Task-Related Dreaming

Task-Related Dreaming

Reviewed by Faisal Zaidi

Dream content that refers to a task learned before sleep, studied in relation to later performance.

What it is

Wamsley and colleagues had 99 students learn a virtual maze and retested them five hours later, about half after a nap. Four nappers who mentioned the maze in their dream reports improved roughly ten times more than nappers who did not, while thinking about the maze while awake did not predict improvement.

In effect

In the article on why we dream, it is the recent evidence that dream content can relate to what the brain is working on.

What it does not say

It is an association in a small subgroup of one study. It does not show that dreaming causes better learning.

Sources

  1. Wamsley, E. J., Tucker, M., Payne, J. D., Benavides, J. A., & Stickgold, R. (2010). Dreaming of a learning task is associated with enhanced sleep-dependent memory consolidation. Current Biology, 20(9), 850-855.