title: Mental time travel to the future might be reduced in sleep.
abstract: We present a quantitative study of mental time travel to the future in sleep. Three independent, blind judges analysed a total of 563 physiology-monitored mentation reports from sleep onset, REM sleep, non-REM sleep, and waking. The linguistic tool for the mentation report analysis is based on established grammatical and cognitive-semantic theories and has been validated in previous studies. Our data indicate that REM and non-REM sleep must be characterized by a reduction in mental time travel to the future, which would support earlier physiological evidence at the level of brain function.
authors.affiliation: University of Dundee, School of Psychology, Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland, UK. Electronic address: j.speth@dundee.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Jana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Speth
authors.affiliation: University of Dundee, School of Psychology, Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland, UK.
authors.forename: Astrid M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Schloerscheidt
authors.affiliation: University of Dundee, School of Psychology, Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland, UK.
authors.forename: Clemens
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Speth
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004325:Dreams / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D012894:Sleep Stages / Q000502:physiology*; D012895:Sleep, REM / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Hypnagogic hallucinations; Linguistics; Mentation reports; Non-REM; Quantitative linguistic analysis; REM; Sleep onset