The Dreamscape Project: Mapping the phenomenological and neurophysiological features of subjective experience during sleep
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Key points | The text outlines hypotheses that dreams support consciousness and cognition, sleep-related memory consolidation, and emotional processing, helping maintain emotional balance and influencing waking mood and well-being. It also notes that dreams are believed to change in response to real-life events, which can affect sleep quality, mood, and cognitive functioning, and cites COVID-19-related dream research as a recent example of this interest. |
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Abstract
We spend a third of our lives asleep, and sleep teems with vivid dreams. While most people rarely remember their dreams, laboratory studies using timed awakenings show that healthy adults experience multiple dreams per night. Dreams have been hypothesised to play a key role in the development of consciousness and cognition1,2. Dreams are believed to contribute to sleep-related memory consolidation3 and emotional processing4, maintaining a healthy emotional balance and influencing waking mood and well-being5. Dreams are also believed to change in response to real-life events, which in turn can impact sleep quality as well as mood and cognitive functioning in wakefulness. The emotional significance and apparent meaningfulness of dreams has fuelled fascination with dreams for centuries. The flurry of interest in social and print media and numerous scientific studies, including CI Windt’s own work, on how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced our dream lives is just the latest testament to this fact6,7.