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<td><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;">PsyPost – Psychology News</span></td>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/scientists-find-a-difficult-past-may-create-a-kind-of-psychological-inoculation-against-future-stress/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Scientists find a difficult past may create a kind of psychological inoculation against future stress</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 19th 2025, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study finds that a person’s recent experience with depression is linked to appraising stressful situations as more severe, while a history of early life adversity is associated with viewing them as less severe. The research, published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2025.2542921" target="_blank">Cognition and Emotion</a></em>, introduces a new method for measuring how individuals judge stress and suggests that these personal judgments could play a role in maintaining depression.</p>
<p>Researchers have long sought to understand the complex relationship between stress and mental health. A key piece of this puzzle is stress appraisal, which is the personal cognitive and emotional process of evaluating how severe a stressful event is. Most methods to measure stress either ask people about their general feelings of being stressed or tally up specific life events, making it difficult to separate an event’s objective difficulty from an individual’s subjective reaction. </p>
<p>A team of researchers led by Elli Cole at the University of North Carolina Greensboro designed a study to address this gap, aiming to create a more precise way to examine how individual differences influence stress appraisal.</p>
<p>The team’s approach was to develop a standardized set of stressors that could be presented to all participants. They wrote 42 short stories, known as vignettes, describing a wide range of stressful life events. These scenarios covered different areas of life, including academics, finances, health, family, friendships, and romantic relationships. The events described ranged in difficulty from minor daily hassles to major life disruptions. Before the study began, the research team rated the severity of each of these 42 vignettes on a six-point scale, creating a baseline measure of severity for each event.</p>
<p>The main study involved 237 emerging adults, primarily university students. Each participant read all 42 vignettes. After reading each story, they were asked to rate on a 10-point scale how negatively they believed they would be personally impacted by that event. This procedure allowed the scientists to compare each person’s subjective appraisal to the researchers’ pre-determined severity rating for the same event. In addition to rating the vignettes, participants also completed a series of questionnaires that measured their history of early life adversity, their level of the personality trait neuroticism, and their most severe symptoms of depression over the past year.</p>
<p>The first major finding confirmed the study’s design was effective. On average, as the researcher-rated severity of the vignettes increased, so did the participants’ own ratings of how negatively they would be impacted. This showed a general agreement between the objective and subjective ratings of stress. The analysis also revealed a slight flattening of this trend at the highest levels of severity, suggesting that people found it more difficult to distinguish between events that were very severe and those that were extremely severe.</p>
<p>When the researchers examined the influence of early life adversity, they found a result that went against their initial predictions. They had hypothesized that individuals with more experiences of adversity in childhood would be sensitized to stress, causing them to rate events as more severe. Instead, the opposite occurred. </p>
<p>People who reported higher levels of early adversity showed a “flatter” response pattern. This means that as the vignettes described increasingly severe events, their personal severity ratings did not climb as steeply as those of their peers. This pattern is consistent with a concept known as stress inoculation, where past exposure to manageable stressors may build resilience and lead to a blunted appraisal of later difficulties.</p>
<p>The investigation into personality found that neuroticism, a trait associated with a tendency to experience negative emotions, was also related to stress appraisal. The initial analysis showed that individuals with higher levels of neuroticism tended to rate all the vignettes as more severe on average, regardless of the event’s objective difficulty. This suggests a general tendency for people high in neuroticism to view life events through a more negative lens compared to those lower in the trait.</p>
<p>The findings for depression offered another layer of insight. Similar to neuroticism, individuals who had experienced more severe depression symptoms in the last year also rated the vignettes as more negative on average. However, depression was also linked to the rate of change in appraisals. As the researcher-rated severity of the events increased, the perceived severity ratings of people with more depression symptoms rose more steeply. This indicates a heightened reactivity to escalating stress.</p>
<p>Because neuroticism and depression are closely related, the researchers conducted a final analysis to determine which factor had a stronger, more unique relationship with stress appraisal. When both neuroticism and depression were considered in the same statistical model, the association with neuroticism disappeared. Depression, on the other hand, remained a significant predictor of both higher average severity ratings and the steeper increase in those ratings in response to more difficult events. This suggests that the heightened stress appraisal initially linked to neuroticism was better explained by its overlap with recent depression.</p>
<p>These results have important implications for understanding mental health. The connection between depression and heightened stress appraisal may point to a mechanism that helps sustain the condition. If an individual with depression perceives a stressful situation as excessively negative, they may be more likely to engage in behavioral withdrawal and feel less capable of coping. This response could prolong the stressor’s impact and, in turn, maintain or worsen depressive symptoms. Therapies for depression might benefit from focusing on restructuring these overly negative interpretations of life events.</p>
<p>However, the use of hypothetical vignettes may not fully capture how people appraise stressful events that happen in their own lives. Because the study design was correlational, it can identify a relationship between depression and stress appraisal, but it cannot prove that one causes the other. The findings are also based on a sample of university students, so they may not generalize to other populations, such as older adults or individuals in clinical settings. The researchers also did not measure participants’ perceived ability to cope with the stressors, which is another important aspect of appraisal.</p>
<p>Future research could explore these questions in different groups of people, including those with a clinical diagnosis of depression. It would also be beneficial to track individuals over time to see if their patterns of stress appraisal can predict the future course of their mental health. The study provides a novel and systematic method for investigating stress appraisal, highlighting its importance in models of depression risk. Examining individual differences in how people interpret stress is a vital step toward a more complete understanding of the pathways that link life events to psychopathology.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2025.2542921" target="_blank">Association of early adversity, neuroticism, and depression with perceived severity ratings of stressful life event vignettes</a>,” was authored by Elli Cole, Darha Ponder, Alessandra R. Grillo, Rachel Suresky, Catherine B. Stroud, and Suzanne Vrshek-Schallhorn.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/sexual-consent-tends-to-decline-with-age-for-women-who-have-experienced-nonconsensual-sex/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Sexual consent tends to decline with age for women who have experienced nonconsensual sex</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 19th 2025, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>New research published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2025.2554708" target="_blank">Psychology & Sexuality</a></em> indicates that as women with previous experiences of nonconsensual sex grow older, they tend to report lower levels of both internal willingness to engage in sexual activity and external expressions of consent. These patterns were not observed in women without such experiences or in men, regardless of their history. The findings suggest that the effects of sexual trauma on consent may be persistent and may influence how sexual agency is experienced well into adulthood.</p>
<p>Sexual consent is a central part of healthy sexual relationships, but its meaning and expression are not always straightforward. Most research in this area has focused on young, university-aged women, which leaves a gap in knowledge about how people of different ages and genders experience consent. The researchers aimed to address this gap by exploring whether age and a history of sexual trauma influence how people experience and express sexual consent.</p>
<p>“People continue having sex beyond their 20s as well as after sexual assault. But experiences of sexual consent in these cases are critically understudied. This research takes a step toward better understanding sexual consent across the lifespan and following potentially traumatic events. Specifically, women with previous nonconsensual sexual experiences may feel less willing to engage in partnered sexual activity over time,” said study author Malachi Willis of the University of Glasgow.</p>
<p>The researchers recruited 658 adults living in the United States and the United Kingdom through an online platform. Participants ranged in age from young adults to older adults, with a nearly equal number of men and women. They were asked to complete a series of questionnaires about their most recent sexual experience. These included measures of how willing and ready they felt internally (internal consent) and how they communicated their willingness to their partner (external consent). Participants also indicated whether they had experienced any form of nonconsensual sexual behavior in the past.</p>
<p>Internal consent was measured using a set of questions that assessed five aspects: physical arousal, feelings of safety and comfort, emotional readiness, desire for the activity, and a sense of agreement. External consent was measured through questions about how clearly and actively participants signaled their willingness, either through words or actions.</p>
<p>When analyzing the data, the researchers looked at how internal and external consent varied with age, gender, and history of nonconsensual experiences. Their results showed that older age was linked to lower levels of both internal and external consent, but only for women who had experienced nonconsensual sex in the past. For these women, increasing age was associated with a gradual decrease in both how willing they felt during sex and how actively they communicated that willingness.</p>
<p>This pattern was not found in women who had not experienced nonconsensual sex. Nor was it found in men, whether or not they had such a history. The findings were consistent across all five dimensions of internal consent and all four types of external communication, including verbal and nonverbal signals.</p>
<p>One possible explanation suggested by the authors relates to trauma. Research indicates that trauma from past sexual experiences can shape later sexual encounters, making it harder for individuals to feel safe, emotionally present, or confident during sexual activity. These effects may accumulate over time, especially if the trauma is not addressed. In women, this may translate into a reduced sense of agency and less active communication of consent as they age.</p>
<p>Another possibility is that for some women, verbal communication during sex may trigger memories of traumatic events. Prior studies have found that women who have experienced sexual assault may avoid explicit consent cues because they feel unsafe or emotionally overwhelmed by them. If this avoidance becomes habitual, it may contribute to long-term changes in sexual behavior and wellbeing.</p>
<p>The results also point to possible gender differences in how trauma affects sexual consent. While some men in the study had experienced nonconsensual sex, their reports of internal and external consent did not change with age. Other research suggests that men may be less likely to express distress related to sexual trauma or may try to suppress such experiences. These factors could help explain why no similar age-related patterns were found among men in the current study.</p>
<p>“Sexual consent is more than communication,” Willis told PsyPost. “A person internally experiences levels of willingness to engage in sex with another person before they can then express that willingness to others. How people feel and ultimately communicate their sexual consent varies from one situation to the next. With this study, we supported the importance of two additional nuances of sexual consent to consider: a person’s age and whether they have been sexually assaulted.”</p>
<p>Jennifer Littlejohn, a PhD candidate and the lead author of the study, added “that sexual assault and other life experiences may shape how women communicate their sexual interest; however, they do not altogether remove women’s sexual agency. Nonconsensual sexual experiences can and must be addressed to promote women’s sexual wellbeing, agency, and enjoyment.”</p>
<p>Although the study provides new insights into how sexual trauma and age may interact to shape consent experiences, there are limitations. The researchers did not ask when the nonconsensual experiences occurred or how many such experiences a participant had. Without this information, it is difficult to determine how recent or frequent trauma might influence the findings.</p>
<p>Additionally, participants reported on just one sexual experience—their most recent one—which might not reflect their usual patterns. Since consent experiences can vary depending on the partner, the context, and the nature of the activity, a single event may not tell the whole story. Memory bias could also play a role, as people may forget or misinterpret their internal states or behaviors in retrospect.</p>
<p>Future research might benefit from using a longitudinal approach, tracking people over time to see how their consent behaviors change after a traumatic experience. Researchers could also explore how different types of sexual trauma affect consent, and whether trauma-informed therapy can help individuals regain a sense of control and communication in their sexual lives.</p>
<p>“These findings do not mean that women who have been sexually assaulted necessarily desire sex less,” Willis noted. “Wanting sex and being willing to have sex are distinct concepts. These findings should not be used as evidence that men do not experience lasting effects of sexual assault. Men may report internal feelings of consent while otherwise experiencing emotional or interpersonal difficulties.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2025.2554708" target="_blank">Sexual consent decreases with age for women who have experienced nonconsensual sexual activity</a>,” was authored by Jennifer Littlejohn, Mhairi Sloan, and Malachi Willis.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/cannabis-use-in-adolescents-is-associated-with-more-frequent-psychotic-like-experiences/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Cannabis use in adolescents is associated with more frequent psychotic-like experiences</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 19th 2025, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>New research published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291725101773"><em>Psychological Medicine</em></a> suggests that recreational cannabis use during adolescence and young adulthood is associated with more frequent psychotic-like experiences. These experiences may resemble symptoms of psychosis but do not typically meet clinical thresholds. However, the study also finds that this association is not explained by structural changes in a key brain network involved in salience processing. The findings point toward unique environmental influences on both cannabis use and the emergence of these unusual thoughts or perceptions.</p>
<p>Cannabis has become increasingly common among young people, particularly in regions where its use has been decriminalized or legalized. As the substance becomes more accessible, concerns have grown about its effects on the developing brain. Adolescence and early adulthood are sensitive periods for brain maturation, and research has suggested that cannabis exposure during this time may increase the risk of later psychotic symptoms.</p>
<p>One way to examine this link is to focus on psychotic-like experiences. These can include mild hallucinations or delusional thoughts that do not reach clinical levels but may reflect early vulnerability to mental illness. Several earlier studies have shown that people who use cannabis are more likely to report these types of experiences. However, what remains less understood is the biological pathway connecting cannabis use to these psychological effects.</p>
<p>One potential explanation involves the brain’s salience network. This network includes areas like the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex and is responsible for deciding which stimuli are worth attention. Disruptions in this network have been linked to psychosis, and cannabis has been shown to influence how it functions. The researchers set out to explore whether cannabis-related changes in the salience network could explain why young users tend to report more psychotic-like experiences.</p>
<p>“Adolescence and early adulthood are crucial periods for both brain development and the onset of mental health problems. Cannabis consumption is prevalent among individuals in these age groups; however, its association with brain function and psychotic-like experiences is still controversial,” said study author Timothea Toulopoulou, a professor affiliated with Bilkent University, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.</p>
<p>“To address this gap, we investigated the associations between cannabis consumption and the salience network, as well as its relationship with early psychosis risk factors in a substantial cohort of twins. The twin design enabled enhanced control over the co-influences of genetic and environmental factors.”</p>
<p>The study included 232 healthy adolescent twins from Turkey, aged 14 to 24. After excluding participants with missing data or daily cannabis use, the final sample consisted of 217 individuals. Of these, 62 had used cannabis recreationally but not daily, while 155 had never used it. Researchers focused on occasional use to capture early effects before long-term patterns or other substance use could complicate the picture.</p>
<p>Participants filled out self-report questionnaires that measured their history of cannabis use and their experiences of unusual thoughts or perceptions. These included items such as feeling as though others could read their thoughts or hearing voices when no one was there. The total number of these experiences was recorded, along with a sub-score for positive symptoms, which tend to resemble hallucinations or delusions.</p>
<p>Participants also underwent brain scans using a technique called diffusion MRI. This method allows researchers to look at how well different parts of the brain are connected. They specifically measured features related to the salience network, such as how efficiently its regions communicated and how strongly they were clustered.</p>
<p>To simplify their analysis, the researchers grouped multiple brain connectivity features into six broader categories using a statistical technique called factor analysis. These six categories, or “factors,” captured different patterns of brain structure in the salience network.</p>
<p>The results suggested that cannabis use was linked to more frequent psychotic-like experiences. This association remained even after controlling for age, sex, and intelligence. Among those who had used cannabis, both the total number of psychotic-like experiences and the number of positive experiences (such as delusional thoughts or hallucinations) were higher compared to non-users.</p>
<p>One of the six brain connectivity factors—the one related to the anterior cingulate cortex and insula—was also associated with psychotic-like experiences. These brain areas are known to be involved in assigning importance to internal and external stimuli, which is thought to play a role in psychotic symptoms.</p>
<p>“One notable finding was that changes in salience network connections were consistently associated with psychotic-like episodes across several brain areas,” Toulopoulou told PsyPost. “This suggests that the salience network, rather than separate brain areas, plays a fundamental role in vulnerability. The effects we found were modest but meaningful. Even small alterations in brain connectivity during adolescence can be important over time, especially when combined with other genetic or environmental risk factors.”</p>
<p>However, when the researchers tested whether this brain factor explained the link between cannabis use and psychotic-like experiences, they found no evidence for a mediation effect. In other words, while cannabis use and this brain connectivity pattern were each separately associated with psychotic-like experiences, the connectivity pattern did not appear to be the pathway through which cannabis use exerted its influence.</p>
<p>The twin analysis provided additional insight. It showed that individual environmental factors, rather than genetics or shared family environment, were the main influences on both cannabis use and psychotic-like experiences. This means that even though these traits were associated, they likely developed independently within each person, shaped by their unique experiences.</p>
<p>The researchers also looked for signs that cannabis use, brain connectivity, and psychotic-like experiences shared any genetic or environmental roots. They did not find strong evidence that these factors were connected in that way. This finding suggests that occasional cannabis use and increased psychotic-like experiences may not stem from the same underlying causes.</p>
<p>Although the study offers useful insights, it is not without limitations. The sample size, while notable for a twin neuroimaging study, remains modest, which may reduce the power to detect more subtle effects. The reliance on self-reported cannabis use introduces the possibility of underreporting or memory errors. In addition, cannabis use was treated as a simple yes-or-no variable. This approach does not account for how often participants used cannabis, how much they used, or at what age they began.</p>
<p>Only occasional users were included in the sample, which limits the ability to generalize the findings to those who use cannabis more heavily or have developed problematic patterns of use. It is also possible that the salience network is not the only brain system involved. Future studies may benefit from examining other networks that could be affected by cannabis, such as those involved in memory or emotional regulation.</p>
<p>Another important limitation is the observational nature of the study. Even with the use of twin modeling, it is not possible to determine whether cannabis causes psychotic-like experiences or whether people prone to such experiences are more likely to try cannabis. Longitudinal studies that follow individuals over time are needed to clarify the direction of these effects.</p>
<p>“We plan to examine how genetic risk and early-life stress interact with cannabis use and brain network development over time,” Toulopoulou said. “This study was part of a broader collaborative effort using a twin cohort, which allowed us to ask nuanced questions about brain and behavior relationships in real-world contexts. We hope it contributes to more balanced, evidence-based discussions about adolescent cannabis use and mental health.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291725101773">The relationship between recreational cannabis use, psychotic-like experiences, and the salience network in adolescent and young adult twins</a>,” was authored by Hande Atmaca-Turan, Didenur Şahin-Çevik, Serenay Çakar, Fulya Gökalp-Yavuz, Martijn van den Heuvel, Fruhling Rijsdijk, Francesca Filbey, and Timothea Toulopoulou.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/this-strange-phenomenon-could-unlock-the-secrets-of-the-mind/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">This strange phenomenon could unlock the secrets of the mind</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 18th 2025, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>For some people, sleep brings a peculiar kind of wakefulness. Not a dream, but a quiet awareness with no content. This lesser-known state of consciousness may hold clues to one of science’s biggest mysteries: what it means to be conscious.</p>
<p>The state of conscious sleep has been widely described for centuries by different Eastern contemplative traditions. For instance, the Indian philosophical school of the Advaita Vedanta, grounded in the interpretation of <a href="https://www.humanities.ox.ac.uk/vedas-once-and-future-scriptless-texts">the Vedas</a> – one of the oldest texts in Hinduism – <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10781-007-9031-7">understands deep sleep</a> or “sushupti” as a state of “just awareness” in which we merely remain conscious.</p>
<p>Similar interpretations of deep sleep are made by the <a href="http://www.dzogchenlineage.com/">Dzogchen lineage</a> in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. According to their teachings, different meditative practices can be followed during wakefulness and sleep to acknowledge the “essence” of consciousness. One of those meditative practices is that of dream yoga or <a href="https://abhidharma.ru/A/Guru%20Mahasiddhi/Content/Padmacambhav/0005.pdf">luminosity yoga</a>, which enables the practitioner to recognise the states of dream and sleep. This aims to bring them to a state of “pure awareness”, a state of being awake inside sleep without thoughts, images or even a sense of self.</p>
<p>For western science, this state poses a conundrum. How can you be aware without being aware of something? If these reports are accurate, they challenge <a href="https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/34519/chapter-abstract/292878779?redirectedFrom=fulltext">mainstream theories</a> that treat consciousness as always about an object. For example, my awareness of the laptop in front of me, or the blue sky rising above my window, or my own breathing. The existence of this state pushes us to reconsider what consciousness is.</p>
<h2>Objectless sleep experiences</h2>
<p>My colleagues and I set out to explore what a content-free state during sleep feels like in a series of studies. <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-04999-001">We first surveyed 573 people online</a> about unusual forms of sleep experiences, including forms of sleep consciousness that might be simpler or more minimal. For example, an awareness following the dissolution of a dream, or a bare awareness of the fact that you are sound asleep.</p>
<p>We then conducted <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.901031/full">in-depth interviews with 18 participants</a>, who reported they had experienced some form of objectless sleep experiences, using a protocol inspired by the <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-022-09844-4">micro-phenomenological interview</a>. This is a research tool designed to help people recall and describe subtle aspects of their experience in fine detail.</p>
<p>In those studies, we found a spectrum of experiences we called “objectless sleep experiences” – conscious states that appear to lack an object of awareness. In all cases, participants who alluded to an objectless sleep experience reported having had an episode during sleep that lacked sensory content and that merely involved a feeling of knowing that they were aware.</p>
<p>Some of our participants’ experiences matched descriptions of conscious sleep as described in Eastern philosophical traditions; objectless and selfless, with no sense of “I” remaining. Participants reported that their selves seemed to have vanished or dissolved, a state reminiscent to that of “<a href="https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2017/1/nix016/3916730">drug-induced ego-dissolution</a>”, reported after the ingestion of psychedelic drug DMT, and in <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/6/819">deep-meditative states</a>.</p>
<p>Other reports from the participants in our study included a faint feeling of being “there” in an undefined state, or an awareness of “nothingness” or a “void”. A few people’s experiences involved traces of rudimentary forms of dreaming, the experience of being in a world, even if such a world appeared to be missing.</p>
<p>Although objectless sleep experiences like conscious sleep have mainly been linked to contemplative practices, such as dream yoga, our results indicate that people without knowledge of those practices also experienced this phenomenon. In fact, the results of our online survey did not indicate an association between engagement in meditative practices and objectless sleep experiences.</p>
<p>However the survey results did find that experience of lucid dreaming – which is when you realise you are dreaming but stay asleep – seemed to be correlated with objectless sleep experiences. It should be noted, though, that many participants who could lucid dream did not report objectless sleep experiences.</p>
<h2>Training for lucid sleep</h2>
<p>The rarity of objectless sleep experiences make them difficult to study. We need training methods to induce these experiences so we can better understand them.</p>
<p>In our recent study, my colleagues and I tested a new induction protocol that combined meditation, visualisation and lucid dreaming techniques. Four participants learned to stay aware as <a href="https://philosophymindscience.org/index.php/phimisci/article/view/10227/11845">they drifted into sleep</a> and to signal that they were lucid with a pre-agreed eye movement. Portable EEG recordings, which measure the brain’s electrical activity, confirmed that some objectless states occurred during non-REM (slow-wave) sleep. Researchers <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.4545">believe</a> non-REM sleep lacks the sort of complex conscious states we have while dreaming, although some other forms of sleep experiences, including simpler forms of dreaming, might occur.</p>
<h2>Dreamless sleep and consciousness research</h2>
<p>Currently, there is a lack of agreement among scientists about what the basis of consciousness is. Some popular views assert that consciousness arises when <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11164022/">information is broadcast</a> in the brain. Yet, there are still debates about which sort of information the brain needs for cognitive processing.</p>
<p>Objectless sleep experiences expand our picture of what it is like to be conscious during sleep. Sleep consciousness has traditionally been widely studied in relation to dreams and dream-like experiences, but recently <a href="https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(24)00272-1?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0896627324002721%3Fshowall%3Dtrue">there has been a shift</a> in this trend.</p>
<p>Minimal forms of consciousness, like that displayed by objectless sleep experiences, can pave the way to refine our theories of consciousness. Their existence hints at a form of awareness stripped of content altogether. Moreover, studying these sort of experiences can help us understand <a href="https://philosophymindscience.org/index.php/phimisci/article/view/10233">altered conscious states</a>, including deep meditation, sensory deprivation, or even <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-causes-mind-blanks-during-exams-67380">mind blanking</a> – episodes in which our mind seems to go blank or go “nowhere”.</p>
<p>The fact people can be aware of “nothing” while asleep might tell us more about the mind than any dream ever could.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/263142/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1"><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p>
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<p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-you-be-aware-of-nothing-the-rare-sleep-experience-scientists-are-trying-to-understand-263142">original article</a>.</em></p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/an-invisible-threat-to-newborns-brains-may-be-hiding-in-the-air-we-breathe/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">An invisible threat to newborns’ brains may be hiding in the air we breathe</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 18th 2025, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A new study has found a connection between a pregnant mother’s exposure to air pollution and the brain development of her newborn child. The research suggests that greater exposure to fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, is associated with lower levels of myelinated white matter, a key indicator of brain maturity, in the first month of life. The findings were published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2025.109801" target="_blank">Environment International</a>.</p>
<p>The research was prompted by the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of air pollution’s components. While pollutants like PM2.5 are broadly associated with negative health effects, they also contain trace elements such as iron, copper, and zinc. These elements are essential for healthy brain development, particularly for myelination, the process of forming a protective sheath around nerve fibers. This dual role complicates the understanding of how air pollution affects the brain during the highly sensitive prenatal period. The study, led by Jesus Pujol of the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, aimed to disentangle these effects by examining both overall PM2.5 exposure and the specific contributions of these trace elements on the brains of newborns.</p>
<p>The population-based study involved 93 neonates recruited from three major hospitals in Barcelona between 2018 and 2021. To assess prenatal air pollution exposure, the researchers developed sophisticated models. These models estimated daily concentrations of PM2.5 and its metallic components at the mother’s home address. The assessment went a step further by incorporating data on each mother’s daily movements, including time spent at work and during commutes, which was tracked using smartphone applications and questionnaires. This method provided a more personalized and accurate estimate of total exposure during two distinct periods: the embryonic stage (first trimester) and the late fetal stage (third trimester).</p>
<p>Shortly after birth, at an average age of 29 days, the infants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans during natural sleep. The scientists used these brain scans to measure myelination in two different ways. First, an expert manually outlined and calculated the total volume of myelinated white matter across the entire brain, a measure referred to as global myelination. Second, they used an automated technique that analyzes the ratio of different MRI signals to estimate the degree of myelination specifically within the cerebral cortex, the brain’s outer layer.</p>
<p>The analysis revealed distinct associations depending on the timing of the pollution exposure. Higher exposure to PM2.5 during the first trimester, or the embryonic period, was linked to lower levels of cortical myelination in the newborns. In contrast, higher PM2.5 exposure during the third trimester, the late fetal period, was associated with lower global myelinated white matter. These results suggest that air pollution may interfere with the normal timeline of brain maturation. The researchers did not find a similar link between PM2.5 exposure and the overall brain volume, indicating the effect may be specific to the myelination process rather than general brain growth.</p>
<p>When the team examined the trace elements of iron, copper, and zinc, they found a similar pattern. Higher exposure to these metals was also associated with lower myelination. However, when the researchers statistically adjusted for the overall concentration of PM2.5, these specific associations disappeared. This finding suggests that the observed effect is likely driven by the general toxicity of the entire mixture of pollutants in PM2.5, rather than a specific, independent effect of these essential metals.</p>
<p>“Our study shows that the myelination process—a progressive indicator of brain maturation—occurs at a slower rate in newborns most exposed to PM2.5 during pregnancy,” stated Gerard Martínez-Vilavella, a researcher at the MRI Unit of the Radiology Department at Hospital del Mar.</p>
<p>The study authors are careful to point out that a slower rate of early myelination is not necessarily harmful in the long run. Brain development is a highly dynamic process, and its timing can vary. Some previous research has shown that children with higher cognitive abilities sometimes exhibit a slower but more prolonged period of white matter maturation. The current findings raise important questions about how environmental factors influence the tempo of brain development and what the consequences might be.</p>
<p>“In the early stages of life, brain changes are large and complex. Both excessive slowdown and acceleration of brain maturation can be harmful to the child,” added Dr. Jesús Pujol, head of the MRI Unit. “However, it remains to be determined whether the observed effect is necessarily detrimental. This study opens an exciting new field of research aimed at determining the optimal speed of brain maturation during pregnancy and understanding how the mother and placenta may act as effective filters to protect and optimize this process.”</p>
<p>The study has some limitations. The number of infants included was relatively small, which can limit the statistical power to detect more subtle effects. Obtaining high-quality MRI scans from newborns without sedation can be challenging, and estimating pollution exposure, while advanced, is not a direct measurement. The possibility that other unmeasured socioeconomic or environmental factors could have influenced the results also exists.</p>
<p>Despite these limitations, the research provides new insight into the impact of air quality on the earliest stages of human brain development. The authors emphasize the need for longitudinal follow-up studies to track these children as they grow. Such research would help determine if the observed differences in neonatal myelination are temporary or if they are linked to later cognitive or behavioral outcomes.</p>
<p>“Air pollution, specifically PM2.5, is associated with alterations in the myelination process, a fundamental mechanism of brain maturation. Therefore, it is essential to continue controlling pollution levels and to study how this slowdown may affect the later brain development of children,” explained Martínez-Vilavella. He noted that the study also indicates that the effect results from the combination of different components within PM2.5.</p>
<p>The findings also carry significant public health implications, reinforcing the importance of policies aimed at reducing air pollution in urban environments to protect the most vulnerable populations.</p>
<p>Jordi Sunyer, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, emphasized the policy relevance of the work. “The findings in these newborns, born in Barcelona after the first phase of the low-emission zone, warn us that we cannot slacken our efforts to clean up city air. Further steps are needed to meet the new air quality standards.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2025.109801" target="_blank">Unraveling the impact of prenatal air pollution for neonatal brain maturation</a>,” authored by Jesus Pujol, Gerard Martínez-Vilavella, Laura Gómez-Herrera, Ioar Rivas, Maria Dolors Gómez-Roig, Elisa Llurba, Laura Blanco-Hinojo, Marta Cirach, Cecilia Persavento, Xavier Querol, Mireia Gascón, Maria Foraster, Juan Domingo Gispert, Carles Falcón, Joan Deus, Payam Dadvand, and Jordi Sunyer.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/psychiatrists-detail-bizarre-case-of-incubus-syndrome-triggered-by-alcohol-withdrawal/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Psychiatrists detail bizarre case of incubus syndrome triggered by alcohol withdrawal</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 18th 2025, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>Psychiatrists in India have detailed the unusual case of a man whose heavy alcohol use led to a rare and distressing condition involving complex sexual and threatening hallucinations. This in-depth account, published in <em><a href="https://www.psychiatrist.com/pcc/incubus-syndrome-man-alcohol-dependence/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders</a></em>, sheds light on a poorly understood phenomenon known as incubus syndrome, especially its appearance in male patients.</p>
<p>The condition, incubus syndrome, is named after a mythological demon believed to sexually assault women in their sleep, with its name stemming from a Latin verb meaning “to lie down upon.” Today, the phenomenon is understood not as a supernatural attack but as a complex type of sleep disorder known as a parasomnia.</p>
<p>The authors of the case report documented this particular instance because scientific literature on the syndrome is scarce. What little exists focuses primarily on women experiencing psychotic disorders like schizophrenia. Documented cases in men are exceedingly rare and often associated with substance use or neurological issues, making this report an important addition to the field. The experience is thought to arise from a dissociation of sleep phases, where elements of rapid-eye-movement sleep, the stage where most dreaming occurs, intrude into a state of wakefulness. This can produce intense, dream-like hallucinations that feel entirely real.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1040769" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2022 study</a> compared the prevalence of incubus phenomenon in two different groups: psychiatric inpatients and university students. Researchers found that the lifetime rates of experiencing the syndrome were surprisingly similar between the patients (12%) and the students (9%).</p>
<p>However, the episodes were reported as being more severe and recurring more frequently in the patient group, where every person who had sleep paralysis also experienced the incubus phenomenon. The study also noted that in both groups, individuals from non-Western European backgrounds were more likely to report these experiences, suggesting that cultural familiarity with the concept may play a significant role.</p>
<p>The patient at the center of the new report was a 36-year-old man who arrived at a psychiatry emergency service seeking help for a three-day period of perceptual disturbances, unusual bodily sensations, and an inability to sleep. He had a history of alcohol dependence that began in his teenage years and had progressed to a daily consumption of about half a liter of brandy. His family had noticed a recent change in his behavior; he had reduced his alcohol intake, but this was accompanied by increased fearfulness, disrupted sleep, and a new belief that ghosts were present. His last drink had been the day before he was admitted.</p>
<p>He described a complex and unsettling series of experiences to the medical staff. He reported feeling “vibrations” in his fingers, which he did not perceive as random. Instead, he believed these sensations were a form of communication from four women dressed in black. He had gone so far as to create his own alphabet chart, believing the figures were guiding his fingers to spell out responses to his questions. His hallucinations were not limited to touch. He also heard indistinct sounds, such as the noise of anklets, and had visual hallucinations of partially unclothed women.</p>
<p>These experiences occurred primarily at night. He claimed the figures would touch him and approach him sexually, which led to him experiencing orgasms. While these encounters were initially a source of pleasure for him, their nature soon shifted to become deeply distressing. He began to perceive threats from the figures. They made ominous statements to him, including the terrifying warning, “We will take you to the deathbed.” This escalation of fear prompted him to seek medical assistance.</p>
<p>Upon examination, the man was found to be anxious and was experiencing hallucinations across multiple sensory modalities, including sight, sound, and touch. He was alert and oriented to his surroundings and retained some awareness that his experiences might not be real, a state known as partial insight. A computed tomography scan of his brain showed no abnormalities. His blood tests were mostly normal, though they did reveal mildly elevated liver enzymes, a common finding in individuals with a long history of heavy alcohol consumption.</p>
<p>The medical team concluded that his symptoms were most likely a form of alcohol-induced psychotic disorder. This diagnosis was supported by the timing of the hallucinations, which began shortly after he reduced his chronic and heavy alcohol use. His condition was distinct from delirium tremens, a more severe form of alcohol withdrawal, because his consciousness was stable and he was fully oriented.</p>
<p>A primary psychotic disorder like schizophrenia was considered less probable because he had no personal or family history of psychiatric illness prior to this episode. The hallucinations were also not considered to be typical sleep-related phenomena, as they persisted outside of the moments of falling asleep or waking up.</p>
<p>The man’s treatment was centered on managing his alcohol withdrawal. He was given benzodiazepines, a class of medication commonly used to safely manage the symptoms of withdrawal, and his hallucinations resolved quickly. In addition to medication, he received supportive counseling and his family was educated about his condition to help prevent a relapse and improve his understanding of the illness.</p>
<p>Case reports like this one have specific limitations. Because they focus on a single person, their findings cannot be generalized to the broader population. The experience of this one man does not mean every person with alcohol dependence will develop similar symptoms. The details are specific to his biology, psychology, and life history.</p>
<p>However, case reports remain a fundamental tool in medicine and psychology for several reasons. They can be the first to identify and describe rare conditions or unusual presentations of more common ones. They provide rich, detailed narratives that can offer insights missed by large-scale statistical studies. For clinicians, these reports can raise awareness of uncommon diagnoses, helping them to recognize and treat similar cases they may encounter in their own practice.</p>
<p>For researchers, a compelling case report can generate new hypotheses and inspire further investigation into the mechanisms behind a particular illness. This specific report enriches the very limited collection of data on incubus syndrome in men, highlighting a potential link with alcohol withdrawal that warrants further study.</p>
<p>The report, “<a href="https://www.psychiatrist.com/pcc/incubus-syndrome-man-alcohol-dependence/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Incubus Syndrome in a Man With Alcohol Dependence</a>,” was authored by Tanvi Mittal and Nishanth Jalaja Haridas.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
<p><strong>This information is taken from free public RSS feeds published by each organization for the purpose of public distribution. Readers are linked back to the article content on each organization's website. This email is an unaffiliated unofficial redistribution of this freely provided content from the publishers. </strong></p>
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