Pre-sleep experiences shape neural activity and dream content in the sleeping brain.
Deniz Kumral, Jessica Palmieri, Steffen Gais, Monika Schönauer
iScience July 1, 2025 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.113032 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Participants who listened to audiobooks before falling asleep |
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Keywords | EEG Biological sciences Cognitive neuroscience Rem sleep Clinical neuroscience Memory reactivation Natural sciences Representational similarity analyses |
| Key findings | Brain activity during REM sleep, particularly in the beta range, carried information about pre-sleep audiobook content, and blind raters could identify which audiobook participants had studied from dream reports. Neural reinstatement did not correlate with memory retention, but global beta power during REM sleep was associated with better memory performance, and participants who dreamt of the audiobook showed stronger neural reinstatement. |
Abstract
Dreams incorporate recent experiences, and memory-related brain activity is reactivated during sleep, suggesting that dreaming, memory consolidation, and reactivation are tightly linked. We devised a paradigm to investigate whether memory reprocessing during sleep contributes to dreaming. Participants listened to different audiobooks before falling asleep, introducing dissimilar experiences to be processed at night. We show that audiobook content was reprocessed at the neural level using multivariate pattern analyses. Brain activity during rapid eye movement sleep, particularly in the beta range, carried information about the audiobook. While the amount of neural reinstatement did not correlate with memory retention, global beta power during REM sleep was associated with better memory performance. Moreover, blind raters could determine which audiobook participants had studied based on dream reports. Participants who dreamt of the audiobook also showed stronger neural reinstatement. Reprocessing of pre-sleep experiences during sleep may thus shape our brain activity, our dreams, and our memories.
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lucid Dreaming: a State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming Student volunteers trained to become lucid and signal lucidity with horizontal eye... | 2009 | Observational study | n = 6 |
| Nightmare Prevalence, Nightmare Distress, and Self-Reported Psychological Disturbance Young adults with a mean age of 20 years | 2002 | Prospective observational study | n = 116 |
| Long-term effects of extreme situational stress on sleep and dreaming Survivors of traumatic events who complained of sleep disturbances, compared with... | 1987 | Case-control study | n = 11 |
| The relationship of nightmare frequency and nightmare distress to well‐being Adults who reported dreams | 2004 | Observational cohort | n = 147 |
| Dreaming in NREM Sleep: A High-Density EEG Study of Slow Waves and Spindles Healthy human subjects | 2018 | Observational cohort | n = 14 |
Citations in the library
Cites 14
- Assessing sleep consciousness within subjects using a serial awakening paradigm Frontiers in Psychology 2013
- Dreaming in NREM Sleep: A High-Density EEG Study of Slow Waves and Spindles Journal of Neuroscience September 10, 2018
- Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep. Current Biology April 12, 2021
- Nightly dynamics of emotional content in dreams bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) June 28, 2025
- A cognitive process occurring during sleep revealed by rapid eye movements Science August 25, 2022
and 9 more in the library