How neuroscience opens the black box of our dreams

By  Delphine Oudiette

Published on 01/15/2023 at 4:18 p.m., updateon 01/16/2023 at 5:02 p.m.

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Every day, everyone goes through another hybrid state on the border between wakefulness and sleep: the period of falling asleep. Konstantin Yuganov - stock.adobe.com

DECRYPTION - Several research techniques have been developed to better understand dreams, while studying them scientifically is a nightmare.

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Delphine Oudiette is an Inserm researcher at the Brain Institute (Paris).

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While scientific advances have made it possible to better understand the world around us, from the infinitely small to sidereal space, our inner world remains largely mysterious. In particular, we still don't know what's going on in our heads when we sleep. When we wake up, only a few fragments of dreams remain, fleeting witnesses that our mental world remains rich even when our eyelids are closed. Do our dreams have an influence on our waking life?