Understand and Use Dreams to Learn and Forget

About this video

Huberman explains dreaming, learning during dreaming, and unlearning troubling emotional events during dreaming, including lucid dreaming, which he illustrates with a childhood memory of a mask with a flashing red light meant to trigger it. Huberman argues that REM sleep has a powerful capacity to eliminate meanings that do not matter, uncoupling emotionality from experiences rather than strengthening the meanings that do matter, and he compares this to early development, where maturation involves eliminating excess connections. When that uncoupling fails, Huberman suggests, a deficit in REM sleep is often implicated. Huberman draws a parallel to trauma treatments: he describes EMDR, developed by psychologist Francine Shapiro, who, he recounts, noticed while walking among trees behind Stanford that recalling a troubling event felt less intense, and built a practice of moving the eyes side to side that became, he notes, one of the few behavioral treatments approved by the American Psychological Association for trauma. Huberman argues that EMDR and ketamine treatment share core features with REM sleep.

Key takeaways

• Huberman argues that REM sleep uncouples emotional charge from memories that do not matter.
• Huberman links failed emotional unlearning to deficits in REM sleep.
• Huberman describes EMDR’s origin in Francine Shapiro’s walking observation.
• Huberman notes EMDR as an APA-approved behavioral treatment for trauma in his account.
• Huberman argues that EMDR and ketamine share core features with REM sleep.

Episode details: published February 1, 2021 · 1M views · 1:17:50 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The science and protocols described are Andrew Huberman’s, presented for education — not medical advice. Consult a qualified professional before changing your own health practices.

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