Dream Incubation Gets Renewed Look From Researchers and Clinicians

NPR News said people spend about two hours each night dreaming, amounting to roughly seven years over a lifetime. For much of human history, dreams were considered sacred, and many early civilizations viewed them as messages from the gods; in ancient Greece, people slept in temples hoping for guidance or healing. By the 1970s, some psychiatrists had adopted a less romantic view, likening dreams to the brain's attempt to make sense of random signals.

Psychologist Rosalind Cartwright, known to colleagues as the "Queen of Dreams," challenged that view, according to the report. She believed dreamwork could be a form of therapy and published studies from her lab experiments; her books included Crisis Dreaming, co-written with Lynne Lamberg, and The Twenty-Four Hour Mind.

The report cites a small 1990s study in which an instructor at Harvard Medical School asked college students to focus on a problem at bedtime. About half reported a dream related to it, and many felt the dream contained a solution.

Jungian analyst Lisa Marchiano uses dream incubation with people navigating challenges and midlife transitions, NPR News reported. She said the first step is asking a good question, which takes time. Marchiano advised against yes-or-no questions and suggested targeted, open-ended ones, such as "What would it look like if I took this job?" or "What would it look like if I went on another date with this person?"

Marchiano also recommends writing down what a person already knows about the problem, so the unconscious can fill in the gaps. She described consulting an inner "dream maker" rather than turning to ChatGPT. To make the practice feel like a ritual rather than a chore, she said she writes her question in a journal, copies it onto a slip of paper, folds it and tucks it into a small velvet bag under her pillow; the report also suggests a bath as a way to wind down while setting an intention.

For people who want to try dream incubation, NPR News outlined steps: write down a challenge or decision as an open-ended question, review it before lights out and place a related picture or object by the bed if possible; as sleep comes, tell yourself you would like to dream about it; keep a pen and notebook on the nightstand; and when you wake, lie still before reaching for a phone and jot down anything remembered, even a fragment or an emotion.

Dr. Harrison Shong-Wen Chow, a Stanford anesthesiologist, told NPR News that people have only about three to five minutes to remember a dream. Writing it down or telling someone helps move it into long-term memory, he said. Chow's research explores how dreams under anesthesia may help people process fear and trauma, and the report notes research into how an electronic device may help deliver dream prompts for targeted dream incubation.

The report says dream incubation may not yield anything on the first night and that dream recall is subjective. Over time, the practice may lead to a fresh insight or at least a new way of listening to oneself, according to NPR News.