What inspired you to put that together and where can people have a squiz at it?

Well, it started for me when I first actually got home from recording the first time and I just started deconstructing some of the things that I'd actually said.

And I thought to myself, everything that I'm actually saying as an argument for racing, in a way, it's a bit contradictory and it can also... be an argument against racing so for example I was thinking about what I said about when you go and actually talk to trainers and you talk about their lived experience and I was thinking well actually with that argument I feel like that's not necessarily true or it's not going to be true now in the future because when I was talking to Gemma on the way in even she mentioned to me about The industry is consolidating now.

So a lot of these older trainers are now ageing out and it's starting to be these big stud farms and these big trainers who are now starting to really just be one very small pool of people rather than a lot of people with less dogs but maybe who spend more time with the dogs.

So first of all, like I thought, this is a little bit of an outdated argument maybe, but then I also thought structurally it's not a very fair thing to ask of the trainers because to put so much of their livelihood into something that's not necessarily guaranteed to make a return.

And if it does make a return, to have to share so much of it with someone who actually just owns the dog rather than putting in equal work towards the dog.

So I thought that can actually also be an argument against racing.

Kind of sucking up the funds and the resources, limited funds and resources of the people right at the bottom.

I wonder, you know, are there common themes? And do you get any insights as to things that are driving common themes when they exist?

Yeah, definitely there are common themes.

We call them typical dream themes, and they've been studied quite a bit a- across cultures and, you know, across different age groups, and over 40 of them have been discovered.

The ones you mentioned are, are very common.

Uh, dreams of flying, dreams of being chased, dreams where you're trying again and again and again to accomplish a, a task but you can't quite do it, out-of-control cars or teeth falling out.

There's a lot of different potential reasons for some of these themes, and I don't think there's just one answer for why we have these dreams.

I think some of them are actually related to the physical sensations of sleep.

Another question a few of our listeners wanted to ask was, why do some of us remember our dreams and others seemingly don't? And is there any way to sort of increase our ability to remember them?

Do we know anything about nightmares as opposed to dreams and why they can actually revisit people over and over again?

Yeah.

So nightmares very often tend to have recurring themes and they can be traumatic, as you said, in people who have experienced trauma or any kind of adversity or significant stress in their life.

incorporates elements of that event from their life, potentially replaying a trauma that someone has experienced, or it can be more symbolically related to a stressful event someone's experienced.

So an example might be someone who has recurring tidal wave dreams where they feel like they're completely overwhelmed and helpless in the face of this natural disaster.

And the dream is not literally representing any kind of waking life stress, but it's emotionally representing how someone is feeling.

And these nightmares can recur on a weekly basis, really interfering with sleep and causing a lot of emotional distress on awakening as well and kind of dragging on throughout the day and interfering with life in that way.

And this is work that you've done or you've observed in others or read of others?

And, and not clear, but what is baffling to me is looking back, reflecting on the dream, it's so obviously bizarre, right? Like, it is so obviously not real life because there are things that are happening that just make no sense in the physical world as we understand it, right? And you think, "How, how did I not notice that something was off here," right? So, like, how is it that you can become aware of the fact that you're dreaming while you're dreaming?

Learning how to become lucid, I think you already started the process.

I mean, part of it is, um, you know, first steps, you keep, keep a dream journal and start to notice what are the recurring elements of bizarreness in your dreams.

So usually our dreams aren't just completely randomly bizarre every night.

There are kind of these recurring thing, things that happen that are bizarre in our dreams.

Like, maybe we, we often dream about a pet who passed away years ago.

That's, that's bizarre, but it's, it's something that we can use as a clue into the fact that we're dreaming.

Okay.

Hey, Michelle, how are you?

I'm so happy to be here.

I know that the retention is dropping in this video right now, 'cause everyone wants to skip to the actual people on this cast.

So let me just say, proud and excited to be here.

I have no idea how I finagled my way into attending this, and it's an honor to meet you in person, Rob.

Yeah.

Okay.

But yeah, that's my prediction, but how exciting do we get to see it unfold live in front of us? We're gonna be in the same room as everybody else tonight, and with such legends like yourself who have made this show like it is.

And Michelle, how are you?

I'm so happy to be here.

I know that the retention is dropping in this video right now, 'cause everyone wants to skip to the actual people on this cast.

So let me just say, proud and excited to be here.

I have no idea how I finagled my way into attending this, and it's an honor to meet you in person, Rob.

Yeah.

Okay.

But yeah, that's my prediction.

Maybe they feel safe in the lab.

I know.

We think...

I mean, that's one of the theories, but, um, in general, you know, we, we have some evidence that experiencing emotion or, uh, memories and dreams, it seems like it's, it's the areas of the brain that are active in waking life.

But there is some work on kind of the brain basis of nightmares and nightmare disorder, and one thing that we have seen is that people who have nightmares potentially have, um, a difference in how their brain regulates emotion.

And specifically, um, we know that sleep is important for emotion regulation, and it specifically helps this connection between basically frontal or prefrontal areas of the brain, which are responsible for helping us to control and to regulate our emotion, uh, their connection with the amygdala, with our emotional arousal centers.

So in people who have nightmares, what we see is that there's actually less activation in the frontal areas of their brain when they are experiencing emotional distress.

So what are some methods researchers use to treat nightmares?

I wonder, are there common themes? And do you get any insights as to things that are driving common themes when they exist?

Yeah, definitely there are common themes.

We call them typical dream themes, and they've been studied quite a bit across cultures and across different age groups.

And over 40 of them have been discovered.

The ones you mentioned are very common.

Dreams of flying, dreams of being chased, dreams where you're trying again and again and again to accomplish a task, but you can't quite do it.

Out of control cars or teeth falling out.

Another question a few of our listeners wanted to ask was why do some of us remember our dreams and others seemingly don't? And is there any way to sort of increase our ability to remember them?

Why do they feel safe in the lab?

I know.

We think ...

I mean, that's one of the theories.

But, um, in general, you know, we, we have some evidence that experiencing emotion or, uh, memories in dreams, it seems like it's, it's the areas of the brain that are active in waking life.

But there is some work on kind of the brain basis of nightmares and nightmare disorder and one thing that we have seen is that people who have nightmares potentially have, um, a difference in how their brain regulates emotion.

And specifically, um, we know that sleep is important for emotion regulation and it specifically helps this connection between basically frontal or prefrontal areas of the brain, which are responsible for helping us to control and to regulate our emotion, and their connection with the amygdala, with our emotional arousal centers.

And speaking of stress when you're awake, you mentioned in your book that there's a point where nightmares can become harmful to overall health, so what are some methods researchers used to treat nightmares?

Can you explain that?

Yeah, so this is a very- very common typical dream theme, so I- You know, the vast m- The majority of people who have had this kind of dream where you're trying again and again to accomplish a specific task, and often there's all sorts of obstacles that crop up in your way.

So, examples are, like, trying to get to a flight on time or trying to get to an exam that you're supposed to be taking, or you realize you were meant to take it (laughs) and you forgot to study.

Um, but this theme of, like, trying to accomplish a goal and- and the whole dream just seems to be endless attempts, um, and- and often not even succeeding.

And, um, we think that this is related to kind of, uh, maybe one of the broad functions of dreaming, which is to help us to rehearse different skills.

Um, this is k- obviously, like, really important to waking life, is accomplishing tasks and having goals and knowing how to work towards them and, uh, learning new skills.

And we think that dreaming is just kind of reenacting the- these scenarios where the purpose is actually just to- to try, to practice, and to reach towards the goal, and not necessarily to accomplish it (laughs).

Can you explain what's happening in a young child's brain when they experience trauma that creates these lasting nightmare patterns?

And so what can we do to help people who are kind of trapped in that loop of nightmares and that kind of breakdown of the memory and emotion processing function of dreams?

There's several kind of treatments available for people who are suffering from nightmare disorder.

And on one level, we view these recurring nightmares.

It's kind of like the brain has learned this script, this maladaptive script.

So every time this person has a dream where they're being chased, it always leads to this completely overwhelming trauma.

fear.

They feel like they're going to be captured and they wake up right at the peak intensity.

What do you think is the next frontier in dream research in medicine?