The Well | The neuroscience of nightmares | Patrick McNamara @The-Well | Uploaded April 2023 | Updated October 2024, 2 hours ago.
This is not your average dream interpreter. Nightmares, explained by a neuroscientist.
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What are nightmares, and why do we have them? Patrick McNamara, an experimental neuroscientist who studies the neurobiology of sleep, dreams, and religion, believes nightmares have both important spiritual and emotional functions for our minds.
While nightmares can be deeply unpleasant, they have been experienced and recorded by humans for thousands of years, and historically those who were able to withstand and control their nightmares were held in high societal regard — appointed as spiritual guides, or shamans.
Beyond the spiritual, McNamara explains that nightmares can provide insights into the neurobiology of our REM sleep, where we can confront and process trauma. Nightmares can create a kind of exposure therapy, assisting emotional regulation and helping to maintain healthy emotional responses to the environment. That’s why REM sleep is crucial for processing emotional trauma: it allows us to integrate traumatic experiences into our long-term memory stores.
Read the full video transcript: bigthink.com/the-well/why-do-we-have-nightmares
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Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.
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This is not your average dream interpreter. Nightmares, explained by a neuroscientist.
❍ Subscribe to The Well on YouTube: bit.ly/welcometothewell
❍ Up next: What trauma does to your brain and body youtu.be/ZKa7V_mV8l8
What are nightmares, and why do we have them? Patrick McNamara, an experimental neuroscientist who studies the neurobiology of sleep, dreams, and religion, believes nightmares have both important spiritual and emotional functions for our minds.
While nightmares can be deeply unpleasant, they have been experienced and recorded by humans for thousands of years, and historically those who were able to withstand and control their nightmares were held in high societal regard — appointed as spiritual guides, or shamans.
Beyond the spiritual, McNamara explains that nightmares can provide insights into the neurobiology of our REM sleep, where we can confront and process trauma. Nightmares can create a kind of exposure therapy, assisting emotional regulation and helping to maintain healthy emotional responses to the environment. That’s why REM sleep is crucial for processing emotional trauma: it allows us to integrate traumatic experiences into our long-term memory stores.
Read the full video transcript: bigthink.com/the-well/why-do-we-have-nightmares
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
❍ About The Well ❍
Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.
So what do they think?
How is the power of science advancing understanding? How are philosophers and theologians tackling these fascinating questions?
Let’s dive into The Well.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join The Well on your favorite platforms:
❍ Facebook: bit.ly/thewellFB
❍ Instagram: bit.ly/thewellIG
