State dissociation: Implications for sleep and wakefulness, consciousness, and culpability

Wakefulness and sleep and consciousness and unconsciousness are not all-or-none, mutually exclusive states but rather occur on a broad spectrum with fluid and rapidly changing boundaries, resulting in a wide variety of unusual and often complex and perplexing behaviors. The resulting behaviors may have forensic implications with varying degrees of conscious awareness, intent, and culpability. The neuroscientific basis of these dissociated states will provide fertile areas for discussion between neuroscientists and the legal profession.