Jonah Lehrer: Why We Need to Dream

March 10, 2010
New York Times Opinionator

Excerpt:

Look, for instance, at the research of Matthew Wilson, a neuroscientist at the Picower Institute at M.I.T. In the early 1990’s, Wilson was recording neuron activity in the brains of rats as they navigated a difficult maze. (The machines translated the firing of brain cells into loud, staccato pops.) One day, he left the rats connected to the recording equipment after they completed the task. (Wilson was preoccupied with some data analysis.) Not surprisingly, the tired animals soon started to doze off, slipping into a well-deserved nap. And that’s when Wilson heard something extremely unexpected: although the rats were sound asleep, the sound produced by their brain activity was almost exactly the same as it was when they were running in the maze. The animals were dreaming of what they’d just done. (more)

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