A leading sleep expert reveals the latest science behind the dreaming brain and why we have nightmares–offering helpful insights into lucid dreaming, and how to control your sleep and dreams to improve your health.

People think of nightmares as something to forget about, to leave behind in the dark of night, to make our peace with having no control over. But over the past few years, bad dreams started showing up everywhere. Social media was filled with #CovidDreams and stories of how our suddenly bizarre and fearsome daily lives were interweaving into dream content.

Michelle Carr assures us that there is an upside to nightmares, an advantage to facing these inner demons at night, from helping us deal with difficult events in life to providing a safe space to practice responding to potential real-life threatening scenarios. At the extreme though, nightmares can seep into our waking lives and harm our mental health. This crossover is especially true for those who have faced significant trauma, but nightmares can interfere with anyone’s ability to regulate emotion.

Luckily, Carr explains, modern dream science is revealing how we can interact with the dreaming mind and illuminate the usefulness of nightmares. With dream engineering, we are learning to modulate the brain and body while asleep, to dampen negative emotion and interrupt the bodily stress of a nightmare, and to empower a sense of agency and freedom in both the dreaming and waking world. Drawing on her cutting-edge research as the Director of the Dream Engineering Lab at the University of Montreal, Carr shows us how to tap into our sleeping minds to lead more conscious and lucid lives.