A Proposed Study of Hypnagogia by Dan McKinnon

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A Proposed Study of Hypnagogia by Dan McKinnon

• Do you remember
• your last
• Hypnagogic Experience?

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Hypnagogia Memory

• Some Preliminary Observations with an
  Experimental Procedure for the study of
  Hypnagogic Imagery and State Dependent Memory

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What is Hypnagogia?

• The unique state of consciousness between
  wakefulness and sleep.
• A semi-sleep or near-sleep state
• Images arise in one or more of our five sensory
  modalities

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Hypnagogic Images are...

• ...spontaneous, vivid, fleeting and often
  significant
• flashing lights, colors, pin wheels, faces,
  shadow shapes, landscapes, even dreamlets

• sometimes in the form of (LEBs) auto-symbolic
  material
• sometimes almost psychedelic,
• creative insights and solutions

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How common is Hypnagogia?

• Virtually everyone experiences it, but often
  theres a fear
• it may be a personal
• pathology or abnormality

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How about a couple of examples...

• Probably the most famous example comes from
  Kekules discovery of the benzene molecule while
  dozing in front of a fire.

• Edgar Allan Poe spoke of his hypnagogia
  experiences as
• The literature is filled with examples of
  hypnagogia.

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Is there an empirical basis for hypnagoia?

• Yes, brain wave activity correlates with
  hypnagogic experiences.
• EEG Biofeedback 4 frequency bands of brain wave
  activity identified

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Brain waves and you

• Beta 12 Hz, normally Cs zone
• Alpha 8-12 Hz, the meditative zone
• Theta 4-7 Hz, the hypnagogic zone
• Delta lt 4Hz, Ucs zone, asleep

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Many researchers have linked the theta state
hypnagogia.
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EEG Biofeedback Confirming the Connection

• Where there is a theta brain wave state
  hypnagogic images can and do arise.
• One only has to manage their arousal gradient
  between wakefulness sleep.
• walking to sleep vs. falling to sleep.

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The experiment Hypnagogia State-dependent
memory.

• The question Is a persons recall for hypnagogic
  images better when they are in the theta state?

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The Participants

• 12 grad.psych. students volunteers
• One day seminar - two parts
• Morning (3 hr) - lecture disc. on Hypnagogia
  biofeedback

• Afternoon (5 hr) - 4 EEG training periods
• practiced observing coding H.I.s arising in
  theta state
• 60 days later recall test mirrored this afternoon
  session

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The Participants

• Treated in accordance with CPA Code of
  Ethics/Guidelines
• Fully informed of rights choices
• Signed informed consent agreement
• No one was paid for participation in the seminar
  or study.

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Stimuli and Apparatus

• Complete a demogr. info sheet and disc.
  familiarity with EEG, H.I., ASCs
• EEG devices were Discovery Eng. 2000
• EEG recorded at occipital parietal lobes

• 900 Hz feedback tone for Alpha, 400 Hz feedback
  tone for Theta, no tones selected for Beta and
  Delta
• Why?
• Participant heard tones via ear phones

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Stimuli and Apparatus

• Sony SVA300 voice-activated recorder to document
  H.I.s at EEG training and testing
• Recall performance measured by
• 3 independent raters analyzed the recordings of
  H.Is for
• key semantic content phrases key word
  descriptors

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Stimuli and Apparatus

• Raters compared and batched keys and set a 10
  pt. recall schema for each H.I. for each
  participant
• Compared training keys with testing recall
  recordings for matching and assigned a recall
  performance for each, 1/10 10, 7/10 70

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Procedure

• 5 days prior to seminar, paperwork
• Saturday seminar, 830 am - 600 pm
• Incidental Learning Model, not told about
  subsequent testing sessionfelt practice could
  diminish initial state dependent learning effects

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Procedure

• First, the H.I. EEG lecture (90min.)
• Described file-tabbing for encoding
  specificity, depth of processing and as reference
  label during recall test.
• Demonstrated the afternoons EEG and H.I.
  Training protocol using a volunteer for a full
  session

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Procedure

• Instructed all participants that in afternoon
  session each of them would complete 4 identical
  EEG and H.I. training sessions.

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Procedure

• After lunch, each participant assigned to fully
  equipped private training room
• Coached on operating EEG and reminded of
  mornings demo session
• Achieved theta state, harvested H.I.s, file
  tabbed H. I.s and recorded same
• To stay alert, 15 min. break between 45 min.
  training sessions (4).

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Procedure

• 30 min. windup period to ensure all participants
  were alert and debriefed
• Offered one hour private debriefing
• Informed about 45 day followup
• No one required private debriefing

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Procedure

• 45 days later each participant had a private EEG
  H. I. recall test session
• Afternoon sessionscircadian rhythms
• Randomly assigned to either the experimental
  group (6) - identical session to training or the
  control group - identical session to training
  with one exception...

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Procedure

• Introduction of an attention placebo control
  condition just before tested for recall of file
  tabbed H.I.s
• Finger tapping to block theta activity
• Why, no theta prevents the person from slipping
  into original state like the EG

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Procedure

• Experimental
• Achieve Theta State
• Given randomly assigned file tab and asked to
  recall in detail for recording
• Tested on all H.I.s from training session

• CONTROL
• Achieve Theta State
• Finger tap for Attention Placebo
• Given randomly assigned file tab and asked to
  recall in detail for recordign
• Tested on all H.I.s from training session

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Procedure

• Both EG CG recall responses recorded and
  submitted to the independent raters for
  comparison, coding and scoring using the ten
  point schema developed from the training session.
• Thanks and will mail a copy of study once
  complete.

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Hypnagogia MemoryThe End

• You tell me. Who will remember their hypnagogic
  images better - EG or CG?
• SD theory saysEG, but??
• Suggestions, Questions, Enhancements
• Remember. Try walking into sleep tonight,
  maybe youll meet your hypnagogic images on the
  way.
• Thanks for listening.