How to control your dreams

KERA's Think

KERA

Society & Culture, 071003, Kera, Think, Krysboyd

4.8 • 861 Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“Sweet dreams,” we say at bedtime. But why do we dream at all? And what happens when we’re plagued by nightmares? Michelle Carr is director of the Dream Engineering Laboratory in the Center for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine, an assistant professor at the University of Montreal and a former president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. She joins guest host Courtney Collins to discuss the sleeping mind, how to move past nightmares to a more restful night and how we can even take control of our dreams. Her book is “Nightmare Obscura: A Dream Engineer’s Guide Through the Sleeping Mind.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Have you heard about OMG? Yes. This is a website the New York Times wirecutter featured as one of their most popular gifts. And for good reason, it presents new findings from the largest ever research study into women's pleasure and intimacy. In partnership with researchers at Yale and at Indiana University, they asked tens of thousands of women what they
0:21.6	wished they and their partners had discovered sooner. They found the patterns in those
0:26.2	discoveries and all that wisdom and intimacy is organized as hundreds of short videos,
0:31.6	animations, and how-toes. When you see OMG, yes, you might understand why wirecutter recommended it.
0:38.2	It is warm, honest, and has regular women talking about real experiences.
0:42.7	It's truly eye-opening.
0:44.8	See for yourself at omgyes.com.
0:47.3	That's OMGS.com. We've all had memorable dreams. There are happy adventures where you're flying across a lagoon or
1:04.6	sinking a game winner in a high stakes basketball game. There are disquieting dreams where
1:09.3	your teeth fall out or you show up for a final
1:11.7	exam in a class you've never attended. And then there are nightmares, which can be absolutely
1:17.0	terrifying. So why do we dream in the first place? And what part of the dream world sticks with us
1:23.1	when awake? From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Courtney Collins in for Chris Boyd.
1:29.6	These are all questions Dr. Michelle Carr has explored. She's been studying sleep and dreams
1:34.6	for years and currently runs a dream engineering lab in Montreal. Her new book is called
1:40.1	Nightmare Obscura, a dream engineer's guide through the sleeping mind. And she joins
1:45.2	us now to talk about it. Michelle, welcome to think. Hi, thank you for having me. So before we talk
1:51.0	about why we dream and some of the dream world's impacts, I'm kind of dying to hear your
1:55.5	career origin story. How did you get started in this? Well, I think I've always been fascinated
2:00.0	by dreams. And especially when I started Well, I think I've always been fascinated by dreams,
2:01.6	and especially when I started college,
2:03.7	I started to learn more about the mind and the brain,
	...

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