Dreaming and waking experiences in schizophrenia: How should the (dis)continuity hypotheses be approached empirically?

A number of differences between the dreams of schizophrenia patients and those of healthy participants have been linked to changes in waking life that schizophrenia may cause. This way, the “continuity hypothesis” has become a standard way to relate dreaming and waking experiences in schizophrenia. Nevertheless, some of the findings in dream literature are not compatible with the continuity hypothesis and suggest some other ways how dream content and waking experiences could interact. Conceptually, the continuity hypothesis could be sharpened into the “waking-to-dreaming” and the “dreaming-to-waking” hypotheses, whereas a less explored type of “discontinuity” could embrace the “compensated waking” and the “compensated dreaming” hypotheses. A careful consideration and empirical testing of each of those hypotheses may reveal a multiplicity of the ways how dreaming and waking life interact in schizophrenia.