We spend about two hours every night making home movies in our minds. Over a lifetime, that adds up to about seven years of dreaming.
For most of human history, those movies were considered sacred. Many early civilizations believed dreams were messages from the gods. In ancient Greece, people slept in temples hoping a dream would bring guidance or healing.
By the 1970s, scientists took a far less romantic view. A few psychiatrists likened dreams to the brain's attempt to make sense of random signals, and their theory threw cold water on the idea that dreams were meaningful.
Psychologist Rosalind Cartwright, known to colleagues as the "Queen of Dreams," pushed back. She believed dreamwork could be a form of therapy and made her case in books including Crisis Dreaming, co-written with Lynne Lamberg and The Twenty-Four Hour Mind. She published many studies from her lab experiments.
Today there's a resurgence of interest and new research. And one ancient practice is getting a fresh look: dream incubation, planting a question in your mind before sleep in hopes your dreams will offer insights.
It may sound mystical, but there's research behind it. In a small study from the 1990s an instructor at Harvard Medical School asked college students to focus on a problem at bedtime. About half reported a dream related to it, and many felt the dream contained a solution.
Jungian analyst Lisa Marchiano uses the practice with people navigating challenges and midlife transitions. The first step, she says, is asking a good question, and that takes time. "You want to ask a question that could be answered," Marchiano says. Skip yes-or-no questions. Instead, make it targeted but open-ended. If you're weighing a job offer, ask, "What would it look like if I took this job?" or "What would it look like if I went on another date with this person?"
Next, write down what you already know about the problem. "You're looking for the stuff you don't know," she says. "You want to invite your unconscious to fill in the gaps."
In other words, consult your inner "dream maker." As Marchiano puts it, "Instead of going to ChatGPT, try going to your dream maker."
Finally, turn it into a ritual so it doesn't feel like one more chore. You could take a bath as a way to wind down as you set an intention or "ask" for a dream. Marchiano says she writes her question in her journal, then copies it onto a slip of paper, folds it and tucks it into a small velvet bag to put under her pillow.
How to try dream incubation tonight:
- Think of a challenge, decision or problem you face. Write it down as an open-ended question.
- Review it before lights out. If you can, place a related picture or object by your bed.
- As you drift off, tell yourself you'd like to dream about it.
- Keep a pen and notebook on your nightstand.
- When you wake up, lie still before reaching for your phone. Jot down anything you remember, even a fragment or an emotion.
That last step matters. Many people say they don't remember their dreams, and the window is short. "You only have about three to five minutes to remember," says Dr. Harrison Shong-Wen Chow, a Stanford anesthesiologist. Writing a dream down or telling someone helps move it into long-term memory, he says.
Chow's own research explores something even more surprising: how dreams under anesthesia may help people process fear and trauma. There's also research into how an electronic device may help deliver dream prompts for targeted dream incubation.
Be patient. Dream incubation may not yield anything the first night, and dream recall is subjective. But over time, the practice may lead to a fresh insight, or at least a new way of listening to yourself.
To hear more about how to unlock the power of your dreams, listen to the new episode of Your Turn w/ Allison Aubrey wherever you get your podcasts and follow our Your Turn newsletter to help navigate the twists and turns of midlife.
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