Sleepwalking, sleep talking, night terrors - how do they occur and why do some people have them more than others?

Join us as we discuss with Professor Francesca Siclari her work looking at non-REM parasomnias and the link to dreaming. We discuss the various forms that non-REM parasomnias can take, how they differ between adults and children and what the potential consequences of them can be.

Find out more about Francesca and her research group here.
Here are links to some of the studies:

• Conscious experiences during non-REM parasomnias
• Shared EEG correlates between non-REM parasomnia experiences and dreams
• Consciousness in non-REM-parasomnia episodes

Host: Professor Penny Lewis
Producer & Editor: Sophie Smith

Check out our NaPS website to find out more about our team, our research and events.

This recording is the property of the Sleep Science Podcast and not for resale.

To kickstart season 3 of the Sleep Science Podcast, we have the lab behind the podcast, NaPS Lab, to answer some great sleep-related questions from our listeners. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions!
Want to find out more about the team and the lab? Check out our website here.

1. What is lucid dreaming? - Answered by Mo Abdellahi

• Lucid dreaming - Stephen LaBerge, 2009
• Induction of self awareness in dreams through frontal low current stimulation of gamma activity
• Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep

2. Do dreams do anything for us? - Answered by Kyrillos Meshreky

• The brain as a dream state generator: an activation-synthesis hypothesis of the dream process
• Converging theories on dreaming: Between Freud, predictive processing, and psychedelic research
• Predictive coding under the free-energy principle

3. What types of memory does sleep help you consolidate? - Answered by Yan Wang

• The whats and whens of sleep-dependent memory consolidation
• The role of Sleep in declarative memory consolidation - direct evidence by intracranial EEG
• Sleep, Memory, and Plasticity

4. How does sleep change as you age? - Answered by Megan Wadon

• Sleep across the lifespan
• The architecture of early childhood sleep
• Normal sleep in children and adolescence

5. Why do adolescences sleep longer? - Answered by Martha Nguyen

• National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations
• Sleep in Children and Adolescents with Behavioral and Emotional Disorders
• The Relations Between Sleep, Personality, Behavioral Problems, and School Performance in Adolescents
• Sleep quality and adolescent default mode network connectivity
• Sleep loss, learning capacity and academic performance

6. Does the menstrual cycle affect our sleep? - Answered by Marta Wawrzuta

7. How do the seasons affect our sleep? - Answered by Sophie Smith

• Circadian entrainment to the Natural Light-Dark cycle across seasons and the weekend

Check out our NaPS website to find out more about our team, our research and events.

This recording is the property of the Sleep Science Podcast and not for resale.

For our end of season special, we have the rest of the NaPS lab in to answer a number of exciting sleep-related questions from our listeners. These touch on a range of different subjects from sleeps involvement in weight gain to alcohol's effect on sleep. Thanks to those who sent in questions!

List of Questions:

1. What is it in general anaesthetic that completely prevents a patient from waking up mid-surgery? Is this a similar state to being in a deep sleep or is this different entirely? 3:43

2. Can having daytime naps improve your memory? 5:24

3. Can a good sleep schedule help you lose weight? 6:40

4. Why do people tend to have a deeper sleep after drinking alcohol? 8:26

5. Can a lack of sleep really impact the way your brain works long term? 11:24

6. Why do children with ASD struggle to fall asleep and maintain sleep? 12:54

7. How does loud snoring or sleep talking wake up other people but not manage to wake up the person themselves? 16:13

8. How does drinking lots of caffeinated drinks affect our sleep wake cycle? 19:17

9. How does hibernation differ from a normal sleep in some animals? 21:05

10. When people say the term “just sleep on it” after a row or an emotional experience, is there any truth in this? Does sleep help you process emotions? 23:24

11. How much is sleep deprivation related to our immunity? 25:05


This episode was produced by Bella Mills-Smith

This recording is property of the sleep science podcast and not for resale

Check out our NaPS website to find out more about our team, our research and events.

This recording is the property of the Sleep Science Podcast and not for resale.