States Of Consciousness in Sleep, Dream and Beyond: A Biothermodynamic and Neurocybernetic Evolutionary Study

P.K. Roy, D.D. Majumder
2000 Journal of Intelligent Systems  
We study the inter-relationship between the states of sleep, dream, and wakefulness vis-a-vis the evolution of human brain. Various states and transformations of human consciousness are described in terms of the cognitive activation or entropy-production continuum. The evolutionaiy appearance of sleep, dream and allied states in the animal kingdom can be phylogenetically graded at each interval of about 125 million years (MY), as: Anabiosis Hibernation -> Torpor -* Sleep -• Dream -*· Lucidity
more » ... cidity has three phases of increasing cognitive or information-processing levels: Lucid dream -• Luminous lucidity Ecstasic lucidity. Ecstasic lucid dream is the somnolent counterpart of the hyperarousal state of wakefulness called Ecstasis. Luminous lucidity is the intermediary state, generating the entoptic sensation of colored radiance. Prigogine-Zotin's non-equilibrium biothermodynamic Principle of Evolution accounts for our formalism, by taking the brain as a self-adaptive energy-dissipative structure. The equation for evolution of cognitive activation (ψ) in dream or lucid ecstasis is derived as ψ = ψ 0 [1+A exp (at)]. We propose a heuristic neurocybernetic basis of dream/lucidity evolution using concepts of Short and Long-term memories, complex programming process, stochastic resonance and fuzzy periodicity.
doi:10.1515/jisys.2000.10.1.57 fatcat:comhpi4whne77kih4hum3nvl2i