Artificial Naps, Precognitive Dreams and the Evolving Science of Sleep

What if you could get the restful benefits of taking a nap without actually taking a nap? Researchers studying the health effects of “power naps” recently performed a test on monkeys where they simulated the brain activity of sleeping with electrical pulses. The monkeys showed the same cognitive benefits that come from sleeping without the nap. The findings suggest there may be new ways to treat sleep disorders but also may lead to an “artificial nap” industry where pods or venues offer this sort of stimulation to help people hone their focus when they need it most.

In other sleep news this week, an expert on dreamwork shared a perspective on the possibility of precognitive dreams and whether some people may indeed have the ability to dream about a prediction of something that will later happen in real life. Specifically, there were an abnormally large number of people who report having dreamed about getting a cancer diagnosis before it happened to them. This could have something to do with the theory that our subconscious can predict or understand things that our conscious doesn’t.