Questions about the scientific basis of the imagery and sensations that are experienced primarily during rapid eye movement sleep and occasionally during other stages as well.
13
votes
5answers
592 views
What is the current “accepted” science behind dream interpretation?
I'm doing some casual reading about dream interpretation (meaning I'm reading the wikipedia entry) and the article mentions that there are several ways of thinking about dreams from a psychological ...
12
votes
1answer
183 views
Do only humans spend a lot of time daydreaming (or having “stimulus-independent thoughts”)?
A paper
Killingsworth et al., A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind, Science 12 November 2010: 932 (or a free pdf) starts with the following statement:
Unlike other animals, human beings spend
a ...
8
votes
1answer
181 views
Does dream recall disturb the processes of memory consolidation?
Psychology in the time of Freud was occupied with dreams. Relaying these to one's analyst was an important part of treatment.
Fast-forward to less than 100 years later, and we know so much about the ...
6
votes
1answer
159 views
Do characters in a dream have their own separate thoughts or identity?
I am very curious as to if any research has been done in this area, or if such a question even can be researched given the current tools and methods available to cognitive scientists. When one dreams, ...
6
votes
0answers
51 views
What is the scientific term for unexpected, spontaneous dream recall?
I'm interested if there's a term for spontaneous dream recall. I will try to define the phenomenon I'm talking about.
Over 10 years ago, I started to notice that I can spontaneously recall dreams, ...
5
votes
2answers
119 views
What causes dreamers to accept dreams as reality?
I have long had interest in dreaming, and one of the defining features of ordinary dreams is that the dreamer either accepts the dream as "real life", or does not question the surroundings.
Compare ...
5
votes
1answer
361 views
Do lucid dream eyemasks work?
There seems to be a few eyemasks available that claim to help the wearer achieve lucid dreaming. For example:
The NovaDreamer lucid dream mask works by detecting Rapid Eye Movement
(REM) while ...
5
votes
0answers
26 views
Does dream recall interfere with “reverse learning”? (Crick and Mitchison's theory of REM sleep)
I've recently became aware of the idea of "reverse learning" that might happen during REM sleep - the brain's attempt to eliminate pathological attractors that might appear in neural networks. The ...
5
votes
0answers
73 views
Can lucid dreaming detract from the recuperative effect of REM sleep?
Imagine you mastered lucid dreaming, so you have a lucid dream every night.
You might want to use this phase to do creative work or problem solving.
Would this have a negative influence on the ...
5
votes
0answers
68 views
Are topics experienced later in the day more likely to be present in dreams?
Is there any evidence suggesting that thoughts or experiences from late in the day are more likely to be dreamed about the following night compared with similar experiences earlier in the day?
4
votes
2answers
911 views
Can we smell in dreams?
I'm interested in whether people can smell in their dreams.
Do people really experience smell in their dreams?
For example, if I dream of smelling a flower, will I feel the smell, too?
Is there any ...
3
votes
0answers
55 views
How is light processed by the human brain when awake and in dreams?
I've recently seen this great video: How your brain tells you where you are. The video discusses how certain cells within the brain fire based on proximity to objects. There are great examples of ...
1
vote
1answer
31 views
Is there a place where I can find inconsistent images?
I would like to find some images in which there are logical inconsistencies. I want to use them for practicing my attention towards those kinds of logical errors (so that I could more easily spot them ...
1
vote
1answer
59 views
Is acrophobia connected to falling in dreams?
I'm interested in the link between phobias and related nightmares.
Specifically, is acrophobia (i.e., irrational fear of heights) connected to falling in dreams?
1
vote
0answers
23 views
What happens in the brain when conscious awareness is changed during dreaming onset?
I've long been interested in dreaming and there's a peculiar phenomenon of the very start of the dreaming process. Different people experience it differently, but even for the same person there's ...
-4
votes
1answer
139 views
Why we can't read in dreams? [closed]
Why we can't read texts in dreams? I mean, we can do everything in dreams, but read it's impossible. I'm a layman in this area, actually I study computer science and probably because of this, my ...
