Journal
NEUROREPORT
Volume 13, Issue 10, Pages 1345-1349Publisher
LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS
DOI: 10.1097/00001756-200207190-00026
Keywords
dream; event-related potentials (ERPs); N400; semantic; sleep; word and pseudo-word detection
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We used an electrophysiological marker of linguistic discordance, the N400 wave, to investigate how linguistic and pseudo-linguistic stimuli are categorised during sleep as compared to waking. During wakefulness, signs of discordance detection were, as expected, greater for pseudo-words than for real but semantically incongruous words, relative to congruous words. In sleep stage 2 all signs of hierarchic process of discordance disappeared. A new hierarchic process reappeared in paradoxical sleep, which differed from that of waking, responses to pseudo-words being similar to those to congruous words. Linguistic absurdity appears to be accepted in a different manner during paradoxical sleep than during waking, and this might explain why absurd contents are so naturally incorporated into otherwise plausible dream stories.
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