Dreaming Is Like Taking LSD

Without a doubt, the biggest questions about dreaming are all variants on this question: Why do we dream? We began studying dreaming in the early 1990s and, between the two of us, have published over 200 scientific papers on sleep and dreams. Pulling together a variety of compelling neuroscientific ideas and state-of-the-art findings in the fields of sleep and dream research, we propose a new and innovative model of why we dream. We call this model NEXTUP. It proposes that our dreams allow us to explore the brain’s neural network connections in order to understand possibilities. Think of it as similar to the true goal of education—not to cram facts into our brains, but rather to open us to the unexplored possibilities embodied within those facts, showing us the many ways they can be used and not just one specific way.

Dreaming is a form of sleep-dependent memory processing that extracts new knowledge from existing information through the discovery and strengthening of previously unexplored associations. In doing so, dreams rarely replay active concerns directly or offer concrete solutions to them. Rather, they identify and strengthen associations that in some way embody these concerns and that the brain calculates may be of use in resolving them or similar concerns, either now or in the future.

At the same time, dreaming creates narratives that unfold