May 16, 2023
William Wong, Kátia C. Andrade, Thomas Andrillon et al.
21 citations
preprint
A new open-access database, DREAM, combines sleep magneto/electroencephalography (M/EEG) recordings with standardized dream reports to enable large-scale neurocognitive research on dreaming. The initial release includes 20 datasets from 561 participants and 2649 awakenings, each with at least 20 seconds of high-frequency M/EEG data and a classification of the subject's experience. Analyses demonstrate that features extracted from EEG can predict whether a person reports having had a conscious experience during both REM and NREM sleep. The database aims to overcome the limitations of small sample sizes and methodological variability in dream research, allowing new questions to be addressed at a scale unattainable by individual labs.
Journal of Sleep Research
April 22, 2018
Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub, Elaine Van Rijn, Mairéad Phelan et al.
17 citations
Details from personally significant waking-life events are most likely to appear in REM-sleep dreams on the first two nights after the event and again five to seven nights later, a pattern known as the day-residue and dream-lag effects. In a 14-day diary study with 38 participants, only personally significant events showed this pattern, and only among the 19 participants who had fewer total correspondences between daily events and dreams. Major daily activities and major concerns did not show the effect. The U-shaped timeline may reflect REM-sleep-dependent memory consolidation, possibly linked to emotional memory processing. This study analyzed more dreams than any previous dream-lag study with trained participants.
Nature Communications
August 13, 2025
William Wong, Rubén Herzog, Kátia Cristine Andrade et al.
10 citations
A new open database, the DREAM database, combines standardized sleep magneto/electroencephalography (M/EEG) recordings with dream reports from 505 participants across 20 datasets, totaling 2,643 awakenings. Each awakening includes at least 20 seconds of high-resolution sleep EEG (≥100 Hz, ≥2 electrodes) and a classification of the sleeper's reported experience. Analyses showed that reports of conscious experiences during sleep can be predicted from objective EEG features in both REM and NREM sleep. The database aims to overcome limitations of small sample sizes and methodological variability in dream research, enabling larger-scale investigations of the neurocognitive basis of dreaming.
Journal of Sleep Research
April 1, 2025
Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub, Romain Bouet, Mathieu Pinelli et al.
3 citations
Among 1,151 preteens aged about 11, nearly half recalled dreams several times a week or almost every morning. About 52% had nightmares less than once a month or never, and 45% had lucid dreams at the same low frequency. No gender differences appeared in dream habits. Nocturnal awakenings were linked to all dream variables (recall, nightmares, lucid dreams, emotional intensity). Shorter sleep duration and lower sleep efficiency were associated with more frequent nightmares and stronger dream emotions, but not with dream recall or lucid dream frequency; Bayesian analyses supported these null findings.
Consciousness and Cognition
January 1, 2026
Guillaume Pepin, Hélène Lœvenbruck, Alan Chauvin et al.
Hallucinations and involuntary mental imagery share many features but differ in key ways. In a survey of 1,951 French-speaking adults, involuntary mental imagery occurred more often than hallucinations and was rated as more vivid, emotionally positive, and self-generated. Hallucinations, by contrast, caused greater distress and were perceived as coming from outside the self. Moderate to strong correlations between the two on most dimensions support the idea of a shared experiential continuum, though differences in agency and controllability challenge existing cognitive models of self-monitoring. Refining these distinctions may improve early detection and prevention of distressing internal experiences.
Consciousness and Cognition
February 1, 2018
Elaine Van Rijn, Alexander M Reid, Christopher L Edwards et al.
Daydreams more often incorporate major concerns from the previous two days than from earlier days, supporting a role for daydreams in processing current personal issues. However, personally significant events do not show this day-residue effect in daydreams, and there is no delayed incorporation from 5 to 7 days earlier, unlike what has been found for REM dreams. The study also failed to replicate the previously observed dream-lag effect for REM dreams, possibly due to methodological differences.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2018
Raphael Vallat, Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub, Alain Nicolas et al.
People who frequently recall dreams have denser white matter in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) than those who rarely recall dreams. Using brain scans of 46 high dream recallers (who recalled dreams about six mornings per week) and 46 low dream recallers (who recalled dreams less than once per week), researchers found no differences in gray or white matter density in the temporo-parietal junction, hippocampus, or amygdala. The finding aligns with evidence that damage to MPFC white matter can stop dream reporting, suggesting this region plays a role in dream recall or production.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2017
Raphael Vallat, Tarek Lajnef, Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub et al.
People who frequently recall their dreams show larger brain responses to sounds while awake and asleep and spend more time awake during the night, but their overall sleep structure is similar to that of low dream recallers. In a study of 18 high and 18 low dream recallers, sounds were played during a full night of sleep while brain activity was recorded. No differences in sleep microstructure—such as arousals, eye movements, or muscle twitches—were found between the groups. High recallers had more stimuli that caused awakenings and longer awakenings, but not more frequent or longer arousals.
Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology
June 1, 2014
Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub, Alain Nicolas, Jérôme Daltrozzo et al.
People who frequently recall dreams show higher blood flow in two brain regions—the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC)—both during sleep and while awake, compared with people who rarely recall dreams. High recallers averaged 5.2 dream recalls per week, low recallers 0.5. The findings support the idea that these parts of the default mode network are involved in producing and encoding dreams, not just in recalling them after waking. Increased TPJ activity may also help orient attention to external stimuli and promote brief awakenings that aid memory encoding.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
May 1, 2014
Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub, Olivier Bertrand, Dominique Morlet et al.
People who frequently recall their dreams show different brain reactivity compared to those who rarely recall dreams, both while awake and asleep. In a study of 18 high-recall and 18 low-recall participants, brain responses to hearing first names (ignored during a silent movie or sleep) were measured. During wakefulness, high-recall individuals had larger attention-orienting brain responses (P3a) and a late parietal response. During sleep, differences appeared at the P3a latency during N2 sleep and at later latencies across all sleep stages. These findings indicate that dream recall ability is linked to a particular functional organization of the brain that persists regardless of whether the person is awake or asleep.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2013
Perrine Ruby, Camille Blochet, Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub et al.
People who often remember their dreams (high-recallers, averaging 4.42 dream recalls per week) show a more sustained decrease in alpha brainwave activity (8–12 Hz) in response to hearing their own first name during wakefulness compared to low-recallers (0.25 recalls per week). This alpha decrease, measured at the Pz electrode site 1000–1200 milliseconds after the sound, suggests deeper processing of complex sounds in high-recallers, possibly reflecting a longer release of inhibition in brain regions not needed for the task. No group difference in alpha reactivity was found during REM sleep. High-recallers also experienced more time awake during the night (30 vs. 14 minutes), supporting the idea that trait differences in brain physiology underlie dream recall frequency.
Arna Ghosh, Arthur Dehgan, Tarek Lajnef et al.
People who often remember their dreams and those who rarely do show different brain activity patterns during sleep. Using deep convolutional networks on full-night EEG recordings from 36 subjects (18 high dream recall, 18 low dream recall), the authors trained separate classifiers for each sleep stage to predict which group a person belonged to. The classification accuracies revealed which sleep stages contain the best neural predictors of dream recall rate. A subject discriminator network was added as an adversary to ensure the model learned group-discriminating features rather than subject-specific ones. These features were visualized with a cue-combination Class Activation Map method. The findings are compared with prior studies, and future research directions are discussed.