The Science and Soul of Nightmares
At the crossroads of science and culture lies the potential to transform nightmares from fearsome phantoms into tools of understanding.
Nightmares—this peculiar phenomenon of unnerving visits to the darker side of the dream world have preoccupied scientists, poets, and philosophers for centuries. But if anyone knows the mind’s terrifying, nocturnal landscape, perhaps it is Michelle Carr. A neuroscientist whose career has been spent unpacking the intricacies of sleep, dreams, and nightmares, Carr has made it her life's work to explore what stirs beneath the eyelids when we slumber.
The relationship between dreams and nightmares is as old as human civilisation itself, a swirling blend of science, folklore, and the psychology of fear. For centuries, cultures around the world have woven their own meanings and interpretations into the existence of nightmares, seeing them as omens, messages from the divine, or echoes of unresolved trauma. Yet, despite their ubiquity in our shared human experience, nightmares remain a largely unexplored frontier of both psychology and neuroscience.
Michelle, an assistant professor at University of Montreal spends her working hours at the Laboratoire des Rêves et des Cauchemars (The Dream and Nightmare Laboratory) which stands as a quiet sentinel to a vast frontier of the mind. Inside, sleep cycles are studied and observed like the fluttering wings of a butterfly—delicate, enigmatic, and often elusive. Here, scientists attempt to peer through the veil that separates us from the subconscious realms we enter when the lights go out. Carr’s work seeks to answer a question that has preoccupied both science and the arts: Why do we dream the things we do, and why, for some, do nightmares become so relentless, so consuming?
In ancient Egypt, a written account from 4,000 years ago tells of a man who sought protection from nightmares of a deceased servant’s gaze. Similarly, in indigenous cultures, dreams—both beautiful and terrifying—are viewed as a space where the spirit world touches the waking life, a place where messages from ancestors or gods may unfold. These cultural interpretations give us insight into the emotional and existential weight that nightmares carry.
Yet, as Carr points out, the contemporary scientific view is far less mystical but equally profound. Nightmares, she and her colleagues have found, are not merely the brain's chaotic byproducts. They are linked to the body’s own fight-or-flight response, echoing an evolutionary history where dreams—particularly the bad ones—might have played a role in training us to confront danger. Carr’s work explores the biological rhythms of sleep, tracking eye movements, heart rate, and brain activity to reveal a more structured understanding of how nightmares emerge. It is here, in the labyrinth of our deepest fears, that culture and wellbeing meet.
While cultures have long sought meaning in their dreams, the clinical approach today is about finding relief. Carr is working at the frontier of what is known as “dream engineering”—a practice that aims to give people agency over their dreams, particularly those who suffer from chronic nightmares. Through techniques like lucid dreaming, in which the dreamer becomes aware that they are in a dream and can take control of it, Carr’s team is helping individuals rewrite the narratives of their darkest visions. This offers a kind of liberation: the ability to confront terror not as helpless victims, but as empowered actors in our own mental theatre.
Yet, lucid dreaming is just one of many tools Carr and her team use to explore the mysterious world of the unconscious. In their Montreal laboratory, equipped with electrodes and brainwave monitors, they observe the moment when the mind shifts from wakefulness into the fluid, distorted realm of REM sleep, the stage where most dreaming occurs. For Carr, the scientific rigour is a means of understanding something much larger—the dance between body and mind, culture and biology, that shapes our internal worlds.
But why do nightmares hold such power over us? Could it be that these restless dreams serve a deeper, evolutionary purpose? Carr believes that nightmares, like all dreams, are a way for the brain to rehearse danger. This “threat simulation” hypothesis suggests that nightmares are not just random products of an overactive mind but are, in fact, part of an ancient survival mechanism—a way of preparing us for real-world threats. In this sense, nightmares are not merely disturbances but are reflections of how we, as humans, process fear. And, just as cultures have created rituals and practices to cope with fear, modern science is finding ways to help individuals confront and diminish it.
What this intersection of ancient wisdom and contemporary research reveals is that our understanding of nightmares—and by extension, of mental health—is not fixed. It is in constant flux, shaped by cultural contexts, scientific discovery, and personal experience. Dreams and nightmares may be universal, but the ways in which we interpret and engage with them are as varied as the cultures that have studied them throughout history.
It is through this dual lens—where scientific inquiry meets cultural understanding—that we glimpse the most promising path forward: one where nightmares are not merely feared, but deeply understood and, ultimately, transformed.