We now have the technology and knowledge to carry out real-time dream experiments with sleeping participants.
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Articles on Dreaming
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Some dreamers were able to distinguish real words from invented ones by smiling or frowning.
Dreaming differs across cultures, and these differences may hold the clue to how and why dreaming evolved for humans and other species.
It turns out people who sleep well and those who sleep poorly have different kinds of thoughts before bed.
People with aphantasia are unable to deliberately bring to mind mental images. Understanding the mechanisms of aphantasia reveals that different types of cognition exist.
By learning what parts of the brain are crucial for imagination to work, neuroscientists can look back over hundreds of millions of years of evolution to figure out when it first emerged.
Why your eyes move during the REM stage of sleep has puzzled scientists for years. Researchers measured mice brains to look for a possible explanation.
Your background and life experiences seep into the mind’s eye, quietly shaping whether you believe your dreams can come true.
A curious kid asks: what do blind people experience in their dreams?
Colour-changing patterns in snoozing octopuses are characteristic of two alternating sleep states.
A hospice doctor spent 10 years studying the end-of-life experiences of over 1,400 terminally ill patients.
The level of anger and sadness in our dreams may be related to how much we suffer mentally with social isolation.
Listening to other people’s dreams can help to improve your empathy levels.
At times of anxiety and trauma an increase in unusual or vivid dreams and nightmares is not surprising.
During times of stress and anxiety we either dream more or remember our dreams more often, as a way of coping with challenging circumstances and new information.
When we are asleep our brain does not switch off. It keeps working, but not as hard.
The most interesting part of our body that changes during sleep is our brain.
Niamh, age 7, wants to know why we have scary dreams. But after 200 years of study, dreams are still very much a mystery.
The theme of this year’s NAIDOC week is “Our Languages Matter”. Aboriginal languages under threat across Australia. Read a Warlpiri introduction to Dreamtime and The Dreaming.
Sleep is often overlooked as a treatment for brain injury, but new research could be about to change that.
Top contributors
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Professor of Psychology, Swansea University
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Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology, University of Surrey
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Honorary Senior Research Fellow, School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland
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Director, Appleton Institute, CQUniversity Australia
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Lecturer in Psychology, Edith Cowan University
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Lecturer in Psychology, University of York
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Professor Emerita of Sociology, Montclair State University
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Professor of Physiology, University of California, San Francisco
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Professor in Clinical Child Psychology, Flinders University
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Sleep Psychologist and Researcher, The University of Melbourne
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PhD Candidate, Brain & Cognitive Science, University of Calgary
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Professor of Sleep Science, Northumbria University, Newcastle
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Senior Lecturer and Head of Contextual Practices, University of Wales Trinity Saint David
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Senior lecturer, School of Psychology, Massey University, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University
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Chercheuse postdoctorale, Institut du Cerveau (ICM)
