European and American sleep researchers have reported the coronavirus pandemic dream phenomenon, which showed an increase in the number of people who recalled bizarre and vivid nightmares due to psychosocial stress. The main purposes of this study were to report of coronavirus pandemic dreams in three Japanese females and to analyze them based on a diathesis-stress model of nightmare formation. We examined what level’s nightmares caused by the situational emotional stress derived from self-restraint to prevent infection.

Based on our cases, it was considered that the excessive stressful situations caused by the coronavirus pandemic brought idiopathic nightmares to all research collaborators, regardless of diathesis. Due to the invisible features of the new coronavirus, it was suggested that there was a phenomenon that various kinds of unpleasant images（strange sounds, musty smells, insects, etc.）, masks, ventilators, cleaning tools appeared in nightmares. It was also suggested that image rehearsal about stress coping behaviors in dreams might determine the severity of nightmares at a cognitive - emotional level.

View full abstract

Increasing empirical research on subjective experiences during narrative reading has suggested many effects of narratives, such as changed attitudes and beliefs, feelings of enjoyment or satisfaction, and improvements in social abilities. This paper focuses on “immersion in narratives” as one of the experiences in narrative reading. First, we review absorption, ow, and related conceptions regarding immersive experiences and suggest that immersion in narratives arises through the story representation and includes various components of experience, such as vivid imagery, empathy with the characters, and sympathy for the narrative. Next, we introduce recent studies of the e ect of reading narratives on social ability and report two studies of the relationship between immersion in narratives and mindreading. Finally, we discuss the human significance or impact of narrative reading and immersion in narratives.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

The works of Miyazawa Kenji are full of fantastic descriptions and it may be the essential characteristic of his literature. The author discusses the origins of these fantastic characteristics from Miyazawa’s original literary method called ‘mental sketch’ and his innate sensitive trait. In the former aspects, Miyazawa had a view of the world which regarded all things were perceptive phenomena in the mind, and he wrote poems called ‘mental sketches’ from this viewpoint. Furthermore, he frequently recorded his ‘mental sketches’ during all-night ramble in the mountains and wilds or on the night train and ships. These situations probably made him experience supernatural phenomena which are the characteristics of his poems.

In the latter aspect, Miyazawa was highly sympathetic to others from childhood and showed high hypnotizability in puberty. These episodes suggest the thinness of his ego-boundary. The author also discusses that the dissociative experiences which Shibayama pointed out in the Miyazawa’s works can be interpreted as the alteration in the ego-boundary. These sensory traits may also contributed to the fantasies of his works.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

The sensory-cognitive characteristics underlying Miyazawa Kenjiʼs literary works often include eidetic images,synesthesia, and fantasy-proneness. This report aimed to examine Kenji's sensory-cognitive characteristics, based on the findings in our studies that eidetic images, synesthesia, and fantasy-proneness could share a common neural and psychosomatic basis. Miyazawa Kenji could be a typical hyperphantasia（Zeman, 2015）, that is, a person with peculiar imagination according to recent research in cognitive psychology and brain science regarding imaginative abilities.

View full abstract