How Not to Raise a Witch
Many years ago a student told me a story about her childhood dreams that still haunts me. It’s not a happy story—in fact I find it incredibly sad—but it’s kept me thinking about what we know, and don’t know, about the potentials of dreaming. Wanda (a pseudonym) was a student in a religious... [Read more of this post]
Obama’s Brain Activity Map: Good News for the Psychology of Religion
On July 17, 1990 President George H.W. Bush initiated the “Decade of the Brain” by making an official proclamation that began with these words: “The human brain, a 3-pound mass of interwoven nerve cells that controls our activity, is one of the most magnificent—and mysterious—wonders... [Read more of this post]
New Venue for Talking About Sleep and Dream Research
I’ve just started writing a blog on sleep and dreams for the Huffington Post—let me know what you think! Initially I’ll focus on children’s dreams, using material from the book I co-wrote with my mother, then eventually I’ll broaden the scope and write about new developments in dream research... [Read more of this post]
Children’s Dreams Interview with Anne Hill
A couple of weeks ago Anne Hill, host of Dream Talk Radio, invited me to talk about the book I recently co-authored with my mother, Children’s Dreams: Understanding the Most Memorable Dreams and Nightmares of Childhood (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012). Here’s a Youtube link to our discussion,... [Read more of this post]
Dreaming in Adolescence
In the current issue of the IASD journal Dreaming (Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 240-252) I have an article with results of a blind word search analysis of a teenage girl’s dream series. (Many thanks to the anonymous dreamer, “Bea,” and to Bill Domhoff for mediating our interactions.) The... [Read more of this post]
Tracking Robert Bosnak’s Dreams
The Sleep and Dream Database has just added a new series of dreams to its collection, thanks to the generosity of Robert Bosnak. In his 1996 book Tracks in the Wilderness of Dreaming he included an appendix with a series of 51 dreams recorded during a seven-week period of travel and personal transition. ... [Read more of this post]
What’s In a Lucid Dream?
What do people dream about when they have lucid dreams? What’s going on in the dream when someone has the realization, “I am dreaming”? Here’s another example of how the word search function of the SDDb can help get a research project started. The database includes a set... [Read more of this post]
Dreaming of the Dead: Patterns of Word Usage in Visitation Dreams
Here’s a good example of how to use the word search function of the Sleep and Dream Database. It focuses on “visitation dreams,” i.e., dreams in which people who are dead appear as if alive. These vivid and highly memorable dreams have been reported in cultures all over the world,... [Read more of this post]
My Worst and Best Nights of Sleep
In the previous post I noted that my monthly average ZQ over the past 3+ years (August 6, 2009 to December 19, 2012) has regularly hovered around 90, with the highest monthly average being 96 and the lowest 86. Now, looking more closely at the data, I can see that my worst and best nights of sleep... [Read more of this post]
1001 Zeo Nights
Last night (December 19, 2012) I recorded my 1001st night of sleep data using the Zeo sleep monitoring system. I first started using the Zeo on August 6, 2009, and have worn it 81.25% of the time since (1001 out of 1232 nights). Most of the non-Zeo nights have been due to miscellaneous technical... [Read more of this post]
