SLEEP Advances
September 4, 2026
Henderson S Holder, Erin J Wamsley
Abstract Sleep and dreaming have long been hypothesized to serve a functional role in emotion regulation. Here, we investigated how reactivating highly emotional autobiographical memories prior to sleep affects dream content and subsequent emotional appraisal of these memories. Participants (N = 42) completed the Autobiographical Emotional Memory Task (AEMT) prior to bed for three consecutive...
SLEEP Advances
July 8, 2026
Emma Peters, Xinlin Wang, Johanna Heitmann et al.
Abstract Study Objectives Sensory stimulation during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep has been proposed as a method to induce lucidity, yet most approaches rely on distal sensory modalities such as light and sound. We explored whether bodily stimulation targeting the muscle and vestibular systems differentially influences dream incorporation and lucid awareness during REM sleep. Methods 28...
SLEEP Advances
2026
Tony J. Cunningham, Erin J. Wamsley, JD Payne
For the last few decades, Dr. Robert “Bob” Stickgold has led the way in reshaping our understanding of sleep through his influential studies and theoretical frameworks. His work has established sleep as an active component of memory consolidation, in which reactivation and dreaming foster the selective stabilization, abstraction, and integration of waking experiences, optimizing our cognitive...
SLEEP Advances
March 8, 2025
Westley Youngren, Adam Haar Horowitz, Victoria West Staples et al.
4 citations
Abstract This preliminary study investigates the potential for a technique that enables purposeful guiding of dream content (Targeted Dream Incubation; TDI) to change the degree to which an individual feels in control of their dreams (Dream Self-Efficacy; DSE). DSE is a subset of a larger concept of self-efficacy relating to one’s belief in their own abilities and competencies. Examining DSE...
SLEEP Advances
2025
Anne Richards, Anthony Santistevan, Miles Kovnick et al.
8 citations
Study Objectives: Trauma nightmares are a core feature of PTSD, with potentially devastating implications for mental health outcomes. Treatments remain unsatisfactory and nightmares are poorly understood, both biologically and phenomenologically; measurement methods are limited. The aims of the current analyses were to (1) characterize distressing dreams in trauma survivors, (2) examine the...
SLEEP Advances
2025
Chadwick C Frost, Erin J. Wamsley
1 citation
Abstract People frequently dream of recent experiences, which may reflect the consolidation of memories in the sleeping brain. Many studies demonstrate that experimentally introducing new learning prior to sleep can induce dreams of recently encoded memories. Here, for the first time, we tested whether activating a remote memory just before sleep can similarly induce participants to dream about...
SLEEP Advances
2025
Luis Alfredo Moctezuma, Marta Molinas, Takashi Abe
1 citation
Abstract This study proposes a method to automatically identify dream experience (DE) and no experience (NE) during the sleep stage N2 of nonrapid eye movement (NREM). We investigated the use of machine learning (ML) to automatically identify when a subject is having a dream during NREM from electroencephalography (EEG) signals. We use permutation-based channel selection to identify the most...
SLEEP Advances
October 1, 2024
Malisa Burge, Hailey Meaklim, M. Turner et al.
Abstract Introduction Dream content analysis is not a routine part of a clinical sleep assessment. However, dreams are an important part of the sleep experience and may provide insights into other health domains. This study investigated the relationship between descriptions of dream content and psychological distress. Methods The study cohort consisted of 217 participants (149 female, age...
SLEEP Advances
2024
Christopher M. McGrory, Augustus Kram Mendelsohn, Suzanne L. Pineles et al.
2 citations
Study Objectives: Trauma-related nightmares (TRNs) are a hallmark symptom of PTSD and are highly correlated with PTSD severity and poor sleep quality. Given the salience and arousal associated with TRNs, they might be an effective target for imaginal exposures during Prolonged Exposure (PE) therapy. As a first step in this line of research, the current study compared participants' emotional...
SLEEP Advances
2024
Erin J. Wamsley, Tempest Trost, Matthew A. Tucker
2 citations
Robert Stickgold's research was among the earliest to rigorously quantify the effect of learning on dream content. As a result, we learned that dreaming is influenced by the activation of newly formed memory traces in the sleeping brain. Exactly how this happens is an ongoing area of investigation. Here, we test the hypothesis that participants are especially likely to dream of recent...
SLEEP Advances
2024
Julia Fechner, Maren Born, Massimiliano Mancini et al.
1 citation
Abstract Study Objectives The “Zeigarnik effect” refers to the phenomenon where future intentions are remembered effectively only as long as they are not executed. This study investigates whether these intentions, which remain active during sleep, influence dream content. Methods After an adaptation night, each of the 19 participants (10 women and 9 men) received three different task plans in...