%) were able to signal lucidity in at least one nap. In 50% of the lucid naps, we found a clear congruence between the dream report (e.g., diving under water) and the observed respiratory behaviour (e.g., central apnoea) and, in several cases, a preparatory breath before the respiratory behaviour. This suggests that the cortico-subcortical networks involved in voluntary respiratory movements are preserved during REM sleep and that breathing irregularities during this stage have a cortical/subcortical origin that reflects dream content.
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