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Summary The gestational period is a sensitive time marked by significant changes that can affect women's sleep and dreaming processes, with an augmented frequency and recall of dreams suggesting that dreaming represents an adaptive mechanism of emotional regulation. This study investigates the relationship between pregnancy‐related variables, alexithymia, and depressive symptoms in influencing dream characteristics in women during the first trimester of pregnancy. A total of 118 pregnant women were recruited at the Obstetric Outpatient Service of an Italian University Hospital and completed the Mannheim Dream Questionnaire, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale‐20, and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Regression analysis, t‐test, and moderation analysis were conducted through Jamovi. Dream recall frequency was predicted by age, parity, and depressive symptoms. Nightmare frequency and lucid dream frequency were significantly predicted by depressive symptoms, while nightmare distress was predicted by an unplanned pregnancy. Alexithymia was linked to higher nightmare frequency and nightmare distress. Moderation analysis revealed that the presence of depressive symptoms predicted increased nightmare frequency only in women with higher levels of alexithymia. These findings highlight the role of emotional regulation in dreaming during pregnancy, particularly among women exhibiting alexithymic traits and depressive symptoms. Nightmare frequency may serve as an indicator of impaired emotional regulation, emphasising the need for targeted interventions to enhance emotional coping strategies in this population. Future research should examine the content of nightmares to further understand their implications for maternal mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the conflict between a Naqshbandi-Sufi sheikh and Turkish Cypriot secularists in the middle of the twentieth century to historically trace the formations of a Muslim and secular social identity on the periphery of the Balkans-to-Bengal complex. The conflict particularly concerned a millenarian dream where the sheikh reportedly envisioned a major catastrophe would strike Cyprus and that he was tasked with leading Cypriot Muslims away to Syria. By providing a detailed historical account of this conflict, as well as of its aftermath by using contemporary ethnographic material from a Turkish Cypriot village, I show how the ‘structure of the conjuncture’ in Cyprus in mid-twentieth century produced a secular and Muslim social identity by exiling ‘the spiritual’ (manevi) to the margins of salient local political imaginaries and everyday Islamic praxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some people say that they can wake sleeping people or sleeping non-human animals by staring at them. We investigated the natural history of these claims by examining more than 240 accounts submitted to us over a 30-year period by informants in the UK, US, Germany, and several other countries. Most of these reports, 145 cases, concerned waking sleeping dogs and cats by staring at them; some described waking people up by looking at them, and some accounts were from people who had been woken by looks from animals or by other people. When animals were woken by people's stares, 26% of them were said to have responded directionally by looking straight at the person who was watching them. Some people said that they themselves responded directionally to the stares of animals or other people as they woke, but the proportion of directional human responses was significantly lower (11%) than animal responses. Several informants said that animals were harder to wake when staring at them while they were dreaming. In most cases, possible explanations in terms of subtle sounds or chance coincidence seem unlikely. The ability to be woken by stares may involve a form of perception that is yet unrecognized by science, for which we suggest the name scopegersis, from the Greek roots scop = "look at" and egersis = "awakening". This putative ability seems closely related to the ability of people and many species of animals to feel the looks of unseen others when they are awake, known as the sense of being stared at or scopaesthesia. In both cases, these responses may depend on the activity of the superior colliculus, a mid-brain region concerned with orientation towards environmental stimuli. These sensitivities may have evolved in the context of predator prey-relationships. We suggest experimental tests for investigating scopegersis in more detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the idea of the nation has gained ascendance in modern times, it has also brought us to the brink of a deepening crisis. The nation as an 'imagined community' operates through multiple exclusions, not only of those who are outside it, but also of aspects of its members that cannot be readily encompassed by its own descriptions and ambitions of national selfhood. Most nations tolerate sub-identities, for example of tribes, clans or regions, only as long as their overall power is not challenged. Any internal voice likely to be perceived as a threat to the nation generally evokes a brutally suppressive reaction. This writing returns to the thoughts of Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, who is an engaged Buddhist practitioner. By delving into the exiled leader's dream of free Tibet, it recovers many possible and creative meanings of what a nation could be. Standing close to political visionaries—for instance M.K. Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, B.R. Ambedkar amongst others—who have preceded him, the Dalai Lama too imagines the nation through a non-antagonistic vision that embraces otherness and strives for universal oneness. Drawing from Mahayana Buddhism, he provides ethical alternatives to the idea of the nation as an independent, exclusive and self-sufficient entity. In particular, this writing returns to his Nobel Lecture of 1989, in which he dreams of Tibet as a free country where all differences and forms of otherness are embraced and respected. His vision is premised on the belief that a Buddhist deconstructive analysis of 'self' would make it possible for self (non-self) and other to co-exist gracefully. Along with Buddhist thought, this article uses psychoanalytic theory and the perspective of the unconscious to think through ideas of the self, other and the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two leading theories about the ontology of dreams. One holds that dreams involve hallucinations and beliefs. The other holds that dreaming involves sensory and propositional imagining. I highlight two features of dreams which are more easily explained by the imagination theory. One is that certain things seem to be true in our dreams, even though they are not represented sensorily; this is easily explained if dreams involve propositional imagining. The other is that dream narratives can be temporally segmented, involving events which take place across long spans of time; this makes sense if dreams involve sensory imagining, for we often sensorily imagine narratives during wakefulness in the same way. The two considerations are unified by the fact that both highlight forms of content determination characteristic of imagining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Sleep disorders are prevalent among patients with cancer and their caregivers as well, affecting their quality of life. But the relationship between sleep quality, dream experiences, and life satisfaction in patients with cancer and their partners is understudied. The present research aimed to quantitatively investigate the dream experiences of oncology patients and explore the interdependence between patients and their partners in terms of dream experiences and life satisfaction. Therefore, a cross‐sectional study was conducted with 101 dyads, completing a questionnaire assessing demographic and illness‐related data, dream experiences, sleep quality, and life satisfaction. Inferential statistical tests and actor–partner interdependence models were used to analyse the data. Both patients with cancer and their partners reported on average a significant decrease in sleep quality since the cancer diagnosis and for both dyad members significant dreaming predictors for life satisfaction were found. Namely, a positive association for dream stability in patients, and a positive association for positive dream affect as well as a negative association for negative dream affect in partners. Regarding the question of interdependence, dream intensity exhibited a significant group‐specific partner effect, but no overall partner effect, leading to inconclusive results that call for more studies in this field. The study suggests that dreaming may affect life satisfaction beyond sleep quality and underscores the significance of acknowledging dream experiences as potential influencers of quality of life in patients with cancer. Additionally, the study stands out for its examination of the role of partners in dyadic dependency, emphasising the importance of understanding their influence on patients' experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to the call made by mobilities scholars to deepen attention to imagination and imaginaries by proposing that oneiric experiences – nighttime dreams – be investigated as significant but under-examined artifacts of mobile cultures. Based on a long-term, ethnographically-informed study of the dreams of young adults in the US and grounded in both contemporary dream theory and the automobilities literature, I argue that dreams of car trouble serve to expose otherwise overlooked and taken-for-granted dimensions of waking-life automobility, automotive consciousness, and lifecourse transitions. Targeting two commonly seen themes within this subgenre of dreams – that of failed brakes and driving from the backseat – I argue that oneiric automobility draws on conceptual metaphors and waking-life automotive biographies. Such dreams, moreover, draw liberally from and comment on larger and often silenced dimensions of emerging automobility – the patterned processes and performances by which (usually young) adults habituate to their lives as drivers. Attention to the common experience of driving while dreaming, I argue, enhances efforts to theorize the multiple ontologies of mobile lifeways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confusion and cognitive uncertainty of employees in the workplace can lead to confusion and negative consequences in individual and organizational thinking. However, using the power of imagination and mental creativity, people who are known as dreamers, can serve as a psychological tool for managers. The purpose of this study is to model the dreaming power of employees in organizations. The method of the present research in terms of purpose, is fundamental and applied, with qualitative-exploratory approaches and in terms of implementation, has been done using the given techniques. The instrument used was a semi-structured interview with experts in the field, 15 of whom were selected using targeted snowball sampling based on the principle of saturation. The results showed that a total of 40 categories and 364 statistical codes were organized in the form of five categories: causes, contexts, interventions, strategies and messages. The results showed that the drawn model of employee empowerment directly causes significant leaps in organizational creativity and innovation and overcomes organizational burnout and inertia crises. Managers can use this technique to train professionals with high empowerment, competencies and goals aligned with the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary The present study examined dream habits, and their relation to sleep patterns, in 1151 preteens (597 boys; 554 girls; 11.31 ± 0.62 years old). Dream questionnaires assessed the frequency of dream recall, nightmare, and lucid dream, as well as the intensity of emotions experienced in dreams. Sleep variables included sleep duration and efficiency, but also different measurements of nocturnal awakenings. Among the preteens, 49.21% of them reported that they recalled dreams several times a week or almost every morning over the past few months. In addition, 52.00% of the preteens reported that they experienced nightmares, and 45.48% lucid dreams, less than once a month or never over the past few months. No gender differences were observed in dream variables. Nocturnal awakenings were linked to all dream variables, while sleep duration and sleep efficiency were related to nightmare frequency and emotions in dreams. Importantly, sleep duration and sleep efficiency were not associated with dream recall nor lucid dream frequency, with Bayesian analyses supporting the null hypothesis. These findings offer a comprehensive understanding of preteens’ dreams and their connection to key sleep aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A vast number of empirical findings support the continuity hypothesis of dreaming. Interestingly, research on that topic in adolescents is scarce. In a sample of 100 adolescents (50 female, 50 male) with a mean age 15.30 ± 0.80 years, it was found that for all six topics (watching TV, video gaming, social media use, engage in hobbies, caring for pets, and spending time with the partner), dream percentages of a specific topic was higher if the adolescents spent more time with this activity in waking life. Partner dreams and social media dreams were more frequent compared to adults, stressing the importance these issues have for adolescents. Future research can help to understand the well-being of adolescents by analyzing the emotional quality and content of their dreams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an age where the worlds of art and science continuously collide, scholars and storytellers alike are increasingly using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze and represent their internal worlds. As AI becomes further enmeshed in the everyday experience of humans and other sentiences across the planet, questions begin to arise concerning ethical representation of the self and other, technological anthropomorphism, and artistic expression. Our dialogue contains several modalities: text, poetry, artistic thought experiments, speculative compositions and images. Our aim is not to provide answers to these ever-accelerating questions about AI, but to open up and expose the grooves of various narratives surrounding AI by engaging with experimentation, dialogue, and speculation as modes of discovery. Each section of the text begins with a poetic provocation by S. J. Abiodun, and continues on with an exchange between the two authors, fluidly leaping between our individual and collective knowledge as researchers, artists, and interdisciplinarians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his Anthropology, Hegel uses two apparently contradictory terms to refer to the soul: one is the "awakening of the soul" (Erwachen der Seele), and the other is the "sleeping of the spirit" (Schlafen des Geistes). In this paper, I will discuss how the soul awakens and, at the same time, remains a sleeping of the spirit. In this context, the problem of the distinction between waking and sleeping, or even dreaming, arises. We argue that in order to explain the non-contradiction between the awakening of the soul and the sleeping of the spirit, it is necessary to pay attention to the differences that Hegel establishes between wakefulness and sleeping or dreaming. I further argue that it is the intermediate position of the soul, between nature and spirit, that makes it possible for it to be both an awakening and a sleeping at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rui Zhou,1,2,* Lijuan Fu,2,* Shu Liu,2,* Sanjie Gao,2 Zhifu Zhao,2 Wencai Jiang,2 Li Liu,2 Weiqiao Ren,2 Dongmei Xiang,2 Xing You,2 Chunyong Tang,2 Yukai Zhou,2 Yanqing Song,2 Juan Xie,2 Li Xie,2 Ru Yu,2 Xianjie Zhang,2 Dan Zhou,2 Jia Han,2 Leqiang Xia,2 Lize Xiong1 1Shanghai Key Laboratory of Anesthesiology and Brain Functional Modulation, Translational Research Institute of Brain and Brain-Like Intelligence, Clinical Research Center for Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Shanghai Fourth People’s Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200434, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Anesthesiology, Deyang People’s Hospital, Deyang, 618000, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Leqiang Xia, Department of Anesthesiology, Deyang People’s Hospital, No. 173, Section 1, North Taishan Road, Deyang, Sichuan, 618000, People’s Republic of China, Tel +8613547098458, Email xialq123184@163.com Lize Xiong, Shanghai Fourth People’s Hospital, No. 1279, Sanmen Road, Shanghai, 200434, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86-21-55603002, Fax +86-21-56660851, Email mzkxlz@126.com; lizexiong@tongji.edu.cnPurpose: To compare the influences of propofol, ciprofol and remimazolam on dreaming during painless gastrointestinal endoscopy.Methods: This study was a single-center, prospective, parallel-design, double-blind, randomized clinical trial. Between May 2023 and October 2023, patients undergoing elective painless gastrointestinal endoscopy were recruited and randomly allocated into one of the three groups. Demographic data, intraoperative information, incidence of dreaming, insufficient anesthesia and intraoperative awareness, type of dream, patient satisfaction score, adverse events, and improvement of sleep quality were collected.Results: The difference in incidence of dreaming among the three groups was not significant (33.33% vs 48.33% vs 41.67%, p=0.061). The number of patients with intraoperative hypotension in the propofol group was larger than that of the remimazolam group (32 vs 12, p=0.001). However, the cases of intraoperative hypotension between propofol group and ciprofol group or ciprofol group and remimazolam group were comparable (32 vs 22, p=0.122; 22 vs 12, p=0.064). The percentage of insufficient anesthesia between propofol group and remimazolam group was significant (13.33% vs 1.67%, p=0.001), while no statistical difference was detected between propofol group and remimazolam group or ciprofol group and remimazolam group (13.33% vs 5.00%, p=0.025; 5.00% vs 1.67%, p=0.150). The ability of propofol to improve sleep quality at 1st post-examination day was significantly better than that of remimazolam (86.21% vs 72.88%, p=0.015), while it was not significant between propofol group and ciprofol group or ciprofol group and remimazolam group (86.21% vs 80.36%, p=0.236; 72.88% vs. 72.88%, p=0.181). Incidence of intraoperative awareness, intraoperative hypoxia, type of dream, satisfaction score, adverse events during recovery, and sleep improvement on the 7th post-examination day was not significant among the groups.Conclusion: Anesthesia with propofol, ciprofol and remimazolam, respectively, for gastrointestinal endoscopy did not induce statistical difference in the incidence of dreaming, despite that all of them are more likely to induce pleasant dreams.Keywords: propofol, ciprofol, remimazolam, endoscopic sedation, dreaming

Abstract Emotions experienced within sleep mentation (dreaming) affect mental functioning in waking life. There have been attempts at enhancing dream emotions using olfactory stimulation. Odors readily acquire affective value, but to profoundly influence emotional processing, they should bear personal significance for the perceiver rather than be generally pleasant. The main objective of the present sleep laboratory study was to examine whether prolonged nocturnal exposure to self-selected, preferred ambient room odor while asleep influences emotional aspects of sleep mentation and valence of post-sleep core affect. We asked twenty healthy participants (12 males, mean age 25 ± 4 years) to pick a commercially available scented room diffuser cartridge that most readily evoked positively valenced mental associations. In weekly intervals, the participants attended three sessions. After the adaptation visit, they were administered the odor exposure and odorless control condition in a balanced order. Participants were awakened five minutes into the first rapid eye movement (REM) stage that took place after 2:30 a.m. and, if they had been dreaming, they were asked to rate their mental sleep experience for pleasantness, emotional charge, and magnitude of positive and negative emotions and also to evaluate their post-sleep core affect valence. With rs

A body of experimental research has aimed to investigate processes underlying dream formation by examining the effects of a range of pre-sleep stimuli and events on subsequent dream content. Given its ever-growing presence and salience in people's everyday lives, pre-sleep media consumption stands out as a key variable that could influence people's dreams. We conducted a scoping review to evaluate the experimental evidence of the effects of pre-sleep exposure to visual media on dream content. A systematic search on PubMed, PsycInfo, and Web of Science using terms related to moving visual media and dreams yielded 29 studies meeting the inclusion criteria. Overall, we found modest yet varied effects of pre-sleep exposure to visual media on dream content, with rates of stimulus-related incorporation ranging from 3% to 43% for REM dream reports, 4% to 30% for NREM sleep mentation reports, and between 11% and 35% for home dream reports. Our review highlights the large methodological heterogeneity and gaps across studies, the general difficulty in influencing dream content using pre-sleep exposure to visual media, and suggests promising venues for future research to advance our understanding of how and why digital media may impact people's dreams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I offer a detailed examination of Margaret Macdonald's response to the Cartesian sceptical argument from dreaming. I show that Macdonald's views were not well understood by her contemporaries, and I suggest that this misunderstanding has led to her omission from subsequent discussions of this subject. I end with a brief demonstration of the fact that Macdonald's central claims have re-emerged in contemporary epistemology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black radical traditions include an orientation towards dreaming of better futures. In this article, I enter a dialogical space for us to explore the relationship between our desire to live a good life and our conceptions of what doing so might entail. Speaking from the perspective of an African-Caribbean person in Britain, I begin by considering the need for us to dream what it means to 'Liv Good'—where Liv Good is an intersectionally just version of the good life. I discuss Britain's credo and the liberal philosophical context it emerges out of that makes distinctions between the right and the good, which I claim undermine our entitlement to dream of a good life and give rise to a tendency to consider the good life as secondary to our efforts to achieve political justice. My aim is to highlight the importance of holding in tandem questions about what it means for us to live a good life with questions of justice. By conceptualising and demonstrating Liv Good methodological praxis, I explore the ways in which we can dream Liv Good into reality, by drawing on our own intellectual traditions and honouring our own dream imperatives. I conclude by offering readers an invitation to join me in dreaming Liv Good, engaging its unified ethical framework as a basis from which we can imagine an intersectionally just version of the good life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Often deemed a 'black box' resistant to scientific examination, the human mind challenges empirical inquiry--particularly in subjective experiences like dreams. However, objective empirical measures can indeed be applied to such phenomena. While there has been notable progress in understanding human dreams, the domain of sleep and dreams in non-human animals remains less explored. This review paper addresses whether animals experience dreams and, if so, the nature of these dreams. To this end, it evaluates various research methodologies, including monitoring neural activity, replaying new memories, and analyzing dream-like behaviors. It also identifies crucial sleep patterns, such as Rapid Eye Movement (REM), Slow-wave (SW) sleep, and unihemispheric sleep, that play significant roles in dreaming. Furthermore, this study proposes a novel approach for deciphering animal dream content, specifically by investigating dreaming in octopuses. The paper concludes by examining atypical sleep patterns and deviations from everyday dream experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gamma oscillations nested in a theta rhythm are observed in the hippocampus, where are assumed to play a role in sequential episodic memory, i.e., memorization and retrieval of events that unfold in time. In this work, we present an original neurocomputational model based on neural masses, which simulates the encoding of sequences of events in the hippocampus and subsequent retrieval by exploiting the theta-gamma code. The model is based on a three-layer structure in which individual Units oscillate with a gamma rhythm and code for individual features of an episode. The first layer (working memory in the prefrontal cortex) maintains a cue in memory until a new signal is presented. The second layer (CA3 cells) implements an auto-associative memory, exploiting excitatory and inhibitory plastic synapses to recover an entire episode from a single feature. Units in this layer are disinhibited by a theta rhythm from an external source (septum or Papez circuit). The third layer (CA1 cells) implements a hetero-associative net with the previous layer, able to recover a sequence of episodes from the first one. During an encoding phase, simulating high-acetylcholine levels, the network is trained with Hebbian (synchronizing) and anti-Hebbian (desynchronizing) rules. During retrieval (low-acetylcholine), the network can correctly recover sequences from an initial cue using gamma oscillations nested inside the theta rhythm. Moreover, in high noise, the network isolated from the environment simulates a mindwandering condition, randomly replicating previous sequences. Interestingly, in a state simulating sleep, with increased noise and reduced synapses, the network can "dream" by creatively combining sequences, exploiting features shared by different episodes. Finally, an irrational behavior (erroneous superimposition of features in various episodes, like "delusion") occurs after pathological-like reduction in fast inhibitory synapses. The model can represent a straightforward and innovative tool to help mechanistically understand the theta-gamma code in different mental states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how speech and speech acts are central to Othering First Nations people in Australia. Werner Herzog's film, Where the Green Ants Dream (1984), centres around a fictional Dreaming story about green ants, which connect individual ancestral beings with the creation process, as well as forming the basis of First Nation law and culture. The Dreaming story projected in this film is intertwined with a specific nation of First Nations people and their connection and relationship to their Country (land). The film reveals an uneasy relationship between Dreaming and the positive law. In projecting First Nations people's speech and speech acts within the context of a trial, the film illustrates how the adversarial nature of the law (English common law versus First Nation laws and culture) does not always adequately deal with hard cases. This film manifests the trauma and violence of the white settler state upon First Nations people to illustrate the shortcomings of Australian legality and how the state reckons with the Other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers should be aware that this document may contain sensitive information, images or names of people who have since passed away. Context: Two Peoples Bay Nature Reserve on Western Australia's south coast is world renowned for its biodiversity, particularly its threatened fauna. Future co-management of the Reserve with Aboriginal peoples is likely, although very little information on the Noongar cultural heritage of the Reserve has been published and thus available for stewardship guidance. Methods: This study used oral history interviews on Country based on open-ended questioning and respect for intellectual property. Comprehensive surveys for Noongar cultural heritage were conducted on foot on the Reserve. Key results: A rich trove of women's and men's stories from the Knapp family about Two Peoples Bay is recalled and recorded. The Reserve features prominently in Wiernyert/Dreaming stories with classical human moral dilemmas, and transformations for wrong-doing are featured. Threatened animals and important plants are named as borongur/totems. Trading of gidj/spears of Taxandria juniperina is prominent. Use of fire traditionally was circumspect, and is confined to small areas and pathways in lowlands. Granite rocks are replete with lizard traps, standing stones, and stone arrangements. Conclusions: The Reserve has a long and layered oral history for Merningar Bardok Noongars, exemplified here by the Knapp family, members of which have enjoyed continuous oral history for countless generations. Granite rocks, wetlands, flora, and fauna are vitally important vessels of such knowledge. Implications: Cultural suppression has inhibited free cross-cultural exchange of kaatidjin/knowledge until recently. As respect for culture and Elders becomes paramount, positive co-stewardship of the Reserve will become a reality. Vibrant cultural interpretation and active management by Noongar guides and rangers is recommended. Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers should be aware that this document may contain sensitive information, images or names of people who have since passed away. Future co-management of Two Peoples Bay Nature Reserve Reserve with Aboriginal peoples is likely, although very little information on the Noongar cultural heritage of the Reserve has been published and thus is available for stewardship guidance. Published for the first time, a rich trove of women's and men's stories from the Merningar Knapp family about Two Peoples Bay includes Wiernyert/Dreaming stories with classical human moral dilemmas, trading of gidj/spears, and stone structures on granite. Some Noongar names for landforms are provided. This article belongs to the Collection The Natural History of Two Peoples Bay Nature Reserve, Western Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the inter-subjective touch in Ildikó Enyedi's film On Body and Soul (2017), employing a phenomenological approach by analyzing the aspects of horror, pleasure, dreaming, and breath. This film recontextualizes horror and reaffirms pleasure through the inter-subjective touch. The binary setting between the dreaming world and the waking world, through the perception of touch, is used not to disdain the cruel reality but to arouse inter-subjectivity. The representation of breath illuminates another tactility regarding spatiality and inter-subjectivity. I argue that On Body and Soul constructs layers of tactility and inter-subjectivity between the film and the spectator; the two protagonists (Mária and Endre); human and non-human; dreaming and waking; and mind and body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of sleep for healthy brain function is widely acknowledged. However, it remains unclear how the internal generation of dreams might facilitate cognitive processes. In this perspective, we review a computational approach inspired by artificial intelligence that proposes a framework for how dreams occurring during rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep can contribute to learning and creativity. In this framework, REM dreams are characterized by an adversarial process that, against the dream reality, tells a discriminator network to classify the internally created sensory activity as real. Such an adversarial dreaming process is shown to facilitate the emergence of real-world semantic representations in higher cortical areas. We further discuss the potential contributions of adversarial dreaming beyond learning, such as balancing fantastic and realistic dream elements and facilitating the occurrence of creative insights. We characterize non-REM (NREM) dreams, where a single hippocampal memory is replayed at a time, as serving the complementary role of improving the robustness of cortical representations to environmental perturbations. We finally explain how subjects can become aware of the adversarial REM dreams, but less of the NREM dreams, and how content- and state-awareness in wake, dream, and lucid dreaming may appear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on an ethnographic study among Chinese Indonesians who practice Tibetan Buddhism, we analyze doctrinal beliefs and meanings associated with the appearance of spiritual teacher in dreams. The most common meanings conveyed in their narratives were the beliefs that Guru‐related dreams signify successful spiritual practice, a prophetic insight into future events, and an encouragement for further endeavor in spiritual practice. For a significant number of them, these meanings centered around the precarious feeling of being perceived as the source of the nation's problem. Analyzing the dynamic of these positive/optimistic meanings and negative/pessimistic feelings with regard to Guru‐related dreams, we conclude that both represent the ongoing negotiation between spirituality and ethnic belonging and are connected to the soteriological project of forging a new ethical self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary The world‐wide prevalence of insomnia disorder reaches up to 10% of the adult population. Women are more often afflicted than men, and insomnia disorder is a risk factor for somatic and mental illness, especially depression and anxiety disorders. Persistent hyperarousals at the cognitive, emotional, cortical and/or physiological levels are central to most theories regarding the pathophysiology of insomnia. Of the defining features of insomnia disorder, the discrepancy between minor objective polysomnographic alterations of sleep continuity and substantive subjective impairment in insomnia disorder remains enigmatic. Microstructural alterations, especially in rapid eye movement sleep (“rapid eye movement sleep instability”), might explain this mismatch between subjective and objective findings. As rapid eye movement sleep represents the most highly aroused brain state during sleep, it might be particularly prone to fragmentation in individuals with persistent hyperarousal. In consequence, mentation during rapid eye movement sleep may be toned more as conscious‐like wake experience, reflecting pre‐sleep concerns. It is suggested that this instability of rapid eye movement sleep is involved in the mismatch between subjective and objective measures of sleep in insomnia disorder. Furthermore, as rapid eye movement sleep has been linked in previous works to emotional processing, rapid eye movement sleep instability could play a central role in the close association between insomnia and depressive and anxiety disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sleep is a universal, essential biological process. It is also an invaluable window on consciousness. It tells us that consciousness can be lost but also that it can be regained, in all its richness, when we are disconnected from the environment and unable to reflect. By considering the neurophysiological differences between dreaming and dreamless sleep, we can learn about the substrate of consciousness and understand why it vanishes. We also learn that the ongoing state of the substrate of consciousness determines the way each experience feels regardless of how it is triggered—endogenously or exogenously. Dreaming consciousness is also a window on sleep and its functions. Dreams tell us that the sleeping brain is remarkably lively, recombining intrinsic activation patterns from a vast repertoire, freed from the requirements of ongoing behavior and cognitive control. The paper by Tononi et al. discusses what sleep reveals about the substrate of consciousness, how experience can vanish during sleep, and how dreams can be supported by a brain largely disconnected from the environment, unreflective, and forgetful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Clinical case illustrations of patients with an impairment of personality functioning (IPF) have repeatedly reported that progress during psychotherapy is reflected by alterations in dream content. However, quantitative studies based on samples of psychotherapy patients are scarce. As a core component of both personality functioning and contemporary psychodynamic dream theory, the construct of affect regulation is of specific significance in this context. Aims: To test if improvement in personality functioning in the course of psychotherapy is associated with an increasing ability to regulate affects in dreams. Method: In a longitudinal design, affect regulation was compared in N = 94 unsolicited dream reports from the first vs. last third of long term psychotherapy of ten patients with initial IPF. Dream reports were transcribed from recordings of the sessions. Expert ratings of the level of personality functioning were obtained using the Scales of Psychological Capacities. The capacity for affect regulation was assessed using the Zurich Dream Process Coding System. Group differences were assessed using linear mixed models, controlling for dream length as well as the nested structure of this data set. Results: Patients demonstrated an increased capacity for affect regulation in dreams that was primarily evident in three core features: the complexity of dream elements (cf., e.g., parameter attributes, p = 0.024); the extent of affective involvement in the dream ego (cf., e.g., parameter subject feeling, p = 0.014); and the flexibility to regulate the dynamics of safety/involvement processes (p ≤ 0.001). This pattern was especially prominent in a subgroup (n = 7) of patients with more pronounced improvements in personality functioning. Conclusion: These findings support the hypotheses that decreasing IPF during psychotherapy is associated with increases in the capacity for affect regulation in dreams. Thus, researchers and therapists can utilize dream reports to illuminate the important aspects of treatment progress in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic increased symptoms of stress and anxiety and induced changes in sleep quality, dream activity, and parasomnia episodes. It has been shown that stressful factors and/or bad sleep habits can affect parasomnia behaviors. However, investigations on how COVID-19 has affected sleep, dreams, and episode frequency in parasomnias are rare. The current study focuses on the impact of the pandemic on a specific parasomnia characterized by speech production (sleep talking, ST). Methods: We selected 27 participants with frequent ST episodes (STs) during the pandemic and compared them with 27 participants with frequent STs from a previous study conducted during a pre-pandemic period. All participants performed home monitoring through sleep logs and recorded their nocturnal STs for one week. Results: We observed a higher frequency of STs in the pandemic group. Moreover, STs were related to the emotional intensity of dreams, independent of the pandemic condition. The pandemic was associated with lower bizarreness of dreams in the pandemic group. There were no differences in sleep variables between the two groups. Conclusion: Overall, these results suggest a stressful effect of COVID-19 on the frequency of STs. Both the pandemic and the frequency of STs affect qualitative characteristics of dreams in this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his Anthropology, Hegel uses two apparently contradictory terms to refer to the soul: one is the “awakening of the soul” (Erwachen der Seele), and the other is the “sleeping of the spirit” (Schlafen des Geistes). In this paper, I will discuss how the soul awakens and, at the same time, remains a sleeping of the spirit. In this context, the problem of the distinction between waking and sleeping, or even dreaming, arises. We argue that in order to explain the non-contradiction between the awakening of the soul and the sleeping of the spirit, it is necessary to pay attention to the differences that Hegel establishes between wakefulness and sleeping or dreaming. I further argue that it is the intermediate position of the soul, between nature and spirit, that makes it possible for it to be both an awakening and a sleeping at the same time.

Sleep is assumed to be a unitary, global state in humans and most other animals that is coordinated by executive centers in the brain stem, hypothalamus, and basal forebrain. However, the common observation of unihemispheric sleep in birds and marine mammals, as well as the recently discovered nonpathological regional sleep in rodents, calls into question whether the whole human brain might also typically exhibit different states between brain areas at the same time. We analyzed sleep states independently from simultaneously recorded hippocampal depth electrodes and cortical scalp electrodes in eight human subjects who were implanted with depth electrodes for pharmacologically intractable epilepsy evaluation. We found that the neocortex and hippocampus could be in nonsimultaneous states, on average, one-third of the night and that the hippocampus often led in asynchronous state transitions. Nonsimultaneous bout lengths varied from 30 s to over 30 min. These results call into question the conclusions of studies, across phylogeny, that measure only surface cortical state but seek to assess the functions and drivers of sleep states throughout the brain.

Abstract Research has posited that social media use during the day may be reflected in nighttime dreams. Nevertheless, no prior studies have explored frightening, unpleasant dreams arising from social media use. This study introduces the construct of the social media-related nightmare by (a) developing and validating a scale capturing negative-valenced dreams with themes of helplessness, loss of control, inhibition, victimization, and making mistakes in social media, and (b) examining relationships between social media use, social media-related nightmares, sleep quality, and affective well-being. A convenience sample of 595 Iranian adult social media users (M age = 27.45, SD age = 11.42) reported on social media-related nightmare, social media use integration, anxiety, peace of mind, sleep quality, and nightmare distress. The Social Media-Related Nightmare Scale (SMNS) demonstrated a unidimensional structure with sound psychometric properties. The most common nightmares involved the inability to log in to social media and the disruption of relationships with other users. Social media use intensity predicted frequency of social media-related nightmares. These nightmares were correlated with increased anxiety, lower peace of mind, poor sleep quality, and nightmare distress. Importantly, social media-related nightmares mediated the relationship between social media use intensity and low affective well-being (i.e., anxiety and peace of mind), poor sleeping, and nightmare distress. The findings suggest that social media-related nightmares could be a potential pathway through which social media engagement may lead to affective distress and sleep difficulties.

This text documents a workshop presented at the Witch Institute at Queens University, August 2021. In this workshop, we experimented with the medium of the dream. We draw from the onto-ethico-epistemology of Karen Barad to refigure the boundaries of the psychoanalytic method of containment. We consider practices of care and their cosmologies outside of the enclosure of psychic life as circumscribed by psychoanalysis. Rather than interpreting the dream as personal poeisis, we play with/in the practice of collective dreaming, re-casting the dream as a spell—that is, an agential and animating vibratory force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nightmare disorder is characterized by dysfunctional emotion regulation and poor subjective sleep quality reflected in pathophysiological features such as abnormal arousal processes and sympathetic influences. Dysfunctional parasympathetic regulation, especially before and during rapid eye movement (REM) phases, is assumed to alter heart rate (HR) and its variability (HRV) of frequent nightmare recallers (NM). We hypothesized that cardiac variability is attenuated in NMs as opposed to healthy controls (CTL) during sleep, pre-sleep wakefulness and under an emotion-evoking picture-rating task. Based on the polysomnographic recordings of 24 NM and 30 CTL participants, we examined HRV during pre-REM, REM, post-REM and slow wave sleep, separately. Additionally, electrocardiographic recordings of resting state before sleep onset and under an emotionally challenging picture-rating task were also analyzed. Applying repeated measures analysis of variance (rmANOVA), a significant difference was found in the HR of NMs and CTLs during nocturnal segments but not during resting wakefulness, suggesting autonomic dysregulation, specifically during sleep in NMs. As opposed to the HR, the HRV values were not significantly different in the rmANOVA in the two groups, implying that the extent of parasympathetic dysregulation on a trait level might depend on the severeness of dysphoric dreaming. Nonetheless, in the group comparisons, the NM group showed increased HR and reduced HRV during the emotion-evoking picture-rating task, which aimed to model the nightmare experience in the daytime, indicating disrupted emotion regulation in NMs under acute distress. In conclusion, trait-like autonomic changes during sleep and state-like autonomic responses to emotion-evoking pictures indicate parasympathetic dysregulation in NMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on aspects of dreaming associated with alexithymia has yielded mixed results. The present study recruited a young adult online sample of 577 participants who completed validated indices of alexithymia, emotion suppression, negative moods, and eight aspects of dreaming, with a focus on evaluating a counterintuitive previous finding that alexithymia and two of its core facets were associated with greater self‐reported typical emotional intensity of dreams. Total alexithymia and facet scores showed differential relationships to aspects of dreaming including dream recall frequency, emotionality, meaningfulness, nightmare frequency, nightmare distress, usefulness of dreams in problem‐solving and creativity, and learning about oneself through dreams. Planned hierarchical regression controlling for demographics, alcohol use, and dream recall frequency indicated that the difficulties identifying feelings (DIF) facet of alexithymia was a significant positive predictor of dream emotionality, whereas the externally oriented thinking (EOT) facet was a significant negative predictor. Stress, but not emotion suppression, mediated the positive relationship between DIF and dream emotionality. The likely role of dream emotionality in higher ratings of nightmare distress, dream meaningfulness, and learning about oneself through dreams among those with higher DIF scores is noted, along with other findings and the strengths and limitations of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although disturbing dreams are prevalent in youth and are associated with psychopathology, little is known about their developmental course and risk factors. We aimed to examine the association between early social environment and subsequent disturbing dream frequency across adolescence as moderated by early negative emotionality. Measures of children's early social environment and negative emotionality were collected from the mothers of 410 children (5–42 months old) and measures of disturbing dream frequency directly from the children (13–18 years old). Preliminary steps identified subgroups of families with distinct profiles of social environment using latent variable mixture modeling, and captured changes in disturbing dream frequency using latent growth modeling. Regression and moderation analyses were conducted to test the study objectives. Results showed that the diverse family patterns were best captured by two profiles reflecting adverse and positive social environments and that overall disturbing dream frequency decreased during adolescence. Moderation analyses showed that when early negative emotionality was higher, DD frequency was not only more elevated in an adverse environment, but lower in a positive environment. These results indicate that the development of disturbing dreams is most strongly associated with a combination of individual and environment factors. Our study adds to the literature by refining our conception of individual traits and disturbing dream development and has implications for the prevention of bad dreams, nightmares, and associated psychopathologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Dreaming sometimes occurs during sedation. It has been reported that factors such as different anesthetics, depth of anesthesia, age, sex, and preoperative psychological state may affect dreams. Ciprofol and remimazolam are novel choices for painless endoscopy. Herein, we aimed to investigate dreaming during gastrointestinal endoscopy under propofol, ciprofol, and remimazolam anesthesia respectively. Methods This is a prospective, parallel-design double-blind, single-center clinical trial. Three hundred and sixty subjects undergoing elective painless gastroscopy, colonoscopy, or gastroenteroscopy will be enrolled. Eligible subjects will undergo propofol-, ciprofol-, or remimazolam-induced anesthesia to finish the examination. Interviews about the modified Brice questionnaire will be conducted in the recovery room. Incidence of dreaming is set as the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes include type of dreams, improvement of sleep quality, evaluation of patients, incidence of insufficient anesthesia, and intraoperative awareness. Safety outcomes are the incidences of hypotension and hypoxia during examination and adverse events during recovery. Discussion This study may observe different incidences of dreaming and diverse types of dreams, which might lead to different evaluations to the anesthesia procedure. Based on the coming results, anesthesiologists can make a better medication plan for patients who are going to undergo painless diagnosis and treatment. Trial registration This trial was registered at the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry on May 18, 2023 (registration number ChiCTR2300071565).

Introduction Lucid dreaming opens the possibility to rehearse sport skills within a dream while sleeping (Peters et al. 2023; Stumbrys et al. 2016). But so far, no induction techniques have been developed to induce reliable lucid dreams. One potential technique is to apply external stimulation while a person is sleeping in order to send a hint into the dream which might enhance lucidity in the ongoing dream. Several studies have tested dream incorporation rates (DIR) with different stimuli and different results (Schredl, 2018), but none with a larger sample size and a within-design. Furthermore, in this study we wanted to explore body related stimulations to evoke in future studies lucid dreams. Methods 10-Channel polysomnography and three different bodily stimulation methods were combined during three consecutive test nights with each night using one stimulation method (plus adaptation night). The three stimulation methods consisted of electrical forearm muscle stimulation (EMS), galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS), and haptic vibration stimulation (HS). During REM sleep, one of the three stimuli was presented or a sham condition was applied in a counterbalanced order. The stimuli were followed by REM awakenings, resulting in corresponding verbal dream reports. With the help of those reports, the translation from a physical arm movement, vestibular sensation and vibration into the dream environment was investigated using dream content analysis. Movement of the dream arm, balance related activity and tactile or somatosensory sensations targeted the dream incorporations of EMS, GVS and HS respectively. Results Movement of the arm was present in 23.2%, 8.1% and 23.5% of EMS, GVS and HS dreams respectively. Balance-related activity was present in 6.1%, 7.9% and 5.8% of EMS, GVS and HS dreams respectively. Finally, tactile and somatosensory sensations were present in 13.6%, 0% and 6.3% of the EMS, GVS and HS dreams respectively. After correcting for sham condition, tactile and somatosensory sensations on the EMS dreams seem to be the strongest incorporation effect upon stimulation. Discussion/Conclusion We tested dream incorporation of three different stimulation methods using a within-design on a larger sample size, a method that has never been attempted before. GVS appears unsuccessful in altering dream content, but this might be confounded due to challenges in methodology. EMS evokes the most dream incorporation in the scale of tactile and somatosensory dream content followed by HS. The investigation of the incorporation of external kinesthetic stimulation into dream content represents a fundamental contribution to various scientific fields and could foster future research on lucid dream induction, enabling the further exploration of sport practice in a sleep state. References Peters, E., Golembiewski, S., Erlacher, D., & Dresler, M. (2023). Extending mental practice to sleep: Enhancing motor skills through lucid dreaming. Medical Hypotheses, 174, Article 111066. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2023.111066 Schredl, M. (2018). Researching Dreams: The Fundamentals. Springer International. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95453-0 Stumbrys, T., Erlacher, D., & Schredl, M. (2016). Effectiveness of motor practice in lucid dreams: A comparison with physical and mental practice. Journal of Sports Sciences, 34(1), 27–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2015.1030342

Introduction: Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) is considered a marker of autonomic nervous system activity in stress research, and atypical waking sAA responses have been reported for traumatized individuals. Lucid dreams, characterized by a dreamer's awareness of their dream state while remaining asleep, have shown promising preliminary evidence of their potential to enhance mental health. This study's objective was to evaluate sAA in relation to healing lucid dreams. Methods: Participants experiencing PTSD symptoms attended a six-day workshop delivered via live video designed to teach techniques for transforming trauma through dreamwork and dream lucidity. Participants (n = 20) collected saliva samples each morning, immediately upon awakening (Time 1) and 30 min afterward (Time 2). sAA levels were determined by enzymatic assay, and the waking sAA slope was calculated as the difference of Time 2 minus Time 1. Participants completed dream reports each morning, with a dream classified as a 'healing lucid dream' when they reported attaining lucidity and remembered their intention to manifest a healing experience within the dreamscape. Results: Of eight participants experiencing healing lucid dreams, four were able to provide usable saliva samples. Statistical tests on these four participants were not significant because of low power. However, nonsignificant positive associations were observed between experiencing more healing lucid dreams and increased waking sAA slope. Conclusion: The results did not reveal a consistent effect of healing lucid dreams on waking sAA slope. Identifying meaningful patterns in this relationship will require larger samples and more stringent control over saliva collection procedures in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the author's dream about a different approach to psychoanalysis and explores the idea of conducting collective analysis and treatment. It references Ankhi Mukherjee's book, "Unseen City," which offers a new account of psychoanalysis by extending its method beyond the private consulting room. The article argues for the expansion of psychoanalysis and the need to challenge its traditional limits in order to assess how it is practiced and how it might be. It also highlights the importance of considering the temporal, socioeconomic, and political conditions in psychoanalytic care. [Extracted from the article]

Chronic insomnia (insomnia disorder—ID) afflicts up to 10% of the adult population, increases with age and affects more women than men. ID is associated with significant daytime impairments and an increased risk for developing major somatic and mental disorders, especially depression and anxiety disorders. Almost all insomnia models assume persistent hyperarousal on cognitive, emotional, cortical and physiological levels as a central pathophysiological component. The marked discrepancy between only minor objective alterations in polysomnographic parameters of sleep continuity and the profound subjective impairment in patients with insomnia is still puzzling. We and others have proposed that alterations in the microstructure of sleep, especially in REM sleep (REM sleep instability), may explain this discrepancy and be at the core of the experience of fragmented and poor sleep in ID. The REM sleep instability concept is based on evidence showing REM time to be related to subjective wake time in insomnia as well as increased micro- and macroarousals during REM sleep in insomnia patients compared to good-sleeper controls. Our own work showed that ID patients awoken from REM sleep more frequently reported the perception of having been awake than good sleepers as well as having had more negative ideations. The continuous measurement of event-related potentials throughout the whole night demonstrated reduced P2 amplitudes specifically during phasic REM sleep in insomnia, which points to a mismatch negativity in ID reflecting automatic change detection in the auditory system and a concomitant orienting response. REM sleep represents the most highly aroused brain state during sleep and thus might be particularly prone to fragmentation in individuals with persistent hyperarousal, resulting in a more conscious-like wake experience reflecting pre-sleep concerns of patients with ID, i.e., worries about poor sleep and its consequences, thus leading to the subjective over-estimation of nocturnal waking time and the experience of disrupted and non-restorative sleep. Chronic REM sleep instability might also lead to a dysfunction in a ventral emotional neural network, including limbic and paralimbic areas activated during REM sleep. Along with a postulated weakened functioning in a dorsal executive neural network, including frontal and prefrontal areas, this might contribute to emotional and cognitive alterations and an elevated risk of developing depression and anxiety [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article takes a poetological approach to the thematising of everyday life and its connections with the poetics of the “effect of the real.” Methodologically, it is part of the research concept of the new poetics. On the material of a canonical text of Slovak literary realism – the novella “Neprebudený” ([The unawakened] 1886) by Martin Kukučín (1860 – 1928) –, it identifies poetological characteristics of the novella, reveals its existential parameters, and points to the place of M. Kukučín in the ironic-polemical line of modern Slovak prose. This innovative approach allows for identification in the structure of the text the tradition of the poetics of grotesque realism as conceptualised by M. M. Bakhtin on the folk culture of the Middle Ages and the literature of the European Renaissance. The identification of elements of the poetics of the grotesque in the text of the novella is based on the emphasis of this poetics on the shape/surface of the phenomena of the life world, especially the human body. Therefore, the starting point of the interpretation of the novella as outlined here is description as the basic stylistic procedure of realistic texts – the description of the character in this case. The description and subsequent interpretation of the image of the grotesque body makes it possible to identify the presence of the poetics of discrete irony as a key strategy of authorial narration in the text of the novella.

A body of experimental research has aimed to investigate processes underlying dream formation by examining the effects of a range of pre-sleep stimuli and events on subsequent dream content. Given its ever-growing presence and salience in people’s everyday lives, pre-sleep media consumption stands out as a key variable that could influence people’s dreams. We conducted a scoping review to evaluate the experimental evidence of the effects of pre-sleep exposure to visual media on dream content. A systematic search on PubMed, PsycInfo, and Web of Science using terms related to moving visual media and dreams yielded 29 studies meeting the inclusion criteria. Overall, we found modest yet varied effects of pre-sleep exposure to visual media on dream content, with rates of stimulus-related incorporation ranging from 3% to 43% for REM dream reports, 4% to 30% for NREM sleep mentation reports, and between 11% and 35% for home dream reports. Our review highlights the large methodological heterogeneity and gaps across studies, the general difficulty in influencing dream content using pre-sleep exposure to visual media, and suggests promising venues for future research to advance our understanding of how and why digital media may impact people’s dreams.

The importance of sleep for healthy brain function is widely acknowledged. However, it remains unclear how the internal generation of dreams might facilitate cognitive processes. In this perspective, we review a computational approach inspired by artificial intelligence that proposes a framework for how dreams occurring during rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep can contribute to learning and creativity. In this framework, REM dreams are characterized by an adversarial process that, against the dream reality, tells a discriminator network to classify the internally created sensory activity as real. Such an adversarial dreaming process is shown to facilitate the emergence of real-world semantic representations in higher cortical areas. We further discuss the potential contributions of adversarial dreaming beyond learning, such as balancing fantastic and realistic dream elements and facilitating the occurrence of creative insights. We characterize non-REM (NREM) dreams, where a single hippocampal memory is replayed at a time, as serving the complementary role of improving the robustness of cortical representations to environmental perturbations. We finally explain how subjects can become aware of the adversarial REM dreams, but less of the NREM dreams, and how content- and state-awareness in wake, dream, and lucid dreaming may appear.