{
  "abstract": "Non-lucid dreams feel everything and know nothing — full emotion with no self-awareness. This paper proposes why, and names six tests that could prove it wrong.\n\nDreaming presents a puzzle: vivid emotions occur in the absence of self-awareness, and self-awareness can abruptly return within the dream (lucid dreaming) or upon waking. I propose a three-state computational model of sleep-wake consciousness in which (S0) non-lucid dreaming, (S1) waking, and (S2) lucid dreaming are treated as discrete macroscopic states with probabilistic transitions. The model makes three claims: (1) emotion and self-awareness are dissociable systems, with dreaming demonstrating emotion without access consciousness; (2) non-lucid dream generation is usefully described as an uncontrolled generative process, analogous to generative artificial neural networks sampling from learned priors without executive oversight, consistent with activation-synthesis and predictive-processing accounts; (3) transitions into lucidity correspond to a neurochemical threshold crossing in which reduced acetylcholinesterase activity permits acetylcholine-mediated recoupling of hippocampal memory systems and prefrontal executive systems. I derive six testable predictions involving EEG/fMRI markers of state transitions, pharmacological induction via cholinesterase inhibitors, and dream-recall fidelity. I keep the familiar quantum vocabulary on purpose: superposition, collapse, entanglement, and quantum teleportation. Those words are used strictly as a functional metaphor for state dynamics, not as a claim about quantum processes in neural tissue.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Independent researcher"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 1,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "German Campos"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/e03xej9yfqjys.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.5281/zenodo.23673891",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "e03xej9yfqjys",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://zenodo.org/records/23673891",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://zenodo.org/api/records/23673891/files/quantum-dreaming-zenodo-v1-final2.pdf/content",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-26",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/e03xej9yfqjys.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-09T12:20:44Z",
      "native_id": "23673891",
      "source": "zenodo",
      "url": "https://zenodo.org/records/23673891"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [],
  "title": "Quantum Dreaming: Toward a Definition of Consciousness — Three Interacting States, Emotion Without Self-Awareness, and a Testable Switch for Lucidity",
  "title_text": "Quantum Dreaming: Toward a Definition of Consciousness — Three Interacting States, Emotion Without Self-Awareness, and a Testable Switch for Lucidity",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-09T12:20:44Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/e03xej9yfqjys",
  "venue": "Zenodo",
  "versions": []
}