NOVA Explores Dreams Tonight on PBS

The TV program NOVA will explore the world of dreams tonight. “What Are Dreams?” will premiere on your local PBS station.

Leading dream researchers will explain how they study the world of sleep and dreams. And they’ll attempt to answer some of the most intriguing questions about why we dream.

Do dreams improve memory? Do they enhance our creativity? Do they help us solve problems? Are they crucial to our survival?

The program also will focus on the sleep disorders that seem to bring dreams to life. Nightmare disorder. Sleepwalking. REM sleep behavior disorder.



You can watch a two-minute preview of the program online. You also can read a transcript of the program.

NOVA also accepted questions about sleep and dreams. Harvard sleep researcher Robert Stickgold, PhD, provided answers on the NOVA Web site.

Earlier this month the Sleep Education Blog reported that a researcher had proposed a “theory of protoconsciousness” to explain dreams. Studies also have provided some support for the “threat simulation theory.”

Learn more about dreaming and dream theories.

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Why Do We Dream?

A new paper suggests that the purpose of dreams may be more than just psychological.

Author Dr. J. Allan Hobson proposes a “theory of protoconsciousness.” He is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Hobson writes that REM sleep provides “a virtual reality model of the world.” Most dreams occur during this sleep stage.

He thinks that dreams have a functional use. They allow the brain to get tuned up for wakefulness.

“It helps explain a lot of things, like why people forget so many dreams,” Hobson told the New York Times. “Dreams are tuning the mind for conscious awareness.”

This dream theory fits within his broader concept of the purpose of sleep. He summarized his perspective in the title of a 2005 paper: “Sleep is of the brain, by the brain and for the brain.”

Recently Hobson was the co-author of a study in the journal Sleep that investigated lucid dreaming. Results suggest that lucid dreaming is a “unique, hybrid state of sleep;” it involves features of both REM sleep and wakefulness.

In 2008 Hobson and colleagues explored similarities between the normal mental state of dreaming and the abnormal mental state of psychosis. They reported that normal dreaming and schizophrenic thinking share a common degree of “cognitive bizarreness.”

Other dream theories abound: Dreams depict your emotions. They reflect the issues and concerns of your life. They act as a defense mechanism by simulating waking threats.

Read more about interpreting dreams and why we sleep on the Sleep Education Blog. Learn more about dreams and nightmares on SleepEducation.com.

Image by Cornelia Kopp

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