The seat of meta-consciousness in the brain - Sleep

This shows the brain regions activated more strongly during lucid dreaming than in a normal dream.

Credit: MPI of Psychiatry 

Studies of lucid dreamers visualize which centres of the brain become active when we become aware of ourselves. 

Which areas of the brain help us to perceive our world in a self-reflective manner is difficult to measure.

During wakefulness, we are always conscious of ourselves. In sleep, however, we are not, but there are people, known as lucid dreamers, who can become aware of dreaming during sleep.

Studies employing magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) have now been able to demonstrate that a specific cortical network consisting of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the frontopolar regions and the precuneus is activated when this lucid consciousness is attained.

All of these regions are associated with self-reflective functions. This research into lucid dreaming gives the authors of the latest study insight into the neural basis of human consciousness.

The human capacity of self-perception, self-reflection and consciousness development are among the unsolved mysteries of neuroscience.

Despite modern imaging techniques, it is still impossible to fully visualise what goes on in the brain when people move to consciousness from an unconscious state.

The problem lies in the fact that it is difficult to watch our brain during this transitional change. Although this process is the same, every time a person awakens from sleep, the basic activity of our brain is usually greatly reduced during deep sleep.

This makes it impossible to clearly delineate the specific brain activity underlying the regained self-perception and consciousness during the transition to wakefulness from the global changes in brain activity that takes place at the same time.

Scientists from the Max Planck Institutes of Psychiatry in Munich and for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and from Charité in Berlin have now studied people who are aware that they are dreaming while being in a dream state, and are also able to deliberately control their dreams.

Those so-called lucid dreamers have access to their memories during lucid dreaming, can perform actions and are aware of themselves – although remaining unmistakably in a dream state and not waking up. As author Martin Dresler explains,

"In a normal dream, we have a very basal consciousness, we experience perceptions and emotions but we are not aware that we are only dreaming. It's only in a lucid dream that the dreamer gets a meta-insight into his or her state."

By comparing the activity of the brain during one of these lucid periods with the activity measured immediately before in a normal dream, the scientists were able to identify the characteristic brain activities of lucid awareness.

"The general basic activity of the brain is similar in a normal dream and in a lucid dream," says Michael Czisch, head of a research group at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry.

"In a lucid state, however, the activity in certain areas of the cerebral cortex increases markedly within seconds.

The involved areas of the cerebral cortex are the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, to which commonly the function of self-assessment is attributed, and the frontopolar regions, which are responsible for evaluating our own thoughts and feelings.

The precuneus is also especially active, a part of the brain that has long been linked with self-perception." The findings confirm earlier studies and have made the neural networks of a conscious mental state visible for the first time.

More information: Provided by Max Planck Society

Dyslexia: Visualisation

Using visualisation

Visualisation is an amazingly powerful and useful therapy tool. It can be used to support auditory processing skills, visual memory (for example, for shapes, patterns, and scenes), visual sequencing skills (remembering patterns) and expressive language skills. For a child with literacy difficulties or dyslexia, visualisation can help them to learn letter shapes and how to spell words, and it can also help with their vocabulary, as discussed above. Several different methods can be used to discover and develop visualisation skills, and for each child the process will be different.

Developing basic visualisation skills:

• ensure the child is able to visualise. This can be difficult as visualisation, despite the name, is not so visual to start with. I often ask a child to draw a picture of him/herself with a thought bubble picturing something we have just spoken about. This can work well alongside the use of  language such as “I see....” or “I picture...”, “What do you see?”
• when you talk about what you are visualising, the image can be made clearer, and therefore easier to recall, if you talk about its size, smell and colour, how it feels and what is going on around the image
• once the child has understood visualisation, start at the basic level, which is to visualise single objects. For example, “Let’s picture a dog. I see a black dog...he is black...he is big...he is barking. Can you see a dog? What colour is he? What is he doing?”
• you can then move onto visualising pictures in a row, picturing objects in specific patterns and visualising stories. When reading stories, act out the events with the child, whilst continuously talking about what s/he is seeing and imagining (such as smells, movement and colour). This will help secure the visual images and sequences and therefore the overall recall of the story. To test the use of visualisation after you have read the story a few times, you can ask the child to act out the story and talk about what they saw. For example, “First I saw... then I saw...” Provide models of what you have pictured in the story as well
• you can also use visualisation to support storytelling and expressive language skills, by discussing what you see happening.

Once a child can visualise, you can then move on to using visualisation to support letter learning and learning words.

Read more at SEN magazine

Dyslexia: What's Happening to Bright Visual Youngsters

A Personal YouTube Video: i am dyslexic

ok this has taken a lot of curage to uplod i cept puting it of however i got another comment on my aporling spelling so i thort that i need to explain, not for simpethy but for understanding and to spred the nowlage of the dificultys faced by many people who are dyslexic.

i was diagnosed as being saverly dysleixc at the age of 8 and had a re diagnose last summer that comfermed that i am still savialy dysleic, the saverity of someones dysleixa is not yust a test to see how well someone can reed or spell it is a test to mesher up someones inteligence agast a persons reading, spelling and short term memary, so if someone had aporling spelling, reeding and sort tearm memary but the IQ was above average then they are the ones with siverar dyslexia, inother words we are not thik!!! thanks for woching and spred the word dyseliax deosn't = stupidaty!!!

Katie