What determines the content of dreams?
Plus, post‑game depression
BRAIN WAVES
Dream on. Ever wondered why you had that weird dream about a cow shooting you with a squirt gun? Or what it is that prompted you to dream about showing up to work in your underpants? Researchers collected thousands of dream reports from people over several years, then paired them with cognitive tests, personality measures, and sleep data. They then scored each dream across different dimensions like emotion, sensory detail, social content, and bizarreness. Unsurprisingly, they found that our experiences shape our dreams. But they also found that individual traits like mind‑wandering, sleep quality, stressors, and attitudes toward dreaming reliably predicted the actual content of people’s dreams. For example, people prone to mind-wandering had dreams with more bizarre events and more frequent shifts in dream settings. And poor sleepers recalled fewer details about the environment in their dreams. The researchers concluded, “Dream content is shaped not only by each individual’s unique characteristics but also by broader, generalizable traits and shared external events.”
Console me. Ever played a video game so engrossing that it created an existential crisis? Even if you’re not a gamer, you might relate to the feeling of crashing after reaching a goal. Researchers wanted to understand the phenomenon of “post‑game depression” to figure out how common and complex that emotional crash really is. They ran studies with 373 video game players, looking at measures of well‑being and mental health. The overall finding? Post‑game depression isn’t one feeling but a cluster of four experiences: intrusive thoughts about the game, difficulty letting go, the urge to replay, and losing interest in other media. People who ruminate more tend to feel this crash more intensely, especially fans of deeply immersive role-playing games. As study author Kamil Janowicz put it: “The more engaging the game world and the closer the relationship with the character, the more difficult it is to return to reality once the game is over.”
By design. We tell ourselves that meaning comes from impact, passion, or finding the “one right path.” But these beliefs can leave us feeling stuck — even when our lives look great on paper. Listen to learn more.
WHAT DOES RIGHT BRAIN VS. LEFT BRAIN REALLY MEAN?
For decades, pop psychology told us creative people are right-brained and analytical people are left-brained. The real science is far stranger, and far more important.
In our latest video, we explore psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist’s research on the divided brain: why both hemispheres do everything, how they approach the world in completely different ways, and what happens to a society when one half stops listening to the other.
ON THE HIDDEN BRAIN PODCAST
Who Are You, Really? You’re not the same person with your friends as you are with your co-workers or your kids. So who are you, really? This week, political scientist Eric Oliver explores why we often feel divided within ourselves, and how we can learn to live more peacefully with those contradictions. Then, psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman answers your questions on the science of intelligence.
ON THE MY UNSUNG HERO PODCAST
Rebecca Simonitsch’s Story: After learning she was a candidate for brain surgery, Rebecca boarded a flight home overwhelmed. The stranger beside her turned out to be exactly the person she needed.
Don’t forget to send us the story of your unsung hero! Record a voice memo on your phone and email it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.
MIND GAMES
What can you hold in your right hand, but never in your left hand?
LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE
Alice came across a lion and a unicorn in a forest of forgetfulness. Those two are strange beings. The lion lies every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and the other days he speaks the truth. The unicorn lies on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. The other days of the week he speaks the truth. “Yesterday I was lying,” the lion told Alice. “So was I,” said the unicorn. What day is it?
The answer: Thursday. The only day they both tell the truth is Sunday. But today can’t be Sunday because the lion also tells the truth on Saturday (yesterday). Going day by day, the only day one of them is lying and one of them is telling the truth with those two statements is Thursday. (source)
IS HIDDEN BRAIN YOUR DREAM JOB?
Are you a writer, editor, or fact-checker with deep experience covering the social sciences? Do you read academic journals for fun? Do you enjoy explaining complex or arcane topics to a general-interest audience? If so, we’d be interested in hearing from you. Please send your resume and three writing and/or editing samples to Executive Producer Tara Boyle via email to jobs@hiddenbrain.org.
MOMENT OF JOY
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