The Language of Dreams

Research Project

The project

Background

Every night, when we fall asleep, we cease to experience the world around us. Yet, during all stages of sleep, we may be exposed to a wide gamut of internally generated experiences (i.e., dreams), ranging from simple abstract thoughts to complex movie-like narratives. In most cases, these experiences develop independently from external stimuli and are not subject to voluntary control. Instead, they largely draw on previously acquired memories and beliefs, and thus typically present relevant aspects of continuity with thoughts, concerns, and salient experiences of our waking self. In light of this, dreams are thought to represent an important window on—and to potentially have a direct role in—sleep-dependent processes involving learning and memory consolidation. Moreover, they have a tight relationship with psychophysical health. In fact, alterations in the frequency or content of oneiric experiences may accompany, or even precede, the waking manifestation of clinical symptoms related to psychiatric and neurological disorders. From a different perspective, dreams also constitute a fundamental model for the study of human consciousness due to their nature of subjective experiences spontaneously generated by the brain independently from sensory input, motor output, and volitional processes. For these reasons, the study of dreams represents a crucial intersection between philosophical, psychological, neuroscientific, and clinical interestss.

Our aim

The project's goal is to create an open-access repository collecting transcripts of dream conscious experiences and tools (software, algorithms) for the automated analysis of dream content and structure. It is our hope that the results of this project will pave the way to further investigations with a potential translational value.

Collaborations and support

The project is developed in collaboration with Prof. Michele Bellesi (University of Camerino), and funded by the BIAL foundation (Grant Number 091/2020).

Preliminary results

Publications

Elce V, Handjaras G, Bernardi G. The Language of Dreams: Application of Linguistics-Based Approaches for the Automated Analysis of Dream Experiences. Clocks & Sleep, 2021 [10.3390/clockssleep3030035]

Oral presentations

Elce V. Individual factors associated with dream recall and content: exploiting Somnieve, an extensive multimodal dream database. eSLEEP Europe (virtual edition of the congress of the European Sleep Research Society), October 4, 2023

Abstracts & Posters

Elce V, Lomi F, Bergamo D, Capriglia E, Avvenuti G, Bellesi M, Handjaras G, Bernardi G. The matter dreams are made of: a dictionary-based analysis and categorization of dream reports. Poster presented at the ESRS Congress 2022, Athens, Greece

Elce V, Bergamo D, Lomi F, Avvenuti G, Bellesi M, Handjaras G, Bernardi G. Trait predictors of dream recall frequency in healthy adult individuals. Poster presented at the ESRS Congress 2022, Athens, Greece

Elce V, Bergamo D, Lomi F, Avvenuti G, Bellesi M, Handjaras G, Bernardi G. Trait predictors of dream recall frequency in healthy adult individuals. Poster presented at the World Sleep Congress 2022, Rome, Italy

Collaborate with us

For information regarding possible scientific collaborations on the project or to participate as volunteers, please contact:

Valentina Elce, researcher: valentina.elce@imtlucca.it
Giulio Bernardi, principal investigator: giulio.bernardi@imtlucca.it

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