July 26, 2011

The Science Behind Dreaming

New research sheds light on how and why we remember dreams--and what purpose they are likely to serve

By Sander van der Linden

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For centuries people have pondered the meaning of dreams. Early civilizations thought of dreams as a medium between our earthly world and that of the gods. In fact, the Greeks and Romans were convinced that dreams had certain prophetic powers. While there has always been a great interest in the interpretation of human dreams, it wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century that Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung put forth some of the most widely-known modern theories of dreaming. Freud’s theory centred around the notion of repressed longing -- the idea that dreaming allows us to sort through unresolved, repressed wishes. Carl Jung (who studied under Freud) also believed that dreams had psychological importance, but proposed different theories about their meaning.

Since then, technological advancements have allowed for the development of other theories. One prominent neurobiological theory of dreaming is the “activation-synthesis hypothesis,” which states that dreams don’t actually mean anything: they are merely electrical brain impulses that pull random thoughts and imagery from our memories. Humans, the theory goes, construct dream stories after they wake up, in a natural attempt to make sense of it all. Yet, given the vast documentation of realistic aspects to human dreaming as well as indirect experimental evidence that other mammals such as cats also dream, evolutionary psychologists have theorized that dreaming really does serve a purpose. In particular, the “threat simulation theory” suggests that dreaming should be seen as an ancient biological defence mechanism that provided an evolutionary advantage because of  its capacity to repeatedly simulate potential threatening events – enhancing the neuro-cognitive mechanisms required for efficient threat perception and avoidance.

So, over the years, numerous theories have been put forth in an attempt to illuminate the mystery behind human dreams, but, until recently, strong tangible evidence has remained largely elusive.

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Yet, new research published in the Journal of Neuroscience provides compelling insights into the mechanisms that underlie dreaming and the strong relationship our dreams have with our memories. Cristina Marzano and her colleagues at the University of Rome have succeeded, for the first time, in explaining how humans remember their dreams. The scientists predicted the likelihood of successful dream recall based on a signature pattern of brain waves. In order to do this, the Italian research team invited 65 students to spend two consecutive nights in their research laboratory.

During the first night, the students were left to sleep, allowing them to get used to the sound-proofed and temperature-controlled rooms. During the second night the researchers measured the student’s brain waves while they slept. Our brain experiences four types of electrical brain waves: “delta,” “theta,” “alpha,” and “beta.” Each represents a different speed of oscillating electrical voltages and together they form the electroencephalography (EEG). The Italian research team used this technology to measure the participant’s brain waves during various sleep-stages. (There are five stages of sleep; most dreaming and our most intense dreams occur during the REM stage.) The students were woken at various times and asked to fill out a diary detailing whether or not they dreamt, how often they dreamt and whether they could remember the content of their dreams.

While previous studies have already indicated that people are more likely to remember their dreams when woken directly after REM sleep, the current study explains why. Those participants who exhibited more low frequency theta waves in the frontal lobes were also more likely to remember their dreams.

This finding is interesting because the increased frontal theta activity the researchers observed looks just like the successful encoding and retrieval of autobiographical memories seen while we are awake. That is, it is the same electrical oscillations in the frontal cortex that make the recollection of episodic memories (e.g., things that happened to you) possible. Thus, these findings suggest that the neurophysiological mechanisms that we employ while dreaming (and recalling dreams) are the same as when we construct and retrieve memories while we are awake.

In another recent study conducted by the same research team, the authors used the latest MRI techniques to investigate the relation between dreaming and the role of deep-brain structures. In their study, the researchers found that vivid, bizarre and emotionally intense dreams (the dreams that people usually remember) are linked to parts of the amygdala and hippocampus. While the amygdala plays a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, the hippocampus has been implicated in important memory functions, such as the consolidation of information from short-term to long-term memory.

The proposed link between our dreams and emotions is also highlighted in another recent study published by Matthew Walker and colleagues at the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at UC Berkeley, who found that a reduction in REM sleep (or less “dreaming”) influences our ability to understand complex emotions in daily life – an essential feature of human social functioning.  Scientists have also recently identified where dreaming is likely to occur in the brain.  A very rare clinical condition known as “Charcot-Wilbrand Syndrome” has been known to cause (among other neurological symptoms) loss of the ability to dream.  However, it was not until a few years ago that a patient reported to have lost her ability to dream while having virtually no other permanent neurological symptoms. The patient suffered a lesion in a part of the brain known as the right inferior lingual gyrus (located in the visual cortex). Thus, we know that dreams are generated in, or transmitted through this particular area of the brain, which is associated with visual processing, emotion and visual memories.

Taken together, these recent findings tell an important story about the underlying mechanism and possible purpose of dreaming.

Dreams seem to help us process emotions by encoding and constructing memories of them. What we see and experience in our dreams might not necessarily be real, but the emotions attached to these experiences certainly are. Our dream stories essentially try to strip the emotion out of a certain experience by creating a memory of it. This way, the emotion itself is no longer active.  This mechanism fulfils an important role because when we don’t process our emotions, especially negative ones, this increases personal worry and anxiety. In fact, severe REM sleep-deprivation is increasingly correlated to the development of mental disorders. In short, dreams help regulate traffic on that fragile bridge which connects our experiences with our emotions and memories.

Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about? Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist at the Boston Globe. He can be reached at garethideas AT gmail.com or Twitter @garethideas .

Reading dream literature: frequency, influencing factors, and self-rated benefit

Affiliation.

  • 1 Sleep Laboratory, School of Management,Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany. [email protected]
  • PMID: 21834407
  • DOI: 10.5406/amerjpsyc.124.2.0227

Dream books have a very long history, but systematic research on how many people have read magazine articles or books on dreams and whether reading such literature is beneficial to the dreamer is scarce. In the present sample of 444 people (mostly psychology students), about 75% of the participants stated that they had read at least one magazine article on dreams, and more than 40% had read at least one book about dreams. The main factor associated with the frequency of reading dream literature was a positive attitude toward dreaming, whereas personality factors play a minor role in explaining interindividual differences in this variable. The self-rated benefit of reading dream literature varied greatly, from not helpful at all to very helpful, and was associated with dream recall frequency and positive attitude toward dreaming. Using this approach in a more sophisticated way, eliciting details about the kinds of information participants have read would help researchers learn more about what techniques of dream work are effective and thus complement the research carried out in therapist-guided sessions.

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When Brains Dream: Exploring the Science and Mystery of Sleep

A comprehensive, eye-opening exploration of what dreams are, where they come from, what they mean, and why we have them.

Questions on the origins and meaning of dreams are as old as humankind, and as confounding and exciting today as when nineteenth-century scientists first attempted to unravel them. Why do we dream? Do dreams hold psychological meaning or are they merely the reflection of random brain activity? What purpose do dreams serve?

When Brains Dream  addresses these core questions about dreams while illuminating the most up-to-date science in the field. Written by two world-renowned sleep and dream researchers, it debunks common myths?that we only dream in REM sleep, for example—while acknowledging the mysteries that persist around both the science and experience of dreaming.

Antonio Zadra and Robert Stickgold bring together state-of-the-art neuroscientific ideas and findings to propose a new and innovative model of dream function called NEXTUP—Network Exploration to Understand Possibilities. By detailing this model’s workings, they help readers understand key features of several types of dreams, from prophetic dreams to nightmares and lucid dreams.  When Brains Dream  reveals recent discoveries about the sleeping brain and the many ways in which dreams are psychologically, and neurologically, meaningful experiences; explores a host of dream-related disorders; and explains how dreams can facilitate creativity and be a source of personal insight.

Making an eloquent and engaging case for why the human brain needs to dream,  When Brains Dream  offers compelling answers to age-old questions about the mysteries of sleep.

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Dreaming: A Conceptual Framework for Philosophy of Mind and Empirical Research

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Dreaming: A Conceptual Framework for Philosophy of Mind and Empirical Research Hardcover – June 5, 2015

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Dreams, conceived as conscious experience or phenomenal states during sleep, offer an important contrast condition for theories of consciousness and the self. Yet, although there is a wealth of empirical research on sleep and dreaming, its potential contribution to consciousness research and philosophy of mind is largely overlooked. This might be due, in part, to a lack of conceptual clarity and an underlying disagreement about the nature of the phenomenon of dreaming itself. In Dreaming , Jennifer Windt lays the groundwork for solving this problem. She develops a conceptual framework describing not only what it means to say that dreams are conscious experiences but also how to locate dreams relative to such concepts as perception, hallucination, and imagination, as well as thinking, knowledge, belief, deception, and self-consciousness.

Arguing that a conceptual framework must be not only conceptually sound but also phenomenologically plausible and carefully informed by neuroscientific research, Windt integrates her review of philosophical work on dreaming, both historical and contemporary, with a survey of the most important empirical findings. This allows her to work toward a systematic and comprehensive new theoretical understanding of dreaming informed by a critical reading of contemporary research findings. Windt's account demonstrates that a philosophical analysis of the concept of dreaming can provide an important enrichment and extension to the conceptual repertoire of discussions of consciousness and the self and raises new questions for future research.

About the Author

  • Print length 824 pages
  • Language English
  • Publisher The MIT Press
  • Publication date June 5, 2015
  • Dimensions 7.38 x 1.7 x 9.06 inches
  • ISBN-10 0262028670
  • ISBN-13 978-0262028677
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  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The MIT Press; 1st edition (June 5, 2015)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 824 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262028670
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262028677
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.18 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.38 x 1.7 x 9.06 inches
  • #2,768 in Dreams (Books)
  • #4,168 in Consciousness & Thought Philosophy
  • #5,883 in Cognitive Psychology (Books)

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What about dreams ? State of the art and open questions

Serena scarpelli.

1 Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome Italy

Valentina Alfonsi

Maurizio gorgoni.

2 Body and Action Lab, IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome Italy

Luigi De Gennaro

Associated data.

Several studies have tried to identify the neurobiological bases of dream experiences, nevertheless some questions are still at the centre of the debate. Here, we summarise the main open issues concerning the neuroscientific study of dreaming. After overcoming the rapid eye movement (REM) ‐ non‐REM (NREM) sleep dichotomy, investigations have focussed on the specific functional or structural brain features predicting dream experience. On the one hand, some results underlined that specific trait‐like factors are associated with higher dream recall frequency. On the other hand, the electrophysiological milieu preceding dream report upon awakening is a crucial state‐like factor influencing the subsequent recall. Furthermore, dreaming is strictly related to waking experiences. Based on the continuity hypothesis, some findings reveal that dreaming could be modulated through visual, olfactory, or somatosensory stimulations. Also, it should be considered that the indirect access to dreaming remains an intrinsic limitation. Recent findings have revealed a greater concordance between parasomnia‐like events and dream contents. This means that parasomnia episodes might be an expression of the ongoing mental sleep activity and could represent a viable direct access to dream experience. Finally, we provide a picture on nightmares and emphasise the possible role of oneiric activity in psychotherapy. Overall, further efforts in dream science are needed (a) to develop a uniform protocol to study dream experience, (b) to introduce and integrate advanced techniques to better understand whether dreaming can be manipulated, (c) to clarify the relationship between parasomnia events and dreaming, and (d) to determine the clinical valence of dreams.

1. INTRODUCTION

Dreams have been extensively studied from many points of view, focussing on different aspects of the phenomenon. Dreaming is a composite experience occurring during sleep that includes images, sensations, thoughts, emotions, apparent speech, and motor activity. The oneiric production is a form of mental sleep activity that appears strictly related to memory processes and cognitive elaboration (Wamsley & Stickgold,  2010 ; Mangiaruga et al., 2018). In this respect, some investigations have highlighted that dream features mirror the development of cognitive processes (Mangiaruga et al., 2018; Scarpell et al.,  2019a ).

Additionally, a growing number of studies have suggested that dream experience might be considered an expression of human wellbeing (Fränkl et al.,  2021 ; Scarpelli et al.,  2022 ) and has a pivotal role in emotional regulation, as suggested by some neurobiological findings (Nielsen & Lara‐Carrasco,  2007 ). For instance, dream recall and nightmare frequency increase when subjects are exposed to adverse and traumatic events (e.g., Hartmann & Brezler,  2008 ; Nielsen et al.,  2006 ; Sandman et al.,  2013 ; Tempesta et al.,  2013 ). Also, the qualitative characteristics of dream reports change in parallel with the emotional charge of waking experiences (Schredl,  2006 ; Scarpelli et al.,  2021 ).

It should be highlighted that psychoanalysis had primacy in dream research until the discovery of the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep stage (Aserinsky & Kleitman,  1953 ). The interpretation of oneiric contents was one of the main focusses of the Freudian theories positing that dreaming allows access to the unconscious functions of the mind in neurosis treatment (Freud,  1953 ). Aserinsky and Kleitman ( 1953 ) observed specific intervals with rapid and recurrent eye movement and bursts of alpha activity comparable to those that occur during wakefulness. The enthusiasm linked to the discovery of REM sleep considerably influenced dreaming research in several ways, and the neuroscientific study of dreaming is relatively recent. Several studies have attempted to identify the neurobiological bases of dream experience through a neuropsychological approach (Solms,  1997 , 2000 ), neuroimaging (Maquet et al.,  1996 ) and electrophysiological techniques (Marzano et al.,  2011 ; Siclari et al.,  2017 ).

Although several studies provide compelling evidence for the existence of specific brain mechanisms predicting dream recall (e.g., Siclari et al.,  2017 ), many questions are still at the centre of the debate.

The present paper summarises the main open issues concerning the neuroscientific study of dream experience. Specifically, the review offers an overview about (a) the question related to the REM‐non‐REM (NREM) sleep dichotomy, (b) the state–trait‐like problem, (c) the relationship between waking and dreaming state and the manipulation of dreaming, (d) the issue concerning the access to dream experience, (e) the role of nightmares, and (f) the debate on dreamwork in psychotherapy.

1.1. The REM‐NREM sleep dichotomy

A classical view of the neurobiological basis of the oneiric activity postulates the existence of a close relationship between dream experience and REM sleep (Hobson et al.,  2000 ; Nielsen,  2000 ). This hypothesis was based on early electroencephalographic (EEG) observations showing that >70% of individuals awakened during REM sleep reported dreams, while dream recall at the awakening from other sleep stages was rare (Aserinsky & Kleitman, 1955 ). According to this view, the wake‐like high‐frequency EEG pattern characterising REM sleep would represent the ideal electrophysiological scenario for the occurrence of dream experiences, while the slow‐frequency activity characterising NREM sleep would be associated with the absence of oneiric activity. However, using different criteria to collect dream reports, several studies found that successful recall of a conscious experience can be frequently observed also after NREM awakenings, and in a minority of cases no dream experience was reported after REM awakenings (Foulkes,  1962 ; Nielsen,  2000 ). Moreover, dream recall is still possible after lesions in brain regions involved in REM sleep generation, while the total disappearance of dream recall can be observed after focal forebrain lesions without an impact on REM sleep (Solms,  2000 ). Also, dream experience is preserved after pharmacological suppression of REM sleep (Landolt et al.,  2001 ; Oudiette et al.,  2012 ). Finally, dream recall has been recently associated with a similar electrophysiological response after REM and NREM sleep (D'Atri et al.,  2019 ; Siclari et al.,  2017 ). These results suggest that (a) dream and REM sleep are controlled by distinct brain mechanisms, (b) the postulate of a clear distinction between presence and absence of dreaming respectively in REM and NREM has not a solid support, and therefore (c) dreams can occur in any sleep stage.

A dichotomy between NREM and REM sleep has been also hypothesised for the qualitative aspects of dreams. Indeed, it has been proposed that REM and NREM sleep exhibit different kinds of mental activity. According to this view, REM sleep is characterised by an emotional, vivid, and bizarre “dream‐like” mentation (Antrobus,  1983 ; Casagrande et al.,  1996 ; Foulkes,  1967 ; Foulkes & Schmidt,  1983 ; Waterman et al.,  1993 ), while NREM mental activity would be “thought‐like”, with reduced emotional load, greater fragmentation, and contents more similar to waking thoughts (Foulkes,  1967 ; Rechtschaffen et al.,  1963 ). Nevertheless, the existence of a clear‐cut REM‐NREM dichotomy has been questioned also in this case based on several findings: (a) “dream‐like” reports have been observed also after NREM sleep (Monroe et al.,  1965 ; Solms,  2000 ; Zimmerman,  1970 ) and (b) the qualitative differences between REM and NREM dream reports disappear when their length is equated (Antrobus,  1983 ; Cavallero et al.,  1992 ; Foulkes & Schmidt,  1983 ).

In light of these observations, the assumption that the presence/absence and the phenomenological aspects of dream experiences strictly depend on the sleep stage per se is simplistic. It is worth noting that a precise definition of the time‐coupling between the sleep stages and the actual occurrence of dream experience is difficult, as the access to sleep mentation is possible only in an indirect way through dream reports after the awakening (see the paragraph “What about direct access to dream experience?”). At the same time, the occurrence of dream experiences in both REM and NREM sleep, two physiological stages characterised by distinct electrophysiological and neurotransmitters patterns, appears paradoxical. Such considerations raised the question of what mechanisms facilitate/inhibit the recall of a conscious experience at the awakening from different sleep stages, and what factors can explain intra‐ and inter‐individual variability in the phenomenology of the oneiric activity.

1.2. State‐ and trait‐like facets of dreams

Stable individual characteristics (trait‐like factors) can impact dreams, explaining inter‐individual variability. Sociodemographic factors like gender (Schredl & Reinhard,  2008 ; Settineri et al.,  2019 ) and age (Mangiaruga et al.,  2018 ; Scarpelli et al.,  2019a ) can predict dream recall. Interest in dreams (Bealulieu‐Prevost & Zadra,  2007 ), visual imagery abilities (Cory & Ormiston,  1975 ), personality dimensions like openness to experience, absorption, psychological boundaries (Beaulieu‐Prevost & Zadra, 2007), and predisposition to suppress negative emotions and thoughts (Malinowski,  2015 ) appear related to individual differences in the oneiric activity.

Crucially, neuroimaging studies provided evidence about the relationship between dream features and stable brain anatomical and functional characteristics. Qualitative facets of dreams have been associated with volumetric and structural measures of the amygdala‐hippocampus complex in healthy subjects (De Gennaro et al.,  2011 ) and amygdala volume, dorsomedial prefrontal cortical thickness, and dopaminergic activity in patients with Parkinson's disease (De Gennaro et al.,  2016 ). Moreover, compared to low dream recallers, high dream recallers showed (a) greater medial prefrontal cortex white‐matter density (Vallat et al.,  2018 ); (b) higher regional cerebral blood flow in the temporo‐parietal junction during wakefulness, Stage 3, and REM sleep and in medial prefrontal cortex during wakefulness and REM sleep (Eichenlaub et al.,  2014a ); (c) enhanced functional connectivity within the default mode network (DMN) and between areas of the DMN and memory‐related regions immediately after the awakening (Vallat et al.,  2020 ); and (d) larger event‐related potentials to distracting sounds even during active listening, arguing for enhanced bottom‐up processing of irrelevant sounds but also an enhanced recruitment of top‐down attention as suggested by larger contingent negative variation during target expectancy and P3b to target sounds (Ruby et al.,  2021 ). Taken together, these findings highlight that stable individual features of the brain structure and activation patterns can explain inter‐individual differences in dream experience.

Beyond the influence of trait‐like factors, a growing number of studies also point to the role of the physiological milieu associated with the oneiric experience (state‐like factors). In other words, the specific regional features of the physiological background contingent with dreaming would facilitate or prevent dream recall, potentially explaining intra‐individual differences in dream reports. This possibility has been investigated mainly by assessing the sleep EEG pattern preceding dream recall. In this way, several studies found that a successful dream recall was associated with greater frontal theta oscillations before the awakening from REM sleep (Marzano et al.,  2011 ; Scarpelli et al.,  2015 ; Scarpelli et al.,  2019b ) and reduced parieto‐occipital alpha activity before the awakening from NREM sleep (Esposito et al.,  2004 ; Marzano et al.,  2011 ). As theta and alpha oscillations are associated with memory processes during wakefulness (Hsieh & Ranganath,  2014 ), these results suggest that wakefulness and sleep share the same neurobiological mechanisms for the elaboration of episodic memories (see the next paragraph).

On the other hand, a growing number of within‐subject investigations (which allows overcoming the possible influence of stable trait‐like factors) show that a more desynchronised EEG pattern is associated with dream recall in both NREM and REM sleep (Siclari et al.,  2017 ; D'Atri et al.,  2019 ; Scarpelli et al.,  2017 ; Scarpelli et al.,  2020a ; but see Wong et al.,  2020 ). In particular, dream experience would be facilitated by a pattern of reduced slow‐wave activity (SWA), most steadily in posterior regions (Siclari et al.,  2017 , 2018 ). Interestingly, lucid dreams, phenomenon characterised by conscious awareness during the oneiric experience, appear associated with greater EEG gamma activity (Baird et al.,  2022 ; Voss et al.,  2009 ). Furthermore, a transcranial current stimulation delivered in a lower gamma range during REM sleep can affect the ongoing electrophysiological activity and increase self‐reflective awareness in dreams (Voss et al.,  2014 ). These observations are consistent with “activation” theoretical models (Antrobus,  1991 ; Hobson & McCarley,  1977 ; Koulack & Goodenough,  1976 ), which postulate that dream recall would be facilitated by a greater level of arousal during sleep, represented at an electrophysiological level by higher brain activation. Indeed, the frequency of dream recall increases in association with a sleep pattern characterised by greater sleep fragmentation (van Wyk et al.,  2019 ), faster spindles, especially in central and posterior cortical areas (Siclari et al.,  2018 ), intra‐sleep wakefulness (De Gennaro et al., 2010 ; Eichenlaub et al.,  2014b ; Vallat et al.,  2017 ), and sleep arousal (Polini et al.,  2017 ; Schredl,  2009 ). Furthermore, a night of recovery sleep after a period of prolonged wakefulness, usually characterised by reduced awakenings, almost totally abolished dream recall after the final morning awakening (De Gennaro et al., 2010 ). The SWA represents a marker of sleep intensity (Borbély & Achermann,  1999 ), likely subserving the fading of consciousness during sleep. Thus, the pattern of local SWA reduction in association with dreaming activity may represent the electrophysiological marker of the greater arousal level needed for a successful dream recall. Moreover, this evidence provides a reliable explanation for the apparently paradoxical occurrence of dreams in states of consciousness (i.e., REM and NREM sleep) characterised by drastically different EEG patterns.

Overall, these findings highlight the crucial role of the physiological state preceding dream recall. However, several questions remain open. First, the influence of circadian and homeostatic factors on the oneiric experience and its electrophysiological pattern is not clear (Chellappa et al.,  2011 ; D'Atri et al.,  2019 ; Scarpelli et al.,  2017 ; Scarpelli et al.,  2020a ). Moreover, the impact of the regional distribution of SWA on qualitative dream facets needs to be fully investigated, as empirical preliminary evidence has been provided only by Siclari et al. ( 2017 ). Finally, the possible interaction between state‐ and trait‐like factors should be carefully considered.

1.3. Continuity between waking and dream experience

The above‐mentioned “activation hypothesis” represents one of the main theoretical frameworks on dreaming, along with the so‐called “continuity hypothesis” (Domhoff,  2017 ; Schredl & Hofmann,  2003 ). In the early 1970s, Bell and Hall ( 1971 ) firstly proposed that waking experiences may have continuity in sleep. The formulation of the original concept has gone through several re‐interpretations and adjustments since then.

Early cognitively‐oriented studies focussed on the continuity between dream contents and waking events, personal concerns, thoughts, behaviours, and emotions, suggesting that waking‐life experiences are reflected into subsequent dreams (Nielsen & Powell,  1992 ; Schredl,  2006 ; Blagrove,  2011 ; Vallat et al.,  2017 ). Compelling evidence also showed the key role of the personal and emotional salience in mediating the preferential incorporation of waking‐life aspects during mental sleep activity (Malinowski & Horton,  2014 ).

Further, different time intervals between waking experiences and related dream contents could represent “day‐residue effect” or “dream‐lag effect” as a function of the elapsed period (i.e., 1–2 days and 5–7 days, respectively) (Eichenlaub et al.,  2017 ). Specifically, the delayed incorporation of waking life events (“dream‐lag effect”) was selectively observed during REM sleep and for personally significant events (Van Rijn et al.,  2015 ).

A complementary field of study posits the continuity between waking state and mental sleep activity from a neurophysiological perspective. Namely, a growing body of evidence suggests that brain mechanisms underlying cognitive and emotional functioning remain the same across different states of consciousness (e.g., Marzano et al.,  2011 ; Eichenalub et al., 2018).

The involvement of alpha (8–12 Hz) and theta (5–7 Hz) oscillations in memory‐related neural processes during wakefulness are well‐established, especially as regards episodic‐declarative memory (Klimesch,  1999 ). In particular, the increase in the frontal theta activity and the alpha power decrease during the encoding phase of episodic memories were found to play a pivotal role in the subsequent recall of stored information (Hsieh & Ranganath,  2014 ; Klimesch,  1999 ).

Over the last two decades, several studies were conducted under the assumption that dream encoding and recall could represent a peculiar form of episodic memory (Fosse et al.,  2003 ). As previously mentioned, a successful dream recall has been linked to higher frontal theta activity during REM sleep (Marzano et al.,  2011 ; Scarpelli et al.,  2015 ) and lower alpha activity over the temporo‐parietal region during NREM (Esposito et al.,  2004 ; Marzano et al.,  2011 ; Takeuchi et al.,  2003 ). Moreover, the topographical distribution of the above‐mentioned frequency bands resembles brain regions involved in encoding and retrieval mechanisms during wakefulness.

A large body of experimental studies have also shown the continuity between dreaming and emotional processing (for a review, see Scarpelli et al.,  2019c ). First of all, as described in the previous paragraph, neuroimaging studies showed the relationship between qualitative and quantitative stable aspects of dream experience and structural parameters of limbic areas (De Gennaro et al.,  2011 ). Consistently, subjects reporting higher levels of fear in their dreams showed a concomitant higher activation of the medial prefrontal cortex, responsible for reduced activation of the amygdala, insula, and midcingulate cortex both during sleep and wakefulness (Phelps et al.,  2004 ; Sterpenich et al.,  2020 ). Further, the main brain circuits involved in emotional processing during wake are highly activated during REM sleep, such as the limbic system (Nir & Tononi,  2010 ) and reward system (Perogamvros & Schwartz,  2012 ). Notably, a recent simultaneous EEG‐functional magnetic resonance imaging study demonstrated the privileged re‐emergence during sleep of patterns of brain activity associated with a recent rewarding (compared to a non‐rewarding) waking experience during sleep (Sterpenich et al.,  2021 ).

Starting from these findings, many researchers stated that dream activity might have a crucial role in processing emotional events experienced during wakefulness (see Scarpelli et al.,  2019c ). More in‐depth, the theta (Nishida et al.,  2009 ; Boyce et al.,  2016 ; Sopp et al.,  2018 ) and gamma activities (Van Der Helm et al.,  2011 ) were identified as the EEG markers of emotional memory processing. Selective sleep deprivation protocols provided experimental evidence about the lack of emotional memories consolidation in the absence of REM sleep stage (Spoormaker et al.,  2014 ; Wagner et al.,  2001 ), supporting the notion that dreaming represents the privileged scenario for the offline reprocessing of waking emotional stimuli.

Keeping in mind the unitary perspective across waking and sleep state, several investigations aimed to overcome the boundaries between different states of consciousness directly influencing sleep mentation by different kinds of sensory stimuli administered pre‐ or during sleep. Pre‐sleep stimulation methods have been used since the very beginning of dream research. The pioneering study by Dement and Wolpert ( 1958 ) showed the relation between the 24‐h fluid restriction in participants and their subsequent REM dream content. Sensory stimulation through pre‐sleep visual stimuli affected dream content by using stressful films (Goodenough et al.,  1965 ) or visual inverting prisms (Corsi‐Cabrera et al.,  1986 ).

Concerning sensory stimulation delivered during REM or NREM sleep stages, early studies described the incorporation of meaning verbal stimuli (Berger,  1963 ; Hoelscher et al.,  1981 ). Also, somatosensory stimulation (e.g., water on the skin, thermal stimulation, pressure cuff, electrical pulses) (Baldridge et al.,  1965 ; Dement & Wolpert,  1958 ; Koulack,  1969 ; Nielsen,  1993 ) or vestibular stimulation (Leslie & Ogilvie,  1996 ) were found to affect dream content. As expected, these types of stimulation increased vividness and bodily sensation in the dream contents.

Recent studies using olfactory stimulation during sleep showed the influence on the emotional content of dreams as a function of the hedonic characteristic of stimuli (Schredl et al.,  2009 ) and the reactivation of the odour‐associated images (Schredl et al.,  2014 ). The strong effect of olfactory stimulation on dream emotional aspects is interpreted in terms of direct connections to the limbic system (Smith & Shepherd,  2003 ).

In the last few years, a promising field of research explored the shared neural circuits between wake and sleep mentation by directly manipulating dream activity via transcranial electrical stimulation techniques. Some studies showed that interfering with cortical areas that are notably involved in a specific function during wakefulness influenced the dream content accordingly (Jakobson et al.,  2012 ; Noreika et al.,  2020 ).

Taken together, these results strengthen the hypothesis of shared mechanisms between the awake and sleeping brain from both psychological and neurobiological perspectives and through experimental manipulations. However, the intrinsic restraint due to the impossibility of directly investigating the dream content represents a common limitation of these studies.

1.4. What about direct access to dream experience?

The issue concerning dream access is definitively the most complex to address. Indeed, the real object of study in the abovementioned investigations (e.g., Chellappa et al.,  2011 ; Marzano et al.,  2011 ; Scarpelli et al.,  2015 , 2017 ; Scarpelli et al.,  2020a ; Scarpelli et al.,  2019b ; Siclari et al.,  2017 ) is “dream recall” and not the dream experience itself . In other words, dreaming is not directly observable, and researchers are able to obtain information about the oneiric activity just requiring a dream report to the individual when he is awake. Also, we have already discussed that detecting the exact moment in which the dreams are produced during sleep is very difficult.

From a methodological point of view, three approaches to collect dreaming are well‐known: (a) retrospective, (b) prospective, and (c) provoked awakenings with subsequent dream reports. While the retrospective method allows researchers to collect dreaming through interviews or questionnaires in large samples quickly, the prospective protocol (i.e., dream diaries; longitudinal dream report collection) is less prone to memory biases (Robert & Zadra,  2008 ). These two strategies allow classifying people in high and low recallers, helping to investigate the neurobiological trait‐like features of dreamers (e.g., Eichenlaub et al.,  2014b ; Eichenlaub et al.,  2014a ; Ruby et al.,  2021 ; van Wyk et al.,  2019 ). However, the most accurate approach is represented by the provoked awakenings associated with the polysomnography (PSG) of one or more sleep nights in a laboratory. Generally, participants are awakened to explore the presence of a dream report and to compare the recall and non‐recall condition (Scarpelli et al.,  2017 ; Scarpelli et al.,  2020a ; Siclari et al.,  2017 ) or the report's qualitative features (Scarpelli et al.,  2020b ), correlating them with the specific EEG patterns preceding the awakening. It is worth noting that the narration of dream contents could be influenced by many biases after awakenings, such as the experimental setting (Schredl,  2008 ), the physiological background of waking‐life and by individual variables, such as personality, cognitive functions, censure/omissions and socio‐cultural features (Nir & Tononi,  2010 ), making dream reports not always completely reliable.

How can we overcome this obstacle? In this regard, recent studies have suggested that viable access to mental sleep activity is represented by dream‐enacting behaviours (DEBs; Baltzan et al.,  2020 ). Any acting out of a dream during sleep characterised by motor, emotional or verbal components may be considered a direct observation of dream experience while the subject is asleep (Nielsen et al.,  2009 ). In this view, the study of parasomnias or parasomnia‐like events, i.e., REM behaviour disorder (RBD), sleep walking, nightmares, and sleep talking, may provide new insights about dreaming. Interestingly, some investigations highlighted a strong level of congruence between the body movements, verbal or emotional expressions during sleep and the subsequent components of dream recall (Arkin et al.,  1970 ; Leclair‐Visonneau et al.,  2010 ; Oudiette et al.,  2009 ; Rocha & Arnulf,  2020 ).

Assessing REMs in patients with RBD, Leclair‐Visonneau et al. ( 2010 ) found a concordance between limbs, head, and eye movements during the REM behaviour episode. The authors suggested that REMs may imitate the scanning of the dream scenario according to the so‐called “scanning hypothesis” (Arnulf,  2011 ; Leclair‐Visonneau et al.,  2010 ). Moreover, Oudiette et al. ( 2009 ) revealed that during sleepwalking or sleep terror episodes, subjects show complex motor behaviours strictly related to their oneiric scenes. The same group has demonstrated that sleepwalkers are able to replay the recently trained behaviour during the parasomnia episode, supporting the idea that dream enactment may have a pivotal role in memory processing during sleep (Oudiette et al.,  2011 ).

More recently, Rivera‐García et al. ( 2019 ) investigated the activation of facial muscles during REM sleep among healthy women. They considered facial expressions during sleep on a par with DEBs and an index of emotional dreams. Consistently, the previous literature shows that DEBs are more frequent during intense emotional dreams, such as nightmares (Nielsen et al., 2009 ). Indeed, the authors revealed that the activation of corrugator and zygomatic muscles are highly associated with dreams featured by negative affect (Rivera‐García et al. ( 2019 )).

Also, sleep talking could be considered an additional non‐pathological parasomnia‐like event related to dreaming (Alfonsi et al.,  2019 ; Mangiaruga et al., 2021). During sleep, the audible verbalisations may represent access to oneiric contents (Arkin et al.,  1970 ; Alfonsi et al.,  2019 ). In this regard, some studies showed different degrees of correspondence between sleep talking and dreaming (Arkin et al.,  1970 ; Rechtschaffen et al.,  1962 ). Arkin et al. ( 1970 ) reported different orders of concordance between sleep speech and later dream reports. Some authors investigated the presence of dialogical components within the dream reports proposing an overlapping between the neural mechanisms underlying linguistic production in dreams and those responsible for language during waking state (Shimizu & Inoue,  1986 ; Hong et al.,  1996 ; Siclari et al.,  2017 ). Specifically, Hong et al. ( 1996 ) found a reduction of the alpha activity focussed on Broca's and Wernicke's language regions, proportional to the amount of expressive and receptive language reported in dreams (Hong et al.,  1996 ; Shimizu & Inoue,  1986 ). In addition, Noreika et al. ( 2015 ) demonstrated a decrement in the theta and alpha activity in a single‐case study associated with linguistic hypnagogic hallucination. Consistently, a recent study revealed that similar EEG patterns predict intelligible verbalisations during sleep (Mangiaruga et al., 2022 ).

Overall, both findings in subjects suffering from parasomnias and those related to “benign” phenomena (e.g., facial expressions, sleep talking), suggest that parasomnia‐like episodes may open a new frontier in dream research making the oneiric production more accessible.

1.4.1. Nightmares

Nightmares are disturbing mental sleep activity characterised by negative emotions and often considered a clinical symptom causing significant distress. They are frequently associated with a high level of arousal and somatic manifestations that are capable to awake the dreamer from REM sleep. The repeated occurrence of this event is categorised as parasomnia, i.e., “nightmare disorder”, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM‐5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013 ).

On the one hand, this disturbance is frequently related to post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Germain,  2013 ), but it could also be a reaction to stress conditions (Scarpelli et al.,  2022 ). On the other hand, also idiopathic nightmares, i.e., without a known cause, should be considered. For instance, this kind of mental sleep activity is quite common in children tending to disappear during adulthood, and it is more frequent among females (Nielsen & Levin,  2007 ).

From a neurobiological perspective, a recent investigation shows that the activation of the autonomic nervous system may be linked to nightmares (Paul et al.,  2019 ). Some studies revealed REM‐specific alterations in nightmare sufferers such as longer REM latency, increased skipping of early REM periods and cycle length, and more frequent REM periods (Nielsen et al.,  2010 ). Furthermore, some EEG findings highlighted the presence of slow frontal and central theta activity during REM sleep in a group of nightmare recallers (Marquis et al.,  2017 ). Further studies reported evidence for reduced slow‐wave sleep and greater intra‐sleep wakefulness (Simor et al.,  2012 ), increased alpha power during REM sleep, and higher levels of EEG desynchronisation in NREM sleep of students with frequent nightmares (Simor et al.,  2013 ). In other words, as already mentioned for dream recall, a higher autonomic and electrophysiological activation may provide the physiological background to the nightmare occurrence (Fisher et al.,  1970 ; Nielsen & Zadra,  2005 ). This is consistent with the self‐reported experience of greater emotional and physical activations during the nightmare occurrence.

Fear is the predominant emotion included in nightmares (Zadra et al.,  2006 ), suggesting that nightmares could be linked to fear‐dysfunction disturbances, i.e., phobias, generalised or social anxiety (Nielsen & Levin,  2007 ; Walker,  2010 ). In other words, nightmares could be related to the dysfunction in the hippocampal–amygdala prefrontal system that controls fear memory formation and extinction (Marquis et al.,  2017 ; Nielsen & Levin,  2007 ). Nevertheless, the functional role of nightmares is still debated. Considering the early theories of dream function emphasising roles for REM sleep and dreaming in promoting adaptation to stress, nightmares could be interpreted as a failure of this process (Wright & Koulack,  1987 ).

Along this vein, some authors proposed that a certain degree of awareness of our dream contents and the possibility of altering them may be beneficial for nightmares sufferers (Kellner et al.,  1992 ; Krakow et al.,  2001 ; Neidhardt et al.,  1992 ). In particular, compelling evidence highlighted that imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT) is very effective in reducing chronic nightmares within 6–12 weeks of therapy (Germain et al.,  2004 ; Kellner et al.,  1992 ; Krakow et al.,  2001 ; Neidhardt et al.,  1992 ). This technique consists of modifying the plot of the recurring nightmare during the wakefulness by an imaginal rehearsal of a new dream without disturbing items (Kellner et al.,  1992 ). The nightmare sufferers learn to change the nightmares scenes by creating a less unpleasant ending and including mastery elements in the new dream scenario (Germain et al.,  2004 ).

Interestingly, lucid dreaming induction could represent a useful intervention to reduce nightmares (Zadra & Pihl,  1997 ; Spoormaker & Van Den Bout,  2006 ; Rak et al.,  2015 ). It has been hypothesised that lucid dreaming could be a sort of coping strategy to face unpleasant stimuli during a dream experience (Schiappa et al.,  2018 ). Actually, lucid dream therapy is a cognitive technique that allows patients to learn to be aware of and modify their mental sleep activity during their nightmares through daily exercises (Spoormaker & Van Den Bout,  2006 ; Zadra & Pihl,  1997 ).

More recently, eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR; Shapiro,  1989 ) has been employed for nightmares treatment in PTSD. Starting from the view that nightmares are the manifestations of adverse events registered in a dysfunctional form, this technique aimed to promote the recall of distressing images while activating one type of bilateral sensory input (e.g., hand tapping or side‐to‐side eye movement). The protocol allows subjects to identify and reprocess the targeted disturbing memories and experiences in order to formulate insight and adaptive behaviour.

In conclusion, it should be underlined that studies on PSG abnormalities and specific macro‐ and micro‐structural features correlated to nightmares are still missing. Further, efficacy studies on nightmare treatment (i.e., IRT, lucid dream therapy, EMDR) are scarce and fragmentary. Future research should be conducted to fill this gap and explore the effectiveness of the above‐mentioned interventions for nightmare disorders.

1.4.2. What role for dreamwork in modern psychotherapy?

An interesting open issue concerns the possible usefulness of the oneiric experience as a tool in clinical practice, also in light of the neuroscientific knowledge on dreams.

Classically, Freud (1953) proposed two main functions of dreams: the expression of repressed infantile wishes and the protection of sleep. The antimoral nature of such wishes implies the need of a distortion through the dream censor to be acceptable, allowing their partial expression while protecting the continuity of sleep. Freud distinguished the manifest and the latent content of dream, the latter containing the true meaning of the dream. Free associations would represent the “royal road” to uncover the latent dream content, and the analyst provide his/her dream interpretation on the basis of the patient's dynamics.

The role of dream interpretation in modern psychoanalytic models has been significantly redefined compared to the initial Freudian conceptualisation (Pesant & Zadra,  2004 ). Crucially, several authors focussed their attention to the intrinsic validity of the manifest facets of dreams and their relationship with the diurnal experience. According to different approaches, the role of dream has been conceptualised in terms of reorganisation of the experience (Fosshage,  2002 ), adaptation to reality (Gazzillo et al.,  2020 ), and co‐construction of the intersubjective reality (Jiménez,  2012 ).

Although several authors underline a “marginalisation” of dream in modern clinical psychological practice (Leonard & Dawson,  2018 ), it is worth noting that dreams have become an object of study also in clinical paradigms different from the psychoanalytical models (Pesant & Zadra,  2004 ; Velotti & Zavattini,  2019 ). Among the others, the evolution of the debate about dreaming in the cognitivist framework (Rosner et al.,  2004 ) represents an interesting example of the redefinition of dreamwork in psychotherapy based on novel experimental data, theoretical models, and clinical observations. Beck ( 1971 ) proposed that dreams reflect the individual conception (and biases) about the self, the world, and the future, and may represent and indicator of changes in the emotional status. Nevertheless, the initial need to move away from the psychoanalytical framework and the pressure to adopt an empirically verifiable clinical model led to a common disuse of oneiric activity in cognitive‐behavioural psychotherapy. Dreams were mainly considered as psychologically meaningless epiphenomena of sleep, useless for the dreamer and in turn for the therapeutic process. More recently, the progress in the scientific understanding of dreams has led to the reintegration of dreams among the object of interest from different epistemological paradigms in the cognitivist framework. From a rationalist perspective, starting from the hypothesis that dreams are subjected to the same cognitive distortions that characterise the waking experience, it has been proposed that dreamwork can help to detect cognitive biases and maladaptive thought patterns (Barrett,  2002 ; Freeman & White,  2002 ; Hill,  1996 , 2003 ) and promote cognitive reconstructing. On the other hand, the constructivist paradigm moved the focus on the narrative facets of dreams and the co‐construction of meaning between patient and therapist (Bara,  2012 ; Rezzonico & Bani,  2015 ; Rosner et al.,  2004 ), with the aim to promote the emergence of relevant aspects of the personal meaning and increase the level of awareness of the patient.

The interest in the clinical use of dreams led to the development of different articulated models of dreamwork in psychotherapy, like the Description, Memory Sources, and Reformulation (DMR) model (Montangero,  2009 ) and the cognitive‐experiential model (Hill,  1996 , 2003 ). Overall, Eudell‐Simmons and Hilsenroth ( 2005 ) identify four main functions of dreams in psychotherapy: (a) facilitate the therapeutic process, (b) increase patient insight and self‐awareness, (c) provide clinical information relevant for the therapist, and (d) provide a measure of therapeutic change.

Clearly, a further research effort is needed to provide support for the objective and efficacy of dreamwork in psychotherapy. Nevertheless, the ongoing debate on this topic has led to several models of the clinical valence of dreams that appear consistent with experimental findings on oneiric activity, mainly moving from standardised symbolic interpretations of dreams to approaches based on the relationship of dreaming with individual experience and cognitive/emotional/behavioural functioning.

2. CONCLUSIONS

From the discovery of REM sleep to the present day, empirical investigations have considerably increased our understanding of neural mechanisms underlying dream recall.

Although compelling evidence converges in providing support to the so‐called activation hypothesis and continuity hypothesis, considerable efforts are still needed to fully understand the neurobiological bases of oneiric processes.

Overall, we believe that (a) some results are still heterogeneous due to the application of different protocols, so a more consistent approach is needed; (b) the use of advanced techniques such as high‐density EEG or source localisation methods should be encouraged to better understand the relationship between specific oscillations and dream features; (c) further studies on experimental manipulation of dreaming should be carried out, also considering the implementation of brain stimulation techniques to promote dream recall or its specific characteristics; and (d) DEBs could be used as a model to observe dream contents overcoming the problem regarding the correspondence between specific time/stage of sleep and dream production, offering new insights about the neural correlate of dreaming.

Lastly, it is worth noting that recent pandemic studies have “elected” dream activity (and nightmares) as a reliable index of our emotional and psychological health (Fränkl et al.,  2021 ; Scarpelli et al.,  2022 ). Considering this, we underline that a translational view is needed to systematically explore the potential role of neurobiological and experiential facets of dreaming in a clinical context.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

All the authors contributed equally.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

All authors report no conflict of interest.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Open Access Funding provided by Universita degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza within the CRUI‐CARE Agreement. [Correction added on 26 May 2022, after first online publication: CRUI funding statement has been added.]

Scarpelli, S. , Alfonsi, V. , Gorgoni, M. , & De Gennaro, L. (2022). What about dreams? State of the art and open questions . Journal of Sleep Research , 31 ( 4 ), e13609. 10.1111/jsr.13609 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

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research on dreams books

In Search of Dreams

Results of experimental dream research, alternative formats available from:.

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Table of contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

1. An Approach to the Subject of Dreams

What Features Make Dreams Particularly Interesting? Defining a Dream "Avenues" to the Dream Historical Development of Dream Research

2. Methods of Dream Sampling

Collecting Spontaneously Remembered Dreams Eliciting Dreams by Awakening Dreams Collected in the Laboratory Experimental Impact on Dreams

3. Methods of Dream Evaluation

Evaluating Formal Dream Characteristics Determining Content and Qualitative Dream Attributes Reliability of Dream Evaluation

4. Recalling Dreams

Physiological Elements of Dream Recall Psychological Elements of Dream Memory Qualities of Dream Memory Complexity of Dream Memory

5. The Language of Dreams

Perceptions in Dreams Thinking in Dreams Emotions in Dreams The Bizarre in Dreams

6. The Content of Dreams

Variety of Dream Contents The Role of the Dreamer Dream Scenarios

7. Dreams in Different Sleep Stages

Dreams During Sleep Onset Non-REM Dreaming REM Dreams Similarities and Differences

8. Sources of Dreams

Temporal References in Dreams Impact of Pre-Sleep Experiences on the Dream Stimulus Incorporation into Dreams

9. Dreamers and Their Worlds

Children's Dreams 'Female' and 'Male' Dreams

10. Dreams and Waking: A Continuity

Interrelatedness of Dreams of the Same Night Waking Fantasies and Dreams Awake and Dreaming: Individual Continuity

11. In Search of Dreams: A Summing Up

Bibliography

A scientifically sound and thoroughly comprehensible account of what laboratory study has revealed about dreams and dreaming.

Frontiers for Young Minds

Frontiers for Young Minds

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The Science of Dreams

research on dreams books

Dreams are a common experience. Some are scary, some are funny. Recent research into how the brain works helps us understand why we dream. Strange combinations of ideas in our dreams may make us more creative and give us ideas that help us to solve problems. Or, when memories from the day are repeated in the brain during sleep, memories may get stronger. Dreams may also improve our moods. Together, these studies show that dreams and sleep are important for performing well when we are awake.

When she was 8, my daughter told me about one of her dreams. She was in a spaceship with some animals. Although she knew she was in a spaceship in her dream, when telling me about the dream, she realized the spaceship was actually a washing machine. At times, she and the animals would be out in space, but they also came back to earth. She told me the dream with a laugh and then moved on with her day, ignoring the crazy animals and spaceships that entertained her in her sleep.

Since we remember our dreams and then often forget them, what is their purpose? Why do we dream about the things we do? New research tools, particularly those that can be used to investigate the brain, are being used to answer these questions.

What Are Dreams?

Although it is hard to define what a dream is, for the purpose of this article, we will define dreams as our thoughts during sleep that we recall when we wake up. So, sleeping dreams are not the same as “daydreaming.” Dreams are mostly visual (made up of scenes and faces; sound, taste, and smell are rare in dreams [ 1 ]). Dreams can range from truly strange to rather boring, snapshots from a recent event.

To study dreams, scientists need a measure of dreaming. Most studies use dream reports (a person writes out her dreams when she wakes up) or questionnaires (a person answers questions like “How many dreams have you recalled in the past month?” [ 2 ]). Dreams are more likely to be recalled when a person is woken up from REM sleep. REM sleep is a type of sleep that is named for the rapid eye movements that can be measured during this stage of sleep. We do not dream as much in non-REM sleep, the sleep stages that make up the rest of the night, and dream reports from non-REM sleep are often less strange.

Dream frequency (how often dreams happen) and content (what dreams are about) is very different for everyone, and there are many reasons why this may be true. For example, you will remember dreams more if you are woken up by someone or by an alarm clock. This might be because you can still recall that dream memory while it is fresh but, if you wake up on your own, you will transition through a few sleep stages and possibly lose that dream memory. Dream recall changes with age, too. Older people are less likely to report dreaming. This could also be related to memory: since older people have weaker memories, it could be that they dream but cannot remember their dreams by the time they wake up. A brain area called the medial prefrontal cortex is also related to dream recall. If this brain area is damaged, the person recalls few dreams, which may mean the person dreams less (or not at all). Also, how tightly packed the brain cells are in the medial prefrontal cortex can vary from person to person, which may cause some healthy people to dream more or less than other healthy people. There are also genes that affect how much REM sleep people get. People with less REM sleep may not have the strange dreams that tend to come in REM. So, how long you sleep, your age, and your genetics may all explain why you dream more or less than someone else.

Do dreams actually happen while we sleep, or are they ideas that come to us when we wake up and we just “feel” like it happened during sleep? A recent study using a type of brain imaging called magnetic resonance imaging or (MRI: Read more in the Young Minds article “How Is Magnetic Resonance Imaging Used to Learn About the Brain?” [ 3 ]) helped answer this question ( Figure 1A ). The scientists made maps of the brain activity that occurred when people looked at pictures of things—keys, beds, airplanes. Later, the people in the study slept in the MRI machine. The scientists matched the pattern of brain activity from the people as they slept to brain activity patterns for the pictures they viewed earlier, and then chose the best match ( Figures 1B,C ). This match predicted what the person said they dreamed about 60% of the time. Although 60% is not perfect, it is better than guessing! [ 4 ]. This means that dreams are created in the brain during sleep.

Figure 1 - (A) Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a way to investigate the brain.

  • Figure 1 - (A) Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a way to investigate the brain.
  • The person lies on a bed inside a giant magnet. (B) MRI can measure the structure of the brain and the areas of the brain that are active. (C) MRI was used to measure dreaming. First, while the participant was awake, they viewed thousands of pictures in the MRI. This told scientists the specific brain responses to specific pictures. Later, when the participant slept in the MRI, scientists measured the brain activity patterns and matched this to the brain responses to the pictures the participant saw when they were awake. Scientists guessed that the best match would tell them what the participant was dreaming about. By asking the participant about their dreams in the MRI, scientists found that the dreams did tend to match the pictures predicted by the brain activity.

Dreams Support Memories

What is the purpose of our dreams? Researchers have found that sleep is important for memory (see this Frontiers for Young Minds article ; “Thanks for the Memories…” [ 5 ]). Memories move from temporary storage in the hippocampus , a brain structure that is very important for short-term memory, to permanent storage in other parts of the brain. This makes the memories easier to remember later. Memories improve with sleep because the memories are replayed during sleep [ 6 ]. If you want to learn all the words to your favorite scene in a movie, you might re-watch that scene over and over again. The brain works the same way: neurons (brain cells) that are active with learning are active again and replay the learned material during sleep. This helps store the memory more permanently.

Memory replay may show up in our dreams. Dreams in non-REM sleep, when most memory replay happens, often contain normal people and objects from recent events. However, sleep switches between non-REM and REM sleep (see Figure 2 ). So, bizarre dreams in REM sleep may come from a combination of many different recent memories, which were replayed in non-REM sleep, and get jumbled up during REM sleep. If dreams help with memory processing, does that mean your memories are not being processed if you do not dream? No. Memories are moving to storage even if we do not dream.

Figure 2 - There are four types of sleep—REM sleep (purple) and three stages of non-REM sleep (blue).

  • Figure 2 - There are four types of sleep—REM sleep (purple) and three stages of non-REM sleep (blue).
  • REM stands for rapid eye movements, which happen during this stage of sleep. During REM sleep, muscle and brain activity also differ from other sleep stages. Characteristics of dreams tend to be different for each of these sleep stages.

Dreams Improve Creativity and Problem Solving

My daughter’s dream of a spaceship made a great story that she recited to me, and later, to her classmates. The images were intense and interesting, inspiring her to draw scenes in a notebook and write about the dream for school. This is an example of how dreams can help make us more creative. Mary Shelley, the author of the book Frankenstein, got the idea for her book from a dream. Even scientists get ideas from dreams [ 7 ].

To measure creative problem solving, scientists used a remote associates task, in which three unrelated words are shown, and the person is to come up with a word they have in common. For instance, HEART, SIXTEEN, and COOKIES seem unrelated until you realize they all are related to SWEET (sweetheart, sweet sixteen, and cookies are sweet) ( Figure 3 ). The scientists wanted to see whether sleep helped people do better on this task. They found that people were better at thinking of the remote solution if they had a nap, particularly a nap with REM sleep. Given that REM is when most bizarre dreaming occurs, this supports the idea that these dreams might help us find creative solutions to problems [ 8 ].

Figure 3 - REM sleep helps people find creative solutions.

  • Figure 3 - REM sleep helps people find creative solutions.
  • In the morning, participants did two tasks to test creativity and problem solving (A) . They did one task again in the afternoon. In between, they either stayed awake (“wake” group) or took a nap. Those that took naps either did not have REM sleep in their nap (“nREM” group) or had both nREM and REM sleep (“nREM + REM” group). (B) If subjects stayed awake between the morning and afternoon tests (yellow bar), they did not improve on the task. They also did not improve if they had a nap that was only nREM sleep (light blue bar). But, if they had a nap with both nREM and REM sleep, they did better in the afternoon compared with when they did the task in the morning (dark blue bar). So, REM sleep must help us find creative solutions (from Cai et al. [ 8 ]).

This study and research like it gives us reason to believe that REM dreams may help us be more creative and solve problems. Many different memories may be activated at the same time and when these memories are mixed together, the result when we wake up may be both the memory of a strange dream and a unique perspective on problems.

Dreams Regulate Our Moods and Emotions

Dreams are usually emotional. One study found that most dreams are scary, angry, or sad.

Dreams might seem to be emotional simply because we tend to remember emotional things better than non-emotional things. For example, in waking life, the day you got a puppy is more memorable than a normal school day. So, dreams about emotional events might be remembered more easily than boring, non-emotional dreams. It is also possible that dreams are emotional because one job of dreams is to help us process emotions from our day [ 9 ]. This may be why the amygdala , an area of the brain that responds to emotions when we are awake, is active during REM sleep. If you had a sad day, you are more likely to have sad dreams. But, sleep also improves mood–sleep after a disagreement or sad event will make you happier.

Dreams could also help prepare us for emotional events, through something called threat simulation theory [ 10 ]. For example, when I dreamt that my young daughter, who could not swim, fell into a swimming pool, recall of that dream convinced me to sign her up for swim lessons. By simulating this fearful situation, I could prevent it by being prepared.

These studies show us that sleep and dreams are important for our emotions. By processing emotions in sleep, we may be better prepared and in a better mood the next day.

Conclusions

There are different ways scientists measure dreams—from asking questions to using MRI. These studies show us that activity in the brain while we sleep gives us the interesting dreams we recall when we wake up. These dreams help us remember things, be more creative, and process our emotions.

We know most kids do not get enough sleep. Some diseases (like Alzheimer’s disease) also make people sleep less, while others (like REM sleep behavior disorder and mood disorders) affect dreams directly. It is important to study sleep and dreams to understand what happens when we do not get enough sleep and how we can treat people with these diseases.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Rapid Eye Movement (REM) : ↑ A stage of sleep in which the eyes move rapidly and there is no muscle activity.

Medial Prefrontal Cortex : ↑ A specific area in the front of the brain that is associated with dream recall but also has a role in memory and decision-making.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) : ↑ A tool used to take pictures of internal body parts (including the brain). MRI can also be used to measure the activity in the brain.

Hippocampus : ↑ An area in the brain that is thought to be important for short-term memory.

Neuron : ↑ A cell in the nervous system (brain and spinal cord) that can transmit information to other cells.

Amygdala : ↑ An area of the brain involved in the experience of emotions.

Threat Simulation Theory : ↑ A theory of dreaming that says that threats (things that could be bad) are simulated or practiced in your dreams to prepare you for those situations when you are awake.

1. ↑ Zandra, A. L., Nielsen, T. A., and Donderi, D. C. 1998. Prevalence of auditory, olfactory, and gustatory experiences in home dreams. Percept. Mot. Skills 87:819–26.

2. ↑ Schredl, M. 2002. Questionnaires and diaries as research instruments in dream research: methodological issues. Dreaming 12:17–26. doi: 10.1023/A:1013890421674

3. ↑ Hoyos, P., Kim, N., and Kastner, S. 2019. How Is Magnetic Resonance Imaging Used to Learn About the Brain? Front. Young Minds . 7:86. doi: 10.3389/frym.2019.00086

4. ↑ Horikawa, T., Tamaki, M., Miyawaki, Y., and Kamitani, T. 2013. Neural decoding of visual imagery during sleep. Science 340:639–42. doi: 10.1126/science.1234330

5. ↑ Davachi, L., and Shohamy, D. 2014. Thanks for the Memories.… Front. Young Minds. 2:23. doi: 10.3389/frym.2014.00023

6. ↑ O’Neill, J., Senior, T. J., Allen, K., Huxter, J. R., and Csicsvari, J. 2008. Reactivation of experience-dependent cell assembly patterns in the hippocampus. Nat. Neurosci . 11:209–15. doi: 10.1038/nn2037

7. ↑ Barrett, D. 2001. The Committee of Sleep: How artists, scientists, and athletes use dreams for creative problem-solving–and How You Can Too . New York, NY: Crown.

8. ↑ Cai, D. J., Mednick, S. A., Harrison, E. M., Kanady, J. C., and Mednick, S. C. 2009. REM, not incubation, improves creativity by priming associative networks. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A . 106:10130–4. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0900271106

9. ↑ Cremone, A., Kurdziel, L. B. F., Fraticelli, A., McDermott, J., and Spencer, R. M. C. 2017. Napping reduces emotional attention bias during early childhood. Dev. Sci . 20:e12411. doi: 10.1111/desc.12411

10. ↑ Revonsuo, A. 2000. The reinterpretation of dreams: an evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming. Behav. Brain Sci . 23:877–901. doi: 10.1017/s0140525x00004015

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Dreaming: A Conceptual Framework for Philosophy of Mind and Empirical Research

Dreaming: A Conceptual Framework for Philosophy of Mind and Empirical Research

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Are dreams conscious experiences occurring during sleep? What exactly would it mean to say that they are? How does the concept of dreaming fit into the framework of concepts commonly used to describe conscious wake states? And how can the analysis of dreaming inform a philosophical theory of subjective experience and self-consciousness? The book proposes a conceptual framework for describing conscious experience in dreams and sketches preliminary answers to these – and many more - questions along the way. In doing so, it draws from different sources, of which the most important are the discussion of dreaming in the history of Western philosophy; contemporary philosophical work on dreaming; scientific research on sleep and dreaming; and scientific research on related areas such as mind wandering, bodily experience, full-body illusions, delusions, and self-consciousness. Its primary aim is to (re)locate the concept of dreaming on the map of concepts commonly used to describe standard and altered wake states and to shed light on the relationship between dreaming and waking perception, but also between dreaming and imagining, mind wandering, and delusions. A secondary aim is to provide an introduction to the philosophical discussion on dreaming and scientific dream research. The book gives a comprehensive overview of the philosophical discussion on dreaming in different historical periods, theoretical contexts and philosophical subdisciplines. It also investigates how the philosophical discussion of dreaming and scientific dream research have mutually influenced each other since the discovery of REM sleep.

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Dreams and How to Guide Them

Dreams and How to Guide Them

The Legendary Dream Control Manual

by Marquis d'Hervey de Saint-Denys

Introduction by Phil Baker

  • $25.00 Paperback

352 pp. , 6 x 9 in , 1 color illus., 20 b&w illus.

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  • Description

The first unabridged English translation of a classic work on dreams by an author regarded as the father of lucid dreaming.

First published anonymously in 1867, Dreams and How to Guide Them is the lost classic of lucid dreaming—that is, the art of becoming aware that one is dreaming and then continuing to dream, whether to fly, have erotic encounters, or just explore the dream world further. It has long been a rare and legendary work. Freud knew of it, but never managed to find a copy, and surrealist André Breton begins his own book The Communicating Vessels by discussing it. This is the first complete English translation—there was a heavily abridged edition in 1982, much-loved and also rare—and it is now published to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Hervey de Saint-Denys.

This new edition is edited and introduced by Phil Baker, who traces the author's life and connects his work with Tibetan Buddhist dream practices, and surrealism, as well as to more recent research in lucid dreaming.

The Marquis d'Hervey de Saint-Denys (1822–1892) was a French sinologist also known for his research on dreams. He is today regarded as the father of lucid dreaming.

Phil Baker is a writer based in London. His books include The Devil Is a Gentleman: The Life and Times of Dennis Wheatley and Austin Osman Spare: The Life and Legend of London's Lost Artist (Strange Attractor), called by Alan Moore “little short of marvelous.”

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The Neurocognitive Theory of Dreaming

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Histories of Dreams and Dreaming pp 247–274 Cite as

History of Dream Research: Categorizations and Empirical Findings

  • Giorgia Morgese 6 &
  • Giovanni Pietro Lombardo 6  
  • First Online: 14 June 2019

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Part of the Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology book series (PSHST)

This chapter presents empirical research using the historiometric method to isolate the specific categories and periodization of studies on dreams and dreaming from the late nineteenth century through the first half of the twentieth century. The methodology adopted combines deductive logic in the construction of a historiographical hypothesis with inductive reasoning, thereby arriving at a correct procedure to interpret the empirical data.

The aim of this study is to highlight the attention of general psychology to dream reality and the important role of a psychological model as the main research approach in this field.

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The French psychologist and physiologist Henri-Étienne Beaunis (1830–1931) published a review of Foucault’s work in 1904.

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Morgese, G., Pietro Lombardo, G. (2019). History of Dream Research: Categorizations and Empirical Findings. In: Morgese, G., Pietro Lombardo, G., Vande Kemp, H. (eds) Histories of Dreams and Dreaming. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16530-7_10

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Sharon Bober

Associate Professor of Psychiatry , Harvard Medical School

Bober, the founding director of the Sexual Health Program at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, picked “Come As You Are” by sex educator Emily Nagoski, calling it “one of the most delightful, accessible, and deeply useful resources about sexual desire out there. It is an eye-opener for both individuals and couples who want to understand how love, sex, emotion, brain chemistry, and social context are all essentially connected to the experience of desire.” 

“It is an eye-opener for both individuals and couples who want to understand how love, sex, emotion, brain chemistry, and social context are all essentially connected to the experience of desire.”  Sharon Bober, about “Come As You Are” by Emily Nagoski

Book cover: "Hamnet."

Carol S. Steiker

Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law

“During the pandemic, I read a lot, but for a while I lost the pleasure in it,” said Steiker, who also serves as Harvard Law School’s special adviser for public service. “What broke the dry spell for me was Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel ‘ Hamnet .’ The story draws on facts from Shakespeare’s life to imagine his marriage and his inspiration for writing ‘Hamlet.’  

“Stop reading this if you haven’t read the book, because — spoiler ahead. After Shakespeare’s son Hamnet (a name interchangeable in Elizabethan England with Hamlet) dies, Shakespeare brings him back to life in the young prince Hamlet.

“Shakespeare’s wife unexpectedly comes to London and sees a performance of the play, and the couple, isolated in their separate grief, are drawn together. The love of parents for children and the way in which shared parental love binds a couple to one another are so beautifully rendered.”

Book cover: "Frankissstein."

Patrick Goodsell

Properties Carpenter , American Repertory Theater

Goodsell chose Jeanette Winterson’s “Frankissstein: A Love Story,” “a narrative that oscillates between Mary Shelley writing ‘Frankenstein’ in 1816 and Ry Shelley, a transgender doctor in the present, as they both navigate love and the question of what it means to be human.”

“Slow burn, enemies to lovers, humor and hijinks, pulls at your heartstrings … What more can you ask for?” Madeleine Wright, about “You Deserve Each Other” by Sarah Hogle

Book cover: "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh."

Alexander Rehding

Fanny Peabody Professor of Music

Michael Chabon’s “extraordinary first novel, ‘The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,’” was the theorist and musicologist’s pick. “When it came out, in 1988, I was 18, and the summer of love and adventure during which the story is set really resonated with me at the time — and has stayed with me ever since.”

Book cover: "Beach Read."

Madeleine Wright

Marketing and PR Coordinator , American Repertory Theater

Wright had four picks: “ Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin, which she describes as “a portrait of two Harvard students, inexorably tied to each other through unimaginable pain and extraordinary joy. Sadie and Sam are the epitome of platonic soulmates.” “ This Time Tomorrow,” by Emma Straub: “Heartfelt and singular, this novel’s portrayal of the love between a father and daughter will prompt you to pick up the phone and call your loved ones the moment you stop crying.” “ Beach Read,” by Emily Henry: “This novel is exactly what it claims to be — a feel-good, lighthearted love story with a literary bent and charming characters who will stick with you long after its close.” And finally, “ You Deserve Each Other,” by Sarah Hogle: “Slow burn, enemies to lovers, humor and hijinks, pulls at your heartstrings … What more can you ask for?”

Book cover: "The Lover."

Barbara Claire Lindstrom

Receptionist and Volunteer Coordinator , American Repertory Theater

To explain her pick, “The Lover” by Marguerite Duras, Lindstrom simply quoted from the lush seductive work: “One day, I was already old, in the entrance of a public place a man came up to me. He introduced himself and said, ‘I’ve known you for years. Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you’re more beautiful now than then. Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer your face as it is now. Ravaged.’”

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Berlin: why literary adaptations like ‘robot dreams’ are thriving in spain.

From a current Oscar nominee to streaming hits like Netflix’s 'Through My Window,' filmmakers and audiences alike can’t seem to get enough of the Spanish book-to-film pipeline.

By Jennifer Green

Jennifer Green

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Cannes Special Screenings Robot Dreams

Orson Welles famously started but never finished an adaptation in Spain of  Don Quixote , Miguel de Cervantes’ beloved 17th-century novel. Terry Gilliam’s first attempt to shoot his take on  Quixote  fell apart so spectacularly in 2000 that it resulted in a widely viewed “unmaking-of” documentary titled, grimly,  Lost in La Mancha . 

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Spanish literature — and its literary figures — have been inspiring filmmakers since the dawn of cinema. According to a now-defunct Cervantes Virtual Library database, considered incomplete by some accounts, in Spain almost 1,200 literary adaptations were produced or co-produced between 1905 and 2013.

Today, “the interest in books for possible film adaptations has been increasing year after year,” according to Anna Soler-Pont, founder and director of Barcelona-based Pontas Literary and Film Agency, which has been in the business for more than three decades and represents authors on five continents.

Recent successes are fueling competition for source material, particularly in certain genres, while directors and producers say they’re being approached by publishers earlier than ever before. “In the last 10 years, there have been more and more literary adaptations,” affirms director Isabel Coixet, the European Film Academy’s 2023 European Achievement in World Cinema Award winner.

“In the last month, I think I’ve been offered five adaptations from different countries,” Coixet says, “and I thought I was never going to do another adaptation!” Coixet’s most recent drama,  Un Amor , was based on the best-selling novel by Sara Mesa, and in 2017 she won a best international literary adaptation prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair (as well as top Goya Awards) for her adaptation of author Penelope Fitzgerald’s  The Bookshop .

Directors find inspiration in all kinds of stories. Pablo Berger, whose graphic novel-inspired animated feature  Robot Dreams  recently won best adapted script and animated feature Goyas and is now nominated for an Oscar, describes discovering American author Sara Varon’s wordless book when his daughter was a toddler learning to read. 

Years later, he recalls, “I was having a coffee in my office and procrastinating, and I took out the book and read it again, and again I was fascinated. I thought it was funny, unique, surreal. When I got to the end, I was completely, deeply moved.” In that moment, he says, he envisioned the film he would make.

For producers, adaptations can be “a safer bet,” as Coixet puts it, “because there’s something to start with. It’s not just an idea or a plot you’re presenting. A book has a structure, a plot, characters, themes, and for a producer or a platform or whoever is going to finance a film, there is something to start with.”

A book can also come with a built-in audience. “Having an IP behind any project always makes it attractive when it comes to production,” ventures screenwriter Arturo Ruiz Serrano, who collaborated on the script for HBO Max’s upcoming book-based series  When Nobody Sees Us . “If a story has worked among readers, why wouldn’t it do so on screens?”

Robot Dreams  producer Sandra Tapia Díaz of Barcelona-based Arcadia Motion Pictures says 40 to 50 percent of their productions are adaptations of published works, plays or real stories. “A producer can like a story and two things can happen: either the story isn’t a big commercial success, which doesn’t mean it’s better or worse, or it can be a sales success, in which case you’re adapting a novel that has a community of readers, and that obviously becomes an important marketing element.”

For example, when word got out that a first-ever adaptation in Spanish of a Wattpad tale, writer Ariana Godoy’s  Through My Window , was in the works, “social networks lit up and the phenomenon began to grow exponentially,” says Nostromo’s Núria Valls, producer on what is now a franchise on Netflix. The first installment sat on the streamer’s global non-English top 10 list for a whopping 16 weeks. The third installment,  Through My Window: Looking at You , premieres on the platform Feb.  23. 

Producers don’t want to miss out, and manuscripts are increasingly selling before publication. Spanish novelist Dolores Redondo’s noir  Baztán Trilogy  was optioned based on the first book — before publication, and before the next two installments were even written, according to Soler-Pont. All three adaptations —  The Invisible Guardian ,  The Legacy of the Bones  and  Offering to the Storm  — are currently streaming on Netflix. 

Going a step further, Soler-Pont says she optioned the rights to Syrian refugee Sama Helalli’s Spanish-language, female-led crime thriller  Operation Kerman  to “a big platform” before the work even has a publisher attached (the audio book is available on Audible). “Maybe when this is out there, or when shooting starts, maybe then we’ll have a publishing house interested.”

Coixet and producer Raffaella Leone currently hold the rights to  The Lost Daughter  author Elena Ferrante’s  The Days of Abandonment , a project with Penélope Cruz long attached. An English-language Cruz-Coixet-Leone-Ferrante combo would certainly have international appeal. That’s an obvious plus for producers looking for content — especially at the streaming platforms, which account for more than a third of global content investment in Spain, higher than in any other European territory, according to the 2022-23 European Audiovisual Observatory yearbook.

The streamers have shown particular interest in genre content from Spain, especially true crime, thrillers and young adult romances. HBO Max’s eight-episode  When Nobody Sees Us , based on Sergio Sarria’s novel, is a thriller set against Seville’s atmospheric Holy Week processions. Enrique Urbizu is directing from the script by Daniel Corpas, Ruiz Serrano and Isa Sánchez.

In addition to the  Through My Window  franchise, the platform has also seen huge success with several series based on romance novels by popular author Elísabet Benavent, including 2023’s  A Perfect Story  and  Sounds Like Love , both of which sat on the global top 10 for multiple weeks.

Amazon has its own ongoing mix of young romances ( My Fault , based on a trilogy of books by Mercedes Ron) and thrillers, including the feature  Apocalypse Z , based on a book by Manel Loureiro, and two series adapted from best-selling books by Juan Gómez-Jurado: The seven-episode  Red Queen , premiering globally Feb. 29, and eight-part revenge thriller  Scar , currently shooting in Bilbao.

Martin Scorsese, who recently gave a talk at Spain’s Film Academy, is taking an executive producer credit on Rodrigo Cortés’  Escape , in production at Nostromo and based on a book by Enrique Rubio. Valls says a final edit was recently completed, with Scorsese’s approval.

A film or series adaptation can also give back to its source material. Since the release of  Un Amor  in Spain, Coixet says sales on Mesa’s book, originally published in 2020 by Anagrama, have taken off again. 

Still, not every author wants to see their work adapted to the screen. Soler-Pont cites best-selling Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafón, who died in 2020: “He never sold the rights because he didn’t want to be a ‘traitor’ to his readers,” she says.

“We all know bad adaptations,” notes Ruiz Serrano. “And there are also authors who are more complicated to adapt — Faulkner or Virginia Woolf, for example. But we continue adapting literature to cinema. And that will go on.”

Readers can also be critical of adaptations. “When you adapt a novel, it is very difficult to be 100 percent faithful to the text,” says Ruiz Serrano. “They are different languages. In screenplays, you write with images and dialogue. And unless you use voiceover, you cannot enter the thoughts and reflections of your characters.”

Coixet similarly underscores that a screenwriter must “capture the essence” of the story and characters via “cinematic ideas.” For example, on  Un Amor , she says she incorporated “a thousand tiny, physical details” to get across ideas from the book, in addition to inventing character context not in the book.

Soler-Pont suggests genre-oriented thrillers and crime fiction are “co-existing” on page and screen in Spain with “arty, small, quiet stories.” “A request I’ve been receiving this past month is, ‘Do you have a book similar to  20,000 Species of Bees ?’ ” (The critical and art-house darling from Spain premiered last year in Berlin, winning a Silver Bear for its 9-year-old star.)

Experts also see adaptations in Spain becoming more diverse and moving beyond the high-brow literary classics of yesteryear. “Despite the ongoing presence of Cervantes and García Lorca, cinema has moved away from the literary canon” popular for adaptations in the 20th century, and toward more recent publications as well as younger writers, says University of Salamanca history of cinema professor Fernando González García.

Fellow professor of film adaptation at the University of Málaga, Rafael Malpartida, who edits an academic journal focused on the interchanges between film and literature, points to the same trends of “de-canonization” and diversification of literary sources, as well as “self-adapting” by “playwrights who practice cinema” and “filmmakers who practice dramaturgy.” 

For Soler-Pont, too, the past few years have brought a “fascinating dialogue between literature and screens. I have this feeling that nobody is writing a novel now without audiovisual or film references, so writers are changing their way of writing more and more. And in the film industry, people are reading a lot. I’ve never had more interesting conversations on literature than the ones I have been having with producers.” 

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Reproductive rights in America

Research at the heart of a federal case against the abortion pill has been retracted.

Selena Simmons-Duffin

Selena Simmons-Duffin

research on dreams books

The Supreme Court will hear the case against the abortion pill mifepristone on March 26. It's part of a two-drug regimen with misoprostol for abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images hide caption

The Supreme Court will hear the case against the abortion pill mifepristone on March 26. It's part of a two-drug regimen with misoprostol for abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.

A scientific paper that raised concerns about the safety of the abortion pill mifepristone was retracted by its publisher this week. The study was cited three times by a federal judge who ruled against mifepristone last spring. That case, which could limit access to mifepristone throughout the country, will soon be heard in the Supreme Court.

The now retracted study used Medicaid claims data to track E.R. visits by patients in the month after having an abortion. The study found a much higher rate of complications than similar studies that have examined abortion safety.

Sage, the publisher of the journal, retracted the study on Monday along with two other papers, explaining in a statement that "expert reviewers found that the studies demonstrate a lack of scientific rigor that invalidates or renders unreliable the authors' conclusions."

It also noted that most of the authors on the paper worked for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of anti-abortion lobbying group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and that one of the original peer reviewers had also worked for the Lozier Institute.

The Sage journal, Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology , published all three research articles, which are still available online along with the retraction notice. In an email to NPR, a spokesperson for Sage wrote that the process leading to the retractions "was thorough, fair, and careful."

The lead author on the paper, James Studnicki, fiercely defends his work. "Sage is targeting us because we have been successful for a long period of time," he says on a video posted online this week . He asserts that the retraction has "nothing to do with real science and has everything to do with a political assassination of science."

He says that because the study's findings have been cited in legal cases like the one challenging the abortion pill, "we have become visible – people are quoting us. And for that reason, we are dangerous, and for that reason, they want to cancel our work," Studnicki says in the video.

In an email to NPR, a spokesperson for the Charlotte Lozier Institute said that they "will be taking appropriate legal action."

Role in abortion pill legal case

Anti-abortion rights groups, including a group of doctors, sued the federal Food and Drug Administration in 2022 over the approval of mifepristone, which is part of a two-drug regimen used in most medication abortions. The pill has been on the market for over 20 years, and is used in more than half abortions nationally. The FDA stands by its research that finds adverse events from mifepristone are extremely rare.

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, the district court judge who initially ruled on the case, pointed to the now-retracted study to support the idea that the anti-abortion rights physicians suing the FDA had the right to do so. "The associations' members have standing because they allege adverse events from chemical abortion drugs can overwhelm the medical system and place 'enormous pressure and stress' on doctors during emergencies and complications," he wrote in his decision, citing Studnicki. He ruled that mifepristone should be pulled from the market nationwide, although his decision never took effect.

research on dreams books

Matthew Kacsmaryk at his confirmation hearing for the federal bench in 2017. AP hide caption

Matthew Kacsmaryk at his confirmation hearing for the federal bench in 2017.

Kacsmaryk is a Trump appointee who was a vocal abortion opponent before becoming a federal judge.

"I don't think he would view the retraction as delegitimizing the research," says Mary Ziegler , a law professor and expert on the legal history of abortion at U.C. Davis. "There's been so much polarization about what the reality of abortion is on the right that I'm not sure how much a retraction would affect his reasoning."

Ziegler also doubts the retractions will alter much in the Supreme Court case, given its conservative majority. "We've already seen, when it comes to abortion, that the court has a propensity to look at the views of experts that support the results it wants," she says. The decision that overturned Roe v. Wade is an example, she says. "The majority [opinion] relied pretty much exclusively on scholars with some ties to pro-life activism and didn't really cite anybody else even or really even acknowledge that there was a majority scholarly position or even that there was meaningful disagreement on the subject."

In the mifepristone case, "there's a lot of supposition and speculation" in the argument about who has standing to sue, she explains. "There's a probability that people will take mifepristone and then there's a probability that they'll get complications and then there's a probability that they'll get treatment in the E.R. and then there's a probability that they'll encounter physicians with certain objections to mifepristone. So the question is, if this [retraction] knocks out one leg of the stool, does that somehow affect how the court is going to view standing? I imagine not."

It's impossible to know who will win the Supreme Court case, but Ziegler thinks that this retraction probably won't sway the outcome either way. "If the court is skeptical of standing because of all these aforementioned weaknesses, this is just more fuel to that fire," she says. "It's not as if this were an airtight case for standing and this was a potentially game-changing development."

Oral arguments for the case, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA , are scheduled for March 26 at the Supreme Court. A decision is expected by summer. Mifepristone remains available while the legal process continues.

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The Most Profitable Places to Own a Short-Term Rental

The housing market remains tight, but the price of entry is surprisingly low in many profitable vacation areas.

By Michael Kolomatsky

Finding a home has been so difficult lately. Is it worth buying one as a short-term rental? Yes — but not everywhere — suggests a report from AirDNA.

Revenues for short-term rentals faded in 2023 after two years of intense growth, but researchers at AirDNA expect those revenues to grow again in 2024. To locate the 25 best places in the country to buy a short-term rental, they created an “updated index” of Airbnb and Vrbo rental data for full single-family homes (the source of this week’s chart).

What may surprise you is that vacation homes in profitable areas are not always expensive. The typical home price (derived from the Zillow Home Value Index in December 2023) was found to be about $160,000 or less in two of the 25 areas on the list; under $250,000 in seven; and under December’s national median home price (roughly $418,000) in 17.

“A big piece of this is the big run-up of home values in the more traditional vacation rental markets that were also very attractive for people to live and work remotely during the pandemic,” said Jamie Lane, chief economist at AirDNA. In other words, higher demand in the most coveted vacation areas drove up home prices, cutting into rental profits.

As a result, he said, smaller cities “where we haven’t seen this much home-value appreciation” are reaping higher profits from short-term rentals.

Indeed, pricey areas that are popular as second-home and vacation destinations — Mr. Lane cited Joshua Tree, Calif., Breckenridge, Colo., and California’s Coachella Valley as examples — are conspicuously absent from this year’s list.

The study only considered markets with 500 or more listings. Areas with laws prohibiting short-term rentals were also omitted. To rank each market, 2023 rental demand and revenue growth since 2022 made up half of the score; the other half was based on an “investability” score largely derived by comparing typical home values relative to potential short-term rental profits.

Profitable Vacation Homes

The 25 cities best for investing in a short-term rental and the typical home price in each. Rankings were based on an AirDNA analysis of profits relative to home values, annual revenue growth and rental demand.

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  2. Interpreting Your Own Dreams

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  6. The Complete Book of Dreams : Edwin Raphael : 9780572017149 : Blackwell's

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COMMENTS

  1. The best books on the science of dreams

    Co-written with my long-time friend and fellow sleep and dream researcher, Robert Stickgold, this book debunks common myths about dreams, reveals recent discoveries about the sleeping brain, explains the many ways in which dreams are psychologically and neurologically meaningful, and details how dreams can facilitate creativity and be a source o...

  2. Experimental Research on Dreaming: State of the Art and

    The word "dream" is commonly used to express an unattainable ideal or a very deep and strong desire: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Martin Luther King

  3. The Science Behind Dreaming

    In their study, the researchers found that vivid, bizarre and emotionally intense dreams (the dreams that people usually remember) are linked to parts of the amygdala and hippocampus.

  4. The Scientific Study of Dreams:... by Domhoff, G. William

    The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural Networks, Cognitive Development, and Content Analysis 1st Edition by G. William Domhoff (Author) 4.4 5 ratings See all formats and editions Univ. of California, Santa Cruz.

  5. The science of dreaming, with Deirdre Barrett, PhD

    Barrett has authored several books including Supernormal Stimuli, Waistland, The Committee of Sleep and The Pregnant Man & Other Cases from a Hypnotherapist's Couch and edited The New Science of Dreaming, Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy, The Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreams and Trauma and Dreams.

  6. Reading Dream Literature: Frequency, Influencing Factors, and Self

    Dream books have a very long history, but systematic research on how many people have read magazine articles or books on dreams and whether reading such literature is beneficial to the dreamer is scarce. In the present sample of 444 people (mostly psychology students), about ...

  7. Researching Dreams: The Fundamentals

    This book is an upper-level introductory work on practical and interpretive aspects of conducting research on dreams. This volume includes separate chapters defining dreaming, describing some of the main topics in dreaming research, and instructions for conducting dream content analysis.

  8. Reading dream literature: frequency, influencing factors, and self

    21834407 DOI: 10.5406/amerjpsyc.124.2.0227 Abstract Dream books have a very long history, but systematic research on how many people have read magazine articles or books on dreams and whether reading such literature is beneficial to the dreamer is scarce.

  9. When Brains Dream: Exploring the Science and Mystery of Sleep

    Format Hardcover. ISBN 9781324002833. A comprehensive, eye-opening exploration of what dreams are, where they come from, what they mean, and why we have them. Questions on the origins and meaning of dreams are as old as humankind, and as confounding and exciting today as when nineteenth-century scientists first attempted to unravel them.

  10. Dreaming: A Conceptual Framework for Philosophy of Mind and Empirical

    Dreams, conceived as conscious experience or phenomenal states during sleep, offer an important contrast condition for theories of consciousness and the self. Yet, although there is a wealth of empirical research on sleep and dreaming, its potential contribution to consciousness research and philosophy of mind is largely overlooked.

  11. The Role of Dreams in the Evolution of the Human Mind

    While we all dream (though see Solms, 1997, for an example of neuropsychological patients who do not dream), there is incredible variability in the subjective dream experience ( Hall and Van de Castle, 1966; Spadafora and Hunt, 1990 ).

  12. Dreaming and the brain: from phenomenology to neurophysiology

    It is now possible to start integrating these two strands of research in order to address some fundamental questions that dreams pose for cognitive neuroscience: how conscious experiences in sleep relate to underlying brain activity; why the dreamer is largely disconnected from the environment; and whether dreaming is more closely related to men...

  13. What about dreams? State of the art and open questions

    The personality of a child molester: An analysis of dreams. Aldine Books. [Google Scholar] Berger, R. J. (1963). ... International Journal of Dream Research, 5, 87-93. 10.11588/ijodr.2012.1.9272 [Google Scholar] Jiménez, J. P. (2012). The manifest dream is the real dream: The changing relationship between theory and practice in the ...

  14. The science of dreams

    In his book "The Interpretation of Dreams," Freud famously sets out his theory of dreams as the fulfilment of our unconscious wishes. He expands this theory in a later book called "Dream Psychology," in which he describes the dreams of his patients and explains how to analyze them: What is common in all these dreams is obvious.

  15. Histories of Dreams and Dreaming

    Giorgia Morgese, Giovanni Pietro Lombardo, Hendrika Vande Kemp. Offers new insights into the history of how dreams became the objects of scientific study. Sheds light on an overlooked body of scientific research on dreams from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Appeals to scholars and students interested in dream research, the ...

  16. Our dreams, our selves: automatic analysis of dream reports

    In his book 'Finding meaning in dreams' , ... It contains over 38 000 dream descriptions gathered from a variety of verified sources and research studies. Dream reports are annotated with their dates of recording, which span six decades (from 1960 to 2015), and are linked to free-text descriptions of the dreamers, which contain information ...

  17. In Search of Dreams

    This book presents an overview of the methods and results of laboratory dream research: the collection of dreams under various conditions; different methods of dream evaluation; physiological and psychological factors of dream recall; memory sources of dreams; and dreams in different sleep stages.

  18. The Psychology of Dreams

    This wide-ranging book also discusses such topics as REM studies, the effects of experimental stimulation on dream content, research on dreams and creativity, symbolism, and nightmares. The book explores a number of techniques used to analyze dreams, illustrating these approaches with dream examples and case studies. More ».

  19. The Science of Dreams · Frontiers for Young Minds

    Rebecca M. C. Spencer Young Reviewers Explora Science Center and Children's Museum Stem Girl Ambassadors Abstract Dreams are a common experience. Some are scary, some are funny. Recent research into how the brain works helps us understand why we dream.

  20. Dreaming: A Conceptual Framework for Philosophy of Mind and Empirical

    The book gives a comprehensive overview of the philosophical discussion on dreaming in different historical periods, theoretical contexts and philosophical subdisciplines. It also investigates how the philosophical discussion of dreaming and scientific dream research have mutually influenced each other since the discovery of REM sleep.

  21. Dream Analysis and Interpretation

    Hall Psychologist Calvin S. Hall theorized in the 1950's that dreams were images that represent a person's thoughts or ideas. Hall proposed that dreams are akin to plays or enactments based on the ideas a person has about themself, other people, conflicts, impulses and urges, and their external environment.

  22. Dreams and How to Guide Them

    Collaborating with authors, instructors, booksellers, librarians, and the media is at the heart of what we do as a scholarly publisher. If you can't find the resource you need here, visit our contact page to get in touch. Give. About.

  23. History of Dream Research: Categorizations and Empirical Findings

    Figure 10.1 shows the birth of psychoanalytic studies in 1900 and their increase until 1940, as the presentation of contemporary literature has already emphasized (see Asmar 1999, 18; Schwartz 2000; Vande Kemp 1981).The new data is the attention of general psychology (red line) to the study of dreams, already in evidence from the third decade (1890-1900) with a great development from the ...

  24. How the art world excludes you and what you can do about it

    Bianca Bosker spent five years doing in-depth research for Get the Picture — an irreverent book about "strategic snobbery" in the art world. Author Interviews How the art world excludes you and ...

  25. Audiobook Review: 'Same Bed Different Dreams,' by Ed Park

    "Same Bed Different Dreams," Ed Park's second novel, is a heady mix of true history and high-flying fiction. By Lauren Christensen SAME BED DIFFERENT DREAMS, by Ed Park. Read by Daniel K ...

  26. A Valentine's Day reading list

    Jacqueline Olds and Richard Schwartz. Associate Professors of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School. Married couple and creative partners Olds and Schwartz wrote a book on lasting relationships, "Marriage in Motion." Olds shared the couple's pick: "We loved the Helen Fisher book 'The Anatomy of Love,'" she said."It is a fascinating description of her observations and research, and ...

  27. Why Robot Dreams and Other Book Adaptation Are Popular in Spain

    Berlin: Why Literary Adaptations Like 'Robot Dreams' Are Thriving in Spain. From a current Oscar nominee to streaming hits like Netflix's 'Through My Window,' filmmakers and audiences alike ...

  28. The abortion pill case on its way to the Supreme Court cites a

    A research paper that raises questions about the safety of abortion has been retracted. The research is cited in a federal judge's ruling about the abortion pill mifepristone.

  29. The Most Profitable Places to Own a Short-Term Rental

    The housing market remains tight, but the price of entry is surprisingly low in many profitable vacation areas. By Michael Kolomatsky Finding a home has been so difficult lately. Is it worth ...