YouSaid · the spoken record

Dr Michelle Carr

lines on the record: 29
first: 2025-08-31
most recent: 2025-08-31
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“I think my main takeaway is really that I think people can gain a lot from interacting with their dreams just a little bit more. Recording your dreams in the morning, sharing them with a friend, thinking about maybe something that you want to dream about before you go to bed at night. I think there are really simple little ways that we can bring dreaming more into our waking life and also bring our own agency more into our dreaming life in turn. And I think people will benefit from that.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's interesting that you say that because it's actually something that my lab were just starting to think about this and to look into it because of, as you just said, this link between sensory processing sensitivity and some neurodivergent traits as well. But so far there's very little research that's been done on any type of neurodiversity and dreaming. So we're hoping to start to explore this now, but there's very little that we know about it so far.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Definitely. I think historically dreaming and dream sharing has been a big part of many cultures. And it's almost, to me, seems like something we've lost in kind of modern Western culture that we kind of dismiss dreaming as unimportant or as irrelevant to our life. But I think historically dreaming and sharing dreams with your community, with your family, it has historically been very common for people to do this and to put import into their dreams. And I kind of hope that with some of the new research and dream engineering, that dreaming becomes a part of culture, kind of even if it's just for, you know, a means of social connection, a means of play, you know, like a video game, like we can talk about our dreams and share artistic representations of our”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Making sleep health, making it known that sleep health is essential. It's really, I think, at a public health level, most people are aware of the importance of sleep now, which is, I think, a new thing. So, yeah, so I think sleep health has made a lot of progress, but it's still a very small piece of medical training and dreaming, I doubt dreaming is covered at all in medical training. I'm not completely sure, but we have a long way to go still in paying attention to dreams, even in sleep medicine.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think sleep medicine as a whole is a relatively new field in Western medicine. You know, A long time, it was kind of just viewed as like, you know, this we just are unconscious and nothing's happening. But over time, we've learned that there's a lot of really, really important functions, absolutely necessary functions occurring during sleep. And so sleep health is essential to our waking health. But I think that knowledge is relatively recent. And I do think the sleep medicine field has made enormous drives in the past, I don't know, 50 years or more than that in really”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And they're looking for it, or they forget that they're sober and they wake up in this intense state of panic, panic that they used the drug or panicked that they forgot they were sober or intensely craving a substance. So that's just one example where paying attention to dreams and using them as kind of an indicator in someone's health can be really useful for a clinician and can even be kind of an area for intervention, for helping someone to work with those dreams and to overcome those dreams and no longer have them that could help them on the path to recovery. So yeah, so I just think having dreams be more commonplace in medicine is the next step.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yep, for me, I think really for dreaming to become More common in medical fields. I think that dreaming has a lot to offer to sleep medicine, certainly to psychiatric medicine, where I think nightmares are being taken much more seriously now and they're looked at as something that needs to be treated in psychiatric medicine. So that's a good thing. But even in physical health, I think paying attention to dreams once we study them and know more about them, you know, they can really be indicators of someone's sleep health, someone's physical health, and they can be potential targets for intervention. So I just talked about dreams in addiction, for example. We know that people who are in early recovery, they often have what's called drug using or drug-seeking dreams where they dream of their substance and they're seeking it.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's not magic. So an advertiser is not going to have that much success getting us to have a positive dream about what they want us to dream about. So I think there's definitely some ethical concerns, even though I'm not sure realistically how financially and profitable it would be for advertisers to try to invest in our dreams. I hope it's not profitable at all because I certainly don't want to start dreaming about branding.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, this is definitely a conversation going on in the field right now. There's some discussion of whether, you know, whether advertisers are going to try to get incept their branding into our dreams and how that would influence consumer behavior, whether there are dangers or risks of that. There was a controversy about there was a Coors Light ad during the Super Bowl, I think, where they tried to get people to dream about Cor's Light and this opened up all sorts of conversations. Well, how would that actually influence people? You know, alcohol is an addictive substance. Do we really want people dreaming about that? So there's definitely a big conversation going on in the field. But this conversation is also tempered a little bit by the fact that, like I said, dream engineering is such an imprecise and”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's what I was just going to say. Why I say it's definitely not magic is because our influence is very subtle, it's very imprecise. It's not like we're creating entire narratives for people to dream. It's more like just nudging the dream a little bit, maybe making it slightly more positive or adding in some movement components or often will pair the sensory stimuli with a task before sleep, maybe a learning task. And so when we represent the sensory stimuli, it might trigger some related memories of the task. So it kind of, we get some content into the dream, but we're not in any way writing a dream for people. You know, we're not creating entire scenarios for people to experience while they sleep.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Often incorporated into dreams. So you might be in a dream that you're in a room looking at a window and then suddenly the whole window flashes with red light. And that's, you realize, oh, I'm dreaming and this red light is a signal from the experimenter in the bedroom. And yeah, so as dream engineers, we're just trying to use this interface that the sleeping body, the sleeping brain is accessible to us as engineers to some extent. So we can present sensory stimuli, we can potentially stimulate the brain and try to shift the content of dreams. And like you said earlier, if you think of it as kind of similar to virtual reality, you're using the senses to shape the narrative of this virtual experience.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, it's definitely not magic, that's for sure. So dream engineering, Consider it just a broad category that includes any types of techniques or technologies that we're trying to use to influence the content of dreams, to engineer the content of dreams. And a lot of the more recent techniques that are being worked on use different types of stimulation during sleep. And our lab primarily uses different types of sensory stimulation. Other people also look at brain stimulation. But the idea is that our senses are still perceptive during sleep to some extent. So if I, in our lab, we use like flashing lights and beeping sounds and vibration cues. And these signals are still”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Techniques are kind of like I said, blurring the boundaries between sleep and wakefulness, between dreams and waking life. And so because of this, these techniques are not really advised for people who are maybe struggling with any sort of dissociative or paranoia or any types of symptoms that where you wouldn't want to kind of aggravate this blurring of boundaries. For some people, you don't want to also just disrupting sleep. That's not something that you want to be doing on a nightly basis. So in general, I think these techniques for inducing lucid dreams, especially the sleep disruption, it's not something that you want to be practicing on a nightly basis. So it's more, there's some caution around when and how frequently to use techniques to induce lucid dreams.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of area of caution around lucid dreaming is really around the techniques that we use to induce lucid dreams. So there are a couple of techniques. One is called reality checking, and this is where throughout the day you try to remember to ask yourself whether you're awake or dreaming. And you actually, for the technique to be effective, you really want to imagine that you're in a dream. Like if this was a dream, what would I be feeling? What would I be experiencing? And really, you're kind of blurring the boundaries between waking and dreaming life and training yourself to really look around and question whether you're dreaming. And there's one other technique which is called the wake back to bed method, which is where you wake yourself up early in the morning, maybe a couple hours earlier than you, and stay awake for about 20 minutes before falling back to sleep. And this technique helps you to go into REM sleep really quickly, which is when you'll have lucid dreams.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I have had lucid dreams for, I don't know, 20 years or so, I guess. Maybe not that many. Yeah, 20. And I have them pretty spontaneously, maybe once every couple weeks, I'll just spontaneously have a lucid dream. But also... If I want to have more lucid dreams, there are techniques that I use and that I describe in the book to kind of increase the frequency of having lucid dreams on my own.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There were a few techniques that are offered for people. First, like what I just described, how to work with a nightmare if you have one, potentially to reimagine it or rescript it, and also some instructions in how to have a lucid dream as well. So I think people can have fun learning these techniques and just playing around with their dreams really at home.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But the message is just that through engaging with dreams and interacting with them, perhaps in imagination, in waking life or through dream engineering too, you can start to shift your dreaming patterns, maybe make them more pleasant, more enjoyable, more adventurous, maybe make them more creative. I mean, you can have some agency in how you dream. And I think this can be especially empowering for people who have nightmares, who really, really feel helpless. You know, it's one of the worst things about nightmares is they feel like there's nothing they can do about them. So it's helpful to have this new understanding of dreaming as something that you can interact with and influence.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's, I think, a huge message for me for my book, for Nightmare Sufferers, and for people in general is just that you do have some level of agency in your dreaming life, in how it unfolds. And it doesn't necessarily have to mean you completely control the content of your dreams. It just means that you can influence through these, perhaps through imagery exercises or through, you know, what you do just before you fall asleep at night or through how you record your dreams and think about them during waking life, you can shift the patterns that are happening in your dream. You're not completely at their mercy. They don't just happen. It's not something that just happens to you dreaming, which is kind of the perception that most people have is that this is just, it's completely out of my control. I just wake up and my dreaming self has gone on some adventure that I have no control over.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you remember the dream while you're awake, maybe write it down, and then you just can come up with a new version of the nightmare, come up with a way to make it more empowering or resolved or not as brightening or even enjoyable. So you write a new version of the dream. And then mentally rehearse this. Like really, you know, close your eyes, imagine yourself in this dream again, but it goes, it ends in a new way and visualize this new version of the dream for 20 minutes before going to bed each night. And you're basically just retraining your mind, retraining your mental imagery that the next time you start to have something that could develop into a nightmare, your mind kind of follows a different path. You learn a new way of responding within your dream. And this is very helpful for people who have nightmares. It reduces their frequency, reduces their severity. They feel less distressed when they have related.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There are several kind of treatments available for people who are suffering from nightmare disorder. And on one level, we view these recurring nightmares. It's kind of like the brain has learned this script, this maladactive script. So every time this person has a dream where they're being chased, it always leads to this completely overwhelming fear. They feel like they're going to be captured and they wake up right at the peak intensity. So it's kind of a learned script and they don't know how to get out of this repeating dream. And so what we do is in waking life try to teach them to imagine new ways of dreaming. And it kind of seems over like too simple and it's surprising to nightmare patients that this works, but it's really just a practice of visualizing and imagining alternative dream scenarios.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, for most people who have what we would say is actually a nightmare disorder, which is where you're having nightmares at least on a weekly basis. And these are really causing a lot of distress when you wake up. Most people with this nightmare disorder, they do have at least recurring themes to their nightmares. And a theme could be something like being chased or being attacked. Or they really have quite repetitive nightmare scripts where the actual content of the dream is really repeating. And often the content of the dream is Use often can be tied back to an actual maybe traumatic or adverse experience that the person has had in their waking life.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Nightmares just defined as a really negative dream that becomes so arousing, so intense that it really jars you out of sleep. So you wake up very suddenly, really at like this, the peak intensity of a nightmare. And usually there's quite often some level of arousal in the body that's occurring. So maybe your heart is racing or maybe you wake up and your hands are sweaty and your breathing, you're gasping for breath. So it's just a more intense and more jarring experience than a typical bad dream, which we all have bad dreams. And even everyone occasionally has nightmares, but they can become more of a problem for someone if they occur, you know, on a weekly basis where you're repeatedly being torn out of sleep with this really distressing experience.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think this becomes most apparent maybe when we look at nightmares and definitely a lot of research so far has focused on nightmares and how nightmares can actually really negatively impact someone's sleep health and someone's mental health. I do think dreaming more generally does impact waking health, but there's just a lot more kind of clinical research that's explored this link, particularly in people who are suffering nightmares or people with other types of psychiatric disorders who also have nightmares and just seeing how having nightmares really aggravate their waking symptoms, but also really quite clearly disrupts their sleep, so interrupts any functions that might be occurring during sleep.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's a few that I am primarily concerned with, and that's mainly looking at how sleep and how dreaming are tied to our emotions, our processing of emotional things that we've experienced during waking life, emotional memories. And so we know dreaming and nightmares especially seem to be important for helping us to adapt to emotional experiences, helping us to regulate our emotions and feel more kind of refreshed the next day. And then another thing that I study is looking at how dreaming is tied to a memory and learning. So this is, we know this is an important function of sleep that we kind of reactivate recent memories, strengthen memories and integrate them into our kind of memory networks overnight. And we think that dreaming is reflecting or potentially actually enhancing or impacting this process.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because it says, you know, this is not just this bleeding thing that happens in the morning, it's something that occurs and it's probably very closely tied to the quality of our sleep and very closely tied to the functions of sleep. So how they affect our waking health.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think one of the things that become more apparent to me over time is just how much more is happening while we're asleep than we typically realize. You know, most of us Most people, they remember maybe five minutes of dreaming in a whole week. You wake up every day and maybe you have little snippets or maybe some days you wake up too suddenly and you don't remember anything. So we have this really limited recall and limited understanding of how much dreaming is occurring during the night. And when we study people in the lab, you know, we wake them up repeatedly all throughout the night and we wake them up really gently and ask them to just lie still for a minute, keep their eyes closed and try to recall anything they can that they were just experiencing. And when we do this, we're able to get a lot more dream recall from people. And this happens all throughout the night. So it's become more apparent to me just how much is happening, how much we're experiencing, how much consciousness and emotion and cognition is occurring during the night. And that to me gives new meaning to dream science.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's pretty interesting to see on the one hand, you know, a lot of times our subjects when they're in the lab, they'll dream about us, the experimenters, or they'll dream about being in the lab and what they're experiencing. And then we go home to take a nap after the overnight and sometimes we'll dream we're back in the lab or dream about what our subjects we're dreaming about. It becomes this kind of bizarre intersection of are we studying our subject streams or are we dreaming about studying our subject streams?”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“definitely being a sleep scientist can be very difficult on your sleep especially when I was a graduate student but also in the years after I did have to do a lot of overnights when I was a graduate student we would sometimes do the whole night awake so that was usually destroys your next day so you spend the next day sleeping but over time I've started doing split night shifts so I'll share an overnight with someone else where I stay awake for half in the night and they stay awake for the other half of the night But still, you know, it does end up giving you some weird sleep schedules and honestly some pretty weird and vivid dreams I'll have in the days after doing overnight. So it's kind of allows us to see another side of our dreaming life as well.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, of course. So I actually first discovered the science of dreams when I was in college, really. I worked in a sleep lab. It was a sleep neurophysiology lab. So we were just studying basic sleep processes. And while I was in college, I kind of discovered cognitive science and psychology and neuroscience. And I also had a very vivid dreaming life myself. I had my first lucid dream while I was in college. It really just opened my eyes to the possibility of studying the mind during sleep, which is really new for me. And at the time, dream science was really much less widespread than it is now. So I discovered one of the One of the only really sleep labs dedicated to the study of dreams where I did my graduate degree in Montreal. And that was in 2011. And I've been really dedicated to studying dreams ever since then.”
2025-08-31 · Intelligence Squared · The science of dreams: why do we dream, and can we learn to control them? With Dr Michelle Carr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT