Dream Catcher

The neuroscience of our night life

by Patrick McNamara

The Neural Code and Dreaming

Advances in machine learning has allowed scientists to build a machine that can learn pairings of neural signatures and sleep images. These machines can now predict dream content based on brain scans obtained during sleep. Read More

Dual Process Theories of Mind and Dreams

Are dreams a product of System 1 information processing structures? Read More

REM Sleep and Suicidal Ideation

REM suppression can temporarily eliminate suicidal thoughts...why is that? Read More

The Fatal Lure of the Continuity Hypothesis

Dreams do not merely reflect our everyday experiences. Instead they produce a unique species of cognition, vital for our lives. Read More

Brain State Transitions and Dreams

Transitions between one sleep state and another produce amazing, sometimes frightening dream content but it is these dreams that are most fascinating for dream researchers. Read More

A New Theory of Dreaming by Hobson and Friston

The dream contributes to developing a virtual reality model of the world. Read More

Dream Apps

Smartphone apps can collect data on dreams from tends of thousands of people and can alter dream content in positive ways Read More

The Romance of Dreams

Ever since Freud people have suspected that dreams are about sex and romance. Now there is good data to suggest that Freud was on to something. Read More

Lucid Dreaming and Lucid Nightmares

Have you ever had a dream where you knew you were dreaming? This unusual state of consciousness is called lucid dreaming. Read More

Frequent Nightmares

There is a popular misconception out there about what causes repetitive nightmares. Most people seem to think that frequent nightmares are caused by some sort of emotional trauma or haunted past. But that is not really the case. Read More

A New Twist on the Genetics of Sleep

In the current issue of PLOS Genetics there is an fascinating paper on the role of the Gnas gene in regulation of REM and NREM sleep. Read More

People Who Do Not Dream

We all know someone who claims never to dream. Although the question has never to my knowledge been definitely answered by science, it appears that there are some people who rarely or never dream or never recall the dreams they have. At least this is what they tell us. Read More

Weak Signals in Dreams

A few nights ago I had a dream wherein I received a phone call from someone important to me. I could barely hear what she had to say; her voice faded in and out and my emotions varied accordingly. I felt as if someone was trying to deliver vital information to me but it was very, very difficult to do so because of the poor reception on the phone. Read More

Myth and Dream

Many people who have enjoyed and studied both myths and dreams have noted how similar they are in so many respects. Both involve narratives about a hero (the dreamer for dreams and some heroic or supernatural character for myths) interacting with fantastic beings in both commonplace and surreal surroundings. In both myth and dream the laws of physics are not always respected. Read More

Possible Worlds in Dreams

We can work with most dreams and learn from them. Read More

The International Association for the Study of Dreams

One way to promote the scientific study of dreams is to join and support an organization that does just that. Take for example the " International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD)" Its website is http://www.asdreams.org Read More

The Unslept Mind: Dreams, Self, and Psychosis

Have you ever gone without sleep for any long period of time? Read More

REM Sleep, Emotional Regulation and Prefrontal Cortex

In an interesting study published recently in Current Biology (van der Helm E, Yao J, Dutt S, Rao V, Saletin JM, Walker MP. REM Sleep Depotentiates Amygdala Activity to Previous Emotional Experiences. Curr Biol. Read More

Sleep Paralysis

Have you ever awakened from a deep sleep and then found that you could not move or speak? You could see and sense things in the room but you could not move. This frightening condition is known as isolated sleep paralysis (ISP). Read More

Psychopharmacology of REM Sleep and Dreams

All the most commonly prescribed drugs for mental and emotional disorders affect dreams—typically via their effects on REM sleep. Under healthy conditions REM sleep ‘turns-on' when activity levels of the biogenic amines (e.g. noradrenaline) decrease and activity levels of acetylcholine increase. Read More

Knowledge from Dreams

Last night I dreamed that I got a call from a potential employer that I had interviewed with some months ago. I remember being handed a phone by someone saying "This call is for you". I could barely hear the caller. It took me a few seconds to recall the voice. Read More

Big Dreams

Have you ever had a dream that stuck with you for months-even years? For some people this might be a dream that seemed to concern a child, for others it was a visitation of a loved one who had died and for still others the big dream might have involved some sort of interaction with a supernatural being that they believed was of God or came from God. Read More

The Continuing Mysteries of REM Sleep

The eminent neuroscientist and expert on REM sleep neurophysiology Jerome Sigel from the University of California at Los Angeles, just published a recent review on state of the art findings on REM sleep entitled "REM Sleep: A biological and psychological paradox" (Siegel, J. 2011. REM Sleep: A biological and psychological paradox. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 15, 139-142). Read More

James Jackson Putnam on the creativity of dreams

James Jackson Putnam (1846-1918) was a Boston neurologist who is known mostly for his unusually courageous advocacy for Freudian psychoanalysis at a time (1905-1918) when Freud's ideas were deeply unpopular in America and considered disreputable and obscene. Read More

Twin Brains and Twin Dreams

The brains of twins are structurally similar to one another and are under relatively tight genetic control. Given the similarity in brain volume and structure of twins' brains should we expect similarity in dream content of twins? I would say yes but there are very little data out there to decide the issue. Read More

Visitation Dreams

If I, an individual who studied dreams with a skeptical scientific cast of mind, could not shake the conviction that I had just communicated with my dead parents, how much stronger must be the conviction of someone with a less skeptical approach to dreams than me? Read More

Religion and Dreams

In his great book ‘The dream in Native American and other primitive cultures' (1935, 2003, Dover books, Mineola, NY) Jackson Steward Lincoln built upon Sir Edward Tylor's suggestions that most religious ideas of people in small-scale traditional societies come from dreams. Read More

How Brain Activity Shapes Dream Recall

In their recent paper in the journal Biological Psychology, Chellappa et al give us some detailed data on what brain activity patterns are associated with both REM (rapid eye movement sleep) dream recall and NREM (non-REM) dream recall. Read More

Sex Dreams

Your slumber may not be filled with as many fantasies as you think. Read More

The Dreams of Men and Women

Men and women dream differently. Women tend to recall their dreams more often than men and women tend to report more frequent and more intense nightmares than men. Men dream more often about other men rather than women, whereas women dream equally often about men and women. For example 67% of characters in men's dreams are other men whereas 48% of characters in women's dreams are other women. Read More

Patrick McNamara, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Neurology at Boston University School of Medicine and the author of numerous books and articles on the science of dreams.

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