Sleep and dreaming are for important matters
Lampros Perogamvros, Thien Thanh Dang‐Vu, Martin Desseilles, Sophie Schwartz
Frontiers in Psychology 2013 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00474 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Review Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Keywords | Consciousness Sleep system call Cognitive psychology Cognitive science Psychoanalysis |
| Citations | 79 |
| Key findings | Sleep and dreaming activate emotional and motivational circuits, providing a neurobehavioral substrate for offline reprocessing of emotions, associative learning, and exploratory behaviors, which improves memory organization, emotion regulation, social skills, and creativity. |
Abstract
Recent studies in sleep and dreaming have described an activation of emotional and reward systems, as well as the processing of internal information during these states. Specifically, increased activity in the amygdala and across mesolimbic dopaminergic regions during REM sleep is likely to promote the consolidation of memory traces with high emotional/motivational value. Moreover, coordinated hippocampal-striatal replay during NREM sleep may contribute to the selective strengthening of memories for important events. In this review, we suggest that, via the activation of emotional/motivational circuits, sleep and dreaming may offer a neurobehavioral substrate for the offline reprocessing of emotions, associative learning, and exploratory behaviors, resulting in improved memory organization, waking emotion regulation, social skills, and creativity. Dysregulation of such motivational/emotional processes due to sleep disturbances (e.g., insomnia, sleep deprivation) would predispose to reward-related disorders, such as mood disorders, increased risk-taking and compulsive behaviors, and may have major health implications, especially in vulnerable populations.
Comparable studies
Other narrative reviews on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The cognitive neuroscience of lucid dreaming | 2019 | Review | |
| Nightmare Disorder and Isolated Sleep Paralysis | 2020 | Review | |
| My Dream, My Rules: Can Lucid Dreaming Treat Nightmares? | 2019 | Review | |
| Dream Recall: State or Trait Variable? Part I: Model, Theories, Methodology and Trait Factors | 1996 | Review | |
| Microdream neurophenomenology. | 2017 | Review |
Citations in the library
Cited by 13
- Metaphor and hyperassociativity: the imagination mechanisms behind emotion assimilation in sleep and dreaming Frontiers in Psychology August 18, 2015
- The Phenomenal Contents and Neural Correlates of Spontaneous Thoughts across Wakefulness, NREM Sleep, and REM Sleep Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience May 31, 2017
- On Dreams and Motivation: Comparison of Freud’s and Hobson’s Views Frontiers in Psychology January 6, 2017
- Sensational Dreams: The Prevalence of Sensory Experiences in Dreaming Brain Sciences May 24, 2024
- The cathartic dream: Using a large language model to study a new type of functional dream in healthy and clinical populations Journal of Sleep Research February 9, 2025
and 8 more in the library
Cites 19
- Breakdown of Cortical Effective Connectivity During Sleep Science September 29, 2005
- Decoupling of the brain's default mode network during deep sleep Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences June 19, 2009
- Development of the Brain's Default Mode Network from Wakefulness to Slow Wave Sleep Cerebral Cortex February 17, 2011
- Cortical reactivity and effective connectivity during REM sleep in humans Cognitive Neuroscience July 1, 2010
- Dreaming as a story-telling instinct Frontiers in Psychology April 2, 2013
and 14 more in the library