Did you know you can enhance your dream life by sleeping with a glove on? We talk with Dr. Tore Nielsen about his current interests in dream science. Since the Covid pandemic has closed down his Montreal Dream & Nightmare Laboratory for over a year, part of his focus has been on DIY dream experiments you can do at home. Tore shares his research into what he calls the Black Glove Effect in which wearing a single glove to bed can produce more easily recalled dreams that are more vivid than usual, and it can also increase the likelihood of experiencing a lucid dream.
We talk about how dreams, even bad dreams, can help us emotionally, and Dr. Nielsen recommends taking difficult dreams to a dream group or otherwise sharing the dream. It not only helps the dreamer with their emotional issues, but research shows that dream sharing also increases the empathy of all group members.
We touch in on the idea that the right hemisphere is responsible for insight and thus may produce the famous dream recognition moment of “Aha” and yet be unable to articulate what the insight is since such verbalization is localized in the left hemisphere. Dr. Nielsen comments that the right hemisphere is responsible for detecting prosody or vocal tone and seems to be key for detecting deception. We also speak then about dreams how they help us process trauma and how the system breaks down in extreme cases like PTSD.
Tore Nielsen will be the Science track keynote at the upcoming IASD virtual conference and will be speaking about microdreaming which he also calls upright napping. He has discovered that all kinds of interesting images can be seen in the moments when he sleeps before his nodding head wakes him up.
The Montreal Dream & Nightmare Lab is currently conducting a study of dreaming during the pandemic. If you would like to contribute a dream and complete a questionnaire, please click here: dreamscience.ca/2020 (there is a French version too).
You can contact Dr. Nielsen at Tore.Nielsen(at)yahoo.com.
Bio: Tore Nielsen, Ph.D, is a Full Professor at the Dept. of Psychiatry and Addictology at the University of Montréal. He is an Ex-psychologist, and he is the Director of the Dream & Nightmare Laboratory The DNL, established in 1990, is dedicated to the scientific study of dreaming and its disorders, to the training of graduate students, researchers and health professionals in the techniques and applications of dream science, to the development and deployment of proven methods for treating dream-related health problems, and to public education about the important role dreams and nightmares play in psychological life.
Two books that are mentioned in the show are Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill by Jeremey Taylor and The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist.
We played clips from Because (The Beatles Abbey Road 2009 remastered version) and Dream a Little Dream (official soundtrack for The Undoing).
Live ambient music by Rick Kleffel.
Show aired on May 15, 2021.
The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM, streaming live at KSQD.org 10-11am Saturday mornings Pacific time. Catch it live and call in with your dreams or questions at 831-900-5773 or at onair@ksqd.org.
If you want to contact Katherine Bell with feedback, suggestions for future shows or to inquire about exploring your own dreams with her, contact katherine@ksqd.org, or find out more about her at ExperientialDreamwork.com.
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