Regina Barber

What does that tell you about like the importance of sleep?

It kind of sounds like exposure therapy.

And then that makes me think of nightmares, which mostly seem to happen in that fourth REM sleep stage, when our amygdala, which deals with fear, is more active.

In your book, you call nightmares almost like a self-attack, like there's this mental autoimmune reaction.

Is that what's happening?

Like, why do we have them?

Are there any benefits of nightmares?

You know, like this mental autoimmune reaction that we have in our minds?

So where do scientists see nightmares in the brain?

Is this a different part of our brain than pleasant dreams?

I'm just so interested.

Like, where do they live?

Wow, maybe they feel safe in the lab.

And speaking of stress when you're awake, you mentioned in your book that there's a point where nightmares can become harmful to overall health.

So what are some methods researchers use to treat nightmares?

decreases nightmare frequency it makes people feel less distressed by their nightmares and it improves symptoms overall and this is the sleep engineering you were talking about right like trying to do things to affect your dreams um i i have had personal experiences where i feel like i can alter things within my dream is that is that normal have you studied that as well

One of the final chapters of your book, you talk about like exciting new technologies and methods to study dreams.

Can you give us some of those highlights of these new technologies?

Like to shake you out of a nightmare or to like soothe you?

You've made me think about my dreams even more.