Humans going back to ancient civilizations have tried to interpret and find meaning in our dreams. Dreams have been thought of as divine signals, warnings, and simply things that happen to us. But what if we could seize control of them? In her exploration, sleep expert and neuroscientist Carr deftly guides the reader through the science of sleep, dreams, and how the darkest of our mind inventions can traumatize us in waking hours. Carr has spent hundreds of nights awake and working in the sleep lab during her career, watching others sleep, electrodes placed on their scalps, later working to pull apart their dreams and disturbances. At the heart of her work in the sleep lab lie three questions: Why do we dream? Why do dreams go bad? How can we harness the science of dreaming to improve our health? In her unpacking of these questions, the author carries us through a raft of complicated brain science and sleep studies in compelling, clear writing. At times, the narrative is overly dense with study details that risk losing the nonscientist reader. While most of us have been taught to believe we have no agency over our dreams, Carr argues otherwise. She presents a strong case that we have the power to harness dreams and to guide our brains away from images and stories that might harm us while awake. What unfolds is a detailed manual for the notion of “dream engineering.” Though it may seem far-fetched to some, to those who experience chronic nightmares and lucid dreaming, the concept could introduce a revolutionary practice for healing.
