{
  "id": 1707740,
  "title": "The New Science of Dreaming",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/18/the-new-science-of-dreaming",
  "topic": "culture",
  "section": "Culture",
  "published": "2026-08-18T12:00:04.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Time",
    "slug": "time",
    "url": "https://time.com/article/2026/08/18/new-science-of-dreaming/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In a dimly lit room, I recline in a blue chair wearing earbuds, tinted glasses and a swimmer's cap. Electrodes cling to my head while sensors wrap around my fingers. A voice through a monitor instructs me: \"Now we're going to flash some lights.\" Upon seeing flashes, I'm to move my cheek twice in the direction they appear. Karen Konkoly, a postdoctoral researcher at University of Cambridge and Marco Wolf, a German graduate student, are preparing to observe my dreams. The purpose of dreams has long been a mystery with theories ranging from psychoanalytic to prophetic. However, definitive answers remain elusive. Studies suggest we experience multiple dreams nightly, yet most are forgotten. The potential functions of dreams—memory formation, experience learning or mere cerebral entertainment—are still debated. In recent decades, researchers have explored this topic through various lenses resulting in today's focus on one such approach. Karen Konkoly, a rising star in dream research and co-inventor of lucid dreaming, sees lucid dreams as a potential way to test hypotheses about their purpose since lucid dreamers may be able to manipulate them. In a 2021 study, Konkoly found lucid dreamers can communicate with scientists in real-time by moving their eyes under closed lids. To investigate further, she now asks me and 50 others to perform tasks like moving our cheeks in response to directional stimuli while falling asleep. The hope is that I can respond even while unconscious. Dreams have not always been a favored study subject. In the 1990s, when Robert Stickgold began researching sleep and dreams, dream researchers were scarce. Those who worked in this field primarily recorded dream reports upon waking and largely dismissed Freud's ideas regarding their meaninglessness. Freud believed dreams disguised suppressed desires, but Stickgold didn't think they served this purpose. Instead, he found that sleep helped consolidate memories and that dreams drew on recent experiences, even for those with brain damage unable to recall them. Stickgold's work has inspired a generation of dream researchers, and today he posits that dreams might help process and integrate daily experiences.",
  "summary": "Researchers are trying to decipher what dreams can tell us after dark.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}