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This work investigates how selfhood persists during sleep and how dreams relate to reality and consciousness development.

May 12, 2026Open Access

Dreaming, Self-Continuity, and Re-Coupling to Reality: A Phenomenological Hypothesis on Sleep, Early Consciousness Development, and Subjective Experience

Key Points

This work investigates how selfhood persists during sleep and how dreams relate to reality and consciousness development.
Develops a phenomenological hypothesis concerning dreaming and self-continuity.
Examines parallels between dream states and early pre-linguistic cognitive development.
Explores boundary states of consciousness like coma and minimally conscious states.
Proposes dreams as stabilized forms of subjective experience rather than mere symbolism.
Suggests that the transition from sleep to wakefulness is a reconnection to shared reality instead of a simple consciousness shift.

Abstract

This paper develops the hypothesis that the self does not disappear during sleep, but instead transitions into a different mode of organization. Dreams are interpreted not primarily as symbolic imagery or neural noise, but as internally stabilized forms of subjective experience. The paper argues that the transition between sleeping and waking is less a shift between “consciousness off” and “consciousness on,” and more a re-coupling between internally generated and externally stabilized reality. Drawing from phenomenology, dream structure, and theories of minimal selfhood, the work explores parallels between dream states, early pre-linguistic development, and boundary states of consciousness such as coma and minimally conscious states. The central question becomes: What must remain preserved for subjective experience to continue — and what must occur for experience to reconnect itself to shared reality?

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