
Elizaveta SolomonovaMcGill University | McGill · Department of Psychiatry
Elizaveta Solomonova
Ph.D.
About
68
Publications
40,496
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Introduction
Elizaveta is an interdisciplinary cognitive scientist. She is interested in the interaction between subjective experience, bodily states and psychosocial determinants of mental health. Elizaveta's work is focused on the following themes: 1) dreams, nightmares and parasomnias; 2) delusions and psychotic-like experiences; 3) psychological and social aspects of health behaviours; and 4) social, bodily and cognitive aspects of empathy and theory of mind
Additional affiliations
June 2018 - present
Emory-Tibet Science Initiative
Position
- Lecturer
Description
- Teaching an intensive neuroscience curriculum for Tibetan monks in South India
Education
September 2011 - November 2017
September 2007 - March 2011
September 2001 - May 2006
Publications
Publications (68)
Sleep paralysis is an experience of being temporarily unable to move or talk during the transitional periods between sleep and wakefulness: at sleep onset or upon awakening. Feeling of paralysis may be accompanied by a variety of vivid and intense sensory experiences, including mentation in visual, auditory, and tactile modalities, as well as a dis...
Abstract:
> Context • Phenomenology and the enactive approach pose a unique challenge to dream research: during sleep one seems to be relatively disconnected from both world and body. Movement and perception, prerequisites for sensorim-otor subjectivity, are restricted; the dreamer's experience is turned inwards. In cognitive neurosciences, on the...
Previous work demonstrates that memories about a target experience are incorporated into dream content according to a U-shaped temporal pattern with a peak of incorporations around 1-2 days following the experience (day-residue effect), a diminution on days 3-4, and a recurrence of incorporations on days 5-7 (dream-lag effect). This temporal patter...
Vipassana meditation is characterized by observing bodily sensations, developing emotional and attentional stability and promoting pro-social qualities. Whether these qualities are also reflected in dream content is not currently known. Evidence relating dream content with sleep-depending learning is mixed: some studies suggest that dreaming of a t...
Psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) are common in the general population and may reflect healthy schizotypy or indicate a risk for a psychotic disorder. Nightmares have been associated with exacerbations of psychosis and with PLEs. Nightmare distress (NMD) a measure of the psychological impact of nightmares, reflects a predisposition to affective dys...
As the signatories of this manifesto, we denounce the attention economy as inhumane and a threat to our sociopolitical and ecological well-being. We endorse policymakers' efforts to address the negative consequences of the attention economy's technology, but add that these approaches are often limited in their criticism of the systemic context of h...
Recent research suggests that delusional ideation (DI) may have social component to its phenomenology and underlying mechanisms. This study investigated associations between delusional ideation and factors of social imagery in healthy adults using the COVID-19 pandemic as a context of increased social threat perception. 1,854 participants completed...
Vaccine hesitancy remains a significant and evolving public health challenge. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a unique decision context with significant uncertainty caused by the novelty of the disease being targeted, unfamiliarity with the vaccines being offered, misinformation, and strong handed government measures. In an effort to extend our u...
Background
Vaccine hesitancy is driven by a heterogeneous and changing set of psychological, social and historical phenomena, requiring multidisciplinary approaches to its study and intervention. Past research has brought to light instances of both interpersonal and institutional trust playing an important role in vaccine uptake. However, no compre...
The COVID-19 pandemic brought about unique challenges, leading to a simultaneous decline in global mental well-being and an increase in perceived social threats. The present study explores the interplay between COVID-19 beliefs and mental health symptoms in a multinational sample of 1523 individuals primarily from Canada, the US and Mexico. Between...
While Canada has had relatively high vaccination rates against COVID-19, specifically during earlier waves of the pandemic, vaccine hesitancy has continued to serve as a significant barrier to adequate protection against the virus and, more recently, booster vaccine uptake. This paper explores the processes underlying Canadians' perceptions of COVI...
The COVID-19 pandemic brought about unique challenges, leading to a simultaneous decline in global mental well-being and an increase in perceived social threats. The present study explores the interplay between COVID-19 beliefs and mental health symptoms in a multinational sample of 1500 individuals primarily from Canada, the US and Mexico. Between...
Background
Psychedelic drug experiences are shaped by current-moment contextual factors, commonly categorized as internal (set) and external (setting). Potential influences of past environments, however, have received little attention.
Aims
To investigate how previous environmental stimuli shaped the experiences of patients receiving ketamine for...
The relationship between humans and technology has attracted increasing attention with the advent of ever stronger models of artificial intelligence. Humans and technology are intertwined within multiple autopoietic loops of stress, care, and intelligence. This paper suggests that technology should not be seen as a mere tool serving humans' needs,...
The relationship between humans and technology has attracted increasing attention with the advent of ever stronger models of artificial intelligence. Humans and technology are intertwined within multiple autopoietic loops of stress, care, and intelligence. This paper suggests that technology should not be seen as a mere tool serving humans' needs,...
Despite the centrality of empathy in human social life, there is no widely agreed definition or characterization of the concept of empathy. A common thread in many of the proposed definitions, however, is that empathy presupposes the discrimination of self and other on the grounds that, to empathize with another individual, the mental state of the...
Introduction. Distress associated with bad dreams and nightmares is a commonly used measure to assess psychological impact of dysphoric or intensified dreaming. It has previously been associated with negative mental health outcomes, including depression, anxiety, and suicidality. Recent theories of nightmare-formation propose an interaction between...
Theory of Mind (ToM)– the capacity to attribute mental states to others, plays a central role in social cognition andbehaviour. Social categorization (SC) - the classification of people as within or outside of one’s own group- also shapesour evaluation of others, often without our awareness. The features that give rise to social categorizations are...
This study aimed to investigate the emotional experience of breastfeeding mothers; to compare their emotions during the day and night; and to identify predictors of maternal emotional states. 107 breastfeeding women completed daytime and nighttime online surveys. Mothers reported a more positive emotional experience during the daytime breastfeeding...
Intelligence is a central feature of human beings’ primary and interpersonal experience. Understanding how intelligence originated and scaled during evolution is a key challenge for modern biology. Some of the most important approaches to understanding intelligence are the ongoing efforts to build new intelligences in computer science (AI) and bioe...
Intelligence is a central feature of human beings’ primary and interpersonal experience. Understanding how intelligence originated and scaled during evolution is a key challenge for modern biology. Some of the most important approaches to understanding intelligence are the ongoing efforts to build new intelligences in computer science (AI) and bioe...
This volume proposes an interdisciplinary framework that views attention from a particular angle: as a means of accessing, that is, disclosing the world in a practical and meaningful way. Moreover, it investigates how this access is concretely mediated (by technology, culture, environmental conditions).
The book is structured in the following two...
In this chapter, we review the different ways that attention works in relation to dreams and how it may function in dreams, and apply the framework of attention, proposed in this volume - as a means of accessing and mediating interactions with the world - to the dreaming world. We first review prior work on the role of attention as 1) access to dre...
Nightmares are intense emotional experiences that can greatly alter sleep quality and affect most people at some point in their lives. Yet little research has focused on the relationship between nightmares and the subjective experience of sleep quality. In this study, we aimed at investigating the relationship between nightmare frequency, subjectiv...
Background
An upsurge in dream and nightmare frequency has been noted since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and research shows increases in levels of stress, depression and anxiety during this time. Growing evidence suggests that dream content has a bi-directional relationship with psychopathology, and that dreams react to new, personally si...
(1) Objective: to determine if a brief mindfulness intervention (BMI) and a health education program (HEP) could improve measures of insomnia in patients undergoing hemodialysis. (2) Methods: this was a planned secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial of BMI vs. HEP for hemodialysis patients with depression and/or anxiety symptoms. The p...
Background: An upsurge in dream and nightmare frequency has been noted since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and research shows increases in levels of stress, depression and anxiety during this time. Growing evidence suggests that dream content has a bi-directional relationship with psychopathology, and that dreams react to new, personally s...
Traditionally, dreams have been seen as experiences that one cannot control, as something that happensto the dreamer (at times through involvement of supernatural powers), without the dreamer’s permission,volition or agency. This view was famously challenged in the advent of psychoanalysis: in his Interpretation ofDreams, Freud proposed that while...
Background
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused global disruptions with serious psychological impacts. This study investigated the emergence of new psychiatric symptoms and the worsening of pre-existing mental disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic, identified factors associated with psychological worsening, and assessed chan...
Summary
This study aimed to evaluate changes in sleep during the COVID‐19 outbreak, and used data‐driven approaches to identify distinct profiles of changes in sleep‐related behaviours. Demographic, behavioural and psychological factors associated with sleep changes were also investigated. An online population survey assessing sleep and mental heal...
Introduction
The negative impacts of COVID-19 have rippled through every facet of society. Understanding the multidimensional impacts of this pandemic is crucial to identify the most critical needs and to inform targeted interventions. This population survey study aimed to investigate the acute phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in terms of perceived t...
Background
Understanding the multifaceted impacts of the Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) outbreak as it unfolds is crucial to identify the most critical needs and to inform targeted interventions.
Methods
This population survey study presents cohort characteristics and baseline observations linked to the acute-mid phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in terms...
Introduction
Flying is a prevalent but infrequent experience in dreams. Despite a broad interest in such unique dream experiences, there is still no experimental procedure for reliably inducing them. Our study aimed 1) to induce flying dreams in the laboratory using virtual reality (VR), 2) to examine phenomenological correlates of flying dreams, s...
Objectives
This study investigates the associations between sleep disturbances, delusional ideation (DI), and depressive symptomatology across the perinatal period.
Methods
A community sample of 316 mothers completed the Sleep Symptom Checklist, Peters Delusional Inventory, and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale at three time points: second trim...
Aim
Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, and sleep spindles are all implicated in the consolidation of procedural memories. Relative contributions of sleep stages and sleep spindles were previously shown to depend on individual differences in task processing. However, no studies to our knowledge have focused on indiv...
This study examined mother-child interactions and DNA methylation of the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene in the child, in relation with controlling-attachment behaviors at early preschool age. Maternal interactive behaviors were coded using the Emotional Availability Scales, and child attachment behaviors were assessed with the Separation-Reunion pro...
Background: Understanding the multifaceted impacts of the Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) outbreak as it unfolds is crucial to identify the most critical needs and to inform targeted interventions.
Methods: This population survey study presents cohort characteristics and baseline observations linked to the acute-mid phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in te...
Introduction: Sleep disturbances are highly prevalent during pregnancy and postpartum, and are associated with adverse outcomes in mothers and children. Delusional ideation (DI) is relatively prevalent in the general population, including pregnant women. DI may contribute to the development of psychosis and exacerbate symptoms of other disorders, i...
Background: The relationship between disturbed sleep and stress is well-documented. Sleep disorders and stress are highly prevalent during the perinatal period, and both are known to contribute to a number of adverse maternal and foetal outcomes. Arginine vasopressin (AVP) is a hormone and a neuropeptide that is involved in stress response, social...
Vipassana meditation is characterized by observing bodily sensations, developing emotional and attentional stability and promoting pro-social qualities. Whether these qualities are also reflected in dream content is not currently known. Evidence relating dream content with sleep-depending learning is mixed: some studies suggest that dreaming of a t...
Face recognition is a highly specialized capability that has implicit and explicit memory components. Studies show that learning tasks with facial components are dependent on rapid eye movement and non-rapid eye movement sleep features, including rapid eye movement sleep density and fast sleep spindles. This study aimed to investigate the relations...
Both rapid eye movement (REM) sleep dreaming and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep spindles have been linked to processes of memory consolidation. However, relationships between the two phenomena have yet to be explored. In a heterogeneous sample of 53 healthy subjects who had participated in a memory consolidation protocol and who varied in thei...
sleep-dependent processes of memory consolidation. Procedural memory has been previously linked with rapid-eye-movement (REM) and non-REM (NREM) sleep stages, and with sleep microarchitecture (sleep spindles, rapid eye movements). Vipassana meditation is characterized by trained attention to bodily sensations: experienced meditators show better pro...
Nightmares (NMs) are characterized by intense negative emotion. Research suggests that frequent NM sufferers also have greater inclinations to fantasy and dream-like daydreams, although it is not known whether they experience intense negative emotion as part of these waking state cognitions. We assessed the daydreams and nap dreams of NM participan...
Upshot • This interdisciplinary work draws on phenomenology, Indian philosophy, Tibetan Buddhism, cognitive neurosciences and a variety of personal and literary examples of conscious phenomena. Thompson proposes a view of consciousness and self as dynamic embodied processes, co-dependent with the world. According to this view, dreaming is a process...
Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the scientific study of contemplative practices. While seated meditation practices have historically been at the center of inquiry in contemplative sciences, movement-based practices, such as yoga, t'ai chi, qigong, and others, are currently coming to the forefront of this discourse. In her introduction...
Isolated reports have long suggested a similarity in content and thought processes across mind wandering (MW) during waking, and dream mentation during sleep. This overlap has encouraged speculation that both “daydreaming” and dreaming may engage similar brain mechanisms. To explore this possibility, we systematically examined published first-perso...
NREM stage 1 sleep, known as a brief interval of transition from wake to sleep, is characterized by neurophysiological events and subjective sensory experiences that suggest the stage may be involved in memory processing. To examine this possibility, we conducted multiple awakenings with a trained participant during short bursts of theta activity d...
The richness and subtlety of the felt presence phenomenon introduced by “Felt Presence: the uncanny encounters with the numinous
Other” (Solomonova et al., this issue) offers a challenge to the emerging field of new media. How to create a computer-mediated
environment which can engender a spontaneous, creative, and individualized experience such as...
Felt presence, a sensation that “someone is there”, is an integral part of our everyday experience. It can manifest itself
in a variety of forms ranging from most subtle fleeting impressions to intense hallucinations of demonic assault or visions
of the divine. Felt presence phenomenon outside of the context of neurological disorders is largely neg...
To assess whether dysfunctional autonomic regulation during REM sleep as indexed by heart rate variability (HRV) is a pathophysiological factor in frequent nightmares (NMs).
Monitoring with polysomnography (PSG) and electrocardiography (ECG) for 3 consecutive nights: Night 1 (N1), adaptation night; N2, administration of partial REM sleep deprivatio...
To examine whether disrupted regulation of REM sleep propensity is implicated in nightmare (NM) pathophysiology.
Heightened REM propensity induced by REM sleep deprivation is belied by increases in REM %, REM density and the dream-like quality of dream mentation during post-deprivation recovery sleep. Compromised regulation of REM sleep propensity...
Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and dreaming may be implicated in cross-night adaptation to emotionally negative events. To evaluate the impact of REM sleep deprivation (REMD) and the presence of dream emotions on a possible emotional adaptation (EA) function, 35 healthy subjects randomly assigned to REMD (n = 17; mean age 26.4 +/- 4.3 years) and co...
Isolated sleep paralysis (ISP) is a common parasomnia characterized by an inability to move or speak and often accompanied by hallucinations of a sensed presence nearby. Recent research has linked ISP, and sensed presence more particularly, with social anxiety and other psychopathologies. The present study used a large sample of respondents to an i...
Sleep onset (SO) is cognitively and physiologically similar to rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, supporting the notion that REM sleep-related processes are 'covertly' active at this time. The objective was to determine if SO mentation is sensitive to REM sleep deprivation.
Two-group cross-sectional design; sleep recordings for 3 nights.
Standard slee...