Oneiroid Syndrome
Oneiroids are complex dreams in which the experiencer feels awake and which he cannot distinguish from the waking state even afterwards. Oneiroids are used when people cannot be addressed for days or weeks if their neurophysiological findings are normal.
Word meaning
The word oneiroid comes from the Greek word oneiros , which means "dream". The final syllable -id changes the meaning of the word to "like a dream" or "something similar to a dream". The term was introduced into German-speaking psychiatry in 1924 by Wilhelm Mayer-Gross , a Heidelberg psychopathologist .
description
During the oneiroid experience in the waking state, the person concerned does not perceive the outside world, but rather a dream event in which he participates actively or passively and which, in its closedness, takes on the character of an "other world". He perceives his own ego almost normally, is monitored, can remember it unusually clearly and precisely, but usually cannot control the experience. The images of the oneiroids have intense colors.
Usually the scenes experienced are threatening and are mostly associated with negative, often fearful feelings. The three dominant themes are: being a prisoner, doing something wrong to justify imprisonment, and the issue of death. Again and again your own biography shines through in a dreamlike disguise. Dramatic memories that have no connection with reality are often reported.
- “In a first conversation that was still taking place in the intensive care unit , it became clear that VS had virtually no memory of what happened in the intensive care unit during the ventilation period . Instead, he described, repeatedly interrupted by violent weeping, largely dramatic sequences of events that were experienced in the mode of undoubted reality. He emphasized several times that the experiences described are not comparable to the usual dream experience. Regardless of the drama of the experience, he experienced everything as usual in everyday life. VS said he saw neighbors who were friends with him being shot dead by stray soldiers in their own home. Only his wife can convince him during a visit that these neighbors are still alive and that everything was a terrible nightmare. "
- Another sick woman believed she had seen her son die and greeted him with incredulous astonishment when he visited her in the hospital: "You are still alive!"
Due to the realism of the experiences, it takes some time for those affected to be convinced of the unreality of the experiences.
Causes and frequency
The dream-like experiences described are referred to as oneiroids if they occur in a healthy brain and lead to sick people not being responsive for days.
They occur, for example, in people who develop polyradiculitis ( Guillain-Barré syndrome ). This is a progressive paralysis . If the brain is intact and therefore fully conscious, the patient lives in an (almost) completely paralyzed body. When the paralysis finally also affects breathing, so that those affected have to be artificially ventilated and can no longer speak, they lose their last remaining opportunity to make contact with their environment. In Guillain-Barré polyradiculitis, for example, the increased dreaming correlates with the severity of the deprivation as a result of advanced tetraparesis , artificial ventilation and multiple involvement of the cranial nerves . Accordingly, in the case of pronounced Guillain-Barré syndrome, up to 95% of the cases lead to a oneiroidal experience.
The diseases that cause aeroids also include comatose conditions, locked-in syndrome (for example in the case of brainstem ischemia ), traumatic , postoperative and puerperium psychoses , severe burns, starvation, encephalitis , poliomyelitis , brain injuries and long-term ventilation.
According to a study, 25 of 68 patients (37%) who were unconscious or in a coma for days as a result of severe trauma experienced typical oneiroids. In another study, 24 (96%) of 25 long-term ventilated patients had oneiroids. As the disease becomes more life-threatening, the frequency of oneiroids increases.
When people severely affected by oneiroid syndrome are asked what their most impressive experiences were in the intensive care unit, 44% of the time these are their dreams - i.e. the oneiroid. Some patients have written entire books about these complex and impressive dreams. The nursing staff is mentioned in 16%, the discharge in 4%, the first visit to the family in 4% and the fellow patients in 4% of the cases.
See also
swell
- ↑ a b c d e f M. Schmidt-Degenhard: The oneiroid form of experience - an attempt at coping with extreme situations. Minisymposium “States of Consciousness”. SPECIAL ARTICLES (PDF, 90 kB) ( Memento of the original dated December 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Michael Schröter-Kunhardt: Oneiroidal experience of the unconscious. ( Memento of the original from August 18, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Thomas Kammerer: Traumland intensive care unit: Altered states of consciousness and coma: Interdisciplinary expeditions. Books on Demand, 2006.
- ↑ a b c d e Michael Schröter-Kunhardt: Near-death experiences from a psychiatric-neurological point of view. ( Memento of the original from April 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: HG. Soeffner, H. Knoblauch (Ed.): Near death: Interdisciplinary approaches to an extraordinary phenomenon. Universitätsverlag Konstanz, Konstanz 1999, pp. 65–99.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Joachim Nicolay: Near-death experiences in counseling and therapy. In: Report Psychology. 1/2005, pp. 14-20.
- ↑ a b c d e Stefan Högl: Transcendent Experiences. Near-death experiences as reflected in science and religion. Dissertation . Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2006, ISBN 3-8288-9173-X , p. 212.
