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Science 2 November 2001:
Vol. 294. no. 5544, pp. 1052 - 1057
DOI: 10.1126/science.1063530
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Sleep, Learning, and Dreams: Off-line Memory Reprocessing

R. Stickgold,1* J. A. Hobson,1 R. Fosse,12 M. Fosse1

Converging evidence and new research methodologies from across the neurosciences permit the neuroscientific study of the role of sleep in off-line memory reprocessing, as well as the nature and function of dreaming. Evidence supports a role for sleep in the consolidation of an array of learning and memory tasks. In addition, new methodologies allow the experimental manipulation of dream content at sleep onset, permitting an objective and scientific study of this dream formation and a renewed search for the possible functions of dreaming and the biological processes subserving it.

1 Laboratory of Neurophysiology and Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
2 Institute of Psychology, University of Oslo, Box 1094 Blindem, N-0317 Oslo, Norway.
*   To whom correspondences should be addressed. E-mail: rstickgold{at}hms.harvard.edu

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