How Adversarial REM Dreams May Facilitate Creativity, and Why We Become Aware of Them
Clinical and Translational Neuroscience June 26, 2024 Nicolas Deperrois, Mihai A. Petrovici, Jakob Jordan et al.
Rapid-eye-movement (REM) dreams may function like an adversarial process—similar to generative adversarial networks in artificial intelligence—in which internally generated sensory activity is classified as real by a discriminator network. This adversarial dreaming helps build real-world semantic representations in higher cortical areas, supports learning, balances fantastic and realistic dream elements, and may spark creative insights. Non-REM (NREM) dreams, by contrast, replay single hippocampal memories, improving the robustness of cortical representations to environmental perturbations. The framework also explains differences in awareness of REM versus NREM dreams and how content- and state-awareness arise in wake, dream, and lucid dreaming states.