Ian Sample

speaker

2,123 appearances 29 recordings 3 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 4d ago

Ian Sample’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 29 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 8.

Appearances

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Science Weekly · Revisited: The surprising science of dreams and nightmares · 28 Jul 2026 podcast

I mean, we hear a lot about REM sleep, but is that the only time when we dream? voice-verified

And what about the purpose of dreams, Michelle? voice-verified

Does science really give us any clues as to why we're dreaming in the first place? voice-verified

And are we also using dreams to play out hypothetical scenarios or perhaps even play out scenarios that we've been in that we haven't maybe handled very well? voice-verified

Is there some element there where we're almost running simulations in a way in our brain? voice-verified

One of the things that often comes up when people are discussing dreams, and often the reason people are keen to discuss dreams is that voice-verified

They're just so strange. voice-verified

And what is it that explains that sort of sense that they're so odd that perhaps disparate things will be connected? voice-verified

When I spoke to people ahead of doing this interview, because, of course, I had to, a number of, you know, very common dreams came up when people wanted to share them with me. voice-verified

And, you know, for example, there's the sort of these stress ones we think of, like the surprise exam we didn't realize we had or, you know, flying, probably a positive one, trying to get somewhere and feeling like you're wading through treacle. voice-verified

I wonder, are there common themes there? voice-verified

And do you get any insights as to things that are driving common themes when they exist? voice-verified

I feel like over time, what I consider and presume to be anxiety dreams have actually changed over the years. voice-verified

They used to involve things like unexpected school exams that I hadn't prepared for. voice-verified

And now they seem to be about going back to university as this sort of aged student to study subjects I know nothing about. voice-verified

And we had a listener, Anissa, got in touch about this too. voice-verified

So has there been much research on how our dreams or whether our dreams evolve as we age, as we get older? voice-verified

Another question a few of our listeners wanted to ask was why do some of us remember our dreams and others seemingly don't? voice-verified

And is there any way to sort of increase our ability to remember them? voice-verified

The big question, obviously, that comes up all the time is how much, if anything, we should read into our dreams. voice-verified

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