The seahorse, the almond, and the night-mare: elaborative encoding during sleep-paralysis hallucinations?
1Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada. tgirard@psych.ryerson.ca http://www.ryerson.ca/psychology/faculty/girard/
Abstract:
Llewellyn's proposal that rapid eye movement (REM) dreaming reflects elaborative encoding mediated by the hippocampus ("seahorse") offers an interesting perspective for understanding hallucinations accompanying sleep paralysis (SP; "night-mare"). SP arises from anomalous intrusion of REM processes into waking consciousness, including threat-detection systems mediated by the amygdala ("almond"). Unique aspects of SP hallucinations offer additional prospects for investigation of Llewellyn's theory of elaborative encoding.
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