Conscious Experience and Phenomenal Selfhood in Sleep: Towards a New Taxonomy of Sleep States

Jennifer Windt (Monash University)

Abstract: In philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience, it is now commonly accepted that dreams are phenomenal experiences occurring during sleep. At the same time, most assume that deep, dreamless sleep is characterized a loss of phenomenal consciousness. Recent theoretical considerations and empirical findings suggest, however, that this view is oversimplified and that phenomenal experience can persist even during deep, dreamless sleep. In this paper, I address this problem by sketching the outlines of a new, phenomenologically informed taxonomy of sleep states that helps redescribe the difference between dreaming and dreamless sleep. I propose a conceptual model of dreamless sleep experience as involving pure subjective temporality, or temporal experience devoid of any further intentional content. By contrast, even the simplest forms of dreaming involve minimal phenomenal selfhood, or the experience of being or having a self. While the analysis of dreaming can help identify the conditions for minimal phenomenal selfhood, the investigation of dreamless sleep may help identify and empirically ground the conditions for minimal phenomenal experience.