Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 3, 2026

Combining Behavior and EEG to Study the Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on Episodic Memory
Published on: May 11, 2020
Dreamy mental states in late 20th century neurology
1Department of Medicine, University of Queensland, Royal Brisbane Hospital, Brisbane, Australia.
Abstract:
In 1895 Sir James Crichton-Browne lectured on the dreamy mental states that had largely gone unnoticed until his old friend John Hughlings Jackson had first recognized them nearly 20 years earlier as a component of some epileptic seizures. In 1897 Jackson described the association between such dreamy states and pathology in the uncinate gyrus of the brain, thus delineating the phenomenon of uncinate (temporal lobe) epilepsy. Crichton-Browne's account of dreamy states is easier to follow than Jackson's various writings on the subject, and makes it clear that such states are not always epileptic in nature. Jackson believed that epileptic dreamy states were not due to the brain areas responsible being involved by the epileptic discharge itself, but were release phenomena resulting from the discharge inactivating higher levels of brain function. In the century since Jackson, there has been little advance in understanding of the detailed mechanisms of production of the various abnormal psychic experiences which occur in these dreamy states which, following Kinnier Wilson's analysis 1928, are now more usually considered in terms of their individual components.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
High-Level and Low-Level Awareness
Lucid Dreaming
Studies have shown...
Altered States of Awareness
The ingestion of substances like stimulants or hallucinogens leads to chemical alterations in the brain that...
Cognitivism
Previously dominated by behaviorism, which prioritized observable behaviors and largely ignored mental processes, psychology transformed in the 1950s. Cognitive psychologists argue that understanding how we think and process information is...
Dreaming
Understanding Consciousness
Sleep, a crucial state, is characterized by reduced physical...

