• Den drømmende hjerne
    Turbulens. 2021.
    Efter du er vågnet svedende med et hamrende hjerte, og efter du pludselig har indset, at du i virkeligheden ikke er i fare, men at du faktisk ligger sikkert i din seng, kan det være svært at forstå, hvordan du blot få sekunder tidligere var overbevist om, at du var ved at blive nedtrampet af en flok enhjørninger. Hvorfor har vi disse livagtige hallucinationer, når vi sover, og hvorfor, uanset hvor underlige de er, tror vi stadig, at vi er vågne, når vi drømmer? Det meste, vi ved om drømme, stamm…Read more
  •  103
    Dromme
    Aarhus University press. 2020.
    Hvad der sker i vores sovende hjerner, kan være et mareridt at tyde for en drømmeforsker. Og vi er desværre elendige til at huske det, når vi vågner. Heldigvis kan teknologien hjælpe med at løfte sløret for, hvad der foregår, mens vi ligger og trækker torsk i land. Nogle drømme er dybt bizarre. Andre fører til Nobelpriser. Og så er der dem, som bare er pinlige. De sidste vil vi nødig sende i en hjernescanner. Ifølge Melanie Gillespie Rosen, lysvågen filosof ved Aarhus Universitet, handler de fle…Read more
  •  64
    When we dream, it is often assumed, we are isolated from the external environment. It is also commonly believed that dreams can be, at times, accurate, convincing replicas of waking experience. Here I analyse some of the implications of this view for an enactive theory of conscious experience. If dreams are, as described by the received view, “inactive”, or “cranially envatted” whilst replicating the experience of being awake, this would be problematic for certain extended conscious mind theorie…Read more
  •  25
    Bodily experience in dreams should be considered illusory to the extent that they cannot be satisfactorily explained or fruitfully investigated by appealing to brain activity alone; rather, to wholly understand the unique phenomenology of embodied selfhood in dreams, one must understand how the brain processes real-body inputs to produce the phenomenology of embodied selfhood in dreams, and why the brain responds the way it does to external stimuli during sleep.
  •  80
    In defence of mysterianism
    Cogito 4 (3): 12-23. 2009.
    12 page
  •  21
    How to operationalise consciousness
    with Glenn Carruthers, Sidney Carls-Diamante, Linus Huang, and Elizabeth Schier
    Australian Journal of Psychology 71 390-410. 2019.
    Objective To review the way consciousness is operationalised in contemporary research, discuss strengths and weaknesses of current approaches and propose new measures. Method We first reviewed the literature pertaining to the phenomenal character of visual and self-consciousness as well as awareness of visual stimuli. We also reviewed more problematic cases of dreams and animal consciousness, specifically that of octopuses. Results Despite controversies, work in visual and self consciousnes…Read more
  •  648
    I'm thinking your thoughts while I sleep: sense of agency and ownership over dream thought
    Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice 2 (3): 326-339. 2015.
    To what extent do I have a sense of agency over my thoughts while I dream? The sense of agency in dreams can alter in a variety of interesting ways distinct from normal, waking experience. In fact, dreams show many similarities to the experiences of individuals with schizophrenia. In this paper I analyze these alterations with a focus on distinguishing between reduced sense of agency and other cognitive features such as metacognition, confabulation and attention. I argue that some dream reports …Read more
  •  10777
    Self‐Representation and Perspectives in Dreams
    Philosophy Compass 8 (11): 1041-1053. 2013.
    Integrative and naturalistic philosophy of mind can both learn from and contribute to the contemporary cognitive sciences of dreaming. Two related phenomena concerning self-representation in dreams demonstrate the need to bring disparate fields together. In most dreams, the protagonist or dream self who experiences and actively participates in dream events is or represents the dreamer: but in an intriguing minority of cases, self-representation in dreams is displaced, disrupted, or even absent. …Read more
  •  398
    I propose a narrative fabrication thesis of dream reports, according to which dream reports are often not accurate representations of experiences that occur during sleep. I begin with an overview of anti-experience theses of Norman Malcolm and Daniel Dennett who reject the received view of dreams, that dreams are experiences we have during sleep which are reported upon waking. Although rejection of the first claim of the received view, that dreams are experiences that occur during sleep, is impl…Read more
  •  242
    What makes a mental state feel like a memory: feelings of pastness and presence
    Estudios de Filosofía (Universidad de Antioquia) 64 95-122. 2021.
    The intuitive view that memories are characterized by a feeling of pastness, perceptions by a feeling of presence, while imagination lacks either faces challenges from two sides. Some researchers complain that the “feeling of pastness” is either unclear, irrelevant or isn’t a real feature. Others point out that there are cases of memory without the feeling of pastness, perception without presence, and other cross-cutting cases. Here we argue that the feeling of pastness is indeed a real, useful …Read more
  •  25
    Sleeper Agents: The Sense of Agency Over the Dream Body
    Human Studies 44 (4): 693-719. 2021.
    Although the sense of agency is often reduced if not absent in dreams, our agentive dream experiences can at times be similar to or enhanced compared to waking. The sense of agency displayed in dreams is perplexing as we are mostly shut off from real stimulus whilst asleep. Theories of waking sense of agency, in particular, comparator and holistic models, are analysed in order to argue that despite the isolation from the real environment, these models can help account for dream experience. The d…Read more
  •  771
    Is mental time travel real time travel?
    Philosophy and the Mind Sciences 1 (1): 1-27. 2020.
    Episodic memory (memories of the personal past) and prospecting the future (anticipating events) are often described as mental time travel (MTT). While most use this description metaphorically, we argue that episodic memory may allow for MTT in at least some robust sense. While episodic memory experiences may not allow us to literally travel through time, they do afford genuine awareness of past-perceived events. This is in contrast to an alternative view on which episodic memory experiences pre…Read more
  •  58
  •  28
    I could do that in my sleep: skilled performance in dreams
    Synthese 199 (3-4): 6495-6522. 2021.
    The experience of skilled action occurs in dreams if we take dream reports at face value. However, what these reports indicate requires nuanced analysis. It is uncertain what it means to perform any action in a dream whatsoever. If skilled actions do occur in dreams, this has important implications for both theory of action and theory of dreaming. Here, it is argued that since some dreams generate a convincing, hallucinated world where we have virtual bodies that interact with virtual objects, t…Read more
  •  30
  •  1
    Reporting your 'dream self'
    with Christine Parsons
    The Psychologist 31 40-43. 2018.
    On the surface, dreams and activity tracking seem to have little in common. We see dream reports as subjective and memory-dependent, whereas activity data is objective and measured using technology. However, as a psychologist interested in wearable technology and activity tracking, and a philosopher interested in dreams, we noticed a striking parallel in our work. We like to be seen as hardworking and healthy, which can be conveyed by sharing our activity data. We also want to be seen as interes…Read more