New strategies for the cognitive science of dreaming

Remington Mallett; Karen R Konkoly; Tore Nielsen; Michelle Carr; Ken A Paller

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2024.10.004

New strategies for the cognitive science of dreaming

Trends Cogn Sci. 2024 Nov 4:S1364-6613(24)00264-X. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2024.10.004. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Remington Mallett¹, Karen R Konkoly², Tore Nielsen³, Michelle Carr³, Ken A Paller²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA; Department of Psychiatry and Addictology, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada; Center for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine, Montreal, QC, Canada. Electronic address: remington.mallett@u.northwestern.edu.
² Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
³ Department of Psychiatry and Addictology, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada; Center for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine, Montreal, QC, Canada.

PMID: 39500684
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2024.10.004

Abstract

Dreams have long captivated human curiosity, but empirical research in this area has faced significant methodological challenges. Recent interdisciplinary advances have now opened up new opportunities for studying dreams. This review synthesizes these advances into three methodological frameworks and describes how they overcome historical barriers in dream research. First, with observable dreaming, neural decoding and real-time reporting offer more direct measures of dream content. Second, with dream engineering, targeted stimulation and lucidity provide routes to experimentally manipulate dream content. Third, with computational dream analysis, the generation and exploration of large dream-report databases offer powerful avenues to identify patterns in dream content. By enabling researchers to systematically observe, engineer, and analyze dreams, these innovations herald a new era in dream science.

Keywords: dreams; memory; natural language processing; neuroscience; sleep.

Publication types

Review