Prof. Wesley Wildman Featured in BU Bostonia Article on Sleep Disorders and Treatments
The following is an excerpt from Bostonia’s article “Understanding Sleep and Future Sleep Disorder Treatments” by Jessica Colarossi, featuring Professor of Philosophy, Theology and Ethics Wesley Wildman, published on May 16, 2022. Click here to read the full article.
Brain “Washing” and Why We Have Nightmares
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Whether dreams have any purpose has been debated and studied by sleep scientists. Some argue that dreams are nothing more than nonsense images that our brain scrambles together based on experiences from our waking hours. But others disagree, pointing to a strong association between REM sleep and memory consolidation, which is when the brain processes and stores emotional memories so that they don’t preoccupy us while we’re awake.
“This [system] wouldn’t be necessary for dumber species,” says Wesley J. Wildman, a School of Theology professor of philosophy of religion and an expert in artificial, computer-simulated environments. “But for human beings we really do need some type of system that allows us to function.”
Wildman and McNamara have teamed up on research simulating the imagery that people see during dreams, specifically terrifying ones experienced by people having a nightmare. A nightmare disorder, different from the occasional nightmare, happens when a person has frequent or recurring nightmares that interfere with sleep and mood and can bring notable distress in daily life. About 50 percent of children between the ages of three and six report frequent nightmares, and 2 to 8 percent of adults have problems with nightmares.