Dreams and nightmares may be important for processing emotional, even stressful, memories.
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Malte Mueller/Getty Images
Dreams of flying? Nightmares of teeth falling out? Falling off a cliff?
As a sleep scientist at the University of Montreal, Michelle Carr has pretty much heard it all. She even says the content of people’s dreams often changes depending on their location.
“In Wales, I lived on the coast, like by the sea,” Carr says. “A lot of people would have recurring dream and nightmare themes that were really about falling into the sea or waves or rainstorms.”
In Carr’s new book called Nightmare Obscura, she explores the science of dreams, nightmares – even something called dream engineering, where people influence their own dreams while they sleep.
“We know so much about how important sleep is for our health,” she says. “But we’re only just beginning to uncover whether dreaming and the way that we feel during sleep is significant in our health as well.”
Carr says while frequent or intense nightmares can become distressing, the occasional nightmare may help us work through negative experiences.
Interested in any upcoming science books? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.
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This episode was produced by Rachel Carlson. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. The audio engineer was Kwesi Lee.