Regina Barber

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.

So thank you, Michelle, for talking to us today.

If you liked this episode, you might want to check out our episode on melatonin and avoiding jet lag.

We'll link to them in our episode notes.

This episode was produced by Rachel Carlson and edited by our showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez.

Tyler Jones checked the facts and Kwesi Lee was the audio engineer.

Beth Donovan is our vice president for podcasting.

I'm Regina Barber.

Thank you for listening to Shortwave from NPR.